Meta Gamer in Equestria: The Blight of Bane.

by reflective vagrant

Chapter 22, Battle for the Rift, Part 3.

While on the train, Tempest commandeered the entire cart we were in for her squad. I spent the first hour helping Tempest demonstrate my abilities, my shape shifting, what spells I'd learned, and what ones I could cast indefinitely and what ones required me to expend my limited stamina. Each of them were attentive, though some looked like they were more scared than impressed.

When that was over, I excused myself to one corner of the cart, and sat with Archimedes nearby for the remainder of the trip. We discussed what we could, but we definitely didn't become friends. He saw me as some unworthy punk which just got unlucky and that he wound up having to babysit. I, meanwhile, still saw him as a kidnapper.

I still had no desire to enjoy his company, but he had at least been forthright with me from the start. There was also the fact that he made no attempt to urge me to any action, just lay down facts openly and let me make my own choice. Those two things made it possible for me to cooperate with him despite my bitter feelings for him, at least on a rudimentary level.

He didn't like calling me master, as he still saw himself as a superior being, but the spell that gave him physical form also restricted his use of that form. His actions as a familiar were bound to me and my orders. When it came to the catalyzing of the cleric magic as a spirit, however, he was just as in charge over that as I was in charge over his physical form. I literally couldn't cast any more than a cantrip as a cleric without his cooperation.

"So that's why I had so much trouble getting the seal seed going yesterday?"

"Yes. Your access to quintessence is but a trickle without calling upon my aid. Once established, however, it will be pretty simple to call to me, unlike in the forest. I had to practically force the connection open from my end to help you. Were you not so passionate, I might not have heard your call to anyone listening."

I leaned back on the seat, my head hitting the wall, and gave a good, long sigh. "Then what can I call you? We're not friends. You're not my master and you're certainly not my servant, at least outside of being my familiar. What are we? What links us together besides circumstance?"

Archimedes looked over at the rest of the squad in the cart, doing various things from quietly meditating to packing and managing medical supplies to checking their weapons and armor over.

"To aid the natives of this world. To close the rift and tip the scales of this war in their favor. That is something you chose to do on your own, yes?"

"Sorta? I mean I'm kinda earning my freedom in the process."

The owl looked back to me. "But even when you were free, you chose to aid the Fey. You chose to help a people that you owed nothing."

I looked at him weird and nodded.

"That too is what I chose to do when I was going to become the champion sent here, and when I volunteered to render myself a spirit after I could no longer be the champion."

He came up to my hand and placed one of his talons on it. "It may be at different levels of conviction, but we both desire to aid the people of this world."

As I lifted my arm to a perch position, he hopped to it and looked at me face to face.

"That is one thing we have in common. So what does that mean to you then, Moss?"

I paused as the train started its final approach to the last station on the line. Rather, the last station left on what was left of the line. Once it stopped and the ponies started getting their things together, I stopped bracing myself for the stop and looked at Archimedes.

With a furled brow, I continued our quiet conversation. "I refuse to call you lord or anything that implies worship, and I don't think you'd want that anyway. We aren't friends, but we are working to a common goal. Allies seems to be a bit of a..." I looked back at the group for a second, then back at him. "...an impersonal a term. In regards to age and know how, we definitely aren't equals, but..."

I lifted a single finger in easy reach of his talons. "Partners?"

He looked at the finger with squinted eyes, then back at me with that same squint. I could tell he was thinking hard on it.

After a moment, he responded. "Only if it means I have permission to not have to call you 'master' as your familiar. If we are partners, it's both ways."

I gave a nod to him in confirmation followed by him taking my finger in his talon much akin to a hand shake.

"Agreed."

---

"Water!" I cried out in the middle of the rundown town. I had been gasping for air the moment I left the train, trying to get used to the local desert heat. Everypony seemed to be looking at me weird as I stumbled with my personal escort to the supply depot against orders.

"Water! I need water!" I called to the supply clerk at the front.

With Tempest and my escort confirming I was with them, the supply clerk pointed me to the nearest barrel of water in his area.

I all but tumbled over myself to get to the barrel. With a wave of my hand, I commanded a portion of the water to come up out of the barrel and soak my head and hair, letting the water drain down and cool the rest of me for an immediate measure. I then grabbed as many water-skins next to the barrel as I could and fed water into them with my shape water cantrip again until they were each halfway full. Once I sealed them up, I went about putting them around my body, under my furs. Once I had them secured in spots that wouldn't get in my way, I pulled my hand close to my chest and performed a grasping action, freezing the water in the water skins. Finally feeling the sweet relief of something to combat the desert heat being compounded within my thick furs, I sighed in content.

Tempest looked at me expectantly.

"Better?" She asked with a measured amount of vinegar to her voice. "Now that you got that under control, we need to get to the briefing. You're lucky the local troop knew you were coming."

