An Alien Walks Amongst Us: C.S.E. - Part Four

Chapter Twenty-Three – Pesky Piping Ponies



“Okay. I give up.”

Bon Bon placed a marker in the book she was on, looking over at Anon on the bed. “You give up on trying to sleep?”

A squeakish humming was heard from Bella Belle, sitting beside Bon Bon. “You give up on avoiding my sisters love?”

“You give up on the meaning of life?”

“You give up on avoiding all the fun we’ve been having?”

“You two know what it is.”

“But I want to hear it out loud.”

Bella Belle nodded her head. “It’s good for you to open up, Mr. Anon the alien! Ah, Sweetie, I’m still not getting this equation here in the assignment.”

“Look at the examples on page two ninety-four, right there.”

“I’ve spent the last three days keeping my eyes out on every single individual I could, preventing incidents, and keeping us out of trouble like I’ve been doing in Ponyville.”

“Which you have done a surprisingly good job at,” Bon Bon nodded.

“You’ve also missed out on a lot of the festivities,” Bella Belle noted, chewing on a small pencil eraser nub. “It’s not as much fun doing Winter Wrap-Up if everyone isn’t working together.”

“That’s what I’m getting at. I’ve done nothing but deprive myself of what little enjoyment I could have been having, keeping things calm and organized and from snowballing into a bigger mess than it could have been. I’m tired of this mindless work. I can’t keep doing it.”

Anon sat up, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Sure, it helped a lot of things, but it’s boring and exhausting. I don’t even think half the time I’m doing a good enough job, not without some kind of wiki to look up all the different ways things could go wrong. Why can’t you ponies have invented the internet?”

“First off Anon, I don’t know what a wiki is or what you’re referring to other than your weird power－”

“It’s not a power.”

“Second, and I know you really don’t like this idea about you not being the center of attention－”

“You’re reinterpreting my words again. All I was saying was that we’re not the focus of attention to whatever forces that are in control of your world. We’re side characters to the main plot, which I should have seen was revolving around Twilight Sparkle and her group of friends. That’s not to say we don’t have parts in it, or that we can’t have adventures of our own. Stories just love to have side projects for spin-offs or new series or something, even having a way to tie into the main plot organically.

“But that’s beside the point. We’re some kind of catalyst in the future for a lead up to something that Momus created. It’s going to have a twist baddie, Twilight will come in to save the day, and then something happens to me and you and Lyra. I’m… I guess I’m just scared that I’m not in control, knowing full well something will happen.”

“That’s just how life is. We know things will have its twists and turns, regardless of how well we can predict it. Please try not to stress out yourself over things. We can talk it out whenever you want.”

Bella Belle flipped her book closed with a giggle, “Finished my work for college! Thanks for the help, Sweetie.”

Bon Bon turned to her sister, “You really should do your work somewhere that isn’t in this guest room.”

“Nah, I like it here. So cozy.” She turned to Anon. “I still don’t understand your powers or why it needs to be a secret, but I don’t get why you need to fix all these ‘problems’ or worrying about things for your maybe future. Isn’t it more fun to just… embrace it? So what if this ‘plot’ thingy-ma-hoozit is doing things or might be working us toward some end goal. Magic is magic, and our lives are chaotic at times.”

“Which is ironic, as your whole life philosophy revolves around harmony.”

“It’s not much fun living a dull, plain life if things don’t spice it up.” Bella Belle jumped from her stack of books to the ground, making her way out of the room. “I don’t agree with that Discord fellow on how he does things, but he is right about everyone needing some form of chaos around us. I can’t think of anything more miserable than playing everything safe. Just think of all the adventures you could have been having! We still have one last day of Winter Wrap-Up so you better make the best of it.”

Walking out of the room, Anon stared at the door, taking her words in. Bon Bon got up from her chair to Anon. “Bella has a… well, she－”

“She’s right.” Anon sighed. “I should try to be a part of everything instead of being such a worrywart. I guess some of my past fears about all this magic kind of crept back up. Having a sense of control of things pushed me to this.”

“Will that mean you’ll try to enjoy things with us instead of moping around or being paranoid about potential hazards?”

“I’ll do my best to keep things on the down-low, but don’t expect me to not butt in things from time to time.”

“As long as you try, that’s all anyone can ask for. It hasn’t been a fun past few days with you watching your side every few minutes for whatever it is you’re looking for.”

“Misplaced items that look set up, odd conversations that imply certain things to come, and et cetera. Really, your world is a disgusting hodgepodge of a serial story and a gag cartoon. Not fun watching out for, especially without an online guide.”

“So don’t watch out for it. Just let things come.” She shook her head, turning away. “I should probably let you finally go to bed. Sorry that my sister uses this room for her studies.”

“Bah, it’s fine,” Anon said with a wave. “She’s too adorable to say no to.”

“Which is why I think she’d be the perfect person to lead our family business. Who would ever say no to a face like that?”

“What a horrifying thing, having to make a deal with someone like that. Though now that she mentioned it before leaving, I thought Winter Wrap-Up was only one day.”

“It is in Ponyville, but that’s because they’re a smaller locale over there. Here, it’s a huge festivity we have that runs four days. Tomorrow is when we let it all out, so you get some rest so you can enjoy it along with us.”

Bon Bon chuckled, making her way out. It took little time for Anon to fall asleep. Rosie woke him up the next day, telling him about the breakfast that was being prepared and to be ready. Taking a hot shower, he felt it relaxing his muscles and helping wake him up. Once done, he made sure he was clean-shaven and his hair was in order.

“Ready for another day of oddness in magic pony land,” Anon said to himself as he stared at his reflection in a mirror.

Heading downstairs, Anon was expecting a loud spectacle to be occurring, if only from how the past few days were anything to go by. Instead, he was greeted with a cheerful-looking group of ponies, who were full of smiles and being pleasant. Anon could tell they were forcing themselves to be nice, or at least Halas and Lyra were with one another. What he wanted to know was why.

“Morning, Anon!” Lyra said cheerfully with a wave. “You have to try this pumpkin pudding, it’s really good!”

Looking at the table, Anon saw a large assortment of dishes full of pudding of various bright colors. He had a great urge to scream bangarang.

“Regur! Radr raga!” Halas said as Anon took a seat.

“Anon,” Bon Bon said beside him, “my mom wanted to know if you could help her once more.”

“I don’t see why not,” he said, walking over to the conveniently placed empty seat beside Halas.

Sitting down, he looked at Halas who was all smiles for him. Finding that familiar sensation in him, he placed his hand on her side; in seconds, Halas had once more turned into a pony.

She hummed, rubbing forelegs and straightening out her hair before turning to Anon, “Thank you, dearie, it feels so great to be back to myself, even if it’s a temporary solution.”

“Just how did you gain such an odd power?” Eddie asked, eating some strawberries.

“It’s a very long story, though I’m not allowed to get into specifics since the princess ordered me and everyone involved not to.”

“What a pity,” Eddie said. “I would have liked to see if it could be replicated.”

“That would likely be difficult for all you ponies.”

“How so?” Halas asked, sipping on her tea. “It doesn’t seem to affect you or I that badly.”

“As I was explained about your world, everything has magic inside of it. I doubt you can make any spell that could take away magic safely the way I can do it. In fact, the unicorn trainers that I was with already thought of ways to do so, only coming to the conclusion that with their current knowledge, any attempts would likely make the user incapable of using magic ever again.”

“That sounds quite horrible,” Eddie said with a frown.

“It’s not so bad,” Anon said with a small shrug. “I certainly will never be able to do it now, although I wasn’t sure if I could in the first place. But magic can’t be used on me if I wished it, so that’s a good trade-off.”

“I agree that a unicorn would feel devastated with such things, but I right now am feeling perfectly fine!” Halas said, swirling some cream into her cup. “I’d imagine anything other than a unicorn learning that ability would be able to handle it.”

“I don’t know about that,” Bon Bon said, “I recall when he was still learning to control his power he had touched me and I felt slow and sluggish, along with a feeling of dread. Maybe your curse is overriding that at the moment? Letting it take the full brunt of what his power is doing.”

“OR, maybe he’s not using enough of whatever he’s using on her to get that effect!” Everyone looked at Lyra, who was then eating some purple pudding. “I mean, Anon did learn to control his power so it’s probably not at full power. He might need to use more of the stuff to get through it?”

Anon hummed, “I’m not sure if my ability works like that, Lyra.”

“How do you know?” she asked, poking at some black and white striped pudding. “It’s not like the trainers worked out your capabilities with that skill, what with you being the first-ever with this ability in our world.”

“…I suppose that’s true,” Anon said.

“So why not try and push your powers a bit, see how much you can actually get out of it,” Lyra asked, giving Halas a devilish smirk. “Surely Bonnie’s mom won’t care if you do it. Just think of it as helping him!”

“Um—”

“I mean, he is helping at the moment, so it’s the least you could do.”

Halas nervously chuckled, forcing a smile on her before turning to Anon. “She is right, I am quite thankful for all your help and I am doubtful it would affect me too much. I’ve handled worse things than what you’re doing right now.”

“I don’t really need to do this,” Anon said.

“No, no! It’s perfectly fine.”

Sighing, Anon closed his eyes and looked inside of him. Finding what he needed, he proceeded to push more of his power through his hand into Halas. At first, he let out a trickle, the bare minimum to make his power work. This didn’t feel like much was happening, so he pushed a little more through his hands, slowly building up more and more as he pushed his ability. It was then he started feeling something familiar touching his ability; magic.

Pausing from her drink, Halas’s eyes started to widen, finally feeling something. “Ah, okay. I’m feeling— Yes, I’m not particularly enjoying whatever you’re doing, please stop that.”

Finding it difficult to do, he had to pull his hand off of her. It felt as if his hand was stuck for a second there, like a very strong magnet pulling off of metal. Shaking his hand a few times to get that feeling off of him, Anon realized there was more to learn about his ability and how to control it. Looking back at Halas, it was only then that he had realized his hand was off of her and she hadn’t changed back.

Placing his hand on her once more, he looked relieved nothing bad happened. “So it does look like I can push more into you. I felt your core touching as well, which seems to be past your curse, which is surrounding it… I think?”

“She also didn’t turn back into a bear after you removed your hand,” Lyra noted, fascinated by what was going on. “So your nullification might have a buildup effect. The more you push into something, the longer the ability stays around. That’s interesting.”

“Not sure how that’ll come in handy down the line. That just makes me warier about using this on others. What if something happens like they can’t use magic ever again?”

“It just means you’ll have to learn more about your capabilities,” Bella Belle said, eating some buttered toast.

“Are you alright, honey?” Eddie asked Halas. Anon, examining her, saw she appeared a tad paler than before. “You’re not in too much pain I hope.”

“No dearie, I’m doing just fine, I just didn’t expect that to happen.” She then leaned forward, a hoof over her stomach with clenched teeth. “Ooh, I am a tad queasy in the stomach.”

“Hmm…” Eddie rang a bell beside him, calling for a servant who arrived quickly. “Please, go prepare her bed ready to lie down after she is done eating, and stay by her side should she need anything.”

“Darling, I’m not hurting that badly, just a bit off is all. I should be fine soon enough.”

“Regardless, I don’t want to take risks. Please go and rest.” Eddie looked at Anon, not with anger but more of curiosity. “Don’t think I’m upset with you, I’m just concerned for my wife is all.”

“No, I understand that.”

Eddie then looked off to the side in thought. “I wonder if your ability can be transferred to an object. It would be nice to bypass that curse of hers when you’re not around.”

“We could check that out when we return to Ponyville,” Bon Bon said, sipping on some tea. “So Anon, our plans are to be out in town for the day. Make sure you’re bundled up and to have your coin purse on you.”

“Pouch,” Anon corrected, “coin pouch.”

“It’s called a purse here, stop being silly. And eat some food, it wouldn’t do you good leaving with nothing in your stomach.”

Harrumphing, he grabbed some pieces of bread and something that suspiciously looked like blood sausage. It had a woody taste to it, quite appealing for him.

“So,” Anon started, swallowing his food, turning to Eddie “these two mentioned Winter Wrap-Up would be finishing today.”

“Ah, yes. How peculiar that Princess Celestia wanted the lands to have the snow cleared out earlier than is normally scheduled,” Eddie said, not looking too pleased. “It’s caused some headaches, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.”

“I hear she offered all the kingdoms close by a free service with changing the weather as well,” Halas said, seemingly better than before.

“Yes, I’ve heard those rumors as well,” Eddie said with a nod, “along with continued support throughout the year. I have to assume she’s attempting stronger efforts with better relations with beings outside our lands.”

“The minotaurs lands are worrying to me,” Halas said as she wiped her mouth from her drink. “Something enormous is going on in those lands, and with no news coming out from there, it’s difficult to know what may be happening.”

“We ponies never did have great relations with the minotaur clans, even though we’ve never had any major disputes concerning them,” Eddie said. “Those clans have always preferred their seclusion and find our continuous attempts at interactions and trade an annoyance. Regardless of individuals that may travel, they’re not representable to their clans. I just hope whatever may be happening over there doesn’t spill over into our lands.”

Eddie shook his head, looking at Anon in embarrassment. “I apologize; you were talking about Winter Wrap-Up.”

‘I swear the exposition here is going to kill me.’

“Yes, I just wanted to know more about what it is and how it’s done,” Anon said.

“It’s a fairly simple but important day that we ponies do every year. It’s got some history that relates to when Equestria was formed, but that’s a bit too long for me to explain. If you’re worried about whatever part you’d take in it, it’s not difficult at all. You could even join us at the head of it.”


Bon Bon squealed, smiling at what her father said. “That would be so much fun having him join us!”

“I think it would be good to have him participate,” Halas said. “Not many other beings partake in our wrap-ups, so having you could help show more interrelations with others.”

“Yes, but could someone explain to me what exactly you all do?” Anon asked.

“Hmm?” Eddie hummed. “Ah, we all enjoy a great celebration as we wrap up our winter, removing the snow for another glorious year.”

“It’ll be difficult trying to top last year’s wrap-up,” Lyra said, eating some orange pudding.

“True, but we have Anon here!” Bon Bon said. “Surely it’ll be one of the biggest in Equestria with him!”

“Okay, could someone just tell me what happens during it?” Anon brought up once more.

Anon was getting annoyed not getting a proper answer. Before Anon could attempt at getting it, a bell chimed throughout the building in repeated intervals. Eddie placed down his tea, getting up from his chair.

“It seems our representative has returned. I must be off now for important business. Halas, we should be going, with you taking a proper rest before you’re needed later.”

She looked at him, frowning. “Could I not skip the meetings this one time and spend my day with Anon? I wouldn’t want to miss out on what’s going out in town either. I am a very important part of it, after all! It would be worrisome if I wasn’t there!”

“Not exactly true,” Lyra mumbled.

“After all, I should get to know somepony who’ll be with my daughter!”

Lyra gritted her teeth as Bon Bon simply continued eating her meal. Eddie shook his head at his wife, “They will have to do without your presence this year, honey. You have important work that doesn’t involve being around our guests. Besides, we should leave them to their day, darling. While they may be staying here with us, it’s also their vacation time. Let them enjoy it.”

Halas’s frown deepened, holding onto Anon’s arm, very clear she didn’t want him leaving her vicinity.

“Well be back later on tonight, mom,” Bon Bon said, hoping to ease her mom off of Anon.

The mare-bear sighed, letting go of him and getting up from her seat. Moving from his hand, she immediately turned back into a bear with a pop before walking alongside Eddie as the two moved out of the room.

“Your mom’s a bit too forward,” Anon said, rubbing his arm.

“She just really likes you,” Bon Bon said with a smile that wasn’t all that convincing.

“Gee, I wonder why that is,” Lyra said as she sipped on a smoothie that none of them had noticed being at the table until just then.

“So I noticed that things were much calmer than they were last night,” Anon said as he saw Lyra eating some Polkadot looking pudding. “What’s with the change in demeanor?”

“We had a talk this morning and decided to have them play nice,” Bon Bon said while smiling at Lyra, who Anon noted turned away, her ears flattened down. “We’re vacationing; fighting defeats the purpose for us to enjoy our time together.”

“That’s the same for your mom?”

“Daddy talked to her a bit ago, and as it appears I’d believe she’s also behaving.”

“Alright then,” Anon said. He finished off his toast, wiping the crumbs off him. “So what’s the plan for today?”

“Lyra and I were talking about heading to the park in town for a while before heading off for lunch at a local restaurant.”

“What’s happening at the park?”

“We have some festivities that happen the day of Winter Wrap-Up. It’s the one thing beings other than ponies will be a part of, right before disappearing for the actual celebrations.”

“I wonder why the other beings don’t like your holiday,” Anon said as he finished off his drink and stood up, wiping off any crumbs on him.

“I don’t know why,” Bon Bon said with a shake of her head. “Maybe it’s because of their cultures? Or it’s not something they like to do?”

“Yeah, it’s really weird,” Lyra agreed, finishing off a second smoothie that had appeared out of nowhere much like the first.

“Come on Lyra,” Bon Bon said, getting up herself, “we should head out while it’s still early.”

Lyra gulped the rest of her drink down before slamming the cup on the table and jumping from her seat. Heading back to their rooms, they all started to prepare for their day out in the town. Anon had grabbed his coat and beanie while making sure he had his coin pouch. He didn’t care what anyone said, he wasn’t calling it a purse. Walking out to the foyer, Anon saw the other two with coats on, colored one shade darker than their bodies.

“Come on, Anon!” Lyra said energetically said, ready to leap out the door. “They have ice sculpting going on right now and I want to see who’s going to be the idiot this year to sculpt out a bear!”

“Why would that make them an idiot?” he asked, walking up to them.

“My mom seems to be offended whenever she sees those,” Bon Bon answered as the three of them headed out the door. “She’s normally out on the day for Winter Wrap-Up as a judge for the competitions going on.”

“It’s always entertaining to see which being’s suckered into making a bear. Bonnie’s mom always finds out and goes ballistic.”

The three of them walked down the streets full of different beings, whooping and hollering around. There were a lot of decorative pieces set up around the place, with everyone helping with snow and ice sculptures at every little place they could.

There were a few attempts at making something that looked similar to him, he was surprised to see. They were all in a heroic pose, something Anon didn’t agree with at all. There were quite a few creative pieces though. There were ice carriages, a flock of snowbirds, castles, and even a few large murals.

Anon stood in front of one that he particularly liked: ice cream cones that hung upside down that were shaped from ice drippings, hanging off a shop.

“You like those?” Lyra asked.

“Yeah, using what’s already there for your work like that, it’s pretty neat.”

“You should really look at the ones at the park then; those are going to be really awesome!”

“I’m not sure how much better they can get from what I’ve already seen.” Watching all the beings laughing and working on their projects was quite enjoyable for Anon. He wondered what they had planned for the actual celebrations. Speaking of which, Anon turned back to his two friends. “Hey, since I just remembered, you two mind finally telling me more about Winter Wrap-Up?”

“We could tell you more about it, but I think it would be better if you just experienced it without any expectations!” Lyra said.

“Lyra, something is telling me I really should know more about this.”

Lyra huffed, giving him a pout. “It’s not like it’s dangerous or anything, Anon. We’re going to be removing the snow from the place, reawakening the animals on the edge of our city, preparing the land with plants and whatnot, and finally ending it with a large sing out at the end!”

Anon stared at her for a few seconds before returning backing off. “Alright, that doesn’t sound so bad.”

“It really isn’t, Anon,” Bon Bon said. “As holidays go, Winter Wrap-Up is our safest on out of all of them.”

“So long as there’s nothing crazy about it all, I’m good.”

“Nope, nothing crazy at all!” the two said in sync, giving him matching smiles.

It was a little unnerving seeing that. Still, it didn’t sound like it would be bad, and it would be fun seeing things go down. Everything should be fine… right?

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“Whoosie, a pleasure to see you arrive just in time for today,” Eddie said, staring at the pony just entering his study.

“It’s good to be back. All the talks in Canterlot have made me quite worn down, yet excited for the future.”

“Have you talked to Mackerel about our transports?”

Horton took off his jacket before taking a seat directly across from Eddie and his desk. “He seems agreeable with allowing our town as the access point into the Kingdom of Ponyo. It’s quite fortunate we got it; our town can use some more tourism. Los Pegasus gets enough of it already.”

