//------------------------------//
// The Next Day 
// Story: Dimension Jumper 
// by redtau 
//------------------------------//

	"Alright, so it looks like the roof here is going to need the most repair. The main beam is badly damaged and most of the supports are rotted through."

Sarah?

"I think we can get away with reenforcing around the main beam, then removing it. We will have to replace all the secondary supports before we start removal though."

Hey Sarah.

"I didn't see any lumber this long in our supplies so we will have to order-"

I don't think he's listening to you.

I turned around to glare at my unicorn guard who just stood a little ways off, a spear, notepad and pen floating near him.

"Are you going to write any of this down, Lance?"

"Is that why I'm carrying this pad and pen?" he asked in a snippy tone.

"No. You're holding onto it for when I spontaneously regrow my right arm and can write again."

His eyes widened and he began to scratch out something on the notepad.

"Lance, I swear if you are writing notes about my amazing regenerative abilities I'm going to do my best to shove that pad down your throat."

The spear came about, pointed right at me. "You won't get the chance monster! I'll slay you myself if you make even one false move!"

"Aren't you supposed to be defending me?"

"Hmph." Lance pulled the spear back, but still stood on guard.

"Why are you following me if you aren't going to help?"

"To find out what you are going to do." He glared at me, "You can't have survived in this castle for as long as you did, and done the things you have, without being far more powerful than you appear. You may as well give up and tell me what you are planing."

"Fine," I threw up my hand, "It's obvious I can't get anything past you. I'll tell you everything, but you'll want to write this down."

Lance's eyes widened with excitement, and the pad and pen floated at the ready.

I turned and pointed at the ceiling. "I'm going to order two long beams for either side of the main beam, along with lumber, brackets, bolts, screws and tools to replace and reenforce the ceiling here." I turned and smiled at him, watching him just grump at me.

"That isn't what I meant! How do you plan to escape?"

Is the guard honestly this foolish?

"Escape? You aren't some warden. I'm stuck here by the Princess's gease. The only way out is to meet the conditions, one of which is fixing the roof."

"You..you really are just going to do repairs to this place?"

Yes, yes he really is that foolish.

I sighed, "Let's go see if your pegasus friend has finished reviewing the outside." I said, heading up to the nearby tower. Lance followed me about ten feet behind, spear always at the ready.

Hey

"Not now."

"Did you say something?" Lance called.

"No, I'm just talking to myself."

Hey.

I sighed again. Nightmare was crap with subtle for some reason. We got up to the top of the tower and opened the door quietly. The pegasus guard Starlight was posing in front of an ancient and cracked vanity.

"Woe is me, a nobleman's daughter trapped in the tallest tower by that vicious alien beast." She pouted at her reflection before swooning dramatically. "Oh when will my brave prince come to rescue me?" 

"Sometime after you finish your job of aiding and guarding that vicious alien beast I'd imagine." I said, startling the midnight blue pegasus.

"Eeeek! Foul beast! How dare you sneak up on me. I will not give into your wicked desires!"

Wicked desires? Really?

"What in Equestria is going on up here?" Lance asked, following me into the room.

"That monster snuck up on me! Who knows what it was planing." Starlight said, pointing an accusatory hoof at me.

"Star, I was right behind her the whole time, and neither of us were very quiet. The only way anything could have snuck up on you is if you were off in your own little fantasy." Lance smirked. "Still waiting for your prince?"

"Shut UP!" Star cried, blushing deep red.

"Never mind that, did you finish looking over the roof?"

Hey!

"Oh sure." Star said, "They are a mess. A lot of places need to be tared and have shingles replaced."

"Good," I nodded at Lance to take notes. "How many shingles and how large of an area are we talking in total?"

"Hm?" she looked up confused.

"How much of the roof will need to be repaired and replaced?"

"Oh, a lot of it." She nodded.

"How much, exactly?"

"How am I supposed to know exactly how much?"

"I GAVE YOU A TAPE MEASURE FOR A REASON!" I was pretty close to jumping up and down and yelling at this point.

"Oh, I um, I left that behind." She said, a little scared by my outburst.

Hey, Listen!

I'm going to rename her Navi I swear to god. "What are you even here for if not to help?"

"We are here to guard you from that monster in the forest."

"And don't you think that would be easier if we could all leave the forest?"

"Sure," Lance grinned, "It would be a lot easier to protect you if you were behind bars in a maximum security prison."

"Well the only way I'm going to get anywhere near there is if I finish the work, and the only way I can do that is with help. Why else would you be here if not to help?"

"I was hoping a hero would come rescue me." Starlight said.

"I'm here to keep an eye on you." Lance growled.

"I'm in it for the money myself."

I turned to find Steel Strike climbing up the stairs. Grinning at the other guards he sauntered in. "The potential for quick promotion is good too."

