> Blacklight: Dead Man Walking
>  by The Salesman
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> To Another Land
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The Agent looked out from behind his hyper reality visor, the hostile orange glow marking out his enemies in the distance, hiding behind their cover up above the final checkpoint. The scorpion tank needed to pass through.
His name was unimportant; however, his designation within Blacklight was Deadman. Right now, his situation could be summarized in one useful acronym: FUBAR.
It was supposed to be a simple job, HQ said. There were only regular Order militia guarding the Scorpion, they said.
He deactivated his hyper reality visor, a scanning technology which allowed agents to locate targets regardless of the, sure once more of the location the enemy had fallen back to. Nothing was that simple, though. The Order had not only their regular militia here, but they happened to have some of their very own agents doing their rounds nearby, and they popped in to give support.
Deadman continued to step through the now cleared area. It was truly unfortunate that a few of the Order had fallen behind, and he had been picked to play clean up.
Flashing his HRV again, he noted this time the blue location shapes indicating the position of of all his allies, who were standing beside the currently downed Scorpion Tank. Much to his joy, though, the tank quickly stood back up, and one of his fellow Agents climbed into it.
“Taking the driver’s seat,” he heard come over the speakers on the inside of his helmet as the tank began moving along once more. This is what he was here for, he thought, The regenerative tech on that thing was the same technology as on the armour of an Agent, scaled up like never before. That sort of tech could prove invaluable, and they could NOT afford the Order having this technology beyond a testing stage like this.
Pressing on, he saw the bridge the remaining enemies were barricaded on, as well as the blockaded checkpoint below. Directly below the walkway, the metal ridges of the barrier rose from the ground, stopping his squad quite effectively from escorting the tank to the objective.
Deadman took cover behind a large shipping container as the scorpion tank came out from behind a corner on the primary path, steadily approaching the barricade. It would surely come into sight of the barricade soon, and that would give them an opportunity to take it down, stalling his squadron even further. That would be unacceptable.
He looked around once more, searching for an alternate route before hitting the jackpot: a passage leading underground. Taking one more quick flash of the HRV, he confirmed the location of his enemies, as well as the path of the tunnel to the other side of the blockade, before taking off towards the corridor.
As he entered the corridor, he flashed his HRV again, as he was trained to do. Thankfully, the enemies didn’t seem to be moving. However, the HRV revealed something that he rather didn’t like:  that being the distinctive weapon symbol of an anti-armour stinger rocket. He ran down the hallway like a bat outta hell, as delays were unacceptable under the Blacklight doctrine. Holding his light machine gun close to his body, he slowed slightly as he approached the end of the corridor to the other side, and said into his mic, “Force their hand, I’ll mop.”
“Confirmed,” a flat voice responded, “Swarm incoming.”
Deadman paused for a second, making sure to keep his head down, before starting to aim down the sights of his LMG, to prepare to clear the corner as soon as the opportunity arose. Not a second later, he heard the distinctive whir of the a swarm incoming. This is going to be good, he thought, a dark smile coming to his face under his helmet.Then, he heard the missile split as he had many times before, as well as the cacophony of explosions as the proximity to hostile targets triggered additional splits and explosions tore apart the cover of the unfortunate militia and enemy agents.
His legs carried him out from the passage before he swung around the corner to run up the stairs before holding down the trigger at the mass of stunned  looking Order soldiers.
The heavy crack of the machine gun was music to his ears, as well as the impact of the bullets against the armour and flesh of his opponents. There must be no chance given for them no chance to recover, not after the rocket first impacted. Although the poor bastards did not stand a chance, a small smile graced his face. Truly, this was what life was about!
As he turned around to walk back down, his suit gave a warning as a bullet pinged against the back of his suit of heavy armour, dealing some superficial damage to the regenerative surface of his armour.
The Agent whipped around and ran towards the pile of mangled bodies, putting away his LMG and pulling out his breach hammer. When he said he was going to mop up, and he was going to do it.
