The Fused and The Severed

by Golden Cake

First published 4th of August, 2022

In a fallen universe, filled with a mix of ponies and humans, it’s up to one of the few humans left, and the ponies of Equestria, to save both world’s.

In a universe where Earth and Equestria were once bridged together in peace, things have changed, and now both world’s are full of primitive, mindless monsters. It’s up to one of the few humans left, and the ponies he meets along the way, to find a way to secure a better future, for both worlds.

Convergence

Author's Notes:

Chapter 1: Convergence is mostly made to establish the world and characters, real action begins in Chapter 2.

My lone name is Dan Monikon, and I’m currently on a warplane to stop a wave of severed from wiping out a nearby market town.

This would technically be my first actual mission, actually.

I’ve trained in the field for quite a while, but now that I was actually here, in this dimly lit, loud, and shaky plane, it was a bit scarier than I expected, to be honest. I couldn’t even see outside since there were no windows.

We were above the San Palomino desert of Equestria right now. I hadn’t really visited this world much before the invasion, despite how many had said the bridge was safe to travel through.

It wasn’t safety that I was worried about back then though, it was leaving my family that scared me.

I’ve always lived my whole life with the urge to protect those around me, physically and emotionally, but what really prompted me to join the military was my desire to get stronger, to not let anyone else I love get hurt, and while it took some getting used to, I loved the feeling of getting stronger.

When I eventually heard the news that the president was having a diplomatic meeting with the leader of another nation, I wasn’t too surprised. It sounded like something the president would normally do, right?

Well, the details of who the meeting was with were… implausible, to say the least, or that was what we thought until we saw her on television.

I remember it, clear as day. On the television I was watching with my family, the magic talking horse we had heard so much about was at a stand, in a large park, in front of a crowd of who knows how many people. But she looked like she was calm, surprisingly.

“Citizens of Earth!” She spoke into the mic in front of her. “My name is Princess Celestia, and I, and all of Ponykind have come seeking companionship between our distant world’s!”

The giant audience immediately grew restless.

“What is this about?!” A girl yelled from the front.

“We don’t even know what you are! We can’t trust you!” Yelled a man who was further back in the crowd.

Through all of the commotion, Celestia merely raised her hooves in front of her and shut her eyes, waiting for the audience to calm down.

That didn’t work however, and after a full minute Celestia spoke again, once the crowd had grown only a bit quieter.

“Please! I understand your fear! But I assure you, we have no ill intent! We are humble ponies, merely seeking harmony and friendship amongst everyone, no matter what world they come from.”

The crowd’s fire had actually died down a little bit once she said that, and she saw this as her cue to continue.

“Is this a world you all want to live in? Divided by fear and mistrust? There’s a better way than this, we just have to trust each other and find it,” she said, her voice sounding calm and assuring.

“Look, I’m not going to force you all to live among us,” she said. “If you want us to go back to our world, we will leave, but we’re merely offering companionship, and we just want to help make our world, and this one, a better place.”

The crowd was silent, aside from a few quiet murmurs, until one child, who looked like she was just in her young teen years, walked closer to the stage, just below Celestia.

“Will you really make the world a better place?” She asked innocently.

Celestia smiled sweetly at the young girl and nodded, before the girl looked back at the audience sadly, almost like she was looking for approval.

Celestia did the same, as she looked for a sign of anyone who was on board with her hopeful idea, before one person near the front raised his hand.

“How exactly will you make our world a better place?” He asked, not rudely, but genuinely, like he was just looking for affirmation that her intents were true.

“I plan on offering material trade, and free, safe travel between our world’s, that way we can get to know one another, and help each other in times of need.”

As she continued talking, the tension was dissipating, and when she finished, the crowd actually cheered in applause.

“Thank you, thank you!” She shouted happily. “I will do everything in my power to keep peace and harmony between us! That’s a promise!”

I was then snapped out of my thoughts of the past when my fusion partner and best friend, Wild Wind, waved her wing in front of me.

“Yo, Equestria to Dan. You there?” She asked, looking at me.

“Y-yeah, yeah, I’m just… thinking,” I said quickly, as I scratched my brown hair.

Wild raised an eyebrow, then she sat next to me.

“Look man, I’m really sorry about what happened to your family, and maybe even your species as a whole, but we need you here, with us.”

I looked at her, then I looked around at the other ponies who were fastened tightly in their seats, who mostly consisted of pegasi and unicorns, as they nodded in agreement.

I smiled.

A year or so back, I was skeptical about working in the military with ponies at first, as I doubted they would know how to fight, but it really wasn’t that bad.

You’d think that they would be a bit too sweet for war, and there definitely are some ponies who aren’t fit for it, but the Equestrian military as a whole knew what they were doing, and knew what had to be done, which earned them my respect.

When the military of Earth and the Equestria became one, though, I was just sort of confused by the requirements of learning and using fusion, whenever possible or needed.

Fusion is exactly what it sounds like, it’s two or more people or ponies coming together to form one single, stronger person.

General Celestia insisted it was to combine the strengths of our combatants, which I was a bit skeptical about at first, but as long as it would make me stronger, I would gladly get used to it.

Fusion magic depends on all participants wearing a special bracelet that lights up, which, when equipped, becomes linked to, and stores the specific wearers DNA and genetic makeup. You need the bracelet to fuse, but it’s also the only thing that makes it possible to unfuse back into your separate selves.

Luckily, the bracelets were made with the intent to be usable by a mix of different creatures, which included ponies AND humans, but the only think I didn’t exactly like about them was that once you put them on, they’re bound to you, and can’t be removed, except by amputation. Ponies could wear theirs on one of their hooves, and humans could wear theirs on one of their wrists or ankles.

I’ve been told by General Celestia that Equestria has many different species’ of creatures, ranging from fire breathing dragons, to creatures like hypogriffs, which are sort of like fusions in of themselves, but I’ve barely seen any creatures other than ponies, aside from a few severed Kirin’s and a severed changeling or two, which I’ve had to put down.

Over the years of being in camp, and fighting for a better future, I’ve trained in fusion with Wild Wind many times before, we were damn good friends by now, and the two of us were paired up for a reason.

With my family being gone, as far as I knew, she was the closest person I’ve had in my life for the past few years. Our relationship is strong enough that our fusion is basically just the icing on the cake, so to speak.

But I do prefer us fusing together when we’re in combat, as opposed to fighting separately, to ensure nothing happens to her without me being there to protect her.

…I just… I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to her.

Anyways, Wild was a pegasus, with a grayish, light blue coat, and a sort of messy, purple mane and tail with a large, dark stripe going down the center.

She’s a tough mare, who doesn’t let anything bad happen to her friends.

She’s a bit like me, in a way, aside from how she was a much more outgoing person than me. I’ve honestly just been more prone to keeping to myself in life, rather than being around people I don’t know, and being so bold with my emotions, in the same way that Wild does easily.

But I’d never let our evident differences in personalities get in the way of our strong friendship. In fact, there are times where I do love how much Wild never holds back her real emotions from me.

I appreciate how straightforward she is with me, and everypony she’s friends with. Though she is a bit more soft spoken with me compared to them, I suppose because she’s aware of my more sensitive personality.

Wild was born with heterochromia, with one eye being pink and the other being a vivid green, not that it’s ever affected her actual vision, luckily, though she did used to be picked on for it when she was younger, based on what she’s told me. I guess that’s why nowadays she doesn’t take any hate from anypony without putting up a fight.

Speaking of vision, I myself actually have great eyesight and perception, and with fighting, I’m much better in melee combat with blades than I am in ranged combat with guns. Wild has wings, which is always an upside, and she has a strange sort of special sense for when something bad is about to happen, she’s great with movement speed, and she’s good at sneaking when she’s in the right situation.

Together, as one, we can see danger coming from a distance, and take down our enemies silently by hiding out of view and striking when the time is right.

Having wings is an upside for fusions in general, as it allows us to soar safely from high places and stuff like that, but magic has never reacted perfectly with humans during fusion, so with pony human fusions with pegasi, their pegasus magic isn’t strong enough to allow upward flight, only the ability to soar from a high area.

Even though I’d fused with Wild before, and would do anything to protect her, the concept of fusion still sort of scared me. I mean, it was two different bodies, but most importantly, minds, coming together as someone new, as the previous two people had ceased to exist, just like that. It was kind of freaky… and intimate.

Just then I heard our pilot, Spitfire, yell from the front of the plane.

“ALRIGHT COLTS AND FOALS! THIS IS OUR STOP, GET READY TO CONVERGE AND I’LL GIVE THE SIGNAL TO JUMP!” She yelled painfully, as the large hatch on the back of the plane slowly started opening.

I then unfastened my seatbelt, and stood up, and saw as Wild had done the same, before she turned to look at me, her eyes filled with confidence.

I bent my legs to look her straight in the face, as she held out her hoof for me to grasp.

“You ready to do this together?” She asked.

I looked down at the floor for all of about a second, before I looked at her confidently.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

“Good, let’s do it,” she said.

Once she said that, I held her left hoof, where she was wearing her bracelet, with my right hand, where I had my bracelet, as we both shut our eyes.

When we touched each other, our bracelets glowed. Her’s glowed a dark purple, while mine glowed orange, and our bodies shined with a blinding, blank white light as our minds went numb, until our forms phased together, and we became someone else entirely with a brief flash of light.

Taking Action

Once Dan and Wild were gone, I, Wildan Monikind, got ready to jump with my buddies, just as I saw the rest of them finish with their fusions.

I first started by wrapping a nearby piece of cloth around my waist. Fusion was cool and all, but it didn’t fuse clothes together, and since Dan’s clothes didn’t really fit anymore, I had to make do with this.

Next I picked up a hair tie that was next to Wild’s seat that she left for me. Dan and Wild both have pretty short hair, but with me, I have quite a lot of hair, and they’re just uncomfortable with me having it all over the place, so I tied it up in a ponytail.

I also looked around for a weapon, but the best thing I could find was a small pocket knife.

“Damnit…” I said to myself.

A lot of unicorns were taught combative spells, but there weren’t many physical weapons on board with us right now, so I just had to make this work, and give it my all.

The plane was equipped with multiple parachutes, but since most of us were half pegasus fusions, only one or two of us actually needed them. We all DID however need to equip our earpieces, that way we could communicate in case any of us got in a sticky situation.

Even though I had less magic than everyone else, being half human still had its upsides, as hands were especially useful for combat, especially melee, which is exactly part of what I was good at doing.

“NOW’S THE TIME, FOAL’S! JUMP FOR IT!” Spitfire screamed over the loud gusts of wind coming from the large, open hatch.

After she said that, our squad leader, a unicorn pegasus fusion, who I recall was named Ruby Burst, jumped out of the plane, and I jumped out after her.

My ears were filled with the sounds of wind, as me and everyone else dove through the sky, towards the practically ancient, sandstone town, which was growing closer by the second.

“Alright, coming up on target, get ready to soar,” Ruby said through the earpieces we were all wearing.

Ruby then opened her wings and caught herself in the wind, as she floated safely down to a small, desolate alleyway of the town, which I, and all of my squad mates repeated, as we followed her.

Once we all landed in the sandy, smelly alleyway, Ruby filled us in on our situation.

“Alright, as you all know, we’re here to check for survivors before the approaching wave of severed reach’s the town.”

Ruby looked around at all of us.

“There are six of us, so we’re going to split into groups. Vanilla Swirl, you’re with me, we’ll check the southern lower parts of town. Lunar Gust and Dazzle Cake, you’re searching the middle of town. And Cotton Splash and Wildan Monikind, you two will check the upper Northeast section.”

“We don’t have very much time before the wave reaches us, so we have to be quick, now let’s move! If any of you get into trouble, you know what to do,” she said determinedly, as her and Vanilla flew out of the alleyway.

Lunar and Dazzle then flew above the alleyway and towards their part of town, as me and Cotton walked out of the alleyway towards our area.

Our section wasn’t far away, which I assume Ruby intented, seeing as how my flight abilities were quite limited, but we still tried to get there as fast as possible, whilst also shouting to see if there was anypony we could help evacuate.

This city was desolate, but General Celestia still wanted us to search this place from top to bottom to ensure nopony, or human, if we were lucky, was left behind.

As me and Cotton went through the streets, I though I was smelling something foul with my muzzle, and sure enough, as me and Cotton peeked around the back of a wagon, we saw a lone severed, faced away from us, eating the corpse of a unicorn mare at the streets intersection.

Severed are basically lifeless, magicless, husks of former ponies. General Celestia suspects that they were created intentionally, by somepony with very powerful magic.

The severing spell splits a pony, or human, in some cases, from their basic consciousness, leaving only parts of their feral instincts, which seem to be influenced mostly by the spell that created them. They lash out and attack any pony or human that they see, sinking their jagged teeth into your skin, killing you in moments, then they feed on your remains, and whatever’s left of you becomes one of them.

If they bite you, and you survive them after that, the resulting bite will transfer the infectious spell into you, and slowly turn you into a severed too. Fusions have an unexpected sort of counter against this, though, as a bite will cause all people involved to split, and lose their magic permanently, along with their ability to fuse, but the spell doesn’t transform you unless you’re bitten again when you’re split. Basically the bite is the most dangerous when you’re unfused.

Cotton quietly moved around the wagon as she got closer to the husk.

I quickly, but quietly snuck over to the monster, too, as I hid behind a phone booth.

The severed are quite easy to recognize, based on their more gray colors of their coat and mane, very skinny and bony body, thinned hair, and their completely white eyes, not to mention their damaged body parts and severed limbs, which almost all of them have.

Their distinctive rotting smell also gives them away pretty easily, at least for ponies, and other creatures who have better smelling than humans.

Cotton Splash then peeked from behind the wagon and used her magic to throw a rusty can at the streets traffic light.

The following sound drew the attention of the husk, and I started to make my move.

Severed have pretty poor eyesight, but great hearing, so I had to be silent.

I held my pocket knife tightly in my hand and walked hastily, but quietly, being careful with every step, until I was right behind the severed.

I then stabbed it in the back of the head, pushing the blade as deep into it’s skull as I could.

