//------------------------------// // A Little Help From My Friends // Story: On My Honor // by Honored Service //------------------------------// On My Honor A Little Help from My Friends By Honored Service Preread by Tbone5363 The chariot jerked and dipped with the wind as it sailed through the sky towards Ponyville. I sat with my arms crossed under my chin, resting on the railing that went around the flying platform. The lush green landscape rolled by underneath the golden chariot as the two pegasi pulling the chariot began their decent towards the sleeping town. The sun was just beginning its lazy arch over the land when we had left Canterlot. I had loaded my belongings onto the chariot and set off to start my new life. Again. And maybe this time, it wouldn't be non-stop gore fest of slaying bad guys and killing wicked demons. I closed my eyes as we drifted lower towards the ground. I was hoping the nightmares would stop once I left Canterlot. The nightmares. They were mainly just flashes and quick screams that raced into my mind whenever I would try and sleep. Sometime it would be day’s in-between attacks. Other times it would happen multiple times throughout the night. I hadn't told anypony about them yet. Why would I? I was the invincible human that had survived everything that could be thrown at me. I wasn't going to let myself be beaten by my own damn mind. The chariot buckled underneath me. I shot up and hit the deck in a fetal position as I waited for the crash. But it never came. “Um Honored Service sir?” One of the pegasi in the front of the chariot called out to me. “We have landed outside of Ponyville at the spot you told us to let you off at.” Her golden armor glinted in the morning sun. Summer Breeze was her name. She was trying to join the Equestrian Honor Guard, that’s why she was assigned to pull the chariot for me. So was the other pegasus. A young stallion named Cloudy. He was kind of a sulky type. With the war over, the Princesses had decided that having an extreme elite team of Royal Guards, a.k.a the Equestrian Honor Guard, was a good idea in case anything should arise again. The Elements of Sanctuary would be the heart of the training program, each Element bearer teaching one of the main courses of the unit. Control was taught by Sergeant Stand Bold and he focused on how to stay focused in a fight; keeping cool. Stealth was by far the hardest to teach, and Covert, the only good shadow to ever live, was in charge of making loud soldiers masters of sneaking. Wit was instructed by Battle Plan who taught up in coming guards to analyze a battle in many different ways and to rethink strategies hundreds of times. Steadfast was taught by Quick Flurry and he was responsible for making guards masters at close range lightning attacks with daggers and swords, he was always there for a pony. And the massive pony Hammer Strike was there to teach the recruits heavy weapons and to put some muscle on their bodies. The up incoming guards were in very capable hooves. And shadowy hands. “Ah very well then.” I sat up and coughed. I saw that we had stopped on the outskirts of Ponyville near the very same pond I had killed the Timberwolves at over a year and half ago at. This was the land that I had been given by a pony I had saved in the middle of the griffon empire a year ago. “I’ll just grab my things.” I reached behind the chariot and untied the large metal green case. It fell to the ground with a loud thud. Inside the container was my life’s joys. My weapons. Rifles, shotguns, pistols, knives, and swords were piled into the crate along with extra sets of armor and clothes. I also had MREs and other small odds and end stuffed into the crate. I wiped my hands along my jeans and dragged the crate over to a tree near the road in front of my property. I watched as the chariot slowly lumbered back off into the sky towards the distant city of Canterlot. I was left alone with myself and my thoughts. “So now what?” I looked around at the land. My property was mainly flat with a few trees scattered around the area. Nothing out of the ordinary. I got up and flipped the lid of the crate and rummaged inside of it looking for my shoulder holster. I pulled out the holster that had been sewn together by Rarity so long ago and strapped it on. I slipped my Berretta 92F into the holster and walked off, not even worrying about clips for it. Thanks to the magic that now flowed through my body from my Element of Sanctuary, I could concentrate my magic into the weapon and fire it through the pistol. It made the magic more accurate and powerful in a small burst. I walked around the property looking for anything that was out of the ordinary. Any signs of trespassers. Trails or paths that had been worn into the ground from repeated use. After completing one round, I began looking for fresh trails. Broken limbs attached to the bushes, or patches of grass that were knocked over in a