Quickly, he spotted the hostile, one of the barely armoured militia with a peashooter of a pistol trying to down a fully armed and armoured Agent.
The man was propped up against the remainder of their cover, and there was a look of fear on his face, seeing his impending death stomp its way towards him. The militiaman began to fire as quickly as he could, dumping his magazine of low calibre bullets downrange into the mass of armour in front of him. The small rounds continued to prove ineffective against his armoured target.
As soon as Deadman was within striking range of the soldier, Deadman immediately lashed out with his free hand, gripping the pistol barrel before yanking it away from the milita. The soldier tried to 
The look of fear upon the amateur’s face seemed to heighten as the gun was yanked away, and one of the man’s hands started to move, possibly going for an explosive or knife. Deadman did not allow this, of course.
He did something that the movies had drilled into him as a sign of power, even if it would  be typically ill advised if he was fighting someone who actually had the weaponry to hurt him. Deadman grabbed the man by the neck and lifted him up from his previously sitting position to high in the air. For no benefit other than his own, he slowly and deliberately brought back the breach hammer before swinging it with as much force as he could into side of the man’s head.
His grin further spread at hearing two very familiar sounds. The first was the echo of the crack as the breach hammer’s captive bolt triggered, magnifying the force of the strike, and the second was the comforting noise of breaking bone and flesh beneath it. A small portion of the viscera sprayed on the visor of his helmet, the hammer, and his arm as the man’s skull practically exploded from the blow, leaving nothing of the head intact except for a brief section of the lower skull, where it attached to the neck.
He wiped the blood and bits of brain matter off of the front of his helmet as he chuckled lightly underneath his helmet, dropping the body and pulling the mechanism on his hammer to ready the bolt once more. It had been so long since he had the opportunity to close in and use the hammer that he almost forgot how much fun it was.
The Agent put his hammer away and withdrew a small red injector connected by a tube to his backpack and slid the needle into a small port on his left wrist. The cool medical gel made Deadman lightly shudder as it it flooded his veins, rapidly regenerating any damage he had taken both in that fight and earlier. His armour may be regenerative but he was not.
“Checkpoint cleared; proceed and load the scorpion on truck,” he heard the robotic voice of HQ say as another agent managed to slip below the bridge, and hack the panel that controlled the barrier. Looking out over the bridge he saw that they were just in time as the tank immediately began to proceed under the bridge.
Deadman took that brief respite to look through the carnage he had caused, before something caught his eye: Another LMG, and one with quick magazines no less! Might as well replenish his ammo without walking to a depot, he figured.
Walking over to it, he took out his machine gun and discarded his partial magazine, before checking the corpse that sat beside it for more ammunition. As he checked through the pockets of the corpse, to his joy, he discovered quite a bit of ammunition. Counting the mags he still had and the ones on the body, they totalled up to the full complement of five eighty round magazines.
Quickly picking up the ammunition, he fitted one of the full magazines into his gun, before walking back the way he came, and then down the stairs. As he got down the stairs, he turned left and left again before walking out, towards the main lane and where the scorpion was about to pass through. While he walked, he reached up to the side of his helmet to activate his hyper reality visor once more, bathing the world in the familiar and comforting blue. Although a few enemies could be hiding back in fortified positions with a HRV Blackout covering them, he did not see any spots of orange as he looked around. If they were hiding, they were inconsequential. His squad had just about completed their objective and those militia or agents who were hiding were not likely to be a threat considering that the truck was only a scant dozen meters away. Jogging up to the scorpion tank as it was approaching the objective, he heard a rather disconcerting sound: the sound of an incoming brimstone airstrike.
Looking up, he saw where the cluster bomb split: right over him and the tank.
Deadman looked back down and closed his eyes. Knowing what was coming, he was certain there was no chance that he would be able to get out of the way of the explosion. There was neither not enough time to get out of the way, he had not the speed. Well played, Order. Well played indeed.
Then everything went white.