The severed screamed, said scream sounding inhuman, and unlike any pony I’d ever heard, until it collapsed onto the sandstone pavement, leaving black goop dripping from my pocket knife.

Severed can only be finished with a blow to their brain, which isn’t hard to do when you sneak up on one, especially considering how their bodies decaying makes their skulls easier to pierce through.

I wiped my knife clean with the cloth I had around my waist as Cotton Splash stepped out from behind the wagon.

“Let’s go,” Cotton said. “Maybe it’ll be easier to look for survivors from the rooftops.”

Cotton then helped me push the wagon on the street next to a nearby building, which allowed me to climb up on it and reach the buildings balcony, as she flew up to the rooftop above me.

On the balcony, the rooftop was right above me, but just out of reach. I tried jumping as high as I could, and tried using my wings, but I just couldn’t do it alone.

“I need some help here, Cotton,” I said.

Cotton then peeked her head over the rooftop and grinned slightly.

“You’re out of shape, huh?” She laughed. “Don’t worry I’ve got you.”

I rolled my eyes and smiled as Cotton flew right behind me, wrapping her hooves around my bare chest as she unfurled her wings.

I then balanced myself, and her, on the balconies railing, as I jumped as high as I could.

I couldn’t flap my wings with Cotton holding onto my back, but thanks to her flight magic’s strength, we gained enough height to allow me to grab the rooftop’s ledge and pull us both up.

Once we were on the roof, we decided to run along the rooftops to our area of the city, as Cotton was holding onto my shoulders the whole time.

“You know you can just get off me now, right?” I gasped between breaths. “I wish you were as lightweight as your name makes you sound.”

“Are you tired already? Geez, you really ARE out of shape! Just think of this as payment for me helping you back there,” she said.

I sighed loudly among my panting breaths. Even though cotton was childish like this sometimes, she has a lot of loyalty for her friends when they need help, believe it or not.

“Besides,” she continued. “This is pretty comfy.”

‘How mature,’ I thought to myself.

Once we made it to our area of the city, with Cotton only helping occasionally by making a few rooftop jumps easier, we started calling out for any survivors.

“HELLO?” I yelled.

“IS ANYPONY OUT THERE?” Cotton screamed, as she got off of me.

When we heard nothing, me and Cotton decided to continue scouting our area.

After some time of finding nopony, just when I was becoming doubtful that we would find anyone, we heard what sounded like a filly screaming for help nearby.

I ran to where the screaming came from, with Cotton Splash flying above me. It sounded like the scream came from a few buildings away or so, but there were no easy building jumps I could make from where I was.

Cotton flew lower to me and held out her hooves for me to grasp.

“Grab on!” she said quickly.

I did just that, and Cotton strained to maintain her flight, but she was keeping us in the air.

“KID, WHERE ARE YOU?” I yelled.

“OVER HERE!” The filly screamed, from a building that was right in front of us.

Cotton then roughly landed us in an open window on the top floor of the building, as we flew in and ran into a wall.

Me and Cotton got up and looked around.

“I think I heard her voice coming from the floor below us, we need to find some stairs,” Cotton said.

I quickly checked the doors next to us for stairs, while Cotton dashed down the hallway behind us to look for stairs there.

One door I opened led to a hallway, and the door at the end of it led to a stairway.

“OVER HERE, COTTON!” I yelled behind me.

“I’m coming!” Cotton said, her voice sounding distant.

I ran down the stairs, taking three steps at a time, and bashed open the door of the floor below us.

“KID, ARE YOU HERE?” I yelled, as I opened more doors frantically.

“Help me!” The filly called, coming from a door on at the far end of the room.

I ran and swung open the door, and saw a bedroom with a large, shut closet with a severed beating on it.

The severed saw me and growled, backing off of the closet as it turned to face me.

It then suddenly leapt at me, tackling me to the ground.

I dropped my pocket knife as it ran into me, so I quickly picked up a metal rod I saw on the ground to defend myself.

The severed tried biting me in the neck, but I stuck the pole I was holding in its mouth, and pushed it back, as I tried pushing it off of me with my legs.

I couldn’t get a good position to push it off with my pony legs, though, so all I could do was hold it back.

Just when it seemed like it was about to chew through the metal rod I was using, Cotton tackled the severed off of me and pinned it to a wall.

I then got up and quickly grabbed my pocket knife, and watched as the severed bit into Cotton’s foreleg.

“COTTON!!” I screamed, as I leapt towards the monster and jabbed my knife into its skull, stabbing it repeatedly as it fell to the ground, even after it stopped moving.

When I was finished with the stabbing, I shakily laid my pocket knife on the floor, as I took heavy breaths.

I used my hand to wipe the black goop off my face as I looked at Cotton Splash, who looked at her foreleg worriedly for a second, but then looked at me determinedly.

“Help the filly, we’ll be fine,” she said, as she laid against the bed.

I picked up my pocket knife and slowly opened the closet door, which revealed a small, orange pegasus, with a pink mane looking up at me with watery eyes and tear stained cheeks.

“Whe-where’s my mom?” She squeaked.

I bent down to look at her at eye level.

“Where did you see her last, little lady?” I asked calmly.

The small pegasus looked past me, at the corpse of the severed, then covered her eyes with her hooves.

“…th-that’s her…” She whispered.

She was shaking now, and I tried explaining to her that we had to leave quickly, but she wouldn’t budge.

It was just then that I heard strange sounds coming from right behind us, followed by a quick flash of white light.

I turned around and saw two ponies laying on the bed, one a pegasus and one a unicorn, who looked at each other, before looking at me.

“You two were split…” I said slowly.

Berry Blast raised her hoof in front of her face.

“Y-yeah… I guess we were,” she said.

“Bu-but we don’t have time for this, we need to get this filly out of here!” Fuzzy Fun said quickly.

Just then we heard a horrible, deafening shriek, almost like an animalistic war cry, as the three of us looked out a nearby window.

On the outskirts of town, we saw the wave of severed approaching us. There had to be at least a hundred of them.

I quickly looked back at the filly, and tried delicately picking her up, but she screamed and refused.

“We have to go! NOW! Just grab her!” Fuzzy said.

I gritted my teeth, and forcefully pulled the filly out of the closet and put her over my arm. She screamed and fought back for a few seconds, but then she just stopped fighting as she started sobbing, which made my shoulder wet.

As much as I wanted to comfort the poor thing, the best thing we could do for her was get the hell out of the city.

Once we made it to the rooftop of the building, I was getting a message from Ruby Burst on my earpiece. Fuzzy and Berry left their earpiece in the building, so it was up to me to get us back to her.

“Attention everypony!” Ruby said. “The wave of severed is now right outside the city. Spitfire’s plane is in the east southern part of town, and I’m not sure exactly when the wave will be on top of us, so be sure to get there as fast as possible.”

“Ruby!” I responded quickly. “Me and Cotton Splash found a survivor, but Cotton Splash was bitten and she split, without strong magic, how will we make it to your part of town in time?!”

Ruby was silent for a second as she took in what I said.

“Hmm, you’re going to have to travel on ground level, just try to keep clear of the streets as much as you can. See you on the other side, my friends.”

“Roger,” me and everypony else on the line said.

I then filled Berry and Fuzzy in one what Ruby said, as we got ready to move.

Once we got moving, we jumped to a nearby rooftop that was sort of closer to the ground, and I used my wings to soar safely below, with the little pegasus holding onto my back tightly, as I caught Berry and Fuzzy when they jumped down.

This town wasn’t too big, but with only five minutes, we had to make every second count.

We tried cutting through alleyways and staying off the main street as much as possible, but we would just have to run when we had no other paths to take.

As we ran through the streets, I had a really uneasy feeling, but we had to keep running.

It was only when I heard the monstrous shrieks of four of five severed behind us that I realized why I had that feeling.

As we ran and ran, soon we saw the plane, along with everypony else who was eagerly waiting for us, including a few other survivors, as they boarded and held the back hatch open, as the plane started.

I could sense that the small pack of severed were right on our tail by now, which was also confirmed by the pegasus filly’s screams in my ear as she looked over my shoulder.

Berry and Fuzzy were in front of me as I was running, and Fuzzy turned her head to look behind us, before she sighed, and then stopped and turned the opposite direction as we passed her.

“FUZZY!!” Berry screamed desperately, as she stopped in her tracks.

“GO, JUST GO!!” Fuzzy screamed.

I kept running and grabbed Berry as I looked back at Fuzzy, who was distracting the severed, by impaling them with her horn, and acting as… bait.

I… I didn’t want to look back any longer, and looked forward, towards the plane, as the hatch was shutting, and all I heard was the sounds of Fuzzy screaming behind me and Berry crying into my shoulder.

We all made it into the plane just as the hatch shut and the plane started moving, as I dropped everyone and collapsed onto the floor, with Fuzzy’s screams still ringing in my ears.

Severed Allies

When I opened my eyes, I saw Wild Wind laying across from me. It looks like we accidentally split ourselves when we fell.

I picked up the cloth that we wore earlier and wrapped it around my waist, as I sat up and rubbed the top of Wild’s head.

“Wild? Are you ok?” I asked.

Wild then grumbled and slowly opened her eyes, as she sat up.

“Yeah, don’t worry about it,” she said slowly.

She was silent for a few seconds as she looked at the floor.

“I can’t believe Fuzzy Fun just sacrificed herself like that…”

I looked at Berry Blast, who was fastened tightly in her seat, with her face buried in her hooves.

“Listen everypony, I know how you feel. It always hurts when we lose people,” Spitfire said suddenly from the front of the plane. “But we have to live on and keep fighting, for their sake.”

Spitfire looked back at me and Wild for a second.

“And you two should probably get into your seats and put on your seatbelts, we might hit some rough wind, or maybe a-“

I then heard the sound of glass breaking at the front of the plane.

I quickly looked at the front and saw that a Severed pegasus had crashed through the front windshield, and was biting Spitfire in the chest.

Spitfire yelped in pain, and I quickly jumped up on my feet, but instantly fell to the floor. The rush of being fully human again was just too much, and I couldn’t focus the nerves of my normal legs.

“SPITFIRE!!” I yelled, as Ruby Gleam dashed into the cockpit, just as the Severed bit Spitfire in the neck and ripped her throat out.

When Spitfire was dead, her body fell on the steering wheel, which caused the plane to begin flying straight up, and start tilting.

Ruby was holding the Severed back, as she stabbed it in the chest with a spear that was in the cockpit.

The plane was too slanted for me to make it to the cockpit myself, as I slid to the back of the plane.

I desperately looked to the unicorns who were strapped in their seats, as they looked confused as what to do, before they looked at me determinedly.

The four unicorns we had on our team then combined their magic strength to surround me with a magic aura and quickly lift me to the cockpit, as I grabbed my knife which they levitated with me.

I then held my knife tightly in my hand as I floated upward, into the cockpit, and jabbed it into the skull of the Severed before it bit Ruby, which got black goop all over my face and hands.

Ruby then quickly pulled the Severed out of the pilot seat and grabbed the steering wheel, as she set the emergency auto pilot to take us back to our outpost in the Hollow Shades.

The plane straightened itself out, but at that moment two more Severed pegasi flew through the open windshield.

One of them bit Ruby in the face, which caused her to freak out and accidentally hit the plane’s back hatch controls.

The other one tackled me and knocked me out of the cockpit, in front of everypony else.

The Severed that was on top of me almost bit me in the throat, and surely it would’ve, had Wild not regained her senses and tackled the Severed to the floor, smashing it’s head in repeatedly with her hooves.

I got up so I could close the hatch in the front controls, but the hatch was already halfway open, and the rush of wind swept me off my feet and was pulling me to the back of the plane.

I quickly jabbed my knife into the floor as hard as I could, and held onto it tightly.

I looked to my pocket knife and saw that my grip was slipping because I had that black goop all over my body and hands.

I looked at Wild Wind, who was holding onto the wall of the plane, as she looked back at me worriedly.

“WILD!” I yelled quickly. “PARACHUTE!!”

Wild looked around her quickly and threw Ruby’s parachute to me.

I caught it in my right hand just as my left hand completely lost its grip on my knife, which caused me to fly out the back hatch of the plane.

I briefly heard Wild yell my name, just before I flew out of the plane.

Our plane wasn’t flying very high above the ground, so I quickly equipped the parachute and pulled the mechanism, and I was caught safely in the air.

I wiped the black mess off my hands as I looked back up at the plane, which was flying away quickly.

Before it left my view, I saw that somepony had shut the back hatch, which was a good sign. It meant that somepony had taken care of the Severed that bit Ruby in the cockpit, and fixed the controls, and that Wild was safe. I only hoped that they wouldn’t run into any more severed on the way back to the outpost.

I knew that they would keep the auto pilot going, though. Spitfire and Ruby were our only pilots, and even if Ruby was still alive, she would only have a little under thirty minutes before the Severing spell, transferred from the bite, would corrupt her completely.

It was a little over a three hour’s flight back to base, so I knew they would have to keep auto pilot on to make it all the way back. This meant I would have to find my own way back to base.

I looked around at my surroundings, and mostly saw sand and mountains, but I also saw what looked like a farm past the desert, which could’ve had inhabitants.

I memorized the direction I would need to travel on foot, but I couldn’t really control my parachute, so I sort of just had to wait as I floated down to the ground.

I whistled to myself for a bit of time, before I landed on the sandy hills on the outskirts of the San Palomino Desert. I then trudged my way through the sand, towards the farm.

I was only wearing the cloth around my waist, so I wasn’t too worried about heat, but I wasn’t wearing shoes, so my poor feet were burning with every step I took.

After what felt like an hour of hellish walking, I finally made it to the outer fence of the… rock farm?

The fence had a barbed wire, which seemed to loop all around the farm. It looked like this place was decently fortified, which seemed to be a good sign.

I didn’t have many options, so I decided to just introduce myself and hope the inhabitants didn’t think I was hostile.

Severed weren’t the only bad thing in both worlds nowadays. Bandits and looters have become much more common ever since our worlds fell apart.

I walked to the front gate, which was unlocked, surprisingly, and slowly pushed it open.