different direction. I swept the area in a large zig-zag pattern making sure that my property was undisturbed. I was pleased by the end of my search that it was safe. Although my eyes kept getting pulled towards one corner of the property. It was a shady patch of land underneath a small oak tree. A gray stone protruded out of the earth, and I did everything within my might to not look at it. If I didn't acknowledge it, then it never happened. But I couldn't keep away. I slowly walked towards the stone. Each step I took towards the rough gray stone zapped me of more and more energy, till I collapsed to my knees in front of the tombstone. I just stared at the engraving. I coughed and then let the tears flow from my eyes and roll down my cheeks. I reached out and placed a hand against the stone. “Sky.” I dropped my pistol and sobbed uncontrollably. I wasn't strong enough. Or fast enough. Or good enough. I was powerless when she was ripped from my life. And all I could do was hold her in my arms and lie to her. Lie to her and say everything would be okay. That everything would turn out for the better. That we would make it through that first day when Nightmare betrayed us all. I failed her. And she paid the price. “I thought I was over this. I thought I had no more tears to shed for you Sky. I… I got him back Sky. For you and everypony else that died at Nightmare’s hands.” I looked at the tombstone, expecting some kind of ‘good job, or ‘way to go’ from the cocky mare, but none came. I was only met by the soft sound of wind blowing through the leaves over my head. I reached down to my color of my shirt, where I still carried the lone red feather that crazy mare had given to me. Its shiny red color still sparkled in the late morning sun. I gave a sad smile and placed the feather onto of the tombstone. “I wish I could go back and save you Sky.” I wiped away another tear. “I made him die painfully. I still see that look on Nightmare’s face. I wish you could have seen it. But it still comes nowhere near the amount of pain I wish I could still put him through. I…I’m broken Sky. And I don’t know if I’ll ever get fixed.” I stared for a while longer at the tombstone. I just sat there and watched the clouds drift lazily by in the breeze. I slowly stood up and reached down, picking the pistol up in my shaky hand. I turned and walked away from the grave, turning back and letting one more tear leave my eye. I’ll always be missing something from my life. The sun was reaching its apex in the sky as I sat down next to my crate filled with my belongings in Equestria. Most of them being weapons. “Now what do I do?” I asked no one in particular. I was unsure of my next course of action. Usually it was something along the lines of go to point A and kill/destroy the things there. Now that I had been told to go and just live a normal life, I had no idea what to do. “So is this what all humans do when moving to a new town?” The voice came from nowhere. I dove to the side behind my green crate while drawing my pistol and searching for its owner. “Who said that!?” I called out, aiming the pistol around. I saw a rainbow mane poking out from behind a cloud drifting above my property. “Chill out Honored!” Rainbow Dash yelled down at me. “Put that weapon away! I was just coming to check up on you.” I quickly holstered the pistol and stood up. “I’m terribly sorry Dash!” I looked down at the ground, “you just startled me and I got scared.” “Me? I scared you?” Dash’s face lit up like a light bulb and she rubbed a hoof across her chest. “Yeah I guess I am awesome enough to scare a human.” Rainbow seemed to have already forgotten I had just aimed a deadly weapon at her. ‘Come on Johnson, get a grip. Everything is fine, no need for violence or anything anymore. Everything is okay.’ “Sorry Dash again. What’s up?” I tried calming down after the sudden scare. “I was just coming to see how you were doing. But I guess wandering around your new land randomly and talking to a tree is just a human thing.” “Well what did you do when you first got to Ponyville?” I asked trying to get an idea on what I should do and to change the topic before Dash could ask about the tree and what was underneath it. “Let’s see…” Rainbow flopped down onto the grass and laid on her back. “Oh yeah, I got my house built. Didn't take too long, just a few hours, and then I moved my stuff into it.” “Only a few hours to build an entire house?” I asked with surprise. “Well yeah, it’s a cloud house.” She jumped up and took to the sky, grabbed a cloud and zoomed back down to me. She punched the cloud a few times and pulled the sides of it like taffy before stepping back. I was staring at a doghouse made of cloud. She smiled and tapped a hoof against it and it then ‘poofed’ into thin air. “Doesn't take long to mold a cloud house and then have it enchanted to keep its shape.” “Okay well see,” I got up and strode in front of Dash, “I’m a