My Little Death Note

My Little Death Note Part 1: The scars of time

Authors Note:

[Readers of my stories may have noticed that I keep posting in the general category, this is because I can never decide what my stories actually are. Often they are dark, but not enough so that they would qualify as Grimdark. They also often have action, but rarely ever revolve around it. My stories are more psychological ones, matters of what if, and i honestly prefer to structure them more like a mystery novel, trying to give the reader enough clues to be able to piece together what has happened, and ultimately revealing what it was. As to this story in particular, as with all my stories it has a good ending, (which is to say that the Kira of this story won't die) but rest assured things are also going to go very wrong before things are set to rights. Also, be warned that somepony's in this story may have foul language, so if your sensitive to stuff like that, try not to read any of Cogflay's lines. Please give feedback on what you thought]

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“Leave me alone Ryuk, I’ve already given you another death note and I honestly can’t be damned giving you yet another if you’re just going to go ahead and lose it.”

The Old Man had gotten sick of this a long time ago, though honestly he couldn’t fault Ryuk for those times he had “Accidentally” dropped his death note into the world of the living. Even he had to admit that the Shinigami world had become unbelievably dull and boring, and he was the one who had first created it.

During the time he had existed he had been known by a great many names, though now he was only known as The Old Man. He wasn’t sure if he could even remember what he had once been called, nor could he be bothered attempting the feat. All he needed to know was those who were born in the living world.

Even now, The Old Man was using his Shinigami 'magic' to write down the names of everypony that came into existence in Equestria. It was a scheme he had developed ages ago, when he had been feared and revered as a god of divine punishment. The idea was so deviously simple that he was rather pleased he had been the first to discover it, though being the first Shinigami no doubt helped with that. All he need do was write down the names of ponies a few moments before they died and the seconds remaining of their life were his.

When applied to just one pony, it proved to be a simple waste of time. However, when applied to every pony in existence, it gave him a lifespan longer than any other being. It was a genius idea, as the other Shinigami could still write names in their death note’s and gain that lifespan, but all he would lose was a few seconds off of his. After all…what were a few seconds when you had eternity?

Though an eternity being pestered by Ryuk was not quite what he had in mind.

“Oh c’mon, it can’t be that hard to make another.”

“It can and it is Ryuk, the creation of a death note requires the souls of precisely 13,000 ponies who are not killed by the death note. I would need to stop writing names in my own death note for ages, and it would fall upon me to wander around the world of the living collecting their souls for years. To be entirely honest with you, I just can’t be bothered putting that much of my time into a death note for a Shinigami far too absent minded to be deserving of that title.”

“Oh…is that so?”

“Yes Ryuk, so you can stop pestering me for another one.”

“So you’re sure you won’t create another death note for me?”

“NO RYUK!!!”

“Then will you do it to get yours back?”

“What!?”

Curse that blasted Shinigami, the whole time he had been explaining the complexities of creating a death note, the bastard had taken his own death note from him.

“Give that back Ryuk, this isn’t some sort of game, I need that death note.”

“So do I, do we have a deal then?”

“For the last time Ryuk, No!”

“Have it your way then.”

Ryuk tossed The Old Man’s death note down into the pit leading to the living world, and before the note was out of the irritating Shinigami's hand The Old Man was already rushing after it.

“Hell damn you Ryuk.”

As the book fell through the world of the living it began to gain speed, The Old Man straining to match it’s descent. He reached out his clawed hand to grab the notebook and…Found himself smashing heavily into the earth. The death note lay right in front of him, technically in his reach, though he knew he would never be able to claim ownership of his death note again.

“Crap! When I get my claws on that Shinigami I’m going to kill him.”

Despite the impossibility of his words, the oath of vengeance made him feel alive somehow inside.



“Twilight Sparkle!”

“huh…what?”

Twilight opened her eyes groggily to find Celestia herself standing before her. Snapping awake Twilight quickly scrambled up from where she had been resting, almost losing her footing on the bright polished flooring beneath her.

“So sorry for falling asleep Princess, it’s just that with all of the advanced magic studying that I’ve been having to do since I started, and having to advance my own research into the study of healing magic, it’s meant I’ve had so little time to sleep, and-”

Twilight fell silent as she realized that she had been starting to blabber.

“Sorry Princess.”

Celestia closed her eyes and sighed to herself. She appreciated the effort that her student put into her studies, but often she would put her studies before her own needs, and having to deal with those results could get very tiring.

“Twilight, I’m not angry with you. You have to calm down and take your studies just a bit less seriously. On that note, how have your friends been, have you been keeping in touch with them?”

Twilight’s silence stretched on longer as she tried to think of an answer that wouldn’t put her at fault. She had not been keeping in touch with her friends, aside from the letter’s she sent them about once a month, she had severed all contact’s with them. She honestly wouldn’t blame her friends if they had forgotten about her. Even she was aware just how much she had neglected the world around her after her advanced studies with Celestia had begun.

In a week it would make the third year that she had been away from Ponyville. She had received numerous messages from Fluttershy asking if she was okay, but she rarely found the time to reply amidst her vast amount of work. She often heard about Rarity’s success with the Carousel Boutique or Rainbowdash’s feats with the Wonderbolt in the Equestrian Inquirer, but would rarely receive any letters from them. Pinkie Pie would frequently send Twilight her latest cooking experiments, and Twilight would always be sure to receive a whopping cake that looked more like a mountain of icing for her birthdays. Applejack seemed to have forgotten about her at least, there was very little contact between the two of them since they had gone their separate ways.

The silence had extended too long to be remedied.

“Twilight! You need to stop this, the whole reason why I sent you to Ponyville in the first place was to get your head out of the books and to make some friends. What was the point of that if the moment your back to studying again you neglect them as if they never existed?”

Twilight cringed before her teacher. Celestia wasn’t the kind of pony to speak harshly to others. Yet she couldn’t really blame the princess for the guilt she felt. She should have tried to get back in touch with them the last time Celestia had discovered the lack of communication between her and her friends. But as soon as she got back to the room Celestia had provided her in the castle, she would once again lose herself in her studies and forget about writing letters to her friends.

Twilight realized how long it had been since she had spoken.

“I’m…so sorry Celestia…I tried…It’s just…”

“No Twilight, I’m sorry. I should have known that this would happen. I know how you get during your studies, and how quickly you can escalate the smallest of your tasks above the rest of your life.”

“I promise I will Celest-”

“Twilight! I’m sorry, but you haven’t left me with any choice. You are to go back to Ponyville and resume your studies on friendship at once.”

“But Princess…”

“Enough Twilight, it pains me enough to send you away like this, but I can’t let you continue to live in such an isolation. Please Twilight, don’t make this any harder for me than it already is.”

Twilight felt the dismissal in her voice and returned to her quarters in the palace, dragging her hooves with a slow walk. As she entered her room she was greeted by a worried Spike. Though Spike had matured a lot during their time at the castle, he still retained the slow aging process that dragon’s naturally experienced. Spike now measured up to her head and Twilight had found that he could be quite useful for moving heavy objects, Though with the strength of her magic now that was hardly ever required.

“What happened Twilight?”

Spike could always tell when she was down, though at the moment the sadness she felt was almost tangible, it’s presence weighing down on her. How could she have let things come to this? She was back to square one; she was once again a loner, once again dismissed from Celestia’s care. It was almost exactly the same as when she had first come to Ponyville…only this time her old friends would be far too busy with their ambitions to greet her.

“Spike, start packing your bags, we’re going back to Ponyville.”

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“Twilight, when we reach Ponyville, do you think our friends will be there to greet us?”

“For the last time Spike, No. I didn’t tell them we we’re coming back.”

“But why not?”

Twilight was getting tired of explaining this to the dragon. He was a good assistant most of the time, but he didn’t quite understand the larger complexities of life. Her old friends were probably so busy with their work that they had forgotten about her all together. All except Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie; A wry smile lit her face at the thought of those last two. Pinkie Pie had always managed to juggle all of her friends with her work and she didn’t doubt that there would be any exception when she got back…Though her experimentation with cooking seemed to have become quite an obsession. Fluttershy…well she never really seemed to view her work as work. She would just care for the animals, and Twilight knew how much she hated the spotlight. There was no way those two would ever forget their friends.

“Because we’ll be going to visit them personally. Imagine how happy they’ll be once we get back there, and Pinkie always loved surprises.”

“I didn’t think of it like that…but Twilight?”

“Yes Spike?”

“Could we see Rarity first?”

Twilight almost visibly froze, she had completely forgotten about Spike’s crush on Rarity. But what reason could she possibly give to divert him from trying? There was no way in Equestria that Rarity would have any time off from her work, and she highly doubted that Rarity would chose to spend them with Spike. Knowing Rarity she would be using that time to try and start the next big thing in fashion…if she ever had any time.

“No Spike.”

“Why not?”

Those words were really annoying her today.

“Umm….Because Pinkie would be upset if you didn’t tell her first thing.”

Even to her the reason sounded flimsy, and it certainly wasn’t a solution to her problem, it would only buy her time. She didn’t want Spike to have to suffer through the emotional pain that the reality of life would bring should he realize the divide between him and Rarity.

“We’re also going to need to sort out the library once we get back; you can bet that whoever’s been in charge of it will have misfiled all the books.”

“But Twilight” Spike’s complaining warmed her somehow. She had successfully steered the conversation away from Rarity and would have time to find more things to occupy Spike.

“Sorry Spike, but it’s one of the duties of living there.”