"Yes, I'm good now." I answered, starting to get a grip on my breathing.

She gave me that familiar look that told me my amulet had stopped working, but just shook her head and signaled me to follow her.

We went towards the town square where every squadron of different species seemed to be gathering. I saw various snips and snarls from the dragons. Many of the ponies gave me their own form of stink eye and whispers, though not all of them. The two squadrons of griffins didn't seem to be too disturbed by my presence, but I did seem to get a few curious looks from a hand full of them.

"Remember the order from before! The supposed invader you see is not a threat! Let him and his guard escort through!" I heard a stallion call out in a commanding voice from a speaker.

The squads grumbled but otherwise parted ways for my group. When we reached our destination, there was a makeshift stand made of whatever lumber was around that looked solid enough to still build with. On top of that stand was a white stallion dressed in what looked like the armor and rankings of a medieval general.

When Tempest gestured me to follow up onto the stage, I got a good look at his worn face and the scrapes and scars all around his body that his grooming tried its best to hide. If I could deduce one thing from this stallion, it was that he was a leader that led by example, fighting right alongside his troops.

"Prince Shining Armor!" Tempest addressed him with a salute. "I have brought the package to the front most outpost of Appaloosa as ordered!"

"Thank you, Lieutenant." He brought the microphone up and spoke into it, letting the entire audience hear. "But he's not a package, Lieutenant Tempest. He's a friend and ally in our fight."

Turning to me, he continued to speak into the microphone.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Moss. I've heard so much about you."

With the understanding of him being royalty, I knelt down part way and bowed the rest, but couldn't stop staring at him when I did so.

He waved me up out of the bow with a blush, and put the microphone back to where it was before.

"What are you looking at?" He asked in a normal volume.

I turned my eyes to the floor and shrank a little as I pressed my amulet. With a steeling of my nerves, I forced myself to look up again.

"Prince Shining Armor was it?" I asked him, getting a nod in return. "Well, you don't have any wings. The only royal ponies I've ever seen all had both horns and wings. Why do you only have a horn?"

I expected him to get insulted, to give me a scowl or a huff or a backlash, but he didn't do anything of the sort.

Instead, he just laughed the chillest, heartiest, friendliest laugh I had ever heard. When he calmed himself, he looked back at me with a grin that I could tell hadn't been on his face for days at the least. "There's more to the equestrian royal family than just alicorns. To give you the short version, I married into my title."

Grabbing the microphone again, the prince turned back out to the squadrons he led. "Many of you have spoken up in the past, wondering why we didn't simply drive the invaders back to their rift. The answer is that while we had the numbers and power to drive them back, we didn't have the ability to close the rift. Indeed, if we did we could have simply kept the rift from opening in the first place. But that has changed."

He turned to my group, gesturing the civilians up to the platform. As some of them stepped forward, he continued.

"Our research and development teams have managed to increase their overall ability to work with the rift significantly since then, but we still could not overcome a specific hurtle that prevents us from closing the rift properly now that it is open."

He then gestured towards me. "Our friend here, however, has unique properties to his magic that has managed to overcome that hurtle. Despite our best efforts and his full cooperation, we simply cannot replicate these properties with our own magic at the given time. Indeed, it has become clear that such research has no guarantee of success. Even if were to decide to take that risk, to do so would likely take years at the very least."

He gave a dramatic pause, scanning the audience for their reactions.

"That's time we simply do not have anymore. Our scouts and intelligence have discovered that the enemy is fortifying the area around the rift and are soon going to pour through with forces much stronger than before. Among other new threats that we are unsure of, we believe this will include far fiercer fighters, as well as more deadly weapons and technology, and worse of all; many magic users. If we do not act now and seal up the rift, the war will drag on for years, possibly decades."

The crowd gave a collective gasp then fell silent.

"But that is why our friend Moss is here. We can't close the rift on our own, but Moss and our team of specialists can work in tandem and cut off those reinforcements, permanently. We just have to get them there and protect them while they do their thing."

He raised his hoof and spoke with a great passion, "So be prepared! For now we are going on the offensive! We are finally driving them out!"

The crowd cheered as he did this, followed by a loud explosion in the direction of the desert version of a hill just outside of town. From that direction, an exhausted pony came running.

Once he was at the foot of the stage, he took a few gasps then called to the prince. "Shining Armor! The dragons at the mesa nest are picking on their medic again! They've trapped him in the old mine shafts!"

Shining Armor put a hoof to his temple and rubbed it, hard, then turned to look at the pillar of smoke coming from the base of the mesa.

"I have to cut this briefing short. Continue to prepare as your commanding officers instruct," Shining Armor spoke into the microphone then went to leave the stage.

Turning to me as he passed, he showed a worn and ragged expression. "Excuse me, Moss. I wanted to get to know you a bit better, but I've got some internal affairs to settle... again."