human…” Rainbow Dash just looked at me with her head cocked to the side. I slapped a hand against my face. “I can’t walk on or touch clouds.” “Ohhhhhh.” Rainbow Dash said while pacing in front of me. “Then I guess you’ll have to build a home from scratch. Tuff luck.” “That’s it?” I looked at her. “Tuff luck? I don’t know the first thing about building a home.” I flopped down onto the ground and kicked my legs into the dirt. “Honored where does somepony go to learn how to build something they know nothing about?” Rainbow Dash said, looking down at me. She had an amused face as I thought about that. “Home Depot.” “What’s that?” She shook her head. “No they go to the library to, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, to do research on what they need to build. Is this what Twilight feels like all the time?” “I guess they might have a book or two on home building. And I’m sure I can get some help building the home.” I rubbed a hand across my face as I thought about how hard it was going to be to build my own house. It can’t be that hard. I mean I’ve taken on armies of Changelings. Hordes of griffons. Waves of nightmare shadows. Hellish demons from the Everfree. How hard could building a house be? “Um Twilight?” “Yes Honored?” Twilight looked over from the scroll she was reading to see me holding a mountain of books in my arms. “Um I’d like to check these out.” I shifted my arms and felt the stack of books begin to topple in my arms. “Oh no!” I stood there helplessly as the books came crashing down around me, scattering all over the floor of the library. “Honored!” Twilight dashed forward, trying to catch some of the books but it was too late. The books were everywhere. I was rooted in place as Twilight looked at me, her right eye and wing began twitching. I smiled sheepishly and coughed. “So um…when are they due?” I gave a nervous laugh and began restacking the books. Home building 101. A colt’s guide to home constructing. Laying foundation. 1000 ways to not build a house. All the books were laid out on the center desk as Twilight wrote down their titles and marked them out to me. I wandered around the library foyer waiting for her to finish the painstaking long process of checking out the books. Damn I miss technology. I spotted one of the other books I had grabbed halfway under a bookshelf. I bent down and pulled it out from the dark crevice when something silver and gold caught my eye. The shine came from farther back under the shelf. I stuffed my hand under the shelf trying to reach it, but my arm was too big to reach all the way to the back. I quickly turned my head saw that Twilight was still engrossed with checking out books to notice me. I pulled my arm back and aimed my gauntlet under the shelf and preformed a basic pull spell. I wrapped my fingers around the parchment in my hand. I pulled the scroll out and smiled. It was a small scroll, the outside covered in hundreds of gold and silver swirls wrapping around the entire thing. I turned the parchment around in my hand and looked it over. I looked behind me to make sure Twilight was still busy and popped the wax seal off the scroll and slowly unrolled it. The inside of the scroll showed an amazing spell rune and a brief description of the spell. “Well look at this.” I whispered to myself as I studied the spell. “Honored, your books are all set!” Twilight called out happily. I quickly shoved the scroll into my pocket and turned around smiling. “Thanks Twilight, I really appreciate your help getting these.” I balanced the massive stack of books in my arms and walked towards the door. A polite cough came from behind me. I turned around to Twilight levitating a backpack towards me. I nodded and very carefully began to put the books up into the backpack as Twilight watched. I slung the pack and then moved towards the door. “Thanks again Twilight.” I said turning to face the alicorn. God that was going to take some time getting use to. “Of course Honored!” Twilight smiled and flapped her wings behind her. “Your friends are always going to be willing to lend a helping hoof. Feel free to ask me for anything.” Twilight nodded and walked back to her desk where she began to write something down on a piece of parchment. I opened the door to sunny Ponyville and strolled out into the fresh air. I smiled and patted my pocket, at least now I had something that was bound to make the afternoon interesting. Once I was on the long winding path leading towards my property, I looked around. No one to my left. No one to my right. No Rainbow Dash flying overhead. I tugged the scroll out of my pocket and flipped it over in my hand. “So what are you?” The scroll glinted in the daylight, and i noticed that the wax seal had reattached itself to the parchment. I shrugged my shoulders and unrolled the scratchy parchment. My eyes widened at the spell inside. I was a novice at magic. If it didn't involve turning anything, and I mean