After having a bit of a chat with Alex about potential help with Steelskin’s combat training, I settled in for a nap. I mulled over the implications of human fighting styles adapted to ponies, but decided it would probably work. They had, after all, adapted admirably to human style tools. There was also the wildcard of this ‘Miss Butterscotch’.
I closed my eyes and scanned through my memories for interesting personages.
Warhorses? No, they must compensate for a rider.
Centaurs? No, they rely too heavily on conventional weapons.
Wolverine? Skilled and bestial fighter, but Steel will be more of a basher while he was a slasher.
Xavier? He would have known how to train a pony, but none of the students I saw were quadrupeds. Unless a few were shapeshifters and did not reveal their nature to me... but still, no combat training that I was able to witness.
Deathlok? Too angsty and too much of a pacifist. Also, not a quadruped.
The Lion? If only he had an opponent that was even remotely a chance against him, I would have had something to go on. Sadly, his awakened Beasts had little to fight against when I was there.
Optimus? That is the attitude I wish to impart, but sadly, his alternate form was noncombat.
Predaking? Though he was an enemy, we fought for quite a while. Sadly, he primarily relied on his claws and tail.
Too bad The Grey One does not travel between realities. He would probably find some halfling or other weak creature that would hold the key to success despite himself. I am still amazed how he dealt with my ‘cousin’.
Sadly, I think I will have to rely on the resources I have here.
I drifted off to sleep while remembering various fights I had witnessed or been part of.
I sat breathing heavily, my coat soaked with sweat.
I just can’t deal with these nightmares anymore.
I could only think of one person who I’d feel safe with. I had wanted to see him since I first woke up, but I knew we’d both be in trouble if I ran away.
I looked over at Rocky.
My dad’s face staring at me with lifeless eyes.
Buck it.
I climbed out of bed and crept as carefully as I could to the door. As I crept down the hallway, I thought I heard hoofsteps following me.
Finally, I was out in the night air, staring up at Luna’s moon. I turned myself towards his cave and began my long trek.
I was woken not too long before daybreak by the smell of pony.
Specifically, Steelskin. He trotted into my cave in the dead of night.
“Greetings little one, how are you doing?”
“I’m fine...” He paused for a moment and reconsidered. “No I’m not, I... I feel like my mom’s vase I broke.. actually more of shattered... and tried to glue back together... but the glue wouldn’t hold it together...” Steelskin’s eyes started watering and a tremor crept into his voice.
“The stupid thing kept sagging anywhere I let go with my hoof... Why couldn’t I hold it together! ...I tried so hard, but every time I let go to straighten another side, it would start sagging all over again... finally the thing just collapsed in a wet pile...”
Almost on cue, he sagged to the floor in a very convincing portrayal of the vase he was describing.
He sat, crying and hiccupping for several minutes as I nuzzled him and hummed my lullabye.
“I-I’m such a wimp...” He sniffled and tried to get himself under control. “A stallion shouldn’t cry like this... A stallion wouldn’t get his plot handed to him like I did...”
I sat, trying to figure out how to respond to this obvious fallacy.
“...Tallic, can I stay with you tonight?”
I sat wishing I did not have to make this decision. I had been told I could see him after school for two hours each weekday and late morning to early afternoon on weekends. I was told pointedly that I would have to get permission to have him stay past nightfall, much less having him sleep in my dwelling.
That said, there was no way I would be able to bring myself to turn him away.
“It is not the best time for you to visit me. I have only just been given permission to be your ‘big brother’ and have not been given permission for this ‘sleepover’. This may lead to problems.”
I saw him deflate and start to turn around.
“But I deem it too dangerous at this time of night to send you away.”
I could see him thinking this through before a smile lit up his face and he tackled my snout in a bear hug.
“Thank you so much.” He sniffed. “I just can’t deal with the nightmares anymore. I’m afraid to go to sleep ‘cause I’ll just have to see....” his voice trailed off.
“Would you like me to tell you a story?” I asked, saving him from having to relive it yet again.
He settled down facing me on the stone floor and tried to look happy.
“One of my jumps landed me on a planet made completely of metal where living intelligent robots...” I thought for a minute as to how to describe robots to a primitive culture as Steelskin looked at me with curiosity.
“Imagine mechanical golems that are fully alive and aware” I continued.
“I was reading a story like that! Do they have the three laws of golemics?” he asked excitedly.
Golemics... I sat for a moment before remembering their ‘adjustments’ to the human cultures I knew about.
“Ah, yes, the laws of... golemics... A reality I visited had what most of the highly technological realities called ‘robots’ that followed the laws of robotics. Many would jump in front of my attacks due to-”
“A golem cannot harm a pony or, through inaction, allow a pony to come to harm! I can’t believe those stories were true!”
I chuckled at his interruption. “Yes, though they said ‘robot’ and ‘human’ respectively.”