Right when I was about to enter the farm, I heard a twig snap right behind me, which was followed by what sounded like a loaded shotgun, planted directly behind my head.

It sounded like it was being carried by a magic aura, based on the slight twinkling sounds I could hear.

“Don’t move,” an unknown, feminine voice said. “If you know what goods for you.”

I did what she said, and stood completely still, raising my hands in the air, as her hooves searched around my waist for any weapons.

I especially didn’t like it when she used her magenta colored magic to pull my cloth off of me, to search thoroughly.

I shuddered uncomfortably when she did this, but luckily she just did a quick scan of my body, before using her magic to wrap the cloth back around my waist.

“Are you alone?” She asked. “What’s your name? I need to know if you’re a friend or an enemy.”

I looked at the floor.

“My name is Dan, I’m just trying to get back to my friends,” I said. “There was an accident, and we were separated.”

“So, you’re alone then?” The pony asked, keeping the shotgun pinned again my head.

I nodded slowly.

There was silence for a moment, as if she was thinking.

“Perhaps I should introduce myself, you seem harmless after all,” she said politely.

“I’m Twilight Sparkle,” she said. “Nice to meet you.”

She then walked in front of me, so I could look at her directly, as she lowered the shotgun, levitating it into her saddlebag.

Her eyes looked tired.

“I’ve heard of you,” I said. “Don’t you know how worried General Celestia has been about you? She sent out search parties for months when she realized you’d vanished.”

Twilight’s eyes widened slightly when I said that.

“Why didn’t you try to find her?” I asked curiously.

Twilight tilted her head, giving me a stern look.

“…I don’t WANT her to find me,” she said, looking at me determinedly.

“…What?” I asked.

Twilight then sighed deeply and looked up at the sky, as it was beginning to get dark.

“About a week before the invasion, me and my family were on a trip to Canterlot, to reminisce the old days, and maybe visit the princess of the sun,” she said slowly.

She looked up at me.

“But when the invasion started, my parents were bitten, and I lost track of my brother… and Spike…. but it wasn’t that that made me hate her. It was the fact that she’d taken in so many random ponies off of the streets, but she completely forgot about me and my family,” she said bitterly.

I was silent for a moment as I took in what she said.

“I’m sorry, Twilight. I lost my family, too.” I said.

Twilight’s anger then dissipated a little bit, as she looked at me curiously.

“When the invasion started on Earth and I lost my family, I decided to join the military,” I said, as I looked at the floor shamefully.

“I thought I would have what it took to protect those who I cared about, but I was wrong. My little sister was taken by the severed because of me, and I don’t even know where my parents are.”

By now my eyes were getting watery. When I noticed Twilight’s look of concern, I wiped my eyes with my hands, despite how dirty they most likely were, as I took a deep breath.

“But… it’s not worth dwelling on,” I said quickly. “We just need to focus on the loved ones we still have with us now, and do whatever it takes to help THEM, even if we have to make the hard calls.”

I looked up at the darkening sky, as Twilight did the same.

Twilight then looked back at me, and looked down at my fusion bracelet, which was glowing orange in the darkness of the night, before she snapped her eyes back to look me in the face.

“Hmm. Come on, you can spend the night in the barn, then we can figure out what we’ll do with you.”

“Sure,” I said slowly, as I followed her along the gravel path of the farm.

Tightened Bonds

Author's Notes:

This chapter will switch things up and take the past perspective of Twilight Sparkle for a little bit to show her side of things. Hope you all enjoy!

As the sun was rising on Pinkie’s rock farm, I dragged myself out of bed and woke up Applejack and Rarity, who were sleeping in the same room as me.

Maybe I shouldn’t have exhausted myself the other day by searching both the nearby, once densely populated areas of Los Pegasus AND Apple Loosa from top to bottom for survivors, when searching ONE of them a day is hard enough.

Some ponies would say that I’m just doing what the princess and her army of ponies, and maybe humans, if there are any left, would do, but they’d be wrong.

The princess is doing good, I’ll admit, but it’s not enough for everypony.

It’s not even enough for herself, based on the fact that she lost her control of Canterlot when the invasion began, and was forced to move somewhere secluded with her army.

That’s why I’m fighting my own battles, to protect the ponies I love and fight til death, unlike her.

I am glad that me and my friends were fortunate enough to find safety living on Pinkie’s rock farm at the start of the invasion, but things are almost TOO secluded and safe out here. That’s why I’ve been scouting the nearby cities and towns so much lately.

Anyways, after I woke up Applejack and Rarity, we all went downstairs to wake up Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, who were sleeping in the living room, and we decided to prepare breakfast.

Fluttershy had some of her chicken friends lay eggs when she brought them here, which they were ok with us eating. Actually, by now most of the rock farm has become a bit of a zoo. With Fluttershy’s ability to sympathize with and understand wildlife, a lot of wild animals felt comfortable taking shelter from the Severed here.

Pinkie was always so good with making all of us breakfast every morning, but she’s worked so hard on the farm lately that last night Applejack asked me to wake everypony else up early this morning to return the favor.

It could put her in a good mood, too. Celestia knows she needs it.

Ever since Pinkie took us all to the rock farm, and she discovered that her whole family was turned into Severed, she’s never been quite the same, though she does still try to be positive sometimes.

The invasion has changed all of us. Somewhat for the stronger, but it’s also really hurt us, since we don’t know for sure what happened to the rest of our families. But right now, the best thing we have is each other, and we’re content with that, at least for now.

“Twilight,” Applejack said quietly, being sure not to wake Pinkie, as she cooked the eggs on the stove. “Could ya get the pepper, sugarcube? I reckon Pinkie would want a bit of flavor with these eggs.”

I went into the pantry and got the pepper for Applejack, and the salt, just in case.

Once Applejack was done with the eggs, Rarity and Fluttershy worked on the pancakes. It was pretty funny when Rarity flipped the pan and accidentally caught a pancake on her face. It was funny moments like that that made life worth living, and once we were finished with the pancakes, we went up to Pinkie’s room and knocked on the door.

Pinkie then opened the door about half a minute later, and looked at us with tired eyes, as she yawned.

“What are you all doing up?” She asked curiously. “Usually I’m the one to wake all of you.”

“Why not come downstairs and find out?” I said, smiling.

When we went into the kitchen, it was so nice to see Pinkie genuinely smile, as we all made a plate of breakfast.

While we ate, we talked about what we would do today.

I said that today I would scout in the woods for any wildlife, and the nearby settlements for any other ponies that we could welcome to our farm, and Fluttershy said that she’d check how the animals we had with us were doing ok, and maybe do a bit of scouting herself when she was done. Rainbow Dash said that she would fly around for any rainclouds she could push over to the farm to help the crops that Applejack planted grow.

Pinkie said she could look around for any food in the forest, and Rarity insisted on cleaning up the barn.

When we finished breakfast, we all set out to do our daily tasks. Our tasks weren’t the same every day, but there was one general rule, all the time: Always come back before dark.

Darkness was unpredictable, and though Severed can’t see well, based on my studies of them, they have exceptional hearing abilities, so with our limited vision at night, it’s just not worth the risk.

When we all finished breakfast and washed our dishes, we all went to begin our daily tasks.

I packed a saddlebag with my trusty shotgun and dagger, and left the farm, traversing into the gray, bare forest.

The rock farm used to be this bland and miserable, but ever since all six of us reworked it, with Applejack planting new crops and Rainbow Dash clearing out the previously looming gray clouds, the farm itself has actually become not just a safe place to live, but an enjoyable place to live.

Once I’d felt like I’d been scavenging the decaying forest for hours, and seen nothing interesting, aside from one of the princesses warplane’s flying overhead, I finally decided to search some towns for anything useful, or for anypony who needed my help.

Based on the suns position, I still had a good couple of hours before the sun would start setting, so I had enough time.

I’d already searched Apple Loosa last night, so I decided to go beyond it to Dodge City, and after a few hours of searching there, I was pleasantly surprised to find Apple Bloom, who was with a small group of other survivors.

We were lucky to not run into many Severed on the way back, but with my dagger, I always know to aim for the head, so it wasn’t an issue in any case.

By the time I’d taken Apple Bloom and the few other ponies who were with her back to our home, it was already sunset, but that didn’t stop me from doing a little bit of extra forest searching before calling it a day.

I’d say that I was lucky that day, it was a good day, no crazy surprises. At least, that was until I went back to the entrance of our farm.

I saw a human, despite how much more susceptible their species was to Severed corruption, which presumably led to their species’ near extinction, here one was, right in front of our farm that we’d worked so hard to keep safe.

Despite how shocked I was, I had no hesitation in quickly sneaking up behind this human to ‘talk’ to him.

It was only when I was right behind the human, and accidentally stepped on a twig, which I knew he’d heard, that I sort of panicked and held my shotgun to the back of his head.

“Don’t move,” I said. “If you know what’s good for you.”

Mixed Perceptions

Author's Notes:

This chapter is going back to Dan’s perspective. I’ll be sure to give an advanced warning every time there’s a chapter when the character in focus changes.

After sleeping for a night in this farm’s weirdly clean barn, which Twilight Sparkle had locked me in last night, I woke up to the sounds of chickens crowing. I didn’t think a rock farm would have animals.

After a while, Twilight had let me out of the barn and told me how this would work for me, as I bent my legs to meet her at eye level.

“You’re either with us, or against us,” she said. “If you fight to support our farm, and help us when we need it, then we’ll have your back till the end.”

“But if you try to hurt us,” she warned. “Then we won’t hesitate to throw you out, and end you if you try coming back.”

I looked down at the floor as I thought about what I would do.

‘I shouldn’t stay, I should be getting back to my team, they’re probably worried sick, especially Wild. But getting from here to the other side of Equestria by myself would be suicide.’

Twilight must’ve noticed my uncertainty and placed her hoof on my leg.

“Look, if you don’t want to live here, we won’t force you to, and you can leave peacefully. I would believe that you didn’t have bad intentions when you stumbled upon our farm did you?”

I shook my head, and thought about my group.

Maybe if I was honest with Twilight about how much I needed her help to get back to my group, maybe I could prove myself and help out here, at least for now.

“Twilight,” I started. “Look, I have to get back to my group. I know you don’t like Celestia, but I need to get back to my friends, and I can’t do it alone.”

I told Twilight about how I could gain her trust by helping her and everypony else out, if they were to help me get back to my group when they trusted me enough, and she seemed to agree to my terms.

“Doing chores will be nice and all,” she said. “But I need to know who you are as a person, to know if you’re truly worthy of trust.”

I looked at her curiously.

“So I will ask you some questions about who you really are, and in exchange, I’ll tell you who me and my friends are, so we can prove our trust to you,” she said.

I agreed to her terms, as she held out her hoof for me to shake, which I grasped with my hand, before I stood up.

Twilight then invited me to have breakfast with everypony, so they could get to know me a bit, and I happily obliged. I was actually starving now that I thought about it.

During breakfast, we ate some amazing breakfast burritos, made by a pony named Pinkie Pie. As we all sat at the large table, I introduced myself to everypony and was grateful that they didn’t seem to be too bothered by my different appearance.

There were actually ten ponies in this group, which was impressive for a group of citizens living without military assistance.

Twilight told me that three of the ponies, and the filly, were found by her just the other day. I guess Twilight was the type to always help those in need.

As we continued eating, I got to know everypony’s names and got some pretty good bases of who they were as we talked.

Rainbow Dash was a strong, show off type of pegasus, with a light blue coat and rainbow mane. She had strong loyalty for her friends, and she asked me how life was on Earth, and I said it was fine, or at least it used to be before all of this.

Fluttershy was a meek, but very deeply caring pegasus, with a yellow coat and a large, pink mane, who didn’t talk to me much while we ate.

Rarity was an elegant, generous unicorn with a pure white coat and beautiful blue mane, who loved talking about fashion and cleanliness.

Pinkie Pie was a pink earth pony who liked to lift other’s spirits as much as she could, even if she wasn’t doing great in the moment. She was quiet most of the time while we ate, but she still smiled and seemed happy to be with her friends.

Applejack was an honest, hardworking farm pony, with a bright, crisp orange coat and a peach colored mane, with a farmer’s hat. She was probably a pretty big part of why this farm was so well kept, and she talked about her future plans of someday turning the farm into an apple orchard, once she got everypony’s approval, which actually sounded like a smart idea.

And Twilight Sparkle was a magically capable unicorn, with a bright purple colored coat and purple colored mane with a pink stripe. She seemed to be the glue of her friends that kept them together, and kept the small problems from getting out of hand.

Out of everypony else, she seemed the most interested in learning about me, whether that was because she saw me as a threat, or she just wanted to learn about my species, or Celestia’s military, I wasn’t sure.

As we ate, Rarity couldn’t stop talking about how ‘simply horrendous’ the cloth I was wearing around my waist looked, and how much better I would feel wearing something ‘higher quality’.

I suppose the cloth I was wearing wasn’t the most fashionable thing ever, especially since it was partially stained with severed blood, but it served its purpose for now.

The four other ponies who were very new to this group also told me about themselves.

Aloe was a sweet, relaxed earth pony, who used to work at the spa in Ponyville. Lotus was Aloe’s twin sister and worked in the spa alongside her before the invasion. Octavia Melody was a civilized earth pony who was a former cellist, but still plays in her free time, based on what she told me. And Apple Bloom was a determined, little earth pony filly, who was Applejack’s little sister.

I got the feeling that Applejack was really happy to see her again, since she refused to sit farther than a few feet away from her as we talked and ate.

In return for all of this personal talk about them, I told them about myself.

I told them about how I lost my little sister and my parents back on Earth.

I also told them a little bit of what being in the military was like, and I even told them how unsure I was about working in the military alongside ponies at first, but I also stated how much I warmed up to them and respected their determination in doing what needed to be done, and protecting those that they love, just like a human would do.

Right when I got back to finishing my first burrito, Twilight out of the blue asked me about my bracelet that I had on my wrist.