anything, into a weapon, or short range teleportation, or basic telekinesis, then I couldn't do it. And this spell was a doozy! It was so powerful that it required a spell rune and several magical objects to power the spell. As my eyes scanned the list of magical objects, I though how would one even go about getting a dragon eye and a vial of unicorn tears. Well the tears would be easy. Just go drop a library book. “Hmmmm” I tapped my gauntlet against my temple. “Now I’m sure that some small explosives and gunpowder could work as the magical objects.” I entered my property and opened my green crate, pulling out a few bullets and some sticks of dynamite that I had ‘relieved’ from the engineering squad. I also took out the sparkling diamond sword given to me by the Red Paw Pack of Diamond Dogs. Using the sword’s razor sharp tip, I began to roughly scrape the rune into the dirt. A six pointed star with a circle on each point with lots of complicated gibberish inside of every circle. I couldn't do half those shapes easily, so I just kind of did them. It would work regardless…right? Canterlot Castle Basement Discord sat up from his lounge chair in front of his pool that was filled with jell-o. He slowly eased the sunglasses of his face and looked around, a smile creeping on to his lips. “Oh Tiaaaa.” He called out, placing his magazine of Playcolt down on the table beside his chair. “I’ve got a feeling you should be preparing for some chaos.” Celestia looked over at the Draconequus from her spot next to a tanning lamp. “And why do you say that?” “Oh I’ve just got a hunch.” He smiled again and went back to reading. “And I know just the human to ask about it.” Celestia let out a loud groan and slammed a hoof against her head. “What the Tartarus, Honored?” Back at Honored’s Property I looked at the finished rune. It kind of looked like the picture in the scroll. And sure I didn’t have a dragon eye, unicorn tears, magic ruby hearts, or a golden apple from the Eden family farm. But im sure some Dynamite, gun powder, and AAA batteries would work just fine. Those were human magic objects anyway. I looked down at the scroll and read over the chant again. I took a deep breath and prepared myself to cast the overly complicated spell. The spell seemed to be able to transport the caster anywhere they wanted to go for three days, before being pulled back to the original spot of the spell rune. I held up my gauntleted arm and summoned a ball of pure magic into my palm. I aimed it at the center of the star and released it while beginning the spell. “To travel back to any plane, One must be utterly insane. Casting the spell to rip and tear, Sending to another sphere. Just focus on the spot, And ready the thought. Long for day thrice, And pay the price. Speak the place now, And space will allow.” The center of the spell rune was containing a ball of magic the size of baseball that was glowing blood red. It was shaking and bouncing around in the air, moving erratically as I finished casting the spell. I looked at the ball of magic and prepared to utter the word that would seal the spell and then cast it, the one word that would complete the spell. The one place I wanted to go. I whispered the word. “Home.” Everything vanished in a flash of intense white light. Twilight was just finishing the final touches on her newest chapter of the book she was working on with Lyra. Lyra was receiving insane amount of request from universities across Equestria wanting more books about the new human culture that had been revived in the land. Along with culture books they wanted books on the latest war with the Changelings and the Nightmare Shadow Humans that Honored had helped defeat. Twilight Sparkle was all too happy to help create books full of knowledge. Suddenly, Twilight’s horn exploded into a numbing feeling and she felt time around her slow down. The lines separating everything began to wobble back and forth. She raised her hoof to her face, and saw she was slowly changing into different colors and that her fur was changing lengths along with texture. “What’s happening?” Twilight’s voice came out deep and extremely slow. Everthing began to change colors again and then stopped. Everything flashed back to normal. Twilight stared at her hoof. It was purple. The fur was soft. The length of her hair was the same as always. “And my voice?” Her voice was normal too. Her horn wasn’t numb anymore. “Twilight?” Spike entered the room looking rather shaken up. He was shaking slightly. “Twilight, please tell me that happened to you too.” “Yes Spike.” Twilight was already busy grabbing any book she could that had anything to do with magical abnormalities. “And prepare to write a letter.” “HOLY SHT!” I screamed and sat up. I was thrown backwards over a hundred feet and had smashed through one of the pine trees that doted my property. I picked bits of wood and sap out of my hair and sat up. The spell rune was now