Training Days

Authors:
Proudtobe
Redskin122004

Editors:
Doctor Fluffy
Kizuna Tallis
TB3
Rush
Beyond the Horizon
Inquisitor-Awesome
Jed R
Red Bomber

Sitting in his room with profiles of various leaders coming to his new species-wide boot camp, Stephan was preparing himself to meet the offered armies from Equestria. Of course, it wasn’t new for him to train soldiers and those in charge in new ways of combat. He’d met all kinds of different people during his time in the military, even before the war with the Tyrant, trained with them and fought with them. But this time was different.

These last few days had consisted of training this Equestria’s Elements of Harmony in the art of fighting, as well as learning about the different cultures in Equestria. The Buffaloes, Minotaurs, Griffons and even Dragons! They would be probably the biggest challenge. Of course, the Griffons were an entire species of ‘proud warrior race’ archetypes, as were the Minotaurs, and to some degree, the Diamond Dogs were as well. But he could handle them since they were not that much bigger than an average human. He did find himself wanting to refer back to Star Trek though… perhaps Worf or some other Klingon would be a useful guide for him right now.

It was the Dragons that made him worry. He had met Uptime Spike, who would be considered a teenager in dragon terms, and he was already quite big. He could only imagine the size of a full grown dragon. It would be less a matter of training and more a case of directing them in how to roast or eat new foals efficiently. A good first impression was needed to show them that he was in charge: the same went for the other leaders who were supposed to come.

He shifted his shoulders a bit to get his shoulderplates in a comfortable position. The runes on his armor glowed a warm red, and his reactive plates made his chest look even wider than they actually were. He could feel his body react to the power the runes gave him, making him stronger as the weight of his gear grew less and less bothersome. Otherwise his armor was decorated with rewards and medals, the Schützenschnur (Badge of Marksmanship) hung over the right side of his chest and two patches on his shoulders which showed the European stars and the symbol of the UN, together with the German flag. It stood in total contrast with the runes which still glowed. A side effect from the natural magical field in Equestria.

Stephan turned his head to the source of the voice and saw Trixie sitting on the ground. She was surrounded by her own equipment, which floated around her in her magical grasp. Aside from her usual stuff, she was wearing a stylized uniform in German Flecktarn, or spotted camouflage. She received it after her training back on earth and since then, wore it rarely. On her shoulders where epaulettes with the rank of a Leutnant (First lieutenant), the same rank Stephan had only a few years ago before he became a Major.

Even though she was actually part of the PHL, she was technically also part of the German military as she signed in for training with them. She wore her rewards as well, along with a patch that showed her connection with the PHL.

Of course she didn’t need to wear it, but she was interested in giving a good first impression as well.

Trixie beamed at him and trotted over to his side, her stuff floating behind her. “That’s better.”

‘Women,’ Stephan thought. He loved her, but she still had some of her old habits.

!!!!!!!WARNING: CLOP AHEAD!!!!!!!!!

“Oh my gosh! Oh…" Trixie threw her head back as she bounced her hips, eyes rolling back from the intense pleasure. "Oh...please...ah!”

Trixie had all but dragged Stephan to bed after he finished his healing from the Crystal Kingdom fiasco, stress combined with long days without his company, and a little bit of meddling from a certain pink alicorn gave Trixie a rather severe case of love making in the works.

Trixie stopped bouncing, her eyes fluttering closed as she gave a lusty moan. She did not want the pleasure to end as she sat on top of her lover, enjoying how he filled her up in ways she never got from a stallion. Her hips began to grind against the very excited male underneath her. She held her forelegs behind her head, stretching her barrel to give Stephan a full view of her body, feeling the wonderful hands ('Maybe Lyra was onto something?')trailing up and down her slim figure.

She knew Stephan enjoyed her slim figure greatly, but she also knew he loved the curves she had, given how 'grabby' he was of her hips and rear. She opened her eyes and gave the man below her a sultry smile and began to bounce once more.

"Yes... give Trixie more... Trixie is a naughty girl." Trixie moaned out, giving a sharp yelp as she felt a slap on her rump.

"Yesss. A very naughty Mädchen. Mein Mädchen." Stephan sat up, holding Trixie tightly against his scar covered body. Trixie kissed the scars on his shoulder, moaning softly into his neck as their lovemaking began to reach a new high. Her moans got louder as she felt Stephan gently nibble her ear while he reached for the base of her tail and pulled on it.

"Ah! Stephan! Mehr! Bitte! Bearbeite mich! Bleib bei mir für immer!" Trixie whimpered out in German, knowing full well that would only excite the German soldier further. Stephan growled as he buried his face into the crook of her neck and began to bite, causing her body to shake as she felt those sharp canines digging into her skin. Sharp pleasure and pain raced up and down her body, causing a strange feeling to well up in her.

She was riding a powerful hunter, and she was at his complete mercy. He could make her do things with a simple touch, the sharp teeth digging into her neck reminding her that he was a carnivore and she was trapped in his arms. Never to let her go willingly, to own her very life in his powerful arms and hands.

"Mein." Stephan growled as he began to use his hands to lift the excited mare off of him and drop her roughly back down. If Trixie was close to paradise before, she gone beyond the gates and landed right smack dab in the middle of it now.

Trixie opened her mouth, but not a single word or sound escaped as she felt her body shuddering from another body rocking orgasm. Stephan moved from her neck to her jaw, leaving a trail of kisses till he captured her mouth.

Stephan began to move Trixie faster, the mare moaning into his mouth at the quickened pace. Her world all but shrank to the both of them and the bed. All she cared for was right here, the rest of the world be damned. Luna herself could walk through the door and she wouldn't give a single damn.

"Scheiße ... Ich komm gleich." Stephan grunted out, the mare wrapped her forelegs around his neck the moment she heard it.

"Nicht aufhören ... Innen ... Bitte ... Ich bin so nah zu ..." Trixie whispered and Stephan grunted as he began to move her faster. Trixie continued to whisper in her sultry voice to Stephan in German, making the most lewd comments that would have made his father, a hard and no-nonsense man, blush from hearing it.

"I... I'm-" Trixie gave a loud moan, Stephan giving out a loud groan before falling back onto the bed, taking Trixie with him. Trixie moaned from the heat blossoming from her womb, nuzzling Stephan’s chest as she rode on her orgasmic high.

The two laid for a few minutes, before Trixie pulled herself off his chest and brushed her mane from her face. She gave him a warm smile before leaning down and kissing him. She gave a small laugh as she laid back down and nuzzled his jaw.

Stephan said nothing to this, a smile gracing his face as he leaned down to capture one of her ears, which he began to suck on gently while scratching the free ear, causing her to seize up. He let out a groan of his own as he felt something up seize up as well. Trixie had a hard time to catch her breath as she rolled off of him, chest moving up and down as his lungs struggled to pump fresh air into him. “Yeah… the doc said that... something like this could happen because the healing magic restores my stamina as well… like being born anew...”

“Wha-hmp!” That was all Trixie could say before Stephan rolled on top of her.

CLOP DONE

Stephan groaned as he walked to the balcony, looking out to the city and surrounding lands in the early morning hour. He admitted to himself that he never thought he’d live to see Canterlot and the countryside that Trixie once described to him. Well, if he lived, he’d probably be a newfoal, but that wasn’t really all that different. Now it was here in front of him and he could see where she once lived when she was younger.

And it was beautiful. It was as if the whole country was some kind of nature preserve and precisely maintained. Well, except for Discord’s construction site.

He looked off to the distance, seeing a miles long expanse of barren dirt marring the landscape. Discord had been working on the area with the Equestrian Royal Guard Corps of Engineers, for the past two days, uprooting trees, draining lakes, or redirecting rivers.

'Discord…' he mused silently, wondering what the chaotic being was doing out there. To him, it had all the makings of a training ground, but that couldn't be it as it was simply too massive in size. His eyes drift towards Ponyville, frowning as he thought back on Marcus’ first arrival into the town.

He blinked as a large cloud of dust exploded into the air from the Everfree forest, snorting in amusement as the dust appeared to scale some distance. 'There's Marcus. Probably still trying to run without running into any trees.'

Marcus was probably the one person he was worried about the most. He was human, born and raised as one, and now he was essentially made into a true superhuman, as stupid as it sounded. And, Stephan had to admit, a suspiciously convenient leg up for them to win the war. Seeing him struggle down the hall, shaking as he ate his food, giving into frustration and reducing a marble statue to dust with a single punch was too much for the Marine.

During yesterday’s company roll-call, Marcus stepped down as Commanding Officer and passed it to Stephan before exiting, nearly shattering the doors as he did so. Stephan couldn’t help but see the look of sadness on some of the soldiers in the room as they watched him leave.

The only thing that could help them was work. As harsh as it sounded, it would keep their thoughts in check instead of wandering around Marcus. Still, Stephan knew he had to think about a way to tell Cheerilee what happened to Marcus without getting slaughtered, since he was supposed to take care of him.

Stephan’s line of thought was stopped by someone knocking at his door. “Come in!”

The door opened and Shining Armor together with Luna walked inside. Both of them wore heavy armor from the look of it. Shining’s had a purple color while Luna’s was metallic silver. Their helmets were being carried in their magical grip and swords had been strapped over their right side.

“Actually, its Leutnant Lulamoon for today, Princess,” Trixie said politely and bowed to the Princess.

“Good day Princess, Captain Armor,” Stephan said and gave them a little nod. “I hope everything had been prepared in time?”

“Yes, everything and everypony is ready. The Royal Guard is already in position. But none of your soldiers showed up yet.” Shining clarified.

“I will make sure that we give a good show,” Trixie stated with a grin, flaring one hoof with all the skill of a natural showpony. “A great and powerful display!”

Stephan nodded, following Luna and Shining Armor out of the room and closed the door behind him. It wasn’t the first time that he’d walked through the Castle of Canterlot, but still, it had a charm of its own that had yet to not impress. The windows were intricately crafted as well as the statues and banners; everything from the vaulted ceiling to the marble floor spoke of centuries of art and civilization. And everything was so big, Stephan thought clouds wouldn’t have a problem hanging under the ceiling.

It was comforting that all that this palace represented; all the magic, history and strength in Equestria, and then even more, was throwing its lot in with humanity in the struggle for Earth’s destiny.

Buoyed by that thought, Stephan stepped into the warm sunlight, the morning sun shining brightly down on him. He looked back to the castle, seeing that many of the balconies were filling up with servants eager to witness the proceedings, including the Elements of Harmony. After a few minutes of walking, the group met up with the ponies and humans from Earth and marched on with them.

In the distance, Stephan could already make out a line of ponies in golden armor standing in formation upon a large parade ground.

‘And by large’, he mentally annotated, ‘this is a space big enough to accommodate most of the Olympic Games!’

Any other time the sight of so many war horses would have him readying himself for combat, but he kept his control and maintained his position beside the Princess, Shining flanking his lunar diarch on the other side.

One of the Royal Guards in front of the formation barked a quick order. “GUARDS! HEADS, LEFT!”

All heads turned towards the group that consisted of the Princess, Shining, Trixie and Stephan, following them with their eyes until they came to a halt in front of the Guard who was clearly in charge here.

“Princess Luna, Captain Armor, Sergeant Lancet Edge reports!” he saluted, “The Welcoming Committee of the Royal Guard is fully present!”

Shining saluted back while Luna nodded briskly. Stephan stood silently aside since he had not been spoken to directly. His eyes followed the line of guards. Every single one of them stood perfectly in line with each other, heads high, expressions serious. Almost like statues.

‘When was the last time Equestria engaged in a serious military action?’ he thought, struggling to dredge up the minutiae of Trixie’s history lessons. If his memory was correct, the answer lay somewhere between ‘never’ and ‘not applicable’.

Honestly, they wouldn’t survive the first five minutes on a real battlefield. But then again, he hadn’t had time to see them, or indeed any of the EUP Pony Protection Platoons in combat.

‘Oh yes you have. You’ve been fighting against their counterparts for years...and alongside a ragtag assembly of Equestrian citizens...and if a teacher, musicians, farmers and magicians can fight like demonic racehorses with ginger in their backsides, then these fillies and colts should do just fine.’

And then, in a brief flash of pessimism. ‘It’s you that bears the burden of training them. Any failure of theirs in the field will reflect your own failure to prepare them for the fresh hell ahead.’

Well, at least now he had the weeks and months needed to turn them into real soldiers, thanks to wibbly-wobbly time shenanigans which he had neither the desire (or the necessary non-euclidean mental geography) to unravel. He had summed up his limited understanding thus: time runs fucking slower here, which nearly caused an outraged Twilight Sparkle to drag him into a ‘science training session’ of her own devising, which just resulted in headaches for both involved. Never again, that mare was crazy enough to ignore his orders once she got going.

“At ease, Lancet Edge. Return to your unit and await new instructions.” Shining said, dismissing the guard with another exchange of salutes.

Shining, the Princess and Stephan then turned around, their backs now towards the Guards.

“First should be-” Luna started but was cut off mid-sentence by a loud screech. Hearing it she looked up into the sky and smirked, a warlike glint in her eye. “Ah, there they are.”

Stephan followed her gaze and his eyes fell upon a small cloud which became slowly bigger until he could see that they were Griffons. They flew in several groups of large triangles, like migrating birds, or the tip of a dagger. And following behind, bursting from the cloud cover and forming the blade to that dagger, were airships, massive and lethal.

'No... not airships. Warships.' Stephan corrected himself as he saw dozens of cannon-ports studding the hulls. Although hidden from view, the potential of the craft to suddenly bristle with deadly metal was a potent threat.

They vaguely resembled the airships the Tyrant used against the humans. A big balloon supporting a construction that looked like an archaic sailing ship under it. But there ended any similarity.

While the Equestrian airships looked like they were crafted by artists, the Griffons’ Warships were more rough in their construction and built for practicality, function (and presumably, economy of construction). Metal armor plates covered most of the ship, which together with the hundreds of cannon-ports and sharp spikes and blades to deter attacking fliers added up to a potent message - “Do not mess with us.”

There had to be a trade off though. All that weight surely dragged down speed and maneuverability. Likewise he was sure they lacked the magical shielding of the Equestrian ships, and could probably be shot down easily. He would have to consider some improvements.

Well... not him per se, but the dozens of engineers, scientists and PHL mages that had came with them could probably do something. Supposedly, the Crowe labs personnel were already working on improvements to Equestrian ships, perhaps a side-channel could be opened to do the same for the griffons.

A large group of the flying dihybrids separated from the rest of the flock (or was it a pride?) and descended towards the ground, swooping down like predators on the hunt. Stephan had seen some birds of prey during his youth, visiting the old family farms around Hamburg and Kiel. These creatures clearly shared some DNA with those potent raptors.

The diving griffons suddenly spread their wings, breaking out of their dive just a few meters from the ground. Pulling back in an expert stall they shed all lift and dropped to the ground their, hindclaws clicking like spurs as they landed in line formation, a second rank forming up behind. Stephan counted at least fifty soldiers, with more squadrons still circling overhead in holding patterns.

He was genuinely impressed by the discipline they showed. Like the royal guard, they held their heads high and stood straight and strong. Each one of them was wearing light plate armor shielding their torsos and forelegs. The joints were covered in chain armor for flexibility. Still, he could make out some individual izations here and there, ritual marking he suspected matched service ribbons, customised pauldrons or greaves, or just some simple filigree.

Stephan’s attention turned to four massive shapes, accompanied by two smaller figures that nevertheless were still bigger than the average griffon, as they flew over the formation and landed gracefully, sinking to a bow in a gesture of respect to Luna in her own land. Luna mirrored the gesture, wings held down in a symbolic demonstration of trust. Shining Armor and Stephan matched the formalities in their own way, the german soldat mentally thanking Marcus Renee for a quick crash-course in diplomatic soldiery.

‘Because as much as I like to think of him as a buffoon from time to time, he has been around more royalty and persons of great importance than I have ever before the this war.’ Stephan thought as he finished his greeting, thinking back on Marcus’ ever growing concern in drilling him in proper etiquette greetings.

