//------------------------------//
// High Speed Dirt 
// Story: Sins of Equestria 
// by Corneredbadger 
//------------------------------//

	Marcus was a mercenary by trade, hopping from one star system to another in his heavily armored little freighter, Dragon's Shadow, picking up whatever jobs needed to be done. His usual work involved retrieving bounties placed on pirates or criminals hiding in places someone couldn't legally drag them out of sometimes the odd bodyguard gig too. It paid quite well, especially the more dangerous jobs he usually took. Most of his earnings went towards weapons, his ship, or to improving his personal armor. He operated on the philosophy that the best defense was in fact a good defense and all the safety procedures, backup backup plans, and specialized pieces of equipment he owned reflected that. His ship had hull plating that could rival a dreadnought with a shield generator rated for a ship twice as large as the one it was fitted to. His personal armor was a similar caliber of overkill designed to be both defense and offence at once. An iridium steel alloy with an ablative carbon coating cast into four millimeter plates and then lovingly forged into the best damn suit of armor this side of Andromeda. Power augmenting servos in the arms and legs combined with a mesh work of straps and buckles to distribute the fifty kilogram weight perfectly over his body. The helmet was a masterpiece unto itself. Crafted of the same materials with the same devotion it contained a full communication array, an uplink to the suits onboard computer, multi-filter visual enhancements, as well as a full ECM and ECCM suite. In short, Marcus was prepared for anything.

Almost.

When he went to bed that night Marcus had never pictured himself falling through the air towards a giant crystal tree upon waking. If he had he would have made an emergency appointment with his psychiatrist and found a lower stress job. Considering the fact that when he had lain down he had been traveling through extra dimensional space at speeds many times faster than light; it wasn’t something he had felt the need to prepare for. Yet here he was, hurtling through the air above a tiny town on an unknown planet towards a garish, crystalline tree. His helmets HUD tracked two very important numbers in front of his eyes, his speed and his altitude. Neither number was comforting. Another trait of Marcus' worth mentioning was his unbelievable tenacity. No matter how grim the situation he would find a way to survive, usually through careful planning and knowing his own limits. He had survived stranded on planets considered inhospitable, been lost in the black recesses of space, and faced his own mortality more times than he could remember. But this time he had no plan, no back up, and the odds were stacked insurmountably against him. So he did the only thing that came to his angry mind; he yelled out his rage at one of the most fundamental forces of the universe before colliding with a wall of crystal.


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"FUCK YOU GRAVITY!!"
Twilight Sparkle was jolted awake by a loud yell followed by a resounding crash from the library as something impacted her new crystalline home. Scrambling out of bed and stepping over a groggy and confused Spike she rushed into the hall.
"RAINBOW DASH! What did you do this time?" the purple alicorn yelled as she stomped through the halls towards the library proper. She loved her accident prone friend but at three in the morning friendship only went so far. Twilight finally reached her beloved room and, reaching out with her magic, lit the lamps around the room casting a warm glow on the scene before her. There was a large hole in the exterior wall where her unwanted guest had entered leaving an entire shelf destroyed and good only for kindling, several more shelves had collapsed from the impact as well and to top it all off books lay scattered all over the floor in piles. Twilight gasped at the bibliographical carnage before her. "RAINBOW DASH!" she bellowed as her mane erupted into a wild mass, JUST WHAT IN CELESTIA'S NAME HAVE YOU DONE! WE JUST FINISHED RESHELVING THE LIBRARY, NOW WE HAVE TO START ALL OVER!"
Twilight began levitating books at random, looking for the source of her frustration. A book drift against the wall opposite shifted slightly as though somepony were trapped in its papery clutches and Twilight pounced at once. Books exploded away from the prostrate form all of them landing in neat stacks as Twilight opened her mouth to deliver a scathing lecture to her polychromatic pal. Much to her surprise however the form she uncovered was not Rainbow Dash. In fact it wasn’t even a pony. Before her was a simian form shod from head to toe in black metal which, now freed from its bound bindings, pulled itself up to its feet, its head nearly reaching the ceiling.
"You are not Rainbow Dash."


					*	*	*

Marcus regained consciousness and was immediately aware that his entire body felt like pain. His head throbbed, his chest felt like he had been hit by a car, and his extremities all tingled. After laying in the peaceful dark and getting used to the pain he slowly opened his eyes, then he blinked, and again. No matter how many times he blinked the world remained pitch black. 'So, the afterlife is a big, black, painful nothing' he thought, 'a lot of religious people are gonna ticked off when they get here. Also it smells like old books, which is kinda weird.' Suddenly the "afterlife" shifted and picked itself off his prone form. Battered and barely clinging to consciousness he struggled to his feet. The massive weight of his armor making it a herculean task in such a state but he was determined to face whatever was before him on his feet.
What was in front of him was the most adorable gods damned thing he'd ever seen.