“Well, the story I was going to tell you did not have these laws. These robots were not created by humans and believed themselves to have evolved through natural means. Furthermore-”
“What did you mean by ‘technological’? Is that like trains and gramophones?”
“Well, yes, most non-magical realities consider that to be low technology. I assume from Matt’s armor and Alex’s laptop that they would be able to explain electricity and possibly transistors, which are the foundation of the next jump in technology, then would come atomics and possibly positronics or antimatter, depending on which way physical laws branch out. At that point, there is usually little difference between high technology and magical technology.”
Steelskin’s eyes glazed over, so I brought the story back on track, telling of my meeting with Optimus on the newly restored Cybertron and my fight with the self styled ‘Predaking’ when he believed I was a threat to his rule of the re-reestablished race.
Listening to him made me feel a little better and my mind started to wander.
“Hey Tallic, how would you get a girl to notice you?”
He facehoofed... or would that be faceclawed? I felt vaguely stupid, but hoped he’d explain.
“You do realize dragons and ponies have almost nothing in common when it comes to culture, right?” He waited a moment to let that sink in and I nodded. “Okay, because we pride ourselves on strength and cunning, and because we hunt and eat meat, we need to prove that to a potential mate.”
I nodded in agreement and waited for him to continue.
“...So, what we dragons do is drag as vicious and dangerous a monster as we can to the mouth of our intended’s cave. A weak monster would show we are not brave and a crippled monster would show that it was too tough for us to bring unhobbled.”
His smile widened as he paused in thought.
“If there were some dragoness that caught my eye, I would seek out a beast I saw in the forest on the first night I arrived. It was some type of ursan creature-that would be bear like. It had saber teeth and a body of stellar matter.”
I sat there, stunned. Was he talking about an ursa? I had seen pictures of an ursa minor and the only thing it didn’t have was the teeth. Maybe only the ursa majors had them?
“It would be too big for me to carry, so I would harry it over to her cave, then trumpet my arrival. If she approved, she would attempt to kill and eat it. If it were too weak, she would kill it quickly and leave it uneaten, possibly attacking me out of annoyance.
I felt Tallic tense up. A minute later, a voice called out.
“Hi, Tallic, just checking on Steelskin. Is he alright?”
“Yes, Alex, he is fine. He was having nightmares, and while I do not condone him making the trip in the dead of night, I did not think it wise to send him back.”
“Glad to hear it, may we come in?”
Tallic tossed four gems through the magical barrier at the entrance. Alex, Twilight Sparkle, and Trace walked in and Trace tossed one back.
“Frost can’t enter, I made a slight miscalculation when making the barrier.”
I sat there so confused I stopped being worried about them telling me I couldn’t stay.
“Well, Miss Sweetheart told me to bring him back, but,” Alex winked at me before continuing “I told her I was no match for a dragon and wouldn’t do anything that would annoy you.”
Tallic chuckled. “What you are saying is that all I need to say is ‘I would prefer you leave him with me’ and you would leave empty handed?”
“Well, I do sympathize with Miss Sweetheart, so I’d prefer to stay and chat so she doesn’t have to think Steelskin is alone with a ‘dangerous beast.” He rolled his eyes at this. “Would you mind if we hung out till morning? Perfect way to get to know each other better.”
“In that case, take a seat,” Tallic said with a chuckle.
“Hey, Frost,” Trace called out, “Let Miss Sweetheart know that Steel’s fine and we’ll be keeping him company till morning.”
“So, how you doing, Steelskin?” Alex looked at me kindly and ruffled my mane.
“I’m doing okay, Mister Dash.” This was greeted by laughter from everypony in the cave.
“We humans usually take the male’s last name when getting married.” Everypony was looking at Alex like he was the one that did something silly.
“We ended up deciding to keep our names unchanged.”
“Ah...”
I looked over at Tallic.
“What about dragons?”
Tallic sat there for a while before responding. “Do you remember when I said dragons have nothing in common with your culture? That includes marriage. Dragons will stay as a mated pair if they find each other mutually beneficial, but there are no commitments made and they usually do not tell the other when they have gotten sick of their company and leave.”
I noticed my mouth was hanging open and quickly shut it.
“Oh... I’m glad ponies aren’t like that...” I couldn’t even imagine one of my parents just up and leaving like that.
“Remember that I am a jumper, little Steelskin. I will likely be leaving this world in about ten years.”
That hit me hard. I knew he was a jumper, but hadn’t thought about how he’d be leaving me like that.
“So, Tallic, how long do your jumps usually last?” Alex quickly jumped into the conversation.
“Most last ten years. I have had one that only lasted five and another that lasted twenty.”
“Don’t think you’ll need to worry about that, then. My longest jump was twenty years, and from my calculations, I’ll be here for at least sixty. Also, Matt’s armor calculated that he’d be here over 60 years as well and he’s never stayed for more than fourteen months.”