The four griffons who landed first were clearly personal guards, clad in shimmering dragonscale armor and matching helmets with closed visors. Stephan could barely make out their eyes, and he was genuinely impressed with the quality of their equipment. He understood the Griffon Lands saw infrequent attacks from rogue wyrms, and soldiers who proved themselves skilled in repelling these incursions not only got fast-tracked towards the Tsumerai, but often got first-dibs on use of the valuable scale and hide ‘liberated’ from their defeated quarry.

That was one advantage these troops had over their Equestrian kin; actual combat experience. Against freaking dragons!

Impressive the guards truly were. But the two griffons in the centre of the delegation drew his full attention now. Rising from his bow, their leader was revealed to be an elder who had clearly seen more than his share of battle, proud and in bearing, his regal demeanour enhanced by a leonine mane of bronze feathers and silver fur surrounding his head. A monarch of the sky-prides, a lord of the zephyrs.

Prince Tobias, heir to the Throne of the Clavenpaw, had arrived. He wore a beak-guard carved from a immense claw, and like his guards he was armoured in dragonscale, distinguished by a red cape slung around his body and fixed with a leather belt. It was secured between his shoulders so as to not interfere with his wings, the span of which dwarfed even Celestia’s. Comparing him with Luna, Stephan realised in that instant that the first-born son of the griffon crown probably exceeded the body mass of both royal sisters combined.

His escort could be none other than his mother, the High Queen Hedwig. Stephen had only a brief chance to study her profile in the royal archives, and had at the time made the mistake of writing her off as a trophy wife of the late king, a placeholder until the next generation took the throne.

Now, seeing this eagless in the toned, muscular flesh, he remembered an old lesson: the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

On the African serengeti, it was the lionesses who bore the lion’s share (ha!) of the hunt. In the lifelong mating relationship of the bald eagle it was the female who was the dominant partner. He didn’t want to wager which of the two royals now facing him bore the greatest chance in a fight, but where Tobias was dressed for diplomatic grandeur, his royal mother came dressed for the hunt.

‘She looks like she could take down a dragon on her own! Is this what ‘wickle bitty bitchy witchy Gilda’ will be when she grows up!?’

Even though Hedwig was a bit smaller in build than her son, she made up for it with an attitude of utter command. Her fur was a majestic gunmetal blue and her feathers were storm-grey, shot through with steely streaks, making it look as if the Griffon queen was clad in daggers, daggers as bright and keen as her silver eyes...eyes that had the look of many lifetime’s experience of all life’s joys and pains.

The blades strapped to her side were sharp, her headdress polished to a mirror’s gleam. The badge of her office, a blazing white gemstone, was set in the crest of the helm, and drew all eyes to her own with an almost hypnotic intensity...those burning silver eyes...the eyes of an old predator that had faced countless terrors…and vanquished every single one.

Luna was the last to rise from her bow, spreading her wings with a regal flourish. “It is an honor to meet you again, Queen Hedwig.”

Hedwig gave her a sharp little smile before she spread her own wings and let loose a piercing battle screech that rose the blood and hackles of all listening. Luna did not so much as even flinch, just returning the queen’s knowing smile.

“The honour is ours, Princess Luna,” Hedwig proclaimed. “We come ready to stand beside Equestria, to pit ourselves against this travesty that usurps your noble kingdom’s name, and utterly destroy it and every foul deed it has worked!”

The declaration did not go unappreciated. There were approving murmurs coming from the ranks of the Royal Guard, and from the distant castle balconies cheers, whoops and wolf-whistles were going up by the dozen.

Aloof to the spirited response, Hedwig’s eyes wandered to the left and right as if she was looking for someone. “May I ask where Princess Celestia is? Or Commander Renee?”

“Our royal sister has been called away to attend upon urgent affairs of a private nature,” Luna replied with political polish. “And the most worthy Commander is still recuperating from his heroic deeds in the Crystal Empire.”

“Really?” Hedwig murmured, managing to not so much as raise an inquisitive eyebrow. “Such a pity.” She then turned her gaze towards Stephan who gave her an acknowledging nod, despite feeling like a small animal caught in her headlights.

She studied him at great length before she opened her beak again, her attitude curious, but reserved. “And who is this fellow?”

Stephan came to a snappy salute but kept his silence, deferring to Luna, at whom the question had been directed.

“This is Major Bauer,” Luna answered, and Stephan realised he could hear a trollishly mischievous lilt in her words. “Most recently of the Earthly realm of Germania, where he is a Knight of the highest standing! He comes before us now as a champion of armies, and hero of nations: High General and battlemaster of all human forces in Equestria.”

Stephan had stayed rock still but sweating inside as Luna laid on the praise with a trowel.

‘Don’t lay on the fucking ‘Knight of Germania’ shit Luna, you know I hate that name!’

Hedwig must have caught onto the little game being played as well, because he could now see a smile curling at the corners of her beak…and yet her eyes were still slicing up up like a particularly succulent cut of meat.

And then, as if in an afterthought, the Regent of the Moon casually added; “Oh, and he is also a close personal friend of Commander Renee.”

“Well, well…” Hedwig said, feigning a tone of awestruck amazement. “Such impressive titles and accolades, Major Bauer. We have Knightly orders of our own within the Griffin tribes. Perhaps the conference of one of our own titles upon yourself is in order…”

Her smile vanished as Hedwig came up close and studied him in closer detail. The service ribbons and badges of rank on his battle-dress seemed to catch her interest briefly, but what really drew her gimlet eye were the runes engraved all across his armored body, and the material. He wondered if she had seen ceramic plates or kevlar weave before. He guessed that to her eyes he was an impressive sight, and desperately hoped he wasn’t selling Earth short.

“Light… so light,” he heard her whispering to herself as she circled him, and he desperately tried to think of Trixie - his Trixie, and not those sleek and powerful flanks… or that amazing tail.

“...and yet it must be strong, and flexible…” he could hear her continue to murmur in a low tone, thinking aloud. “Impact resistant, and yet supple enough to bend at the joints. Dragonscale and hide can achieve such effects… but there’s never enough for mass production… but to have this to armour each and every new-blooded chick and hatchling as if they were Tsumerai… no clan nor nest would ever need fear a dragon-blight again!”

Hearing her thinking aloud, he could see her keen mind turning, could see her examining the possibilities opening up not just for Earth and Equestria, but for her own people. There was fierce intelligence there, but compassion too, care and concern for those for whom she bore responsibility.

He felt a connection to her in that instant, not romantic or even platonic, but of understanding. And as Hedwig looked towards Trixie, standing proud beside him, he could guess what the High Queen was thinking.

‘This mare is barely grown, a chick hardly come into her wings, yet she stands with all the bearing and discipline of one of Equestria’s Royal Guard. But this is no parade-ground puppet; this is a warrior poured from a crucible of blood. Behold those eyes… eyes that bear the sharpness of a soul who has seen too much death in her short life. This child of Equestria will go far indeed… oh brave new world, that has such creatures in it…’

Finishing her inspection, Hedwig stepped back and appraised the two of them. Then she looked to the group of humans and ponies behind them, all of them standing at attention. Yes, some fidgeted in place, clearly not born to be soldiers or warriors, but still showing their determination to see this war through to the end.

She made a soft, clucking noise, almost like a hen watching over her chicks, and then she spun in a whirl of scale and feather and roared to her troops both on ground and aloft.

In that instant, every griffin on the ground, Hedwig and Tobias included, tipped back their heads and roared aloud, a leonine chorus matched only by the raptorian screeches their brothers and sister above added to the chorus.

“We salute you all, brave soldiers!” Hedwig proclaimed to the gathered ponies and humans as the echoes of her troops cries resounded around the streets and peaks of Canterlot. “We shall serve beside you with fealty and pride! This we swear on our blood and honour! Let there forever be peace and friendship between our realms, and may swift justice be done upon our shared foes!”

Stephan felt his chest swell with pride, and opening his mouth for the first time since stepping outdoors he barked out a command of his own.

Shining Armor repeated the order to his own forces, and as one, every human soldier and pony guard present returned the Griffon peoples’ show of respect. The audience, not to be outdone, cheered in response. It was a moment that could only be summed up in one word.

"This was a last second plan of action, Your Majesty," Stephan replied, still maintaining parade attention. "He realized he couldn’t train an army worth a damn, so he got me instead."

Hedwig smiled again, and then raised a single eyebrow at the sound of a snort from one griffon who, from the splendour of his armor, was clearly the ranking officer among the representatives of the Tsumerai.

"Doesn’t mean the Commander can't lead one”, Stephan continued. “He led one of the most powerful armies on Earth, and I took command of the second most. He appointed me to take command in field should something incapacitate him."

“Good to know; a wise leader always chooses their subordinates with care,” Hedwig complimented, before waving an introductory claw towards the Tsumerai who had snorted. Beside his swords, he clearly had a pair of flintlock pistols strapped to his haunches.

“Before I forget. Major Bauer, allow me to present General Ironclaw, Supreme Commandant of the Griffon Empire’s royal armies.”

There was a challenge in her voice, as if she expected sparks to fly and was interested to see who came out on top.

“Our troops stand before you, ready to serve!” Ironclaw declared, pride and arrogance resounding in each rasped syllable. “Each a seasoned fighter, fire-forged and battle-hardened! I highly doubt that we need your so-called training.”

The general's voice was harsh and rusty, as if he had screamed his entire life. Remembering some old drill-sergeants, Stephan would not be surprised if he had. Old soldiers never died...they just got rougher and meaner.

And Ironclaw was clearly a very old soldier. That didn’t excuse him for the insult though.

Stephan’s eyes narrowed slightly. This show of disrespect was beyond belief, but he kept calm.

“With respect General, I believe you will find that the way we approach battle is considerably beyond what you're trained for your entire life. We understand no race on Equus has developed handheld ranged weapons more advanced than your flintlocks, but each of our soldiers go into battle bearing weapons with a rate of fire measured in hundreds of rounds per minute, and accuracy at range that would be impossible for any archer to match. It is important, vital even, to get our forces at the same level before we commit to joint operations: otherwise it would end in chaos. We would do more harm to each other than the enemy.”

Somewhere in the distance, Discord's ears twitched gleefully at the word 'chaos'.

“We griffons are proud warriors, and we have fought more battles than these ponies for sure. Our whole lives are defined by struggle… struggle for position, for rank, for survival. The art of war is bred into our very bloodlines!”

The general wasn’t afraid to say what he thought, even though he knew it would most likely annoy some people - and some ponies too. "Being close to the dragon lands, raised from hatching upon the anvil of rogue and feral wyrms, has made us hardy and strong. My fair Queen told us of your 'dilemma', and I scoff at it. There is no reason that the ponies should be able to fight us off, and-"

As the tirade proceeded, Stephan resisted every urge to wring the old turkey’s neck. The only thing that kept the twitch in his left eye from developing into an international (or transdimensional) incident was the knowing looks that Luna and Hedwig were exchanging as the ‘High Commandant’ made light of Earth’s entire war for survivilveredal.

The old general scowled as he looked at the ponies before looking back to Stephan, opening his mouth to outpour more vitriol…

“General, SHUT UP!” snapped Trixie, not breaking formation but staring forward with utter contempt in her eyes and the fury of a raging storm in her words. “You know nothing of humanity’s plight! Nor of your own!”

“What plight of my own!?” Ironclaw stepped back in shock, and in the background Stephan saw Hedwig and Luna share a discrete hoof-to-claw bump. Tobias was trying to hide his amusement. Very well then, rather than ordering Trixie to control herself, he’d yield the stage to her.

Like every stage-mare, she was born to it. And if there was one thing Trixie liked (Ironic for one who had become so famous for covert operations) it was center stage.

“You see, in the Equestria that I come from, your ‘proud warriors’ are starving from a trade embargo, crippled by the suspension of the Pegasus Weather Management Treaties, and virtually crippled as a state. The Empire is gone, every nest pillaged, every clan dispersed, every egg smashed and nearly all hope is crushed! Without the Ponies For Human Life, without us, there would be no chance of salvation for your people. Most importantly, you are afraid.”

Ironclaw drew in a gasp at that hated word. But, Trixie noticed, where Ironclaw looked personally insulted, Hedwig looked saddened and horrified.

“That’s right,” Trixie said, narrowing her eyebrows, “Afraid. You and the zebras are all but counting the days till Celestia sets her eyes on you. And before you delude yourself further, you addle-brained idiot bird, she’s not afraid of you. She considers you beneath her notice.”

“I would not stand for such things to happen! Surely, my counterpart had died heroically in the fight to save my kingdom?“

“...For a given value of heroic,” Trixie snipped. She decided not to mention that Ironclaw had died leading an angry uprising that wasn’t even worthy of being called a rebellion. More like a pubcrawl gone wrong, or a riot. “Worst of all, if the Queen takes Earth over, she’s coming for all of you. And this will happen all over again, if you’re lucky.”

Ironclaw stood stunned, before managing to regain some (small) shred of composure.

“Regardless. I find it hard to believe that a simple rush of bodies can do so much damage," he jested cruelly, his eyes filled with disgust. "It is easy to stop such a thing."

"Oh really?" Discord snapped into existence, wrapping his tail around the group. "Stop this."

Luna, Hedwig, Tobias, Stephan, Trixie, and Ironclaw found themselves in the middle of an open field. Before the elder griffon could curse Discord’s name, a low rumble echoed out, as if a storm of hoofsteps was blazing a trail way towards them. Stephan turned, his eyes wide as he stared at the familiar sight.

Newfoals, thousands of them coming over the hill with bright smiles on their faces.

"Oh, no, my sainted Knight." Discord’s voice echoed around them. "This is to show them just how their new enemies work."

“He’s right, Major…” Luna said, turning herself head-on into the oncoming horde. “I’ve seen this depravity with my own eyes. Let our new allies share in that wisdom.”

“Indeed,” said Tobias. “Come Mother, General. Let us see first hand the future bearing down upon us.”

Gun emplacements, tanks and human soldiers popped into existence all around them, all of them rushing towards their defensive lines to hold off the newfoal horde.

The line erupted in a fusilade of high-explosive munitions, and the veteran general stared in horrified shock as scores of the glassy-eyed ponies were ripped apart, torn, dismembered and disemboweled... and yet not a single one of them wavered from the charge, ploughing on through their own wounded, trampling the still-living into the blood-soaked mud. They died by the hundreds, by the thousands, but they simply didn't care. A few wailed and cried about how they had failed their queen, but the body of the beast shrugged off those tiny losses and kept coming at the enemy with ruthless determination.

“This...this is insanity!” Ironclaw shouted in disbelief. “Why don’t they rout? Why don’t they scatter? Why don’t they use any form of strategy or tactics!”

“That is their tactic, Old Iron…” Hedwig said, not unkindly laying one claw on his shoulder. “The newfoals are not allowed to. They spawn disposable slaves by the thousands, and waste them just as readily. The Princess of the Moon made it quite clear to me… we face not just madness on this battlefield, not the terror of the wyrm’s fiery mind and breath, nor the treachery of the cunning, ambitious rebel. This is a fight against an utter evil… a darkness that holds all life in contempt, and sees us merely as dust to be ground underfoot.”

“My Queen…” he mumbled, unable to vocalise any deeper thought. “Oh, my Queen.”

As they watched, the human line was quickly overrun, heard the screams of soldiers crushed and buried beneath the sheer press of newfoals, while others, those rare, intelligent monsters that the potion sometimes spawned, ripped the place apart, field-stripping rifles, tanks and emplacements with their magic or blasting those still fighting apart with little concern. Pegasi flew above, dropping enchanted bombs and potions, while unicorns set humans ablaze or crushed them with telekinesis.

The battle went on, humans fighting to the last man and woman...then the last man…

… and finally, a child. A small, battle-weaned boy who was unlikely to know anything other than war, who swore and cursed, firing his rifle wildly on full auto, standing atop a pile of corpses, human and pony alike in death.

As soon as he ran out of bullets, he resorted to stabbing. But he couldn’t drive them back forever, just as the tide not could be withstood. One screaming newfoal, howling with glee, potioned him, and the boy screeched as his fingers melded together, hooves exploding from beneath the skin, fur erupting up his arm as he fell onto all fours.

Luna wept with stoic resolve, tears falling freely down her face whilst she reached her hoof out to the boy, as if she could rescue him from such a fate. Ironclaw stood mute with horror, while Trixie looked away.