Spike groaned, and Twilight couldn’t help but smile. Even after all the years of helping her, the dragon still hated the thought of rearranging those books. They would have to meet up with Pinkie Pie first though, she had been thinking fast when she had suggested meeting her first to Spike, but now that she thought about it Pinkie Pie considered her friends a very important part of her life; and though she doubted the party pony would be upset, Twilight didn’t want to risk offending her by giving her no notification of their arrival.

She looked out over the edge of the Pegasus-drawn carriage they were flying in. This was just like the time they had first come here.

“What’s the word for this, when it feels like something’s happening again?”

“It’s Deja-vu, Spike”

Thinking about their return to Ponyville, she couldn’t help but reminisce of when she had left there. All the town had come out to say goodbye to her, and Pinkie being the party pony she was had thrown together a farewell party. She didn’t think it would ever have been possible to make a farewell that enjoyable, but somehow the pink pony had managed it. Of course Rarity had to design the most outrageous dress to “stun all of Canterlot”, but Twilight had decided against stunning Canterlot and hidden the dress away. She appreciated Rarity’s dress and knew how much effort it must have taken her, but she also knew that she would be drawing enough attention by staying with the Princess, she didn’t need the attention such attire would bring as well.

It had been a great day, and when they she had to go she had made, or rather stuffed up, a Pinkie Pie promise to write to them. She never quite understood how Pinkie managed to shove her hoof in her eye without hurting herself. She really hoped that Pinkie wouldn’t see her monthly letter’s as breaking the promise, she knew how Pinkie got when someone broke their promise, but that was why she had still written, despite how rare the letters were.

“Twilight, we’re here”

Twilight snapped out of her reminiscing to see that her assistant was correct. They were beginning the slow descent into the town of Ponyville and as the sounds of the Pegasi hooves began to sound on the ground, the carriage slowed to a halt. Twilight hoped out of the carriage quickly followed by her assistant and, almost forgetting her manners, addressed those who had carried them to Ponyville.

“Thank you kind sirs”

The guard’s gave a snort of approval before taking off to begin their journey back to Canterlot. Twilight and Spike began their walk to the library, a silence between the two until Twilight heard a giggle behind her.

“What’s so funny Spike?”

She had intended the question to sound querying, but instead it had come out sounding strict. All of her worries about what would happen we’re starting to bear down on her. Spike’s giggling instantly stopped and he answered her seriously.

“I was just thinking that this really is just like when we first arrived in Ponyville. If I didn’t know better I would be expecting Nightmare Moon to come again.”

“Would that really be so bad?”

Twilight walked a couple more paces before she came to a halt; Spike had stopped, frozen in his tracks behind her, gaping.

“What’s wrong Spike?”

“What did you mean when you said that?”

“Oh…”

Twilight went over her previous comment in her head and saw how he must have interpreted it.

“What I meant was that when Nightmare Moon came, it gave all of us a reason to work together and get to know them as friends. If Nightmare hadn’t turned up I’m not sure I would have ever wanted to stay in Ponyville, let alone have friends here.”

Spike’s expression calmed as she explained it to him. She had been acting rather out of sorts lately, so she couldn’t blame him for his reaction. For a brief moment Twilight contemplated letting Spike simply find out for himself the separation that there would be between him and Rarity. No, regardless of how much of a burden it would lift from her, she wouldn’t let Spike feel that pain. He was her assistant, he deserved better than that.

As Twilight walked down the streets of Ponyville she was surprised to find how much the town had developed since she had gone. It was certainly no rival to the glamour of Canterlot, but it certainly wasn’t the Ponyville she had known. The streets were narrower, and she realized that they we’re actually proper streets, as opposed to well-trodden areas of earth. The sound of her hooves on the new cobblestone of the roads was rather unpleasant at first, but she found she quickly grew accustomed to them.

Shops were clustered close together around the street, and the alleys were distinctly more dark and frequent than she remembered.

“Maybe not quite as similar as you thought Spike.”

Spike kept silent as they walked through the streets of Ponyville, rather overwhelmed by the changes the place had gone through while they had been away. After having passed a rather oddly named shop she came to a T-intersection in the road that seemed to split the entirety of Ponyville. Both behind her and to her left lay the new cluster of shining buildings, but to the right of her was the old Ponyville she had come to know. As they followed the right road that path soon returned to the dirt and she noticed the vast difference between the hard stone compared to the soft dirt path.

She soon found herself at the bridge near the middle of the Ponyville she had known. Simply walking across it brought back memories of all the adventures she had undertaken with her friends. She realized that she had been staring into the water below the bridge as she stopped the flow of memories. Continuing along their path they soon encountered the old library tree where she used to stay all those years ago.

“Good to at least see some things haven’t changed.”

Twilight practically breathed out her relief with those words. The library had hardly changed a bit, the tree had probably lost a few branches and gained a couple of others, but at least this part of Ponyville didn’t seem to have changed. Twilight opened the door and turned to Spike with her very first true smile since her advanced studies had begun.

“It feels good to finally be back”

“TWILIGHT!!!”

Twilight felt herself get tackled to the ground by someone inside the library, as her vision swam into focus again the head of a pink pony with a candy floss mane stood over her.

“Pinkie?”

“Hiya Twilight, I knew that you would be here, well I didn’t really know that it was you but I knew that someone would be here and then I thought to myself who would it be if it wasn’t you.”

Twilight just lay where she was, staring at the pony before her.

“Pinkie…How did you know I would be here?”

“Oh, that’s easy, it’s Pinkie Sense.”

“Pinkie Sense can do that?”

“Yup, it’s one of the combo’s, Knee wobble, and then tail twitch, then ear flops. It means an old friend is coming back. But I didn’t know what friend it would be, but then I thought what old friends do I have? And I realized it was you because you’re the only old friend I know that would be coming back so then I figured you would come back here first as so here I was.”

“I guess that makes some sense…so what were you doing in there?”

“Talking with Star.”

“Who!?”

Twilight burst into the library, looking around for the pony that had taken her place in the town. It didn’t take long for her to find them; it was a sea green unicorn mare with an orange mane. The outline of a star lay on their flank in a deep, almost purple, blue, on the same angle that the star on Trixie’s cutie mark had been.

“Hello there Twilight.”

“How do you know my name?”

“You’re the element of magic, she who vanquished the ursa minor in Ponyville and worked with the other elements to defeat Discord and Nightmare Moon, though rumor has it that you were once quite humiliatingly frozen by a cockatrice once. Who doesn’t know about you?”

Twilight instinctively didn’t like this pony, she didn’t know quite what it was but something about this pony seemed off to her. It almost seemed as if she were hiding something, but Twilight realized that she was probably letting her fears get the best of her, she hadn’t been replaced by this pony, they had simply been filling in for her job while she was away.

“Well if you know so much about me then you should know that I used to live here.”

“Oh, did you? Well I’m sorry about that Twilight but I’m the new resident of this property.”

Pinkie broke into the conversation without hesitation.

“C’mon Star, can’t you let Twilight stay here, there isn’t enough room at my place and I don’t think she would be able to sleep knowing some of the animals Fluttershy has.”

“Hmph” Star tossed her head in the air “I supposed that we could work something out, there are two beds here so you’ll have to find something else for your pet” Spike emitted a rather annoyed “Hey!” at this. “But keep in mind that this is my place now and what I say goes.”

Twilight had never known any single pony to be this irritating, but here they were, and she decided that she may as well take what she could get.

“Fine”

“Excellent, you’ll be getting up and making me breakfast at 5:45 sharp, you do know how to cook right?”

She hated what she got.



That night Twilight found her dreams disturb by images of Spike finding Rarity too busy for him, and dismissing him from her presence forever. Rarity became that arrogant pony Star and then proceeded to literally throw them out of Ponyville, launching both Spike and her to the moon.

Twilight woke up feeling far too hot for her liking, her mane was a wreck and she was sweating all over. Twilight threw a glance at the clock and saw that it was 6:13. Twilight panicked for a short time before realizing that Star too was still asleep. Not that she wanted to make breakfast for that conceited mare, but she was the current owner of the library, and she couldn’t risk getting thrown out. She wouldn’t leave the books in the care of a pony like that.

Twilight got up and quickly groomed her mane before getting started on breakfast for both herself and the arrogant mare. She had a couple of sapphires and emeralds in the bag’s she had brought with them for Spike to eat, but once those we’re done with she would have to find some more. Fortunately she still remembered the gem finding spell Rarity had taught her. Though she doubted she would ever need to 'rescue' Rarity with it again, it was certainly useful for finding a dragon’s dinner.

Twilight just threw together a couple of hay sandwich's, there shouldn’t be any objections to such a basic meal and the less she actually tried to cook, the less there was that could go wrong with it. She sat there chewing on the sandwich while pondering on what she would do about Star. There was no way of knowing what new demands the unicorn would have for her, but it seemed as if she would have to comply with Star’s wishes for now. Maybe in time the pony would be more friendly, but Twilight seriously doubted it.

Finishing her meal she noticed that Star still hadn’t come down, deciding that the mare would only be angry with her if she found her breakfast cold, Twilight went to wake her. However, as she stepped into the bedroom she stopped, looking at the clock and through the window at the same time. The clock clearly stated to the world that it was 6:52, but it was still pitch dark outside, without a single hint of light anytime soon.

