A man wearing a tight fitting jumpsuit colored black jumped from a hidden catwalk which had been hidden in the shadows over the containers. Strapping a relatively small rifle to his back, he rushed past the four warriors, surrounded the containers and crossed a simple aluminium door.
"¡Quick!" Sp´hre yelled, unsheathing her greatsword "¡Zephir and I stay, you and Lethe catch that murderer!"
J´zar and Lethe didn't stay to answer: as soon as Sp´hre finished talking, they furiously stormed after the killer. They couldn't keep up with his speed, but J´zar believed their stamina would be superior to his.
The assassin was now running trough a small street filled with garbage on the floor. J´zar and Lethe quickly followed him. The man in the black jumpsuit suddenly looked over his left shoulder and saw something. He then rushed to the wall he had been looking at and grabbed something which J´zar couldn't see well.
"¡A stair! ¡A goddamn stair!" He thought for himself.
When the Principals reached the stair, the assassin was already at the top of it. J´zar and his companion quickly reached the top as well and saw the assassin sprinting through the rooftops. Running as fast as he could to catch him, J´zar couldn't keep up with his agility. The assassin could simply vault or jump over his obstacles, but J´zar had to find a way around them. Finally, they reached a plain rooftop with no obstacles. The assassin reached the border of the building and noticed the street there was too large how for him to simply jump at the other side.
"¡It's over!" J´zar told the man "Surrender, and death will not reach you by my hand"
The man turned around. Even though his face was concealed by a mesh of black fibres, J´zar could notice he was smiling.
"¿You think so?" The assassin said before leaping off the building.
J´zar gasped and hurried to were the man had been and looked over the edge of the building. He saw the assassin in black jumpsuit grabbing to an emergency staircase at the other side of the street. How the hell had he managed to jump that much was a mystery for J´zar.
"I will not allow that foul pig scum to escape" he promised to himself.
He went back to the begginning of that rooftop and ran at full speed towards the edge of the building. But before he could reach it, an ocean of white opened, an ocean he already knew. He wasn't able to think for a moment and ran head first into the portal.
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The first thing J´zar noticed that was different to his previous situation was that he wasn't running on a rooftop. Then he noticed it was evening instead of full night. Finally, J´zar realized he was laying on the gorund. J´zar use d his arms and helped himself into his kneels.
J´zar looked at the ground and saw it was dusty. But it wasn't common dust. It looked as if some massive machine had grinded to dust the road of yellow bricks that would lead Dorothy to the Emerald City and then spread the remains all over a standard dirt road.
J´zar stood up and looked around.
With a gasp, he realized he had returned to the world which he had left almost a year ago. The world inhabited by those strange creatures which called themselves ponies. He looked at were the yellow dirt road took him to and gazed upon the main plaza of Ponyville, filled with mares and stallions of diverse colors and species. It wouldn't take too long before they noticed he was there.
"¡Hey there, Jazzy!" a happy voice greeted him "¿Thought you could drop by here without saying hello, huh?"
"Hello there, baker" J´zar said turning around to look at the pink mare which stared at him "It is astonishing for me to find myself here yet again"
If Pinkie Pie noticed how surprised he actually was behind his mask of impassivity, she didn't say anything about it.
"Well, ¿why don't we go warn the other gang members about this?" she suggested, a permanent smile on her face.
"If you adivice so" J´zar accepted, shrugging.
Pinkie Pie led J´zar through the main street and into what seemed to be a hollowed out tree. A balcony popped out one of the bigger branches. Pinkie stopped by the door and knocked. A sound of hooves against wood came from the inside as the door opened.
"¡Oh, Pinkie! ¡I didn't expect you! ¿What is it?" a voice J´zar hadn't heard in a year sounded from the inside.
"¡Come and see it for yourself!" the pink mare answered.
Twilight Sparkle's lavender head popped from the doorjamb.
"¡Oh my!" was her first reaction "¡J´zar!¡I didn't expect to see you ever again!"
"Neither did I" J´zar said.
After a few questions and salutes, they set off for the town's boutique (even though J´zar wouldn't stop calling it a tailor shop). Rarity's reaction was similar to Twilight's, except the fashionista had acted in a slightly more formal way.
"¿Do you want to come in for a cup of tea?" Rarity asked.
"No thanks, we are looking for our other companions" J´zar explained "¿Would you come with us?"
"Why yes, dear, I would love to" she answered, accompanying them outside.
Then they went to find Fluttershy. On the way, they crossed Sweet Apple Acres and found both Rainbow Dash and Applejack resting besides an apple tree. The pegasus was laying over the treetop eating an apple while Applejack spoke to her.
"...an' they crashed into mah" when she noticed her friends apporaching her, she stopped talking "Oh, hello there friends ¿how hav ya...?". However, when she saw J´zar standing almost twice her height among them, the farmer stopped mid-sentence again.
"Hello there, J." Applejack said, almost spitting the words. J´zar had expected her actions towards him to soften after the time separated, but it seemed that the time without him hasd only given Applejack more time to reflect on what was wrong about J´zar.
"¡J´zar!" Rainbow Dash said, swooping down from the treetop and looking up at J´zar "¿How has time treated you, pal?"
"Better than other years, I must admit" J´zar said smiling and looking down at the cyan pony.
"¿What are ya here for?" Applejack asked.
"This time, fate has brought me here rather than my own will" J´zar said trying to stay as friendly as possible. He would hate having Applejack as an enemy. If it was inevitable, better to smile at the bad weather.
"We have one more to find ¿remember?" Twilight said.
"Fluttershy" J´zar said, remembering the other mare "¿Do you know where she is, Rainbow Dash?"
"Well, last time I saw her" the pegasus explained "she said she had to walk the ducks from the lake to her cottage. So she should be in the town now"
"Let's find her there, then" the warrior claimed. He then hastily walked back to the town, looking over his shoulder to check if the mares were following him.
Fluttershy was in the middle of a street, behind a straight line of small ducks which obediently moved through the street towards the town's exit.
"Okay, that's it" she said to the ducks in a loving tone. When J´zar covered the ducks with his long shadow, they ran off in all directions, scared of the tall black figure. As Fluttershy was very focused on her animals, she hadn't noticed her friends walking towards her "¡Oh, not again! ¡Come back here, little duckies!"
"Hello, little mare" J´zar used the less terrifying nickname he could think of. Fluttershy jumped back and let out a little scream. She had adopted a curled up positon. When she noticed the one standing in front of her was J´zar, the look of fear in her eyes softened a little.
"J´zar" she said, still cowelling and with her common shy voice "¿How...How have you been?"
"Things could have gone worse for me" J´zar said, growling.
"Well, we're all back together" affirmed Twilight Sparkle "So ¿what do we do now?"
"I think we should show him the landmarks in this town of ours ¿don't you think?" Rarity proposed.
"That's an excellent idea, Rarity" Twilight accepted "¿What about if we show hims Sweet Apple Acres the first? He hasn't seen it in full detail yet"
The other mares quickly agreed (albeit Applejack did it reluctantly) and they set off for the place they just had come from. As they were passing near Sugarcube Corner, J´zar stopped without prior notice and looked into a dark hallway.
"¿What are you looking at, J.?" Rainbow Dash asked.
Then, a slow and chilling voice spoke, slowly dragging each letter, savoring them.
"¿Thou dare to call thyself a knight, oh, neatly garnished sir, of glossy cape and magnificient surcote? For there are many who would rather die for their own than to fight for thine knighthood" the voice claimed.
J´zar turned around.
"A legend meets another" he said "¡But you weren't meant to meet dawn ever again!"