The Day It Began

by Dyon


Chapter 9

Report to commander Hammer she told me. Oh I would report to commander Hammer. I would report so fast that it made her head spin. That of course, didn’t make much sense; being unable to actually rant aloud had caused my thoughts to deteriorate. Who knew how helpful venting actually was, probably psychiatrists.

I paced in my extravagant room in the palace trying to calm myself. If someone were to observe my random hand gestures as I walked back and forth they would no doubt question my sanity. I was actually still questioning my sanity; no sane person wouldn’t at this point. I thought that made sense at the time.

With an inaudible sigh I fell back into the bed, giving up my silent tirade about how the princess was bossing me around. I was a visiting dignitary, and I should be given a certain amount of respect. It’s true that I agreed I would try and help out the ponies in this upcoming confrontation, but I didn’t have to be happy about it.

Celestia didn’t trust me, she had said as much straight to my face. Her cold demeanor was starting to rub off on me, and now I was starting to get into a bad mood. I liked to think of myself as a likable guy, certainly I wasn’t the most popular, but I didn’t tend to make any enemies. Here Celestia was, judging me based on the actions of others, which was completely prejudice.

I took a deep breath and counted to ten. I wasn’t going to get anywhere when I was being so hot headed. I exhaled, and felt a good amount of my frustration leave me. I sat up in the bed, and once again looked around the room. I had looked at the magnificent drapes before, and admired the furniture, but something was definitely missing from the room.

It hadn’t occurred to me until just then, but there was no light coming into the room. The curtains were drawn, and none of the candles that littered the walls were lit. Despite the blackness I didn’t have any trouble seeing. I shrugged, and assumed that my eyes had adjusted to the darkness. I got up from the bed and walked to the window so I could pull back the curtains.

The cloths gave was with no effort, and the moonlight began to stream into the room. The stars twinkled in the sky alongside the full moon, which shone brilliantly in the darkness. I looked over Canterlot bellow, which was bathed in the soft white glow. The marble towers were highlighted by moonbeams and shown more brilliantly than they possibly could during the day.

The white moonlight clashed with the shadows of the buildings of the city below creating a perfect contrast of black and white. Through the black, small pockets of candlelight could be seen. I retrieved a chair from the table behind me, and pulled it over to the window so I could admire the view in comfort.

I was struck by the urge to play, and realized that I had not done so in a while. It seemed like when I discovered the ability to create music with my mind I could think of nothing else to do. Unfortunately, the world had distracted me and it had slipped my mind. I held my hands up in front of me when a strange thought occurred to me. Instead of playing the guitar as I normally did I adjusted my pose to that of a pianist and began to play the first thing that came to my mind.

As I played I continued to look out at the city below. The music perfectly complimented the way I was feeling at the moment, slightly sad at what had happened, but hopeful. I looked once again to the sky, and saw that the clouds were beginning to stir.

It is difficult to observe the clouds at night; they tended to just appear as the sky, but with no stars to fill the blackness. They moved quickly from behind the mountain and over the city. The clouds brought with them a slight drizzle that began to pour down on the city. The window I was looking through began to fog slightly as small water droplets formed on the glass.

The light drizzle became a full-blown downpour very quickly. The wind outside, which had previously been slightly pushing against the trees outside, started to bend back branches as the ferocity of the storm increased. The sky was completely obscured by the cloud cover above, and the rain began to hit its peak. In the distance I could hear the sound of thunder.

I continued to play, and watch the events outside of the castle unfold before me. I looked to the streets of Canterlot below, and saw the water rush through the city. The levels began to rise, and started to carry away small things in their currents. At first the small rivers could only move newspapers and small boxes that were left in the streets, but soon they were washing away entire carts.

The downpour had become torrential, and the city would soon be completely flooded. The animals outside in the gardens could be heard screeching as they searched desperately for shelter. With a storm hitting this fast I doubted that many would find a safe refuge.

Lightning struck down a mere ten feet from my window, and cast a brilliant display of pure white against my eyes. The suddenness of it all caused me to cry out in shock. I realized that it could not possibly have been myself that let out that cry, and immediately the music stopped. I looked behind me to the small lavender mare standing in the open entrance of my room.

Twilight Sparkle hesitantly stepped into my room, and I got up from my comfortable seat to meet her. She closed the door behind her, and just stood before me without saying a word. I of course couldn’t talk, so we just stood there in silence for a while.

“That was a very nice piece you were playing,” she said breaking the palpable tension in the room. “I came in because I heard you playing over in my room a few doors down.”