The pounding of his head woke him from what felt like a deep slumber. Rolling onto his side, Deadman wondered silently what the hell happened to leave him in this state. The brimstone airstrike should have killed him, not just make him wish he was dead. Forcing his eyes open despite the pain, he immediately slammed them shut as he was blinded by an almost impossibly bright-seeming light that assaulted his retinas quite effectively. 
He laid there for a few seconds before trying to open his eyes again, pushing past the pain which immediately attacked him. When his eyes adjusted, he immediately wished that he just stayed down for a while longer.
Going against all logic, before him was a long, white marble corridor. It was most definitely not anywhere near where he was before, or even anywhere he had seen in his life. To him, it looked more like it belonged in a Disney movie rather than in the real world for how much it looked like a stereotypical castle some the good guys would live in.
What transpired? How did he get here? The Agent forced himself up from the ground, wincing as the light seemed determined to drive its rays into his eyes in the way that aggravated his newly formed migraine the most. Despite his encroaching headache, he would stick to Blacklight procedures until HQ contacted him with orders.
"Objective: Eliminate hostile Agents,” he said to himself just as headquarters had said to him many times before.
Raising up his hand, he turned on his Hyper Reality Visor, trying to get a grip on his general area and find any hostile targets.
What he saw, however, was not what he suspected. Beyond the walls, he saw rooms of grandeur structures, and even more surprisingly, he saw small equinoid shapes going about the castle in a manner that was closer to human action than anything else.
Some had horns, some had wings, some had neither, and he saw a few sitting in a room together who had both.
What the hell did he get himself into?

> Contact
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Deadman tapped his helmet to shut off his HRV, the blood still splattered on his hand. What in the hell was he supposed to do in a situation where he not only was cut off from support, but in an environment where he would have to deal with things definitely not supposed to be covered by an Agent. He wracked his brain in an attempt to remember if they had given him any coverage at all on what he was supposed to if he ended up on what was most likely another world, where equinoids appeared to be the dominant species.
His mind came up with nothing, in either the broad ‘possible alien world’ sense nor the narrow ‘equinoid castle’ sense. This subject was most definitely not covered in Blacklight training. Thinking on it, he tried to recall some knowledge from prior to signing up to come up anything he could work with.
The answer quickly came to him. A good idea would be to make diplomatic contact with the natives, just like they did in the movies. Granted, odds were that they either didn’t speak the same language as him, or that this was going to going to backfire colossally, as those very same movies taught him, but it was either that or immediate war, and he didn’t particularly like the possibility of fighting an alien civilization on its home turf with no support from his agency.
Turning on his HRV once more, and glanced around the castle, searching for the closest equine form, all of them coloured a neutral indicating yellow. Soon, he found it. There was an equine with a pair of wings sitting upon its back standing all of in its lonesome in a room, going over some object or another with... some sort of cleaning implement. Feather duster, that was what that object was named he recalled.
Weighing his options carefully for the approach, he came to the conclusion that if he approached it directly, he risked it running away from the shock of an alien appearing. However, if he snuck up on it, he risked even further fear on its part, possibly retaliating in fright.
After a period of careful consideration, he decided that he would approach directly, he would be able to claim self defence if it freaked out and attacked, forcing him to retaliate. He flicked his HRV back off as he walked along the hall, in the direction his HRV indicated the room was. Seeing the door, he did a quick flick on and off of the HRV in order to verify the equinoid’s position behind it, before knocking thrice with one of his heavy gauntlets.
After a few seconds, he heard a female voice say “Come in!” Well, at least he knew that he and it spoke the same language. Also, that he should stop referring to their kind as it.
With this confirmation of readiness, he entered the room, to discover the cream coloured equine would barely come up to his waist, and was facing away from him, dusting off what he guessed was a cabinet, and she was wearing a french maid outfit seemingly fitted to the quadrupedal shape, and he wasn’t quite sure how he felt about it, last time he saw a woman in a french maid outfit, he was at his bachelor party.
“Honestly, Geo,” she said, “you don’t have to knock if you happen to come by while I am cleaning your-” She stopped mid sentence the second she turned around and saw him, her rather large eyes rapidly turning into pinpricks.