“So, you’re saying he’ll probably be here at least that long?” My hopes started to rise.
“Hey guys,” Matt said from just outside the rune barrier. “Everyone okay here? Miss Sweetheart had a bit of a meltdown when Frost told her you were staying here and begged me to make sure you were all still alive.” I could almost see him roll his eyes through the blank faceplate of his armor.
“The sun is starting to rise,” Tallic said. “Does anyone need sleep, or would you four be willing to help me train Steelskin for when he decides again to pick a fight with someone twice his size?”
Despite his light tone, I was still mortified.
“I-I was just trying to defend Sapphire...”
“Don’t worry,” Alex said, ruffling my mane and smiling. “Tallic was commenting on you biting off more than you can chew.” He turned to Tallic. “I’m game.”
“Same here,” Trace, Twilight, and Matt agreed.
I was relieved to hear that no one wanted to sleep. I was still uncomfortable with the knight, and did not want a reason for him to have access to my cave.
I grabbed a bit of iron for myself and Steelskin and we exited the cave.
Trace and Alex gave me back the runestones. I was tempted to tell them to keep them since Trace set up the barrier and Alex had left me without the ability to doubt his motivations. I looked at Matt and decided that I would give them back some other time.
I hoped Matt did not notice that Twilight held onto hers.
“Walk or fly?”
“Fly,” Was Steelskin’s immediate reply.
The others sat looking at each other for a while before Matt replied.
“Think I’ll be more comfortable walking,” Matt replied.
“Think I’ll keep Matt company,” the other three added.
Steelskin hopped up on my back expectantly, but I explained to him that we should be polite and stay together and passed him up a bit of iron before beginning the trek.
“The first thing you need to know about dragon slayer magic is that we are able to mix both internal and external magics. You pull the magic of the earth and air into you, force it into metallic properties, then send it out to do your bidding,” Tallic stated as we walked towards Ponyville.
“Wait,” I interrupted. “What’s this about forcing magic? Dad said we invite the magic in and ask it to do what we want. Like, if we want extra traction, we open up our hooves and think ‘Please hold tight’. He said if you practice enough you can climb even a steep mountain without slipping.”
I noticed Twilight Sparkle writing in a notebook.
“So, you are saying that you already have experience using external magic?”
“Yep, ponies are extrinsic magic users,” Trace commented. “They have special glands that metabolize the magical field we are immersed in, so you might want to start either with what he already knows or teach him about intrinsic magic. They’ve got it, but it’s underdeveloped due to how much magic surrounds us here.”
They continued talking about dragon, human, and pony magic as they walked. I decided to just sit and listen since, while I did learn a little about magic in school, it was mostly COMOL runes and Grace Harpmare’s biography.
“So, how many people have you trained in dragon slayer magic?” Matt surprised us by speaking up.
“Steelskin will be the third. Five realities ago I took in a runaway by the name of George. The first one was in my home reality and was named Gajeel.”
”I knew it!” Pinkie Pie’s voice rang out from the trees to our left.
Tallic jumped almost enough to knock me off his back and looked around in a panic.
We reached the field beside Ponyville just as I finally was able to settle my nerves after that brush with pink. Alex excused himself to go off and get us all some breakfast.
“So, tell me what you know about fighting so far,” I said, turning to Steelskin.
“Well, my dad said the best way to deal with pegasi is to wait for them to try and dive bomb you...” His eyes defocused as he tried to remember. “Set you forehooves one in front of the other, so that you can twist your hindquarters around and catch them in a buck to the chest or shoulder... Earth ponies are mostly a battle of speed and agility. You’re more likely to get a quick jab in with your forehooves than a strong buck... Unicorns are much trickier. If they have you in their telekinesis, you need to check your legs to see if they’re holding them or your barrel. If they have your legs, you want to do quick random spasms to get them to break their concentration or wear them out.”
His face showed that he was remembering something painful.
“I made a mistake with that, once.” He looked embarrassed as he continued. “I had seen my dad use that against a mugger in Canterlot once and tried it against a unicorn bully that had grabbed me. Dad had to explain to me afterwards that if they grab your barrel and not your legs, you want to twist your body around to hit any walls with your legs. That way you can jump at them... never got a chance to learn how to twist myself in midair, though.”
I found myself getting curious. I was reminded of what Twilight Sparkle had done to me and neither of these seemed accurate.
“Is there something that is more internal that a unicorn can do?”
Twilight drew in a breath to answer me, but Steelskin jumped in excitedly.
“Yeah, a neural block keeps signals from getting to the muscles. Dad said you had to just force yourself through that. Enough willpower and your commands will break through the block.”
Twilight shut her mouth with a pleasantly surprised smile.
Steelskin got a little shaky.