I pulled out another chair from the table in the middle of the room, and sat down facing her. There were many choice words that I wanted to have with the unicorn in front of me, but I really couldn’t initiate the conversation. I leaned back in the chair, and waited for her to continue.

“I really am sorry,” she said, looking down at the floor out of what I assumed to be shame.

I huffed and turned my nose up at the apology. When she had brought me here she had promised that she would be able to return me easily, so I had decided to go along with all of this. Now I find out a few hours ago that she actually had no way to send me back to my world. I was essentially stuck here for eternity, and it was all her fault.

Twilight looked up at me, and saw that I had quickly turned down her apology. “ I have been trying for over a day and a half to get the portal to work correctly. I just don’t understand. The first time that I had opened it the spell came so easily, and it worked on the first try. Every time since then either nothing happens, or it just collapses on me after a few seconds. For some reason the rift has become unstable, and I just have no idea of how to fix it.” Her explanation once again fell upon deaf ears.

I didn’t really understand anything that she was talking about, nor did I want to. She was someone that used magic all the time; in fact I had been told that it was her special talent. The way I saw it, she had no excuse for not being able to send me back to my own world. If she was so good at magic then there had to be something that she could do to remedy the situation.

“Can you please forgive me? I am trying all I can to fix this mistake,” she pleaded, once again looking at me expectantly.

I again shrugged of her attempts at reconciliation I didn’t think that I would ever be able to just shake hands, and get over something as life altering as this.

Twilight sighed and once again retuned her gaze to the floor below her. “I don’t really deserve to be forgiven for something like this. Maybe you will change your mind when I figure out a way to send you back home.” She turned away and began to walk towards the door. “Until then just know that I am very sorry for all of the trouble I have caused you.” Her horn lit up for a second, and then suddenly she was gone in a flash of purple.

I sighed again, and got up from my chair so that I could look out once again at the city. The storm had quieted down quite a bit, and a few stars could be seen in between the gaps in the clouds. The rain had returned to being just a light drizzle, and god beams of moonlight began to shine on Canterlot. The city had not suffered any damage by the abrupt storm earlier. When everyone got up in the morning the streets would look clean. Sometimes a good storm was needed to wash away all of the trash.

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Morning came as it always inevitably does, and the light of the sun managed to find its way into my room, and hit me in the eyes. Slightly irritated I rolled over in my bed, and tried to get comfortable again. Even though I was fully aware that I was just stalling, and trying to avoid the day I continued to lay there trying to get back to sleep.

I failed miserably, and after an hour I had no other choice, but to give up and get out of bed. I blindly threw my pillow across the room in aggravation, and heard it knock something over, which clanged to the ground. I sat up in bed, and looked to where I had thrown it to make sure that I hadn’t broken anything. I didn’t have any money to pay for any of the expensive looking things that were in the room.

Luckily, the pillow had only knocked a candle off of the table, and nothing had been broken. Sighing, I rolled over to the edge of the bed and climbed off it. All I had on was a tattered undershirt, and some boxers that had survived my brush with a raging dragon queen unscathed. I looked to the suit that I had neatly folded on the one dresser that was in the room, and decided that I might as well wear it.

I had just finished putting on the pants when someone knocked at my door. Deciding that I was at least somewhat decently dressed I walked away from the rest of the ensemble, and made my way to the door. I opened the heavy wooden door, and was greeted by a unicorn guard. He looked up at me, and I could tell that he frustrated with something.

“I was informed that you were supposed to have come down to the training fields at the crack of dawn this morning,” he said pushing past me and walking into the room. “I hope that you have a good reason for being late.” He turned once again to face me.

I remembered Celestia telling me something about going to meet one of her guards in the morning, but I didn’t remember her telling me to be there at the crack of dawn. Maybe I should pay better attention when people are talking to me. That might be one of the reasons that the princess didn’t like me very much. I looked back down to the unicorn that was standing in front of me, and gave him a shrug.

“What is that supposed to mean?” he asked, probably not knowing that I was unable to actually speak to him. I shrugged again, which seemed to frustrate him even more. “Do not simply shrug at me when I ask you something, Beast. I expect an answer from you when I address you.”

Normally, I would have been pretty pissed off by the way that this guy was talking to me, but since I was actually making him pissed off it didn’t get to me much. It was hard to force myself not to smile, but I somehow managed it, and gave him another shrug. Now I could actually see his eye twitch a little.

“You… insubordinate little.” He was cut off by someone clearing their throat outside, which caught both of our attentions.