Raising one of his hand to the side of his head, he flipped the switch that turned his communications from internal radio to external voice chat, and said “Do not panic, there is no need to be alarmed. Take me to your leader.” There was always a part of his mind that wanted to say that.
All he got was a scream in response, as she dropped the feather duster from her mouth, and took to the air, and fluttered up on uneasy wings into a corner of the room. “Stay away from me!” she shrieked.
“Do not panic, there is no need to be alarmed. Take me to your leader,” Deadman reiterated, hoping to calm her down and achieve his objective. Raising his arm up in order to gesture towards the ground he noticed something he had unfortunately overlooked previously. There was still blood and brain matter were still covering his arm, his hand, and likely on the hammer hanging at his side. Last time he checked, civilians did not like blood and guts on mysterious, blood soaked warriors appearing out of nowhere. It would make sense that equinoids would feel as such too.
It- she screamed again, before panickedly flying towards the doors, which he was currently standing in.
In an attempt to not further damage his diplomatic odds any more than he already had, he stepped to the side, and gave her room to pass. Blocking the door, and thus her escape, could very easily be seen as an act of aggression by an authority later on.
She passed him at a breakneck speed, still screaming incoherent gibberish with the word “monster” occasionally slipped in.
Considering how horribly he was sure this was about to go, he turned on his HRV once more. Off in the distance, and rapidly approaching, he was a group of equinoids wearing armour charging down the hall that he was just a few minutes ago within. Some of them were equipped with spears, and others with halberds, as well as a few of the ones with wings holding crossbows. Sighing, he turned the HRV back off once more.
If only he knew how they held crossbows in their hooves, but he decided on just rolling with it.
Deadman took up a position deeper within the room, away from the door, and turned to see a rather luxurious bed. It was tempting to sit on it for a second, but he realized that he probably was not going to win any bonus points with them if he managed to get a bed soaked in very hard to get out stains. As such, he decided stand in the middle of the room, to wait for new contact with what he believed was either a police force or a military force.
Soon enough, from around the corner, a wonderful sight came. The ten armed and golden armoured guards of similar height as the maid came flying, some metaphorically and some literally, around the corner, the horned equinoid in the lead shouting “Stop, in the name of The Princesses!” Judging by that, he just guessed that they were law enforcement.
They stopped the second they saw him simply standing tall in the middle of the room, not moving, not running, and most definitely not attacking.
It was then he noticed something rather odd. The ones which had horns just levitated their polearms in front of them within some sort of aura. For now, he didn’t dare question it. He was just going to assume there was some sort of technobabble explanation for this, and move on.
“I can not stop what I have not yet initiated. There is no need to be alarmed, do not panic. Take me to your leader,” he said for the third bloody time today. Although he liked saying take me to your leader he was starting to get a tiny bit sick of it.
That very same leading equinoid seemed rather shocked as Deadman spoke, quite shocked at what was likely his good behavior, given the circumstances.
“What is your purpose here, creature?” the leading equine questioned.
“I am merely following Blacklight protocol, and I have been regrettably forced to make contact, despite Blacklight’s noninterference policy. I assure you that I have no interest in harming anyone besides eliminating hostile agents of The Order,” he said, spouting something that was technically true. He still was following Blacklight protocol, and while didn’t really have any motivation to murder anyone but some Order bastards retaliating against a hostile force would
“Who are The Order?” The leader questioned once more. Deadman had a feeling he wasn’t going to particularly like him if he was going to merely repeatedly question him about business matters. Last he remembered it was standard social procedure to ask how he liked the weather here, or make similar small talk, although the more he thought about it the more he realized this could be standard convention here.
“I am not authorized to release this information to a non-secure confidant at this time,” he stated, in military legal speech which essentially meant that ‘I trust you exactly none’. “Now that I have confirmed that you are not panicking, and are remaining calm in general, I must ask you once more to take me to your leader,” he stated. It was quite needed to find and make diplomatic contact with someone, as given by the ‘Oh god, someone found you’ section of the Blacklight training manual. While he may not have been trained in alien contact protocols, at least he had the training to bullshit his way through unexpected contact with a standard group of people, which he was just going to use to its fullest.