But Stephan watched Hedwig and Tobias closely, because in that moment he realised, that of all those present, himself included…

The two griffon nobles did not so much as blink as the transformation proceeded to its horrific, inevitable end, until a newfoal sat where once there was a human child. And then he leapt to his feet and praised his Eternal Queen, a smile on his face, and a scream in his soul.

And then it was over. Dead humans lay everywhere, and it was hard to say whether or not they were lucky not to have been ponified.

Stephan turned to the two griffons royals and studied them closely. What had they seen in that moment…had Hedwig seen her entire brood in that final stand? Had Tobais witnessed his daughter Gilda being transformed into a hideous mockery of herself?

What had they seen? He could only wonder, because from the searing, blazing look they shared mother-to-son, High Queen to Heir, it was clear they would never tell.

“Alright…” he said at last, turning to Discord with a little smile, in spite of residual shock and horror. “Not quite what I expected from you for, but… definitely effective.”

Discord looked at Stephan, slightly confused. “What did you think I’d use it for?”

“Well, I knew it’d be a training area,” Stephan said. “I saw how you built this over the last several days from my room, and I know a training field when I see one. But I didn’t think you’d… Sonovabitch, that was awful!”

“You don’t like it?” Discord asked, feigning a wounded tone. “I worked awfully hard on it. And I’m not even finished yet!"

"My good major... this is only temporary. " Discord proclaimed, snapping his claw and returning the post-apocalyptic scene of horror to an open field. "My masterpiece has yet to be seen!"

"I’m almost afraid to ask..." Stephan mulled over what he said before offering him a smile. "Well, what better way to show them what to expect than to throw them into the cold water?”

“I am talking with you, the God of Chaos, or whatever you call yourself now. I saved the Crystal Empire, fighting alongside two alicorns, one whom I wanted to see dead, and now I am in a different Equestria, facing the challenge of training an army of griffons, Dragons, Diamond Dogs and other mystical creatures from to fight in our war! I’ve had tea with Princess Celestia, and found that she is actually rather nice! At this point, dear darling Discord, there isn’t much that can surprise me anymore.”

Discord's shoulders hung a bit lower but then he turned around and huffed with crossed arms.

“I’m German Dissy. Except for a beer-swilling Bavarians, spoiling your fun is what we do best. Just ask the Brazilians.”

“Too soon for meta humor,” Discord smirked and shook his head, before snapping them back to Canterlot. "Anyway, I am not quite done with my Magnum Opus just yet. It should be ready in the next hour. Until then… Auf Wiedersehen! ”

Then he turned back towards the griffon entourage. Luna was in deep discussion with Hedwig and Tobias, the atmosphere around them electric. Good for them. Ironclaw on the other...claw...seemed to still be processing what he had just witnessed.

“I believe we can all agree now, General…” he said, almost casually. “That I’m best qualified to train your troops for what lies ahead?”

“Yes. I will allow it. We both needed to see that, horrifying as it was. Or rather, because it was so horrifying.”

“As I hoped you would, General…” Hedwig said firmly as she came across to them.

“I apologise for my incivility, my Queen-” Ironclaw began, bowing his head low before Hedwig cut him off with a raised claw.

“I trust in the capabilities of our soldiers, General, and I trust in you. Never has your skill or faithfulness been in question. You have served my house since before I ascended to the throne, and you have mastered all foes that ever came beating at our door. But we are now in changed times. You witnessed what we will soon be sending our sons and daughters into and I doubt that they are ready for that, or ready to take up human arms.”

“And who else would be better to train our troops than those who has survived for so long under such conditions? Just as I would send this mare and her man to study beneath you were they called upon to guard a nest against a feral wyrm, so we must now come to their door as willing understudies. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Ironclaw maintained his silence, turning his head towards the griffon soldiers who still stood to attention in a perfect line behind him. He gave a curt sigh and nodded. “Yes my Queen.”

“Then we have an agreement?” Princess Luna walked over to them. She didn’t mention that Shining Armor had to calm down the griffons after Discord took their Queen, Prince and General away without warning. Still, it may have had pleasant repercussions. The Tsumerai later expressed how impressed they were that a ‘dinky white pony’ could be such a commanding presence… him isolating the most agitated soldiers inside an impregnable magic bubble until cooler heads prevailed may have boosted his parade-ground ‘cred’ immensely.

Hedwig gave Luna a small smile. “Yes, we have an agreement. Please, take good care of my troops.”

“Don’t worry. I am sure the Major will make certain that they are ready for the fray. Right Major?” Luna turned her head to Stephan.

“Of course,” Stephan said, grinning a little, and matching the predatory smirk on Hedwig’s face perfectly.

And so, in greater and lesser ways, did the corps of the new forces begin to come together.

“No. Not a earthquake.” Stephan turned his head towards the cloud of dust slowly approaching them from behind the woods. “More military formations on the move.”

Everyone now directed their attention at the cloud, which after a few minutes resolved itself into the sight of immense bipedal figures trooping out of the woods that covered the leeward side of the Canterhorn, making their way towards where the city was perched on a rocky saddle. Hedwig and Ironclaw, blessed with the acute sight of eagles, discerned who it was immediately..

Minotaurs. At least an entire Battalion marching upon Canterlot, their hooves stomping on the ground with thunderous force. But they weren’t alone. From the south, following the turnpike road that shadowed the railroad line, there appeared a legion of Buffalo, accompanied by a formation of Diamond Dogs. Well, if you could call a loose pack, some walking on two legs and some on all fours, a formation.

‘Great, that means overtime.’ Stephan thought as he spotted that last addition to his growing troupe. Military discipline was probably an alien concept to them. The Buffaloes did slightly better in sticking together, possibly a trait learned from their traditional stampedes, but he doubted they had any military training whatsoever, though from what he understood, some of the younger calves might have potential as quick and nimble special forces operatives.

The Minotaurs seemed to have the same standard as the Buffalo. They didn’t walk in a full formation, but at least they did better than the Dogs, keeping themselves tight and organised.

It took them some time for the various forces to reach the parade ground, giving plenty of time for Stephan to refine his initial impressions. The Minotaurs took their place to the side of the Griffons and Stephan noticed a few gazes between them: not friendly ones for sure. The Buffaloes mustered beside the Minotaurs, while the Diamond Dogs at least ‘attempted’ to fall into something that looked like a parade. He could hear several barks, probably from individuals trying to make a good impression by demonstrating their spirit. Which, of course, immediately failed them.

With their various contingents wrangled into place, a representative from each of the additional races walked towards Stephan and the others, coming to a halt and presenting themselves to the growing delegation..

The Minotaur was the first one to spoke up. He stood at least two to three heads taller than Stephan, his hide a dark tan above the waist, and deep brown beneath. His shoulders were wide enough to support bridge pilings and from the sheer weight of muscle on his arms he looked as though he could tear anybod...anypon…anyone present in half with no trouble. He probably needed that kind of physical power just to heft the immense battleaxe carried on his back. What little battle dress he had consisted of cloth and armor plates, spaced loosely enough that his heavily scarred chest could be seen through the gaps. His face and muzzle were equally weathered and torn, so that when he spoke it almost looked like his mouth was simply the largest scar amongst a tapestry of wounds.

“It is an honor to meet you, Princess Luna. I am Warlord Wilmorn Darkhoof, chosen to speak for the united Minotaur Morae.”

Luna dipped in greeting while he held his left fist to his chest and gave her a small bow.

“It is an honor to meet you as well, Warlord Darkhoof. The fortitude of your people’s armies is legend in Equestria and beyond, we thank you for this great show of strength.”

She then turned to the Buffalo representative, and another exchange of bows and nods was played out. “It is good to see you too, Chieftain Thunderhooves. Pray tell, how fares relations between your folk and the citizenry of Appleoosa?”

“It is growing, Princess. We make great progress each day,” Thunderhooves replied. “We trade for apples and other wares, making payment with the gems found in abundance upon our lands. Some of your subjects have even come to us seeking to learn our ways and join in our clan as buffalos in spirit, if not flesh. It is a strange, but invigorating time… sadly one I fear is over.”

The Princess gave him a smile at that. “Those times will come again, I promise you by the moon and stars, and we shall all look to your wisdom and experience in forging a new age among our own growing company of friends.”

Last of all was the Diamond Dog. A Groenendael, if Stephan remembered his breeds correctly, distinguished by long, flowing fur streaked in black and grey, and an equally deep muzzle over two two bright golden eyes watched all and missed nothing. His only article of clothing was a simple cape which seemed old - really old, and which was clasped at the beck by his collar. Despite the shabbiness of his appearance, the overall effect was to lend him an wisdom that he wore with a quiet dignity, much to Stephan’s surprise..

“Lord Shadow,” Luna greeted, bowing extra deep as if in supplication to a respected sage.. Stephan could hear a bit of surprise in her voice, and wondered if there was indeed something to it.

‘Lord Shadow’ respectfully returned the Princess’s salutation, one forearm held to his chest. “It is a privilege to see you with my own eyes, Princess. And a great honor for you to know my name. May your moon light passage in the dark times.”

Luna flushed somewhat at what sounded to Stephan like an old, ritualised greeting, but she smiled warmly. “Thank you, your Lordship. Please, forgive my ignorance, but the last information I had received informed that you no longer led the assembled pack of the Diamond Dogs, and had not done as such for the last ten years.”

The old Lord chuckled at that. “That as much is true. I have been… reelected, so to speak. The young Lord Canis had no experience in leadership in battle, although that does not mean he can not fight. You just have to look at my troops to see we have fallen somewhat in terms of a trained army, but like the old dog you see before you, they are willing to ‘learn new tricks’.”

A low chuckle rolled around the gathering of dignitaries as Shadow turned his attention towards Stephan, who once again was mentally busying himself. “You must be the human I have heard of. Colonel Renee, if I am not mistaken?”

Stephan looked back and shook his head. “No, I am his subordinate, Major Bauer. The Colonel is not in fit condition to oversee the training of our assembled troops right now, so I have taken over.”

The Lord curiously sniffed the air a bit, hummed a bit and then nodded. “You are a capable pack leader. I can smell that.”

“Good, I will entrust my troops to you. Treat them well and they will follow you with all due loyalty.”

The old dog chuckled. “My pup, I have walked on this world for 105 years now, and my nose is still in a good condition. I can smell the warrior in you. And the leader. Yes, my nose says that I can trust you, like so many others trust you already.” He pointed at the group of ponies and humans behind him by the last part.

‘My pup, he says. Great, I probably just met another Peter. And 105 years old? Dog years must be the actual lifetime for a dog here…’

“No offense Lord Shadow, but this little human does not look like a warrior to me,” Warlord Darkhoof said. “Mere armor prettied up with fancy magic writings doesn't make someone a warrior.”

‘Again?!’ Stephan sighed inwardly, before mentally trying to dial up a frequency that he really resented having to resort to, but which kept proving so very useful…

He didn’t know if this would work, but if anyone was telepathically listening into this conversation, it would be him. To his relief he was suddenly rewarded with a dial-tone and the crackle of a recorded message.

‘We’re sorry,’ the Lord of Chaos snarked inside his head. ’The Deity you’ve dialed has gone ex-directory. Please hang up and try again… and naughty boy, stop thinking such kinky things about Queen Hedwig. A certain Tricksy little mare might not approve…’

‘Sorry Stephan,’ the Lord of chaos crooned. ‘You sought me out, and practically invited me in...’

While Stephan tried to hold a mental telephone conversation with an eldritch entity of chaos, the newly arrived delegates were getting into a debate. Luna and the others, including a much wiser Ironclaw, simply remained silence and let the latecomers speak their piece.

“There is more to someone than just their look, Warlord. I thought you already knew that,” Shadow curtly barked at Darkhood, their differing attitudes over Stephan plain for all to see.

The Minotaur merely snorted. “Of course I do. But still, this ‘human’ and the others don’t look like real fighters to me. Just look at them, all soft skin and fur.”

Chief Thunderhooves spoke up. “Clearly, these humans have to be warriors. How could they have survived such a long war if they aren’t capable of battle? You rely on your eyes too much, and see too little. Do you not see their eyes? Do you not see their souls? They have suffered beyond what any being has a right to suffer, endured torments I can scarcely imagine. I may not understand their plight, but I am willing to listen.”

Warlord Darkhoof just turned his head away, right as Stephan finally felt Discord relent.

‘Oh alright. Hello there. I’m Discord, and I’ll be your concierge tonight. So, tell me what you’re wearing, sweet pants…’

“Discord… do the thing, please. If I have to deal with one more imbecile doubting me, I’m going to lose it.”

“Phone call,” Stephan explained, as if it was only natural. It wasn’t, of course, but he just didn’t care anymore.

"So what have we learned?" Discord asked with a smirk as he dispelled the illusory battlefield for a second time.

"I spite you, Lord Discord, and would smite you but if I could; I should have the honor of separating your head from your neck with my axe,” Darkhoof growled, before relenting by a single inch. “But I digress, I understand now."

“Take a number, Warlord,” Stephan said. The minotaur didn’t understand what he meant by that, but didn’t seek clarification either. “What you just saw was only a glimpse of what awaits us. But increase the number of Newfoals into the millions and you’ll get some clearer idea of what we’ll be up against.”

Darkhoof and the others stared at him with such disbelief that he might have just told them with utter conviction that Princess Luna was bright green and shat rainbows. And yet he could see that they believed him.

“And you can prepare our soldiers for that?” Shadow asked with some concern.

“I can train them, temper their skills and will. But nothing is like the first time in actual battle.” He pointed at Discord. “That is why he's worked on preparing the training ground you just experienced. It’s not the real thing, but it's close enough.”

“I do what I can.” Discord pronounced with feigned humility, transparent as glass. Literally.

Stephan turned over to Luna. “Your Highness, how long until the last of the new recruits arrive?”

“The Changelings and Zebras have the greatest distance to travel to Canterlot. But they should arrive within the hour.” Luna answered him.

Luna glowered up at him in annoyance. “Speaking as a being who is part dragon?”

“What, don’t shoot the messenger! It's true! They take hundred year catnaps, and waking them up is almost impossible. And then most won’t deign to abandon their hoarded treasure because they don’t even trust their own kind to not steal it!” Discord pronounced matter-of-factly, arms crossed over his chest. “It took two whole centuries to rally them behind a single leader, and ol’ Spykey only holds onto the crown by being the biggest, toughest, most-hardscaped wyrm in the entire chunk of cheese!”

“Watch your tongue, Draconequus!” a loud voice, even more imposing than Luna’s, boomed out of the skies.

Heads craning up, all of Canterlot gasped in awe at the sight of an immense drake, his wings furled, perched upon a spur of the Canterhorn, gazing down on them with lordly mein. At least a score of his subjects circled above the mountain’s peak, gliding with absolute silence.

Discord shattered the moment with a petulant jeer and a raspberry. “Oh shut up, you know it’s true.”

Diving forward off of his improv rookery, the male dragon dived towards them, his vast shadow spreading bigger and bigger across the parade ground until he landed on a free spot with an impact that could have cracked solid stone.

‘And now I’ve jumped from Narnia to Skyrim…’ Stephen mentally gaped, struggling to not let his awe show on his face.

The drake before him was at least as big as a five storey building, sitting upright as if upon a throne...no, this creature made his throne wherever he went.. His face vaguely reminded Stephan of an alligator, but a garland of spikes grew out from under his chin and around his cheeks. Two long horns, curling upwards in a spiral, projected from the sides of his head, and his scales were coloured in a deep royal purple. His wingspan had to be at least twice the length of his body, and even grounded his shadow encompassed Stephan and the other leaders with ease.

“Spykroan. King of Dragons.” Luna welcomed him curtly, her tone of voice all but indicating she barely tolerated his presence. Stephan could hardly fault her wariness in front of the ancient wyrm.

‘Remember Bauer, this is the guy who purged an entire country of all life in order to stop a dark and corrupted artifact. There’s overkill, there’s scorched earth, and then there’s Spykoran…’

“Princess Luna.” Spykroan spoke, in what might have been an ‘indoor voice’ for him, but which to everyone else was a grinding rumble in which could heard the motion of continents. “How have you fared since last we met? I see we are missing Celestia, is she occupied with your irksome nobility?"

"Sadly no, she is..." Luna trailed off, unsure of how to answer the majestic dragon before her.

