//------------------------------// // Does anyone even care about titles? // Story: The Guardian // by NYChris824 //------------------------------// The area outside the castle was completely devoid of paparazzi. We walked through town heading to Ponyville Lake. I stole a glance at the tanks, they should probably go somewhere with less traffic. Hide them so no one fucks with them. "Thank Celestia!" Twilight sighed "They left." Part of me doubted they did "Most did, but some; the hard-core ones didn't." "How can you be sure?" Dash asked "He has years of practice," Michael said, absentmindedly lighting a cigarette "Taliban had some guys wouldn't quit. Kept everyone on their toes, had to bomb more them a few of them myself." I glanced at Michael, he never spoke about him what he did in the Lutwaffe. Granted, the 'chair force' is usually made fun of for doing jack shit, especially with the Corps having its own Aviation branch. We still did like calling in air support from the Air Force, mainly because they have the A-10, hands-down the best plane to exist; past, present and future. "Give me a drag." I said to him, taking a long one. I had it for a few moments before releasing the smoke through my nose. I was never a big smoker, just a smoke here and there. But holy FUCK does the nicotine calm you down. "Wowize!" Pinkie yelled "You look like a dragon, let me try!" She reached for it, but I jerked my hand away before she could grab it. "Do you know what they are?" I asked "Dragon sticks?" "They're cigarettes, they contain hundreds of chemicals and some of them cause cancer." "Why would you smoke them?" Rarity asked "They hold a lovely chemical called nicotine, which helps calm nerves." "So ya'll inhale a heap o' deadly thangs, for one to calm ya down." Applejack asked "Basically." Michael said, stealing it back and taking a drag. We arrived at the lake, it was a good size probably a quarter mile long by a half mile wide and fed or was fed by a river. I leave things like that to the people in lab coats. A small wooden dock extended into the lake. It was surrounded by sand, that changed to smooth rocks at the water edge, some trees around the lake in clusters and a bonus was we were the only ones there. I stripped down to my boxers, Michael following my lead. I looked at the girls and they looked at me. By me, I mean my body, but I did the same to them, so it was cool. Dash, AJ and Pinkie had on bikinis( or is that their bra and panties, I can never tell the difference), while Twilight, Rarity and Fluttershy wore one piece suits. They kept looking at us before Michael cleared his throat, "Our eyes are up here." He said, earning a blush from them all. I noticed Michael had a eagle tattoo on his forearm. "Nice tat." I said "Thanks. Your aren't too bad either." He said. I had a 'Death Before Dishonor written across my pecs and the Eagle, Globe and Anchor on my shoulder. "What are we waiting for? Let's go!" Dash shouted and flew into the air, did a backflip and splashed down. The rest of us followed shortly, with the girls walking down the beach and Michael and I ran for the dock. We kept pace with each other and pushed off the last beam. The beam promptly collapsed under our weight and our force on it. I face planted the water while Michael, in the middle of going for a cannonball, kept his shape and landed on his side. I opened my eyes under water, the water was clear and deep, at least twenty feet. I swam down to the bottom and grabbed onto something growing under water for a minute. I felt someone poke me I turned and saw AJ looking at me. She asked me something, but it was garbled by the water. She pointed at the plant and swam off. I let go off the plant, pushed off the bottom and broke the surface. I wiped the water flowing down my face and swam over to join everyone else. "What were you doing?" Dash asked "Enjoying the water." I said, floating on my back. "Being a Marine has turned me part fish.... frog or something. Even though there hasn't been any amphibious landings since Grenada in '83." AN: I looked into any Marine landing in the Gulf War and 2003 invasion of Iraq and found none "You sound like you want that." Michael said, slowly floating away "What's the saying? First to fight first to die or something like that?" "Yea. 'Side, I enlisted to fight, granted it wasn't Russia or China, but still." We spent several hours at the lake. After an hour, we moved over to stand a in the water. Pinkie pulled out a float from inside a tree, just in case of a 'float emergency'. Rarity claimed it and sun tanned, until being tipped by Dash. Rarity surfaced pissed off, which had me confused as she was swimming earlier, she grabbed Dash with her magic and dunked her. Chaos followed with AJ tackling Michael, Pinkie tackling Fluttershy and Twilight and I standing there. Rarity was too busy laughing to notice the purple glow around her head and was dunked as well. "Easy Twilight." I said, raising my hands slowly. I instead got a purple haze covering my eyes and all in my brain. AN: No regrets on the reference Fortunately, my resistance to magic kept me above water, although I was pushed down a little bit. I took several steps forward, made harder by both the water and being pushed down. Twilight's horn blowed brighter and I was pushed further down with water occasionally reaching my chin. Despite her backing away and making it harder for me to walk, I was gaining slowly. I couldn't understand why Twilight wasn't taking off and fly above me. I made a quick lunge for her and knocked her into the water. I threw up hands up in victory, "Fuck yea!" I yelled. I was pushed