“I was more worried about Merlin’s unicorns,” Eddie said, looking at some papers on his desk. “If you recall, he was proposing to do the transportation work with possibly cheaper labor.”

“Yes, that did come up but Princess Celestia felt that the Ponyonians would feel more comfortable seeing something familiar to the last time we ponies had access to them. The unicorns weren’t on very good terms with the fish last we saw them.” Eddie poured a drink into two glasses, giving one to Horton before slowly drinking his own. “Merlin tried to argue that having his unicorns doing the work would show they have no ill will to our odd brethren in the sea, but I had no difficulties showing we were the better choice in the matter.”

“I can only imagine what would happen if Merlin was the first to meet them.” Eddie took another long drawn out sip from his drink before continuing, “Anything else that came up which might be of interest to me?”

“Yes, there is. While the plan is to have our town being the ones transporting and trading with the Ponyonians, they want to send somepony directly to speak to them throw, as Princess Celestia called it, a unification of all species.”

Eddie was confused hearing that, “What exactly do you mean the unification of all species?”

“Sir, all of the access ways around the world that was previously blocked are now clear for passage. It’s been several hundred years since we’ve had contact with any of them. The princess wants to send a… representative to help bridge things between all of us.”

“A representative?”

“The princess felt someone that was trained with the knowledge of the lands and their species along with their cultures should be the one that we send out. They’d visit the lands and their people, send and collect information, and to help with renewing our friendships between beings.”

“I assume it is her student, that Twilight Sparkle, that will be undertaking this responsibility. It will be interesting to hear what comes of that in the future.” Eddie looked at Horton who was gritting his teeth. “There’s more to this, isn’t there?”

“Twilight Sparkle was deemed too valuable as an Element and doesn’t have the proper training in what is needed. She may be brought with them, but she won’t be heading things. The princess instead presented somepony else that she had tutored but in a different manner than she deemed perfect for the job, seeing as it was her job in the first place. It’s… Lyra Heartstrings.”

He rubbed his temples, feeling what would be an oncoming headache forming. “Sweetie is not going to enjoy hearing that. They’re currently visiting here with her and a friend. Did you know she told us the two were finally together?”

“I wondered if that would ever happen. And if it makes you feel better about the situation, the princess actually wants her and their alien friend to join Lyra on her trips.”

Eddie sputtered out, “W-WHAT?! Why does she want my little girl to go along with them?!”

“Lyra is quite brilliant in her work, knowing the things needed with interacting with the beings, but she has a habit of getting sidetracked and, well… she needs an anchor. Bon Bon is to be that anchor for her. Along with being her bodyguard as well, for obvious reasons.”

“But she shouldn’t be traveling around like that! No, she should stay still in a nice, friendly town like Ponyville! That’s why I agreed with her going there in the first place without any fights, to stop that silly monster-hunting nonsense! There’s no telling what she may encounter out of our lands!”

Horton couldn’t help but feel it ironic, Eddie thinking Ponyville was safe. “Sir, I’m going to have to disagree with you on that. She’s had intense training in dealing with taking down monsters and knows how to stay focused on things. Bon Bon can adapt to whatever is thrown at her very well and is the only one I know of that can keep Lyra from being, well, idiotic on their trip.”

Eddie glowered at Horton, clearly not happy. “I dislike this a lot, Horton.”

“I know, sir.”

Tapping his desk, Eddie thought about his little girl. “I better make today a very special day for her. There must be something I can also help with her on this…” Turning around in his seat, Eddie stared out the window looking out into the town. “Whoosie, I can understand Lyra and my little Sweetie going, but why the human?”

“It’s due to his reputation, along with his alien status.” Eddie turned around, interested in hearing this. “He’s a true alien to our world and is aligned with our ponies. So far that’s been going very well from what we’ve been seeing. On top of that, the rebel event last month made Anon a hero just as popular as the Elements of Harmony with the ponies, but also with other beings as well.”

“Ah, I see. She wants to parade him around like a trophy.”

“Nothing of the sort! She—”

“Horton, you really need to lighten up,” Eddie said with a chuckle. “You’re always so defensive about the princess.” Horton harrumphed at that. “I get what she’s doing. Having the human along, she can showcase his recent accomplishments on top of showing he’s getting along with our people.”

“Along with being a… neutralizer for if things go wrong, she thinks he needs to visit others and see what is out there. He was reported as going stir crazy and depressed, being without any of his kind. On top of that, she’s led some hints to him about some of the lands from ponies around him, hoping to pique his interest in these places.”

The two sipped on their drinks, thinking about the future. “I have a question: has he really done all the things I’ve heard about him? About those rebels?”

Horton coughed, “Some things were… stretched, as to say, but there’s certainly kernels of truth in it. He most assuredly pummeled a great deal of their cast, and with his new powers, he’s not someone I’d ever want to go up against.”

“Interesting.”

A bong rang out, followed by several more. “I think we need to move on with things,” Eddie said. “The final day of Winter Wrap-Up is about to commence soon.”

“Are the stages set up?”

“Yes, with no complications thankfully. Why… Anon himself even volunteered to join us in this.”

Horton had a smile slowly creep on his face. “It’ll be fun seeing him with us.”

“True, true. I’m certain he’ll have fun in it.”

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Anon was not having fun.

He was having such a good day too. After going to the park, they nominated him on the spot as one of the judges for the sculpting. It was interesting walking around with the other judges and examining the creations.

For the snow sculptures, there plenty to see and judge. A vote with the other judges went to a massive caterpillar that was undergoing metamorphosis into a cocoon and then into a butterfly. It was extravagant with the details put into the piece.

He disagreed on a vote the others gave for one involving a minotaur holding a pony, which held a griffon. It was impressive, he agreed, but Anon’s vote went to the miniaturized town of Van Hoover a griffon had made. The amount of work and detail put into it was massive and he felt it deserved his vote. The griffon was quite happy to hear of that, not expecting much from his work.

Afterward, Anon had an enjoyable lunch, eating some local delicacies that involved fish of all things. The two girls were in great spirits, having done a little shopping here and there for clothing. They of course wanted Anon’s opinion on what they bought and had him give his opinion on their choices.

It really was a good time, up until the celebrations started to ramp up. The beginning wasn’t all that bad, watching the ponies starting to shovel certain areas and trying to wake up the animals; that was pretty neat. It wasn’t that bad until the ponies started to sing…

It came out of nowhere, something that quickly built up in volume. Instruments soon joined in, adding to the cacophony of madness that was overwhelming the town. Anon could see why the other beings wanted nothing to do with this; the singing almost got to him, forcing him to join in on their dancing and the chorus of the damned. He had already been informed it could be upwards of an hour, though it could be as long as four or five. The thought of him dancing and singing for that long sent a chill down his spine.

Luckily for him, his ability allowed him to snap out of the horrid magic that engulfed the town, but just barely. Anon ran as hard as he could away from it, but everywhere he turned, it followed him as if searching him out.

At the moment, he was running down an alleyway, hoping to get away from the singing that was attempting to suck him back in. He had barely made it out the last time it crept upon him, he wasn’t sure if he could get out of it if caught up to him again.

“HEY!”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a griffon yelling at him from a door he had just run past. Turning around, the griffon motioned for him to get in. Hoping to find some refuge, he dove through the door as the griffon slammed it shut.

Sweating heavily and breathing hard, he looked around from where he was laying and saw a group of griffons and minotaurs, along with a few beings he didn’t recognize. And of course, no ponies. Some of them were playing cards, while others were talking to one another. This all stopped once Anon dove into the room, with them all curious about their new arrival.

“I see we meet up once more,” he heard from his side.

Looking over, he could see the familiar face of the minotaur from yesterday. Kamos was smiling down at him, giving him a helping hand up.

Accepting it Anon got pulled up to his feet. “Thanks,” he said, wiping his brow from the accumulated sweat.

“No problem,” he answered. “It was quite funny to see we are experiencing a day of their singing and joyous celebrations just as we arrive in these lands.”

“And this is why I think we should just all avoid these places,” one of Kamos’s hooded friends said with arms crossed.

“It is a learning experience, Thane,” a female sounding minotaur said. “We were sent out to learn more about them and to try and open relations. It would have been a matter of time we would get stuck in something like this.”

“Can I conclude that they are all crazy and we go home?” Thane asked.

“What exactly are you trying to learn from the ponies?” Anon asked, brushing the dust from his clothes.

“I do not think that’s any of your business,” Thane asked, sounding annoyed.

Kamos glared at Thane, “I think you should be nicer to the Rebel Stomper, Thane. You would not want to sully our ties now, would you?”

Thane’s body shook from surprise, his hooded head turned to Anon. “I… I was not aware… I just thought—”

“It does not matter what you may think, there’s never a proper reason to outright be rude to others,” the still unnamed female said. Thane grunted out once the female minotaur bumped him in the side, turning to Anon. “I am sorry about my spoiled apprentice. My name is Thera. We’re simply here to observe and learn more about how they view us, their lands, and their own customs.”

“I do not think any of us expected to be involved in something as crazy as this!” Kamos said, letting out a loud guffaw.

“Neither did I,” Anon said with a sigh. “I wasn’t even informed about this. It’s difficult, learning about the ponies and their… oddness.”

“Does this deter you from them at all?” Kamos asked, genuinely interested.

Anon shook his head, “On the contrary, it just has me wanting to learn more about them. They’re quite friendly and have been nothing but helpful, so I have no doubt they’ll be there when I need them.”

“Yes… they are almost too friendly,” Thane commented.

“Yeah, they can be at times,” Anon agreed. “Coming from where I came from, they’re very, VERY open. But I just take it as a quirk of theirs. I’ve made plenty of friends from the ponies.”

Anon could see Kamos smiling, hearing that. “Then let me be another friendly being to add to that list.” He stuck his hand out. “Let me reintroduce myself more properly. My name is Kamos Fizzleknob, Son of Fizzleknob Clan, and current heir to the newly united lands of Minothesa.”

Thera freaked out, looking at the other beings in the room to see if they had heard; they had, in fact, not. “Should you really be telling him that information?” she asked in a low whisper as the two shook hands.

“We are trying to be friendly and open; hiding such things as who we are would not do well for us.”

Anon raised an eyebrow. “Then why are you cloaked?”

“It is somewhat difficult to walk anywhere without a minotaur or someone else spotting me for who I am at times,” Kamos said. “Before, I was just a chieftain child of the strongest clan, but now with my new role, it is not something I want to be constantly bugged about. It would defeat the purpose of seeing how my own integration into the pony lands and seeing them without any bias.”

“Ah, I think I get what you’re saying.” Anon rubbed the back of his head, looking at the door. “Sucks we all have to be locked in a place like this though. Not much of a place to experience things.”

Thera barked a laugh, “On the contrary! We get to see how the others in these lands handle such things when they come up!”

“Yes, having places designated for this and to hide from is a good idea,” Kamos said. “We may need to set up some things like this ourselves if we ever have them living on our lands.”

“Do ponies not live outside of Equestria?” Anon asked.

“Some do,” Kamos answered, “but never in large amounts. Minotaurs and griffons get agitated when they congregate in too large of a group for… reasons, this being one of the bigger ones.”

“I just say keep them out and we’d all be fine,” Thane said.

Thera thumped Thane’s head with her fist, “Keeping us segregated will do nothing but damage our people. We can not keep holing ourselves off from the rest of the world, especially with all the races coming out of the woodworks, as the saying goes. Even the griffons are doing better from their closer relations to the Equestrians, and they barely cooperate with them as it is!”

Thane rubbed his head, huffing to the side. “I still don’t like their culture. This singing is no less than torture!”

“We knew of the dangers when coming here, Thane,” Thera said with crossed arms.

“It’s not that bad, just a… cultural oddity of theirs,” Anon said. The three gave Anon looks of disbelief that he had said that with a straight face. “Okay, fine, this live musical of theirs is horrible.”

“Them saying ‘everypony’ is a cultural oddity,” Thane said. “This singing is a cultural nightmare.”

“Now,” Kamos started, “to be fair, this is a rarity for them to have such large celebrations for singing. It happens, what? At least ten times a year. Surely we can prepare for those times.”

Thane grumbled to himself as Thera hummed, “Hmm, true. I remember being in a… sing-a-long in the past, but it was only three of them. It only lasted a few minutes. It was more of an annoyance than anything.”

“And to think the human here has not been a part of a single one since coming here,” Kamos said before laughing out. “The luck this one has!”

“Everyone, hush up!” the griffon from before harshly whispered as the entire building held their collected breaths, standing still. The griffon, holding her head to the door, had the color draining from her face before looking at Anon. “Oh… Oh no,” she whispered to herself.

“What is it, Gloria?” a minotaur nearby whispered to her.

“They’re… they’re singing about… the human…”

The others, with their sharpened ears, could pick up what she said easily. Anon was sadly out of luck from his normal, human hearing. The others slowly moved back from him, moving into a back room without him noticing luckily.

“The song has already claimed him,” the minotaur said, backing away from the door. “He’ll… he’ll take us all with him if he’s caught here!”

The griffon at the door slowly turned to Anon before a thought struck her. “Excuse me, Anon was it?” the griffon said loud enough for him to hear. “I, um… I think someone’s trying to talk to you but I can’t reach the peephole without making too much noise. Could you check it out?”

“Couldn’t you just look yourself?” Anon asked.

“It’s not for me and I wouldn’t want to intrude on anything!”

Maybe it was simple naivete, or perhaps it was him remembering his earlier words with Bon Bon about not looking too into things like before, but Anon just shrugged and walked up to the door. The griffon slowly walked backward before silently scurrying into the backroom with the others. Anon, cautiously, looked through the peephole. There was only one problem here: there wasn’t one.

“…I’ve been snookered,” Anon muttered out just as the door behind him slammed shut.

“We are so very, very, veeeerry sorry!” Anon heard someone screaming through the door.

“Your sacrifice will be remembered!” the voice of Kamos shouted out.

Anon, attempting to turn around to try and get away found the front door slammed open. A mass of pony hooves came through the door, grabbing onto Anon’s back to pull him out with them. He attempted to dislodge the hooves from him, desperately trying to flee. But it was hopeless for him; the ponies had already claimed him.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

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Princess Celestia sat at her table, penning a letter that would be sent to Lyra’s house. In it was the next assignment that she would be sending her off to. The princess told the mare in the letter that she could bring along two beings with her on this first trip, though Celestia strongly hinted at her bringing Bon Bon and Anon. She would also send a stack of documents for Lyra to read through about the different beings she would be encountering on her trips and what to prepare for.

Sitting back, the princess had to wonder if Lyra could truly handle it all. The Kingdom of Ponyo, Gryphonia, Minothesa, and Camelot just to name a few were four of the more important nations she needed to secure better ties with. Certain places like Yakiyakistan could be held off until the less traveled lands were addressed. Ponyo was being extremely open with her, and Camelot strongly wanted to have their ‘heroes’ face off against their own. Anon would be integral to all of this, as would Lyra and Bon Bon.

Thinking on the human, she was glad that there was little issue with getting him back from the rebels when they had. While she may have sent off Twilight and her friends to go get them along with Discord, in reality, she had sent two large armies around both bases, just in case anything didn’t go her way. Luna was quite happy that they didn’t question why there were so many chariots in the town when they left. That wouldn’t have been a fun conversation with Twilight to have.

It was quite embarrassing for her to have the first-ever alien foalnapped right under her nose. While Minothesa was quiet on the subject, Gryphonia certainly wasn’t. Her only saving grace was that she ended the entire ordeal within a few days of it happening.

Celestia knew she had a hoofful of work to get through dealing with this all. She still needed to figure out what was happening in Minothesa and needed to work out why the king of Gryphonia was being so aggressive as of late. She had thought long and hard about where she would first send Lyra to while talking to her sister and what her little spies had gathered up.

Ending the letter with a wax seal on the envelope, Princess Celestia worked up a spell before the letter and the documents went out the room in a green slither of mist, to be deposited in Lyra’s house.

“At least she’ll have a few days to relax before she goes out,” Princess Celestia said before standing up to find Inkwell. She still needed to work out why Cadance was having trouble with a cave near her lands that just wouldn’t let anypony in. There just wasn’t any time for her to relax, she found.


~End Chapter Twenty-Three~









Chapter Twenty Four – Decisions, Decisions…


Anon was a tired, broken man. There was nothing more to say to that statement, for it was a fact. The torturous endeavor he had gone through was something no man should have ever been forced to endure for any reason. He was certain it would be classified as a war crime back on his planet what had transpired.

The ponies were not the cute, cuddly things they were made out to be. On the inside of that bubbly exterior was a hideous interior full of barbs and needles, ready to strike out at their foes. It could be your sweet little sister or your sickly grandmother, possibly your childhood friend or even your neighbor Bob. Of course, no one liked Bob, so he was an exception.

He was but a plaything to these ponies, Anon had realized. Their torture was the kind that would stretch for as long as it could, surgically cutting into you, slicing deep at an insanely slow speed, to allow one to feel every bit of the pain it produced. Every muscle in your body would ache in pain from overexertion. Your very throat will feel like hot coals were thrown down them as it screamed in agony.

“Anon, it wasn’t that bad.”

If one could survive what they put you through, it would be an uphill battle to return to your life as if nothing had happened. They had ways of making one feel helpless and small like you were nothing. And they made promises on returning, to continue the job with an eagerness one would find disturbing.

“Seriously, get up.”

In the end, you would find yourself realizing you were surrounded by a pony-driven mad world.

“You’re being silly.”

And they were inviting you to join them…

“He’s not going to listen to you like that, Lyra,” Bon Bon said, watching Lyra poking at Anon’s prone form on his bed.

He hadn’t moved from the bed ever since the pony sing-a-long the other day. The moment it had ended, he slowly walked back to the house, went into the room, and laid on the bed, staring at the ceiling. The others thought he was being over-dramatic about the whole thing; they just didn’t understand.

“Come on, we only sang and danced for a little while!”

‘Over four hours does not equate to a little while.’

“Surely you had fun with us?”

Lyra’s attempts at opening Anon up were futile. He was a broken man, one that would lay shattered to the ends of time. There was nothing that could salvage this broken vessel, nothing to mend the pieces together once more.

“Lyra, you’re doing it wrong,” Bon Bon said, walking up to Anon with something beside her. Bringing it up to Anon, she lifted the lid, placing it near his face. “Why, look at that! It’s Calydonian! Straight from the griffon lands themselves.”

The smell that wafted from the tray nearly made him drool on the spot. Slowly sitting up, Anon could see something that looked eerily reminiscent of a… ham steak!?

He didn’t need an invitation, picking it up with his bare hands and biting down into it. The thing didn’t taste at all like a ham steak; it was even better! It was as if the meat gods had descended from the heavens and blessed his meal, feeling pity for his terrible life. A small tear wept from his eye, trailed down his face at truly tasting heaven.

“Guess we’re picking up more Calydonian when we get home,” Lyra said with a pout, upset her attempts had failed.

It was only after half of the steak was done that Anon felt satisfied, and dare he say, happy. There was nothing like meat after so long of nothing that could make one perk up with joy. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t have night terrors about what had happened, but he could at least live on knowing there would be meat in the near future.

“Huh. I didn’t even have to bring this out,” Bon Bon said, obviously meaning the second dish Anon hadn’t even noticed.

More out of curiosity to how he’d react, Lyra lifted the tray, revealing—

“BACON!”

Oh, it appeared that Anon was now on the ground, eating at the mound of bacon that they had hidden from him. How DARE they do that! Hiding such a thing from him, they were truly monsters…

Sitting on the ground, eating his meat, Anon was content at the moment, not caring about what was happening around him. As it so happened, there was a knock at the door, alerting the two ponies to it. Opening, Rosie peered her head in. “Is every—” She stopped, noticing Anon on the ground, eating the food with his bare hands. “Are… why is he eating on the ground like that?”

Bon Bon didn’t answer, “I’m assuming our carriage is ready for the train home?”

Rosie didn’t take her eyes off of Anon. “Yes ma’am, along with your personal effects being stored on it. The train will be departing soon so you should… probably start heading out soon.”