"Given how wary you are to answer, I discern she is away on a matter of no small import..." Spykoran purred, before gazing up to his swirling flight of dragons dragons. "Though given the recent return of the Crystal Kingdom and the destruction of several mountains in the Frigid North, I would surmise she has much on her mind."

Stephan swallowed as the large dragon turned his sights on him and leaned in close, a pair emerald eyes filling his entire field of vision. They were cold and reptilian, and yet burned with an inner fire...

"Oh?” the dragon king said. “Now another human stands before me. Introduce yourself, warrior. And perhaps you can tell me, where the renowned Commander has disappeared to?"

Stephan managed a salute, which prompted a growl of amusement. “Greetings, your Majesty! I am Major Stephan Bauer of Earth. I've taken Commander Renee’s place: for the time being, he is healing from the unprecedented magical exertions he was called upon to perform in the battle for the Crystal Empire.”

“Healing, you say?” Spykroan gave a knowing smile. “I am seen much medicine in my time, and yet I have yet to see any form of healing that involves planting one’s face into a mountain…”

‘Okay, so I’m betting you ran into Marcus on his way. The commander probably went headfirst into a cliff and was busy pulling himself out! Hrm...I wonder what a dragon ROFL looks like?’

“Yes, I suppose it would seem strange,” he replied, not breaking external composure. “I suppose it classifies as a form of physical therapy, though.”

“Yes.” Stephan said, trying to convey in that one word that he would not accept any objection, not even from a dragon whose lifespan was measured in millennia.

“Major Bauer has fought in many battles, and even slain a clone of the evil Tyrant from the second Equestria.” Luna proclaimed, walked up to Stephan’s side, as did Trixie. The Princess flicked a quick glance in Stephan’s direction and he let her take the lead: if anypony knew dragons and what needed to be said to get them onside, it was here.

“I saw it with my own eyes. No matter how often he fell, he got up and fought again until victory was in his hands. In those same hands, great Spykoran, noblest of beings, your Drakes and Drakaina will become a force unequalled in all of history. Ne’er again would your just and mighty rule be questioned by upstart wyrms, not with such an army at the beck of your claw.”

Dimly, Stephan remembered from mythology that dragons were vain and prideful creatures, expecting abject flattery as nothing less than a show of ‘good manners’. But even then, Luna was once again laying things on a bit thick…

“Oh, you clever little pony, you silver-tongued mare. Such a force you would have been, if only you yourself had been born a drakaina…”

Lifting his crocodilian head high again the drake cast a glance across the others gathered upon the parade ground. Diamond dogs, ponies, buffalos and even some of the minotaurs, humans and griffons all shrank beneath his fiery gaze. Stephen understood that there was much bad blood between the Dragon and Griffon kingdoms, enough that once upon a time they might have been called archenemies. Nowadays those old grudges were reduced to the occasional feral attack on Hedwig’s subjects, and distinctly frosty diplomatic relations.

He himself did not quail however. Neither did Luna or, to his quiet pride, Trixie. Their fortitude seemed to finally break Spykoran’s shell, enough that the Dragon Lord graced them with a slight dip of his head.

“You are a persistent one… like those mares beside you... Luna I have long known to almost have dragon blood in her soul. I wonder, does the same fire burn in your own spirit, human?”

He looked up to the sky where the rest of the Dragons still flew. “Fire or not, I respect your courageous resolve to stand against a seemingly unstoppable enemy, and the battles you have faced. But a few of my young ones will probably think differently. They may prove..a challenge to your command.”

“Let them come,” Stephan answered, allowing a sinister smile onto his face. “The stubborn ones are my favorite.”

"Huh... weird," she sniffed as she looked around, trying to keep her image clean.

Smiling on the outside, Stephan could not quite maintain the same calm on the inside.

‘Shit-shit-shit! They’re dragons man, fucking dragons! How do I to train them, or discipline them...how are we even going to deploy them? They’re frickin flying war elephants...oh, oh WOW! YES! That’s what they ARE! Flying war elephants….aerial APCs that can carry troops and spit fire! The ultimate mobile heavy emplacement...oh wow, oh sweet, oh this is going to be AWESOME!’’

“A-CHOO!” Rainbow sneezed again, and rubbed at her snout. “Am I coming down with something?”

Struggling to get his mind away from glorious imagines of a legion of firebreathing, flying, organic battlecruisers, Stephan cleared his throat and addressed Spykoran again.

“Your Majesty, we are honoured to have your mighty progeny at our side. But please, may we move to other urgent matters. We are still missing the Zebras, the Changelings, and the reindeer. Did you chance to spot any of their forces on your flight into Equestria?”

Spykroan looked over his shoulder towards a road. “The Changelings took another path, as we did. But we witnessed the Zebra breaking camp not long before our approach to Canterlot; they should be here any moment now.”

“Alright then. Would you and your people kindly take your place on their designated end of the ground?” Stephan pointed with a finger at a vast demarcated landing pad beside the Diamond Dogs.

The Dragon King nodded, then turned his head toward the sky and let loose the loudest roar that had been heard so far today, dwarfing by himself even the thunderous cries of the griffons. Responding to his call, the dragons circling in the sky descended towards the ground and landed besides the Diamond Dogs, who seemed quite intimidated at their new neighbours, some of them making whimpering sounds.

The flight leader of the dragon legions was a Drakaina, a regal female with scales of silver, accented with elaborate war-markings of red and blue. Her black talons gleamed like obsidian and her eyes were an electric blue. Immediately behind her stood four other dragons of similar bearing and silvery colouration..

“My eldest daughter and Chief Justice…Wyndblade Goldfyre,” Spykoran introduced them. “And her paladins. They will act as your subordinates and aid you in training our kind.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” the drakaina said, before sinking into a courtly bow, her voice surprisingly gentle and cultured. “Use us as you see fit, Major Bauer. We are at your service.”

Luna gave Stephan a gentle nudge in the side and whispered as quietly as possible. “The paladins act as the lawkeepers of the Dragon realm. The silver scales are an enchantment; their uniform and mark of office. They travel throughout the kingdom and deal justice upon those who defy Spykoran’s rule and abuse his citizens. Slayers of violent rogue dragons and champions of the weak and oppressed. They forswear personal ambitions for the duration of their service and do not even hoard treasure...and thus they are greatly respected. They will be an asset to you, so long as you do not abuse their trust.”

“Oh, then they’ll probably eat you, or burn you to dust with lightning fire,” Luna replied in far too chipper a tone. “No pressure.”

“What’s the matter?” Trixie said softly. “Getting weak knees?” she smirked as she noticed him shake a little.

“Paladins! Flying D&D paladins! Oh, boy. This going to be fun…” he whispered to himself.

“By fun, I think you mean a hellish challenge…” Wyndblade chuckled, and seeing her twitching ear-squales, Stephan realised she had probably overhead the entire exchange, and blushed, not entirely out of embarrassment.

‘Goldfyre...is that literal?’ he secretly pondered. ‘Would her flame look like she was breathing liquid gold? Such amazing colours...and eyes...and what a form - so lithe and serpentine and STOP THAT BAUER! You’re spoken for...by a mare who can shapeshift...oh boy…’

Rolling with it and trampling those thoughts down (for very careful recovery and examination at a later date), he shook his head.

“No, I know what you mean by a challenge, Chief Justice…look at what we got.” He let his head follow the entire line of ‘soldiers’ in front of them. “I’m pretty sure that all of these races harbor prejudices against the others.”

His eyes lingered on the dragons and diamond dogs, some of the latter still whimpering as the stood in the shadows of the colossal reptiles.

“Or fear one another,” he added, before gazing back at the curious female. “But I don’t. I’m pretty much ignorant of any rift or quarrel between the races of Equus and I don’t propose to wade into that quagmire. All I see are fresh recruits, and it’s my job to break them in!”

Trixie hummed a tone to herself. “Hmm, well you’ve got the credentials, right? You managed to train ponies and humans to work together. And me.”

She lifted her nose just slightly, the mock haughtiness bringing a little smile to his lips.

“True enough…” she continued. “True enough. But that was just ponies and humans. Here is it a bit different.”

“Fear not, Major,” Luna said, shooting him an honest smile as she stepped up to Wyndblade and rapped one armored hoof against the drakaina’s immense talon in a manner that suggested an old friendship. “You have friends here, and we shall all aid you in this endeavour. It is but the least we can do after you helped us in the Crystal Empire.”

Stephan nodded, while mentally wondering how the immortal princess and the dragon paladin knew each other...somehow he suspected it involved a rogue dragon and a bloodsoaked ‘girls’ night on the town’.

While the attention of the crowd was still on the dragons, Trixie took advantage of the distraction and hissed sibilantly in his direction.

“How did you get Luna’s and Celestia’s scent on you?” Trixie gave him a look that she won’t drop that topic soon.

“It is never ‘a good time’...and what was that look I saw in your eye when Hedwig was inspecting you?”

“I urm… well… do you think your shapeshifting magic could… go beyond pony morphs…”

“You’re sleeping on the couch tonight. She’s old enough to be your grandmother by the way!”

“She may be…” he answered suggestively, and this time could not hold himself back. “But what about a young, toned griffoness with powder-blue fur and a plume of silver feathers, or an adolescent drakaina, all muscle, scale and fire… a tricksy predator who just loves to toy with her prey?”

She made a squeaking, furious sound that guaranteed him the couch for an entire month. But he could see a slightly lewd blush on her features, and that gave him high hopes for future secret fun times. Letting her have the upper hand… or paw… or claw… might prove quite invigorating.

The sound of Luna stifling a giggle broke the moment, and Trixie narrowed her eyes at her monarch, who was sniggering with Wyndblade and making all sorts of suggestive gestures in their direction, hidden from everyone else’s view by the paladin’s sheer bulk.

“Oh shut-up Lulu…” she hissed, before she suddenly gave a gasp and rolled her head skywards. Stephan jumped back and gasped as her shapeshifting magic flared off, causing her horn to vanish and a pair of wings to pop open at her side.

“Sorry, sorry…” she apologised, quickly reverting back to the unicorn he loved. “That was just out of surprise… I can feel a familiar magic, Stephan.”

As the sound of buzzing made itself heard, she looked him in the eye, and then pointed up to a black cloud coming into view over the city, moving against the air currents and twisting as if it was alive.

As the sound of thousands of chitinous wings grew louder, Stephan saw several of the assembled ponies react with revulsion. He quickly gave up trying to count the sheer volume of drones descending towards them, and instead focused his attention on a second approaching army...marching along the ground with all the rigid discipline of a roman legion, an advancing wall of black and white stripes.

Luna gave her Guards a short look and they pulled themselves together into a defensive formation. Of course Stephan had already been briefed on the ‘Canterlot Wedding Invasion’, even from the aggressor herself. But the last thing he needed here was more bad blood.

He had already declared himself colour-blind to the racial politics of Equus; now he had to prove it.

Trixie on the other hoof looked positively giddy at the prospect of meeting her old mentor again, even though she well understood that this was NOT the same Queen Chrysalis she had studied under. The old Changeling Queen died on Earth. And that was a fact.

‘Speak of the devil, and she shall appear. God save us from the queen,’ thought Stephan.

Her own wings buzzing, eyes narrowed in their usual expression of half-lidded contempt, Chrysalis hovered towards the assembled leaders with two smaller Changelings at her side.

“Ah, Equestria…” she sighed melodramatically, landing with all the imperious arrogance of a returning conqueror. “How kind of you to welcome me back.”

“Still as slatternly as ever…” Stephan heard Luna mutter under her breath, but the two monarchs still greeted each other with all due formality...with, admittedly, considerably more snark.

As the zebras marched into the parade ground their own leader stepped forward. He was a bit bigger than most males of his race, with a scattering of sandy red mixed into the monochrome patterns of his fur. Gold rings pierced his ears and nose, and a silken robe was tied loosely around his body and shoulder, leaving plenty of room for freedom of movement.

At his side was an assistant who also wore rings in her ears, as well as several larger ones around her neck. She had a fit, toned physique and a spiky mohawk mane with red streaks running through it. Both of them had the posture of professionals, but the male bore about him an air of wisdom won at great cost. Like so many others Stephan knew, there was something about his eyes that told the hard tale of his life...

The Zebras bowed slightly in front of the Princess. “Princess Luna. It is an honor to receive your welcome.”

Luna returned that bow, with considerably more enthusiasm than she had with Chrysalis. “Rise, Shaman Quagga. To see a good friend again is always wonderful.”

The two zebras smiled and turned to Stephan and Trixie. Quagga sized them both up for the briefest of moments.

“And you must be the new human I have heard of...” he said at last. “And his renowned pony helpmate.”

“Welcome your Excellency!” Stephan saluted. “I am one of the humans. My name is Major Stephan Bauer. And this is indeed my second, Leutnant Lulamoon.”

“Ah, so you are the one they call Bauer…” Chrysalis trilled, her limpid eyes wandering over his form. “So you are the one who met my counterpart then?”

“Yes Your Majesty. We found her in poor health, poisoned by the tainted love of the Solar Empire’s slaves. We did what we could to prolong her life, but it wasn’t enough to heal her.”

Chrysalis looked at him for a few long seconds before she opened her mouth again. When she did speak, her voice was low, and her expression almost sorrowful.

Stephan took a long moment to find the right words to tell her, finding the sight of fangs inside her pony-esque mouth unnerving.

“She was kind of crazy,” he admitted. “If only a little bit. And a bit of a megalomaniac. Liked to think that the world turned around her. And she was always trying to find herself a nice snack in form of a loving couple.”

‘Like that one time she hid outside Marcus and Cheerilee’s quarters during their ‘private time’... poor mare was stoned for two days straight after that overdose… and that time she snuck into our bathroom and waited for us to ‘get in the mood’... we heard her from the bedroom! She was moaning louder than US!’

From the flush on Trixie’s face she was remembering the same thing. But the Queen's eyes had narrowed the longer Stephan had spoken, most likely not finding his testimony to her liking. Before she could complain he opened his mouth again.

“But she also had a caring side to her as well. She helped where she could and was surprisingly good with children. It made no difference to her if you were pony or human. For her, everyone’s love was equal. The old monster was one of our own, and tried to be to us what she was to her old hive.”

Stephan paused briefly. “And she was a very close friend to myself and Leutnant Lulamoon.”

Chrysalis did not speak while she processed what he had just told her. From experience Stephan suspected few knew her beyond the ‘monstrous queen of the hive’. Beneath all of her schemes and casual cruelty was a mother who wanted to support her children. She would walk over corpses for her hive. Literally.

“Thank you, human,” Chrysalis said at last, dismissively turning her attention upon a defiant Trixie.

“You will address me as Queen Chrysalis, or Your Majesty…” the hive mother replied cooly.

“When you’ve earned it,” Trixie responded with equal cool. “The other Queen Chrysalis…my Queen Chrysalis, taught me to become invisible to the Tyrant’s forces, to wrap myself in illusion so that I could walk among them with impunity. Thanks to her, I was able to accomplish many a mission behind enemy lines. Without her and the Major’s help, I would not even be alive right now. When you’ve shown even a scrap of her character, then I’ll address you by her title.”

"Oh, just delightful!" Chrysalis replied, with surprising amusement. She leaned in close to Trixie, as if trying to swallow the mare in her green eyes, and inhaled deeply, sensually. Stephen felt one of his eyebrows cock itself.

And then Chrysalis, face flushed as if she had just sampled a particularly good vintage of wine, began to howl with laughter.

“You loved her… how delicious… oh you are an interesting mare," she hooted, cold eyes focusing like lasers on Trixie. “Very well then, I’ll play your game, little mare… and see if I can turn what love you feel for her, to myself.”

Trixie closed her eyes, huffing once before giving a very haughty smirk of her own. “Perhaps in time you shall, or you can be left wondering how such a being like yourself was accepted by all. This… little game of yours, will do you no favors in the long run. If you wish to live long enough to be accepted in even a civil setting, be wary of who you act up around. Especially to the humans.”

“Oh, you are a treat…” Chrysalis tittered, coming right up to Trixie and grinding their foreheads together. “If you want to play, let’s play. When this is all over I think I’ll keep you around as a pet, little pony.”

“Game. On.” Trixie hissed back, a smile every bit as wicked as Chrysalis’s own on her face.