from behind and stumbled forward, something grabbed my legs and my momentum took me down. I surfaced again to see Twilight smirking at me. We started laughing as we waded to shore, where everyone was waiting on us. Everyone else was setting up a picnic as we kept walking back up, laid out was all sorts of sandwiches, drinks and snacks. "Should've brought my fishing pole with me." I muttered to myself, hoping to get some meat. I don't mind not having it, but I could go for a nice burger soon. A rattle of machine gun fire came from the far side of the lake, in the forest. I ducked and reached for a gun that wasn't there, while everyone just looked. "Another one?" Michael asked "I don't recognize the sound of it. Could just be a military exercise, they have MGs too" I said, "We did trained in all sorts of areas: the swamps in Louisiana, Rockies for mountains; though the 10th Mountain does that and Alaska for winter." Rarity made a face at the mention of swamps, I don't blame here. A spider the size of a baseball crawled over my balls on the second day while we were taking a break. I don't like spiders anymore. *** It was late at night, probably one in the morning, the machine guns from the forest still on my mind. Could they be human or is it just a military exercise? At the same time, what difference was it? If they could shoot, they can handle themselves. I opened the doors to the balcony and looked toward the forest. A long burst of machine gun fire, followed by several shorter bursts rang out. I looked out, from where I was I knew it was from dead ahead. I could've sworn I saw the muzzle flash from it. I thought whoever it was in the weird forest no one likes, but that was the other side of town. There was another forest nearby or was it a bog? Why is this town surrounded by two forests and a gorge? Whoever chose this place didn't look around much. I shook the thoughts from my mind and went back in. A soft knock came from outside. "Daniel? Are you awake?" Twilight said softly "Come in." I called back. "Heard it too?" "Yes. Could it be more humans?" I sat on the bed for a moment, could it? What could they be shooting at this late? There's a chance it's a military exercise also, maybe Twilight could've look into that, she is a princess after all. "Maybe. I'm not sure about it. None will be it until someone goes to check it out." We walked onto the balcony and looked at the woods. We arrived just in time for a yellow blur to slam into something else in the forest. The sound of a shell followed in the blink of an eye. "I'm pretty sure that confirms there's another human here." I said, guessing. "But how do we get them to come out." "I got stabbed by lion scorpion thing." "So we wait for him to get poisoned!" Twilight said "No. They come to us on their own terms. Could be tomorrow could be next week. Let's worry about this in the morning." I said and went back inside "Or let's say we do find them. What if they don't want help? They don't trust you because you're not human and they believe you have under control." "That's ridiculous! Why wouldn't they trust us?" "I actually hid from you guys. On the second day I was here, you all walked into my camp. I heard you coming so I climbed a tree and hid in it. I don't know why I did, but I did." I said "I think we should go check it tomorrow." "I'll write Princess Celestia about this in the morning." Twilight said as she walked out. *** I walked downstairs to the dining room, I heard talking in of the rooms. I could hear Twilight, Princess Celestia and several other voices behind the door. I walked back to the kitchen and hunted for sugary kids cereal, I found my answer with Chocolate Puffs. Chocolate is the one food I can live on for the rest of my life. I grabbed a bowl and the milk, only to find someone left a few handfuls of cereal left. This day can only get fucking better. Michael came down as well, "So who is here?" "Just you and me." I shot back, smirking as I ate. "Ha ha." "I know Princess Celestia is here and that's it." I said, as I stood to wash my bowl out. Just because I'm a guest doesn't mean I can be a slob. Twilight walked in and grabbed us both and brought us into the room. Princess Celestia was there, along with several military officers looking over a map of the area. "Princess." I said, bowing my head, she looked up and smiled at us. "Daniel, it's good to see you again. You must be Michael. Please join us." She waved us over to map 3-D map of Ponyville and the surrounding area. A yellow and orange circle were on a hill near town and a red one was in a forest near town. "The the yellow and orange circle are where you two arrived and the red one is where the other human is believed to be." One of the officers, Captain Beam, if I remember said. "OK. What can we do to help?" Michael asked "Nothing." Princess Celestia said, "The two of you will come back to Canterlot with me. I was hoping to have a press conference next week, but we were forced to push it to today." "With all due respect Princess. I think one of should be here to help. It would make whoever is out there trust you more. Hauptgefreiter Fuchs will assist." I said, hoping I wouldn't be vaporized by magic. I was also counting on sounding professional to persuade her, something I picked up from officers working with tribal leaders in Afghanistan. "Very well." Princess Celestia said, I mentally fist pumped in celebration. "We'll leave once we work out a plan." The plan was simple, Michael and the guards would began their search in Froggy Bottom Bog, where the gunfire was last night and look for leads. I would deal with the press in return.