Twilight asking me had peaked everypony else’s curiosity, and even though I wasn’t sure how comfortable General Celestia would be with me sharing military tactics with civilians, but I felt that telling them might not hurt anything, so I told them about my fusion bracelet.

“This isn’t just any standard bracelet,” I said, as I held up my wrist for all of them to see. “This was made by both Equestria and Earth’s militaries, when they became one. It gives anyone who uses it, even if they’re different species, the ability to merge their bodies and minds, combining their strength to make someone new.”

“How’s it work?” Applejack asked.

I looked at the bracelet.

“It stores my DNA, that way I can unfuse back into myself when I need to. It also sort of becomes a part of the user when it’s equipped, and it’s not meant to be taken off, see?”

I then tried forcing the bracelet off of my hand, but after a few seconds of basically just pulling and hurting my wrist, I stopped.

“That’s fascinating,” Twilight said, while keeping her eyes on my bracelet. “I didn’t even know that the princess was using such interesting methods for her armies.”

“Yeah,” I said, as I got back to eating my burrito. “It’s pretty cool. But both people who’re fusing have to be wearing the bracelet, it’s the thing that makes fusion possible.”

Once we all finished breakfast, I washed my plate, and asked Twilight what I should do.

“We’ll, this is your first day here,” Twilight said. “For now, just try helping everypony else out with their tasks.”

Twilight then told me what everypony else was doing today, and I decided that I’d start by helping out Applejack and Applebloom with the new apple trees and crops they were planting today.

Once I got to the edge of the farm, to where everything was being planted, Applejack saw me and waved.

“Howdy there, Dan,” she said. “What’re you doin out here?”

I told her that I was just seeing if any of them needed help, and she smiled.

“We’ll, Ah’d really appreciate you taking that plow and making a new row of ready soil, if ya reckon you can handle that.”

I nodded, and grabbed the front of the plow and pulled.

I wished Equestria had actual vehicle plows, but technology has never been as advanced here as on Earth, so I would just have to live with it.

When I was done pulling the plow and making a long row of soil, ready to plant with, I was sweating in the intense heat, and got back to Applejack and Applebloom and helped them plant seeds.

“Well ah’ll be, you’ve sure got some strength, for a human,” Applejack said as she wiped her forehead with a cloth, before throwing me a separate cloth.

I laughed in between breaths, as I wiped off my forehead.

“Thanks, and thanks for the rag.”

Applejack smiled.

“No problem, sugarcube.”

Once we were done planting some fresh crops, mostly apple trees, but also some watermelon, I looked around for Fluttershy to see if she needed help with the animals.

On the other side of the farm, next to the barn, I found Fluttershy, who was leaning over the fence of a pen, trying to feed carrots to a pig.

“Come on, Bakin,” she said sweetly. “You say you’re not hungry, but this is good for you!”

Once Fluttershy turned around and noticed me, she jumped, falling into the muddy pen.

I stifled a laugh and hopped over the fence, holding out a hand for her to get back on her hooves.

She looked hesitant for a moment, but smiled, as she grabbed my hand and I pulled her up to her hooves.

“Here, let’s get you cleaned up,” I said, as I opened the gate for us to walk through.

She was covered head to toe in mud, but luckily there was a little outdoor box shower next to the barn.

Once Fluttershy shut the door and cleaned herself off, I gave her a towel that was in the farmhouse, and she dried herself off.

“Thanks,” she said quietly.

I nodded, and asked her if she needed help.

Fluttershy looked back at the pen of pigs.

“Well, Bakin and his friends aren’t eating their vegetables. They say they filled up on breakfast, but it’s almost lunchtime by now.”

I looked at the pen, then back at her.

“Can I try?”

Fluttershy smiled, ever so slightly, and handed me a bucket of carrots and lettuce, which she was carrying with her mouth.

I didn’t bother thinking about how unsanitary that probably was, and stepped into the pen to give the pigs their food.

When they didn’t accept the carrots or the lettuce, I had an idea.

I asked Fluttershy if they had beans here, and she said they did. So I went into the farmhouse and cooked up a pot of baked beans.

When the beans were done, I mixed the carrots and the lettuce with them, and put them in the pig’s food trough.

The pigs then sniffed the trough, and started aggressively eating from it.

I looked at Fluttershy, who smiled back at me.

“Thank you, I don’t know how to make beans. I guess the pigs just wanted to eat something different.”

I asked Fluttershy if she needed help with the other animals, but she said she was fine, as the pigs were the only ones giving her trouble today.

Once I helped Fluttershy, I went into the barn to see if I could find Rarity, and sure enough, she was there. She looked like she had set up a sort of makeshift boutique on the second floor of the barn, which I hadn’t noticed on my first night here.

I saw that Rarity was sweeping the floors, in her elegant area of the barn, and I asked her if she needed any help.

Rarity looked at me, as she set down the broom with her magic.

“Well, I wouldn’t say that I need help, darling. But that’s not to say that there’s not a way you can help me help you,” she said, as she grinned eyeing me up and down.

I gulped.

“Fine,” I said.

Rarity then got a little bit close and personal, as she measured my chest and my lower area. I was relieved that she let me keep the cloth on while she got her measurements.

“Hold still, darling,” she said. “I want to get this right for you.”

I told her that she didn’t need to go to crazy lengths to make me something super fancy, I just needed something that worked well as a shirt and pants, and preferably underwear, too.

Rarity seemed a bit saddened by my disregard for fashion, so I then told her she could go as far as she wanted, as long as she didn’t exhaust herself.

She then smiled, as she clapped her hooves together, then she drew outlines of a long sleeved shirt and pants, and started cutting cloth.

When she asked me to get some extra fabric from the farmhouse, I happily obliged.

When Rarity had all the ingredients she needed, she started stitching the cloth together.

After a few hours of me nearly falling asleep in my chair, she said she was done.

She made me quite a few pairs of black socks and underwear, and two sets of clothes. The first one was a pink, long sleeved shirt with blue jeans, and the other was a white, short sleeved shirt, with light blue lounge shorts.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d like pink for the first one, I don’t have many colors available,” Rarity said. “But with the second one, I really thought that some radiant blue would compliment your eyes perfectly!”

I blushed, and smiled at her.

“Heh… thanks Rarity, I really appreciate you taking time out of your day to do this.”

Rarity smiled at me, her mane was frazzled, and she looked exhausted, but she also looked happy.

“You’re welcome, darling,” she said.

I then picked up all the new clothes Rarity had made for me and was going to take them down to the first floor of the barn, but Rarity stopped me.

“And just where do you think you are going, darling?” she asked, raising an eyebrow as she grinned.

I told her I was moving them to the first floor of the barn, since that’s where I assumed I’d be sleeping for the night.

“Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, darling. You should sleep in an actual room tonight, The farmhouse has an extra guest room with multiple beds, you don’t deserve to be kept out here like some animal,” she said firmly.

My eyes widened. Rarity was truly a generous mare.

“I… thank you, Rarity, really,” I said.

“You’re welcome, darling,” she said. “Now leave one of those new threads and everything else here, and I’ll take them to the guest room myself later, in the meantime, you can shower and put on those lovely new clothes,” she said.

“Gotcha,” I said.

I thanked her one last time, then used the outdoor shower to clean myself off, and put on the new clothes.

I was wearing the white shirt sleeve and the comfy shorts, and it was pretty nice! The fabric was of surprising, comfortable quality, despite the fact that it was homemade just today, and it fit me really nicely.

In Celestia’s military, they have clothes made for humans, but I feel like it’s been a while since I’ve been in more casual attire.

…I actually really liked it. It made me feel sort of at home for the first time in a long while.

After I got fitted in my new, comfy clothes, I left to see if I could find Rainbow Dash, to see if I could help out with whatever she was doing.

I actually found Rainbow Dash inside the living room of the farmhouse, I guessed she was done moving clouds or whatever, and seemed to be on break.

“Hey Rainbow Dash,” I said.

Rainbow was laying on the sofa, staring out a window, before she turned to face me.

“Heey, there… Dan? Was it?”

I nodded.

Rainbow looked over the sofa, at the kitchen, then back at me, before she suddenly laid on her back dramatically, as if she was in pain. I knew she was faking, though.

“Oh, the pain! The PAIN!!” She said loudly. I could really use some carrots from the pantry, and maybe a cup of water, all this flying today has really worn me out!!”

I raised an eyebrow, as she looked back at me with puppy eyes.

“Sure thing,” I said, as I started walking to the kitchen.

I opened the pantry door, which was open a crack, and had a bucket of water splash on me, completely soaking my clothes.

I heard Rainbow giggling in the living room, which started quietly, but quickly turned into full on laughter, as I tightened my fist and grinded my teeth.

It took a lot for someone to get on my nerves, but this was a pretty special case, what with Rarity putting in all that time and work, in combination with how much I genuinely loved the clothes.

I poured a glass of water for Rainbow and got a carrot out of the pantry. Once I returned to the living room, and saw the giggling mare, trying her hardest to keep a straight face, I splashed the whole cup of water in her face and ate the carrot in front of her.

“Mmm,” I said as I chewed. “This is good!”

I then swallowed the carrot, and looked at her, as she looked up at me angrily.

“You want some more water? You drank that pretty fast,” I said.

Rainbow forced a laugh, and unfurled her wings, leaping at me and pinning me to the ground before I could even blink.

She simply sat on top of me, staring into my soul with fierce eyes.

“Not a bad prank,” she said, while keeping her eyes fixated on me. “For a human, but if you really want to earn my loyalty, I need to know the kind of person you really are, and well… I suppose you’ve just showed me that didn’t you?”

I tried standing up, but she had her forelegs pinning down my arms, as was putting all of her weight on me. She was surprisingly strong.

“I’m not that kind of person!” I said, grunting as I strained to get her off. “You don’t know how hard Rarity worked on these clothes!! And how much I love them!”

Rainbow’s angry expression retracted, ever so slightly, but she still kept me firmly pinned to the ground.

“Yeah,” she said, looking at the floor. “Rarity can really get a sense for what makes you happy.”

Rainbow looked back at me.

“Look man, it was just meant to be a harmless prank, I didn’t want to possibly mess up Rarity’s new clothes for you or anything.”

I looked at the couch, which was stained with the water I splashed Rainbow Dash with.

I looked back at her.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t mean to be so harsh on you in return,” I said. “Sorry, Rainbow Dash.”

She then got off of me and reached her wing out like a hand for me to grasp, as she pulled me back onto my feet.

“Don’t mention it, Dany Boy,” she said teasingly. “And you can just call me Rainbow, y’know? We’re all friends here, right?”

I smiled.

“Right,” I said firmly. “Maybe I should just call you Dashie.”

Rainbow gently slapped the side of my head with her wing playfully.

“Don’t you dare!” She said warningly, as she smiled.

I laughed, and she laughed too.

By now, it was almost dinner time, so me and Dash decided to get a head start on cooking for everypony else, since we both had taken a bit of a long break.

Before we started cooking, Rainbow Dash tossed me a towel from the bathroom to dry myself and my clothes off with, and we got to work.

We made diced up potatoes with carrots. I asked if we should make soup, but she said she wasn’t that great at cooking, and neither was I, so we went with something pretty simple.

When dinner was ready, Dash asked me to go to the front door and literally ring the dinner bell, which I did.

After a few minutes, everypony joined us for dinner, and we ate, as we talked about the highlights of our days.

Twilight hadn’t found any survivors, but her and Pinkie had found some blueberries in the forest that we could plant on the farm, which was good.

Fluttershy hadn’t found any more animals we could welcome to our farm today, but the ones we did have were nicely cared for by her today.

Applejack and Applebloom had made a good plot of soil ready for planting, and she said the first apple trees were starting to grow.

Aside from making me new clothes, Rarity had painfully cleared out the gutters on the farmhouse, and swept the inside of the first floor.

And Rainbow Dash said she’d been flying through the skies most of the day, guiding rainclouds to hit our farm, and maneuvering the normal, sun blocking clouds away.

Octavia had been checking to make sure the barbed wire fence wasn’t damaged, and was practicing her songs, which she said she could play for us sometime, if we wanted.

Aloe and Lotus did some cleaning and had practiced massages on each other, that way we can all relieve some stress during our breaks, which actually sounded like an amazing idea.

When dinner was over, before we all went to bed, Rarity told me where I would be sleeping, as she took me outside a guest room on the second floor of the house.

“This is where you’ll be sleeping, darling,” she said quietly. “Just be quiet, please, Octavia, Aloe, and Lotus are already asleep in there.

I nodded, and Rarity smiled, before she turned to leave and turned off the hallway light.

As I opened the door and stepped inside, bright moonlight shined through the window, onto one of three beds, the only empty one, which revealed the other pair of clothes Rarity had made for me.

I set the clothes on the dresser next to the bed, and shuffled under the soft, heavy covers, laying down as I looked out the window, at the pure white, glowing moon, as I smiled and shut my eyes.

Maybe living with these new ponies for now wouldn’t be so bad. Not bad at all.

Wild Choices

Author's Notes:

This chapter will take the perspective of Wild Wind, Dan’s close military companion.

“Damnit, stop this plane NOW!” I yelled, as the back hatch shut and I ran to the front control area of the plane.

Ruby was sitting in the pilot seat, holding her hoof over her eye. I guess she was bitten, but she still managed to kill that severed that attacked her by snapping its neck.

She looked miserable.

“Ruby,” I said. “Come on, we have to go back for Dan!”

Ruby was quiet, before she slowly turned her head to look at me with her whitening eyes.

“We can’t,” she muttered. “We’ve lost too many already.”

I stared at her intensely.

“What about Dan?! He wasn’t just MY friend, he was like a brother to all of us!!”

Ruby’s expression turned angry, as she stared back at me.

“Yeah, I know. We lost Fuzzy back there, and she was like a sister to me. SO BELIEVE ME, I KNOW HOW LOSS FEELS!!” She yelled.

She looked at the floor and shut her eyes.

“I don’t have much time before I turn, I’ve already lost enough. Just leave me alone, so I can try to enjoy what little time I have left,” she said slowly.

After she said that, I silently stepped out of the front control room and shut the door behind me, and sat down in my seat and strapped myself down.