					*	*	*

The confused pair stood staring at each other for several long moments before a voice from the doorway broke them from their daze.
"Sweet Celestia! What is that!?" Spike cried having finally navigated his way to the library.He quickly ducked back out of the room until only his head peeked around the jam, the rest of him concealed in the hall way. He had hit a growth spurt perhaps a month after Tirek's defeat and was now slightly taller than Big Mac and two ponies in length with his neck and tail adding another pony length each. His serpentine form was powerfully built but mentally he was a teenager. A rather scared teenager who was looking at his surrogate sister standing a short distance from something that had invaded their home. His fearful eyes were locked on the bipedal form standing in front of Twilight as he stood in the doorway. As two sets of eyes locked onto him and he immediately regretted opening his mouth.
"Spike, stay there! I don’t know what this is yet. Be ready to get the girls or the princess if we need her." Twilight tried to keep the rising panic out of her voice but everything about the creature in front of her scared her. It towered over her at over two meters tall and more than half that wide at the shoulders and the way it held itself radiated tense wariness mixed with a threat of violence. Adding to this presence was the fact that it was covered from top to bottom with black metal armor. Many of the larger surfaces were etched with terrifying images or phrases. The worst part was its helmet though, or at least what she hoped was a helmet. It was the same black metal as the rest of its armor but it bore the visage of an angry dragon with a mouth full of teeth and a pair of horns curling down the sides of the helm to end in sharp spikes just below and a several centimeters in front of its chin. Nothing could be seen inside the helmet, neither through the eyes nor its gaping maw.
"What-" her voice cracked when that horrible face swung towards her "what do you want?"
"Holy crap it can talk!" the monster rumbled in a deep voice speaking perfect Equish but in a tone that sounded more like he was addressing himself rather than anypony in the room. "Okay, wait. I just hit a wall traveling at terminal velocity. I'm dead. I have to be dead. Because now I’m standing here talking to a tiny unicorn and that’s just..." his voice trailed off and the room was silent again for a moment. "Am I dead?" he asked, his voice taking a sadder tone. 
"No, you’re still alive, see." Twilight tentatively reached out rapped her hoof against the metal plate on his thigh. "Still solid. Everyone in Tartarus is all wispy and incorporeal. Though you did just crash through the wall into my library." Twilight gestured towards the wall of her home before subtly nodding at Spike to get help now that she had its attention elsewhere. "Are you hurt? Is there anything I can do to help?" 
"Concussion, some broken ribs, it’s nothing that won’t be fixed in a few hours" He slumped down into a seated position on the back of the destroyed bookcase and folded his arms across his knees.  "So if I'm not dead then where the hell am I and how did I end up crashing through the wall of someone’s home?"
"I'm Twilight Sparkle. You’re in my castle in Ponyville. It’s a small town in Equestria." Twilight's curiosity was now peaked now that the mood in the room had become much less tense. Now her thoughts turned towards the fact that before her was a previously unknown species of primate that was obviously sapient. Oh the research she would be able to do and the papers she could write. "Can you tell me who you are? What you are? I've never met something like you before." She used her magic to float a piece of parchment and a quill in front of her and prepared to take notes.
“My name's Marcus. I'm a human, Homo Sapiens." His answer was muttered but audible as he tried to process his situation.
"Could I see what you look like? Can you remove your helmet?" After a brief moment in which Twilight worried she had pushed too far, Marcus reached up and pulled his helmet off with a snap as the seals he had built released. Beneath the helmet was the oddest creature Twilight had ever seen. His face was resembled a gorilla except much flatter with a pointed nose and wider set eyes. The top of his head was covered in a short black fur that also highlighted his brow line and even a patch on his chin. Other than that he was much more sparsely furred than any other mammal she had ever studied. At this point Twilight's self preservation, which had forced her to keep her distance until now, was fighting against her scientific curiosity and, while it was a valiant struggle, it was in vain. She closed the gap between them and began prodding at his armor, taking a hand in her hooves to more closely examine what she could of their structure. She noted that the gauntlets he wore weren't identical. The right one had a thick metal ridge jutting out past the knuckles and a trio of metal plates covering the palm while the left one had a sharp triangle of metal in place of the ridge and the palm was covered by a foreign material.
Marcus was caught off guard by this sudden invasion of personal space and after his stammered attempts to ward off the inquisitive mare failed he simply put his hand on her chest and pushed her back to arms length. Twilight seemed to get the message and opened her mouth presumably to apologize but was interrupted by a new voice coming from the hole in the wall