As Twilight began using her magic to check if something was wrong with the clock she quickly found the problem, someone had used magic to alter the time on the clock three hours ahead, and the magical imprint showed that it had been done recently as well. Star! She hadn’t woken up at 6:13, but 3:13. That sneaky little…Twilight left the room and went to start arranging the books to cover up any mistakes Star had made, and to stop herself before she did something she’d regret.

After what seemed like hours of sorting through the books Twilight found that some daylight was starting to seep through the windows, and Star still wasn’t up. That pony was absolutely awful at keeping the library, the book’s seemed to be in no order whatsoever and some of them had been practically falling apart. She had even needed to painstakingly repair one of the books piece by piece, as the book (A study on Transformation) had been so badly taken care of that it literally fell apart the moment she picked it up.

Twilight was putting the last book in place, which she was pleased to find was actually written by Zecora, when she noticed it. Outside of the library there was a black book, just lying on the ground. Twilight swore she was going to give Star such a lecture once the mare woke up. That mare may not have known much about books, but there was absolutely no excuse for just throwing a book away like that. However, as she trotted outside to remedy Star’s mistake she saw that this book was not one that she had ever seen before. It was bound entirely in black, except for two words written in white upon its cover.

Death Note

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Death Note

Twilight spent quite a while just staring at the book, it was so strange, just lying here as if it had been thrown away. Yet at the same time it didn’t bear any of the tatters of mistreatment. The name was rather peculiar too. It would have to be fiction, the title was simply too vague for it to be anything else; yet Twilight had never heard of such an oddly named story. There was no art on the front or spine to help her find out what the book entailed nor was there any blurb. So there was only one way to find out.

Twilight sparked up the magic in her horn and sent the tendrils of magic to open the book forth. Her advanced studies had not only taught her new spells, but better control of her magic as well. She had learnt that magic was actually an extension of the unicorn’s body. The horn acted as a focusing point from which the magic could be released, and the mind shaped the magic, much as it shaped images from the eyes. The only difference being that magic was released from the body, and it took just as much energy to retrieve the expelled magic as it did to emit it in the first place. Her studies had taught her how to branch her magic, meaning that she exhausted herself less from it, and could therefore conduct complex and powerful spells with the same ease that she could teleport with.

For the moment it was simply a matter of turning the cover, and such a simple piece of magic would take less energy than a step. However as her magic made contact with the cover, a strange shiver came over her. A sickly taint hung in the air around her, making her feel as if she gasped for air. She released her magic from the book, but the feeling only intensified. She tried to take a breath, but couldn’t force her throat to take in the air. She felt her vision starting to haze around her.

“Revoke ownership of the book. NOW!”

The voice seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere, a creepy whispering voice that sent chills down her spine. She tried to tell the thing that she hadn’t claimed that the book was hers, but she couldn’t find the air in her lungs to speak.

And then, just as suddenly as it had come, it stopped.

Twilight just stared at the book, as if the whole thing had been a dream, maybe it had, some deluded fantasy she had conjured. But that wouldn’t explain how real it had felt, and she certainly didn’t feel as if she were insane. She flipped over the cover and glared at the first page, a silent dare for the book to try that again.

At the top of the page there was a picture of a strange skull surrounded by a weird circle with numerous spikes protruding from it. The words “Death Note: How to use it” were written below the skull in a rather creepy manner. Directly below that the words began to look more normal, but their message was not.

The Pony whose name is written in this note shall die.

Twilight couldn’t bring herself to read any further. Her experience with the book was already too weird, but if it really did have the power to kill ponies, then it was far too dangerous to be left outside like it was.

Twilight shut the book and carried it with her inside, intending to hide it in the basement. Hopefully the clutter of her experiments when she was last here would give her a place to hide the book, until she could find a way to dispose of it.

“Twilight, I see that you’ve made my breakfast, however It is far too cold, you will have to make it again.”

Twilight was greeted by the hay sandwich she had made earlier that morning.

“Hello star.”

The words were barely recognizable through Twilight’s gritted teeth.

“Now, now Twilight, are you forgetting who the current owner of this particular establishment is?”

Twilight silently started to prepare breakfast again for the irritating mare, unleashing the anger out on the meal before slamming it down in front of Star.

“Why are you so angry with me now, Twi?”

What in Equestria was this pony saying? They take over their place while she was gone, order her around once they’re back, and didn’t seem like they’d actually ever tried to do their job.

“I arranged the books this morning.”

“That’s good; I never really found the time to do it. By the way, you said you did it this morning. When did you wake up?”

Now Twilight got it, Star had adjusted the time forward on the clock so that Twilight would think she was late, but Twilight knew what the actual time was.

“3:13”

“You’re lying.”

Where the heck did this pony get off saying that? She knew the time that she had woken up this morning, so what was this mare trying to prove with any of this. Twilight decided to confront her.

“No, I found out about you changing the clock, when I woke the clock told me it was 6:13, but in reality it was three hours before that. So tell me Star, why is it that you did that?”

Star seemed to be taken aback by the accusation. But she quickly regained her composure and sighed as if addressing some foal.

“In order to see what kind of a pony you were. By checking the clock, you’ve proved to me that you are nothing but suspicious of those around you; though whether you plot behind their backs or not I’ll have to find out later.”

“…goodbye Star.”

“Indeed, I will be out for the day, but when I get back I expect for everything here to be just as perfect as when I left it. Otherwise I’ll know you’re the scheming kind.”

As soon as Star had walked out the door Twilight threw open the Death Note and flicked through it until she found a blank page. That obnoxious prick would be an excellent test for the book, if the book worked then she would dispose of it and the library would be a much better place. If it didn’t then nothing was lost. Twilight used her magic to levitate a quill that had been lying near Star, the surprise that there was already ink on it was quickly shoved into the back of her mind. With a flurry of the quill, Twilight wrote the first name in the Death Note: Star.

Twilight paused with the quill over the Death Note. What had she done? No matter how annoying somepony was she couldn’t have killed them, not that easily. No, the book must be a fake; she couldn’t have killed another pony. What if the book was real? She had just taken the life away from Star, just because they had irritated her. What else would she do with it? What if one day she were feeling angry with Pinkie and ended up killing her before her better judgment took hold?

She couldn’t take it anymore.

Twilight decided to write one more name in the Death Note, if it was real, then she wouldn’t have to live with the guilt of her sins. If it was fake, nothing would happen, and she could stop worrying. So she wrote down her last words: Twilight Sparkle.

Twilight waited.

She wasn’t sure what she was waiting for, all that she had seen of the book was that the pony whose name was written would die. She didn’t know how they would die, maybe it would be quick, and she wouldn’t even notice. Or maybe each of her limbs would be ripped off and she would bleed to death. Either way, five minutes had passed and the Death Note hadn’t taken effect.

Twilight took a heavy breath filled with relief. The book was a fake. There was nothing to worry about, Star would still be alive, and she wasn’t a murderer.

A small grin came over her face. To think she had been as silly as to think a book actually had the power to kill ponies. The very thought of it was ridiculous. She giggled to herself. Maybe she should read through the rest of the book. There couldn’t be any harm in it, and she had never even heard of this book before, let alone read it. She wondered what it could be about, what could have such a creepy opening. The blank pages near the back she had flipped to would no doubt be to write notes, or some sort of continuation. Maybe this was some book somepony had been writing that never got finished.

Twilight trembled with anticipation over what was contained inside the Death Note.

However before she could properly investigate the book, Spike burst in through the door, and promptly collapsed on the floor. Spike’s mouth was oddly puffed out, as if he had stuffed his face full of food. He didn’t seem to be in much pain or danger, just sick. The poor dragon had probably gone to one of Pinkie’s parties and eaten too much. The dragon raised his head weakly to Twilight and croaked out

“Don’t do it.”

Before Twilight could ask what exactly she shouldn’t do Pinkie Pie hopped inside, carrying a basket full of little wrapped candies on her head.

“C’mon Spike, could you try just one more, I think I’ve gotten the recipe just about right.”

It became pretty obvious at that point; Pinkie had gotten Spike to test some sort of new candy that she had made. Pinkie had always loved to party, parties always had party food. It was a logical conclusion that Pinkie would therefore try to make her own food for those parties. However, Pinkie was not exactly the most balanced of ponies, and that was also apparent with her “cooking” experiments.

Pinkie noticed her.

“Oh, Twilight you here. How would you like to try one of these candies I’m making? Spike seems to be a bit full at the moment.”

Twilight knew it would end badly, but she would do it. It was for her friendship, and for whatever kind of science cooking was. Twilight tried to probe the candy for what ingredients it contained using her magic but before she could even deduce if it was edible Pinkie had succeeded in shoving one into her mouth.

The inside of her mouth felt like an explosion had happened there, she could swear her tongue was literally on fire, but it didn’t hurt. Before it reached the point of pain she felt the candy drip a cold, sour liquid onto her tongue. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant sensation, but it felt good in contrast to the fiery wrath of the treat before. Once the sour liquid had finished seeping out of the candy, it actually wasn’t so bad. It was perhaps a tad too sweet, but overall it was quite nice, with a distinct strawberry flavor to it.

“What do you think of them Twilight? I call them Combo’s; the idea actually came to me with my Pinkie sense. Because sometimes it tells me good things are going to happen, but it can also be bad too.”

Twilight would be honest.

“There actually pretty good, but could you tone down the massive amount of heat with it, I don’t know how you managed to make something that spicy…” Twilight remembered the time they had visited the Rainbow factory in Cloudsdale. “You put rainbow’s into it didn’t you?”

“Yup!”

“Could you find something just a little less spicy for it?”