After a few moments of silence, aside from the sounds of the plane, I looked at Moonlit Glow, who was sitting a few seats on my right, and asked him about Ruby.

“She’s really not doing good,” he said. “But as much as I hate to say it, she a threat to us. I’m just hoping she’ll be willing to let us… take care of her when the time comes.”

It was hard to relax for the ride that followed.

When Ruby eventually stepped out of the control room and was ready for her pain to end, she told us to open the back of the plane, and let her fall to the ground peacefully.

None of us objected her last wish, and did just that, as she shut her eyes, and was pulled out of the open back of the plane by the wind as the rest of us were all securely fastened in our seats, before we shut the hatch again a moment later.

I can only hope that it was truly peaceful for her to go out like that.

After what felt like forever, when we finally made it back to our safely hidden, but still very fortified camp, it was already night.

Once we landed, as I stepped out of the plane, I looked around at the tall steel walls with barbed wire. Most of the camp was lit up with white light coming from several lamps we had to illuminate everything for those who were on night guard, or had other nightly duties.

‘Good to be home,’ I thought to myself sarcastically.

I didn’t want to eat, or shower, or anything, I just really wanted this day to end.

I was going towards my tent so I could go to bed early, but one pony from one of the other search party’s who was sitting alone at a campfire waved me over, and I recognized him immediately, despite how I couldn’t see anything more than his blackened silhouette from behind.

“Hey there, Wild!” Dally Drift said, as I mopingly sat down on the log next to him. “I heard your group’s mission didn’t go that well, I’m sorry, sis.”

I just shrugged as I stared into the fire.

Dally was my brother, he’s terrible at reading other pony’s emotions, aside from me, sort of, and he can’t resist from getting intimate with almost every mare, and stallion, in camp, except for General Celestia of course. He’s my brother though, so even if sometimes I wish I didn’t, I still loved him anyways.

“Yeah, a few of us didn’t make it, and Dan has gone missing,” I said emotionlessly.

I looked up from the fire and looked him in the eyes.

“But at least we were able to save some ponies from the severed wave,” I said, forcing a small smile.

Dally looked into the fire.

“Sorry,” he said seriously. “I know how that human was like a brother to you. We didn’t talk much, but I think he was a good guy.”

I looked at him angrily, which caught him off guard.

He made it sound as if Dan was dead, which was the last thing I wanted to hear right now.

“You know what?” I asked rhetorically. “I’m going to bed, see you tomorrow, Dally.”

Once I stood up and already started walking in the direction of my tent, Dally called out to me.

“Wild, wait!” He said quickly.

I stopped and turned to look at him.

“I didn’t say he was dead or anything, I’m sure if anypony can find a way to survive out there, it’d be him, but please, I barely see you, let’s just talk for a bit,” he said.

I sighed, and sat back down on the log next to him.

He told me how his group’s mission went, and soon mostly just went into details about how much he just adores his fusion partner.

“Selliano is such a strong, nurturing stallion!” He said happily. “If there’s anypony I’d want to be my partner it’d be him! When Celestia told me that he was who I was going to have my bracelet synced with, I nearly fainted!”

Dally was practically drooling at the thought of his partner, but I just tried to ignore him.

One thing about the fusion bracelets is that they have to be ‘synced’ with each other for a more stable fusion, otherwise members of the fusion party who are weaker with their magic could have permanent altered effects on their genetic code, and REALLY change, based on what General Celestia told us.

I think Dan was actually busy with something else the day that Celestia broke that down for us, and I’m not sure he heard about it, but it’s not like he would fuse with any random pony with a bracelet if he had the chance to. He’s told me before just how much fusion kinda freaks him out, except with me, I suppose.

But me and Dan were partners for a reason, plus, our bracelet’s were synced with each other, which can’t be reversed.

As I was starting to leave my own thoughts, I realized that Dally was still talking, I think about the third stallion he sweet talked to bed, and that was when I decided to call it a night.

I slowly stood up and started trotting in the direction of my tent.

“But we were just getting to the good part!” He whined. “You think Nightmare Moon could make the night last forever? You should’ve seen him! C’mon, Wild!”

I actually laughed slightly when he said that, he was so dumb.

“No thanks! Night, Dally!” I said, as I continued trotting away.

When I finally got to my tent, I slipped into my sleeping back and got kind of comfortable.

I looked at the empty sleeping bag beside me.

Me and Dan used to share a tent, and some of his stuff is still here, even his favorite saber sword, which was enchanted with a unique flame sigil by our camp’s unicorn blacksmith. Dan must’ve somehow forgotten to pack it for our mission earlier.

Dan told me before that the blacksmith spoke to him about his blade’s power.

‘This blade grants no more power than you wield within yourself, but it will reflect you as a burning light of unity and growth between our world’s,’ the blacksmith told him. ‘And someday, you will be one key needed to return peace to our separate realms, or die trying.’

I was never certain if that was true, the blacksmith did seem crazy to me sometimes. Sure, he enchanted most of our handheld weapons to make them better and more durable, but I doubted he could really tell the future of somepony. Dan however, was determined by this ‘prophetic enchantment’, and has trained harder to grow stronger every day since.

He’s such a strong, caring guy.

I know I’m one to talk about doubting future predictions, since I’ve got my danger senses, but that’s different. It’s not that specific as telling somepony’s future is.

I then turned off the lantern that was next to me, as I took Dan’s pillow from his sleeping bag and held it tightly between my hooves, breathing in it’s scent.

I think I was pretending it was Dan. I hoped to Celestia that wherever he was, he was ok.

The next morning, everypony was woken up by the morning camp alarm just as the sun started rising, so pretty early.

As I stepped out of my tent, I went to our shower area, which was actually a solid room with running water, unlike other parts of our camp, and showered in the open shower area with the other early birds.

It takes most ponies at this large camp a few minutes to pull themselves out of bed, not all of them are full military material, but I’ve been here since I was a teenager, so I was well used to waking up early and having limited meals and all that.

As I showered, letting the warm water run through my coat, and onto my skin, when I put conditioner in my mane, and rubbed it in with my wings, I suddenly got an uncomfortable feeling.

I quickly looked around for anything that seemed dangerous, but saw nothing.

My danger senses usually feel something right next to me, but this feeling was different. It’s like I was feeling danger for… someone else, and it felt like it was REALLY far off, like on the other side of Equestria, far off.

I got back to rubbing the conditioner in my mane as I looked at the floor, before I froze.

“Dan…,” I whispered.

I flew out of the shower area at top speed, almost running into several ponies who were half asleep, not caring that I was still soaking wet, and that my mane was still white with conditioner, as I flew to my tent to gather supplies.

I filled my backpack with bugspray, a few energy bars, and Dan’s enchanted saber.

Even though he told me never to touch it, this was an emergency.

When I packed the bag with everything I could think of, I quickly dried myself off with a towel and left me and Dan’s tent, as I dashed to General Celestia’s large tent, which was near the center of camp.

Once I got to it, I stopped immediately and hesitated for a moment, before I shook my head and regained my senses.

“General? May I talk to you for a second? It’s urgent,” I said.

“Yes, you may come in,” she said from inside the tent, before an orange colored magic aura zipped the front of her tent open for me to step inside.

Once I stepped in, I bowed before her, as it was always required of us when we were in her presence, and looked her in the eye as I told her about my problem.

As I talked, she looked down at me with her demon like eyes. She had such an overpowering aura to everypony she was in front of, especially when she was wearing her armor, which she wasn’t wearing currently. I guess she’d just woken up, which was probably why her flaming mane looked more frazzled than usual.

“Oh, Wild,” she said sadly. “I’ve told you before that you can’t let that little ‘instinct’ of yours cause you to go and make foolish choices, did I not?”

I looked at the floor, before I looked back up at her.

“But… Dan is in danger!! We need to help him!” I said loudly.

She raised an eyebrow at me, which made me to look down at the floor shamefully.

‘Spoke out of place,’ I thought to myself.

After a brief moment of painful silence, General Celestia told me that she could just send her own rescue team to save Dan.

“Listen, Wild,” she said calmly. “I understand how much you care for that human, I care for him too! He may be one of the last human’s left, and that’s why it’s essential that we bring him back home safely.”

She stepped closer to me, as she lit up her horn and surrounded me with her magic, as she levitated me to look her in the eyes.

“But just know, that if you EVER plan to disobey my order,” she said harshly, as small parts of my coat and mane were burning with small flames, which I could feel burning into my skin. “I won’t even let you run.”

She then dropped me on the ground, and I patted myself off to put out the flames, before I looked up at her.

“Don’t forget, I’m doing this for both of our world’s,” she said assuringly. “A strong universe needs an even stronger ruler, with an undeniably loyal army standing behind them, that way no one gets hurt, am I right?”

“…Right,” I said, as my eyes were watering.

Then she smiled with her jagged teeth, as she turned around and looked at the map of Equestria that was on her table.

“Now, you get to morning training, and I will send a group to find the human,” she said.

I stepped out of her tent, looking at the ground angrily.

There was no way I could let some random squad of ours save Dan on their own.

I’ve tried being generous about ranking the majority of our rescue teams, but quite a lot of them don’t even know what they’re doing, especially when it comes to fusion. They’re not acquainted with each other enough to use their true potential.

Me and Dan are more than partners.

…I love him, and I would go to tartarus and back for him.

I looked around the camp, and then looked back at General Celestia’s tent.

I had a plan.

I went through the day as normal, training, lunch, afternoon training, cleaning, but when it was late into the night, and everypony was supposed to be asleep in their tents, I made my move.

I quietly stepped out of my tent, and carefully snuck around the nighttime patrols, as I made it to General Celestia’s tent.

When I silently opened the zipper and stepped inside, I saw General Celestia, snoring as she slept in her larger than normal sleeping bag, and I saw the map of Equestria that was in the middle of her tent.

General Celestia was the only one with a map of the land, as she did most of the mission planning, but I just needed to see where our last mission was and try to assume where Dan could be now.

‘Ok,’ I thought to myself. ‘If we were about half an hour past the lower area of the San Palomino Desert, then Dan might be… near the old rock farm. He’s not one to wander around without a plan unless he has to, so he must be there.’

I then very slowly and silently stepped out of General Celestia’s tent, and avoided the guards as I made it back to my tent.

I put on my backpack I’d packed with everything I’d need, and I stepped out of me and Dan’s tent.

Avoiding the guards with a sort of heavy backpack wouldn’t be easy, but we’ve never had the finest nighttime patrols, so it wouldn’t be too big of a problem for me.

After about an hour of patient hiding, well timed speed, and careful dodging, I made it to the front entrance of our camp.

I remembered that during our first few years of being here, me and Dan had a little area near the front wall, which was small enough to crawl through.

We used it to explore the majestic forest of the Hollow Shades forest on our breaks. These large tree canopies were cool, but we never normally had the chance to explore them beyond these tall, cramped walls, until one day Dan found the hole in the wall.

We hid it with an uprooted bush that we planted in front of it, to ensure that nopony would check on it, at least for a while, but I remembered where to look.

I grabbed the bush right above it’s roots, and after a few seconds of straining, I pulled the medium sized bush out of the ground and threw it aside.

I poked my head through the low hole in the wall and looked around the outside.

It seemed that there weren’t any severed nearby, so I was safe to move.

I then suddenly got a sick feeling coming from behind me, but by the time I felt it, I already heard the yelling.

“STOP!! SPY!!!” a stallion yelled from behind me, which was followed by camp alarms going off.

I quickly wriggled and squeezed myself through the hole, but the large backpack I was wearing stopped me.

I took it off, crawled through, and tried pulling it through for a few seconds, but then gave up and just grabbed what little I could from inside of it, before I ran into the woods.

I then flew above the forest’s tree canopies so I could actually see what was around me.

Tonight was nicely lit up by the moon, but you’d never be able to tell from inside the camp, because of the artificial lighting, and by the trees blocking out most of the moonlight.

It’s actually been far too long since I’ve been able to enjoy a night, since it’s always been ‘too risky’ to be out at this time, according to General Celestia.

When I escaped camp, it seemed that nopony was trailing me, but I was only able to grab a compass and Dan’s sword from the bag before I had to leave it.

I looked at the compass needle.

“Southwest,” I said to myself, before I looked forward, at the rest of the world that stood in my way.

“Don’t worry, Dan. I’m coming for you.”

Fused Bonds

Author's Notes:

This chapter mainly goes back to Dan’s perspective. Hope y’all enjoy!

When I woke up in the morning to the sounds of chickens crowing, I politely woke up Aloe, Lotus, and Octavia, and we all went downstairs for breakfast.

We had actually slept in for a little bit, so the leftover breakfast was already on the counter.

I was surprised that I’d actually slept in. I usually had a good internal alarm clock for waking up at the right time.

For breakfast, we had hashbrown’s and pancakes, though there weren’t many left.

As me and my three roommates ate, I was ok with giving a bit of my breakfast to them when they finished their’s and were still hungry. I had a trained metabolism, and didn’t need to eat as much as they might’ve needed to.

When we finished breakfast, I cleaned off our dishes, as it was easier for me since I had hands, and then I stepped out of the front door of the farmhouse and looked around.

It was a pretty sunny day today, I guess Rainbow was already on cloud duty.

As I stepped off the porch and looked around for work. I hoped that Twilight wouldn’t be upset with me for sleeping in.

I saw her near the farm’s front gate a few minutes later, though, so I didn’t need to worry for long.

“Sleep well?” She asked, as she kept her eyes fixated on some kind of wire mechanism next to the gate.

“Sorry, Twilight, I didn’t mean to sleep in,” I said.

“I know,” she said assuringly. “It’s not a big problem, but you will need to get used to waking up early soon if you plan on staying here long.”

I looked to the sides of the fences, and asked her what she was working on.

“I’m trying to make sure that the electric fence is ready for the severed wave that will pass us today. I was doing recon the other day and saw them in Appleloosa, they have an oddly specific pattern of places they attack,” she said.

When she mentioned another wave of severed, I thought of Fuzzy Fun from the desert town we were in previously, when she sacrificed herself to buy me and some other members of our group, and a filly we found, time to escape.