Rarity was standing just outside in the hall sheepishly looking at what was going on in the room. Slowly, she began to walk inside the room and put herself between me and the very angry unicorn.

“Since it seems like you do not know then I would like to inform you. Our friend here cannot speak, so he is unable to answer your questions.” She huffed and set the bundle that I hadn’t noticed her carrying onto the table. “I fixed your clothes, and even made you something that is a little more sturdy. I had heard that you would be training or something so I made some clothes that would be able to take the stress of arduous work easily enough.” Having said her piece, and delivered her good, Rarity turned and walked out of the room.

Ignoring the guard that was standing in the middle of my room I made my way to the package that the fashionista had dropped off. I undid the cloth that was holding it together, and pulled the garments out. Rarity had fixed up my clothes very well. In fact I couldn’t even tell that they had been damaged in the first place.

In addition, she had made me another set pants that seemed to be made of a sturdier denim, and had made another shirt. It was plain and white, but had a “D” on the left breast. I smiled, I liked to receive gifts, but I was unfortunately unable to give her anything in return.

“I like your marefriend,” the guard remarked. He seemed to have calmed down significantly, and his comment made me quirk and eyebrow. He turned to me, and gave a quick bow. “My name is Head Captain Hammer, in charge of all training of the elite Canterlot Guard.”

Deciding that I might as well be nice since he was putting so much effort forwards, I gave him a polite bow as well. Satisfied, he continued to speak, “I have been told that I would have an unusual trainee starting today, and when he didn’t show up I decided to come looking for him. I’m sure that you have a good excuse for being late, but right now I don’t really care.” He began to exit the room, and looked back at me. “Are you coming or not?”

I held up the pants that I had just received, and pointed to them. He sighed, and turned away from me. “Hurry up then. When you are nice and ready I will be waiting for you outside.” His horn glowed, and the door to the room slammed shut.

Smiling I took off the dress pants I was currently wearing, and proceeded to put on the new ones that I had received. They fit as smoothly as the others that Rarity had made for me did, but were more loose so that I wouldn’t lose any mobility. I also put on the shirt, and walked over to the wall where I had tossed my shoes. A couple of seconds later I was fully dressed, and ready to get this training thing over with.

I opened the door, and like he had said Captain Hammer was waiting for me outside. I took the time to look him over since I hadn’t bothered to do so before. He had a white coat like most of the other guards in the castle. The only real difference was his white and red mane that stuck through his helmet. Now that I thought about it all the other guards that I had seen had the same blue mane. I wondered it there was some rank that they had to achieve before they could show their natural colors.

Noticing that I had opened the door Hammer turned to me and motioned for me to follow. We walked down the halls at a comfortable pace. Well I walked at a comfortable pace while he seemed to be moving quickly towards one of the exits. We took a couple of turns, and I found myself in a part of the castle that I hadn’t seen yet. Like the rest of the halls, this one had paintings that lined it, and a few busts here and there, but each of the paintings depicted some sort of battle. It was hard for me to imagine ponies actually fighting.

We emerged from the hallway into a sort of field where several dummies had been set up. I saw some guards swinging at them with various different weapons, while others fought each other in the pins that were scattered around the training grounds. Drill instructors were shouting orders to some of the less experienced guards, and forcing them to run laps around the place.

There wasn’t any grass left on the ground, as all of it had been stamped to death a long time ago. The field was a complete box, which was blocked off on three sides by the castle, and the last side by the mountain that Canterlot was attached to. It didn’t seem like very many guards could possibly be trained here at a time.

“Come this way,” Hammer ordered and began to walk to one of the sparring pits that littered the place. I obediently followed him, and watched as some of the guards stopped and glared at me.

Hammer opened the gate that led into the pit and motioned for me to follow. He quickly made his way over to a weapons rack that stood along the fence. I followed him over to the rack and awaited instruction.

“Have you ever used a weapon before?” he asked, and I gave him a nod. He looked back at the rack and asked, “Have you ever used one of these weapons before?”

I looked over the rack, and saw an assortment of medieval weaponry. To be honest I had never actually seen a flail, but there one sat in front of me. Swords, axes, hammers, a few daggers, and even a bow were laid out before me, but nothing that I actually knew how to use. I looked back at him and shook my head.

He sighed, and somehow pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay then I guess we will have to start with the basics. Pick something out, and just go stand over there,” he said motioning to the other side of the pin.