nothing more than a giant crater in the ground over fifty feet wide and ten feet deep. I pulled out a small notepad and crossed ‘start house foundation’ from the list. “Well let’s not try that again…right away.” I smiled and began dragging the large pine tree away from the spot it had fallen at. Now I had some lumber to use, but I was going to need more. A lot more. Celestia stared at Discord. “What did he do?” She wasn’t angry, but that…that magical flux was bad. Very bad. “Wait for it.” Discord said calmly, sipping on a glass of coffee liqueur and vodka. A scroll appeared before Princess Celestia, and she ripped it open, reading aloud. “Dear Pri-yadyada, We seem to have experienced a magical tremor. As to what caused it, I am currently unsure, but the magical reference book states that tremors are caused by creatures of at least master skill in magic. Whatever caused that tremor in the space and time of Equestria is extremely powerful and well trained in the ways of all magical spells. I will do my best to find the culprit, and put a stop to it. Your faith ful- okay you get the rest.” Celestia dropped the scroll and laid down. Discord on the other hand was literally rolling in the air, laughing out loud at the whole situation. “Oh how amusing. A master in magic? Haha more like a powerful novice who has no clue as to what he’s doing!” “Discord, I swear if you’re –“ “No Tia, I’m not in any way, shape, or form apart of these magic tremors.” Discord smiled and gave one final chuckle, “but I think Twilight just got her next friendship problem to solve.” Twilight had spent the last few days combing through every magical book in the library, and even had several rare books brought in from the Canterlot archives to look them over. Everything she read told her the same thing over and over again. Magic tremors were caused by a spell that involved the travelling of extreme distances and even pulling objects from different realms or planes of existence. Twilight had thought that maybe the very same spell that Princess Luna and herself had used to bring Honored his newest batch of weapons was being used improperly, but she remembered that the only copy of that spell book was destroyed in the process. These tremors were being caused by another type of magical spell. Twilight continued to pour over her books, but she had a good idea on where to start looking for the culprit behind the last tremor. “Okay so what have I learned?” I looked at the rough foundation of my new home. I had managed to turn the large crater from the first failed attempt at the spell, into a basement for my house. The sides were lined with pine timber and I even had enough lumber left over from the fallen pine tree to add some support columns for the house that would eventually be built over the basement. “Well I learned to make sure that when building a basement, that you make sure to shovel the dirt away from the edge of the pit…that was a mistake.” I looked around and smiled. “And I think I earned a reward for finishing this part of the future home.” With a sly smile I pulled the gold and silver scroll from my pocket and began to once more draw the rune along the ground. This time I’ll use some fish scales and some human tears. That should be closer to what the spell calls for. Applejack was bucking through the never ending rows of apple trees when she felt that feeling again. “Oh no.” She looked around and watched as time began to slow to a crawl. Space around the farm pony began to ripple around her and the apple trees close to her proximity began to shiver in the still crawling time. “What the –“ Applejack’s voice came out rough and deep and slower than she imagined it would. The apples began to fall to the ground, and in slow motion, Applejack was forced to watch as the apples smashed onto the ground, each and everyone one of them around her exploding as she tried to catch them. When she kicked them to the ground, they didn't exploded into mush, but now this weird magic was causing them to hit the ground harder in slow motion than regular motion. “NO!” Applejack screamed as time returned to normal and the last apple hit the ground. She looked at the rows of apple trees, where all the fruits laid splattered against the earth. “TWILIGHT!” The farmpony screamed out. “Oh you’ve got to be kidding me.” Twilight stretched her wing as the last bit of the magic tremor died off. This was the second one that had now hit the town. Twilight was now growing desperate to solve this mystery. Twilight got up and ran out the door, not bothering to tell Spike where she was headed. She knew where to start this search. And she knew just what human to talk to about new and untamed magic. Twilight literally flew above the dirt path, as she let her fairly new wings carry her across the town. She was heading straight for the patch of property next to the Everfree forest where a certain human was building a home. “HONORED!” I