"Hey egghead, did you know you have a huge hol-y crap that things trying to kill Twilight!" the raspy voice cried out. Twilights head whipped towards the voice and had just enough time to spot Rainbow Dash dropping a massive black bag on the floor before she darted at Twilights 'attacker'. 
"Rainbow no!" Twilight attempted to grab the pegasus but the small room coupled with her friend’s incredible flight capabilities meant that her attempt to salvage the situation failed, to the audio accompaniment of a loud metal crash.
Rainbow Dash flew headlong into her target forehooves out stretched, turning herself into a horseshoe shod missile. Marcus simply angled his chest slightly and allowed his armor to absorb the blow. The thick metal and ample padding beneath it reduced the impact to little more than a nudge to him. The impact however sent painful vibrations up the daredevil’s legs and left her forelegs numb. "Oh, so that’s how it's gonna be then huh?" Again, despite Twilights protests, she moved faster than anyone could react and spun to aim a swift buck at the monsters head. He managed to move his head enough so that it wasn’t a direct hit but even the grazing blow staggered him to one knee before he slowly tipped forwards and crumpled on the floor, blood leaking from a gash above his right ear.
"HA! Once again Rainbow Dash saves the day! Don’t worry Twilight he won’t be- whoa!" Her boisterous antics were cut off as she was finally wrapped in a purple aura and dragged before an incredibly irate alicorn.
"Do you have any idea what you just did? I was fine Rainbow! He wasn’t attacking me and you might have just ruined my one chance to study him!" Twilight’s voice was even and quiet, only slightly louder than a whisper. This worried the cyan pegasus. The tone of voice combined with the new knowledge that this was one of Twilights research projects set off all kinds of alarms in Rainbow Dash's mind. She knew just how much Twilight valued her science even if she didn't understand most of what came out of the egghead’s mouth. The fact that she had just done bodily harm to the subject of said science meant she had to try and avert the coming rage/panic attack. Twilight could get feisty if you interfered with her studies.
"Don’t worry so much Twi; I’m sure he's fine. Hay, I've taken worse blows and I was up and around before you knew it." Rainbow chuckled nervously under her friends unwavering glare.
"Yes Rainbow, it’s quite obvious you've survived several blows to the head." Twilight deadpanned.
The clatter of several sets of hooves arose from the hallway and saved Rainbow from any further repercussions. Seconds later the rest of Twilight's friends burst into the room led by Applejack with Fluttershy, predictably, bringing up the rear. The girls paused as they took in the disarray that greeted them. Book lay strewn across the floor, shelves were tipped or destroyed and a suit of decorative armor had been knocked to the floor from its stand.
"Don’t worry sugarcube. Ain't no metal monster gonna mess with our friend and get away with it" Applejack drawled, looking around the room for the 'monster' Spike had warned them about. 
"Oh don't worry, Rainbow dash here helped more than enough already." Twilight shot the pegasus in question an unhappy glare as she rose from the giant pile of metal on the floor "and Marcus and I were fine. I may have overreacted a little when I sent for you all."
"Well, if the brute decided to come in through your wall rather than use the door like a civilized pony I don’t blame you for taking precautions." Rarity spoke up turning her attention away from the shambles the room had been reduced to.
A groan form the floor drew everyponies attention as what the four new arrivals had believed to be a decorative suit of armor began to stir and pushed itself off the floor. Fluttershy let out a tiny eep and hid herself as best she could atop one of the still standing shelves while Applejack readied herself to run the intruder.
"Did anyone get the number of that train that just hit me" a deep voice rumbled as he rose to a knee and grabbed the dragon styled helmet that sat on the floor near him.
"That was Rainbow Dash. I’m very sorry; she is a bit overprotective sometimes and likes to act before she thinks."
"Meh, no real harm done. I took worse during basic." Marcus slipped his helmet back over his now throbbing head, wincing slightly. "It’ll be fixed in a few minutes anyway." once again safely enveloped in his metal shell he looked around finally noticing the newcomers. "More friends of yours, Sparkle? Are they going to try and kick my ass too?" He chuckled a little at the idea of getting beat up by a bunch of waist high ponies.
"You’re laughing. Does that mean you’re feeling better?"

"That hurt too much for me to be dead. I'll freak out about the implications of that later." Marcus said pulling himself to his feet for the second time that night. The four newcomers all stepped back from the towering figure before them. He was taller than even Princess Celestia but was built like a minotaur. Add to that his cruel looking armor and helm and the sight thoroughly unnerved them.
"Twi, sugarcube. What exactly have y'all gotten us into this time?"