“Thank you, Rosie. It pains me to know I won’t be able to say my farewells to my parents.”

“They are currently talking as it is about some new trade routes that will be direct to our port, but they do wish you would write them more often.”

“I’ll make sure to remember when I get back to Ponyville.”

“If there is anything else that you need,” Rosie put out, still staring at Anon munching at his food.

“No, we’ll be down to the carriage once Anon is done here.”

“…Very well. I am needed elsewhere at the moment. I do hope you have a safe trip back.” And with that, she was gone.

Anon hadn’t heard a single word that was spoken, too focused on the bacon. Once he had devoured every last bite, he licked his fingers and let out a satisfied sigh. He then blinked, looking around the room. “Wait, what’s going on now?”

“We’re leaving back to Ponyville,” Lyra said, helping Anon up. “We should go now so we don’t miss the train.”

Brushing his pants off, Anon followed behind them out the door. Exiting the building, they walked down the steps before stopping at a carriage out in front. It was currently attached to two ponies that were the draft horses, or ponies, for it. They didn’t even look in their direction as the three of them got into their seats, only taking off once they had done so.

It was only halfway into their trip that Anon turned to Bon Bon. “Where did that come from?”

“Did what come from?”

“The meat.”

“Oh, that?” Bon Bon didn’t look amused for some reason. “It was a gift from a griffon that gave it to me to pass off to you. I almost forgot about that, she said it was an apology for something that happened yesterday. Do you know anything about that?”

Anon rubbed his chin. “The only thing that comes to mind is—” He stopped, remembering the place he was hiding in. How they abandoned him to his fate…

Shaking his head, Anon forced those memories deep, deeeeep into the back of his mind, hoping to forget what had transpired the other day. He then looked at Bon Bon, who appeared worried, smiling at her. “Nope, not a clue!”

“Are you s—”

“Nothing trauma-inducing happened at all! Nope!”

Lyra and Bon Bon looked to one another before shrugging it off, uncertain they wanted to know.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

His trip from the train was better prepared, now that he knew what to expect. Inside his cabin, he made sure the door was closed tight so when the rolling tide of ponies came through, there was no chance of him being swallowed up. It was entertaining watching Lyra and Bon Bon through that ordeal; they stood stock still, jittering in place before slamming up against the door. It attempted to open itself, but Anon was capable of easily keeping it shut. The only thing that worried him was that it didn’t appear to open by magic, but as if by a supernatural force. Perhaps getting his two little investigators to look into it would give him some incite about why it happens. And if anything, he’d at least be amused by the results.

Once he got back to his house, Anon threw his suitcase at the foot of his bed, not caring about unpacking. Right then, he just wanted to sit down in the living room, maybe read a book, and relax for the remainder of the day. The trip was tiring and he was simply happy to be back in someplace that wasn’t psycho, groupie, cocaine, crazy.

Okay, well, not so bonkers at least. While Van Hoover had some interesting places to go to, and he was quite interested in their food, that place will forever hold bad memories for him. Bad memories…

Feeling something shift on his side, Anon saw Bon Bon taking a seat, having just placed down a tray of tea and cups. She gave one to him, already served up. “Thanks,” he said, taking a sip. “Gingerbread?”

“The Cakes were selling them for cheap a while back,” she said, taking her sip. “I guess they’re still experimenting on making that flavor, it’s not perfect.”

“Yeah, it’s got a… what would you say? Something is off like it’s got a woody taste to it.”

“I can agree with that. Still, cheap tea is cheap.”

“True that.”

Sipping on their tea, Lyra came over and sat beside Bon Bon before serving herself some tea as well. “So, we’ve got a few more days before my little vacation runs out. While all the snow is gone, there isn’t going to be much of anything happening out in town. Some businesses will be closed, trying to fix their stocks for Spring weather and there won’t be any events happening for some time. Early springs suck.”

“It’s nice to have the grass back,” Anon said. “While I love the winter, returning to warmer weather will be nice.”

“It just sucks there isn’t going to be anything to do for my vacation. I was expecting tobogganing and ice fortresses and such, but now there’s just early Spring.” Lyra said, taking a sip. “Still, I c—” She spat out her drink, a disgusted look on her face. “W-Whaaa? Bonnie?! Why are you serving dirt flavored tea?!”

“I didn’t think it was that bad…” Bon Bon said.

Lyra started to pull on her tongue with her hooves, trying to remove the flavor.

Anon sighed, setting his cup down. “Okay, yeah. The tea is pretty bad.” Bon Bon mimicked him, grumbling to herself.

At that moment, a twinkling noise appeared, reverberating through the air. A green glow started to pulse over on the wall, over where Lyra usually worked. Her lantern was the culprit for all of this.

“Oh!” Lyra exclaimed, jumping from her seat and walking over. Slapping the top, she pulled out a fat stack of papers and a letter. Turning around, she looked at the two before letting out a chuckle, “I’ve got that thing to go off every hour whenever I get a package and I haven’t checked on it yet. But the only one that has its receiving signature is Princess Celestia…”

“Gee, I wonder who it was from then,” Anon sarcastically said.

“I don’t know!” Both Bon Bon and Anon deadpanned at her as she inspected the letter. Looking at it, she gasped. “It’s from the princess!”

“No way,” the two said in unison.

“Right?!” Lyra went on to read through the letter with gusto. “Dear Lyra, yadda-yadda… documents… yeah, yeah, okay…” She let out another gasp at what she had read before looking up at the two of them. “Princess Celestia… she wants me to do my job!”

Anon slapped his hands to his cheeks. “Gasp! How horrible!”

Bon Bon couldn’t help but giggle. Lyra shook her head, huffing out. “No! I mean she wants me to do what my job is meant for! I… I never thought this would ever happen!”

“What your job was meant for?” Anon was confused. “I thought it was to collect information and the whole, well, alien thing.”

Lyra shook her head, “No, the alien thing was just my work that the princess was fine with. And while my job is to collect and help to both order information given to me and help give suggestions where needed, that’s merely something attached in the past to give my position busywork. My position is primarily meant as a kind of, well, a go-between for the other races.”

Bon Bon frowned, “I remember you saying something about this. The job was created as a way to cross bridges between beings and outside nations. While you’re not an ambassador per se, since you don’t stay in a foreign country as one would, you go between the nations to help settle disputes, collect information, and act as a dignitary for our nation amongst other things.”

Anon looked at Lyra, surprised. “I knew that your work was important, but I wasn’t aware that you were such a bigwig. Having similar powers, if not more, than an ambassador is enormous.”

“I’m not anyone important,” Lyra said, scratching a hoof on the ground.

“You stop that,” Bon Bon interjected. “Lyra here not only went through the School for Gifted Unicorns, something a VERY select few are allowed but was also tutored by the princess herself.”

Lyra lifted a hoof in defense, “Princess Celestia only taught me so much before I needed proper tutors for my job! Everypony knows that Twilight was her protege.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Lyra,” Bon Bon said. “No, you’re not Twilight special, but you’re still extremely magically gifted. I don’t think I know of anyone that can take apart runes better than you, and your magical capacity is massive, like the top one percent in the world alongside Twilight. And your job is difficult to even acquire, no single pony knows how the princess chooses them and there can only be one at any given time for any nation.”

“So other ponies have had this job?” Anon asked.

Bon Bon nodded, not giving Lyra any time to respond. “Other nations also have Kommunelegatusionists that go out on such roles, but after all the other nations closed ties or disappeared, it left very few nations with the position with an active role. I think the only other active role right now would be in Aquastria and… I can’t remember the other one, something about talking cats.”

Lyra let out a sigh, “It’s a title that didn’t have any power at all like it used to. I was simply happy to have something that allowed me to do what I’ve always wanted. I never thought I’d be in a position where I’d go out and do what this title was made for.”

“What is the princess expecting you to do?” Anon asked, leaning over in his seat.

Looking back to her letter, Lyra read through it quickly once more. “She wants to send me out to the other nations, of course, and to check on some for each of them. Nothing too difficult there, check-in on the people, see if there’s anything fishy going on she should know about, help out when needed, et cetera. I’m also supposed to keep this information to myself and my party.”

Bon Bon and Anon slapped their foreheads, Lyra completely oblivious.

“Oh! I can choose two beings to be with me!” She looked at Bon Bon and Anon, a large smile present on her. “Eeh?! Eeeeeh?!”

“I don’t see any reason why I can’t go along,” Bon Bon said. “I’ll just sell my wares to other stands to sell themselves. It’ll cut on the profits but I’m assuming the princess is paying the two you’re taking.”

“Yep!” Lyra then turned to Anon. “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh?”

Anon frowned. He knew something was going on with the princess. “Never such a thing as a free lunch.” A sigh escaped his lips, “See, I knew she was up to something. I feel like I don’t have much of a choice in this matter.”

Lyra tilted her head in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“The princess and her “gifts”,” he said with air quotes. “On top of the whole paying for this house, she’s also been paying me a stipend while being here with you, gave you a paid vacation, and was extremely lenient on any kind of punishment on your group for going out to get me. I just don’t feel like I have much a choice in this. Saying no would be equivalent to spitting in her face for all she’s done.”

Now it was Bon Bon who looked at Anon in confusion. “One, ew. Two, while I don’t agree with some things the princess has done, she’s the type to help others because she wants to. You shouldn’t feel like you’re being forced to do anything.”

“Excuse me for thinking she’s had an ulterior motive this whole time,” he said, crossing his arms. “Even still, it wouldn’t look right if I decided to bow out after all she HAS done for me.”

“So you… don’t want to come with us?” Lyra asked, ears drooping down.

“I didn’t say that, just that I feel like I can’t exactly say whether I want to or not.”

“So you are coming?”

Anon grumbled, “There isn’t much else for me to do here anyways other than sitting around now that I don’t have a job to go back to. Besides, might as well see what’s out there in the world.”

“Yeah, I doubt you’d want to be bugged by the trainers the entire time we were gone,” Bon Bon told him as she stood up to remove the offensive tea.

“Why would they come back?” Anon asked.

Lyra let out a nervous chuckle, “I sort of, kinda felt I had to report about the whole curse thing back in Van Hoover and one of them is coming out to look at how it can remove curses like that, along with the whole not being able to hear Bonnie’s mom.” Anon groaned, sitting back into the couch with a hand over his face. “Sh-she’ll only be around for a little while for a few days before we leave though! I couldn’t just say nothing!”

“When’s she coming?”

“Tomorrow in the morning. He’ll check things out and then leave you alone for the rest of the day, I swear! Princess Celestia even said so!”

“We can still relax and have some fun before we leave,” Bon Bon said, returning with a new pot of tea. “It won’t be a few more days until we have to do anything.”

Anon stood up, stretching his back before making his way to his bedroom. “That sounds fine. I’m beat from everything so I think I’m gonna call it early today,” he said with a wave behind his back.

With the door closing behind him, Lyra looked at Bon Bon. “Do you think he’s upset with something?”

“Maybe he’s hesitant on going outside our lands,” Bon Bon said, serving another cup for her and Lyra. “Plus, we did say it was supposed to be a vacation for this week yet he’s still got a trainer coming in tomorrow. We don’t know how long he’ll be here, no matter what was assured previously; the trainer could decide he needs to stay longer.”

“Oh…” Lyra looked at the ground with a frown. “I ruined our vacation, didn’t I?”

“Why would you think that?”

Lyra placed the letter and documents down, sitting down at her desk. “I don’t know, isn’t it always my fault when something goes wrong?”

Bon Bon walked up to her, rubbing Lyra’s back. “No you goof, why would it be? I bet he’s just tired from yesterday. I won’t say he’s not upset about the trainer, but I’m sure he understands that you had to tell the princess about it.”

Lyra stared down at the letter and papers she hadn’t looked at. Bon Bon could see she was thinking about something, and with her face making different expressions, she was developing something to do in her head like she usually does. “What are you planning?”

“Something for Anon of course,” she said, jumping from her seat and walking to the front door. “I’ve got a lot of ponies I need to talk to for this to work.”

“For what to work?”

She turned around, smiling at her, “To give Anon a party tomorrow, of course!”

Before Bon Bon could figure out what that amounted to, Lyra left the house, jumping down the street to her destination. “Hopefully Anon survives whatever she’s planning.”

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“How fascinating!”

The pony across from Anon peered at his ears for a bit, looking at it through some odd device that flashed different colors. It was quite obviously magical, from the gem that was set inside the middle of it all.

“It seems the colors turn back to a bright white the moment it starts to get near your ears!” She scratched something on a notepad before returning to the ear. “What’s interesting about this is the nullification is acting outside your body instead of on or in! By my measurements, it’s about half an inch away from your ear, forming a dome-like shield around it.” More scratches on her pad, “I’ve never seen anything like this! Our magic inhibitors truly have nothing on whatever you are.”

“Magic inhibitors?” Anon asked, keeping his head straight. “So you ponies do have something that stops magic like me.”

The trainer hummed, still trying to measure the exact size of the dome she was seeing. “Not quite. Our magic inhibitors simply stop magic from being used. You not only do that but from what the trainers before had documented and what had happened in Van Hoover, you can actively neutralize it entirely! It’s why when you have that nullification coating around your body activated, the magic simply goes away when it touches you in any form.”

The pony placed her device down, messing with her notepad before turning back to Anon. “The trainers that came before me only thought the nullification was a defense mechanism that reached across your body like armor and turning magic off when you touched things. But seeing as you can push it out and into others, it’s clear that we’re dealing with something much more dangerous. How exciting!”

“You’re not scared of this?” Anon asked, watching the pony bring up the instrument at an angle.

“Certainly! But if I was to shy away from every little thing that scares me, I wouldn’t be where I am today!” She placed her tools down, scratching on her notepad one more time before taking out a tray of cooked bacon. “Now, I had heard that you prefer this over what we normally eat, so I brought some over as a way to show some form of goodwill, along with helping in the next part of this.”

Taking the bacon, Anon was pretty excited seeing it so soon. It died down a little, looking at its state. “Is there something wrong?” the pony asked.

“It’s cold…”

“Ah,” he mumbled, writing something down. “…Prefers hot… hmm… hmmm… Okay, so this next part I want you to eat a piece.”

“That’s it?” Seeing the pony nod, Anon took one and happily shoved it into his mouth.

While it was cold, the taste was still as fantastic as it was the last time. Anon took his time chewing the piece of bacon in his mouth, savoring the flavor as long as he could. The pony simply wrote down his observations into his pad, not wanting to interrupt things.

When it was clear Anon was finished, the pony gave him another piece of bacon. “Okay, eat this piece as well, but this time put your nullification on your tongue while doing so.”

Not seeing any reason not to do as he was asked, especially since he was being given bacon, he looked inside himself and activated the trigger. It took a bit to work it into his tongue, finding the sensation odd. Immediately, he felt something… off, like there was something horribly wrong going on. He smacked his lips, trying to get that wrongness out of his mouth.

“Is there something wrong?” the pony asked.

“Something feels strange in my mouth, I don’t know why.”

“Try eating the bacon, maybe that’ll help?”

Following his directions, Anon started to chew on the bacon. Immediately, he felt something had gone wrong, and now he knew why. The bacon had lost its previous shine in flavor. It tasted duller, like whatever was there had vanished. It still tasted of high-quality bacon, but it didn’t give him that great feeling of fullness and satisfaction like it did previously.

Anon told the pony this, her eyes widening. “How thrilling! So it does appear even organs inside of you can be individually affected, like your tongue! Oh, as to why the flavor had gone, the food still has bits of magic you were digesting inside of yourself.”

“Can I stop?”

“Hmm? Oh, yes, I’m quite done with everything for today. We’ve learned so much in the hour I’ve been here haven’t we!” The pony continued scribbling things down into her pad as all the tools she brought with her were levitated into her pack. “You can keep the bacon; I have no need for it.”

“Gee, how nice of you.”

“While I am helping you to train and collect information from you, I do hope that we can extend some branch of friendship, Anon.”

“A little hard to when the simplest of things, such as giving out names, are forgotten…”

The pony had the decency to look ashamed of herself, blushing in embarrassment. A cough before she reached out a hoof. “I do apologize; the pursuit of knowledge had gotten ahold of me once more. My name is Smoky Ditz.” Anon shook her hoof, making sure to keep his ability turned off.

“So same time tomorrow?” Anon said as the pony started getting up.

“Yes, we’ll likely be looking more into how your senses work on curse magic and that dome of yours, curious about you projecting that from yourself.”

“Projecting?”

“Why, yes! That dome of yours proves that your ability can extend off of you, so it’s likely you can put up a kind of field around yourself if given practice.”

“What use would there be in teaching me that kind of thing?”

“There are a few practical uses I can think of, such as working them into our inhibitors to learning more about how your ability works. Fascinating stuff to look at, your nullification. I’ll be out of your hair now, certain you want to go back to whatever it is you do. I must go find my lodgings with the previous trainer. Strange that she’s been delegated to foalsitting instead of working with you. How peculiar."

And just like that, the pony was gone with one final wave, leaving Anon sitting at a table with a small tray of cold bacon. It was still bacon, which Anon was slowly eating as he sat there, thinking about his ability.

“I wonder what else I can do with this,” he thought, pushing a little onto his hand as he ate with his other. “Maybe it could work on other things besides magic? I could do something like nullifying someone’s movements? Yeah, that’d be rad.”

Hearing the clopping of hooves, Anon turned his head, watching Lyra make her way up to him. Taking a seat right by him, she looked at the bacon, confused.

“Trainer gal brought it here for her work.”

“That’s awfully kind, and strange, of her.”

Anon shrugged, “Don’t care, free bacon.”

“Alright… Anyways! I’ve been doing some things out in town and I have something fun planned for us to do today.”

He paused in chewing his bacon, turning to Lyra. “Oh?”

She shook her head up and down, “Yep! It took a lot of work but I got somepony to help me out and it’s going to be so much fun!”

“I, uh… What about Bon Bon? Couldn’t she go instead?”

“Bonnie said she had to talk to some ponies about her candy,” Lyra said with a pout. “I told her she should just sell it all to Pinkie, but then she kept arguing why that was a really stupid idea.”

“A hopped up Pinkie on that much candy is kind of a stupid idea, Lyra.”

She harrumphed, continuing, “So she’s going to do things out in town while we go out and have some fun! Don’t worry, it’s relatively safe even!”

“I suppose relatively safe is better than not safe at all,” Anon said, swallowing his bacon.

“So come on and get ready for a fun time!”

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“This does NOT look like a fun time, Lyra!”

Parked right in front of Anon was a hot air balloon.

“Oh come on, you sounded interested in this the first time I brought it up!”

“That was before I knew you ponies had barely any safety regulations for anything at all!”

The pony that was working the balloon looked at Anon, confusion on her mind. “What are safety regulations?”

“Anon, at least try it out! It’ll be fun! Going up in the sky, seeing everything from high up, and look!” She brought up a basket with her magic in the air. “I also brought snacks!”

“She did already pay for the ride,” the pony balloonist said, “along with getting me out here in the first place. I don’t even open this up for another few weeks for rides.”

Looking at Lyra, giving him the puppy-eyed look, he inwardly groaned to himself, feeling it was a bad idea to do this, before slowly walking to the balloon. Lyra looked overjoyed, skipping up to the balloon and getting inside it. Getting in himself, Anon felt that it was too low of a wall for him, already regretting his decision.

“I better not die up there or I’m coming back to haunt you, Lyra.”

“I don’t know why you think my balloon is so unsafe,” the balloonist said, closing up the entrance.

“This thing was made with ponies in mind, not humanoids.”

“Huma-what now?”

“A term from back home; mean beings similar to my build. Just think bipedal. There aren’t even any guard rails on this thing. What if this thing buckles in the air? I don’t hit a wall, I hit air and fall!”

“Hmm…” The pony rubbed her chin, thinking about what he had said. “Guard rails…”

“At least it’s pretty wide, though it’d have to be for ponies now that I think about— why are we going up?” Anon could already see he was a few feet in the air, just then feeling the balloon moving, and it was gaining height.

“I already unhitched the balloon for y’all once you got on,” the pegasus said, watching them slowly raise into the air. “Just remember to bring that back in two hours!” The pony started muttering something about guard rails, walking away from them.