quickly sat up from my resting place on the ground and looked to where the yelling had come from. I could see a blur of purple heading directly towards me. “Time to dip.” I said aloud and started running off towards the woods of the Everfree. Shit shit shit shit. Twilight knew I took the scroll without her permission. I was dead. Dead! I kept running with all my might, taking great leaps and bounds across the grass. I was moving so fast, that I couldn’t even feel my legs hitting the ground. Wait. My legs weren’t hitting the ground. I was caught, floating in midair by a glow of purple magic. I struggled harder to run in place out of the magical grasp of the pissed of Twilight, but she was having none of that. She walked towards me as I hovered in the air, lazily bobbing up and down. “So um hi Twilight. What can I help you with?” I smiled the biggest innocent smile I could muster. “Oh I’m sure you can help me with some magical tremors Honored.” Twilight wasn’t smiling and she sounded pissed. Like even madder than when I tried to turn her bookshelf into a launger that could fling books at high velocity. “Oh…well you see…. SMOKE BOMB!” I clapped my hands together, sending out a burst of magic from my gauntlet that would disrupt her magical flow of energy keeping me suspended in the air. A burst of my red magic exploded out along with black smoke and I hit the ground. I took off running towards the Everfree once more. Once again I was flying along towards the woods. I was moving fast, so fast that my legs didn’t even feel like they were hitting the ground… aw fuck. I looked down to see I was caught in Twilight’s magic again. “What the hell?” I spun around to see Twilight giving me a shit eating grin. “Alicorn powers… duh.” She said smugly as she levitated me towards her. “I’m a lot stronger now Honored. Maybe more than you.” I laughed in the air before pointing at the green crate across the yard. “Nah I still got you beat Twi.” “Sure in combat. But what about in a duel against magic? Hmmm?” I stopped laughing and thought hard. “Touché.” Twilight slowly placed on the ground and sat in front of me. “Honored we need to talk. I know you’ve been causing these magical tremors around all of Equestria, and they need to stop. Like now.” “I... I was just… okay.” I hung my head. “I’m sorry Twilight.” Great, here comes her guilt trip. Ugh I hate these things. As Twilight began to explain more about the magical tremors I was causing, I used my magic to pull a few sticks and string over to me and began turning the sticks and bits of string into a tiny trebuchet. “Honored… Honored!” I looked up from the toy sized weapon. I motioned for her to continue as I loaded a pebble into the basket on the arm. I pulled it back and slung the pebble at the tree across from us. “Honored these magical tremors are some of the most powerful that have happened in over a century. The specific ones come from somepony botching a trans-dimensional spell. You wouldn’t have been trying to preform one of those?” I quickly averted my eyes from the purple alicorn and focused my attention on my tiny toy. “Nope nothing. Nope. Nothing. Not me. I can’t even understand a basic mid-range teleport spell. Come one Twilight. Me? How would I know how to do cross dimension thing spell? Doubt it. Where would I even get a scroll on that?” Twilight’s eyes narrowed at me. “I never said anything about scroll Johnson.” “Oh… so I’m fucked right?” Twilight simply nodded at me. I sighed and began thinking of an apology as I reached into my pocket and pulled out the gold and silver scroll. I handed it to Twilight. She took it in her magic and began to read over it, her eyes growing wider and wider as she read. “Honored, where did you find this?” I decided to just come clean. I had obviously messed up. “I found it under one of your bookshelves a few days ago when I was checking out all those home building books. I kept it, figuring I could try my hand at some more powerful magic.” “By attempting Star Swirl the Bearded’s cross dimensional transportation spell?!” Twilight screamed at me, her voice literally knocking me back onto my ass. “Yes.” I croaked out. “Honored do you know how hard that spell is? I mean you have to find magical objects…and this rune… and the amount of magic to conduct the rune and portal…my goddesses. And you attempted it? I can’t believe you didn’t die or rip a hole through the universe as we know it.” Suddenly there was a loud grinding noise as a small blue box faded into existence next to us. Twilight stopped mid rant and watched as a brown stallion and a grey pegasus emerged from the box and stared at us. “Hey Doc.” I said with a sad smile. “Ah. Well hello there Honored Johnson.” He received a quick jab to the side and a whisper from the grey mare. “Oh. Excuse me, Johnson. I see you’ve got this under control.” He nodded to Twilight who was just still staring at the Doctor. “Well, I’ll be off, seeing as this