“Your Majesty, please!” snapped Luna. Still laughing in malicious glee, Chrysalis pulled away from the smirking unicorn, trotting with a swing of her haunches back to face Luna. She completely missed the raised eyebrow of Stephan, who silently wondered if there was more to the conversation than let on, and if he was somehow going to be a part of it in the end.

“Well you must be Princess Woona, what a delight to you meet you at last. I didn’t have the honor last time… do tell, where is your sunny sister? Her absence strikes me as odd during such a troubling time as this. Where is she? Or is she now the one who always turns up late for the main event?”

With a flicker of baleful green magic Chrysalis morphed into a picture perfect likeness of Celestia.

“Hello everypony!” she declared, one hoof held to her chest. “Have I missed anything?”

“Stop it, Chrysalis. Now is not the time for such foalishness,“ Luna said sternly, before smirking. “Besides, your guise is fallacious. My royal sister has nowhere near such a trim posterior!”

‘Did she just say Celestia is a fatass?’ Stephan thought with amusement. "Well, she’s got a fine meaty looking body, I’ll give her that. Note to self, never tell Trixie you think Celestia is sexy."

“You sound jealous, little Woona…” ‘Celestia’ sneered, before another flash of green left Luna staring at a mirror image of herself.

“Oh, woe is me!” the fake princess of the moon bewailed, turning to examine her own butt. “How many treats must I sneak from the royal dessert trolley before I possess such shapely glutes!“

Luna was particularly steaming right now as her doppelganger spun back to face her and stuck out a mocking tongue.

“Oh, get a sense of humor Moonbutt! Besides, I bet all the stallions, even some of the mares, find you very desirable indeed.“

She leaned in and once again sniffed. “Oh yes… you’ve had quite a few lovely admirers in your time, you dirty little filly! And is that human I taste… oh my!”

“If you are done tarnishing the reputation and likenesses of my royal sister and myself…” Luna sighed deeply. “Perhaps we can move onto affairs of state.”

“As opposed to affairs of delicious, fattening cake for thy boney royal backside?” Chrysalis sneered, earning her a scowl from Luna. Satisfied in getting in one final barb the Queen reverted back to her normal form, a small pout on her face. “Fine, I’ll have fun later, maybe with a handsome male human?”

Stephan found himself the unwelcome object of her attentions, the changeling queen flashing him a lecherous grin.

“We could tie her up and just leave her in the closet while we have our own time together,” Trixie muttered thoughtfully. “She is really just a big prude you know. You know how flustered our Chrysalis got when she walked in on Dinky and Pipsqueak in the middle of some innocent petting.”

For the first time, Chrysalis found herself unable to retort at what she had just been called. “A p-prude?!”

Stephan shook his head. On his other side Luna was disconsolately prodding her haunch and muttering quietly that “my backside is not boney…”

In the back of Stephan’s mind, Discord was howling with laughter and spraying popcorn everywhere as he listened in to everyone’s thoughts.

“I am grieved that Princess Celestia could not be here,” Shaman Quagga lamented, kindly pulling events back on course. “I hoped that I could share a fine tea I brought her.”

“If you wish, then we could share it. I only hear wonderful things about your teas,” Hedwig offered with a grin which the Shaman returned.

“I actually think we’re almost complete,” Stephan said. “Queen Chrysalis, Shaman Quagga, your place is over there.”

“What, what? No show for them?” Discord petulantly asked from within the depths of the soldier's mind.

‘Still useful to know. You have a thing for griffons, drakainas, and the princesses...if Equestria hadn’t come along I think you would have ended up in jail… Tell us the truth. You’re a Furry! Le Gasp!’

‘Shut up! There is a very clear difference between such things! And stop reading my mind! And… what is that sound.’

Distantly, rising over Discord’s glee, he could hear the sound of bells. He wasn’t the only one to notice it.

Stephan scoured the land all around. “No, I hear it too. It sounds like sleigh bells…”

“That would be the reindeer,” she told him without hesitation, an excited smile replacing the sour expression Chrysalis had left her wearing.

He did, and awestruck, Major Stephan Bauer witnessed last new additions to his army flying towards him.

Trixie was the only one who could actually understand what Stephan just said, thanks to her time learning German.

Every foal in Equestria knew the legends of the Reindeer, the masters of the distant north who lived in homes and palaces carved from fire-ice and living rock. They were said to be deep and powerful mystics; raised under skies that burned with the energy of the Aurora Thaurealis, they possessed insights into natural powers few scholars could match. Theirs was an entire culture founded upon magic, a civilization of scryers and seers and workers of miracles. They rarely waged war or practiced conquest, and their great renown was as vassals of peace, and the bearers of gifts.

And once a year, they showed that to the whole world, bringing the gift of joy to every corner of Equus. Hearthswarming might have been an Equestrian holiday, but each culture on the planet had a counterpart holy night. And on those silent nights, when all was still and the snow lay deep upon the ground, the sound of sleighbells was heard across the land, as the reindeer raced across the sky, bringing hopes and dreams to life.

She had stayed awake on those nights as a filly, hoping to meet a child of the Adlaborn face-to-face, but her young eyes had always fallen heavily asleep as soon as she heard the merry tinkling of their bells overhead.

Everyone watched in enraptured awe as the reindeer appeared in the sky. They did not fly by magic of horn or wing, but literally ‘walked’ upon the air, as free and weightless as clouds, their hooves trailing dust of the aurora as they thundered silently across the sphere of the heavens.

And at their head, leading this herd celestial, was their immortal king, a majestic, primal stag. His coat was as red as the first light of dawn and blood on the morning snow, and his mane and beard were silver as fresh ice. He wore no crown, for nature had anointed him with a helm of state, proud antlers as gnarled and whorled as carved wood. Silver bells were strung along their length, and they shimmered with the same aurora light as his hooves.

Trixie felt a sob catch in her throat, and tears stinging at her eyes. Where she had come from, all of the reindeer had been put to the Tyrant’s sword. Her armies had had literally killed joy. Seeing these angels racing down out of the sky now, reminded the unicorn mare that they had to win this war, for the sake of everybody, everypony and everyone else.

“Who… who is that…” she heard Stephan whisper, and in that instant she knew he felt the same way as her. Seeing this, for a moment he was no longer a beaten, worn soldier, but a child on Christmas Eve.

“That’s Sint Erklass… the starstrider...” she smiled with soft, teary joy. “On Earth you called him Santa Claus…”

“For you, neither were unicorns, griffons, or dragons, until a few years ago,” she said, slipping her hoof into his hand. “You’ve seen the horrors of Equus, Stephan… I’m so happy for you to see its beauty at last.”

He sighed, and wiped away his own tears, "This other universe stuff is going to mess with my head. But you’re right Trixie. It is beautiful..."

Sint Erklass landed in front of Stephan and the others without a final flourish of bells, sparks of rainbow light flashing from his hooves as they clattered onto the flagstones. He was definitely taller than Stephan, even bigger than Celestia, almost certainly the largest quadruped he had ever seen aside from the dragons, but somehow he wasn’t ‘looking down’ on him, nor did he seem to expect Stephan to bow, praise or genuflect. It was as if they were two equals who had just met as friends.

Stephan had the sudden urge to go out for a drink with him… maybe a mead hall would fit the bill.

The stag bowed his head low, immense muscles coiling beneath his pelt like boulders churning in a sack. His antlers were enormous, almost like tree branches. He had a titanic presence, strong, but comforting and kind, as was his voice.

“Welcome to Equus, Stephan Bauer. It is a honor to finally meet a child of Earth in the flesh.”

Stephan couldn’t help but return the bow. Mentally he desperately fumbled for the right title by which to address the reindeers’ leader, and finally latched onto the only word he felt appropriate.

“Thank you, Ehrwürdiger. This is an honor for me, and the dream of every child of Earth.”

The stag gave him a broad smile and lifted his head again, looking over the group until his gaze settled upon Luna. His smile if anything grew wider, and he threw out a hoof.

Stephan might have expected a solemn exchange of formalities, or some more ritualised brown-nosing. To his utter surprise Luna, with tears in her eyes, threw herself forward and buried herself in the reindeer’s embrace, either forgetting the vast crowd present, or simply not caring.

“She was raised in his court as a youth, along with Celestia…” Trixie whispered to him, her hoof still clasping his palm. “That’s another one of our Hearthswarming tales. Clover the Clever sent them into his care when Discord came to power. When the two princesses were ladies grown, Sint Erklass brought them back to reclaim Equestria and end the days of chaos...they were his gift, his first gift to Equestria. They’re practically family.”

‘Hmph! Take a beach vacation in the middle of Canterlot, do a little magic and suddenly I am the bad guy and ruling over the pony race with an iron claw.’ Discord muttered ‘I will have you know that I put everything back and left! I only ever came back because of those two. Bah!’

While Stephan argued with his mental stowaway, Luna and Sint broke their reunion and bowed low to one another. The Princess of the moon was practically radiant, her mane and eyes shining with stellar light.

“Sint Erklass, thank you for blessing us with your presence. It is most wonderful to see you again at last, Mein Pate.”

“As it is to see you restored to you true, wonderful self, dearest heart…” he beamed, eyes twinkling. “For a long millenium you watched over us by night… but for me it was torture to see you emblazoned upon your lunar charge. To have you here again, in the flesh, strong of spirit and heart, is the greatest blessing that Equestria could have ever received.”

Then his expression darkened. “I feel we will have need of such blessings. I understand you have spoken at length with Major Bauer and other representatives of Earth. Tell me, is the horror we have scryed from our distant homeland true?”

Luna’s own expression turned black, and she looked up at her godfather and spoke in a voice that promised blood and thunder.

“It is true. The treachery of the beast claiming Celestia’s name appears to know no bounds.”

Sint took a single horrified step back. He choked out, “All of them? Every stag and doe and fawn? She killed them all?” he spoke in a low voice.

Luna nodded, and the two of them shared a black glance. “The Kingdom is naught but ash and melted stone.” Sint shed a tear.

“Oh Celestia… dear sweet Celestia. How could a soul as bright as yours fall so low?”

“It was not entirely her fault, Godfather…” Luna replied, resting a single comforting hoof upon his chest. “That bag, made by that which sought to destroy all, corrupted her.”

“We were aware of the rift in space as soon as Marcus Renee arrived in your kingdom. Elsa and our best mages were at length able to peer beyond the veil into this new world… and reported horrors beyond belief. We had all hoped that they were somehow wrong…”

Given that Luna tried to figure a way to see if there was any survivors, she would know, since the worlds were linked. Spykoran grunted in agreement, breaking into their conversation.

"You were not wrong, greymane. I know the taste of Tirek’s power, and it bleeds through the portals from Earth like a vile stench. We are dealing with something of indescribable evil."

There was a deeper tone in his volcanic syllables, of immense personal pain and rage. Spykoran had committed the worst crime possible in an attempt to prevent Tirek’s possible comeback, and now knew that in at least one world, even that had not been enough… the beast of old had returned, corrupted a nation, and turned its depravity loose on two whole worlds.

A heavy silence fell, and Spykoran laid one immense forepaw onto that of his daughter. In that gesture Stephan saw the depths of his grief. He knew that Wyndblade’s counterpart, and every other dragon on the alternate Equestria had met the same fate as the reindeer. In that world, Spykoran’s desperate act of containment had failed, as utterly and totally as it was possible.

That realisation broke the spell that Sint’s arrival had cast. They couldn’t afford to be children or foals now… not when actual children had been killed, slaughtered, by the millions.

“The Dragon King is right. And it falls to us, we gathered together here, to bring that evil to an end.”

He strode forward, drawing Sint’s attention back to him. They locked eyes quietly, studying one another. Stephan felt like Sint was looking far beyond his eyes and into his soul. Yet it didn’t perturb him; in fact, Sint’s comforting aura was honest and respectful. Stephan sensed that the second he asked, the Reindeer would have pulled back out of his examination.

“I see a great sadness in you, Stephan. Pain, and conflict,” Sint said to him with a sorrow that was almost angelic.

Stephan held eye contact for a while before his control over his vocal cords returned.

“I know, and that’s something I need to prepare your best stags and does for.”

Sint rose his head again and looked over the reindeers who followed him. Many of them were still young, barely just adults themselves. Most of the ponies and humans gathered were not much older. To waste such young lives clearly saddened him.

“No, not for that. But I can teach them to survive long enough to figure out how to live on after that war.”

“They will need it.” Sint hummed a bit and gave Stephan a nod. “We have not possessed a standing army in centuries. All you see before you are volunteers, who have put themselves forward for this. I entrust them to your care, Major. Please help them become good soldiers...and then help those who survive to come back from that.”

“Thank you for your trust,” Stephan replied, feeling the weight of his burden growing.

Sint turned over towards Luna and gave her a nod. “I hope we can enjoy a true family reunion sometime soon, Luna. Maybe with your dear sister present as well.”

“I can barely wait,” Luna said with barely-concealed anticipation. “And I know Celestia feels the same way.”

Sint walked over to his volunteers and marshalled them beside the zebras. He didn’t even flinch as he passed the Changelings, even giving Chrysalis a warm smile as he passed her, with the result that her eyes fluttered for an instant before she looked away in embarrassment.

“I read his description, but to see him in person… damn...” Stephan said in quiet reverence..

‘Eh, he’s a bit too holly-jolly for my tastes, not to mention boring,’ Discord groused, nonchalantly waving a mental claw.

“Oh be quiet!’ Stephan cut him off. ‘We have far more important stuff to worry about. Like the fate of our very existence for example.’

As Discord retreated back into sullen silence, Stephan glanced and Luna and exchanged a nod.

Hands folded behind him, Stephan walked to the front of his new recruits, head high and the Equestrian and PHL representatives standing proudly at his side.

“Welcome, soldiers of Equus. As you know, I am Major Stephan Bauer of Earth. Currently, my home is under attack by an alternate Equestria, led by a monstrous copy of Celestia.“

“When the other Equestria came to Earth, they initially seemed kindness itself, lending out a hoof of friendship. What they offered was a magical potion; that was claimed could cure all ills, with the only cost being our human form. All those who drank of it, became healthy and happy ponies. It seemed all too good to be true, and it was. The potion not only changed their bodies, it also wiped away their minds, broke their will and bound their souls to the mad queen, Celestia.

“Not content with that, this ‘Solar Tyrant’ also generated the Barrier, an expanding magical wall that is consuming our world. Everything we have created, it destroys, vaporizing our history and accomplishments and leaving nothing, not even dust behind. She wants to transform us into her ‘perfect’ vision of a pony, nothing more than an unquestioning, mindless automaton that praises her power. These creatures, these enslaved ‘newfoals’, now gladly throw themselves upon our weapons, faster than we can kill them. I will stress, these weapons are not spears or swords, nor the flintlocks you are familiar with, but automatic projectile firearms that can put out hundreds, even thousands of rounds per minute, and still they overwhelm us.

“That is what we face, a monster so mad that she wastes lives by the millions, just so she can continue her acquisition of power. It is a genocide on a level never before witnessed.”

There was a hushed gasp at the word ‘genocide’, and Stephan immediately amended that statement to drive the point home.

“No, not genocide, xenocide. The elimination of an entire species… Now, many of you have fought wars, haven’t you? Interspecies battles, skirmishes over territory rights…”

He looked around, searching for someone that would understand what he was talking about. Several of the more war-like species turned to one another, agreeing somewhat hesitantly to his questions.

“Okay. Well, get whatever you know of war, and toss it out of your head. Everything you’ve ever learned? Unlearn it! I’m not going to lie to you - this is conflict beyond your dreams and nightmares. It’s not a skirmish for a small town, or a field. Our battlefields are cities that dwarf your greatest metropolii. Nearly half of my world is gone, including my home country. All wiped out. And what's left of us world is struggling together in this fight. Every city, fighting for its very soul, and the souls of those that dwell within. Cities whose populations number in the millions."

Stephan saw some of the stiffen up at that, no doubt insulted by the prospect that such a community could exist.

"And in these battles, we are forced to fight former humans. Friends, loved ones, even our own... children."

Stephan paused on this. Not really for them, but for himself. Sint was studying him closely, possibly seeing his internal struggle. Even Luna, who still don’t know the finer details about his past, seemed to notice his hesitation.