Anon on the other hand was holding on for dear life, already a few meters too high in the air to reconsider jumping back out.

“It’s fine, we’re going to have so much fun!” Lyra said, patting his shoulder. That only made him more nervous. “Are… you okay?”

“Oh, just peachy! I just get a tad nervous over very unsafe things I’m a part of,” Anon said, looking down at the ground which was getting further and further away from him.

Lyra, hoping to cheer him up, grabbed her basket, and opened it up. Inside was a few glass bottles of some kind of drink along with a few pieces of fruit and hotdogs. Lyra levitated one over to Anon who shakily grabbed it. Lyra frowned seeing this while also levitating over an apple.

She then smiled, trying to keep up appearances. “We’ll be over all of Ponyville soon! You’ll be getting the best sight of it up here in the sky. Won’t that be great!”

“Maybe. I don’t know.” Anon just held his hotdog while sitting down on the basket floor, trying to keep calm about the situation.

After a few minutes, the balloon had gotten quite high. Lyra peered over, letting out a whistle.

Looking over himself, Anon had to agree with that. It was interesting seeing the entire place from up high.

“Okay, that’s some view,” he said. Lyra smiled hearing that.

The two of them sat there, enjoying their meal, and looking at things in the sky. Anon had even calmed down considerably, though he was still anxious to get down.

“Just out of curiosity, but how do we get to the ground in this thing?”

“Oh, that’s easy! See, right up there is a—” She paused, looking scared. Anon also looked, mimicking her fears.

There, flying right beside the balloon itself, was a pig with wings. As shocking as that was for Anon, what made him afraid was that the pig was, for whatever reason, clamping onto the balloon for dear life.

“Why… is there a flying pig… on our balloon?”

Lyra gulped, trying to find answers to that, “I don’t know. Pigasus are usually found in packs, so if there’s one, you’re bound to find more in the vicinity. Maybe it got lost from its pack?”

“And why is it holding onto our balloon?”

“It’s afraid of falling if it lets go?”

“Tell me you’re joking. It has wings.”

“They’re not very smart, okay?!”

Anon, standing up, slowly made his way to the thing while hunched over. Luckily, he was able to stand upright while on the edge, though the sight from down below made his stomach churn.

Only a foot away from the flying pig, he turned around, looking at Lyra, “How do I get it off?”

“I… I don’t know! I’d use my magic but I’m afraid the pig would freak out!”

Looking back at the stupid creature, Anon tried grabbing one of its wings to pull it off.

“SQUWEEE!”

Okay, so that didn’t work. It just held on tighter. Anon then tried to grab its body and pull it off.

“SQUWEEEEEE!”

That didn’t work either, the darn thing just didn’t want to let go and Anon didn’t feel confident enough with his position to fully grab around its body. So, Anon in his vast intellect and great wisdom concluded what to do next.

He slapped it.

“SQUWEE!”

And again.

“SQUWEE!”

It jiggled with each slap.

“SQUWEE!”

The hindquarters on this thing were almost like gelatin.

“SQUWEE!”

“Is this really better than my magic?” Lyra asked.

“SQUWEE!”

“Do you have any better ideas?”

“SQUWEE!”

“…Can I slap it next?”

“SQUWEE!”

“No, I’ve almost got it I think.”

“SQUWEE!”

“Wow, that fella just doesn’t want to let go.”

“SQUWEE!”

“I really, REALLY dislike your magical creatures.”

“SQUWEE!”

“It’s turning dark red.”

“SQUWEE!”

"You're not trying to cook it through friction are you?"

"SQUWEE!"

"Of course not, that' silly."

"SQUWEE!"

“Maybe it likes being slapped?”

 “SQUWEE!”

The two of them were starting to get annoyed by the pig with wings. Anon, rearing his hand back for a massive slap, swung at the pigasus once more. Seeing this, pigasus let out a squeal of fright before dropping from the balloon. Immediately, it realized that it had wings and started to flap, readjusting itself before wobbly flying away.

“Sheesh! That thing was annoying!”

“Uhhh, Anon?”

Looking up, he could see the pigasus had left behind cuts inside the balloon itself. The moment he realized that was trouble, the balloon started to deflate fast with them plummeting to the ground.

Anon fell backward into the basket as Lyra yelped from the sudden jerking of the balloon. The two of them started screaming as they plummeted to the ground, holding onto one another for dear life. They weren’t sure how this would turn out, not likely to be a pretty site for them when they stopped.

Suddenly the entire form hit something, making them slam into the basket. It then bounced back into the air lightly, jumping up and down for a little while before finally stopping. Anon, sitting up, let out a groan of pain as Lyra kicked her hooves, trying to stand back up.

Once he had some semblance of control over his body, he attempted to stand up, only feeling the entire basket swaying to one side. Looking around, he didn’t see any trees, so he wasn’t sure where he was. For some reason, he thought he might still be in the air, though that couldn’t be right as the balloon was deflated and hung on something that looked suspiciously like a cloud.

“WHAT IN THE HAY ARE YOU DOING TO MY HOUSE?!” A familiar blue pony popped its head above the basket, looking quite peeved. “What do the two of you have to say for yourselves?!”

“…Pigasus suck,” Anon said, flopping back down onto the basket. Dash simply looked confused at what he had said.

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After explaining the situation, Dash couldn’t help but laugh at their predicament. Then she laughed even more at the mentioning of the pigasus. Lyra had used some sort of spell that allowed her to walk on clouds. Anon himself wasn’t convinced to leaving the balloon using such a spell on himself.

“I don’t think this is such a good idea.”

“Don’t worry, so long as that spell is working and you don’t turn on your ability, you should be safe,” Lyra said, walking up to the basket. Dash looked amused at the entire situation, watching Lyra convince Anon to walk on a cloud.

“So no jumping to my death or anything? I’ve not had good interactions with clouds in the past, mind you.”

“Bah,” Dash said with a wave of her hoof, “if that ever happened I’d just catch you.”

“And, if for some reason, you don’t?”

“…The fall will only hurt a little?”

“Yeah, I suppose death will help with that.”

Dash looked confused at that statement. Lyra walked up to her, whispered something in her ear, right before paling slightly. “Oh, yeah. Okay, that explains a lot. Maybe you should just try and get him down in the basket then?”

And now the two were slowly bringing the balloon down from the air, with Rainbow Dash holding onto the deflated balloon and Lyra helping levitate it still. Once on the ground, Anon stumbled out of the basket and collapsed out.

“God almighty why did you think that was a good idea?”

“It’s not like I thought that a pigasus of all things would come around and pop the balloon!”

In no time, Dash had laid the balloon flat on the ground, landing near the two. “Kinda sucks you didn’t want that spell used, would’ve liked to show you around the place.”

“Maybe if your house wasn’t so high in the sky I wouldn’t mind that.”

“I’ll just have to remember to bring it down low enough for you next time!”

“You can just move that thing around whenever you want, can’t you? Man, it must be pretty nice being able to move whenever you want.”

“Totally! Even better, I can shape whatever I want up there. Need a new wardrobe? Just shape those clouds and I’ve got one.”

“You’ll have to show me how you do that someday.”

“Sure! But right now, I just want to head back up and return to my nap.”

“Hiding from your coworkers?”

Dash stuck her tongue out before flying back up to her cloud. Lyra sighed, turning to Anon. “So, problem. I have to go and find Cherry Berry to tell her what happened. Could you stick around and watch the balloon while I go do that?”

“I don’t want to move at the moment anyway,” Anon said, still lying down.

“Okay, I’ll be back soon.”

And with that, she ran off back toward town, leaving Anon to watch the balloon.

‘God, I could have died up there. I’m not going back in one of those awful things until there’s something to ensure I don’t die like higher walls or guard rails on hot air balloons. Maybe talk to Twilight about those seatbelts on the chariots while I’m at it, still don’t know why it’s taking so long to install those everywhere. Bet it’s because of tradition. Stupid traditions. I know she’ll enforce them somehow if I asked.’

Anon was enjoying the silence, lying on the ground, eyes closed, and loving the cool breeze. It didn’t last long for him as he heard the clopping of hooves and a smattering of quiet conversations. Sitting up, Anon saw a small crowd starting to form around him. He figured it was due to the balloon crash that had happened, along with him being involved. Standing up, he dusted himself off, noticing they were all talking to themselves, whispering as they looked at Anon.

The circle of ponies that were growing in size split apart as a minotaur walked up to Anon with a confident smirk on his face, popping his knuckles as he approached the human. “So you actually came out here!”

Anon furrowed his brow, confused. “Well, I’m definitely out here…?”

The minotaur laughed to himself. “I didn’t think you would show up so quickly after I had appeared out here in this little town an hour ago, spreading the word about my challenge. I had thought you’d run away instead! After all, who would want to face me, The Bombastic Boom Bill? But it seems I was wrong.”

The crowd started to cheer as Anon looked around, eyes widening, not sure what was happening. “Wait, hold up. Why is everyone here?”

He laughed once more, “They’re just here to witness the fight of the century is all! The Bombastic Boom Bill facing off against Anon The Alien.” Boom Bill swirled an arm, trying to warm up. “I respect that you came out here, and in style no less! A hot air balloon of all things? What are you doing trying to one-up me here?!” The minotaur laughed heartily at this as the ponies grew louder.

The crowd only grew larger with all the ponies cheering. There were quite a few he didn’t even recognize from Ponyville, making him wonder where they came from and why he was a part of this spectacle.

Boom Bill, now properly stretched, stood five feet across from Anon, slapping a fist into his hand. A loud boom could be heard from it, making the crowd grow louder. “Hope you’re ready ‘cause The Bombastic Boom Bill is comin’ at ya!”

Rocketing at Anon, it was all he could do to dodge the minotaur and its fist. Pivoting on its small leg, the minotaur once more charged at Anon, fist held back and ready to slam into his body, a smile spread across his face.

“Couldn’t we just talk things out—” Anon dodged another fist, not having any problems as the minotaur wasn’t exactly that fast.

“Ha! I wouldn’t dare to give you time to think!” Another fist was thrown at him, once again dodged. “I think our fists will do plenty of talking for us!”

Whenever the minotaur got close, he would dodge or slide out of the way, though most times he could predict where the minotaur was going.

Another swing flew in his direction, easily dodged with how slow the minotaur was. Anon wondered if Boom Bill lied about his abilities he had boasted about. He had no trouble with dodging the minotaur at all.

Taking a step back, the minotaur kneeled, giving Anon a smile before letting out a roar and jumping into the air. The surprising thing about that was Bill’s tiny little legs managing to get him in the air at all, let alone what looked like ten whole feet. Arm cocked back during his flight, the minotaur once more threw it at Anon as he dropped in his direction. And once again Anon dodged it without any problems.

‘Really, this whole thing is silly too—’

A massive boom shot into the air, following the minotaurs landing into the ground. Anon stumbled back, looking at the crater which formed around Boom Bill’s fist.

The fist that was aimed previously at the human.

The very same fist that held a massive amount of power behind it.

Standing back up, the minotaur turned around and shook his tiny hand before giving Anon another smile. Anon now realized he was all power in his attacks, and a single hit could take him out with little trouble. Anon wasn’t having any of this at all.

His current options were limited. Escaping was hopeless as the crowd didn’t have any proper openings to let him escape without taking a hit or possibly being thrown back in. And he certainly didn’t want to let things go so easily as the minotaur could just come back around in the future. He hoped that the fists were nothing more than some magic in the things’ hands. Examining the minotaur, Anon thought coursing the thing with his ability would be the best way to stop him in his tracks.

Boom Bill, seeing the human taking a strange stance, let out a laugh. “OOOOH! NOW THE HUMAN SEES ME AND FEELS HE WANTS TO FIGHT?!” Boom Bill splayed his arms out, pumping them up in the air with the crowd cheering around him. “HE MUST NOT HAVE FOUND ME A WORTHY FIGHTER UNTIL HE SAW MY TRUE POWER! OOOH! LET’S GIVE HIM SOME MORE OF THE BOOM IN THESE BLAST POWERED FISTS!!!” The crowd grew louder hearing that, wanting to see more of the fight. “I WILL NOW STOP HOLDING BACK HUMAN, SO BE READY FOR FISTS OF FURY!!!”

Once more the minotaur charged at Anon with a fist held back. Anon had to think about this to figure out just how he’d finish the fight, and fast.

‘Okay, likely Boom Bill is charging his fist with magic, somehow. Thought only unicorns could do that. Perhaps internal magic? Runes? Mental note to ask Lyra later. My nullification should be able to disable that so long as I hit him directly in his core. The only way I know to deal with that is by throwing it all around his abdomen. Best bet I have here.’

Activating his nullification completely around his body, he continued to push it as hard as he could into himself. His clothing fluttered about, gaining a dullness to them that started to grey out his clothing. The minotaur ignored this, continuing its charge.

‘Next,’ Anon thought, ‘I’ll just have to wait until he’s close enough and grab him in some way. I don’t think I’ll be able to do much with holding him in place with how top-heavy it is; I’ll only be able to do one hit to his chest before I dodge back from any counters he could throw back.’

As soon as the minotaur came near, he threw his power charged fist at Anon. Instead of dodging away, Anon threw himself right at the minotaur with his shoulder. Boom Bill was surprised seeing this, unable to move out of the way as the human went right by the fist.

Due to its outreached hand and position, it allowed Anon to slam into his chest and position the minotaur on his shoulders quickly. Boom Bill grunted, confused about how he should react. He’d never had anyone go at him like this before.

Anon, immediately after his slam, grabbed the arm connected to the charged fist with his full nullification power on; he felt something immediately deactivating in the minotaur, likely the power that was in his fist. Boom Bill, feeling this, started to panic inside.

Immediately after, he slung him right over his shoulders, with his other hand grabbing a leg in the air. Boom Bill, feeling something sickly entering his body and body propelled into the air, had never felt so terrified.

The body now fully in the air, Anon flung him completely over his shoulder, slamming the minotaur as hard as he could into the ground. The minotaur felt the air escaping him, confused by his position and what was happening. Anon, now bent over him, immediately charged what he could into his palms and slammed it into the guy's chest. Not wanting to see the result and preferring to be safe, he rolled away as fast as he could before standing up, ready for whatever would come next.

…Apparently, nothing. The crowd had grown quiet, stunned by how quick Boom Bill was taken down. Boom Bill himself looked out of the fight, not ready for his own core to being nullified like it was. His body looked grayer all of a sudden like it lost some coloration. He tried standing up, finding the act difficult to accomplish before falling backward on his back.

Attempting it once more, he stood up, hand on his chest as he panted, looking at Anon. There was a great deal of fear in those eyes, staring at Anon and what he had done to him.

Looking around, the minotaur realized there were spectators witnessing everything. He closed his eyes, attempting to regain his composure as he stood up straight. “It… seems the rumors about you were true…” Rubbing his chest, he breathed in, regaining his breath. “I heard of your ability but didn’t think you had so much control over it.”

‘I don’t, or at least I don’t think so.’

“Why I barely have the strength to fight anymore,” he said with a whimper of a laugh, attempting to lighten the mood. It seemed to have worked, ponies standing around the two starting to smile. Boom Bill gave Anon a thumbs up, “You have some good skills, especially that brilliant takedown of yours!”

“Um… thanks?”

‘Seriously? I didn’t do much at all. That was just a basic throw.’

It seemed everyone realized the fight was over and started to cheer for Anon’s victory. Anon was confused about everything that had just happened, wanting to know why it occurred.

“While I admit defeat, this certainly won’t be the last you see of Bombastic Boom Bill!” he loudly proclaimed, regaining some of his previous colorings. “I hope to see you at the Camelot Challenge!”

With that, the minotaur walked over to some bushes that held a flock of pigasus strapped to a chariot. The minotaur let out a yell, flying low to the ground and away from the place.

“…That explains the pigasus,” Anon said to himself.

The crowd started to disperse, some going back to town or wherever they came from, others walking up to Anon, asking for autographs, or about how he had fought. Anon took it all in stride, not really sure what to do about what had just happened.

By the time Lyra came back, there were a few ponies still around talking about the fight or trying to imitate Anon’s throw. She was confused, walking up to Anon. “What’s going on?”

Anon scratched the back of his head, “Some minotaur challenged me to a fight.”

Realization struck Lyra, “Oh no, I was too late! I heard about that in town that some stupid minotaur had come to town on a flock of pigasus just after we got on the balloon looking to challenge you!” She ran up to him, patting him down. “You’re not hurt are you? Please tell me you’re alright!”

He grabbed her, placing the unicorn on the ground. “Yes I’m fine; he wasn’t able to hit me at all.”

She blinked at him, confused. “Really? I thought he was supposed to be some hotshot back in Minothesa, one of their roving champions. How’d he lose?”

“The guy was too slow, more into power shots,” Anon said with a hand wave. “I was able to throw him down and shove some of my ability into his chest. Stopped him in his tracks immediately.”

“How were you able to throw him down at all? I’m confused since the few reports I’ve read with him in them talked about his fights; he’s not just someone you can do that with.”

Anon looked to the side, staring at two fillies throwing one another around, trying to imitate what Anon had while laughing. “I’m not really sure. Maybe your reports made him out bigger than he is, or perhaps he didn’t take me seriously enough and lost on the first opening I saw. Doesn’t matter in the end, still beat him.”

“No, definitely matters. Other minotaurs are likely to challenge you in the future since you just beat one of their bigwigs.”

Blinking, Anon mentally slapped himself. ‘He mentioned the Camelot Challenge as well. I’ll bet I’m going to wind up in that thing somehow and this just set it up. But why me? Shouldn’t one of the other six Elements be involved in that?’

“Hoo-boy that was some fight there Anon! Ya’ impressed me with them there throwing skills.”

“Speak of the devil,” Anon spoke, watching Applejack walking up to them. “Where’ve you been hiding?”

“I was over there by the cart, selling candy apples for the fight. Fluttershy’s over there as well, in case someone got hurt.” The three of them saw Fluttershy trying to convince some of the fillies to not throw one another around, looking frightened at their acts of bravado. “Poor gal was scared stiff of the whole thing. But I knew you’d come out of that just fine.”

“I bet you would’ve loved to have joined if you had the chance,” Anon mentioned.

Applejack scratched the back of her head, looking aside. “Those kinds of thoughts are best left alone, got too much t’ work at the farm to be thinking such things.”

“But not too much time to help us walk Anon back to the house, right?” Lyra said with a slight worry in her voice. “We should make sure he gets back in one piece, who knows what that fight may have done.”

“I dunno, he did fine in the fight I think.” Applejack scrunched her face looking at Lyra, then at Anon. “Although I wouldn’t want to take anything t’ chance with him.”

“I think I’m perfectly fine girls.”

Applejack clucked her tongue. “Nonsense! Concerning you, I wouldn’t doubt something comes on by just to fight you once more, and we can’t be having that.”

“That’s… a good point.” With his luck, he’d be fighting another minotaur just around the corner. “What about the air balloon?”

Lyra spoke up, “I brought Cherry Berry and she’s already wrapping things up with the balloon so we have no reason to be here anymore.”

Looking at the balloon, he could see the pony from before flattening out the balloon, trying to get the air out while marking where the cuts had occurred. Thinking things were covered and wanting to leave, Anon followed the two back to the house, hoping no one else would try and start some stupid fight challenge with him.

Along the way, Anon could see Lyra giving him glances, making him wonder if she was still worried about him. Back at the house, Lyra was now right beside him, letting Anon up to the door first. He didn’t think much of it as he opened the door and walked in.

He was immediately assaulted by a cacophony of noises with a blinding light flashed into his eyes. Blinking rapidly, he regained his sight, seeing ponies now milling about the house, laughing, and having fun. Streamers and balloons were littered about the room with a few games placed here and there. The kitchen table had quite a few snacks and drinks on it, ready for consumption.

“Surprise!” Pinkie shouted at Anon, blowing a party blower in his face. “Did we get you, did we, did we? Huh, huh, huh-huh-huh?!”

“Pinkie, slow down or you’ll give him a heart attack,” Applejack said, pulling the pink menace back.

“What is all this?” Anon asked.

“It’s a party silly!” Pinkie said, still being held back by Applejack.

“But why?”

“Lyra’s the one that set it up!”