Deciding that being ironic was the best way to make a new friend I picked up the biggest hammer that was resting on the rack. It was about five feet long, and the head on the end had to weigh thirty pounds. Struggling, I hefted the massive thing over my shoulder and stumbled back to where he had pointed.

Captain Hammer, to my surprise, pulled a basic sword from the rack with his magic, and walked to the opposite side of the pin. I looked around the dirt-riddled arena, and noticed that a small number of the guards had stopped what they were doing, and had come over to watch. I returned my attention to Hammer and noticed that he was glaring at me again.

“Since you don’t really have any training what we are going to do today will be quite simple. I will come at you with this sword, and I want you to block me.” He began to slowly approach me.

I shifted the weight of the hammer between my two hands so that I could hold it in front of me. The head put a lot of strain on my right arm, but I managed to keep it aloft long enough for him to reach me. He swung the sword down in an overhead strike; he was probably holding back quite a bit since it wasn’t difficult at all to lift the hammer up to block the strike with the handle.

Next he came at me from my left side, and I shifted the weight between my hands so that I could block that as well. As the two weapons connected sparks momentarily flashed. He came at me from the left again, and I blocked the strike once again with little effort.

He stepped back for a moment and addressed me again. “Are you sure that you haven’t trained on that weapon before?” Once again I answered him with a shake of my head.

He stepped forwards once again, much faster this time, and slashed the sword at me. I was barely able to block the swing, and had to jump back in order to pull the hammer up in time. My back leg hit the wooden railing of the small arena, and I stumbled for a moment, almost dropping my weapon as I did so. Hammer didn’t wait for me to regain my footing however, and rounded on me almost immediately.

He swung the sword down at me like he had done before. I caught it easily this time, and even managed to push it back a little. My opponent smiled a little before he pulled his sword back again, and moved to stab me. I jumped to the side to avoid being impaled on his sword. The hammerhead fell out of my hand, and hit the ground with a dull thud. I scrambled to pick it back up as Hammer turned to me once again.

“You can attack me if you want,” he said as he lunged towards me again.

He came at me from my left again, and without picking the hammer up of the ground I moved behind my weapon to block his blow once again. I heaved the hammer as hard as I could, and managed to pick the head up off the ground, and swung it in an arc. I brought the hammer back down where the Captain was standing, causing him to jump out of the way. The hammer struck the hardened ground causing it to crack, and I noticed that it had also left a sizable indent as I pulled it back into the air.

The Captain flicked the blade in front of me to the left, and I quickly maneuvered to block. He pulled the sword back before the two weapons could meet, and struck at me from my right. I wasn’t able to move the hammer into the path of the sword in time, and he landed a small knick on my arm as I jumped out of the way.

He smirked a little, and without losing a beat once again lunged at me with the sword. I allowed the head of the hammer to drop so I could easily swing the handle in an arc to block his stab. With the sword knocked aside for a moment I pulled the hammer off the ground, and tried to land a blow on the captain.

Once again he jumped out of the way just as the strike would have hit him. My efforts were rewarded with another indention in the ground where my hammer struck down. Swinging around this massive weapon was beginning to weigh on me, and I could feel the muscles in my arms starting to grow stiff. I refused to give up however, and pulled the hammer from the dirt once again.

“Starting to tire already?” he laughed as he began to circle me. I matched his steps as we glared at each other; I also noticed that more of the guards had come over to watch our little match.

This time I didn’t wait for him to make the first move, and I ran at him trying to close the distance. My sudden aggressiveness seemed to catch him off guard, and he pulled his sword back to him to block my impending attack. I swung down with my hammer with all the strength I had, and he caught the blow squarely on his sword.

Under the strength of my strike I saw his magic flash for a moment. I continued to push down on him with the hammer, and forced him to a knee. I continued to push down on him with the hammer hoping that I could crush his defense, and end this. Quicker than I had seen him move all day, Captain Hammer stepped out of the way of my strike and pulled back his sword. The head of my hammer slammed into the ground sending a large amount of dirt flying from the area where it landed.

Before I could react that captain had already brought the sword to my throat where I could feel it cut a thin line into my flesh. I was sweating profusely, since this was probably the hardest workout I had had in a while. When I looked up from his blade to the captain’s face I was surprised to see him grinning at me wildly.

“That was very well fought. If you are telling the truth about not having any training before this I would hate to meet you on the battlefield once you have mastered that weapon.” He withdrew his sword, and levitated it back to the rack where he had retrieved it from. “I think that was enough of a workout for this morning. I have a lot to attend to so why don’t you take a break, and then start working against some of the dummies.”