little problem is being solved. Come along Derpy.” And with that, the two ponies jumped back into the box and it faded away with the same grinding noise. “What was that?” Twilight asked pointing at where the box had been. “Don’t worry about it.” I poked Twilight’s side, “you were mid-lecture.” “Oh right,” she said turning back to me and putting on her ‘I’m not mad, just disappointed face, “Why would you even take something like that. It didn’t belong to you.” There it was. I was waiting for that piece of the guilt trip. “I… Look Twilight, I just wanted to do something great with my magic. I wanted to show you that those magical lessons of yours had paid off. That I could do so much more than make things designed to hurt things or pick things up.” I sighed and looked down at the tiny trebuchet, “but I guess I just ended up nearly tearing the world apart.” Twilight reached over and bonked me lightly on the nose with her hoof. “Honored you don’t have to prove yourself to me. You’re a good human, granted you’re the only human I’ve meet, but still you’re a good human. And I’m sure your magic will get better.” I looked up at the alicorn with big eyes, “Really?” “Well I mean you have enough magic in your body to even attempt that spell, so that’s good. And the fact that you could even attempt the rune, find the magical objects, and then complete the spell shows that in time maybe, just maybe, we can perform the spell.” I raised my hand for a vigorous fist pumping, but Twilight cut me off. “With some guidance from myself and at least one of the Princesses. This is a very powerful spell.” I guess this was as good as it was going to get. I nodded and looked at Twilight. “Twilight, again I’m very sorry for taking the scroll. I was just so determined to impress you and my friends that I didn’t think about how I could hurt you by stealing.” “And.” Twilight gestured with her hoof at me. “And not to attempt dangerous and extremely ancient powerful arcane magic.” I hung my head with the last part before looking up at Twilight who smiled smugly at me. “Good. And now you can write a friendship report to Princess Celestia about what you’ve learned today.” I groaned and flopped back onto the ground before groaning again and rolling onto my stomach, face planted in the dirt. “Ah mont wanta.” “Please don’t act like a foal.” I sat up and stuck my tongue at her. “Fine then.” I grabbed the parchment and quill hovering in midair that Twilight was holding out to me. I stared at the parchment, quill hovering inches above its surface. “What I learned about friendship is…?” I chuckled to myself and then began to write. Dear Princess Celestia, This is your faithful and totally not violent, boring loving human, Johnson. I am writing to let you know about my first experience with friendship as a normal citizen. For the past week, I may or may not have been attempting a master level trans-dimensional portal spell created by Star Swirl the Bearded. I may or may not have caused the said magical tremors that could have (but not likely) destroyed the world and or universe. I was trying such a dangerous spell in order to impress Twilight and show her that I could be gifted in magic that didn’t involve killing things, but that failed. Twilight has taught me too never take things from your friends without permission, even if you think that it will make them happy in the future. If they are your frineds, then you should ask for permission first before you take anything belonging to them. Wow, I just realized how childish this whole thing seems. I mean really. Come on. I’m Honored Service. The savoir of Equestria on at least three separate occasions. I’ve slaughtered thousands of bad guys and I’m a damn good looking. What am I doing… Princess, this is Twilight Sparkle now, Johnson is monetarily paralyzed as I see that he was getting distracted. Rest assured that I’m sure he has learned another valuable lesson on top of this one. He has learned to not mess with magic that is over his power level. But that brings us to another topic Princess. He was able to cast enough magic to power the spell, but I can imagine it failed because he lacked the necessary magical objects and doesn’t have a bucking clue on how to drawn spell runes. What a n00b, right? I think it may be a good idea to have myself and maybe Princess Luna assist Honored in attempting the spell. He obviously wants to try and go home, and this spell lasts for only three days. It may do him some good. I await your reply. Ah good, he’s waking up, at least I know what to do now if he gets rowdy. Your faithful Student, Twilight Sparkle And the semi-conscious human, Johnson. P.S. Twilight made me do this. I still think its lame. Have a great day :) Celestia read over the letter once again before finally falling to the ground in a fit of laughter. Somehow she flt that this human warrior was going to learn a lot about friendship, and learn it the hard way.