“Oh, you mean like only putting six of the colors in instead of the whole rainbow? Sure.”

Before Twilight could tell the party pony what she had actually meant, she had already bounded out of the house. Twilight felt sorry for the poor pony that would be the first to try a combo with 86% of a rainbow.

She turned to Spike to ask him to sweep up the library but upon seeing the poor state that the dragon was in, she decided to let him rest there. Moving him would probably just cause him to be sick, and personally she didn’t want to know what the previous incarnations of the Combo had looked like.

With that distraction out of the way Twilight could get around to reading through that book. Twilight decided that the basement would be quite a good place to read it. Star wouldn’t interrupt her reading when she came back, and there wouldn’t be any more distractions like Pinkie Pie for her. However, as she entered the basement, she found that it was clean. Not just clean as in free of dust, but clean of everything. The room was completely empty except for herself and the Death Note.

Twilight was going to have to ask Star where she had taken it later.

But for now, Twilight could read the Death Note, skipping past what she had already read, she continued through the page.

This note will not take effect unless the writer has the pony’s face in their mind when writing his/her name. Therefore, ponies sharing the same name will not be affected.

Had she had Star’s face in her mind when she wrote the name, had she had her own? Could this Death Note actually be real and the only reason she was still alive was because she hadn’t known this rule?

If the cause of death is written within the next 40 seconds of writing the pony’s name, it will happen.

If the cause of death is not specified, the pony will simply die of a heart attack.

After writing the cause of death, details of the death should be written in the next 6 minutes and 40 seconds.

This thing seemed far too detailed to be just some fake, nervous to see just how many way’s this thing could kill, she skimmed across the black pages at the start of the book until she came to the first white page, one of the pages on which she had written her and Star’s name.

As the force upon the book died down and gravity took its course she noticed one page, right at the end of the black pages, in the color of blood. Immediately intrigued by this page by some strange reason she couldn’t fathom, she turned it over and read the page. Unlike the black pages this one bore two scythe’s crossing over each other where the skull would have been, and immediately began its rules where the other’s had been entitled “Death Note: How to use it”.

The immediate owner of this Death Note is immune to the effects of both their Death Note and the Death Notes of others.

Should the Shinigami who originally possessed this Death Note die for any reason, the death's of those written in the Death Note’s will be undone, provided their original lifetime has not passed, and the powers of the Death Note’s rendered invalid.

What did this book mean? She had heard the word Shinigami before in some foreign tongue. If she recalled correctly, it had some relation to death, but it had also had some connotation of immortal. If only she could remember exactly what it meant.

As Twilight flipped through the pages of the book, she found one of the pages had been torn out quite forcibly, but not as if it was done in a rush, rather as if somepony, or some Shinigami hadn’t cared about the damage they dealt to the Death Note.

“Now I wonder who did that.”

The voice was that same as when she had first touched the book with her magic, except this time it came from a definite source; right behind her.

Twilight turned around to find herself staring at a dark black robe, whatever creature it was stood upright like a minotaur, and as she followed the orientation of the body upwards, the robe branched out. Straight above where the robe branched was a hood, the inside shrouded in darkness except for the evil glow of two red eyes. Both to the right and left of where the robe branched out it took a steep turn down at the end of it was an opening from which protruded on each side the skeleton of some strange creature; perhaps a relative of the Minotaur, though the skull resembled that of an ape. The rest of its body was something of a mix between the skeletons of an ape and a minotaur, their hands resembling more claws than anything else. In the right hand was a scythe, looking deadly sharp and could probably cut her head off in one swing if she wasn’t careful.

She had heard about this being in stories told to both explain the passing of a life and to scare foals away from committing bad deeds. She had never thought such a creature existed, yet here she stood looking up at the harbinger of destruction, the taker of souls.

She stared into the face of death himself.

-----------------------------------------

Twilight ran.

No matter how impossible it seemed, if it she had actually seen death, then that could only mean one thing, the Death Note had worked. She was going to die.

For now, running was her only option. Though she had faced Hydra’s, Manticore’s and even Discord, she knew for a fact that there was nopony who could fight Death. Even without her studies she knew that.

Twilight bolted out the door, a quick glance behind her revealed that he had gained no ground upon Death, and he might have actually drawn closer to her. Trying to increase her pace she saw Pinkie Pie ahead, calmly bouncing about as if nothing was happening.

“Pinkie, run, quickly”

Pinkie gave no indication of the fear that Twilight was feeling, but fortunately chose to run. However, Pinkie chose to run in the same direction as Twilight.

“So why are we running Twilight?”

“Are you mad Pinkie, can’t you see what’s behind me?”

“A tree?”

Twilight turned around, Death still close behind her as she ran for her life. Why was it that Pinkie couldn’t see him? Had she really gone insane when she touched that book?

“You don’t have to keep running from me.”

“What do you mean?”

Twilight found herself slowing to a halt, but not because she wished to. Something was weighing down on her legs, making them feel heavy and unresponsive.

“I mean a tree silly, there’s a tree behind us.”

What was Pinkie Pie going on about this time?

“She cannot see or hear me, but she can hear you perfectly well.”

Twilight had stopped now, and Pinkie was staring at her with a rather perplexed look. Of course she was, the pink pony probably thought this was some game.

“So we’re running from a tree then?”

Twilight couldn’t help but sigh; she had forgotten how foalish Pinkie could be sometimes. It was a miracle that she had ever managed to run Sugarcube Corner for a day. Speaking of which…

“Pinkie, shouldn’t you be over at Sugarcube Corner, you know, serving the customers.”

“Don’t worry about that Twilight, I had the best idea ever, I put a jar where ponies can put their bits into when buying stuff.”

“Aren’t you worried about anypony stealing something while you’re gone?”

“Nope, because I made everypony Pinkie Pie promise that they wouldn’t steal anything, and nopony breaks a Pinkie Pie promise.”

Aside from the fact that there was more than enough proof that ponies had broken their Pinkie Pie promises in the past, there was also one very obvious fact she doubted even Pinkie could miss.

“You didn’t make me promise Pinkie.”

“Well of course I didn’t Twilight, you’re my friend, and I know my friends wouldn’t steal anything.”

“But haven’t you also said that Everypony in Ponyville was your friend?”

“Yup.”

How could a pony be this hard to get rid of? She needed to be alone so that she could talk to that creepy…whatever it was, without sounding like she’d gone insane. The fact that she was even thinking these thoughts was already proof enough of that. What pony in their right mind would want to be left alone with Death?

Then it occurred to her, a way to both check if she had in fact killed Star with that book and to get some revenge on her if she hadn’t.

“Hey Pinkie, Star left the library this morning, do you have any idea where she would have gone?”

“Not exactly, but I could probably find her.”

“Because I bet she would love to help you test out those Combo’s.”

“That’s a great idea Twilight; I’ll find her right away.”

And with the party pony was off, and Twilight no longer felt sorry for the next victim of the semi-explosive candy. Besides, she had more important things to worry about.

“So have you come to end my life then?”

“No Twilight, as I said, you don’t need to run from me. I have not come to hurt you nor kill you, but to ask you one simple question: will you relinquish ownership of the Death Note?”

“I never said that I owned the Death Note.”

“Yet as it stands you are now in possession of it, and, until you forsake that ownership, I shall possess you.”

“Possess me, like in those ghost stories?”

“Not an entirely inaccurate comparison, though it’s certainly not what I would define it as. No, consider it more as a haunting. I shall stay with you until either you die, give up the Death Note, or the Death Note is rendered incapable of use. Now that you know this, I shall ask you again: Please give up ownership of the Death Note.”

Twilight didn’t know what was more insane, the impossibility of the situation, the strange book that still lay in the basement, or her for what she said next.

“No.”

She had no idea what had compelled her to say it, but there was some nagging compulsion in the back of her mind telling her not to give up that book. The more rational part of her mind was telling her that with the Death Note gone, all her problems would likewise disappear. But for once that part of her mind was fighting the losing battle; whatever it was that told her to keep the Death Note was akin to that of what she had heard as addiction. There was no way to simply deny the voice in her head, regardless of how hard she tried to do so.

Twilight had expected outrage, vengeance, something, but instead all she received was a calm acceptance from Death.

“Very well then, if that is how it shall be, then we may as well get on with introductions. I am known by many names in your language alone, Death, The Grim Reaper, but those names are ancient, and invented by your kind to capture my essence in a name. Among the Shinigami I am known as The Old Man, and so I wish for you to refer to me.”

“Old Man?”

“Yes, that would be most preferable.”

It was a strange experience to be able to talk with Death without fear, yet alone to address him by such a strange title, one that carried such little power, so harmless a name for such a horrible being. To think that the harbinger of death would wish to be addressed so simply, it was inconceivable; and yet it was the easiest thing to believe about the whole encounter.

“In all the tales I have heard about Death Note’s dropping into this world, I have never heard of a pony writing their own name in the Death Note. You are quite fortunate that it was mine, otherwise you would most assuredly have perished shortly after having written those words.”

“What is it that makes yours so special?”

“The simple fact that it is mine is what makes it so special. It is my power that gives the Death Note’s their power. I was the very first Shinigami, in your language god of death or thereabouts. That Death Note which you possess was designed when I was the only Shinigami, I did not know at the time that more would come, so I had not planned that the Death Note’s would not work on Shinigami until I made the second Death Note.”

Twilight’s eyes almost literally sparked at the opportunity for this knowledge. Ponies had always questioned what there was after life, and now before her stood the original reaper of souls. How could she have let this go past her before?