The guard stood there stony faced for a second before saying “I will send a runner.” He then nodded towards one of the flying equines with wings and a crossbow before they took off down the hall to hopefully call their leaders and not call in an airstrike on this location.
Deadman stood there in silence for a second, staring at the guards, who returned the gesture. Thinking about what he would do while he was waiting to see if someone would try to murder him again today, a thought came to his mind; he would examine the law enforcement officers. Looking over them with the eye of a trained operative, he immediately saw that they were all of the same palette range, being either grey or white underneath their cripplingly flashy golden armour. His thoughts drifted back to the maid which he had contacted earlier, as well as her colour. The difference between her and these guards were major in both palette, and muzzle shape, as well as some more subtle differences with the build of their bodies, although they were probably less pronounced underneath the armour. Speaking of the armour...
Deadman turned his rather critical eye to the armour next, and immediately saw many, many problems with it.
It left both the underside of their body and their throats almost completely exposed, and on top of that, the armour was incredibly flashy, and on top of that the gold like material - as he refused to believe anyone would be stupid enough to wear gold armour - seemed rather thin. Then the realization came to him in a flash. 
It had to be ceremonial armour. It was something like the silly uniforms of the Pontifical Swiss Guard. With that vital bit of information deduced from their armour, he set off to look at them in the sense of a semi-ceremonial guard. He could guess that, if the semi-ceremonial guard responded to his intrusion rather than a regular guard unit, that they tend to not need to call in such a unit here often, pointing to either peace or a their enemies straight up not giving a shit.
What about their weapons? The way the horned ones levitated them in front of them was certainly odd. Did the ability to move items without touching them at close range mean that they could keep peace effectively as is? If they only have melee weapons and primitive projectile technologies like he was seeing here, he could see such an ability trumping almost everything else close up with the lack of limbs to target, as well as the ability to attack without having to worry about their own limbs. Such an advantage could allow them to be... lazy when it comes to armour, if they had that advantage and not many else did.
It was that second that a regal and commanding female voice filled the room, saying “What is the meaning of this?”
Snapping out of his reverie, he saw a rather imposing, by comparison, equinoid that came up to his upper chest. Her coat was a pure white, much purer a white than the other equines. Furthermore both a large horn and a similarly large pair of wings came off of her body, a set of features not found together on any other equine he had seen so far. She also wore a tiara, necklace, and a set of what he could only describe a slippers, all golden and full of various colours of jewels. The most fascinating of her features, though, would be her mane and tail, which had a marvelous ethereal quality to it as it seemed to blow in an unseen wind. The shifting rainbow of colours within the hair seemed to be almost holographic, as such was their vividity.
Glancing into her purple eyes, he could see one thing in them: determination to protect.

> Polite Introductions
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

        This desire was one he was very well familiar with, and could respect. Had they been in a different situation he would feel a kinship with this equinoid if that was her primary concern now. However, as much as he wanted to show this, he would not, could not go outside Blacklight protocol in this situation, just as any other. Such a pity that was. 
Staring at him, she narrowed her eyes, and asked “Who are you?” It was easy to feel the tension in the air grow as she asked him this, as the room seemingly becoming slightly hotter.
“I am an Agent of the Blacklight organization by the codename of Deadman,” he responded, using a carefully measured answer. “In order to preempt likely future questions, I, due to rather unfortunate circumstances, have been transported to this castle by mysterious means during a direct confrontation with The Order,” he continued, deciding to leave out the fact he was supposed to be blown up by the airstrike, and this whole situation gave his name a very indicative new meaning.
“Who is this... Order, is that blood from them?” she questioned, motioning with one of her regalia covered front hooves towards his bloody arm.