“What can I do to help?” I asked quickly.

She looked back at me with a hint of concern in her face. I guess I sounded a lot more worried in my tone than I realized.

“Well… you could prepare some indoor defenses, in case things get bad and we need to fall back.”

I looked at the ground and shut my eyes, before I felt Twilight put her hoof on my leg.

“Don’t worry, Dan. We’ve had this kind of thing happen before, we’ll be fine if we prepare,” she said hopefully.

I looked at her and nodded, trying to force a smile.

I then left to prepare defenses, starting with the barn.

I didn’t have much experience with boarding up planks and setting up traps, but Pinkie Pie was there to help me with it.

She looked sort of down, so I asked her how her morning was.

“Ok,” she said, as she smacked a nail into the plank which was covering one of the barn’s window’s, and used the end of her long poofy mane to grasp a hammer to do it. I didn’t even bother thinking about how that was physically possible, must’ve been magic or something.

Pinkie then sadly looked into the window we were boarding up.

“I remember the first party I threw here for my family,” she said. “That was the day I found out who I really was.”

She was tearing up a little bit, and I responded by gently patting her head, which she leaned against my leg.

“We all have lost one’s Pinkie,” I said comfortingly. “Trust me, you’re not the only one who feels this way.”

She stopped leaning her head against my leg and looked up at me, as I looked her in the eyes.

“At least you still have your friends, right? I have a friend back at my military camp, I know I’d do anything to keep her safe,” I said.

Pinkie smiled slightly, and looked down at my fusion bracelet.

“Your bracelet thingy… I think I’ve seen more like it,” she said.

“Hmm?” I asked.

There was no way there were more fusion bracelets around here, we weren’t near any of General Celestia’s outposts, the only way to get them out here would be from a supplies drop or something, but those are always found by our soldiers minutes after they land. They’re also pretty essential for establishing bases far from our main outposts, our team needs them to be stronger together.

Pinkie noticed my confusion and told me to follow her, and she led me into the farmhouse, at the end of a hallway on the second floor.

She looked up at a string hanging from the ceiling, then back at me.

I understood, and I jumped up, and pulled the attic staircase down, and me and her ascended into the dusty attic.

I pulled another string that was dangling from the ceiling, which lit up a lightbulb, which illuminated mostly the center of the room in a yellow light.

“I was checking up here one day to see if I had any extra party supplies, so I could throw a party for everypony,” she said. “But I found this weird crate instead.”

Pinkie led me to a dark green colored, military crate, which was hidden in the corner on the other side of a stack of boxes.

I opened it, and threw the lid aside.

Just like Pinkie said, there were fusion bracelets in there, several of them, among other things, like food rations and other supplies.

I picked up a bracelet and looked at it for a moment, before I put it in my pocket and looked at Pinkie.

“I might need to have a talk with Twilight,” I said dryly.

Pinkie looked at the bracelets, then she looked at me worriedly, and stepped a bit closer to me.

“Just don’t do anything dumb, please Dan,” she said.

“I… won’t,” I muttered.

When I left the attic, I went down to the first floor and saw Twilight blockading windows in the living room. I tried not to berate myself for forgetting about defenses and tried staying focused on what I would say to her.

“Twilight,” I said.

“Twilight’s ear flicked, and she looked back at me.

“Hey. You and Pinkie forgot about defenses, the electric fence didn’t give me much trouble, so I thought I’d help you two out,” she said.

I took the fusion bracelet out of my pocket and held it in front of her.

“How did you get this?!” I asked quickly. “Do you even know how much our military needs those drops?!”

Twilight’s eyes widened.

“I… umm, I forgot we had those!” She responded quickly.

I raised an eyebrow at her, and she looked back at me with a bit of venom in her expression.

“Hey, we did not STEAL those! You don’t know what it’s like living off the land like this!! You don’t even KNOW how much we’ve all been through, all while you have your fancy military drops and established camps!! I’m SO sorry that THIS IS WHAT OUR WORLD HAS COME TO!!! She yelled.

My anger faded a bit, as she fell back onto the couch and shut her eyes.

“Death, monsters, stealing… why did things have to come to this?” She said shakily. “What happened to peace and harmony?”

I looked at the window she was boarding up, then slowly sat down next to her.

When she noticed me sit down next to her, she opened her eyes briefly to look at me, and moved a bit farther away from me.

We were both just silent for a moment, as I thought about what to say.

“I never wanted the world’s to come to this, either,” I said.

Twilight kept her eyes shut, but her ears perked up.

I looked at the ceiling.

“Sometimes I think to myself, what would life be like if none of this had happened? It’s painful to think about,” I said sadly. “I wouldn’t have to be fighting so hard to be stronger for those who I love… and I would still have my family… it’s just so much pain to take when you just… lose someone like that.”

I felt Twilight suddenly rest her head on my lap, but I kept looking at the ceiling.

“We do still have people we care about though, don’t we?” I asked, looking down at her.

She looked up at me with teary eyes, as she nodded shakily.

I scratched behind her ears and patted her head, as she relaxed a bit more.

Then, after a while of simple, content silence, I looked at the side of the couch and picked up the fusion bracelet, and placed it next to her. Her eyes were still shut, so for all I knew she was asleep, but I still had to tell her this.

“Twilight, I’m sorry I was so harsh about the supplies drop,” I said calmly. “Things really have been hard for all of you, and I don’t blame you for doing what you needed to.”

I looked down at her, then back to the windows, and I was about to gently stand up to continue boarding them up, when Twilight spoke.

“I appreciate you saying that,” she whispered, as she opened her eyes and looked up at me. “I was beginning to worry that we’d lost a new friend.”

She smiled, and I smiled, as we both stood up.

Twilight looked at me, then at the windows, and finally at the bracelet on the couch, and her expression grew curious.

“Umm, I know this is sudden, but… what if we used those bracelets to defend our farm? We have a good amount of time to experiment with them before the attack.”

My eyes widened a bit, as I looked at her.

“Are you… sure, that you want to do that?” I asked. “I don’t know ENTIRELY how they work, and it is sort of… intimate.”

Twilight looked at the bracelet, then back at me with confidence, as she smiled.

“I’ve known my friends ever since I moved into Ponyville, and I’m sure that we all trust you by now,” she said.

After she said that, both of us went into the attic and got the rest of the bracelets, which we took into the barn to test fusion.

There were actually more than enough bracelets for all of us. Celestia’s military really had intense preparation, I guess in case we had new recruits without bracelets or something.

When Twilight gathered everypony in the barn to announce that we were testing fusion, some of them were hesitant, but most of them were quite curious.

Applebloom was curious about how it would work, but Applejack didn’t allow her, I suppose in case something were to happen.

“Fluttershy, Rarity, Octavia, Aloe, and Lotus seemed the most doubtful about doing it, but Twilight was at least able to convince Fluttershy and Rarity that they’d already been through so much, this would be nothing, and it could even bring them closer together as friends.

As I took six bracelets off the bench we had them placed on, and held them in front of Twilight and her friends, as everypony else stood back, I looked at them questioningly.

“Are you all sure you want to do this?” I asked slowly. “Remember, these can’t be taken off once you put them on.”

Twilight confidently nodded, and once all of her friends were sure, I slowly equipped the bracelets on each of their forelegs.

Once I equipped the bracelets on them, the mechanisms tightened, and I heard them all wince in pain.

“Guys!! Are you ok?!” I asked quickly.

After a moment, Applejack spoke.

“Yeah, yeah, that just hurt quite a lot!”

I forgot that it hurt initially, but that was an essential part of it storing your DNA safely, and I told them that when I remembered.

“Well, at least that means our normal bodies will be safe, right darling?” Rarity asked.

I nodded, before I looked at my bracelet, and held my arm out in front of them. When I did that, we all got into a closer circle, and we were all right next to one another.

Everypony else then raised their hooves with their bracelets in the middle of our circle, as we were all touching, and their bracelets glowed brightly with their own aura’s.

Twilight shut her eyes, and everypony else did the same, and so did I.

After a few seconds, our bodies all went numb, and our forms phased together, and merged with a GIANT flash of white light, which I was sure could even be seen from outside the barn.

Then all seven of us were someone entirely knew, and entirely different, but also similar, in small ways.

Learning The Hard Way

Author's Notes:

This chapter’s perspective will be between Dan’s fusion with the Mane 6, and Dan himself.

…

Even when we were all done forming, it took a bit of time to get all of our thoughts together.

We opened our eyes, and looked around to everypony else in the barn. They looked so shocked.

As we saw Dan’s clothes and Applejack’s hat lying on the floor around us, we slowly stood up on our four hooves, one at a time, and gently felt our muzzle with our… hands.

We slowly opened our mouths to speak, but we couldn’t find the words, so we stayed quiet, as we put a hand to… my head.

“Well…” Octavia said, as she blinked. “How do you feel? Are you all ok?”

I looked down at myself and felt my body with my hands, I felt my bare human chest, my crazy equine tail, my wings, and my equine face, my horn, and my very out of control mane.

I think I looked a bit like some sort of… cin… centaur, I think they’re called. I guess Dan was a bit into ‘greek mythology’, whatever that was.

I opened my mouth to speak again.

“This… is… so strange,” I said slowly.

At that moment, our body twitched and shook spastically.

This was too much… this… THIS NEEDED TO STOP!!

We let out a scream of mixed, distressed feelings, as we all suddenly split back into our separate selves with a large flash of light, falling to the surprisingly clean floor of the barn.

After the burst of light, I then opened my eyes and held my arms in front of me.

Dan… I was Dan. I felt slightly off, though, for some reason.

I looked to everypony else, who were still laying down, motionless, as I slowly stood up.

“Guys! Are you ok?”

I crouched down to Twilight and gently shook her until she opened her eyes, while Octavia and everypony else helped the rest of them.

“What… happened?” She asked slowly, as I helped her to her hooves.

“Wow,” she said, stunned. “I had no idea that’s what it would feel like. I almost felt myself… fading.”

Twilight then looked at me, concerned, as she tilted her head.

“Dan… are you ok? You look a little different.”

I asked her what she meant, and felt myself with my hands. I actually did feel sort of different, in an unpleasant way. I think I was… changed, even though I was myself again.

For starters, my ears were weirdly pointy, and I was losing feeling in my fingers and toes, I could hardly control them.

Twilight told me that my hair was turning sort of yellow, and after feeling more of my body, I found that my face was more elongated than it should’ve been, I could tell just from my basic perspective of vision, and there was also a little stub protruding from my upper rear, below my back, almost like… a tail.

“What IS this?!” I asked, breathing quickly as my panic grew.

I looked down at my glowing bracelet, then at everypony around me, as they all were awake by now and standing up on their feet.

I then squeezed my eyes shut and gritted my teeth as I ran out of the barn, into the farmhouse, to get a knife from the kitchen and get this bracelet off of me, somehow.

It was raining by now, and I was getting wet. I realized only then that I was completely naked, but I didn’t care, I just needed to stop this, whatever it was.

As I crashed through the front door of the house, I ran into the kitchen and grabbed a large knife from a drawer and held it above my bracelet, as I tried to break the mechanisms.

As I feared, though, a knife wasn’t strong enough to break through the solid material these bracelets were made of.

Luckily Twilight and her friends stopped me right before I was going to start cutting into my hand to get it off.

Twilight levitated the knife out of my hand, away from me, and held me still in the air with her magic.

“DAN!! WHAT IN TARTARUS ARE YOU DOING?!? She cried, as she released her magic and set me down slowly.

I looked to everypony else as they stood in the doorway, looking at me with terrified eyes.

I held my hands in front of my face, and when I realized I couldn’t even feel them, or move them, almost like they were stuck together, I blacked out, before Pinkie swiftly slid beneath me and caught me before I hit the hard floor.

When I woke up, I was in the living room, on the sofa.

I was wearing my clothes, too. I guess they’d redressed me.

Rarity was in the same room as me, looking out a window at the intense rain. When she noticed I was awake, she immediately rushed over to me and she called out Twilight’s name, which was followed by Twilight’s hoofsteps quickly rushing down the stairs, before she stood right in front of me.

“Dan, what is wrong? Tell me,” she asked imploringly.

I hadn’t told her this out loud, but I really appreciated how much she cared for me.

I looked at her, as my eyes started watering.

Then the eye watering turned into a full on ugly cry, as she held me tightly with her hooves, while I held her with my stiff hands.

I sunk my… muzzle deep into her coat as I continued sobbing. Luckily, she didn’t seem to mind the tears and snot I was leaving on her coat.

When I was done breaking down in her tender, caring embrace, I told her how I was feeling.

“This is scary, Twilight!! This shouldn’t happen, fusion is one thing, single body transformation is a whole other thing!!” I blurted.

I’m not normally one to completely melt down like this, but this was a terrifying situation for me. I was witnessing firsthand my body becoming something else completely, and it seemed that there was nothing I could do. I just needed someone to lean on in this moment.

When we eventually broke the long hug, we both stood up off of the sofa and left the farmhouse, standing on the porch, as Rarity followed us.

Twilight put her hoof on my leg.

“Everypony else is still in the barn preparing defenses,” she said. “We might hide there when the wave hits.”

As the three of us ran through the rain and into the barn, I shut the door behind us, and looked to everypony, who looked at me fearfully.

“Dan,” Fluttershy said suddenly. “Are you ok?”

I looked at her. I was surprised she had the confidence to talk to me directly.

I shook my head, as Twilight put her hoof on my leg again.

“Dan, I can only guess how scary this must be for you,” she said sympathetically. “I’m sure if I were to turn into a HUMAN, I would be pretty terrified, too! Erm, no offense, I mean.”

For the briefest of moments, I sort of forgot about my body changing, and thought mainly of Twilight and her friends, as I smiled. They were all so strong, supporting each other through the hardest of times. They were the exact kind of friends every person deserves.

I then wiped my eyes dry and looked down at my lower body, and sighed, looking at Twilight sadly.

“Are you all still up for fusing to defend the farm?”

Twilights looked at me sympathetically.