“We have not been able to count all of our fallen. Too many have been lost in the chaos,” Stephan continued, struggling to read this unpleasant bit of information. “But… the death toll is estimated to be over 2.5 billion.”

“Yes,” Stephan said. “Billions. It is truly a war for the survival of our species. Not just our lives, but our memories...if we lose, there will be no ruins or cenotaphs to mark our passing. All of our many cultures, our entire history, will die with us. And although I am sorry to say this, the same fate now probably awaits you.”

“Yes, your own survival is on the line now, because the Solar Tyrant almost certainly won’t just stop with Earth and humanity. She has gone after all challenges to her authority and crushed them under her hoof. Peaceful protests are shattered, put down with lethal force, and virtually all of the ponies of her land are either too brainwashed or too afraid to want to fight. She slaughtered the reindeer and dragons, and reduced what remains of the givens to adject penury. Her armies are strong, her power immense…but we have something she doesn’t...each other.”

“In her arrogance, she seeks to stand alone. In our desperation, we will stand together, and prove that we stand stronger! She has destroyed all that does not meet her standard of purity. We will welcome all who wish to oppose her, and make their strengths our own. The army we are building will fight with the fire of the dragons and the passion of the griffons! Horn, hoof, hand and talon raised together in defiance...yes, we need all the help we can get, but with that help, we will triumph! And so, I thank you all for coming to aid us in this darkest hour. Without your help, I know that mankind would have been extinguished, forgotten forever.“

His eyes wandered over the ranks of creatures…soldiers, standing in formation before him.

“So, I ask you - will you be a part of this army. Will you help us? Will you let me train you, and learn from you, to become all we can be? Will you stand together as we unite science, skill, magic and faith in a single campaign to cast out this darkness? Will you follow me like you followed your leaders? Will you give it your all?”

No one said anything. How could they? What he just said was a pretty hard pill to swallow, an immense standard to meet. Stephan remembered the first batches of ponies he had trained with in the PHL. How they all had second thoughts. But he knew there was always the one who broke the ice for the others. Someone would cheer, or salute, and from there…

“HORSEAPPLES!” someone shouted, smashing that expectation. "So, we help you and then what? You’ll just turn on us and kill us all! Human, I think your species is better off going extinct!"

Stephan was barely able to process these words before Shining Armor descended upon the Royal Guards like a rabid dog. Whoever the dissenter was, their voice came from somewhere in there.

“WHO SAID THAT!” the Captain roared, his horn flaring to life as he stormed down the line, voice magically amplified. “WHO IS THE SMART FLANK THAT OPENED HIS TRAP!”

"I did, sir!" a grey pegasus guardspony answered, slightly sweating as Shining Armor teleported before him, eyes filled with anger.

“Well then, Sergeant!” Shining Armor growled out as he got in his face, “What in the pits of Tartarus was that?!”

“Speaking the truth, sir!” Icewind answered, his eyes straight ahead. Despite the sweat on his brow, his tone was defiant, self-certain.

“Doctor Catseye, Professor of Anthropology. I’ve read her academic publications on humanity at length, and she has nothing good to report on them.”

There blew an ill wind. He could hear Luna muttering Catseye’s name under her breath, planning something no doubt.

“And you listened to that idiot!?” Shining yelled at the sergeant, and Icewind’s stony face finally broke, the pegasus guard scowling back at his captain.

“If I’m an idiot for trusting a leading academic, then you’re a foal for taking these monsters at their word, sir!” Icewind growled out, causing many of his fellow guards to blink in surprise. “Or did you forget that one of them attacked and nearly killed your sister, sir!”

“You are out of line…” Shining gritted his teeth, only for Icewind to scoff and step out of formation.

“No! I am the one thinking clearly here! Doctor Catseye provided unquestionable proof that the humans are a race of barbarians! Stories of our neighbours’ animal viciousness have been passed down into our history from out of legend, but that beast standing there comes from a race that makes their savagery look like colts at play! Their history is endless war, their politics an eternal waltz of treachery! You are leading us into an alliance with the avatars of evil and chaos on par with Discord himself!”

‘Oh wow, I’m actually kind of hurt by that.’ Discord commented, his voice filled with sarcasm. Stephan was less concerned about the draconequus’ wounded pride than that of the other foreign delegates, most of whom were now displaying black looks at Icewind’s unfortunate choice of words. Stephan knew this type, a racist (speciest?) who had found a meaty new bone to gnaw.

He also knew that left unchecked their toxic words could quickly prove infectious.

“Oh! And look, there he is!” Icewind snapped, pointing a hoof at the silent Stephan. “The enemy himself! Marring our land, our sacred soil, with his disgusting touch!”

Icewind was on a roll, the fervor in his growing speech at an all time high. Worse yet, the poison was beginning to spread. Seeing several other guards muttering amongst themselves, spurred on by Icewind’s words Stephan opened his mouth to defend his race, only to be silenced by Luna.

And with a flap of her wings, the alicorn princess swooped over to plant herself firmly at the side of the furious Shining Armor. Icewind, caught up in his own tirade, did not notice her until too late, at which point he cut off in a terrified squeal.

“...practically invaded by beasts and animals! And furthermore, we have the Changelings here as well! Monsters that attacked our fair city! And we’ve welcomed them here! Invited them in! Now we’re being told we have to fight alongside them! Why! Can you tell me that, Capt-Princess!!

“You will salute your diarch, ser-” Shining Armor begin, only to be cut off as Luna lifted a single wing in front of his mouth.

Then, she silently made eye contact with Icewind, returning his fire with nothing but a cool gaze. If this had been several weeks prior, Stephan suspected she would have busted the eardrums of every being within a mile of herself for such language. After all, to many ponies with an oddly selective view of history, she herself was one of Equestria’s greatest terrors of old, the Nightmare in the Moon. He understood how hard her reintegration into society had been, guessed at the inner demons she felt. But he also knew that her experiences in Boston had all but exorcised those demons...battling with the Tyrant had not only allowed her to vent her hurt and frustration, but had revealed to her an evil against which her own sins paled into nothingness.

For the first time, he supposed the lunar diarch no longer saw herself as living in Nightmare Moon’s shadow. Good for her.

“You do not trust me, Sergeant Icewind” Luna said at last, “I can see it in your eyes.”

“No, I do not!” he snapped, taking refuge in audacity. “First, Princess Cadenza disappears to take charge of some empire we’ve never heard off! Then Princess Celestia retreats from public view to be ‘Healed’, and finally you jump on board and immediately announce that you’re throwing us into war!”

Face flushed, Icewind pointing a tembling hoof at her. “Your true self shows even now, Nightmare Moon!”

Stephan gave Luna a side along look, for a moment fearing she might just fly off the handle. But, to his everlasting pride, she only gave a small giggle, shaking her head in amusement at the accusation.

“Are you done?” the princess asked, her smile becoming slightly frigid. “I find it amusing, Icewind, that given your expressed fear of anything that is not a pony, that you would accuse me so openly of treason and collaboration, in front of an audience comprised of every race of Equus, plus several of these ‘chaotic, evil’ humans, not all of them necessarily in the best mental state. Aren’t you not frightened of what will happen?”

Stephan expected the pegasus to be cowed from standing before a being that could be called a deity in all but name, but Icewind’s fear melted away into misplaced anger.

“I speak only the truth, Mare in the Moon,” he whispered, prompting Luna to roll her eyes at the foalish title. “You needed a means to defeat Celestia and the Elements. So you tempted the rest of the world and promised the beasts power in return for overthrowing Equestria as vengeance for your banishment! Freeing Discord wasn’t enough for you, was it? You needed true monsters, so you brought forth humans, the most vicious of all! But you couldn’t control him, so you’re their patsy! Their puppet, dancing to their will, traitor!”

‘You know… In a crazy sort of way, this plan of his makes sense. Wow, this guy is very good at thinking up evil conspiracies on the fly!’ Discord said.

“Say your piece, Icewind.” Luna said when he had finished, her voice carrying a dangerous tone. “I will allow you to leave once you’ve gotten this madness of your chest, but I want that armor off your back once you leave Canterlot Barracks. No pony such as you can be allowed to serve in the most honorable Guard founded to serve and protect my royal sister.”

Luna dismissed him with a flick of her wing, and Shining Armor stepped forward, fire in his eyes and a gleeful sneer on his face.

“Sergeant, you are hereby dishonourably dismissed, with full cessation of all rights and privileges as of this instant. Your pension funds will be returned to you…minus the cost of wear on your equipment, and we’ll even toss back any money you put into the squad betting pool. NOW STRIP!”

Icewind looked like he just got punched in the gut, but steeled himself as he ripped off his helmet and tossed it aside.

“Listen to me, ponies!” he cried out as he continued to remove his uniform. “These humans come carrying war and death, trying to escape the fate that this other Equestria righteously deemed fit to cast upon them! They have allied themselves with with Discord and the Changelings, attacked our fair Sun Princess, and now wish to place this lunar patsy upon her throne, a lesser light that can never match her unyielding sun! No! I wish to defend Equestria, but I will not fight for these creatures - monsters wielding weapons that casually slaughter by the hundreds!”

“The good Doctor Catseye was right, mark my words! These are warmongers, killers who value life as expendable. They’ve just come to us because their crimes have finally bitten them in the flank. I say let them fall and allow a new future take their place. Who is coming with me?”

For a long moment, no guard member moved, but Stephan could see doubt rising in the ranks. He turned to Luna, giving a small nod to her as he stepped forward. Time for his own form of triage.

“If you want to go, then go. I have no use for cowards or doubters! When any of you guards signed up, did you think you’d be playing as soldiers, getting an easy ride?” he barked out, before turning to salute Luna.

“Your princess stands before you. She has fought for my people, and I trust and serve her, just as all you ponies have sworn to to do."

“This is your one chance, leave and no repercussions will fall. Just know this, you turn your back on both Princess Luna and Princess Celestia themselves if you do so. Leave now, and you are the worst thing that a soldier can be - an oathbreaker, a deserter with no honor!”

“Lies and transparent justification! Come on, I am not dying for these savages!” Icewind screeched, throwing off the last of his armor. He frowned for an instant at the pathetic pile of brass, then turned to leave. Shining scowled at the retreating pegasus, his glower deepening as more guards stepped out and pulled off their armor and left.

Luna and Stephan both sighed as nearly thirty guards stripped and walked off, some looking regretful, but the majority of them glaring daggers at Stephan and his troupe. The humans and ponies standing together returned those glares with equal vigor.

“Well, this isn’t going bite us in the ass later,” one of the veterans sighed to the man standing beside him, Isaac Acevedo.

“Don’t worry, Grimnebulin. They sabotage this good streak we’ve been having, I’ll rip them apart,” Acevedo replied.

“I think I killed that guy Icewind in Paris,” Vinyl growled after them. “I don’t remember it very well, but if I gouge out his eyes it will probably come back to me.”

“Want me to take them out now and save you the trouble?” a Russian woman with a sniper rifle strapped to her back asked, not joking.

“Stay your hand, please…” Luna said, returning to their side. “They must do as their consciences demand. To punish them for that, or compel their obedience by threat of force, is to become our enemy.”

Stephan nodded at that wise, if unwelcome sentiment. Shining Armor on the other hand was shaking in fury, glaring molten steel at the retreating ponies.

“Cowards and traitors, the lot of them,” he muttered, his horn sparking in response to fury.

“The Labyrinth take their souls!” Warlord Darkhoof said in agreement, swinging his battleaxe with a worryingly contemplative look on his face.

"Forget them! Luna’s right,” Stephan said, trying to cool the atmosphere. “And we’ve got work to do. There are more than enough present actually ready and willing to stand against the darkness. Its time we made them soldiers!"

Leading the way for the rest of the group, Stephan brought them back to the head end of the parade ground.

Fifteen soldiers, mostly humans and ponies, but with one diamond dog among their number, stepped out of formation and lined up behind Stephan, a small smile on his face at he witnessed their their speed and precision.

“You promised ‘Great and Powerful’?” he whispered. “Time to bring the show home.”

“Did you every doubt me?” she answered slyly, before winking. “My little mouse?”

He shivered with excitement. In that wink he had seen a flash of her shapeshifting magic, and for a second her eyes were those of a predatory bird...or a griffon.

“Races of Equus!” Stephan proclaimed, as Trixie wound up a spell. “May I present fifteen of Earth’s greatest heroes!”

There was a flash and bang as Trixie conjured up a wall of smoke behind the podium, and then a dazzling light show as she projected giant images of himself and the PHL contingent onto it.

They looked tall, strong, and invincible. Or, in other words, Great and Powerful.

The multispecies army watched in awe as the veterans stood tall and proud, fifty-foot high duplicates of themselves rising behind them. The ponies, Redheart, Vinyl Scratch and Allie Way among them, all wore the same uniform of kevlar tac-vests, emblazoned with the PHL’s emblem, a white-on-blue lyre over a wreath, but the gathered bipeds had wildly different uniforms and personal standards of grooming.

A balding Israeli man with a full beard and a metal prosthesis for an arm. He stood at attention beside the diamond dog, who wore an eyepatch where a mighty scar cut across one side of his face.

A woman whose Alice-frame backpack bore all manners of technological odds and ends. To Stephan’s eyes, she looked a bit like a Ghostbuster. The Russian sniper loomed next to her, hard as ice.

Another male, dark-skinned and stocky, shouldering a medical bag and cast in the shadow of a giant of a man wielding an equally immense heavy weapon, huge both in size and caliber. A male with a fine stetson hat, red hair only on one half of his head and terrible burn scars, carrying a short, heavy rifle that appeared to have three barrels.

"The fifteen you see behind me are the best of the best! I didn’t train them all, and most learnt their skills on the battlefield. But I can speak for them all. Each and every one of these ponies were civilians in the other Equestria, who defected to fight beside and support us. By contrast, most of their human companions come from their respective nations’ armed forces, bringing with them the pride and history of those services to our cause!"

“Most importantly, these fifteen represent some of most brilliant and creative engineers, strategists and tacticians. Among them are weapons experts, medical geniuses, gifted magicians and infiltration specialists. They are people who have shown their ability to adapt in a rapidly changing environment, to make the most of disparate assets and deploy them to their best effect.”

“These fifteen will be your senior trainers, acting below me. But first, they will be evaluating you, studying your native battlefield tactics and abilities, and learning how best to train you for the conflict ahead. They will be your teachers, and your students. And I will not tolerate any being who makes light of their accomplishments or abilities. They have found out first-hand how to survive in a world as wild as untamed as the Everfree or Badlands, while in a state of war. If you want to survive in that world, only they can teach you."

“I cannot make this any clearer,” Stephan said. “We are not on an exercise. We are not here for pleasure. The fate of not just our world, but yours and countless others hang in the balance. Running is not an option, and neither is retreating, because for every second we are off the field, the stronger the darkness gets. This alliance is the first and only line of defense.”

“But we can’t just throw you into the fray,” he continued. “We cannot waste this opportunity, and more importantly we cannot waste you. There are people and ponies in the world who could fight to the bitter end and give as good as they take, I don’t doubt that. But we can’t muster an army like this again. The fate of three worlds - ours, yours, and the Equus that evil has usurped - hang in the balance. And so, if we must wait and prepare our strength, then we must make every second count.”

Another shower of sparks from Trixie was the prompt for the ‘Blue Belle Cousins’, Vinyl Scratch and Allie Way to step forward, her stage magic adding a glamour of light to them both. Even without giant doppelgangers backing them up, the two of them looked amazing in their custom battle-saddles.

“These two mares wield weapons both mechanical, and magical...you’re going to need to do the same. For those of you who possess thumbs and opposable digits, human weaponry will be simple to master. Those of you who do not, will soon see that humanity is very, very clever when it comes to overcoming a problem.”

Without any need for a prompt, the two cousins activated their packs, which seemed to come to life, barrels extending forward and magical HUD visors shimmering into view over their eyes. They looked far more threatening as the cousins crouched in a battle position, a vicious smile on their faces.

“And when cleverless alone is not enough, you’ll see how overwhelming force can remove that problem!”

Both of the cousins fired over the crowds’ heads, launching flash-bang grenades and magical charges that burst and flashed in the air above. The bass cannon Vinyl had grafted to her assault saddle (the things were modular, of course, but nobody had expected she’d do that) blazed, electronic music issuing forth from its speakers, and the hidden speakers they’d placed nearby. Yet, oddly, Stephan could hear a cello in between the electronic beats.