“So what happens to ponies after they die?”

“For those who have not used the powers of the Death Note, they either go to heaven or hell, what decides where they go or what occurs there is none of my business. All I do is speed their passage. However, for those like you who have used the Death Note, there is neither heaven nor hell after death.”

Twilight abruptly decided she didn’t want to know anymore, what cruel fate it was that she would learn where ponies went in the afterlife, only once it was denied to her.

“So Star is..?”

“Who?”

“Star, the pony whose name I first wrote in the Death Note. You said that I had already used the Death Note.”

“No, the pony you call Star is not dead, though I feel I should tell you that your Death Note has already taken a victim.”

What did The Old Man mean? She had only written two names in the Death Note, hers and Star’s…unless, could there have been some pony with just the names Twilight or Sparkle, or maybe there was some other Star. No, that couldn’t be it; the book had said she needed to be thinking of the ponies face when she wrote the name.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean somepony is already dead obviously. Do I need to spell it out to you?”

“But who?”

“You’ll find out soon enough”

Twilight stamped off back to the library in a rage. What was even the point of trying to talk to the Shinigami, it wasn’t going to give her any useful information. Perhaps it even delighted in keeping her in the dark? Giving her just enough information to make her interested, or rather, worried, and then refusing to tell her a single word more.

Twilight threw open the door startling a sleeping Spike from his stunned sleep. The poor dragon was probably still recovering from Pinkie Pie’s Combo’s. Her assistant’s state quickly managed to soften her anger for a while, caring for a dragon was never considered an easy task, but it did give her an easy escape from the problems and annoyances of the rest of the world. After having gotten Spike into his proper bed to get some rest, Twilight felt her anger at both Star and The Old Man rising again.

Twilight entered the basement once again and levitated a quill over the page of the Death Note.

“So what was your name again?”

“The Old Man. Though you should know that writing my name in there isn’t going to work. Not only is there the fact that I have no distinguishable name, but it’s my own strength that powers the Death Note’s, you’re not going to be able to kill me with it, nor any other Shinigami.”

Twilight let the pen down.

“Very well.”

“So what is it you’re going to do then? You’re not going to use it, and you’re not going to give ownership back to me. So what will you do with it, what is the point of having it if you aren’t going to do anything.”

“My not doing anything with it IS the point. If I keep it with me, then I can prevent it from ever reaching the hooves of those who would use it. This may look like it’s a book, but it is definitely a weapon, and I’m not going to let anypony use the power of it.”

“You have got to be kidding me.”

With that The Old Man disappeared. There was no flash of teleportation magic, nor did he fade out like the effects of an invisibility spell would cause. He was simply there one second, and then he wasn’t.

“Don’t think I’ll be gone forever. Think on what I’ve said to you, what is the purpose of the notebook if you don’t use it?”

Twilight abruptly decided to spend the rest of the day outside. The decision was more out of fear than annoyance as, though she hated to admit it, she couldn’t help but agree with the Shinigami. She couldn’t shake from her the worry that she would give into the temptation of using the Death Note if she pondered on it much longer. It would be better if she spent some time away from the book, and she found herself rather eager to explore the changes that had happened to Ponyville while she was gone.

A quick look outside her door showed nothing new in the immediate area around the library, yet in the distance where the roads were newer, and the buildings towered as if reaching for the sky, lay the new Ponyville Twilight had found herself in when she first returned. That was where she began her exploration of the changes Ponyville had experienced.

The buildings were strangely reflective in the area, and the streets were quite a lot busier than they had been when she first arrived. When poking her head out over the crowded throng of heads she could see hundreds of ponies in any direction of the street she was on, with a multitude of café’s, shops, and the occasional casino on the sides of the streets.

Twilight had never seen so many ponies in one place; even Canterlot would be struggling to compete with a population this size. It reminded her of the news she had heard of Manehatten, though this place seemed to be all crammed into one space. The Ponyville she knew surpassed this area in terms of size and yet this place likely contained all the citizens in Ponyville ten times over. The shiny new buildings that had sprung up were very hard and solid, made of some material that felt like stone, yet the appearance of the material contradicted its feel.

After spending a bit of time being nudged about by the bustling ponies on the street, an occurrence that did few wonders for her mood, Twilight found herself starting to feel hungry, due to her unusually early breakfast. Twilight decided upon a café named Starswirl’s, appreciating the reference to the ancient unicorn. The actuality of the café she was quite less appreciative of.

Outside it was pleasant enough, a number of circular table’s where ponies were seated around enjoying whatever foods they had purchased there. Inside was an entirely different matter. As soon as she entered the room an overpowering stench hit her nose, the smell presumably coming from the smoke that seemed to be drifting from two stallions in a corner. The room felt as if they had just taken everything they could and jammed it into as small a space as possible. The pony behind the counter was a Pegasus mare with a maroon coat and a purple mane cut short at the front, but flowed down their back, stopping just short of reaching her hooves.

More importantly, the mare behind the counter seemed to show little interest in her job, and seemed overly unenthusiastic when taking Twilight’s order. As much as Twilight hated the scent and space of the inside, all of the outer tables had been taken so she was left with very little choice as to her seating arrangements.

And so she came back to the reason she had left the library in the first place. She must have really gotten up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, and at the wrong time. Everything seemed to be against her today, Star, that encounter with The Old Man, and now this place. There just didn’t seem to be any end to the problems she had to face today. Then again, thinking back on her previous time in Ponyville, things weren’t so different back then either. Sure, Ponyville hadn’t been quite like this, and she certainly hadn’t had to deal with any Shinigami’s back then either, but there had without a doubt been some pretty crazy things back then. The dragon migration, Nightmare Moon, Discord; so much had happened during her stay at Ponyville, was she really going to let the events of one day get her down?

“Hello there.”

A deep, almost husky voice reached her ears, though not undesirable, the voice sent shivers down her spine. The voice belonged to an earth pony stallion with a dirt brown coat, his black mane was streaked with white and gave him a rather dangerous look to him, though his bearing gave the impression that it was simply for looks.

“So what’s a pretty mare like yourself doing in a place like this?”

“Oh…”

Twilight could feel herself blushing, though she had no attraction to this colt in particular, it wasn’t often that anypony complimented her, let alone on her looks.

“Umm…thank you.”

Twilight cursed herself; she was acting just like Fluttershy. Then again, it had been years since she had properly interacted with anypony other than those in the palace.

“I guess I thought it would be err...nice here”

“And I guess it is, if you’re into the whole dark, smoky, smells like a donkey’s backside thing. Personally I don’t really visit here much, but when I saw as delightful a pony as you here I just HAD to know why.”

This pony was certainly very forthright about his feelings for this place, albeit rather crude with his expression of it. Before she could frame her thoughts into words though, the stallion had already spoken his mind.

“So I was thinking that this really isn’t the place for such a sweet mare like you to be. There’s a place further into the city which is much better, and certainly much larger than here.”

“Thanks for the offer, but I’ve already ordered my lunch here.”

“Ask for your bits back, I doubt they’ll have started making it yet, and trust me when I say that you really don’t want to try this place’s food. If you hated the smell of this place, then the taste of their food is three times worse, and six times worth what you should pay for it.”

She hadn’t really been paying much attention to the prices when she bought her lunch, Celestia had left her a thousand bits for her to get settled back into Ponyville so she had assumed that the prices of things had increased. Perhaps the pricing wasn’t as different from it had been before, and looking at the costs from that perspective, twenty bits was certainly too much for just lunch.

“Okay then, that place sounds nice, and nice is a heck of a lot better than this.”

The stallion gave a quick laugh.

“That’s the understatement of the century.”

Twilight trotted up to the bored mare behind the counter.

“I’m sorry but I have found the service here undesirable and would like a refund of my bits.”

The mare stared at her dejectedly.

“I’m sorry but did you have an order here?”

“Well of course I did, I asked for it about five minutes ago.”

“Never seen you before.”

Before Twilight could get further annoyed with the mare the stallion she had met stepped in for her.

“The lady said she wanted her bits back, and you’re going to bloody well give them back to her before I get mad.”

Twilight could tell that it was an act, yet the target of the act was quite unaware of this and quickly threw some bits across the counter to them, about twice as much as she had actually paid.

“Stupid, lazy, *****.”

The stallion handed her the bits she had paid and pocketed the rest. Twilight was, in a way, impressed. Though the colt swore too much for her liking, she had to admit that he had been quite helpful, and she doubted that he was actually as aggressive a pony as he made himself out to be. Nopony would be like that.

“So where is this place you wanted to show me?”

“Follow me.”

The stallion took her outside of the café and down a number of dark alleys. Though she doubted the earth pony would have taken her this way unless it was the fastest route, she found it was taking a rather lengthy amount of time to get there.

“I just remembered, I haven’t even told you my name, I’m Twilight Sparkle, and you are?”

“Cogflay.”

“So, Cogflay, how much further is it to this place?”

Cogflay was silent until they turned into a darker alley deep into the city, hidden from the masses out on the street.

“We’re here.”

Twilight was confused; there wasn’t anything around here, just a couple of backdoors to places that somehow looked even worse than Starswirl’s.

“Oooh Bugeye, looks like Cog’s found us one pretty little mare.”

Twilight spun around to see two almost identical ponies, both had a black mane and coat with both mane’s similar to a Mohawk. Both we’re Pegasus stallions but the one who’d just been addressed as Bugeye had half of the feathers on their right wing clipped off.