“Dan! But, your body-“

“Is changing, I know,” I said. “I don’t like it, but if this is the way it has to be, I may as well go all the way, instead of being stuck… like this.”

I looked at everypony in the barn, all the same pony’s who I’ve only known for a few days, but trusted, as they’ve accepted me for exactly who and what I am.

“You’re all such great friends, and I trust you all. Now, let’s defend ourselves and our farm from those monsters, together.”

Once we regained the courage to have another go at fusion, we all touched each other and re-fused with a large flash of light.

Aloe, Lotus, and Octavia were working on the final touches for the defenses of the barn, while we were still trying to get used to our new body.

The next few minutes, I was honestly distracted from working as I was just getting a feel for myself, as I was trying to form my own feelings.

I sat down and put a hoof to my chin.

I had to mind where I sat, though, as I was about twice as tall as the average pony and had trouble getting into the more cramped areas of the barn.

And while I’ve been all together, my body has been shaping a bit over time. I used to have arms and a… human torso, but by now I have the same basic body shape as any normal pony should.

‘I sure hope Dan won’t completely freak out later’ I thought in my head. ‘I’m sorry Dan, I’m so sorry, sugarcube.’

After a while, I felt quite comfortable being me, but I was startled when I, and the other ponies in the barn heard a loud, primitive sort of war cry, coming from the northeast.

As I was startled, I… WE, started twitching, and split separately back into our seven different forms.

After the flash, when I could see and feel again, Twilight and her friends regained their senses and stood up a second later, as they all looked to me, Dan, or at least what was left of me.

I shut my eyes and held my hooves in front of my face sadly, as I felt Twilight lift me up to my hooves with her strong, but gentle, magic aura.

“I’m sorry, Dan, but we have to defend the farm now, the severed will be here any minute,” she said urgently. “We’ll hide for now, but if they spot us, we’ll all need to fight back, and we’re going to need ALL of us to do it.”

My eyes stayed shut as I was lost in my thoughts.

When I thought of everypony I’d lost to get to this point, and the ponies around me who were currently helping me fight through this harsh world, I opened my eyes and looked at all of them with as much confidence as I could muster.

I looked down at my hooves, then to everypony around me, who were all in defensive positions behind the barricaded front door and windows, as I slowly used my four hooves and walked to Rainbow and Applejack, who were pushing hay bales in front of the barn door. We didn’t have time to barricade the door earlier, so we had to make every second count now.

When I got to them, I awkwardly pushed a bale of hay in front of the door to help. It took quite some trying, but I was helping as much as I could.

It was only right when we were hearing the feral snarls and growling of the severed, who sounded like they were arriving right outside the barn, that we all stood completely still, and stayed quiet, as me, Applejack, and Rainbow were leaning against the bales of hay we hastily blocked the doors with.

I heard a severed from behind the front door sniffing, and I put my hooves over my mouth as Rainbow and Applejack looked at me worriedly.

The severed then stopped sniffing and was silent for a moment, before it suddenly let out a monstrous screech, which I knew would alert many of them to us.

It took only a minute for things to turn into anarchy after that, Twilight had quickly equipped everypony with weapons we’d had in the barn, and she handed me a knife. Even though I was in a different body, I still knew how to wield a blade, I would just have to change some things up.

When we were all armed, several severed were trying to break in through some of the windows and by ramming the front doors.

Me and AJ were trying our hardest to keep the doors shut, while Rainbow and Octavia were covering the windows.

Fluttershy was keeping Applebloom safe, as they were hiding in a pile of hay, and Pinkie, Twilight and Rarity were keeping the lower windows secured with Octavia, and Aloe and Lotus started helping me and AJ with the doors.

As the four of us were holding the door shut, I looked to a wall which I heard a loud banging coming from, until three severed smashed right through it.

I ran to the severed, holding my knife in my muzzle, as I tackled one to the floor and somehow managed to successfully jab my knife into it’s head.

I looked back and saw the other two severed standing over me, glaring at me angrily, before they were both shot through the back of the head with Twilight’s shotgun, as Twilight stood over them, reaching out a hoof for me to grab.

As Twilight pulled me to my hooves, she looked to Rarity, and tossed her shotgun to her, which Rarity quickly caught with her magic aura, and used to blast a severed who was poking it’s face through the window she was defending with.

Twilight then used her magic to wield a small dagger from the table of weapons.

I said nothing, but looked to her questioningly.

‘What could that tiny thing possibly do?’

Twilight then shut her eyes, and used her magic to make the blade fly all around the barn, through the windows which were being torn down, and to the hole in the wall that more severed were coming through, as it pierced right through the skulls of at least five severed in the span of just a few seconds.

My jaw actually dropped as her blade flew back to her.

She looked back at me, and smiled shyly, before she shut her eyes in focus and let the blade fly around again.

I looked to Pinkie, who was wielding an axe, as she was swiftly decapitating the increasing amount of severed coming through the hole in the barn. She looked like she was putting way to much feeling into it, based on her thunderous expression, as she cut off a severed’s head with one swing.

“We need to block that hole!!” I yelled.

I pushed a large bale of hay to block the hole, and struggled with it, before Rainbow flew down and helped me push, as we blocked the hole, and stood against the bale, keeping it secure.

We were holding things down here, but more and more severed were coming, and eventually, it was just too much.

Despite my best efforts, as more and more severed were breaking through our defenses and getting into the barn, I couldn’t save Lotus, and two severed got past us, biting her in the chest and neck as she fell to the ground. She screamed briefly, before her life ended.

Twilight gasped when she saw Aloe, and quickly pulled out her shotgun and shot both of the severed in the head with one piercing shotgun blast, as she gritted her teeth, and had small tears in her eyes.

Aloe screamed when she saw Lotus’s torn open corpse, and rushed over to her, her eyes filled with tears.

I tried pulling her off of Lotus, and told her that she was gone, but she smacked me harshly on the cheek and knocked me back.

I looked to my left and saw a severed pegasus flying through a, now open window, as it flew to Aloe, opening its mouth and showing its sharp teeth, ready to bite her.

I quickly got up to my hooves and dashed in front of Aloe, with my knife in my muzzle, and jabbed it into the severed’s eye, as it’s fang like teeth were only inches from my neck, before I pushed my knife in as deeply as I could, until it hit the brain, and the severed fell to the floor.

As I looked down at the severed, with my knife still deep in its eye socket. Before I could reach down to pull it out with my muzzle, two more severed tackled me to the ground and looked down at me, screeching into my ear painfully.

I looked to my right for a second, and saw Twilight fighting three severed who were all around her at once with her shotgun, before she looked to me and used her shotgun to shoot the severed that were on me with two shotgun blasts, before she was tackled to the floor by one of the severed she was fighting.

I quickly ran to her, and jumped onto the back of the severed that tackled her, before I used all the strength I had and twisted it’s neck, snapping it. Applejack used her mallet to smack the other two severed next to Twilight in the head, as they fell to the floor, before she stomped their skulls in with her powerful hooves.

Right when I thought I was hearing the sounds of even more severed outside the barn, I also heard… somepony else fighting outside?

I could hear grunting and slicing, and I also heard wings flapping, it sounded like a pegasus.

Right as I wondered who they could be, she flew in through an open window, right in front of me, as she looked at me inquisitively.

“W-Wild?!” I choked.

She raised an eyebrow at me.

“Who are you?” She asked.

I looked down at my pony body, then back up at her.

“Wild, it’s me, Dan! You have to believe me!!” I said quickly.

Wild looked at me questioningly, before she snapped her eyes forward and used… my special knife, to quickly kill two more severed who came in through a window.

She ran to Twilight, and they both put theirs backs against each other.

“Who are you?!” Twilight said quickly.

Wild looked back at her, before she looked forward again, to the severed that were still coming in through a window.

“Name’s Wild Wind, I’m looking for a human named Dan, you seen him?” She asked, as she dashed to the severed and turned around, bucking its head clean off its body.

Twilight looked to me, and Wild followed her eye contact, and looked back at her doubtfully.

“He’s a pony! I’m looking for a human!” She said.

Twilight looked at her.

“That IS Dan. A lot has happened recently. I can tell you about it later.”

After Wild got there, things actually started calming down, and soon we only had one or two severed coming at us at a time, until they just stopped completely.

When things were calm, me, Twilight, Rainbow, Applejack, and Wild carried the many fallen severed’s bodies into a grassless area, so we could burn them, while everypony else showered and took care of a few other small chores. Today had been hard on all of us, so I think Twilight was ok with being more lenient about chores.

The rain had also stopped, and we had some clouds in the sky, but it mostly just complemented the orange, luminous sunset.

Once we all took care of that, we all stepped out of the barn, which was now almost completely torn apart, as Wild looked at me.

“You… you’re Dan?” She asked.

I looked at her, as Twilight and the rest of them took this as their cue to give us some privacy, and went into the farmhouse.

“Yeah… something weird happened,” I said.

“Clearly,” Wild said, eyeing me up and down.

Wild then looked me in the eyes sadly and pulled me in a tight embrace with her hooves and wings.

“I… was worried I’d lost you. You mean a lot to me, man, never forget that,” she said quietly.

I just looked at her for a moment, as I didn’t expect the sudden display of affection, but I quickly returned it as I held her tightly with my hooves.

Wild then looked up at me, but was still tightly holding me close to her.

“How did this even happen to you?” She asked worriedly.

I lifted my right hoof in front of my face, as me and her looked at my bracelet.

Wild looked back at me quickly.

“You didn’t fuse with anypony your bracelet wasn’t synced with did you?!” She asked aggressively.

I shut my eyes and nodded.

I heard Wild sigh, before I felt her hoof on my cheek, as I opened my eyes to looked at her.

“You dummy, you really should’ve been there when General Celestia was breaking down how these bracelets really work,” she said.

She then put her other hoof on my other cheek, as she pulled my face closer to hers.

“You should know by now how much I hate it when you do stupid stuff,” she whispered, before she gently pressed her lips against mine.

I was surprised by her sudden display of more-than-friendly affection, and after a brief moment of thought, I returned it.

Wild was a strong pony, one who I was very close to. I’d never felt this way for anyone in the past, as far as I knew, but I thought I’d give this strange feeling a chance, and show her how I felt.

Our kiss was long and warm, but didn’t go too far with it, as we only locked lips, before we broke it after a few minutes of bliss.

As we were breathing heavily, we held each other just as close as before we broke the kiss, as Wild looked at me with loving eyes, and I looked back at her, as I smiled.

“Wild, I never understood why I felt closer to you than anypony else, and now I think I know.”

She smiled as her eyes started watering.

“I… I… love you,” I said slowly, with passion burning in my voice.

She then held me close and pulled me into another hug, which I immediately returned.

“I love you, too,” she said happily, before she then looked up at me with a sad expression.

“I just wish you hadn’t done this to yourself,” she said.

I looked down at my body, at my bright orange coat, my yellow tail, and my wings which were stemming from my back, before looking back at her.

“I didn’t know this would happen,” I said quietly.

“Clearly,” she said.

“…But I don’t care what I look like, I’m still me, and I will fight to do what I can to protect everyone in both world’s, just like I always have,” I said determinedly.

Wild smiled back at me with the same determination.

I then looked at her curiously.

“What are you even doing here? You should be at the camp.”

Wild looked into my eyes with annoyance.

“General Celestia said she would send a team to rescue you, but I decided to take matters into my own hooves.”

I looked at my knife, which she was wearing on a belt that was above her flank.

“Can I… have that back?” I said, pointing a hoof at her belt.

Wild looked at her waist, then took off the belt and the knife and held them out with her wing for me to take.

As I wrapped the belt around my waist, I thanked her, before she looked at me sadly.

“I’m sorry I took that. I know how special it is to you, but I needed something to fight with to come get you.”

I told her it was ok, before she backed up a bit and looked at me seriously.

“Dan. The reason I’m really here… is because I had a feeling that you were in trouble, I sensed danger coming for you.”

I tilted my head, before I smiled at her.

“I already know that you have a special sense, Wild,” I said assuringly. “General Celestia may not believe it, but I do, and I’ve seen how it’s helped the both of us more times than I can remember.”

Wild looked me in the eyes, worriedly.

“It’s not that,” she said. “I can still feel it, I still feel the sense of danger.”

My eyes widened.

“What?”

“The severed wave wasn’t it, something else made me come here,” she said.

When she said that, she was suddenly shot in the side of her head with a beam of magic.

I instinctively looked in the direction of where the shot came from, before a second beam of magic hit me in the forehead, causing me to fall to the ground, as I laid across from Wild.

We looked at each other for what we thought might be the last time, before we both slowly shut our eyes, as a blurry shadow loomed over us.

The Face Behind the Faceless

…darkness. I don't even know how long it was like this, but it was just… darkness.

At some point, though, a spark of light shined in the blank void, and illuminated my surroundings as it’s light grew.

I was in General Celestia’s camp. It was nighttime, and the camp was illuminated with the artificial lights of our lamps we had strewn throughout the pathways.

I felt a bit different, and as I was walking, I could feel that my human legs were back, and I wasn’t walking on all fours like how I was sort of getting used to doing.

I could actually see out of the corner of my eyes that instead of hooves, I had my hands, and as far as I knew I didn’t even have a muzzle anymore, either.

I wanted to raise my hands in front of my face to see them directly, but I realized just then that I didn’t have any control over the movement of my eyes, or even my entire body, not even the slightest of movements. I felt that I wasn’t being controlled by any outside force, though, which was strange.

Even though I couldn’t control where I was walking, I somehow knew exactly where I was going.

To Wild’s tent, to set the plan in motion.

Was… was this a memory that I was witnessing firsthand?

Yeah, I remember this night, actually. A little over a year after me and Wild started working together in Celestia’s military, me and Wild wanted to spend a night together in the Hollow Shades, outside of camp.

As I was lost in my thoughts, my body was performing every action of the memory just as I remembered it.

I opened me and Wild’s tent and peeked my head through, and looked at Wild, who was smiling at me excitedly.

“The higher level guards are off patrol Wild, let’s go,” I said.