"There's opportunity for promotion?" Starlight asked, excited.

"Yeah," Steel said, "comes bundled with pension paid to next of kin and burial with honors."

I like him.

I could feel my eye twitch slightly. These had to be the worst possible assistants in the history of anything. "Can you all go away for a little bit? I'm just going to have a very large headache for a little while."





Four hours later I walked out into the western courtyard with an armful of notes and sketches. Most of it was estimates and counting paces, but I figured that I had roughly half of the lumber, paint and hardware I needed to repair the roofs in the castle.

"I just have to wait a month to put in the order for supplies."

Don't forget the walls, you have to finish those too.

"Right right, I still need to figure out how to repair the wall. Then I just have to finish all the repairs with guards who don't want to help and find a way to invite ponies to visit an abandoned castle in the middle of a dangerous forest when I can't even leave!"

How are you going to do that?

"I have no idea!"

Thock.

I paused at the doorway to the courtyard. "The hell is that? Are they chopping wood?"

I came out to the courtyard to find the guards hard at work assaulting various wooden training dummies. Each had obviously built their own and each reflected D in one form or another.

Steel Strike was busy swinging his short sword against a humanoid dummy, hopping in a circle while delivering glancing blows.  It took me a moment to realize that he was also swiping out three concentric circles with his hooves as he moved about.

Lance's dummy had a chest full of pockmarks and slashes, and I had to marvel at how well he handled his spear. The blade slashed through the air before being drawn back and driving deep into the dummy's neck.

Starlight had been most ambitious and was still assembling her dummy, a massive structure that mimicked the monster bull form that D had first taken. Unfortunately for her, her construction was somewhat lacking. She put down her hammer, picked up a pair of strange bladed weapons, and then had to drop them and grab more tools as the dummy began to colapse.

"What are you all doing?" I asked. Lance jumped and spun around, spear at the ready.

"Training," Steel Strike said, rubbing out the circles he had drawn and getting ready to start again. "We need to be ready in case that creature attacks again."

"I can see that, but where did you get the dummies from?"

"We built them, duh." Starlight said, trying to brace her dummy's sagging head.

"Yes, with the lumber meant for repairs."

"You said you would need to order more anyway." Lance said, grinning at me.

I glared back at him. "Isn't yours missing an arm?"

"Nah, I got it just right!" He smirked at me, "Hey, how about some practice against a moving target?" He levitated the spear and pointed it at me.

"Actually, that's not a bad idea." Steel Strike said. "Provided we swap out for practice weapons, I think it would help our training and tactics immensely."

Well, if it will help them to fight off D, that may not be a bad idea.

"That's a terrible idea." I said, "You three are trained guards, what am I supposed to do against you? Shoot eye beams? I don't have D's strength or speed or claws!"

Starlight swooped by overhead and something thumped down next to me. It looked like a foam bat. 

"I don't think any of us are going to be able to do any real damage with these." Star said, dropping a pair of foam short swords at Steel Strike's feet. Lance caught the long padded stick that mimicked his spear before it hit the ground.

"Fine." I grunted, lifting the sword. Though it was heavily padded, the thing still had a good weight to it, and I found myself having to keep it close to my body or risk being pulled off balance. "Who gets to kick my butt first?"

I was unsurprised when Lance stepped forward, his training spear swinging through the air. I couldn't tell if he was trying to show off or if the fake weapon was weaker than the real one, but he seemed able to move faster than before.

"I got next!" Starlight cried.

Not having any real strategy, I raised my sword and charged. A few steps from him, his horn flared slightly brighter, and he tore the sword out of my hand with his magic.

"Ha! Look at that! The weaponless wonder-"

SMACK.

Lance stumbled backwards and raised a hoof to his cheek. "You slapped me!"

"You took my sword!" I shouted at him. "Did you really thing that was going to stop me? That can't be standard tactics in the guard."

"It would have worked against other ponies!" Lance countered.

"I'm not a pony!" I yelled at him. "Neither is D, unless you catch him in disguise."

"That really is a stupid trick." Steel said. "In a real battle, stunts like that will get you badly wounded or worse."

"Shut up you old grump, it would have worked against you."

"Oh?" Steel turned to face off, a foam sword hanging off a holster on either side and his cape flapping dramatically in the wind. "Care to test that theory?"

"Bring it on!" Lance said, taking a battle stance.

Steel Strike drew a foam sword in his mouth and charged, his speed startling Lance as he closed the distance in a flash. Unable to bring his spear to bear, Lance reflexively reached out and grabbed Steel's sword, halting the attack.

"Ha! See? I-"

WHAM

Lance was thrown to the ground, Steel's second sword having caught him across the face and spun him around. My mouth hung open. Steel's cape fluttered from the sudden motion, his first sword still held in his mouth, his second grasped in a strong wing.