“That they are Bruiser.”

“Cogflay, who are these ponies.”

The stallion who had led her here paused, as if they didn’t want to admit the obvious fact.

“They are some, associates of mine. All they want is to have a bit of fun, you see things around here are very boring, and I reckon that you would be a rather, how shall I put this, lively mare.”

Bruiser was only too willing to add his enthusiasm.

“Yeah, I’ve got a feeling my time with you is going to be very entertaining.”

A pony had never looked at her like these ones were, their eyes were fixated upon her, filled with what could only be seen as lust. Cogflay had walked into that café all so that he could bring her out here for this.

Twilight couldn’t take it anymore.

The horn on her head began to glow with a magical light as she prepared a teleportation spell to get her away from the horrid colts.

“No you don’t, you’re not going anywhere.”

Bruiser swung a hoof into Twilight’s face taking away her concentration and disrupting the spell before it could be cast. Realizing she wasn’t going to be able to escape like that, Twilight attempted to run, her horn sparking out to teleport herself away as soon as she was out of their reach.

Cogflay’s hoof quickly put a stop to that.

Twilight found herself reeling backwards, face bruised and some blood welling up in her mouth. She wasn’t sure that she could take many more hits like that before she went unconscious, and as long as they kept on beating her up she couldn’t escape. But a unicorn was harder to defeat than that, especially one who had trained under Celestia.

“Stop her from casting any of her magic Bruiser.”

“I’ve got it.”

Bruiser stepped forward to deliver another blow to Twilight, but just as he got in range of Twilight he started to struggle wildly, hooves stuck to the ground.

“What is this, I can’t move?”

As the other’s rushed forward to help him they too found themselves unable to move, Cogflay slamming his head into the ground when he tried to make a leap at her.

Cogflay started swearing profanities at a faster rate than she had ever thought possible.

“-you ****ing *****! What have you done?”

Twilight had used the residual traces of her magic that had fallen to the ground when her teleport had been interrupted. Once the colt’s moved close enough to her she used the traces of the magic to freeze their hooves, effectively preventing movement.

Of course Twilight didn’t tell them any of that, and teleported back to her home, making sure that there was plenty of excess magic to cause an explosion once she had disappeared.


Twilight reappeared back in the library, and promptly coughed up some blood on the floor. Much as she hated to compliment her attackers, she had to admit those stallions were strong. She felt like she’d just been hit by Rainbow Dash going full speed. She doubted those colts would be much better off though. Magical explosions weren’t exactly known for being mild, and she doubted either of those Pegasus would be able to fly after that.

Still, it worried her that there were colt’s like that in Ponyville, let alone that she had encountered one on only her second day back. If the reaction of that mare behind the counter was anything to go by, she hadn’t been the first victim of the colts either. She could only hope that those were the worst the new region of Ponyville had to offer.

A knock on the door interrupted her fears of the new area and brought to her attention how much of a wreck she must look. There was no way she would be able to look presentable, but she cleaned off her face with a nearby cloth and to at least stop whoever it was running from the sight of her.

However the sight that awaited her wasn’t one she would ever be prepared for. Star stood outside the house, tears streaming down her eyes, looking the most miserable sight she could imagine.

“What happened to you Star?”

“Today was my mother’s birthday; that was why I was out.”

“Why are you crying?”

“Because…”

Star sniffled and chocked on her words as she spoke them.

“…She’s dead.”

----------------------------------------

All Twilight could do was stand there, shocked.

“Star…”

“I don’t want to hear any of your lectures; I just want to be alone.”

Before Twilight could even react, Star had rushed past the door and locked herself in the bedroom. If it had been any other time Twilight would have likely been angry with Star, her bed was in there too, but she understood Star’s need for privacy at a time like this.

“Hey! What are you doing?”

Twilight forgot that she put Spike to sleep there, and it was with a rather large amount of enthusiasm that Star ejected him from the room. Spike’s landing would have been almost elegant had it not been so completely out of control that it caused him to land on his head. The bruised assistant looked to her with a questioning look.

“What was that about?”

Twilight mustn’t have looked as bad as she felt if Spike could look at her so casually.

“Her mother just died.”

“Oh…”

A silence fell over them, there wasn’t really much to be said. What was there she could say? If she just ignored it and continued on she would seem heartless. But what else was there that she could do? Lives came and lives went, a pony’s life could be measured in seconds or decades, but everything had to end sometime, and when it did you couldn’t get stuck on that point, you had to move on.

Twilight found herself thanking the books she had read for that lesson. Sure, today was a time for sadness, but the next day they would move on, that was how things would always be. As she had found out the hard way, one cannot change the past, or the future, depending on how she looked at it.

She would have to leave Star to her mourning for now, yet she couldn’t think of any way to continue the day. Too much had happened in too little time, and all the events still whirled around in her mind, unable to settle down to a definable point. It was, in a way, those events that drove her to her first kill.

She left Spike there, still stunned by the silence that had fallen upon them both. She felt it happen almost as if she were in a dream; as if she couldn’t control what she did, but simply performed the actions she had to do. Something in her mind told her that she couldn’t change the future, that she would have reached this point no matter what, that she had to do what she was about to do.

That something was in all probability what kept her sane as she wrote her victim’s names in the Death Note. Cogflay, Bruiser, Bugeye; those three would never hurt anypony again. She felt a giddy elation at the feeling of how right what she had done was.

And yet it was so wrong.

The strange happiness was still in her, the joy of a murderer, yet she now saw what she had done for what it was. She had killed, and this time there was no doubt about it. There could be no denying The Old Man’s words, and she knew that she had their faces in her mind when she wrote those names.

She had taken away the lives of three ponies; surely there were ponies that those colts were precious to, just like Star’s mother had been to Star. She had taken them away from their family, their friends, and the world…and yet she couldn’t have felt better about it.

What was wrong with her, how could she kill somepony and just feel glad about it? More than glad even, and for some reason she noticed she was stifling a laugh. This wasn’t her, she wasn’t a murder, she wouldn’t have killed them, yet no matter how hard she tried to deny it she had been their killer; and here she was struggling not to laugh.

Then it hit her as to why.

They had deserved to die, all three of them. That was the only way she could have killed them, if they had truly deserved to die. There had been no stopping it, their actions were wrong, they were wrong. But what if there were more of them?

What if there were more ponies like that, more ponies that were too wrong to live in this world, too evil to be allowed to breathe another breath. If there were ponies like that just lying about the streets of Ponyville, then how many more were there in the world?

Those ponies didn’t deserve to live, they would not be willing to see the light, and so the light would smite them, and she would be the guiding force of light’s will. She would bring down upon the shoulders of the wicked the wrath of justice, leading the world into a new era of peace.

A world of only those whom were pure, a world where peace and justice reigned over the wicked, and so wickedness would cease to be. It would be a perfect world, brought into existence through her selfless work to rid it of evil, despite what the cost to her.

It would be her world.

“So I see you’ve reconsidered how to handle the Death Note.”

The Shinigami’s appearance surprised her, but somehow it seemed that she had always known he was here. As if she had called for him.

“Perceptive as always, Old Man. Now tell me, where do I go from here?”

Before the Shinigami could recover from being addressed so casually she continued on.

“This world is a dark place, too much evil is here, and I’m the only one who can fix it. I stand by what I said earlier; the Death Note is a weapon, and it would be catastrophic if the wrong pony got their hooves on it, so it shall stay here with me. However, I now realize that I cannot simply stand by and watch the evil spread and corrupt this world, I have been given a weapon of the wicked, and against those wicked I shall turn it.”

Twilight turned to face The Old Man, and if her eyes didn’t deceive her, she could see him almost shaking where he stood.

“Equestria shall know judgment and justice; it shall know the will of light and the cleansing purity that I shall bring. If I am doomed to never ascend to the heavens, then I shall raise the world up to meet it. I shall usher in a new age, a new world, one chosen and shaped to be the pinnacle of perfection.”

Twilight paused, breathing heavily, she had never felt like this before, the small voice in her head had risen to a bellow, praising her and filling her with this strange desire. Feeding her thoughts that would have once seemed treasonous and outrageous, but were now both perfect and reasoned.

“And I will be the goddess of that new world.”

The Old Man’s shaking increased exponentially, seeming as if he were about to collapse, until a booming laughter drew forth from his throat. The sound was somewhere between a shriek and howl, yet to Twilight it seemed almost like music, the approval of the voice inside her growing to match the laughter.

“Ryuk was right, ponies can indeed be entertaining.”

---------------------------------------------------

She sounded mad even to herself. When had these ambitions become hers, when had she been so hungry for power? She thought briefly on it and decided that it was not her being power-hungry, but rather that there was nopony else who would do it. What other pony would be willing to sacrifice their time, their lives, even their souls for the betterment of Equestria. Certainly not Celestia; where had she been when they had fought Nightmare Moon or Discord? It wasn’t as if Luna could take on the role either, when she wasn’t being socially awkward she was either locked up at Canterlot castle or struggling with her own inner demons.

No, only she could take up the role of goddess for this new world. But first she would have to eradicate those who would defile her perfect world. But how was she to do it, she could hardly wonder out into the new area of Ponyville and expect to get picked up by some sleazy colt. Not only was that unlikely to work, but it would be awful to go through such an experience again, and even the stupidest of them would begin to see a pattern.

“Old man, if you truly are the maker of the Death Note’s then surely it wouldn’t be out of your power to tell me the names of every criminal in this town.”

