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// Chapter 12 
// Story: My little pony: Soul of gold 
// by Zanaffer 
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The next day started early, too early if you asked Aioria. Apparently Applejack's work ethics, witch were already quite Spartan, were eclipsed by her training ethics hence why he was dragged out of bed at the crack of dawn as Applejack began her training for the Aplleoosa rodeo. He wouldn’t complain of course, he was a warrior an all too used to unusual schedules, however, he was still rather upset by the current situation.

Last night after the big scare the ponies retreated to the saloon in order to get Aldebaran acquainted with their current situation, Applejack had been nervous at the thought of recruiting the large pony to what amounted to a war, she needen't be as he of course accepted to help with a large grin on his face.

So far everything was going smoothly, however once he announced his intentions to return immediately to the castle to rejoin the others he was surprised to be promptly shot down by both Aldebaran and Applejack, apparently the Aplleoosa rodeo was setting up to be the biggest event on this side of Equestria and Aldebaran was to compete on the main event alongside Applejack and neither was willing to drop out of the event, Aldebaran didn’t want to disappoint the locals and “an Apple never breaks a promise”, whatever that means.

The very worst part was that Applejack and “Great Horn” had begun some sort of rivalry once it was clear they we’re competing with each other, as if it weren’t enough with Mu and Twilight with their magic shenanigans, all in all he was not having the best of times.

He was interrupted from his musings when he heard a commotion close by, when he approached he found the sheriff addressing his deputy's, curious he approached to see what was all the commotion about.

“Alright everypony listen up!” he yelled “We need a big presence in this here rodeo so make youselves plenty seen.” And just why would that be? He thought to himself. “I want that lowdown varmint to know we mean business.” Now this seemed serious, he thought as he decided to ask the sheriff for more information, as he approached he noticed Applebloom and her friends scamper off onto the rodeo grounds.

“Excuse me Sheriff, can I have a word with you?”

“Hmm?” the Sheriff replied as he turned to see who called to him. “Well, aren’t you that royal guard that came in with miss Applejack?” He asked.

The royal guard routine had served him well since he arrived to Equestria, ponies all around seemed to equate his golden armor to the ones used by the actual royal guard, the obvious differences not withstanding, and  intrinsically trusted and cooperated with him because of that, also since he was acting on Celestia's behalf it wasn’t technically lying.

“Yes that’s right, I wanted to ask what were you discussing just now?”

“Ah, ya heard that?” Aioria resisted the urge to roll his eyes, half the town could hear him yell out orders. “Well, I guess it’s better to have you in than not, thing is there’s this outlaw running around called Trouble Shoes.” The moment the Sheriff mentioned the outlaw's name was punctuated by a tune taken right out of a spaghetti Western film, Aioria promptly turned to look at the rodeo clown playing the harmonica right beside them. “That no good varmint has been spotted causing trouble in rodeo’s from here to Vanhoover.”

That caught his attention. “I hear that this rodeo is particularly important, is this related to that?”

The sheriff’s face turned serious and he looked Aioria straight in the eye. “It’s way more serious than that kid, rodeo’s  all over Equestria have been sabotaged, the whole Appleoosa rodeo circuit is in danger of being shut down,