“Dad said a unicorn can either block all signals, which is simpler, but can be dangerous, or she can block just the signals to the muscles of the legs. It takes far less magic, but she needs to have almost perfect control.”
Now that sounds like what I experienced.
Alex interrupted our chat with a bushel of apples, a basket of eggs, and strips of meat he called ‘bacon’.
Trace quickly set up a fire and Alex pulled a frying pan out of his satchel, quickly cooking the meat into crispy shreds. Matt removed his helmet for the first time ever in my presence. He looked exactly as I expected.
Steelskin looked both disturbed and intrigued by this human food.
“Sorry, Steel, it’s salted, can’t let you try some,” Matt quipped.
Steelskin snickered at this. I wondered whether it was due to the silliness of him eating meat or the fact that they were eating something that was inebriating this early in the morning.
Steelskin suddenly rose into the air, surrounded by Twilight’s magic and Trace tossed him an apple. He was so surprised, the first apple bounced off his head.
“Don’t let AJ see you playing with those,” Alex said with a chuckle.
I was surprised at how easily the four of them made Steel’s training into a game.
We spent the morning doing all sorts of drills till I was exhausted and we broke for lunch.
Everypony decided we should go into town for a bite to eat and Tallic plucked up a bush and put it on his head!
Once it was on, he suddenly wasn’t quite there... I’m not really sure how to describe it, but it was like I didn’t want to believe that there was a dragon with a bush on his head.
“Hey, Tallic, what’s up with the bush?” Matt was staring at him in bewilderment.
“Yesterday, I had a little chat with a couple of mares who showed me how this is cutting edge camouflage among ponies.”
“Yep. Lyra, the mint green unicorn with the lyre cutie mark, has been stalking us humans with branches taped to a helmet.”
“Yes, she and her friend Bon Bon were extolling the virtues of those helmets. I thought they were kidding until I uprooted a shrub and put it on my head. They panicked when the bush somehow made me completely invisible to them.”
Matt almost fell on his face. “Invisible? Are you honestly telling me a bush on your head makes you invisible to ponies?”
“Watch and see.”
I got curious too, so I started watching everypony we passed. It was like they were carefully avoiding looking at Tallic. Their eyes would just slide away from him as they greeted everypony else that was with me.
When we got to the restaurant, I saw Rainbow Dash and a butterscotch earth pony mare waiting for us.
“Isn’t Tallic gonna join us?” Rainbow Dash was scanning the horizon.
“I am,” Tallic replied, taking the bush off his head.
The two mares jumped as they stared at the now visible Tallic right in front of them.
“Pinkie is right, I need to get a potted plant for this,” Tallic said as he brushed dirt off his head. I saw a pink blur out of the corner of my eye.
“Hello, Steelskin and Tallic. My name is Miss Butterscotch and Alex has requested that I become your teacher.”
I wasn’t really comfortable with how she was looking at us, but everypony else seemed fine, so I tried to put it out of my mind.
I noticed the bush Tallic uprooted was now sitting in a pot stuck on a dragon sized helmet.
After putting Steelskin through an even heavier afternoon of training, we called it a day. As everyone was breaking off to their various homes, Steelskin finally got up the nerve to ask Alex something he’d been thinking about all day.
“Uhm... Mister Roberts? Th-That is the properly respectful way to address a human, right?” Steelskin did not wait for an answer before plowing ahead. “I really like Scootaloo, she’s a real nice filly and she’s kind and pretty and tough...”
Alex sat there, not liking what he thought he was about to hear.
“I don’t know if she likes me or not, but I really want to find out-and dad always said I should get permission from a filly’s father before asking her out-but I’m so worried you’ll be upset, I want to make sure you’re okay with it before I-”
The way you stood up and defended her the day the Diamond Dogs attacked, I would be honoured to have a fine gentle colt," he smiled and looked away for a moment. "That is the respectful way to address a colt, correct?"
Steelskin chuckled. “Normally, no, but it’s great coming from you... But what was that about Diamond Dogs?”
“Ah, nevermind, but I would like you to wait to start dating until Scoots gets her cutie mark.”
“Oh... I guess I can do that...” Steelskin’s gaze drifted off as he tried to figure out where to go from there.
“Still, I would not be opposed to you spending time with her as a friend. Plenty of time for dating in the future.”
“Okay, I know I can do that.” Steelskin trotted off to the orphanage with a bounce in his step.
“What Steelskin needs most from you is your company. Try to do stuff with him and make sure he knows you care about him. Also, don’t worry about answering his questions or telling him things, just focus on being a good listener,” Miss Introspective was explaining to Rocky and the Cutie Mark Crusaders.
“Oh, and if he says anything that makes you worried about him, come and tell me.”
After getting promises to do just that, she trotted off to see if there was somepony that could get Tallic’s attention.
“Cutie Mark Crusaders, therapists!”
Miss Introspective facehoofed.