The old man smirked, though Twilight had no idea how it was physically possible for a bunch of bones to do that. Then again, The Old Man didn’t seem to have much of a care for the reality most ponies had come to realize. He was a living skeleton with a multitude of supernatural abilities that could be performed without any hint of magical use. On top of that he was a god of death, something used to frighten foals and generally considered a myth, yet here he was with a look that reminded her of a filly who knew something their parent’s didn’t.

“Certainly it wouldn’t be out of my power, it’s simply a matter of it being out of my interests.”

“You’re kidding me. Earlier today you were trying your hardest to convince me to use the Death Note, and now that I’m willingly asking you to help me use it, you’re just going to sit back and do nothing?”

“We’ll what does it serve me to tell you their names? You may not have noticed it but you are currently in possession of my Death Note, my only Death Note I’ll have you know. Personally I would quite like to have it back, but since you’ve shown me you’re not willing to relinquish it, I’ll simply have to make another for myself. It will take a rather large amount of souls passing from this world through natural means before I can fashion myself a new one, so I believe you’ll find no reason as to why I should help you. At least not until I have my new one.”

She had to admit, The Old Man had a way with words that really didn’t leave much room for argument.

“So let me get this straight, until you’ve gotten a new Death Note for yourself, you won’t willingly tell me the names of anypony?”

“That would be correct and, as you seem so quick to forget, you’d also need their face, otherwise it’s useless.”

The situation really did look rather hopeless. Here she was, a pony with the power to change the future for all of Equestria for the better, yet the rules of her own weapon stopped her.

Then it occurred to her, a way she could distribute justice without even leaving the house. The newspaper always had something about criminals and various other disasters. Her effect on the world would be slow and small, but soon they would realize that there was someone watching them.

The guilty would suffer for what they had done, and those who had committed smaller crimes would be deterred from that path. The paper would not only give her new victims to erase from the face of Equestria, but it would spread the news of their fates for her.

“Who were you talking to Twilight?”

Spike stood atop the stairs leading to the basement, looking very worried for her. She had no idea what connections the dragon would draw between her talking to herself and Star, and to tell the truth she didn’t really care. But it wouldn’t do her any good to have him worrying about her, and it was with an effort that she stopped herself hiding the Death Note behind her back. Doing so would have only drawn suspicion to it, and she wasn’t willing to entrust Spike with knowledge of the Death Note.

But she had to figure out a way to get him out of here, without seeming as if he was unwanted there. She hated herself for what she said next.

“Nopony, I was just thinking about us going to see our friends, with all the excitement that’s happened we haven’t seen any of them other than Pinkie.”

No! That was all wrong. What excitement? And why oh why had she suggested going to their friends? She had been trying to avoid that since they had gotten there, why had she even thought of it, let alone said it?

“I guess you’re right.” His face melted into a stupid smile “And it’ll be great to see Rarity again.”

Okay, this was fine, she could handle it. All she had to do was go along with it, she could hide the Death Note somewhere and wait till later to write in it. She would need to be patient if she wanted to avoid being found out.

“Come on then lover boy; let’s see how they’ve gotten on these past few years.”

As she trotted out through the door with Spike she made sure to levitate the book out behind her while Spike’s back was turned, putting it away in a book shelf, filed correctly away in its proper place, assuming that the original owner was its writer. It wouldn’t do to break the order she had so painstakingly achieved before she found the notebook; and if there was anything that made a book stand out, it was incorrect filing. Not that Star would be likely to notice either way. If only that pony cared for books even half as much as she did her mother than she might have been able to run the library satisfactorily while she was gone.

She felt sorry for the pony, the moment the Death Note was in place in the bookshelf she realized that she had only earlier tried to kill the mare, and her mother was dead too. She should have apologized to Star, or said something to comfort her, but she couldn’t do that without revealing what she had done, and the Death Note.

She abruptly decided that she would get something for Star. She had accumulated quite a lot of bits while at Canterlot, mainly through either of the princess giving her some funds for a night on the town which would never happen. As she thought about her time at Canterlot, she realized just how right Celestia had been to send her here. She had become almost as antisocial as she had been when she came to Ponyville for the first time.

Maybe it would do her some good to see her friends. Even if some of them were busy she was sure that she would be able to have a chat with them sometime. Memories came flooding back to her of the time she had spent together with them, almost bringing joyous tears to her eyes.

So what if she had been gone for three years? She was back in Ponyville now, back where she belonged, and she was going to make the most of it.

“Twilight, is something wrong?”

“It’s nothing Spike; let’s go see our friends.”

--------------------------------------

If Ponyville hadn’t changed so much she would have headed off for Fluttershy’s, she doubted the shy yellow Pegasus would ever be too busy not to see her friends. She might have to take care of some of her animal friends first, but that wouldn’t take too long, and it would at least prove some comfort to Spike if the others weren’t available.

However, as it stood, Ponyville had changed, and quite drastically; in particular in the direction of Sweet Apple Acres. It seemed nearly impossible to believe that the farm could still exist with so many of the new buildings around, and that would also have explained the lack of contact from Applejack. If something had happened to the apple family, if they had lost the farm somehow, then what would they do.

She both wanted to get there as soon as possible to see if the farm still stood, but at the same time hated the thought of what she might find. It was with those two thoughts waging in her mind that she reached the once wide plains of Sweet Apple Acres. It wasn’t gone, for which Twilight was grateful, but it was nothing compared to what it once was.

“Sweet Apple Acre” would have been a more appropriate name for it. She was sure that when she had been here all those years ago there had been a far greater crop, and that the barn hadn’t looked so run down. She could literally count the trees now, though they were at least near the hundreds.

She was just as torn about seeing Applejack as she had been about seeing the farm. There was really no way she could just ignore the state of the place and act as if everything was as usual. What would Applejack think about her lack of communication? Pinkie Pie had just shrugged it off and acted like she’d never left, but then again, that was Pinkie Pie.

Applejack was a different story, and so she decided that it would be better if she let Applejack talk about it if she so decided. She could only hope that Applejack had retained her lesson about pride better then she had remembered her friendship reports.

As she raised a hoof to knock on the door it swung open suddenly, and she wished Pinkie Pie had been there to warn her of it. A door to the face wasn’t really the best way to start a conversation between old friends, all things considered, but a mare had to do with what she had.

Standing in the doorway was Applejack, looking both rushed and slow at the same time. As if she knew she needed to be somewhere fast, but just couldn’t remember where. Despite her looks, she didn’t waste a moment in greeting Twilight back.

“Welcome back Twi, excuse the state of things round here, as you might have seen things haven’t been going well lately here.”

Twilight wasn’t really sure how to reply to such a casual greeting. She had really expected something a bit more worried, a bit more rushed, so she was grateful when Spike replied, albeit without any tact.

“What’s happened to the farm?”

Applejack sighed and motioned for the two of them to come inside. Looking around the house, she could see just how downhill things had gone for the Apple’s. There was little other than the essentials and a couple items of basic comfort. To an outsider it wouldn’t seem like much had changed, and initially that was what it seemed to Twilight, but as memories of the place came back to her, she noticed that the house had taken on a different feel. Before when she went here she got the feeling of choice simplicity, that the Apple’s chose to live simply and that was why the farm was that way. Now it seemed as if they had simply run out of any other options.

As they reached the dining room, Twilight noticed two simple stools placed at the table. Something seemed off about that to Twilight, but she couldn’t quite put her hoof on what it was. Applejack took a seat at one of them, before realizing there wasn’t enough for the both of them and getting back up. Feeling it would be wrong to take advantage of her friends’ small comforts in their current state, Twilight remained standing as Applejack told her story.

“This all started ‘bout a year ago, when a bunch of big wigs from Canterlot figured it would be a good idea to fancy up Ponyville. It was alright at first, when it was just a couple of high-end shops, but then they started to want to make houses like them too. The place just kept on getting more crowded and eventually they started expanding Ponyville, or at least the fancy part of it.”

“Speaking of the fancy part of Ponyville, they don’t seem to give a flying feather for anypony but themselves. When they started to expand they figured that the other ponies would just move to some other place, but we can’t do that Twi, we need the farm. It’s where we all grew up, and it’s all we’ve got, so we’re not gonna just let them take it.”

Spike then seemed to forget who the story was about.

“So why is the farm like it is now then?”

Twilight shot Spike a look, but Applejack didn’t seem to take any offence to it.

“Things started to get legal, the Canterlot ponies at the head of the development brought out some contracts to the land. Apparently, Granny Smith never made an official legal claim to the land, and doing so now would be completely useless, due to some fine print legality or somethin. It was all we could do to use the bits we had to buy up all that we could of our own farm. All the rest of it has been cleared for some of those new buildings. But that ain’t the worst of it, not by a long shot.”

Applejack’s eyes started to water as she continued on.

“Applebloom got her cutie mark while you were gone Twi, turns out she had a real talent for buildin’ stuff. We were all overjoyed when she got it, her especially so, but things got real bad when those Canterlot ponies came. They poured so many bits into the construction that everything else just stopped; she had to take a job building the same buildings that destroyed the rest of the farm. It must ‘ave been heartbreaking for the poor filly, but things just kept on getting worse for her an’ us.”

“With those new buildings in town came a bunch of new ponies, in particular one couple, a unicorn mare and earth pony stallion. When they saw Applebloom they claimed that she was there filly, that she had been stolen from them when she was just a foal. Then things started to get really technical, and a bunch of things to do with DNA or some kinda technological nonsense were brought out. They told this whole tale about how she had been taken from them right after birth and said that if anything could prove it, it was those technological gadgets. That if the tests proved positive there was no doubt that Applebloom was theirs.”