Looking down, Lyra gave Anon a nervous smile, “I thought having some fun would be good since we’re going to be gone for a bit. It’d be nice to talk to everypony before we left, right?”

“I suppose it’s better than a surprise fight,” Anon said with a smirk.

Lyra let out a small chuckle before going into the sea of ponies, likely to try and find Bon Bon. Pinkie looked at Anon, confused. “What’d ya mean by that?”

“Got into some fight with a minotaur a bit ago,” Anon said, making his way to the food. “Some guy named Boom Bill, challenging me to the Camelot, whatever that was.”

Pinkie gasped, swirling around his body before appearing on his shoulders. “You’re going to the Camelot Challenge?!”

“Uh, no. I don’t even know what it is.”

“It’s something that Camelot had set up a long time ago since they love a good ol’ fight,” Applejack said with a nod. “It used to be a massive challenge just to get into their lands so barely anyone could actually get there to compete. It’d take ages before we knew who won that thing! But with them passageways now cleared out and such, they’re throwing up a huge tourney a full year in advance that’s acceptin’ all challengers. Guess that fella Boom Bill wants t’ see ya there and such.”

“I’d rather avoid that if at all possible.”

“I thought Lyra said you were going to be traveling all over the world!” Pinkie said, still sitting atop his shoulders.

“Then that means ya’s likely to be headin’ to Camelot at some point,” Applejack said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if ya manage to get in there as they’re cuttin’ down on the challengers for their tourney.”

“Look, even if I wanted to be a part of that, which I don’t, I doubt I’d make it in time for their roster.”

“I’ve heard they make exceptions to certain parties, such as some fella’s in the E.U.P. or certain rep’s in the Minothesian clans. Very certain of you being part of those exceptions as well, doubt they’d not let you join if you were there.”

“So I’ll try not to be there when that happens, got ya.”

Applejack let out a laugh, “I wouldn’t mind seeing ya in a tussle out there, definitely getting’ myself a ticket to see some action! Why, if ya really got Boom Bill of all fellas down without much problem, I might even bet some bits on ya winnin’ the whole thing!”

“WHOOO!” Pinkie twirled a noisemaker in the air with a holler. “Anon the destroyer!!!”

A loud roar of the ponies around him bellowed out, some clearly having listened in on his conversation. All Anon could do was let out a groan at the turn of events.

After getting away from those two, Anon was treated to some goofy little things set up, such as pin the tail on the pony to a piñata that was designed to look like him. How disturbing. There was even a silly pony that attempted to set up a table for an Anon Massage Game and tried to convince him to be a part of it. Guess which part he was supposed to do? Yeah, he wasn’t fooled in the slightest.

Eventually, he wound up sitting beside Bon Bon who had a head full of glitter and confetti, a drink in her hoof, and appearing to have a good time. Anon had a drink in hand and a small smile on him, something Bon Bon smiled back at. “Good to see you’re enjoying yourself.”

“It’s a little hard not to with everyone here shoving cheer right down my throat.”

“Well, I hope you choke on it then.” Anon barked out a laugh, taking another drink from his cup. Bon Bon took her own sip, looking at the activity coming from the others before turning to Anon. “So, something completely off-topic to this party and I hope I don’t regret bringing it up but you are fine with going with us?”

He paused with his drink at his lips, lifting up an eyebrow. “Why you ask?” he questioned before drinking.

“You didn’t exactly seem happy yesterday hearing about us going. Lyra and I didn’t want it to come off like you were forced to go, even if it did seem like Princess Celestia would like it if you did, so if you really do want to stay—”

He patted her head, making her squeak out in surprise. “Bonnie, it’s fine. Yeah, I’ll admit I’m not really caring about this whole thing and would just prefer staying here. But I shouldn’t just coop myself up in this place. I should go out and see the world. I realized that even if I’m in a world I don’t belong, that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try and enjoy myself, see what’s out there.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that,” Bon Bon said, taking a larger gulp from her drink. “…Wait, what’s this about not belonging? Don’t be stupid. Who’s to say who belongs and who doesn’t? Why should it matter that you’re not a pony or anything from this world?” She poked Anon in the chest, “You’re Anon the human, and your friends want you to belong.”

Anon couldn’t help but hum to himself, a smile still on his face. Yeah, he definitely liked this place more and more as time went on. So what if he was the only human on this planet and he was technically alone in his own way? He could find some way to belong, probably.

Before Anon could delve more into these thoughts, a loud whoop went into the air. A scream shot out, right before he heard something slamming above him. Bon Bon and Anon looked up, seeing Rarity’s horn stuck in a wooden beam with her struggling to get loose. “Why’d I listen to Pinkie?! This is so embarrassing, what would anypony think if they knew of this!”

A flash shot out to the side. Rainbow Dash was taking pictures, a Cheshire grin on her face. “I think you’ll have more problems with us forgetting it!”

“RAINBOW DASH! YOU, YOU, YOU WILL STOP THIS INSTANCE, GET ME DOWN, AND DESTROY THOSE TERRIBLE IMAGES IMMEDIATELY!”

“Hmmmm naaaaaaaa!” More pictures were taken as Rarity struggled to get out, to the amusement of the crowd.

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It was the end of the week and Anon was feeling jittery. Sitting in his cabin at the train station, he thought about what he was going to see and do. Lyra had already explained their roles, for the most part. She herself was to help with the ambassador that was there in their lands already, someone named Hazy Friction, while also collecting information and seeing what was happening at the ground level. Bon Bon was more or less to help in anything regarding her work, as she was an assistant of hers. And Anon was... some kind of representative of the princesses?

He still wasn’t sure what his exact role was. Anon knew that because he was an alien tied to the Equestrians, it gave them some more power in some fashion. It was all a confusing matter for him. In the end, it all came to him being an ambassador of his own people and world, as unofficial as it felt to him. Lyra explained having him apparently helped move them faster through things, just because many beings didn’t want to appear like they were being offensive in some manner. Appearances mattered to certain people, after all, unless it was behind closed doors.

Lyra had just finished placing their baggage away as Bon Bon was looking through some reading material Lyra was given to by the princess, making sure she was read up on everything. Anon was sitting there, looking at the crowd of ponies taking pictures and waving at him. He gave a small smile, waving back. More flashes and cheering could be heard.

“You probably shouldn’t wire them up, Anon,” Bon Bon chastised.

“They’d just get themselves worked up anyways,” Lyra grunted out, shoving their packs in an overhead compartment. “Anon’s a celebrity at this point.”

“Not my fault, I didn’t know fighting Boom Bill would’ve done all this.”

“You’re also the local alien and “Rebel Wrecker”,” Bon Bon added. “Expect to see a large party of ponies for your arrival back.”

“Great…”

Lyra jumped up beside Bon Bon, taking a seat. “The train should be leaving soon. I can’t wait; I wonder what we’ll see over there!”

“I thought you knew already, what with all these documents,” Bon Bon put out.

“Hey,” Anon said, “I just realized I don’t even know where we’re going. You never did say, only that it was several different locations.”

Bon Bon gave a pointed glare at Lyra, who could only chuckle at her mistake. “Princess Celestia doesn’t want us to go inexperienced to the newly opened passageways, and we still don’t know much about Minothesa and what’s going on down there with them having closed up a lot of traffic through their lands. So we’ll be going out to Gryphonia.”

“We’ll be heading directly to Griffonstone,” Lyra continued. “We’ll have an easy time getting there with how close it is so we won’t have to travel too far into their lands.”

“So we’ll be talking to the griffons then?” Lyra nodded. “I barely know anything about them, though I remember those griffons from before.”

Lyra looked confused while Bon Bon realized what he meant. “Anon and I had a talk with some griffons that said they were just flying back to their home after talking to Celestia.”

“There might be a chance you’ll see them if they were coming back from Princess Celestia,” Lyra said. “I don’t know of many griffons that go and talk to her, but the ones that do tend to be for the more important business. ”

“Wouldn’t anyone talking to Celestia be for important business?”

“Not… necessarily,” Lyra said. “She talks to everyone when she has the time. I remember reading through the recorded sessions involving the princesses a while back. There was one where she had to talk to somepony wanting to ban cabbages of all things. I’m not sure why, but from what little I remember of it the pony had some sort of feud with a cabbage seller. That would spark the event that created the Cabbage Patch Wars that lasted a hundred days. Lots of innocent cabbages were slain during that time.”

“Oh… Well, never mind about anyone having important business to talk to Celestia about,” Anon said. Bon Bon giggled as Lyra snorted hearing him.

The train rocked slightly as it started to depart the station, all the cheering ponies waving flags or waving at their group. It wasn’t just for Anon, their entire group was doing something that hadn’t been done in over nine-hundred years, or so he was told. It was a bit of a historical moment for everyone involved and many wanted to witness it.

~End Chapter Twenty-Four~









Chapter Twenty Five – Griffonstone Welcomes You, Now Get Out


“I was expecting… more.” Bon Bon looked around outside the trashed building that was the train station.

“Where exactly are we supposed to go from here?” Anon asked, not seeing much in their vicinity. “This doesn’t look like much of a town.”

“You can’t call this one station a town, Anon,” Bon Bon pointed out, making a show to look at the rundown area.

“From what Princess Celestia said, we’re supposed to head to an area that has a large tree.” Lyra looked around, pointing up at the sky, “Somewhere up there. It’s reported that the griffons congregate there.”

“Of course the griffon’s had to live in a tree, up at the tallest place,” Anon said with a groan.

“It’s not so bad,” Bon Bon said, strapping her pack on. “It’ll be fun going up there I bet.”

“Easy for you to say, you have hooves. I’m stuck with my human feet.”

“At least we have a clear path to our destination,” Lyra said, tightening her straps. She started forward in the lead as the other two followed.

“I swear if it’s seven thousand steps up there I’m going to lose my mind,” Anon muttered, kicking a rock in his path.

Lyra looked nervous. “It’s actually around… triple that?” She hovered a book out of her as Anon let out a loud moan of annoyance. “Yeah, it’s about twenty thousand or so steps.”

“How would you even get a book for that?” Bon Bon asked just as they started up the slope.

“I got it from Twilight. When I went looking for info about where I’d be going the library seemed to the best place to start at. She tried giving me a dozen books on their history and other miscellaneous junk but after profusely explaining I wouldn’t be able to take them all, and only wanting current knowledge as I’m already well versed in their history, she quickly went about writing a quick summary of the griffons as fast as she could for me. She still managed a good chunk of info here, but it’s all over the place.”

“Was there anything we should know beforehand?” Anon asked, kicking more rocks in his path to the side. “Like why this place looks like it hasn’t had anyone near it in years?”

“Unfortunately, no,” Lyra said with a frown. “Even Twilight had little on them. There’s just no recent info on them, only tidbits on a few select things that don’t matter. All I have to work with is a generalization on their history, as griffons aren’t ones to open up about themselves outside their lands.”

“Oh?”

Lyra hummed, “They had once been as greedy as dragons when the three pony tribes had just started to be united. It wasn’t until a king of theirs had united them under some odd relic of theirs that they started to come together. It was an important griffon artifact though I didn’t get a name for it. Other than the griffon’s bit of cultural oddities and some really old history on their people, there isn’t much else that I could think would be very reliable to help us on our trip for recent up to date information.”

Rounding a bend, Anon pursed his lips, looking at what appeared to be a deep gorge to their side. He made sure to pay special attention, not wanting a bad spill down that hole. “You don’t find it odd that there hasn’t been any recent information on them?”

The minty pony harrumphed, “Of course I do. But we haven’t had a whole lot of contact with their kingdom in a long while. As I said, they’re not open to others and keep to themselves. Even the ambassadors that come out don’t share too much inside the country, though there are hints that they’ve been trying to fix their infrastructure and keeping it quiet.”

Anon hummed, rubbing his chin. “So a blackout on all information, and we are coincidentally going at just the right time when all the other countries are now opening up. How much you want to bet we have to take down some baddie that’s making this all happen.”

Lyra didn’t find his words appealing, “Please don’t jinx us, Anon. .You’re putting bad juju on our trip just as we’re staring.”

Bon Bon started, “You’d think Twilight would have found something that could help us out on this, what with her being an apprentice to the princess herself.”

“Tell me about it,” Lyra agreed. “I am glad I didn’t push too much with her trying to get info for us.”

“Did she have one of her spells again?” Bon Bon asked, turning slightly to Lyra as she continued to walk.

“Pretty much. The moment I bring up that we’re headed to the griffon capital, she starts to pack up and practically demanded she comes along.”

“Seriously?” Anon was surprised to hear that. “Seems odd for her to just want to drop things and go with you on a trip.”

“If there’s one thing that mare’s all about, it’s learning something new, and what’s more new than going to a place where ponies haven’t been to in some time? She was totally ready to go until, out of nowhere, the princess ordered her that she stay in Ponyville. I didn’t get why, but I did hear that Princess Celestia is preparing her for something.”

“Joy, something fun to encounter when we return. Maybe the princess even has us leaving to keep us out of the way for whatever she has planned for Twilight.”

“Anon, if the princess wanted us to not interfere with things all she had to do was ask.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of the narrative keeping us out of things than her doing it intentionally.”

“Oh, that,” Bon Bon huffed. “Probably best that we left then.”

“True, true.”

Lyra, immediately stopping, let out an audible gasp before flaring up her horn and digging through her pack. Out came an old fashioned camera that looked par for the eighty’s. “I almost forgot! Stay still, everyone!” Levitating the camera forward, she gave a large grin before snapping an image, blinding the other two, unprepared for the visual attack.

“Darn it, Lyra!” Bon Bon said, rubbing her eyes.

“What? Did you expect me not to take any pictures on our first adventure together!”

“First willing trip, you mean?” Anon corrected, blinking his eyes clear.

The unicorn ignored him, flapping the picture in the air that was spewed from the camera. Looking at it, she curled her lips at the other two in the image. Lyra sighed before putting it away, vowing to get it right next time.

‘Darn them and their totally un-photogenic selves!' her inner-voice cried.

‘I swear that we’ll get them next time, no need to worry.’

‘You better! We need to have an awesome scrapbook that we can share with all our adoring fans in the future!’

‘It will take time, but rest assured I will get them, no matter how difficult a task it may be.’

“Why is Lyra waving a hoof in the air and nodding her head like that?” Anon asked.

The two of them watched said mare bobbling her head about as she mumbled incomprehensible words to herself. “It’s nothing, she’s just talking to herself again,” Bon Bon answered. “The better question is how are you only noticing this now of her?”

“You mean with every little thing that I could point out being in character to the Lyra we know, I’m supposed to notice this one thing out of a hundred?”

“…Fair point.”

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It had taken the three several hours trekking along the perilous path to reach Griffonstone. It was an oddly quiet trip for Anon, notwithstanding Lyra’s random bouts of picture taking. He had half expected some random event to crop up sometime during their walk to the griffon town, as was common for him in his new life of pony adventures. He knew it would come eventually.

Reaching the end of their trail, the three of them stood side-by-side, staring at their destination.

Anon spoke first, “This can’t be the place.”

It was a massive dump. Decrepit buildings littered the supposed capital as hay blew over in the wind every which way. Various pieces of trash could be seen spewed about the place. Not a single griffon there seemed to care about the state of their town as they appeared keener on bickering at one another. A town full of frowning faces was what had awaited them.

“Maybe we got dropped off at the wrong station?” Bon Bon asked, dumbfounded at where they were.

Lyra merely shook her head, “That was the only stop to the griffon lands. The train rounds about further down the tracks and heads back to our lands. This is the right place, it’s just in shambles.” Taking a quick picture of the scene, Lyra deposited her camera back into her pack, turning to the other two. “We should head directly to their castle to see about introductions with the king.”

“Where’s that?” Anon asked. Lyra pointed directly up. Looking, Anon saw a massive tree that soared into the sky. It was hard to see anything so high up, but he could make out dwellings in some of the branches, along with a very tall structure near the top of it. “All the way up there?”

“Eeeeyup,” Lyra answered, looking up herself.

“…Can we not go up there? We could try asking the locals more about the place first.” Anon did not like how high up the place looked, wanting to put off going there.

“I think we should try the more direct route first Anon,” Lyra said, walking toward the base of the tree.

“How do we even get up this tree?” Bon Bon asked, looking at either side of it. “I don’t see any kind of built-in steps leading us up.”

“Perhaps a pulley system?” Anon suggested.

Looking at a passing griffon, Bon Bon turned to him. He glared at her, clearly not wanting to be bothered. “What do you want?”

Bon Bon, slightly taken back, pushed on, “I was hoping you could help us.”

“What’s in it for me?”

The candy mare wasn’t sure how to take this. “Ehr, um… what—”

“If there’s nothing in it for me I don’t see why I should be wasting my time with you.” And with that, he stomped off away from the pony.

Blinking, she turned to the others, unsure about what had just happened. “What was that about? That’s even gruffer than I’m used to for a griffon.”

“That was very odd,” said Lyra, walking to her friend. “It’s as if they regressed to who they were before uniting.”

“Into jerks?”

“Yeah.”

“There has to be some way to get up to their stupid castle of theirs,” Anon said, walking straight up to the tree, brushing a hand against the bark. “I doubt the only way to get up there would be to fly.” The three of them stared at the tree in thought. “Maybe there’s something built into the tree itself?”

“Like a room dug into it that lets beings up and down?” Bon Bon added, tapping the wood. “We could walk around the base and see. Maybe there’d even be a griffon willing to help us somehow.”

Walking right, they kept as close to the tree as possible, watching for anything that could let them up the tree either in or outside of it. There were plenty of griffons about, giving their group looks as they went about whatever business they had. They had attempted to ask a few close walking griffons for help, but like before they held a snobby attitude, unwilling to help as they flittered away from them.

It wouldn’t take long for them to reach one end of the base, being forced to a stop. “It just ends here,” Bon Bon said, looking at the large drop that was a mere body length away. “Guess we have to turn around and try the other way.”

“Shouldn’t Twilight have written down something about this?” Anon asked as they walked alongside the base once more.

“I’ve checked my papers already on this and there doesn’t seem to be anything.” Lyra hummed, taking a moment in thought. “Now that I think about it, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a pegasi transport for them to go directly to the castle. Maybe they just didn’t see a reason to mention something like that.”

“You should make a note of this for any future trips people have to this town,” Anon said, watching a pair of griffons bickering to one another. “I don’t even understand why there isn’t any info on any of this before we came here.”

Walking around to the other side of the base took much longer than they had thought. The thing was central to the entirety of Griffonstone, and as such, they had to walk around a few houses and crowds to continue. They were constantly treated with leers from the griffons or the cold-shoulder wherever they went. It was draining on the three, not seeing a single friendly face.

“This seems promising,” Bon Bon spoke up, looking at something at the base of the tree.

Indeed it seemed that there was a large hole built right inside. Walking up to it, the three saw a long, massive chamber that once looked like it was a great communal, now worn down from the elements and neglect. Ladders and rope could be seen lying against the walls, and looking directly up they could see more ropes and ladders. In the midst of this, a large griffon in the back carved out something in wood. He looked their direction, letting out a grumble before putting his work down.t

“What suppose two ponies and their tamed beast want coming here?”

“He’s not a beast,” Lyra spoke up. “He’s a human.”

“Bah, what’s it matter? Now speak up or get lost, I got my work to tend to.”

Lyra, deciding the friendly approach would be for the best, let out a cough before a smile could be seen on her. “My name is Lyra,” she said, offering a hoof. The griffon stared at it, then at her with aloofness. Her smile strained on her, placing her hoof down. “I’m from Equestria and I require help to get to the castle up above.”

The griffon stared at her for a few seconds before huffing out. “Name’s Gilligan.” He looked at the others, then at Lyra. “It was a mistake for you to come here.”

“I’m sorry?”

“The griffons here, we’re not exactly friendly on many matters nowadays. You’re lucky to not get a look from just breathing the same air as one of us.”

“I don’t understand why everyone’s acting like this,” Bon Bon said with a frown. “Even the griffons back home weren’t such jerks.”

“It wasn’t always like this. Oh sure, we’re nearly as greedy as those overgrown lizards and our pride is hard to outmatch. But we used to have something to care for, to be united with.” He paused, looking out at the entrance. “It’s like a gluttonous miasma we produce affecting ourselves, making us greedier and arrogant that spews out from the seams when we don’t have something to tie us all together.”