His audience of recruits no longer looked scared or intimidated. Now they were excited, riled, and intrigued.

As magical lights, old-fashioned fireworks, and the bright lights of Vinyl’s wubs blazed in the sky, Stephan knew in that moment that he had them in the palm of his hand.

“That’s what we’re here for!” he wrapped it up. “Humans and ponies and all manner of others, working to help adapt you to our science, and us to your magic. We are the bridge between our worlds and cultures...and what we bring, is a harmony. Move out, everyone. Your training starts within the week!”

That should have been it, but before anyone could react, Trixie’s screen of stage smoke suddenly writhed and twisted into a familiar, chaotic shape.

"Oh my, my, my!" Discord applauded. "What a exit, what a show! But it’s lacking a punchline…”

With everyone staring up at the smokey avatar of the Lord of Chaos, Stephan drew a hand over his eyes.

‘Is this your masterpiece, Discord?’ he thought. ‘Your magnum opus?’

‘But of course Major...let me show you your new army’s ‘private quarters’...’

Unable to look away, Stephan instead sighed and folded his arms. High above, Discord had summoned into his huge paw a ball of crackling energy.

He snapped his talon, and the ball shot across the sky and came down in an empty river valley just to the north of the Canterhorn, landing just downstream of the Neighagra Falls.

As soon as the ball hit the ground it expanded, lightning and thunder exploding from it as it swelled to fill the sky. Rain poured down in waves, drenching the land with torrential force.

And then, like a tree sprouting after a drought, a giant metal beam erupted from the ground.

The beams grew higher and higher, stretching up into the sky. What came next looked like the unholy offspring of an earthquake and a tidal wave as the ground itself exploded into life, more beams bursting into bloom, even as the earth and rock caved in in oddly square spaces. Liquid concrete burst forth from cracks, (no, ‘crack’ wasn’t the right word, those were far too straight. They were seams...) filling in the holes to form something like foundations and cellars. Great canyons opened up between the checkerboard of scares, the concrete filtering into them, only for the canyons to close back up.

“Is that… You’re making a skyscraper? It’s too small for all of us,” one human said.

“And that’s not just any building…” Vinyl gasped, lowering her shades to better see. “That’s the damn Freedom Tower!”

It was happening all over the area. An entire city was growing before their eyes, almost organically, bricks and stones assembling together like building blocks set down by a giant colt or filly. The metaphor seemed apt when involving Discord, though.

‘Give me some credit, Major. I don’t use children’s toys! All of this is brought to you by the magic of Minecraft!’

The Neighagra River spontaneously redirected itself, writhing and coiling to surround the growing city, large bridges blooming to span the water’s flow and connecting the banks to a growing island on which the bulk of the new growth rested.

As the town grew - no, the city, for what town had buildings so huge, comparable only to the soaring heights of Manehattan, but in much greater numbers, something about the styles of architecture became apparent. The hints of Art Deco, Art Nouveau and Arts Beaux, the brick tenements… the incredibly tall skyscrapers…

“Well, shit, Vinyl’s right!” said one of the trainers, a stocky New Yorker named Abel Owens, “He grew it, I can’t believe he grew it. He grew-”

“Manhattan Island!” Stephan swore. “The whole of Manhattan…. I… can you do other places?”

“Give me a minute…” Discord strained out, sweat covering his head. Stephan could only assume this was a lot more complex than anyone like to think, but it must have been wonderfully chaotic.

‘Don’t you believe it… growing a field of candy canes? Easy. Spawning cotton candy chocolate rain clouds? Child’s play. Recreating a city in its entirety and NOT adding a sugar-frosted coating? Agony!’

With a final burst of energy, Discord poured his power forth and completed the complex spell.

“There!” he said, reappearing in normal scale dressed in a hard-hat and overalls. “That there’s a right fine bit of work, all up to spec. You just to let it finish itself off. It will be several days before the city has finished ‘cooking’ itself and the dough cools, but no worries, it is structurally stable… I think?”

The PHL stood stock still, watching as the city finally finished growing, some of them becoming a little misty-eyed at seeing such a familiar sight before them. Stephan knew how they felt. New York had come to represent strength of unity in trying times, after the Fall of Washington, it had become the functioning heart of America, and a sign to the world that humanity was not down and out.

“It’s up to you, New York...New Yooooork!” Discord crooned, holding a pink cigarette to his lips and inhaling deeply before blowing out a cloud of flower-heads. “I spent a lot of time in various versions of the Big Apple, and I figured you might like it a backup copy.”

He paused and chuckled. “Granted, I may have… missed certain things, there may be buildings missing or some you’ve never seen before… I think I relocated Madison Square Gardens to Central Park and merged the original Penn station with Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill’s redevelopment plans, because marble and glass go together so beautifully...cut the Death Star out of TriBeCa too, but no one will miss that...and you’ll be happy to know that I have eliminated every Chuck E. Cheese franchise and Freddy Fazbear Pizzeria within the two-and-a-half boroughs, and replaced them with a string of decent bars, including the Steinway Beer Garden and O'Zorgnax's Pub.”

That last retcon was received with cheers of adulation from most, and a look of confusion from Stephan.

“Well it wouldn’t be ‘New New York’ without it, would it?” the Chaos Lord said defensively. “You may find a few other small tweaks too…shame I couldn’t get in the transportation tubes, admittedly, but I’m not perfect. I wasn’t meant for perfection… and speaking of perfection!”

Carrying the construction worker stereotype to its climax he blew a wolf-whistle as the other delegates walked by. “Hey Chryssi! Looking mighty fine, totally divine, almost hole-ey!”

Chrysalis glowered at him, a light blush flickering across her face before she raised her snout and strutted away. Luna seemed to find this hilarious, shooting a condescent smile in the direction of the hive mother as the two monarchs passed one another. “Not so nice being on the receiving end, is it?”

“No trick, I swear by my Mother,” Discord said in all seriousness, before spreading a paw across his new creation. “I present to you… New York! Or at least, Manhattan, and a bit of Brooklyn and Queens.”

“Why’d you make so much of it?” Stephan asked. “Isn’t that a little extreme?”

“Really, Major? I thought you would appreciate my efforts in this.” Discord waved his arms to the massive city, a giant grin on his face. “Aside for the fact that I was able to use my chaos to make the ‘City that never sleeps’ a reality, but I gave you the ultimate training ground.”

Stephan blinked in surprise, and some of the trainers started in realization. Discord had built them a canvas, a blank slate...a perfect recreation of a human city on which to train their new army.

‘Okay… I did not see this coming...’ Stephan thought, maintaining a cool exterior, but within he was as giddy as a new recruit holding his first rifle. Or a PHL soldier scheduled to field-test a new weapon. He could see the others felt the same...Vinyl was practically dancing on her hoof-tips.

“Welcome everyone, to the Big Apple. We have Empire State Building over there on 5th Avenue, a very efficient subway systems to get across town, along with a fully functioning utilities system, no purged of alligators and mutant ninja turtles. Over there you can see the beautiful Central Park, and downtown there’s the newest adition to the skyline and central headquarters of our fair interdimensional travelers, the World Trade Tower!”

“Never satisfied, are you?” Discord griped. “Clients always want after-job modificiations. Fine!”

He snapped his fingers and in the distance there was a flash of light on a bluff overlooking the city, where the Neighagra falls divided around a huge outcrop of rock.

“Yes I think Lady Libby will get a better view from up there…” Discord said, before rounding back on Owens. “And before you ask, I am not giving you back Staten Island or the Verrazano Narrows Bridge! Besides, I don’t think the locals would appreciate me generating a vast body of saltwater, killing off every bit of farmland downstream.”

“Uh...fair enough…” Owens laughed nervously. “You’re the...erm...architect!”

The sun was just setting to the west now, throwing the newborn city into deep shadow. Cracking his knuckles, Discord warmed up one last round of magic.

He snapped his claw, and a pulse seemed to run through the city. Before everyone’s stunned eyes, the entire metropolis came alive. Cars and buses popped from the ground, power hummed through the buildings, signs and billboards flared to life.

And overhead, rising radiantly over the monument to Earth, was the shining sphere of the moon. Surprised at that touch, Stephan saw a woozy Discord share a glance with Luna, who winked back.

“Hwoof, that took a lot out of me,” the spirit of chaos whispered. “Think… I might need a nap.”

“It’s perfect…” someone whispered, the other PHL vets nodding to his words as they watched the city flared and burn with life.

“The Manehattan Railroad runs just south of there!” she called out. “Come on, let’s catch the next train and check it out!”

“...Oh, Five Napkin Burger, how I have missed you,” said Isaac Acevedo, his mouth watering. “Discord! Did you stock the fridges with meat?”

“Yes. Don’t worry, it’s not from Equestria,” Discord said, reassuring the various herbivorous races of Equus. “Everything is stocked with food and time-locked to keep it perpetually fresh. That last touch wasn’t easy, I might add.”

‘He’s supplied us...an entire city of fresh food. Every larder and fridge and store...we’ve got enough food to feed millions!’

Stephan blinked in shock as his core group dispersed, leaving him overseeing the delegates and their armies. He didn’t have the heart to stop them, the fact that a small piece of home was here with them was a god send…

“Alright…” Stephan sighed, before turning to his assembled leaders. “Your Majesties and Excellencies. Might I ask that you prepare your troops for a final march. Feel free to claim whatever accommodation you need in ‘New New York’. We’ll gather tomorrow in Central Park to commence the training...”

They responded with a series of nods and affirmations, leaving him free to rally what remained of his own inner circle.

“The rest of you…” he said, trying to gather his swimming thoughts. “Lets head to the Trade Tower, set up shop there and prepare for the next week. Though everyone may be caught up in the wonders of the new city, it’s not all fun and games. It’s not merely a bold experiment in architecture, it’s also to acclimate all the races of Equus to the urban warfare we’re already familiar with. It will be a big leap. From combat suited to flintlocks to urban warfare. But I have the utmost confidence in all of them.”

He then turned to where Luna was addressing the gathered leaders, coming in on the tail end of her speech.

“...please understand this. Human warfare is loud and chaotic, their warzones can change the very landscape as easily as any powerful magic user. But they will be your friend in your time of need. I’ve seen humans confront overwhelming odds with fear in their hearts, but standing fast if only to spit in Death’s face. Keep your hearts strong and your resolve as hard as the finest forged steel. Know this, I seen first hoof what we can do together. We will prevail.”

Luna’s wings spread as she grace them with a warm smile before she flew to the castle, preparing for the long months ahead.

Stephan, meanwhile, was looking for Trixie. When he did find her, he quickly swept her up into his arms and sprinted for the train station.

Luna landed on a balcony perched on the side of Canterlot Castle’s tallest tower, startling the Element Bearers with her landing. As with the palace’s serving staff, they had not missed the chance to witness the gathering of armies.

“Princess!” Twilight exclaimed, only for Luna to raise a wing, wordlessly pleading silence. Receiving it, she came to the balcony’s edge and joined them in watching the armies move towards their new lodgings in the massive human city.

"Keen Sight," she said quietly, and in response a figure melted in from the shadows, a bat-like thestral pony. His sudden appearance prompted a startled squeak from Fluttershy.

"I want a small task force created," Luna ordered as she watched several of the flying species taking flight towards ‘New New York’, no doubt explore the city and find a suitable place to roost. She expected several proposals to link it up with Canterlot, and idly speculated on how the cities could change if they were ever merged together.

"I want you and your task force to keep an eye on a unicorn named Catseye. A so-called ‘Anthropologist’, a self-proclaimed leading expert on humans." Luna scoffed, watching as Stephan rushed towards Canterlot’s central rail station, Trixie slung over his shoulder, laughing out loud. "I’ve read her work, and I am frankly unimpressed with how one-sided she is in her approach, research and confusion of fact with opinion… her theories are the worst kind of popular hype, her methods are sloppy and her conclusions highly questionable… as are her embarrassingly childish responses to criticism.”

“These hardly sound like punishable crimes, Highness,” Keen Sight said, a touch concerned.

“Yes… though perhaps grounds for annulling her doctorate…” Luna conceded, before her tone hardened. “However, I’m more concerned with what she might do. Her uptime counterpart helped to inflict the potion upon humanity and later, when the war commenced, co-led a terrorist group that spread misery and death wherever they went. She willingly aided the mad Tyrant’s cause, destroyed countless lives…”

“Call it a precaution. Our own iteration of Catseye is showing herself to be upon a similar path, though thankfully she does not have anywhere near the resources or the influence - perhaps she may even form plans to undermine our work. While I believe that it is a fallacy to arrest people for what they might do, there's too much at stake to let an unknown variable like her go unwatched. It’s been said countless times, but… it terrifies me how lucky the humans have been in this. I’m not letting them fall into the jaws of defeat when they’re so close to finally winning."

Which was quite the understatement, but the thestral accepted it. The Night Guards were professionals, after all.

"Keep watch for now. I believe I shall pay a visit to the ‘good doctor’ and attempt to convince her of the error of her ways. If she rebukes me, well, I cannot arrest her for voicing her opinions. You will continue to watch her however, and any observance of strife, anti-human sentiment, and unrest linked to her or any group of her founding may duly be taken as evidence of treachery, disruption of our war effort, and aiding and abetting the enemy. Then you may place her under arrest… with prejudice, if necessary.”

Keen Sight bowed and dissolved back into the shadows. Sighing, Luna quietly turned to the somewhat unnerved Elements. "Twilight, Rarity, Lyra. Come with me. Let us begin your own training in advanced magic."

"I feel like I headbutted a train..." Lyra mumbled as she trudged alongside Twilight and Rarity. The other two mares were not in the best condition, their faces and bodies showing all the signs of exhaustion. "Princess Luna doesn't pull any punches, does she?"

"Darling, we are preparing for war," Rarity sighed as she rubbed her head. "We are just beginning our magical training."

"But all we did was levitate balls for several hours!" Lyra cried out, frustration on her face. "We did that in school!"

"Lyra... you just had tennis balls..." Twilight mumbled as she felt her head pound with pain. "I had to lift up fifteen pound weights..."

"Because, as Stephan likes to point out, ‘freakishly strong with the Force are you’. It’s your cutie mark for Celestia's sake," Lyra pointed out. "A couple of tennis balls doesn't do anything for you. Unless Luna asks you to spin them in various directions."

"I remember you trying really hard to do that back in school..." the minty unicorn said in a singsong tone.

"Oh it was so bad!" Lyra laughed. "My control is pretty good, has to be to use string instruments like a guitar or lyre. So the teacher asked us to spin the balls around us and keep adding. Twilight here decides to grab all the balls at the same time and spin them. Didn't work out well. When it was my turn, I was able to spin all the balls after a few minutes. Clockwise, counter clockwise, around my head and hooves, near the ceiling and even had two in figure 8s. Twilight couldn’t believe it. I mean yeah, I stopped because I couldn't keep it up, but I was able to do it."

"Lyra, I am begging you! Stop!" Twilight blushed brightly, swallowing nervously as Lyra near the end of the story.

"When I finished, Twilight jumped up and tried again, the teacher tried to stop her but she was pretty adamant." Lyra chuckled as she thought fondly at that moment. "Twilight grabbed all the balls, stuck out her tongue, and we all hit the deck when those balls went flying EVERYWHERE! I caught one in my flank!"

Lyra laughed out loud, and Rarity blinked before she began to giggle at the thought of a young Twilight sheepishly looking around as countless balls bounced away, out of control.

Twilight couldn’t help but blush in embarrassment, her ears flat against her skull. Then she jumped as she felt Lyra wrap a leg around her shoulders. "Don't worry, Twilight. You can tell embarrassing stories about me too!"

Twilight stared before giving her a rueful smirk, shaking her head. "What stories can I possibly say that embarrases you? You're Lyra, the pants wearing, flirty to both colts and fillies, eccentric mare of Canterlot."

"And proud of it!" Lyra held her head high. Rarity giggled as Twilight shook her head in amusement at this acknowledgment, before a devious little smirk crossed her face.