“I don’t know what they did to make it happen; I’d figure that something so confusing sounding would have to at least be able to be right at what it does. Twilight, they’ve taken Applebloom; The tests were positive, and according to a bunch of legal papers they waved in our faces, there’s no way we can get her back.”

---------------------------------------------------

“I’m…so sorry Applejack.”

There weren’t really any words that she could say. Her best friend had lost their sister, and Twilight knew that there was no magic she could use to help Applejack. Unless…maybe no unicorn magic could help, but Shinigami magic was a different matter.

“Applejack, was there anything in those papers about what would happen in the case of her “Parents” death?”

Applejack gaped at her for a second before answering her.

“It really has been quite some time since we’ve seen each other. I never thought you would even think about killin’ somepony, never.” Applejack sighed before continuing “But even if you were to, it wouldn’t help one bit. The papers say that in the event of their death, the care of their children will fall to their oldest sibling on their mother’s side.”

“What if those papers were to change?”

Twilight had the feeling Applejack would have gaped again, had not she only just implied that she would kill somepony to get her sister back. But there really wasn’t any other way that she could think to get Applebloom back. If they actually believed that she was their little filly then there was no way that she could make them part with her willingly.

“Twi’ I don’t know when it happened, but you’ve changed. A lot. The Twilight I know wouldn’t be saying these things, she wouldn’t be wanting to kill.”

“I’m sorry Applejack, I wasn’t thinking. It’s just, coming back to find that you’ve lost your sister, and most of your farm…what wouldn’t you do to get them back?”

“I wouldn’t kill somepony.”

And that was the end of the conversation. Twilight went to leave the house, forcing Spike to relinquish the stool after he had just gotten comfortable. But before she had left the room Applejack called her.

“Twilight, I’m sorry ‘bout leavin’ you with all of these problems after you only just got back here. It’s just things have been hard on us since you’ve been gone, and none of the others have any way they can help either…though none of them suggested what you did.”

Twilight kept listening, letting the matter slide.

“Just so you know, things have gotten really busy for RD and Rarity, so don’t be surprised if they don’t have time to catch up with you.”

At this Spike’s mood almost visible grew grim.

“But don’t worry, all of us manage to make time to go to the Spa on Sunday mornings, we can all catch up with each other then. I bet you learnt a whole lot of new spells and stuff while studying with the Princess and it’ll be nice hearing how things have been with you after all this time.”

Twilight was relieved that there was that hurdle gone, even if it had come at the cost of a new problem for her. How was she going to force Appleblooms new parents to entrust legal care of the filly back to the apple family? She doubted that she would be able to just make them give Applebloom back, which meant that her only option was to kill them. But that wouldn’t work either unless she could get them to write something in their will to cause that.

“Bye Applejack.”

“See ya ‘round Twi.”

---------------------------------------------------------------

There was both an upside and a downside to the news that she could catch up with her friends. Obviously there was the upside that Spike would be able to talk to Rarity, and not be thrown into emotional turmoil, but she too had a chance to talk to her friends. A part of her that she hadn’t noticed in far too long leapt with joy at that thought. Of course the downside was that today was Friday…which left two days of pondering her own thoughts, if she included today.

Not that Twilight would normally have been worried about that. Normally she would have welcomed time to gather her mind, and manage it as neatly and perfectly as she could. But since she had encountered the Death Note, she wasn’t sure it was really possible to do that anymore.

She was aware of some presence in her mind, something that had definitely not been there before. She wasn’t exactly sure if it was something new that had come from being able to bring death to anypony she chose, or some strange psychotic part of herself that she had locked away from the world. Either way it was something that she didn’t want.

It was a strange feeling to be at war with her own mind. She had always known that there were different parts of her, different emotions that governed how she acted. There was the perfectly studious and organized part of her that had made her Celestia’s prized pupil in the first place. Then there was the irrational part of her that could take things too far and throw her mind into being a complete and utter mess…But there was something different about this part of her. It felt alien. Wrong.

This new part of her seemed just as rational as she normally was, just as calculated and organized, if not more; yet as if to contradict itself, this new part of her definitely held some insanity. After all, what else could have prompted her to declare herself as a Goddess? Even if it hadn’t been in public, the very thought was too ridiculous to frame in her mind. Maybe she should get some professional help? But then that would mean that she would have to tell them about the Death Note, and then what would happen?

Twilight was too busy lost in her thoughts to realize that they had already arrived back at the library until she slammed into the door. Today was not turning out to be a good day for her face.

“Are you sure we should be coming back now Twilight? Star still might be upset about her mother.”

Of course, it had completely slipped her mind. She had been planning to get some kind of a gift for the poor mare. She had forgotten entirely about it amidst her worries.

“It must have been hard for her, losing her mother, but she can’t just isolate herself from the rest of Equestria. If she won’t come out of it on her own, then I’m just going to have to help her.”

After all, sometimes the best gift could be the right words, and she had the feeling that Spike was viewing her with some kind of admiration in his eyes. It felt good to finally be back to her old self, and she was going to make sure that she made up for all of that time with the Princess. That and it would be good to finally have Star stop annoying her at every interval.

As they entered the house they found it strangely devoid of any noise, and on inspection of the place they found Star was nowhere to be seen.

“I guess she must have gotten over it then.”

It would have been nice to have at least been able to help her have gotten through that time. It was heartbreaking enough for her when she had needed to leave her brother, but what Star was going through was far worse. Twilight searched about the room for something to indicate where the unicorn had gone, perhaps a note or something to tell them not to worry about her. But it occurred to her that Star was not the kind of mare to give information to other ponies that easily. Even so, there was a letter that had not been there before, albeit one that was not addressed to her.

It had been torn to shreds, and had Twilight not had both the patience and organizational skills that she possessed, she doubted she would have been able to piece it back together.

“-Mirage Lulamoon

It’s so hard to believe that you’re another year older, as I could hardly tell by looking. Throughout my life you were always there to show me the way, to teach me your tricks, and to help with my own. Someday I’ll make you proud mom, until then, keep being one of the greatest mares in Equestria.

- Your little Star”

The letter seemed very ordinary, other than a blatant disregard for the laws of writing good letters. Except for one small difference; the paper was ripped. Not ripped as if there had been something on the page that she had wanted to get rid of, but ripped as if it had been torn out of a book. Twilight sighed and shook her head as she thought of whatever poor book it was that Star had knowingly destroyed…Wait a second!

This page was entirely devoid of writing on it, other than that which Star had put in herself. Some books may have had extra pages for note-taking and the like in them, but she doubted that Star would have specifically looked for a book with pages like that. Even if she had, there wasn’t any book she knew that spaced out lines like this, and she doubted that Star would or could have done them herself. No book except for one.

Twilight rushed down into the basement, quickly drawing the Death Note out of its place in the shelf and slamming the door behind her. Just because she needed to confirm her suspicions didn’t mean she had to stop being cautious about knowledge of the Death Note getting out.

Twilight flipped through the pages quickly, hoping against hope that she wasn’t right.

She was.

There it lay open in front of here, obvious as day. The page of the Death Note that had been torn out, a perfect fit for the letter. Twilight wasn’t sure what it was that caused what happened next. Maybe it was having the Death Note back in her grasp again. Maybe it was the strain of the events of today causing her to snap.

She laughed.

It wasn’t a laughter she had ever expected to hear from herself. This was the laugh of a killer, someone who took pleasure in death and was clearly and undeniably insane. It wasn’t cold and heartless though, it was simply that she had never felt so happy before.

Star, the pony she had tried to kill. The pony she had thought about taking her own life away for that very same reason. Star was just like her. She had killed, she was a murderer too.

The laughter grew even more insane.

No, Star wasn’t just like her, Star was worse. All that she had done was brought justice down upon those too vile for her new world to stand. She had done what any good goddess should do, vanquishing the wicked and evil from her pure world. Star had killed her own mother, who by her own words was a perfectly innocent and kind mare, the kind that would have lived in peace in her new world.

But this brought up a problem; one that stopped her laughter abruptly.

How was Star still alive?

Star not only had her name written in the Death note once, but twice, yet the mare still lived. How could that unicorn live through writing her name? She didn’t own the Death Note, Twilight did. Didn’t she? Was that how Star had managed to survive?

“Old man?”

“Yes?”

The Old Man had appeared from inside the Death Note this time, his skull grinning stupidly up at her, while his torso stopped at the ground, his legs faded into the floor.

“Are there any other Death Note’s or Shinigami that would be able to give somepony protection from the Death Note?”

“That depends; do you want the short answer or the long answer?”

“The one that tells me how the hell Star is alive at this moment.”

“Now now, that wasn’t one of the options.”

Twilight slammed her hoof into the Shinigami’s face, but all that resulted in was him phasing back out of her plane of existence, causing her hoof to sharply make contact with the spine of the Death Note.

“The only way a being could live through the effect of the Death Note, other than yourself, is if they were a Shinigami.”

“…you’re telling me that Star is a Shinigami?”

“That’s for you to find out.”

And with that the old man disappeared as abruptly as he had appeared.

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Continued here:

 

I'm well aware of this story, and have even had the guy who wrote it read My Little Death Note...now i just need to have the guys here finally update this story with the rest of the parts I uploaded i-dont-know-how-many months ago...Still waiting for it to get approved or disapproved.