Gilligan shook his head, scratching at his beak. “I’ve no reason to speak of my woes to you lot. What was the reason for your coming?”

“…We need to go to the castle up above,” Lyra said, just wanting to move on.

“Ah, you want to climb up there?” He scratched his beak in thought. “I can lend you a ladder. But, ehrm… how much can you offer me?”

“You want us to pay you to go up there?” Bon Bon asked.

“Hay, of course, it’s not free! I have to build all these things myself and you want me to just offer my services without charge? Downright rude, really!”

“Fine, how much for your services?” Lyra asked.

Gilligan gave it some thought, still scratching his beak. “Well, you look up there and see? You see all of those ladders and ropes and platforms up there?” They all looked up, indeed seeing them. “I can offer you different ladders. The first is simple and will get you to that first ledge, but you’ll have to get up the rest on your own. Five bits.”

“That’s a short distance to travel up, just for us to try and climb up the rocks the rest of the way,” Anon said, seeing that ladder being pointless. “We need more.”

“I s’pose the second could work. It’ll take you almost halfway up to that ledge up there,” Gilligan said, pointing to a ledge with a torch on it. “That’s thirty-five bits.”

“Do you have anything that leads us directly to the top?” Bon Bon asked, wanting to get straight there.

“Ah, I do, but that’s my personal system. See, this room used to be a pulley room to lift but I outfitted with ladders I build in my spare time once that thing went out from disuse. I have a room directly up there, and I won’t even charge going down. But that’ll be a hundred plus twenty bits.”

“…And it leads all the way there?”

“Of course.”

“Guess we have no choice,” Lyra said, pulling out the bits and giving them to the outreached claws of the laddersmith.

Standing up, he walks over to a wall and smacks it. Sounds could be heard, activating whatever mechanism was in place before sliding it out of the way. As soon as the dust settled, Gilligan walked back to his spot on the ground, motioning at the room. “Go on ahead.”

Looking at one another, they slowly made their way to the room. Inside they could see a well-made ladder, better kept than the others in the previous room. Up above were ledges that had similar ladders, encircling straight to the top.

“Let’s get a move on,” Lyra said,

Anon took the lead, making sure that his pack was strapped tight to his back before slowly making his way up the ladder. Once he got to the top, he looked down at the other two, standing now on top of a built-in platform made of rock.

“It seems safe enough; just need to take turns to make sure we have enough room on each platform.”

“Coming up then!” Lyra said. She awkwardly grabbed the ladder, walking up to each rung with a clacking of her hooves.

Nodding to them, Anon started up the next ladder, only slightly off to the side of the previous one. He made sure to take his time, not wanting any mistakes from falling from the height they were traversing. Anon didn’t like the idea that he was currently climbing up such a large tree with nothing to prevent him from falling.

After the second ladder, he paused, hearing a whistle down below him. Looking down, he could see the two smiling and laughing at something, pointing up at him.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Nothing!” Lyra replied. “Just enjoying the view from here!”

“Enjoying the—” He gave the two an unamused look, something that only made them laugh louder. “Can we be a little serious here?”

“The only thing serious here are those buns! Have you been working out?” Anon ignored Bon Bon, moving faster up the ladder.

It was a long, agonizing trip for Anon having to listen to the two catcalling him the entire way. Lyra wouldn’t stop trying to get him to hold still on a ladder to take pictures, of which he would have to figure out how to destroy later on down the line.

Having finally gotten to the top, he ignored the snickering ponies, moving forward toward what he had to assume was the castle. It was quite impressed with how the griffons managed to build something that large on only a tree. Sadly, the place looked like no one had been in it for quite some time.

“What a dump,” said Bon Bon, not looking impressed at all. “The king lives in a place like this?”

“It would surely reflect how the griffons down below act,” Lyra said, walking up to the door. “So weird, there are no guards here.” She banged on the door, hoping to get someone to come out.

Ten minutes passed with Lyra knocking on the door every so often. It was clear no one wanted to open the door for her.

“Why are they ignoring me?” Lyra huffed, lighting her horn up. “I’ll just open the door myself!” The moment she tried opening the door, it falls inward, slamming into the ground with a resounding smack. “…Oops?”

“This place is just falling apart,” Bon Bon said, walking forward into the castle. “It doesn’t even look like anyone’s been in here for ages.”

“What are you three doing?” a loud voice spoke up, making the three jump. They turned around, seeing an old looking griffon, peering into the castle, then at them. “Trying to wreck the place up, eh? We get enough hooligans trashing the place down below, so now you want to come up here to do more damage?”

“We’re not here to do anything of the sort!” Lyra jumped away from the door, looking worried. “The door just… fell on its own!”

The griffon glared at the three, swirling a tongue around in his beak. “Why you three even up here in the first place if not to vandalize the place?”

“We need to talk to the king,” Anon said. “So why wouldn’t we go here to his residence?”

A sputtering came out of the griffon, sounding like a hoarse laugh. “You came up here for the king of all things?!”

The three looked surprised hearing that. “What do you mean by that?” Lyra asked, not liking where this was going.

“There’s no king here! We haven’t had a king in ages living in this castle!” More of the strange laughter came from the ancient griffon. “And you three just came up here wanting an audience with the king?!”

“Gandervalt, what ya talking to these strangers for?” another old griffon asked, flying up to them.

“They… They wanted to have an audience with the king!”

“What? Why would they come here then? Aren’t they aware there’s no king here?”

“Apparently not! Coming to this town, climbing this tree, all to see an empty throne!”

The two started laughing even harder, having difficulty staying up in the air.

Lyra was shocked to hear this. “…No king?”

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“He could have told us there was no king up there!” Bon Bon said angrily. “We wasted a huge chunk of our time, AND bits, over nothing!”

“We really should have asked him about it before going up,” Lyra said, though it was clear she was equally frustrated.

“To be fair, how would we have known to even ask that question?” Anon motioned. “‘Hey, just curious if you could tell us if the king lived in his own castle?’ Doesn’t make much sense.” The other two grumbled at that. “So we just need to find where the king is currently in this town. We could try to ask Gilligan if he knows anything.”

“Gilligan can suck marbles for all I care; I don’t want anything to do with the guy.” Bon Bon was a very mad pony.

Anon coughed in his fist, “Okay, do you have any associates yourself in this town from your organization?”

“No, if I did they’d have told me to avoid the tree. Stupid tree, stupid Gilligan.”

“Fine, let’s just walk around and see if there’s anyone that won’t ignore us directly can help us.”

Nodding in agreement, the three of them made their way down the unkempt street. Most of the griffons seemed to ignore the group, with a few sneering in their direction. A scant few looked interested in them yet shied away from the presence of the strange creature in tow of the two ponies.

Having passed several blocks, Lyra was starting to get fed up with the looks directed their way. Seeing a griffon walking down the road, not having noticed them, she decided enough was enough and took action, changing her path to meet the griffon directly. Noticing the unicorn headed her way, the griffon slowed to a stop, examining the strange group that walked their lands.

“What is it you want stranger?” the griffon snapped in a rough voice. She winced back, seeing what appeared to be a new species narrow its eyes at her.

Lyra, ignoring the behavior, approached with a smile, “We’re new to the lands and seem to be a bit… lost.”

“More confused than anything,” Bon Bon muttered just loud enough for them to hear.

The unicorn forced a laugh out, “Yes, that’s a more apt description! I was hoping you could answer a few questions for us.”

The griffon, staring at the group, sensed an opportunity here. “You got any bits?”

Lyra merely blinked at her. “Excuse me?”

“Bits. For answers.” Lyra continued looking confused. “You don’t expect me to waste my time with you lot without any compensation?”

Seeing her friend wasn’t sure how to respond, and not wanting to see her do so in her typical manner, especially what happened with Gilligan, Bon Bon stepped forward. “How much are you asking?”

“Five bits,” the griffon responded immediately.

“Three bits,” Bon Bon countered.

The griffon narrowed her eyes. “It’s nonnegotiable.”

Bon Bon lifted an eyebrow, “I’m certain we can take our business elsewhere to some other griffon that is willing to answer a few questions for some easy bits.”

A flash of a snarl could be seen on the griffon before she recomposed herself. “Fine… What are your questions?”

Lyra, looking briefly at her friend, turned to the griffon. “I’ve wanted to know this since arriving but why is Griffonstone in such a mess? I was expecting a busy city full of trade and griffon culture, not… this.”

A clawed appendage appeared, with three bits dropped into them. “I don’t know what you mean by trade or culture, but I’ve lived here my whole life and it’s always been like this. No one in this town cares if it’s like this, so who would clean it up? It’s every griffon for themselves here.”

“O-Oh. Well then… I guess I should get straight to the point. Do you know where we can see the king? We can’t seem to locate him for some odd reason.”

Depositing another three bits, the griffon huffed, placing the bits behind her wing, “We don’t have a king here.”

“No, we already know that the king isn’t in his castle. We just want to know where.”

“No, I mean there isn’t a king at all in Griffonstone.”

“…What?”

Her claw came out once more, three more bits dropped into them. “I repeat, we have no king here.” Lyra frowned at her. “You asked what,” the griffon said with a smirk.

“How exactly do you do anything around without one?”

“We’ve been fine by ourselves here,” the griffon answered, placing another three bits under her wing, “haven’t needed a ruler in a long while and don’t want one. “All for one and one for me” is the motto ‘round these parts. All a ruler around here would do is force taxes or some other nonsense. Who wants that?”

Anon hummed, “The place is a dump. No one seems happy and there’s no commerce going on to provide anything. Feels like the slums in a third world country.”

“And that’s home to us.”

At a loss on what to do, Lyra pulled out the letter holding some of the things that the princess had mentioned to her. “Is there anything we can do to help here?”

Another three bits passed to the griffon. She inhaled a large amount of air, unleashing it all in one blast, “NO!” The griffon immediately left, leaving a perturbed Lyra sitting on the ground.

Watching the griffon walk away in a huff, Anon and Bon Bon walked up to Lyra. “A bit ruder than I thought was necessary” Anon muttered.

Lyra rubbed her head before standing up, shaking the dirt off her rump, “Twilight had mentioned I should bring bits with me on this trip of ours, something about the griffons being willing to help as long as I “shared the wealth” with them. I wasn’t sure what she meant by that but it’s starting to become clear the griffons around here may have reverted to how they used to.”

Bon Bon frowned, “Should we head back to Equestria? I’m not sure what much we can do here if there’s no king or any way for us to do anything.”

Lyra frowned, shaking her head. “I’m not giving up on my first assignment on the job.” She harrumphed, looking around before slowly walking down the street. “We’ll look for the library located in this town. At least there we’ll be able to find out something about this town.”

“I hope they don’t make us pay a fee,” Anon said.

“I’ll pay any fee needed to get my job done! And once I check off the things I’m needed for, I’m going to go back to Equestria proud of my work with a very large smile for a job well done!”

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Lyra had a very large frown on her face. “You’ve GOT to be kidding me!”

They were currently standing in front of a ruined building that was supposed to be the library for the town. Books laid in tatters on the ground with shelves tilted, spewing their contents out.

“Are you sure this is the library?” Anon asked, kicking a shredded book by him.

“Twilight told me to look for the statue of their founding king, which is right there,” Lyra gruffly said, pointing to a statue that looked ready to keel over.

“How can this be the library?” Bon Bon asked, poking through some of the books on a destroyed shelf. “Could this have happened recently? A lot of the books seem to be in good condition, ignoring the ripped pages out of them.”

“Preservation runes,” Lyra answered, ears turned down and looking through the books. “These are some really old books to have them, probably two hundred years old from what I’m seeing in their designs. So long as someone doesn’t intentionally rip up the books, these things should hold through just about anything, even being left out in the rain. Some good work here.”

With a sigh, Lyra dropped the book she was reading. “There isn’t anything here I can see helping us with our situation. I don’t see any of the griffons wanting to aid us, not with how they’ve been acting, and I don’t know if I can do anything without any kind of authority in place.”

“Why can’t you do your job without their king?” Bon Bon asked.

“A Kommunelegatusionists is a pseudo-ambassador that has more privileges than one would normally have and is sent around to different destinations as they're needed. But with the griffon’s saying they’re kingless, I can’t establish myself and get started on anything the princess wanted.”

Bon Bon shook her head, walking over to Lyra. “This doesn’t make any sense. I know there’s an ambassador that works for the rulers here, my dad has mentioned him a few times.”

"I've had a few reports dealing with that ambassador. He's not allowed to share information involved with the griffons, nothing that the princess doesn't allow anyway."

“You're sure they have a king?" Lyra nodded her head. "How is that possible?” Anon asked, rubbing his chin. “Maybe they have a different form of government now and the ambassador has to keep it quiet?”

“The griffon could have been lying, saying they had no king here.”

“What reason would she have to lie to us?”

“She’s a greedy little snot, what more reason do you need?”

An exaggerated sigh from Lyra directed the two to her, “I don’t know what’s going on but I’m going to bring it up with whoever is actually in charge.” Looking up, she could notice the sun starting to vanish over the peaks of the mountains. “We’ll figure something out tomorrow but for now we need to find a place to rest for the night.”

“They’re going to overcharge us heavily aren’t they?” Anon spoke up as they departed the dilapidated library.

“Most likely,” the two ponies spoke in unison.

Having walked around a few blocks and quite a few bits lighter from some simple directions, they stood outside a building that had seen better days. Most of the windows were boarded up to the point where no one could see anything in the building. A large, heavy door was bolted at the entrance, menacing swirls of brass embedded into it forming what should have looked like a griffon toasting with a goblet, now a demon clawing out to the sky. Dimly lighting the entrance was a lantern held in place by a hook right above the sign announcing the building: The Golden Egg.

“Doesn’t this place look inviting,” Bon Bon dryly said, walking in the front entrance with the other two following close behind.

Once in, the three of them looked at the dingy establishment. Worn down chairs and tables could be seen in plenty, all dusty and empty. The room was lightly lit from the fire of the far wall, the crackling the only thing being heard. A sole griffin, large and imposing, stood at the bar eyeing the group that came in.

“What is it you threes want?” the griffon asked the group as they walked up to him.

“We’d like a room for the night?”

The griffon let what sounded like a low growl out of its clamped beak. Leaning under the bar, he grabbed for something before slamming a key down. “Hundred bits.”

Anon looked appalled hearing that. “That’s pretty steep for a room for the night.”

“You’re welcome to go elsewhere,” the griffon graveled out, pointing to the door.

“What does the room come with?” Bon Bon asked unhappily, digging out the bits from her coat pocket.

“A place to sleep and to keep prying eyes off your bits,” the griffon huffed out. “If that’s not good enough for you then beat it.”

“We’ll also need a meal for the night,” Lyra said with a small smile.

“Meal cost extra,” the innkeeper squarely replied.

Lyra didn’t look amused. “I’m pretty sure I saw the seal of King Grapper beside your sign. You are required by your laws to provide us with a secure room, proper bedding, AND a meal for all of us.”

The griffon looked like he chewed down a bucket of lemons, staring at the group with a glower.

“On top of that,” Lyra continued, “I’m quite certain we’re also paying for the above standard dwellings pricing, last I checked.”

Clamping his beak shut in anger, he let out a low growl, “What. Do. You. Want?”

“I won’t ask for much: We need to be woken up two hours after the crow along with a map of the place. I might have some questions to ask you in the morning before we leave as well.”

The innkeeper stared at Lyra for a moment before bending down and looking at his papers before coming back up with a dusty article. He blew on it, wiping off the accumulated particles before handing it over to Lyra. “That all?”

“That should do for now,” Lyra answered, taking both the map and key before making their way to the stairwell to their room.

Just as they were to leave, the griffon called out to them, “Hold up a second there.” He looked at the three for a few seconds to memorize their faces. “Just who are you three coming in here? We don’t get much in the ways of ponies and… whatever hole you come from stranger.”

Before Anon could reply to the comment Lyra spoke up, “Us? Nothing much, just a komlas going out on an errand of her princess.” The griffon frowned as he watched Lyra walk away with her head held high.

Once up the stairwell, Lyra looked at the key, noting the number six on it and heading directly to the room with the same number. Once inside the room, Lyra threw her pack to the side before letting out her held breath, smiling to herself. “I totally got that darn griffon!” she said, pumping a hoof to herself.

“Cheering like that isn’t so awesome,” Bon Bon pointed out, making Lyra sag.

“Why do we need that other map anyways?” Anon asked.

“To see if anything has changed or if we have any faulty information,” Lyra answered. “These inns are required to have up-to-date maps normally for purchase.” Walking to the bed, she flopped on it beside Bon Bon who was trying to get comfortable on the stiff-looking mattress.

“There’s only one bed,” Anon complained.

“Be lucky there’s even a bed and not a nest,” Bon Bon said. Lyra lightly tapped her on the shoulder, her eyes narrowed as she shook her head. “What? Birds have nests, it’s a fact.”

“Don’t say that around the griffons or you’ll get more than a bop.”

Anon, now sitting on the bed popped his neck before turning at the other two. Bon Bon, trying to fluff a pillow, looked a little more than haggard though she tried to hide it. Lyra made no effort to do so, lying on her back, legs flopped on either side of her as she lightly groaned looking through the map lazily.

“I think we did some good work here today,” Anon said, trying to keep spirits up.

“What work?” Lyra mumbled. “We don’t have a single thing to report back to the princess other than the griffon’s being a bunch of snot heads—”

“Something I’m sure she already knows,” Bon Bon spat out.

Lyra nodded in agreement, “And I still have no idea how they’re running as a country! Where is their king? They can’t just run without a ruler, not the griffons. I know they have someone leading them, I just need to figure out where he is and start my work.”

“And that’s still some good headway. We’ll be better prepared to take on the day’s events tomorrow with what we’ve learned today.” Leaning back on his arms, Anon directed the conversation elsewhere, “Just what was that back with the innkeeper there? That seal nonsense?”

Tilting her horned head at Anon to look at him, she replied, “As a Kommunelegatusionist, I need to know about the laws of the places I could be sent to. So that seal nonsense was just me pushing the guy to obey his laws. The princess has all the up-to-date laws on every country sent to me to memorize so I’m able to understand how to operate.”

“Or get your way it seems.”

Bon Bon nodded, “You’d be hard-pressed to find another pony as knowledgeable as her when it comes to other species and kingdom laws.” Lyra smiled hearing that.

“So if the princess knows about the laws, why wouldn’t she know about what’s going on and tell you about it? And just to add to that, why are we here anyway?” Anon asked.

“That’s pretty easy to answer,” Lyra answered, rolling back on her stomach. “My main job is to gather what info they know about the passages and chum up to the ruler, establish myself if you will. Additional objectives include looking around the kingdom for anything to report back on and checking in on the ambassador, though if there’s anything I should respond to that is important I’m allowed the leeway.

“As for why we don’t know about what’s going on, the griffons have made it a point to seclude themselves from everything. Nothing of interest comes from these lands, so why would these things be talked about or shared? “ Lyra grimaced, straining out a groan. “The princess… may have also signed an incredibly and miraculously stupid deal with the griffons fifty years back that involved keeping their nations from interacting with one another, with their only main point of contact being between ambassadors.”

“Let me guess, the deal just so happened to end just as we’re arriving in these lands?”

Lyra blinked, “Wow, that’s exactly what happened!” Anon slapped himself in the forehead. "They ended only a few months back, so ponies are slowly trying to see what there is in the form of trade or travel here. Princess wants to know how it is on the ground level, so I'm checking in on that. Not liking what I'm seeing so far."

“I don't understand why wouldn’t they just kick you out or regarding whatever is going on that we are no doubt in the dark about.”

“So long as it doesn’t involve something truly heinous, I'm allowed to do as I please without them being able to kick me out. It’s like that with the other Kommunelegatusionists; they’re allowed leeway to do as they please, within reason. Still need to follow their laws and certain decorum for each nation, of course. Too bad for the griffons they don’t have one at the moment, but with the passages open and other komla’s going around, that should change soon. Even the yaks are getting in on this.”