He opened the gate, and casually made his way out. That guards that were milling around also left the sidelines and began to resume their training routines. Not bothering to pick it up I dragged the hammer back to the rack so that I could place it back where it belonged. As I lifted the massive thing up I caught sight of some numbers written on the bottom of the hammer’s head. I looked closer and found that the numbers “100.00” were engraved into the bottom of it. That had to be some kind of mistake.

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Twilight was busy in her personal study that was always kept for her in the castle. Princess Celestia had given her the room when she was just starting out as her personal student so that Twilight would always have somewhere to come, and practice magic undisturbed.

Books were strewn about that dark room, which was only lit with candlelight since it didn’t have any windows. The room actually didn’t have any doors either, and the only two that knew how to get inside were Twilight and the princess herself. Twilight kept most of the more complicated magic books in this room to make sure that they never fell into dangerous hooves. None of them, however, were of any use to her at the moment.

Twilight screamed in frustration as yet another attempt to create a stable portal failed her. She levitated to her five different books, and started to read from them all. Two she tossed away immediately for being completely useless. The other three she considered from a moment before they were set aside as well.

Exhausted, she sat down on the ground. The stone walls surrounding her caught the shadows that were cast off the bookshelves and tables creating an ominous atmosphere; just like any proper mage’s study should have. Before her sat an intricate set of runes that Twilight thought would help with stabilizing the spell, but had also proved to be no help in the end.

“This is just insane,” Twilight said as she started to talk to herself. “I don’t understand how it worked in the first place. Dimensional transportation is merely theoretical at best, but I was able to some how pull a being here from who knows where.”

She got up from where she was sitting on the floor, and began to pace. “It is more than just the portal isn’t it? I haven’t had any luck establishing a connection to the destination point either. How come it was so easy the first time?” Twilight once again yelled in frustration, as she sank back down to the ground and covered her head with her hooves.

“It doesn’t make any sense. It really just does not make any sense. A portal like this takes to much magic to maintain so how come I could do it the first time,” Twilight sighed.

She had tried and failed to create a stable portal for the last three hours, and was beginning to feel completely drained. For days, since she had met with the princess after Porosis’ release, she had tried to find a way to fix the problem she had caused. The more she tried though, the more the portals seemed to grow unstable until she was unable to hold one open for even a couple of seconds.

She figured that it was just magical fatigue that was weighing on her, and decided that she needed to take a break. In a flash of purple light Twilight teleported out of the room, and into the hall that was on the other side of the wall. The guards that were in the hall weren’t disturbed as she made her sudden appearance, since they were used to seeing the young unicorn teleport around the castle at will.

Twilight began to walk down the hall back to her room so that she could get some rest. A few whispers could be heard as she passed some shut doors, but one word in particular managed to catch her attention. Twilight stopped in her tracks, and turned to the door that the conversation was taking place behind. As quietly as she could she snuck over to the door, and put an ear up to it so that she could eavesdrop.

“Are you serious?” one voice said.

“Hey, I’m just telling you what I heard. One of the captains was saying that the zebras are mounting an invasion force at the border. They could attack us any day now, and we have no way to stop them,” replied the other voice.

“There is no way. Even if those stripes tried to do anything we have the princesses. There is no way that they could get one hoof into our borders.”

“We have the princesses, but didn’t you hear. Their long dead zebra god has been resurrected and is the one leading them. I even heard that he killed the zebra’s whole high council, and took over their government. I don’t know how much of this is true, but it definitely doesn’t look good. Do you know how many could die if the seriously attack us?” Twilight couldn’t listen to anymore, and quickly pulled away from the door.

She heard the ponies on the other side of the door start to shuffle, and in a panic teleported back to her room in the castle. As she landed, Twilight began to hyperventilate. She just couldn’t believe that the zebras would actually do something like that. She had told everypony back in Ponyville that the zebras weren’t evil, and were just like anypony else. Had she been wrong? Did the zebras really want to start a war with Equestria?

No! She wouldn’t believe something that she just heard somepony else say. She was a pony that believed in facts and science, and unless there was some proof to these claims she would not believe one word of it. Twilight managed to calm herself down, and walked over to her bed.

Sighing, she pulled back the covers and hopped up onto the soft mattress; hoping that she could fall asleep easily. Sleep did not come quickly however, and Twilight tossed and turned in her soft, plush bed for hours before she started to drift off. The last words that ran through her mind, as she started to sink into sleep, was what she was going to say to the princess when she asked about this war tomorrow.