“A recording Stephan brought through with him...Earth’s current top forty musical hitlist. Since Boston, this old, old song from some old human movie has suddenly come into the top spot...but someone, no-one knows who, went and tweaked the lyrics…”

“No...nooooooooo…” Lyra moaned, hooves over ears as Twilight jauntily trotted on, head thrown back and singing softly, teasingly.

“She wore a blazing saddle!
She played a golden lyre!
Her song called forth to battle!
All good folk near and far!”

“She conquered fear and she conquered hate,
She turned our night into day,
she…” Twilight burst into a fit of giggles, but pressed on.

Rarity’s stifled howls of laughter and Lyra’s tiny, embarrassed moans were cut suddenly short however by the sound of other voices.

The three unicorns blinked at that, and they quietly made their way towards a balcony and peeked over to see Vinyl Scratch, Trixie, and several humans, all of whom were pulling together their gear to transport to the new city.

“Easy Trix!” Vinyl laughed. “Allie and Stephan are arranging a special train for us now. Just relax for a minute...enjoy this moment, this true Equestria.”

The observing unicorns wrinkled their nose at the awful smell that drifted up to them, arising from several cigarettes held in the humans' grasp, and one caught in Vinyl’s magical grip.

"You sure this is how it was, Scratch?" one man asked, his voice strongly similar to those of Trottingham. "It has been a bloody long time since you been to Equestria."

"No, she’s right." Trixie gave a quiet sigh, relaxing a little and muttering something about a promise and a hotel room.

"Oh it’s the little things. Feeling the sun's actual warmth and not that pallid touch, that sickening coldness in the air. That malaise doesn’t exist here. The sunlight...and moonlight too. It’s pure, untainted."

"Shit," a dark-skinned human muttered as he snuffed out his cancer stick. "Lil’ Killer is right; living on the edge for three years, waiting for some Fruit Loops zombies to come popping my ass ain’t easy, especially when I seen some of my home boys bite it and turn into those freaks. Fuck man, here... my problems... just drift away. Like I’m getting all the benefits of smoking pot, without the urge to snack on Doritos."

"I don't suppose you have some on you?" the Trottingham accented man asked, "I haven't gotten a good spliff in a while."

"Sorry cracker, with everything going down to shit, no one cares about selling the grass anymore."

“Dammit!” muttered one of the humans, a tall, lanky man that Twilight vaguely recognized as one of the PHL members (Though he’d been referred to as an “outsider” numerous times) often found at the various research labs she frequented whenever she got the chance. His name was… Avocado? No, Acevedo. “I’ve been wanting a joint for like forever…”

"Bloody hell," the Trottingham-accented man muttered, turning to a woman sitting on the steps, running a whetstone over the edge of her blade. "How about you Lee? How do you feel being here?"

"It feels like I’m back home. Staying at my grandfather's place in the mountains of Japan," the woman replied as she examined her sword closely. "I feel a peace and serenity I haven’t felt in years."

“...and you can’t take the sky from me,” they all chorused together. A moment of companionable silence lingered for a second, before each of them sighed in their own way.

"I guess it’s the true magic that Zecora always told us of," the last human said quietly, his darker complexion and accent vaguely similar to those of the zebras. "We must enjoy this time while we can."

“Sounds about right, Ogunleye. How bout you, Avocado?” Vinyl asked with a grin.

“It’s Acevedo!” Acevedo sighed, annoyed. “But… this is just… it’s…”

Any vestige of annoyance disappeared from his face. “It’s downright heavenly. The sky’s blue, the grass is green, I’ve finally got enough to eat-”

“It’s fine, I saw a nutritionist,” Acevedo shrugged. “It’s just.. I haven’t felt this good in forever. I feel like drawing it all. Maybe even painting it!”

A smile spread across his face. “All I need to do is teach griffons how to make bleu cheeseburgers, and it’ll be paradise. Still… it’s pretty close anyway. My sister woulda loved this.”

"Got that right, all of you," Vinyl whispered as she looked up at the night sky. She gave a sad sigh before laying down.

"Come off that crap, girl." Anderson scowled. "Seeing you all depressed and shit is really making this awkward as fuck. Say something to cheer her up, Thomas."

Both men stopped arguing as Vinyl rolled around on the steps, laughing at the growing absurd insults to each other.

Trixie rolled her eyes. “Trottel.” The good thing about german was that everyone else around her couldn’t hear her insulting them right now.

"Come on DJ." Anderson bumped his fist to Thomas, who only smirked in reply. "What's up?"

“When we came, I thought we’d be in the belly of the beast! But it turns out it’s just as good as I remember. Maybe better! How can it just be like that and… and…” she sighed and lowered her head.

“I'm thinking of when it all went wrong." Vinyl whispered, lowering her head. "It’s just… I can’t take it. I mean, look at all this!”

“What do you mean?” Acevedo asked. “I mean, it’s a nice view and all, but-”

“I just don’t get it! When did we stop being Equestria and became a despotic, fascist, slave-taking hellhole that thought newfoals were alright?"

Trixie lowered her head, a frown on her face as she thought back. There was no clear answer for this; thanks to the Bag of Tirek, ‘their’ Celestia could have been just one straw short of a total mental breakdown, and coming into contact with humans may have caused her to snap. Or maybe she had sought them out as part of the bag’s colossal circle-jerk of revenge.

Thankfully, the Celestia of this world seemed more together… mostly. Admittedly, she’d blown up a few mountains, so her sanity was in question, but she’d done that in righteous anger after being shown the potion trials. So her heart was at least in the right place.

Up above, as of yet undetected, Twilight and Rarity could only frown at this exchange, but at the mention of the bag a look of panic had flooded across Lyra’s face, and she had clamped her hooves over her mouth to keep herself from blurting out.

Down below, Trixie was taking a thoughtful drag off of Vinyl’s cigarette, exhaling a small cloud of sparks that flittered like fireflies...a little touch of stage magic.

"I think…” she thought aloud. “I think it went wrong when they started making those 'Totem-Proles', and spread them everywhere across Equestria after the Crystal War."

"Nah!" Vinyl waved her thoughts off. "That was just a prelude to everything. I mean, the war was bad...but it was justified, you know. Silly-Celly took the real moral highdive just after that. Heck, she swan-dived off the tallest mountain when she decided to take the Crystal Throne for herself. You know how I know?"

The group looked to one another and shrugged before looking back to her. Vinyl leaned forward with a haunted look in her eyes.

"Okay...so, you all remember the night she revealed the portal to Earth to the world? Well me and Tavi were in Baltimare, providing some of the entertainment for the launch of the Great Equestrian: she was a backing musician for Billygoat Bridle and I was on the mixer-board. So, everything’s going great, and we’re just taking time to relax on deck when the main show piece.... um... Kin and Kith? Yeah! That's it! Kin and Kith Crowing Harmony! It was a beautiful crystal statue, right? Well, the second Celestia plops her plot on the Crystal Throne, thousands of miles away, that statue turned into a crystal death trap!"

“Yeah, I know, the one that nearly drowned Boston to with its potion clouds.” Vinyl said. “But it wasn’t like that at the beginning…it was a passenger ship to begin with, not a warship for newfoals that couldn’t even really appreciate its beauty. And get this? From what Rarity’s lil’ sis told me, it was built as a giant middle finger-”

“-I’m serious, a giant middle finger to Celestia’s regime! It wasn’t quite the Empire back then. The ship’s designer, he’d tried to make the finest skyliner in the history of Equestria, a flying monument to the kingdom at its best, so he put these amazing artworks all over the thing. It was like a flying gallery, Tavi and me loved it! All of these carvings and paintings and tapestries representing peace, unity, the common folk-but, coincidentally, no alicorns. You dig?”

“Okay, so ‘Kith and Kin’ was this crystal statue, straight from the Crystal Empire, sitting right in the center of the ship, showing almost every race on Equus giving a hoof-bump or high-five or whatever. And then…”

“It exploded,” Vinyl said. “Crippled and killed a lot of ponies. And not ten minutes later, Queen Celestia declares to everypony that she’s made her claim on the Crystal Throne…”

Eyebrows shot up. Now that was interesting. Speculation broke out among the humans and ponies standing there.

“Did she intend to explode it? As a sort of ‘I see what you’re doing, and I don’t approve’ thing?” Ogunleye asked.

“Could be,” Lee said, one hand to her chin. “Wouldn’t exactly be out of character…”

“Or the crystals could have just exploded in reaction to her soul,” Trixie added. “I talked to other ponies like Fancy Pants, who said that other imported crystals from the Crystal Empire exploded as well. Or just took on awful colors.”

“I did hear some odd conversations between Mr. Isneigh and Mr. Kreme-Brulee,” Vinyl said thoughtfully. “One was the company chairman and the other the ship’s engineer...they thought something was wrong with Equestria, even then. Ol’ Kreme was raging after the aftermath of the wedding invasion...”

“Plenty of ponies were rather disturbed by that...” Trixie added. “I mean, Celestia tried to exterminate all the changelings in revenge. That’s pretty out of character for her…”

“I spoke to both a changeling and a royal guard from here, earlier,” Ogunleye mused. “They were both appalled by that. It never happened here. I mean, yes, the guards were sent to search for changeling infiltrators all across Equestria, but they didn’t kill any of the ones they found…hey, you know what’s odd?”

“Did any of you notice that Cadence is an alicorn here?!” Ogunleye said. “Our sweet little princess, an immortal demi-goddess! How in the hell…”

“That is pretty strange,” Vinyl agreed. “Pretty awesome if you’re her husband though… rawr…”

That got a mix of laughter and groans, along with a couple speculative looks from some PHL personnel.

“Hey,” Acevedo suddenly said, jumping to his feet. “OK. I know how to find out where it went wrong.”

“Well, yeah,” Acevedo said. “See… I happen to very much like alternate history. And every alt-history has its point of divergence, be it an election or a West Virginia mining town getting dumped into 1630s Thuringenwald...”

“Proudly!” he responded, cracking his knuckles. “So how ‘bout we…do a little research? Try to see what went differently. Where that point of divergence was.”

“Don’t know if it’ll give closure,” Vinyl said, an uncertain expression on her face. “And I always hated research. But… dammit, I’m curious.”

Observing a conversion turning towards the magic of academia, Twilight’s eyebrows shot up, a smile on her face. The word ‘Wonderful!’ and several others like seemed to be on the tip of her tongue, though they never escaped her mouth…

...because Lyra had thrown one foreleg over the bookish unicorn’s mouth, shaking her head vigorously and just barely holding back sobs.

“What?” Twilight hissed, turning around only to see Lyra bolting away in a panic, tears streaming behind her as she fled.

"Lyra! Wait! What's wrong?!" Twilight cried out as Lyra ran off into a vacant guest room and locked the door.

Twilight frowned, her horn glowed, and she teleported both Rarity and herself into the room. Their quarry lay weeping on the bed, her face buried in a pillow.

"Darling... what is it?" Rarity asked gently as climbed up beside the little green unicorn and put a comforting hoof on her shoulder.

"I... I know why..." Lyra trailed off, her eyes wide as she stared at something behind them. Both mares blinked in confusion at the terrorised look on her face before turning around...at which point they both joined her in horror.

"Oh mother of Starswirl… Spike?!" Twilight whispered, staring at the Celestia-sized dragon resting on the bedroom’s other bed.

In the future, Twilight would thank Celestia that she hadn’t seen her #1 Assistant during his captivity in the Castle of the Two Sisters in the Solar Empire.

Looking on him now, a tiny, rational part of her mind remembered when he had hit that sudden growth spurt on his birthday; his first change had brought him into his adolescence. This Spike was just a bit bigger than that…

She had heard from secondhoof (or hand) information that he had been imprisoned for trying to stop Uptime Rarity from getting corrupted by the Tyrant, and she’d heard the most awful rumors about what had been done to him for the course of almost the entire war, but she hadn’t been prepared to see this.

The scars and bruises were horrific. And they were just the start. Barely-healed wounds that a railroad spike could have comfortably fit through were all over his body-and, Twilight realized, they must have pierced him. Gone all the way through his wrists. His wings resembled nothing more than parchment that had been left out at night during a rainstorm and then dried to a fractured crisp, and there were massive scars on his wingbones where he must have been impaled yet again. Much of his body seemed to be riddled with ugly brownish-yellowish-orange-green scabs.

“How… how could they?” Rarity choked out with a mixture of sadness and rage. “They… they hurt SPIKEY-WIKEY LIKE THIS?!”

Then she screamed. “I’LL DESTROY THEM! THEY ARE MONSTERS! BRUTES!! They’re not just traitors to all that ponydom values, they’re traitors to decency! To any sort of morality!”

"Rarity..." a deep voice echoed from the bed, causing the mare to fall silent. She found herself immersed in the glowing emerald eye that was focused on her, lost in that beautiful and radiant eye. As he looked upon her, she felt short of breath, and her face flushed in embarrassment. The eye moved away, freezing on the mare beside her.

"Twilight..." Spike growled, the monitor attached to him blaring out a series of tones as Spike's heart began to beat wildly, changing on the digital graph from slow, measured beats to shapes that vaguely resembled the Crystal Mountains. He glared at her with utter rage, looking like he was about to break out of his bandages just to try and get to her.

“No, no no,” Twilight whimpered, not sure whether to be scared or sad, backing away as Spike shakily pulled himself up from the bed, the moonlight shining down on his royal purple scales, giving him both a majestic and terrifying presence. “I’m not that Twilight, I’m not her! I don’t know what she did to you, but I’d never-”

“That’s utterly rich, you traitorous BITCH!” Spike yelled. “What’s that? You don’t know what you did to me?! I’ll show you exactly what!”

"Please, Spike!" Twilight swallowed and shrank as the dragon towered over her, jade flames dripping from his mouth.

“Time to free you from your misery," Spike growled as he glared down her, and yet the single eye held utter sadness at his actions. "I'm sorry, Twilight."

“SPIKE!” Rarity yelled at him, jumping in front of Twilight. “Calm down and listen to us! We’re not the Twilight and Rarity from your Equestria! Did no pony tell you about this?!”

Spike stared down at the unicorn, shaking as he looked down at the two. A single tear fell from his eye as he took a deep breath.

"Spikey?" Rarity pressed gently, then froze. Because now the dragon, a charge of flames building up in his mouth, was glaring at the both of them.

“Oh sweet Celestia, not again,” Twilight said, doing her best to keep calm as she summoned up a quick shield. There was still a hint of fear in her voice.

“How did you stupid fillies get in here?!” Nurse Redheart yelled as she bucked open the door. “Shit! He’s… you’ve destabilized him!”

Spike’s eyes flashed to the nurse, his moment’s hesitation allowing her mare to fish out a bottle and throw its contents at him. The bottle shattered across his chest, spilling a thick green salve which instantly began to bubble and turn gaseous from his high body heat.

“Fuego Salve’s, thermal sedation potion…” Twilight began to mutter before Redheart shoved her towards the door, the nurse donning a gas mask.

The gas spread quickly through the room, Spike involuntarily drawing a deep breath. The potion acting fast, his eyes slowly drooping shut as he collapsed on the ground.

Twilight teleported them out, and the evicted mares found themselves gasping on the roof of the castle barracks. In the distance they could see the glowing 'human' city, outstripping Canterlot in nighttime brightness. The city looked alive, pulsing with energy as its new inhabitants began to explore their new home and training ground.

“What… what was that…?” Rarity sobbed. “What… what happened to him?”

Twilight could not weep. The horror of seeing Spike brutalised had shaken her so much that in her grief she defaulted to cold logic; a reaction both to protect herself, and allow her time to accept what she had seen. She turned to Lyra, unable to ignore her gut feeling that the turquoise unicorn knew something that she wasn’t telling them.

“Lyra…” she said, tears in the corner of her eyes betraying the pain her mind would not let her feel. “Why were you crying? They were talking about how Equestria fell from grace… and you began to cry.”

Lyra looked away, but Twilight would not let her. Jaw clenched, she reached out and turned Lyra round so that their gazes met.

“Lyra, you can tell us. We won’t judge you or anything,” Rarity added, in a softer tone.

“What happened, to the other Equestria… Celestia’s madness, the war, the newfoals.”

The Conversion Bureau: The Other Side of the Spectrum (The Original)

by Sledge115

Training Days: First Days Part 1 (WARNING: CLOP SCENE)