Anon settled down, letting out a long-winded sigh. “Okay, fine. I will suspend my sense of disbelief to allow this nonsense.” Lyra gave him a large smile. “So, why don’t the griffons have their own komlas? Seems like a good position to insert a person and interject whatever actions you want to be done in another kingdom without too much reprisal.”

Lyra sighed, looking at the two maps back and forth. “The griffons wanted to keep to their own a good while back, discontinuing certain programs and titles which included the komlas in the process. The princess agreed to such things which meant any previous komlas would be kept in our kingdom. For a while, the komlas was an empty title to hold as it was agreed the kingdoms would keep them in their borders. Now, with the passages cleared, Princess Celestia wants to have a return of the treaties, including the Kommunelegatusionist position. She still has the idea of trying to connect our peoples.”

Anon hummed, thinking about the information. The princess would like her “friendship” ideals to spread. The komlas were likely created as a way for the princess to help push the locals into being more friendly and welcoming towards other species on a much more personal level without her involvement.

“It seems like a really strong position to have,” said Anon. “Why would the other kingdoms discontinue that?”

“You already know the passages blocked the other kingdoms out, so we have no idea what happened with them. Minotaurs were and are still a bunch of roving clans. A komlas from them would need to be from the leading clan, and even back then the clans didn’t get along, not wanting to share that top spot with the others. They were always fighting for which clan was on top. It wasn’t a surprise for their komlas to be completely replaced when a new clan rose to the top.

“Soon enough, they just outright rid of position instead of deal with the extra hassle. Griffons on the other hoof wanted to return to their isolationist ways several hundred years back. Removing the komlas pushed fifty years back seemed to signal all the other nations to do the same together, though once more that ended just recently.”

“It’s only due to the princes not wanting to push back that they returned to their old ways,” Bon Bon commented before sighing. “So much for trying to bridge our peoples together; I’m surprised the other kingdoms would keep such treaties around if it’s barely benefiting them.”

The unicorn folded up the map, not finding anything of note to help her with what she already knew. “Little known fact: The old treaties, the one that also involves the Kommunelegatusionist, was one of the few that the leaders, especially the princess, signed in blood.” Bon Bon looked at her friend in shock, not having known that. “The princess really wanted it to work out.”

A knock on the door came with Anon getting up for it. The innkeeper was standing outside with a covered platter. “Your meal,” he said, presenting it.

“Uh… thanks.” Anon grabbed the platter as the griffon brusquely walked away. Closing the door, he turned to the other two, opening the tray: it was hay. “Seriously!”

“Ooh, I could go for some hay,” Bon Bon said, grabbing the tray and jumping back on the bed. The two started to chew on it, humming to themselves. “Not bad, though it has a slight staleness to it. Still, it’s good quality. I’m surprised he had this here.”

“Yeah, what am I supposed to do?” Anon asked, crossing his arms. Lyra paused in her chewing, looking at Anon, then at the hay, and then once more at Anon. “No, I am not going to eat griffon hay. Or pony hay. Or any hay at all!”

Swallowing her piece, Lyra lit up her horn, searching her pack. She levitated a package in front of Anon. “I had something packed away, just in case.”

Examining the pack, he could see eggs cooked in multiple ways and toast. He then looked at her pack. “How did this fit in there?”

“Hmm?”

“This food. It’s almost half the size of your pack. I refuse to believe you packed mostly eggs and toast in your pack.”

Finishing her hay, she levitated her pack over, showing the inside of it being pitch black and bottomless. On the wall near the top, an odd grouping of squiggles could be seen. “Void rune, of a high-tier work mixed with cloth essence. I have quite a few things packed inside, just in case.”

Anon looked at the tray of food in his hands, then at the pack. “…Maybe I could－”

“No,” the two interrupted him in-tandem.

“What’d you even know what I was going to say?”

“Can’t learn runes,” Bon Bon said. “Even the basic ones require over two years of study along with knowledge into the arcane. And those only allow for crude usage of runes.”

Lyra swallowed her hay, “On top of needing a catalyst to cast them, you’d also need to learn how to mold essences and form second and third dimensional visualization spells, or at least be capable of extreme visualization of said items to an nth degree.”

Anon pouted, looking down at his food. “I bet I could learn it…”

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A loud banging on the door woke the three up immediately. “WAKE UP CALL,” the griffon screamed out, loudly stomping away.

Groaning, Anon scratched his head and yawned. Trying to get up, he noticed Lyra was on his stomach belly up. He picked her up, a squeak emitting from her, before placing her aside and getting up. Bon Bon was already up, brushing her mane in place, looking at the other two. “We should hurry up and get started,” she said, still brushing away.

“I’ll go and bug the griffon real quick,” Lyra said, getting up. “He might have some info about the going-ons around here.”

“And what about your mane?” Bon Bon asked, trying to get her own as she liked it. Lyra lit up her horn and her hair looked as it usually did. “You didn’t brush in any oils though…”

“Girl, with a mane this fine I don’t need my oils,” she said with a hoof waved back, walking out the door.

Bon Bon snorted as she continued to brush. “She’ll be back. Lyra doesn’t do the day without no oils.”

“Uh… right.”

Anon merely started to stretch, writing a few entries into his journal and using up his time before Lyra returned. When she did it was with a frown. “So the innkeeper is a jerk.”

“What’s new?”

“What did he do?” Bon Bon asked, pausing from brushing her tail.

“It seems he sold out who I was to some people he knew and now we have three griffons outside that want to escort us someplace.”

The two paused their activities, turning to Lyra. “Did they say where that would be?” Anon asked, getting his gear ready.

“They said they could take us to where the king was. I’m not sure if we should trust them.”

“I’m in agreement with her,” Bon Bon said, putting her brush away. “Should we really follow them to who knows where?”

“I’m not sure about this either, but it might be better than looking around town for what might amount to nothing. If anything, they’re a possible lead to consider.” The other two didn’t seem very convinced. “Why don’t we just go down there and see where things lead to. It’s not like we need to follow them anywhere if we don’t want to.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Lyra said before walking over to Bon Bon, sitting right beside her. “But first, this girl needs her oils.”

“See! I told ya! The oils came calling for you.”

“I swear I will get the oils to magically form someday!”

Anon rubbed his face at the antics, watching Lyra getting her mane brushed by Bon Bon as they spoke in their childish voices. It took them a quick ten minutes (after a lot of push from Anon) before they finally made it to the door of the inn, staring at three griffons. They stared back, first looking at Lyra inquisitively before looking surprised at the other two there. “Well if it isn’t Anon and Bon Bon.”

Crossing his arms, he tapped a forearm in thought staring at them. “I swear I’ve seen you three back in Ponyville.”

“See? I knew he’d remember us!” A female looking griffon started to walk up before being held back by another of their group.

“We were told there was a Kommunelegatusionist here,” a male griffon spoke out, taking the lead. “By the description given I would assume it is the greenish looking pony here.”

“I prefer it being seen as a minty coat,” Lyra said with some lip. “But yes, I am the komlas.”

The griffon hummed, and then looked at the other two. “Why are you two here accompanying her?”

“They’re my assistants for the journey here,” Lyra answered for them. “I’m allowed to bring two with me wherever I go.”

“No, I understand that I mean why is the “Rebel Wrecker” and first alien of our lands along with the daughter to the mayor of a major port and heir of a global trading company doing assisting you?”

“She’s the individual that found me and helped introduce me to the lands,” Anon said, rubbing the back of his head.

“As for me, I’m a longtime friend of hers,” Bon Bon said, saddling up right beside Lyra. “We’ve known each other since we were fillies.”

“It’s a strange coincidence having you three in one spot,” the griffon said. He merely got shoulder shrugs in return. “Oh, and yes Anon, the three of us met you back in Ponyville quite some time ago after our visit with the princess.”

It took him a moment to remember before snapping his fingers, making the others jump. “Oh right! Actor, Delany, and Jana!”

“Ehr… close enough. It’s Auctor and Delano by the way,” the one named Auctor said, ignoring Jana’s superior smirk.

“So what was this about leading us to our destination?” Lyra asked, wanting to move things along.

Delano spoke up, “We got word that you were out here last night. After talks, it was decided we should direct you to where the king is currently residing.”

“Is there a new castle here we weren’t aware of?” Anon asked. “It doesn’t exactly pop out like I thought it would.”

The three griffon’s looked at one another before Jana spoke up, “You are aware you’re currently in Griffonstone?”

“Where else would the king reside?” Lyra asked.

“Ah, so you don’t know. At least our information-halting tactics seem to be working."

"Though with the passages open and borders being cleared that's going to change soon," Delano mumbled.

"We relocated a hundred years back through the mountains. Our capital is now at New Griffonstone.”

Instead of arguing about their wasted day, as she wanted, Lyra moved on, “How exactly do we get there? I don’t think you’d just fly us there.”

“Yeah, not happening,” Jana spoke up. “We have a road that goes through the mountain. You can take the Speedy Cart through it no problem. We’ll arrive there in a few hours where you can do whatever it is you’re here for.”

“It can’t be any worse than staying here,” Lyra spoke up before sighing. “Okay, lead the way.”

The three griffons nodded before turning around and walking down a street, with Lyra and her group following. After a few turns, plenty of sneers, and tripping over debris a good few times, they eventually stood in front of the base of the mountain. A massive tunnel could be seen dug inside of it, with lights trailing the roof of it lighting the entrance. On the side of it could be seen a large wagon with a few contraptions strapped on the back of it.

“It’s large enough for all of us to get in,” Auctor spoke up, walking up to one of the vehicles. Speaking to one of the griffons in charge, he got inside the front before starting it up. Coughs of black smoke poofed from the back smokestacks. “Hop on in.”

Getting them all in wasn’t very difficult as it was a large, long vehicle. Wheeling the thing forward, Auctor started it down the tunnel. “We should be there in a few hours, so relax and enjoy the ride.”

“I wasn’t aware the griffons were quite so advanced,” Lyra said, examining the Speedy Cart. “I swore your people shied away from such things in the past.”

“Times change; this is only a recent thing we acquired,” Jana spoke up. “Got this from some ponies coincidentally, they tried to sell some cider up here for some reason while singing."

“Ah yeah, I can see why that didn’t work out for them,” Lyra said with a nod.

“So the two dunderheads overheard we were trying to install a train here and decided to sell the schematics of their powered Speedy Cart as a replacement. We’re still testing it out but it’s doing wonders for us!” Jana turned around to look at Anon who sat in the back. “What do you think of it? I’m curious what a being from another world would think of this.”

“It’s a car,” Anon replied. “We have these back on Earth in spades. They’re all over the place, though ours have come a long way.”

“Really?!” Jana seemed pleased to hear that. “That’s exciting to hear we have the technology you seem to have!” She then frowned, staring at Anon. “You don’t seem pleased…”

Indeed, Anon was frowning, looking behind him at the engine of the vehicle. “What does this thing run on?”

She blinked at him. “It runs on black rock. We don’t exactly have a steady supply of magic like the ponies do.”

Anon narrowed his eyes, staring at the black fumes that puffed out of the pipes. “Been a while since I’ve seen someone using coal to power anything. We’ve stopped using it almost entirely where I come from. How much would you say your people use this stuff?”

“It’s at the forefront of all our recent works,” Jana said, watching Anon examine the vehicle. “We can’t do a lot without it.”

“In a world full of magic, you’d still use such crude methods.” His words confused the griffons, with Lyra and Bon Bon sharing worried looks. “It seems I finally get to share some worldly knowledge that might have some good. Let me explain some things to you about your… black rocks.”


~End Chapter Twenty-Five~






Chapter Twenty-Six – New Griffonstone Welcomes You, Now Beat It



Feeling something shifting in the vehicle, Bon Bon turned from her half-asleep state, having been lulled into it from the carts surprisingly smooth drive, and saw one of the griffons climbing over to a set of seats that sat across from hers. She turned to look at Lyra, seeing her friend fully engrossed in writing down notes about what they had already found out about the griffons. The information was important no doubt, the fact that their people had moved their entire capital and population over across the mountains.

Bon Bon saw the one named Jana sitting, having smoothed out a few ruffled feathers before turning back to her with a smile. “Was Anon getting to you?” Bon Bon questioned.

Jana’s smile looked strained, a nervous chuckle creeping out. “Why would you think that?”

“He’s been talking to the three of you for the past few hours about your people’s economy and your usage of black rock, or coal as he calls it.”

“The human is certainly passionate about it,” Jana said with a frown. “Is he like this with you back in your lands? Picking apart things about safety regulations or the environmental impacts we have?”

“Not really.” Bon Bon shifted her gaze to the side, a small smile coming from it. “Ah, wait, he’s very much about the safety regulations. From seat belts and speeding regulations to trying to set up some kind of Oh-Cha, whatever that is. He called that one a necessary evil to keep people safe.”

“When he mentioned wanting to talk about black rock, I was kind of hoping he’d have some interesting contraptions to share ideas about. It just feels strange, how he seems oddly concerned about our safety,” Jana said, turning to Anon who was still talking to the other two.

“－is not a trifling matter you should ignore. You’ve already explained that you’ve advanced to using fast-acting drills and tools to get to the coal, which will kick up a lot of dust. Dust that your workers will be breathing in. Black lung disease will be especially troubling with your species being avian. The coal coats the lungs over time, leaving them damaged and slowly being incapable of normal breathing later in life. With the health of your workers…”

The three of them watched Anon conversing with the two griffons up front, Auctor trying to point out that things will surely be fine but being unable to reason why, while Delano had a haunted look on his face, a muttering of ‘acid rain’ coming out of his mouth every so often.

“I can’t blame him for being concerned,” Lyra said, injecting herself in the conversation. “He used to do environmental work on his planet, something I’m still struggling to understand what that exactly is. Hearing your people are going through some sort of revolution, he likely feels he could help some kind of problem before it starts.”

Bon Bon nodded, “In fairness, we barely use most of the fuel sources his people did. Black rock, lightning, dead plants, the wind, gasses, and the sun where what they mainly used. No magic in his world, so they had to make do with what was available.”

“Our planet self-regulates itself to clean up the bad particles whenever we did use them, like on our trains.” Lyra shuffled some of her papers, writing something down. “We’ve never used it to a massive degree as his people have so we don’t even notice any major effects.

“There are of course other things he worked toward, such as cleaning the oceans of garbage as an example, but he seemed most prominent on promoting different sources of clean energy, as he called it when he could. He even had a few big hogshot many-bit-ilionaires working to make it all possible.

“Until one of them blew him up and he wound up here on our planet.” Lyra snorted. “Moron.”

“So none of that should affect us, right?” Jana looked between the two of them nervously. “That was his world's problems, not ours.”

“That’s true,” Bon Bon said.

“So long as we don’t use those fuels excessively,” Lyra added. “It’s not like we have huge swathes of trees being cut down or massive black rock mining operations to quickly burn all of it into the air.”

Jana shuffled in her seat. “We may… kind of use it in a lot of our current day contraptions. I mean every house burns the stuff in their fireplaces for one.” Bon Bon hoofed her face while Lyra looked bug-eyed. “It’s not like coal acts like his world will, right? So we should be fine. And it’s cheap and available to everyone.”

“You need to stop burning coal in your fireplaces,” Lyra said shaking her head. “Even I know that’s a horrible idea.”

“It’s going to be hard to convince an entire population to stop doing something they’ve been told is fine for some time. We don’t even have any alternatives for them to use.”

“We’re about to reach the tunnel’s entrance!” Delano yelled out to gather their attention to the front.

“Look, we’ll talk more about this later when we get a better picture of what your people are going through.”

Lyra quickly snatched up her camera, taking a few snapshots just as they were reaching the exit. Massive pillars of trees scattered everywhere with buildings littering the thick branches all about. A bustling city of griffons scattered around, wearing odd garments and using oddly-shaped instruments and geared implements all around.

A massive canopy of leaves hung over the town, the sun’s rays streaking through the town. Up in the trees could be seen long, massive, ornate bridges tying all the trees together, forming a sky roadway for the inhabitants to walk upon. It was truly a grand sight to behold. Almost everything was made out of wood, giving it a very surreal sight.

“Dear God, it’s a steampunk’s wet dream,” Anon said, staring at it all.

“Impressive isn’t it?” Jana spoke, clearly happy with the shock and awe placed on their faces. “Welcome to the city of New Griffonstone, capital of Gryphonia.”

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The six of them were walking down the gray cobbled streets, taking in the sight around them. Every single thing they looked at was, as they were told, made out of a wood substance. Even the streets underneath them were made of a highly dense wood, something only native in the griffon lands.

“There are a few varieties of our dura-trees, but the thing that makes them grand is their inability to burn and their strong bodies, acting as if they were made of steel. They are even able to change colors with some work, giving us many different fashions to choose from.”

The hustle and bustle of the city were pronounced, captivating their group. Steam was thrown out of every corner, working some kind of contraption into motion. One served ice cream as it whirled out jolly music from its pipes, while another had its foundations floating in the air, the thing slowly moving down the street trying to sell curios. Throughout it all, griffons worked at repairs to preexisting buildings or coordinating groups around.

“As you can see, we have a lot of masons that work in our city all around the clock. Every single piece of wood is always improved upon where needed and intricately worked and refined over time, imparting our inner energy to strengthen it as we work.”

“Inner energy?” Anon questioned.

“Another way to say mana that’s inside one’s own body,” Lyra answered. “Every being has it in them as you already know. Griffon’s learned to use their inner reserves and work it into their flying manipulations. It also seems like they’ve learned to guide this into their dura-wood. Interesting.”

Delano puffed up his chest. “It was a proud day for us griffons when we learned of our gifts. We have grown to great heights in the past hundred years to the powerful beings that we are today. The fabulous works surrounding us are proof of this!”

“Maybe that’s why the princess signed that document,” Bon Bon whispered to Lyra’s ear. “They wanted some time to learn of their abilities on their own.”

“Makes sense,” Lyra whispered back. “It happened with the minotaurs long ago when they learned about physical enhancements and they were left alone to study for some time.”

“That sounds awesome,” Anon said, taking it all in. “Wish I could do something like that.”

Jana walked up with a smile, “While it’s a griffon ability, we could try to see if you could learn with some private lessons?”

Anon chuckled, getting the hint. “As… fun as that sounds, I genuinely don’t think I can learn it. Or runing, or anything magical. I’ve got this weird negative energy in me that disrupts magic completely.”

“We’ve read the reports on that from the princess,” Delano said with a frown. “We’re still confused about what that is.”

“She just gave you that information?” Anon asked surprised. “What am I talking about, of course, she would. There isn’t much to it. I stop magic by touching it and magic can’t affect me. Oh, I’m slowly learning more I can do with it, like this nifty eye ability I learned it just before we left Ponyville.”

Feeling around inside his inner domain, Anon focused it toward his sight, feeling the weird ability swirling around inside him. The group gave him some room, seeing his eyes now emitting a gray smoke.

“It’s not much, but I can see the magic through this, and also through illusions made of magic.”

“That is so cool looking,” Jana said, unable to look away.

The smoke went away, leaving Anon with smokey gray eyes. “Still trying to learn how to control this. I’ll be stuck with these grayed eyes for a few hours until it fades away.”

Their group stared at Anon, thinking of a multitude of ways such an ability could be useful. Or harmful.

Lyra coughed, gaining their attention. “Moving along, why did you change your capitals location? I thought there was some historical importance to the previous area.”

The three of them stared for a second more before Delano spoke up, “We changed our capital due to griffons believing the place to be a cursed land. It held us back, being tethered to such an area that held nothing but past haunts and no future. The few fools that remain are stuck in their ways as we have moved on to greater pastures.”

“Ah. I, uh, see things have worked out for you all.” Delano nodded his head as the group returned to their walking.

The three griffons escorting them would point out many of the places as they walked by them, hyping their capital up to no end. Lyra and Bon Bon, for the most part, seemed to be eating it up. Anon was keeping an open mind to what he was being told, especially as he didn’t like how the people around him were giving them looks quite similar to Griffonston’s inhabitants.

“Why is everyone giving us the stink-eye?” Bon Bon asked, fed up with the glares.

“I don’t know what you mean by that,” Auctor replied.

“They are, very obviously, distancing themselves from our path.”

Indeed, the group could see griffons keeping out of their way, intentionally leaving what almost looked like a circle around them voided of any traffic.