"You- You're a pegasus?!" Starlight gasped.

"I thought you were an earth pony." I said.

"That's not fair!" Lance cried. "You tricked me!"

"Oh?" Steel asked, spitting out his sword. "You think your enemies are going to come at you head on? You have to expect surprises."

"A good lesson in not being too cocky." Starlight said, trotting up. She reached out and tried to pick up the foam sword with her wings, struggling. "How do you lift these things?!"

"Years of practice." Steel said. The wind tugged at his cape, and I saw something as it fluttered.

"Steel," I started, "Your wing..."

He narrowed his eyes at me. "It's not important."

"What about his wing?" Lance asked.

"How did you lose your left wing?"

Starlight gasped, falling back a couple of steps. Steel just sighed.

"I was with the five-oh-first."

"What?!" Lance was standing wide eyed now, "You were a DRAGON SLAYER?!!"

"Dragon wrangler mostly." Steel pulled at the front clasp, letting the cape drop to the ground. Even I cringed away from the sight. A long burn scar ran from the nub where his wing had been down his side. The fur had never grown back, leaving scared and patchy flesh. "I got too close to one a few years ago. Managed to save my squad mates from a worse fate, but you can't be a flying dragon slayer if you can't fly."

"But you can lift two heavy swords!" Lance said. "That's amazing."

"That is amazing," I told him, "But it doesn't make up for losing the wing."

"You're one to talk." Lance said, "You had a demon locked in one arm and the other one took out a huge timber wolf!"

"Look at me. Even if I could rebuild the entire castle one handed tomorrow, it would never make up for the loss."

Steel nodded, "You can't go back, and mourning over it gets you nowhere. You just have to move on.

"Speaking of fixing the castle, does anyone here know how I'm supposed to work on the outer walls?"





I looked at the supplies spread out on the ground in front of me.

"So the original wall was all stone, but the repairs are going to be brick with a stone face? This doesn't look like nearly enough bricks."

"Its a kiln," Steel Strike said, "you are supposed to build a kiln and fire the bricks from these molds."

"That... seems like an awful lot of work." I said.

"It makes since if you really think about it." Starlight said, rolling out the blueprints for the kiln. "If the wall is damaged in the future, it will be much easier to repair with a kiln in the castle."

"There is a town." I waved towards Ponyville, "Right there! Why do I need to make bricks in the castle? I can just go get more when I need them."

"OK," Lance said, still nursing a sore jaw, "Go get some then."

"You aren't nearly as funny as you think you are" I said. "So I guess I have to find a place to build this."

"You want to build it near the servants quarters, in a side yard, and away from any other structures." Starlight said, flipping through the kiln blueprints. "It's going to take a while to fire the bricks, and you want to leave the kiln somewhere it won't set fire to anything else."

...what?

Starlight looked up and saw us all staring at her. "What? I have family in constructions. Every Hearts Warming they would go on and on about stuff like this."

"And earlier today you couldn't give me estimates on tiles?" I asked.

"Well yeah, but that was because you were going about it the wrong way."

"The wrong way?"

"You were just looking at the obvious open spots in the roof. There are also rotten tiles and gutters that need repair and replacement. I won't be able to check for those and get a proper estimate until the support structure underneath is reenforced." Star grinned at me, "But your plan for those supports sounds solid."

Well, that was unexpected. Maybe these guards are smarter than I gave them credit for.

"Well, I'd better get the wheelbarrow and get started." I said. "All these bricks aren't going to move themselves."

Steel strike put a hoof up to stop me. "No wheelbarrow. You are going to move each brick one at a time."

"What?!"

"It's part of your training." Steel said. "You are far too weak, and you only beat Lance on a technicality. From this day on you are going to spend three hours a day training with us."

"And what do I get out of it aside from you running me ragged?"

"Our cooperation in the repairs." Steel said. 

"Your cooperation maybe," I said, "There is no way you'll convince those two to help."

"Well you can count on me" Starlight said, rolling up the kiln blueprints. "I want this done right. No offense Sarah, but a kiln built wrong could burn the castle down or explode. I'd like not to worry about burning to death in my sleep."

"Well that still leaves Lance." I said.

"Lance is a good soldier." Steel told me, "He'll follow orders from his superior and right now that's me."

"What will you do if he disobeys? Take away his tin-foil hat?"

"No, he'd have to run- why would he have a tin-foil hat?" Starlight asked.

"To block my alien mind control beams." I joked.

Lance jumped up from where he had been sitting and dashed off.	

"Great, now I'm going to spend a week either convincing him that I don't have alien mind control beams or that the tin-foil is useless." I said.

With workers like these, who needs saboteurs?