As me and Wild snuck through the open path of the large camp together, staying hidden from passing guards, we soon found the spot that I’d found a while back.

I crouched down and crawled through the gap in the wall to the other side, and helped Wild as she made her way through.

It was nearly pitch black as we were walking, with no real destination in mind. The tree canopies were blocking out the moonlight, and although there were some fireflies buzzing around, they weren’t a reliable source of light.

Eventually me and Wild made it to a large, towering tree and looked up at its sturdy branches, which looked like they could support our combined weight, then at each other as we smiled. We were thinking the same thing.

I reached out my hand, and she reached out her hoof, as we held each other and fused with a quick flash of white light.

When we were one, my vision got sort of blurry, I assumed since this part of the memory was only partially mine. Our body didn’t mind the blurry perspective I was seeing at all though, as we opened our wings and flapped them aggressively, only for us to float for a second, then flutter back down to the ground.

We then looked up and down the tree, at it’s several large branches, which were arranged in a climeable way.

“We can get this,” we said to ourselves, as we jumped and flapped our wings, grabbing one large branch, before we stood up on it and hopped to another.

As we were ascending on branch after branch, the windy breeze was blowing our long hair in our face, which was kind of annoying.

‘We should start wearing a hair tie when we’re together,’ Wild thought.

‘Sure,’ I mentally agreed.

After some focused climbing, we made it to a large branch higher up on the tree that offered a nice view of the Hollow Shades and the camp, as it wasn’t very obscured by leaves.

As we sat down on the branch, we unfused with a small flash of light, which caused my vision to clear back up, as Wild leaned against my shoulder.

We both took a deep breath, and just took in the view for a moment, before Wild spoke.

“I’ve forgotten how much I’ve missed Princess Luna’s night sky,” she said, nostalgia tight in her voice.

I looked down at the ground beneath us, but quickly re-averted my gaze back to the moon when I realized how high we were.

“Yeah, it’s a shame Princess Luna isn’t here. I can only imagine what Celestia must’ve felt she when she’d lost her,” I said sympathetically.

Wild then scooted closer to me, and laid her head down on my leg.

“Yeah,” she responded.

I rubbed her comfortingly, which caused a contented sigh to escape her muzzle, as we gazed into the moon, enjoying the small, natural pleasures of life. They were hard to come across in these days.

For quite a while, me and Wild just sat in that tree, gazing at the moon and enjoying each other’s company, until we had to get back to camp so we could get a good night’s sleep, and not get into trouble in the morning.

Wild sat upright, and we hugged each other affectionately, before we fused together, and used our wings to glide safely down to the ground.

It would’ve been easier to glide all the way back to camp, but our nighttime guards have an eagle’s eye on the sky, so we had to go on hoof once we got to a certain distance to camp.

When we eventually got back, snuck through patrols, and got back to our tent, I took off my shirt and slipped into my sleeping bag, before Wild looked at me and blushed slightly.

“Could we… sleep in the same bag tonight?” She asked uncertainly. “It’s kinda chilly.”

I blushed too, but looked at her with certainty, and nodded.

Wild then moved herself into my sleeping bag, as I blew out our lantern. It was kind of tight, and Wild seemed unsure at first, as she was faced away from me, but she then cleared her throat a moment later and maneuvered herself to face my direction, as she slowly placed the side of her face against my bare upper chest, just below my chin.

She hesitantly put her hooves around my back, which I returned by slowly, and gently putting my arms around her.

As I felt the comfort of our shared body heat, I held her more tightly, and she held on to me tighter in return.

I could feel her tension melting in that moment, as we both quietly sighed contently.

I smiled, as we both drifted to sleep.

As the memory version of me fell asleep, I felt like I was just waking up, as I opened my eyes and stood up, feeling a sharp pain in my forehead.

I raised what I half expected to be my hand to rub away the sore pain in my head, and was surprised see a hoof rise in front of my eyes instead. It seemed that I was a pony again. That really was just some kind of memory.

I looked around at my surroundings.

I was in a cage, and even though wherever I was was really dimly lit, a few torches on the walls revealed that I was in some kind of cave, and the walls and ceiling seemed entirely made of blue crystals.

When I remembered that Wild was shot right before me, and was probably captured too, I quickly looked around, and saw her laying motionless in another cage beside mine.

“Wild!” I whispered, reaching my hooves as far through the bars of my cage as I could. “Wild, wake up!”

Wild didn’t respond at all, however, so I tried looking around for anything I could use to help us escape.

I saw a small, sharp crystal shard laying on the floor outside my cage, just out of reach. I probably could’ve reached it with my wing, but just then I heard hoofsteps nearing us.

My thoughts raced on what I should do, but after a second, I just settled on pretending I was still asleep.

I hastily laid myself back on the cold, metallic floor of my cage and shut my eyes. I sure hoped that our mysterious captor hadn’t seen me as I did that.

When the hoofsteps were right outside my cage, they stopped briefly, but continued a moment later, moving to the other side of the room.

“So, you’re awake,” a sophisticated, younger male voice announced a moment later. “There’s no point in faking still being asleep, Mr. Flame.”

I kept my eyes shut and remained still, but after some thought, I sighed and opened my eyes, as I stood up. I looked at me and Wild’s captor, who was rummaging through some books and potions at a large table, as he looked back at me.

He was a unicorn with a grayish coat and a smooth, combed, dark blue mane and tail, and he had eyes that seemed to be shifting in color, from green to cyan to blue to purple to pink, and so on.

“Who are you?! What do you want with us?!?!” I asked quickly, before I groaned from the pain in my head.

As he continued looking back at me, he turned around completely and slowly trotted to my cage, before he stood right in front of me.

“That’s not exactly important, Mr.. But if you must know, my name is Sabby Strings.”

I saw a glimpse of his cutie mark, which looked like an image of puppet strings looming over a rainbow.

I looked at him and gritted my teeth.

“Why did you kidnap us?!” I asked furiously. “And… why’d you call me… Mr. Flame?”

He smiled at me genuinely, despite my anger, before he walked back to the large table and flipped open a book, as he read through it.

“Have no fear, I merely brought you two here just because I need to run a few little tests,” he said calmly, as he kept his eyes fixated on his book. “And to answer your second question, I only assumed that the flames on your cutie mark resemble what you go by, that’s why I called you by that title.”

I tilted my head curiously, before I turned my head to look at my cutie mark for the first time.

It was a simple saber sword. The blade was slightly curved, and it had a glowing flame sigil carved into it, along with flames that seemed to be coming off of the blade.

It looked just like my special sword I got from the camp’s blacksmith all that time ago.

Despite how peculiar my cutie mark was, the mere sight of it didn’t stray me from my current situation in the slightest.

I put my hooves against the bars of my prison as I glared at this strange pony, hostility laced in my expression.

“You better let us go, or I swear you’ll pay,” I said bitterly.

Sabby’s ears perked up, but he just continued messing with the stuff on his table.

“Oh, I somehow have my doubts about that statement, Mr.,” He said. “Though I will say that you and Wild have my respect of having a natural bond that’s… a bit more than mere friendship. That night you two spent together in the Hollow Shades was especially lovely, it was quite nice to witness first hoof.”

What the hell was he talking about?

“Wh-“ I was going to ask, before he forcefully held my lips shut with his magic aura, as his horn lit up. Said magic aura was also somehow shifting in color, just like his eyes were.

He sighed, as he looked up from his potions, and back at me, with an annoyed face.

“I’ll only tell you this to get you to stop asking questions. I need you alive for this, and thought I don’t want to be so bashful as to permanently seal your lips shut, it takes some focus to stop your talking with just my aura. Just… promise you won’t ask any more pointless questions, will you?”

I simply stared at him and squinted my eyes, which he somehow took as my ‘promise’, as his horn stopped glowing, and his aura faded.

Even though I could’ve talked, I felt it wasn’t best to interrupt him while he spoke, so I kept my mouth shut for the moment, as I looked outside my cage, at the crystal shard that was laying on the ground a bit outside the bars.

I took this opportunity of him looking the other way to stretch one of my wings out of the bars of my cell, just barely grasping the small, sharp crystal shard, as I tightly tucked it in my wing, and waited for the right moment to use it.

He sighed once more, as he stopped fidling with the things on his table.

“Well, I suppose it could be sort of nice to talk about, with an actual sentient creature, at least,” he started.

He then looked up at the ceiling as he continued.

“You see, Mr. Flame, as a young colt, I didn’t exactly have the poster perfect family. To sum things up, Mother would always enforce her definition of ‘respect’ upon me, sometimes to a very harsh degree, and Father… was always drinking.”

He then cleared his throat, before he looked back at the ceiling.

“I suppose… I just wanted to know what it felt like, to have a happy family,” he said slowly, as he turned around to meet my gaze.

“That’s… why I started the outbreak of creatures that you call ‘severed’.”

My jaw actually hung open when he said that. He didn’t pay any mind to me, thought, as he continued talking.

“And I must say, it does feel pretty nice having the pure memories and essence of those happy ponies within me,” he said, smiling as he raised his hoof in front of his face. “I mean, when I first started I was only intending to absorb the MEMORIES of every new infected, but once I realized I was gaining magic as well, I couldn’t let my own potential go to waste.”

I put a hoof to my chin.

When I was first getting used to ‘taking care’ of severed creatures, I did have my hopes that I could somehow remind them of who they once were and maybe even change them back.

It was a nice thought, but it was only after witnessing a severed that had killed one of my older pony friends, a kind stallion named Buckshot, right in front of me, tearing open his chest and ripping out his innards as he screamed horrifically, that I lost hope that there was anything with a consciousness left within those… hollow shells of creatures. And I guess I was right about that after all.

He then used his magic to levitate some kind of crown made from blue crystal shards off of the table and onto his head, as he lit up his horn with his multi colored aura, and all of the walls and ceilings of the cave glowed brightly with different colored, blurry images, until they cleared up and formed into what seemed to be memories, with each crystal showing the different memories of what I assumed was every creature who was corrupted by his spell.

There were memories of griffins, hypogriffs, kirins, ponies, and even humans. It seemed that Sabby had most of the memories focused on pleasant experiences.

Based on what I was seeing, these memories ranged from a griffin happily proposing to another griffin, to a human comforting another human who had lost a loved one.

Sabby then looked at me, grinning slightly.

“And with the amount of memories, magic, and intelligence of the countless creatures who have succumb to my spell’s corruption that I now have, it’s time for me to take my rightful place as the ruler of both world’s.”

I gritted my teeth, as I thought of all the close people and ponies I’d lost in my life, and all of the creatures in both worlds that had suffered, lost loved ones themselves, all because of this psychopath, as he stood right outside of my cage and smiled.

“All I have to do next is end your precious ‘general’s’ little resistance camps, and when whatever’s left of the military is gone, there won’t be anything to hinder my rule of happy memories.”

“You… won’t get… the chance,” I said, as I was fuming.

He then tilted his head as he poked the tip of my muzzle with his hoof.

“You can help me with that, though,” he said, not caring about what I’d just said. “Your transformation sure is interesting, you did used to be a human after all, and now here you are, as something completely different. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have assumed you’ve been a pony your whole life.”

He then put his hooves against the bars of my prison, as his multicolored eyes stared into me with serious intent.

“I myself have had problems controlling my own physical form ever since I’ve taken hold of the essence’s of other creatures, but I suppose running some experiments on your form could give me some pointers on how to control my own body’s shape.”

As if to accentuate his point, after he spoke, one of his forelegs actually glowed brightly with multi colored light, as it’s shape contorted and twisted, until the glowing stopped, revealing that it had painfully shaped into what looked like the paw of a manticore, which was dripping with blood as a result of the harsh transformation.

Sabby was visibly in pain because of this, as he panted shallowly, before he slowed his breathing and put his newly formed paw to his chin as he looked up at the ceiling in thought, smiling like a foal.

“Heh, as a matter of fact, the thought of transforming into a dragon to burn down all of the leftover military camps IS rather pleasing.”

I then quickly maneuvered my wing, and swung the sharp crystal shard to his neck, before it was held firmly in place by his mixed aura, right before it hit his throat, as he looked back at me and frowned.

“You… really think I didn’t see that coming?” He laughed. “These eyes see more than you realize, and I’m much smarter than you probably think.”

He then used his magic to pull the crystal out of my wings grip, before he looked at it, and me inquisitively, before he grinned, and used his aura to jab the crystal into my chest.

I screamed in pain, and had another very brief memory of me and Wild flash in my mind, before it almost felt like it was sucked out of me, as he pulled the crystal back out about half a minute later, leaving a deep gash, as I felt the warm blood from my wound moving down my coat, through my fur, before it dripped onto the floor of my cage.

As he levitated the crystal in front of him, and wiped my blood off of it, I noticed that the crystal was glowing orange, and soon had a clear image of a memory of me and Wild. A memory that… I couldn’t remember anymore. Come to think of it, I couldn’t actually remember any ‘special night’ in the Hollow Shades with Wild, like Sabby had mentioned before.

The fact that I was forgetting memories of me and Wild actually terrified me. One of the last things I wanted was to forget our most precious memories of each other.

Sabby then used his manticore paw to stab the glowing crystal into his own chest, which caused it to lose its glowing orange color as it sort of transferred into him. He flinched for a second, before he grinned, and looked up at me.

“A fun training day with Wild? That sure was a good day, I almost feel bad that you won’t remember it.”

I actually stepped back fearfully, as I was unsure what to do, until I heard groaning coming from the cage beside mine.

“D-Dan…?” Wild mumbled, as she slowly opened her eyes and raised her head.

Before I could respond to her, Sabby blasted a quick beam of magic at her, hitting her right between the eyes, as she face planted back down to the floor of her cell.

I froze as I stared at her, before my eyes shifted to Sabby, as my mind was still processing what had just happened.

Sabby looked at me, and rolled his eyes.

“Relax, she’s only… asleep. I wouldn’t want her to make a fuss if she saw what I’m about to do to you.”

Sabby’s blank expression slowly morphed into a twisted smile, as he levitated several crystal shards behind him, and aimed them at me, as I gulped.

“Now,” he said cheerfully. “The fun part begins!”