Auctor cleared his throat, “There has been some… recent talks with the higher-ups about wanting to simply stay isolated and many see your group as a manner of trying to interfere with that.”

“You don’t honestly want to stay isolated from the world?” Lyra asked. “A lot of nations are uniting once more with trades and peoples; keeping to yourselves won’t help your people in the long term.”

“Or even the short term,” Bon Bon said.

Lyra nodded, “The signed treaty keeping you isolated for a hundred years, as stupid as it was in my opinion, has ended. The feline nation, your biggest trade partner, has been wanting to enter your lands for a while now for direct trades and if you renege on reopening your nation, it may sour your dealings with their people.”

Delano sniffed, “Darn cats should be happy we’re dealing with them in the first place.”

Lyra looked nonplussed. “Those ‘darn cats’ are the reason you have so much wealth in the first place as you refuse to do any trades with other nations close by. We have to go through that nation just to trade with you in the first place.”

“I like your calydonian,” Anon whispered to Jana.

“The more popular wild-farmed calydonians are much further inland and harder to come by here. But we have a farm on the outskirts of the capital.”

“I want to check it out.”

“The discussion on the trading of our peoples and our treaties can be held off until later tonight,” Auctor spoke out. “Let us get you to the castle grounds so you can get acquainted with the royals.”

The rest of the trip was dealt with in silence with tensions building as they were guided through the busy streets of New Griffonstone. Everyone around seemed to be enjoying life as it was, yet gave a wide berth from their group, word had already spread about their arrival and what it could mean.

Something the group had also noticed was the odd shape many of them seemed to be in, as if tired, with heavy bags under some of their eyes. They even saw one of them drop, quickly scurried off from the extremely fast aid that came with it. No one seemed to pause or take notice as if used to such actions.

The further they walked, the more they noticed this in many of the griffons. It wasn’t until they were nearing the coal mines that it could be seen in nearly every individual there. Most of them were pushing carts out of the mine or working some kind of machinery. What could be seen in them all was a tired, haggard appearance.

“Isn’t it a bit extreme to be pushing your people to such states?” Lyra asked, seemingly worried.

“It honestly isn’t as bad as it looks,” Delano spoke. “They only work for a week, then rest for the next three, yet get paid for a whole month’s wage. Sure they work hard, but three weeks rest and high pay very well make up for it in my opinion.”

“Can one week's work really exhaust someone to needing three weeks to rest?” Bon Bon asked Lyra, who merely shrugged back uncertainly.

Anon hummed. “I’m not seeing any respirators of any kind. Not even a cloth to cover their beaks with. There’s barely any safety equipment either. I see hardhats, but what about coveralls or thick clothing to prevent cuts and abrasions in their work? And just how are you checking the oxygen levels in your passageways or venting out dust?

"The very few that even have cloth covering their whole body look sickly and barely recognizable from griffons. Why do you even have those ones covered in so much gear along with those weirdly bent poles attached through their helmets; to hold lanterns? Yep, there’s one with a lantern. That’s especially dangerous to do. With the amount of work－”

Auctor interrupted, “Can we please move on? You can discuss this at a later date and give us some more… foreign insights on how we can do better.”

Forcing the group past the mines they moved further into the city, the buildings starting to look positively ornate in their design. The griffons standing around appeared posher than what they had seen before. And more annoyed, giving their glares openly at the group.

They eventually saw the massive base of a tree, the size of a castle, interwoven, and cut into to give it windows and spires. It was only then they realized the huge canopy above their heads was coming from the very tree they were staring at, amazed at how far it reached out into the capital.

“This is where we shall depart. Perhaps we’ll see you if they have you needing an escort.” Their group flew off, leaving Lyra, Bon Bon, and Anon to walk up to the castle entrance.

Guards stood at attention, eyes staring ahead in a thousand-yard stare as their group walked right by them and into the tree castle. Inside was a massive foyer that could hold a hundred griffons, now only holding a few guards and two well-dressed figures, one a griffon and one surprisingly being a pony.

“Welcome to Sootworth Castle,” the well-dressed griffon spoke. “Please, follow me to your rooms to drop off your items.”

The foreign pony that stood beside the griffon went to their group as they followed through the long halls, mostly full of doors and griffon guards standing attention.

“How has your stay here been, Haze Friction?” Bon Bon asked.

“Tiresome. The griffons are notoriously hard to deal with, even worst than the yaks. I swear taking up this ambassador job is not what I thought it would be. There have been talks about staying isolated and simply kicking everyone out of their lands. That clearly includes me!”

“Do you know why they’re doing this?” Lyra asked

“I don’t! Things started to build up about a year ago when some gung-ho griffons decided they wanted to keep their people to themselves. Many of them had the backing of the coal mines, which is fueling the entire economy right now and has the public’s interests at heart. They managed to make the mining process cheaper and easier to come by. Everyone in this town is siding with them, making this difficult to deal with.

“Most of the dura-wood handlers and miscellaneous trade partners are trying to fight back against the coal faction, but each passing week another one seems to randomly turn over to the isolationist side.” Haze Friction sighed. “If things continue, trade between the griffons will all but cease as they’ll close off their borders entirely. Who knows what will happen if that comes to pass.”

The rest of the walk was in silence as the griffon led them through many corridors. It eventually led them into a hall lined with doors, two guards on either side of each door. The leading griffon stood in front of a set of doors, inviting them in. A spacious room, with one massive bed and several sets of wardrobes, could be seen. A window allowed them a grand sight into the capital, showing just how high up they currently were.

“No jumping out of that,” Anon said.

“Your group will be staying the night here. Dinner will be at seven tonight, please make sure you are presentable. Or as much as one can be with the lack of clothing you are wearing.”

“Griffons in the capital sure care about their clothing,” Anon muttered, pulling at his jacket.

“When can I go out in town?” Lyra asked. “I wanted to check out some of the establishments close by and ask about some of the dura-wood operations.”

The griffon gave her a flat stare. “There will be no going out in town while you are here.”

“Excuse me? Uh, no. As the komlas, I have every right to go out.”

“You are here as a guest, we could care less about your,” he sniffed, “little title, pony. The guards will ensure you abide by staying in the room. A good day to you all.”

He left promptly after, leaving Lyra gobsmacked. “He… He can’t do that!”

“I think he just did,” Anon said.

Bon Bon hummed, “We were informed before arriving that the princess sent out a letter discussing this very thing and being told there wouldn't be any problems. What’s going on, Haze?”

“As I said, there’s been some tension between the griffons here,” Haze Friction said. “They won’t even allow me to talk to anyone for the past few weeks about this. Things look like they’re coming to a head, just as their borders were supposed to start opening up. Look, for the time being just follow along and don’t do anything stupid. Our best chance to find things out is during the dinner scene where we can discuss this with you there.”

Haze Friction left soon after, leaving their group now locked inside the room.

“They can’t just keep us in here!”

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Several hours passed by in irritation, Lyra trying her best to leave the room. Each attempt was met with failure as the griffon guards would stop any attempts to leave. From trying to impersonate a griffon to simply jumping out the window using a featherfall spell didn’t work.

They were eventually let out, led down the halls once more into a massive banquet hall where a long table could be seen. Many griffons stood by their seats, not even taking a glance at Lyra and her group who made their way to their chairs. They all stood, waiting for the king to be announced in by trumpets, taking a seat only as he did, eating only once he had taken his first bite.

The dinner meal was an awkward setting. A multitude of foods sat on plates, steam rising from their meats and vegetables, many decadent dishes showcased, and sparkling from some kind of light setting. Barely anyone dug in, small bites being taken, whispers shared between one another. Everyone seemed to ignore their guests, pretending they didn’t exist.

Fed up with the quiet scene, it left Lyra with starting a conversation directly with their ruler, making her voice loud enough to be heard. “I noticed that you were preventing me from leaving my room so that I could go into town since we’ve entered this castle, holding me in like a prisoner. Is there a reason for this?”

Quite a few griffons were shocked by Lyra’s directness. A female griffon sneered at her. “Did anyone give you permission to look around our lands?”

“Are you the type of people that likes to break treaties and deals with other nations?” Lyra threw back hotly.

Bon Bon looked worryingly at her friend. “Lyra…”

Lyra glanced at Bon Bon, slightly shaking her head before turning back to King Cyrus. “You already know what my position is and what it entitles me to with our treaties. Unless you want to declare that you are breaking treaties with all the world’s nations, I demand you allow me the freedom to do my job.”

A griffon off to the side tittered, “And who said we were preventing you?”

“I’d say it was whoever had guards stand outside our door and keeping us inside for several hours.”

A huff from another, “We have a komlas finally out on their excursion and decided to come to our lands as their first stop, the heir of one of your largest trading companies strolling alongside said komlas, and the… foreign entity from another planet that is making waves coming to our lands. We’re a bit wary of what your intentions are. Maybe you should explain yourself and what you want to look at first.”

Throughout all this, Anon was noticeably getting more agitated, his eyes lightly smoking gray as he looked around the table. A rather large griffon, sitting across from him, wouldn’t stop staring at him, not having taken a single bite from the delicious smells invading Anon’s nose.

“Are you examining me with your alien ways?” the massive griffon asked him.

Anon blinked, trying to clear his eyes. “No, sorry. I’m ah, still learning to control that ability.”

“Is that what you used when you defeated Bombastic Boom Bill?”

It took him a few seconds to remember the odd name, ignoring the building tensions with Lyra and the table. “That minotaur that challenged me? No, I learned this after that fight.”

The griffon smiled at him. “So you did fight him. I was wondering how much of a challenge he was to you.”

“It wasn’t too hard fighting him off. Dodging him was easy enough. He couldn’t fight after I negated his attacks and threw him down.” Anon frowned. “Why are you asking about him? Do you know the guy?”

A dry laugh, “We’ve fought in the past several times. Generally, it ended in a stalemate between the two of us, with an equal amount of victories for us both. Hearing how you easily trounced him, even when he had the upper claw in the exchange with the challenge… I feel an exciting chill I hadn’t felt in a long time from you.”

“I’m not sure where you’re going with this.”

A menacing grin overcame the griffon. “It should be clear then: I want to fight you.”

A tug was felt on his jacket, Bon Bon having him lean to her. “Things aren’t looking good.”

“You’re telling me. I’ve got a behemoth wanting to fight me on top of me seeing… something seriously wrong with the griffons.”

“Really?” she deadpanned before moving to his ear to whisper. “I think you should take Giant Gil up on his offer.”

“His name’s really－ Wait I should what?!”

“Shh! Yes, take him up on his offer for a fight.”

“Are you mad?!” he harshly whispered back. “Do I look like the kind of guy that likes to start fights or even be in them?”

“If you take him on his offer, they’ll have to allow it. He’s one of their heroes, and him challenging you would mean we can set the time three days from now. And if we don’t do something soon they’ll be kicking us out in three minutes. Whatever is happening in these lands, it has them wanting to break blood-binding treaties. We need to stall for time.”

“And a fight will do that? I repeat, how will I fighting him give us time to look into this?”

“He’ll challenge you to a fight that we’ll postpone for three days in their arena, and we’ll also force in an allowance for Lyra to do her job as part of that agreement. It’s that or we’ll walk away.

“Why would they even care if we walked or not?”

“Anon, everyone knows of you. If you hadn't noticed, a lot of griffons were pointing you out in the town, discussing your fights. The public would be enraged if they ever found out a fight between one of their biggest names and you were blocked.”

“But a fight? Seriously? It’s like you’re TRYING to set me up to fight at this Camelot thing!”

“It’s the only chance we have at keeping us here for Lyra to investigate things. Just let me talk and we can get some time for Lyra to look into this. Are you willing to help us?”

The two of them stared at one another, Anon mulling over the idea of taking on the giant griffon. Turning back to Giant Gil, who was nibbling on his food in boredom, Anon narrowed his eyes.

“I better not regret this,” he mumbled to himself before speaking to the griffon. “So why exactly do you want to fight me? I’m not sure I understand the circumstances.”

The griffon paused, looking at Anon. That mean glint came back to his eye. “I’ve fought many minotaurs several times, always a grand spectacle with those people, trying to sneak into our lands just to fight us. We always kick those minotaurs back out, knowing they’d try once more in the future to rechallenge whoever beat them.

“Bombastic Boom Bill was different, one of the top fighters from their lands. He was the only one that ever gave me trouble when I fought. I found myself over time enjoying each confrontation we had. To hear of you beating him with just one round, and barely a scratch on you has me… shivering in excitement with just the thought of fighting you.”

“Freaking meathead,” Anon mumbled before clearing his throat.

Bon Bon started, “It’s unfortunate you won’t be able to fight him then.”

Giant Gil frowned. “I don’t see why not. I’ll be at the Camelot Challenge like everyone else.”

“Anon won’t be going to that. He’ll be traveling around with both of us to other nations so unfortunately, we’ll miss out on it. And from how it looks, I don’t think you’ll ever get the chance to fight him in the future at all, or at least, be the first to.”

Bon Bon turned her head to the others arguing with Lyra. “Too bad, they’ll be kicking us out of your lands soon. Anon not only fought Bombastic Boom Bill but also took on an entire rebel army all on his own.” Anon froze, giving a nasty glare at her. “He doesn’t like to talk about that one, how he took down everyone in his path and their leader. Why, there’s even been rumors around he’s been sneaking out into the Everfree Forest, just so he can fight the hydras and chimeras in there for sport.”

Anon was grinding his teeth, hearing Bon Bon pumping up his abilities far beyond what was reasonable. The griffon was hunching over the table, leering down at Anon with an eagerness that made him uncomfortable. A few griffons sitting by him finally took notice on Giant Gil’s ruffled form.

Bon Bon shrugged both front hooves in the air with a look of indifference. “Oh well, guess the fight of the century will have to happen somewhere else and not here, with you, in New Griffonstone, surrounding all the griffons to spectate and－”

Giant Gil slammed his claws into the table, pulling them back as claw marks trailed behind on the table. He jumped up on it, pointing a clawed digit at Anon. “Alien dignitary! I challenge you to a showdown of combat in the arenas!”

The entire room was in silence, watching the display. A griffon screamed out, realizing what had just transpired. “OH COME ON.”

“Tomorrow evening－”

“DON’T ALLOW THIS,” another griffon screamed.

“We shall perform glorious combat－”

“SOMEONE SHUT HIM UP.”

“For all of griffon-kind to witness!”

“We need three days to prepare ourselves,” Bon Bon said. “To give you the best fight between the two of you, that is.”

The griffon stared at her, then turned to Anon, jabbing another pointed claw at him.

“In three days－”

“IT’S CLEAR WHAT THEY’RE DOING.”

“We shall encounter in the arena for maximal conflicts－”

“HE’S BEING BAMBOOZLED.”

“For all of Gryphonia to spectate!”

The griffon flew off away from the table and through an opening in the ceiling, drawing gasps at his departure.

A few seconds of silence before Lyra coughed in a hoof. “Looks like we’ll be staying for another three days then! We’ll have to postpone our break-the-treaties talks to a later date.”

Across the table, a griffon growled. “If you think we’ll allow you to roam around as you please then you’ve got another thing coming.”

“I suppose we’ll have to leave then,” Bon Bon said, giving off fake-devastation. “Oh, woe is us, for the griffon public will know that an epic fight could have been taken place, if not for the griffons here preventing such actions.”

A clink could be heard, King Cyrus placing his goblet down. He took his napkin, wiping his beak. “It seems I will have to allow the komlas her freedom then if we are to keep the public happy. Is that not right, Mordecai?”

“Ooh,” Anon whispered to himself, “that's an evil name right there. Yup. That’s a good one alright.”

“But my king, we can’t allow them the freedom to do as they please in our lands.”

“It is in our signed treaties to allow such actions. Besides, they can walk away as it is, and that would upset the public knowing such a fight was taken from them. You’re always about making the public happy, are you not Mordecai?”

“...Yes, my king.”

“Then let us make the public happy. You’ll have your three days, komlas. Then I expect a grand showing in the arena for all our troubles.”

“Why, of course, King Cyrus.”

She gave off a smug smile at the griffons that were previously arguing at her. The griffon across from her growled, snapping his wooden utensil in half. King Cyrus throughout this all merely sighed, taking a sip of his drink.

“Can’t have a single meal in peace, can I?”

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“That was awesome!” Lyra was jumping around their room, brimming with excitement. “I’ll have three days to explore around the area and figure out what is going on, and it’s all thanks to you!” She gave Anon a large hug. “Thank you!”

He rolled his eyes, reciprocating the hug. “Yeah, I just have to fight a steroid-abusing griffon. Hurrah.”

“...What are steroids?”

“I’m not getting into this conversation.”

“I don’t see this as a victory!” Haze Friction was walking in circles, looking tired. “We’re going to be kicked out in three days regardless! All you’ve done is held off the inevitable. We’ll be going back to our lands with the griffons breaking their treaties, and when the other nations hear of this, it’s going to be a living nightmare! We’ll have to reroute trade routes, have additional eyes on griffon travelers which could promote some of the griffon blockages we’ve been trying to deal with in court, and my name’s going to be attached to all of this!”

“Everyone, chill.” Anon waved his hands up and down. “I’ve got this. I already know what’s going on.”

Everyone looked at him. “You do?” Bon Bon said.

“Sort of. Lyra will have to look into why the griffons are being possessed but that should be doable in three days.”

Their eyes widened at his words. “Possessed?” Lyra sputtered.

He pointed at his eyes. “My sight allows me to see magical things and right through magic. I was wondering what I was seeing out in town and at the table, but it occurred to me that the griffons are probably being led by some weird plan to take them over through possessing their leaders.”

Anon looked smug, crossing his arms. “I saw them out in town over by the mines leading up to the castle as well, so that’s a good starting point for you Lyra. Probably has to do with the coal mines. Bam! Probably some dead spirits being dug up or something in there. Hmph. Yeah, ruined this plot didn’t I?”

“They’re possessed?!” Haze Friction was tip-tapping around the room now. “What am I supposed to do about that?! I can’t leave this castle like you can Lyra, I’m stuck with griffon-possession and WHAT IF THEY POSSESS ME NEXT?!”

Lyra didn’t look as pleased about hearing that, also tip-tapping around. “I don’t want to go into town with possessed griffons! I hate ghosts! They give me the heebie-jeebies!”

Bon Bon turned to Anon. “You saw the griffons being possessed? As in you could see the spirits themselves?” Anon nodded his head. “Not the griffons there with the ghosts in them, but just the ghosts themselves?” He nodded once more, looking confused with what this was leading to. “Wouldn’t that mean that it’s something taking their place, and the griffons are not there?”

Anon rubbed his chin, thinking that over. “Good point, I will correct myself: The spirits have kidnapped the griffons and are taking their place.”

Bon Bon and Anon ignored Lyra and Haze Friction running around the room, freaking out as they thought over what he saw. “Why would spirits foalnap them when they could possess them? Why even pretend to be them? Anon, could you describe the ghosts to me. Depending on what kind they were could lead us to what is going on.”

“The ghosts looked weird, like they were, well… ponies. I assume they came from some old pony burial grounds or whatever. Probably mistakenly dug them up in the coal mines or someplace close.”

“I’m only remotely familiar with spirits in my work, but I don’t think there’d be any burial grounds close to griffon lands.”

“Surprised you would know of them at all.”

“I’ve had a run-in with spirits once in the past, and that was by accident. If ever given the chance to see a real mummy, don’t have your colleagues touching the tomb to check for clues to their investigations.”

“...Duly noted.”

“Okay, I don’t think it was windigos, they’re usually vicious and congregate more in our lands than outside. Perhaps you saw a púca, they like to teach lessons of humility. Anon, was there anything noticeable about their appearance? If we can narrow down the spirits that are foalnapping the griffons, we might be able to turn this all around and exorcise them.”

“I remember they all had crooked horns on them. Buggy eyes, with a lot of holes taken out of their bodies. Kind of freaky to look at. I noticed wings as well, on top of the weird fangs coming out of their mouths. Their bodies－ Why are you all looking at me like that?”

“Anon, those aren’t ghosts,” Lyra said with a shiver in her voice. “Those are changelings. The griffons are being taken over by changelings.”

~End Chapter Twenty-Six~