Deadman nodded, before stating, "Although I can confirm that the biological matter is from The Order, I am not authorized to give out the details on their organization except over secure channels, meaning there must be no potential for leaks," he glanced towards the open door, as well as the original guards who were now standing outside of it, leaving only the personal guard of this figure in the room, who stood motionless and silent.
"Very well," she agreed. Both the door and her horn was then wrapped in a golden glow, before the door slowly closed. He would never get used to that.
Wasting no time, he cleared his throat for a second before starting his explanation "The Order is an insurgent organization whose goals are to tear down society in order to install their ideal government. They use biological weaponry and advanced technology in order to further this goal. My organization was undergoing an operation code named 'Siege' against them before I was transported here."
A look of what he guessed was distrust crossed her muzzle, before she said "I have not heard of any such organization before and I have been around for quite a long time. Do you have any documentation of them and their activities?"
Deadman smiled, before saying "That may be because my current hypothesis is that this is another world." It was the only one which made sense to him.
"And what makes you think this?" She said, her voice and eyes slightly softening with a bit of empathy becoming apparent.
"Not only is there no land mass with talking equinoids on my planet, I am not getting messages from HQ, and they have global coverage. In addition, my HRV would have picked up any other Agent here. Therefore, I am the only Blacklight Agent on this world, and likely the only one of my species, human," he simply stated.
The sympathy became even clearer in her voice as she said "I'm sorry." 
He did not see what she was so sorry about, he was just another Agent, and he was going to die fighting back home anyways; him being here did not change anything in the long run.
Deadman raised his arm, and began typing on a small keyboard as a holographic screen appeared. As he had it search his archives for a video, he heard her say "What are you doing?"
"Getting documentation, as you requested," he stated, as he found the link and opened it, before pressing another button to start the recording, and a third to flip the video before him.
Looking at her to gauge her reactions, he kept careful watch on her. It was not needed for him to see the video, he knew this video by heart at this point. It started off as security camera videos of Order Operatives distributing an aerosol in a public area. After a minute or so it switched to videos and images of the sick as they lay in pain in hospital beds and makeshift cots as they writhe and make faces showing their ghastly pain.
Her breath caught as what as the attempted medical care of the sick showed up on the screen. Deadman had a feeling that she wouldn’t like what happened next, as the second stage of the disease began.
He remembered the next section well, the very sick same sick rose, attacking those very same doctors and nurses who were taking care of them not a night before with savagery and enhanced strength. The screams from the video he remembered well and he elected to not play the audio over the external speakers for this very reason. It had not gone over so well when he had done so with a civilian last time. 
It did not stop her from letting out a small gasp as the images appeared on the screen. Then, she gasped again as it shifted to the next screen, the first conflicts.
The videos were of the police and other such units being called in to suppress a riot, and summarily being set upon by the victims of the Q-Fever, which would eventually become known as the SIVs.
The police held the line, of course, considering they were equipped to deal with riots, and they had experience doing so. Then, The Order themselves shown up. As well prepared as they were for rioters acting as wild animals, they were not prepared for such monsters in human form, using Blacklight-like technology to cut their their lines like paper, and then simply letting the SIVs do the rest in a flurry of blood, teeth, claws, and crude weapons. 
He closed down the video down with a single press of a button before it progressed even further into the spiral of events that happened next; his point had been made.
Lowering his arm, he turned his gaze back towards the equinoid, saying “I have provided the proof you requested of my hypothesis.”
“Let us just move off of that... subject for a second,” the leader said, “How exactly did your agency respond to these attacks?” It seems she had managed to regain her composure, as the same protective tone of voice returned.
“Simple,” Deadman said, “we did what our protocol told us to do. Primary objective, protect civilian populations; Secondary objective, eliminate threats to the civilian population through any means necessary.” The guards at the back of the room made their first move since they started the meeting, shivering slightly. 
“I must admit, you are taking this trapped on another world situation a fair deal better than I would expect anyone in your situation to,” the leader said.
In response, he dryly stated, “I am a very calm person.” He decided to omit that he was not particularly afraid of the end coming for him anyhow.
The figure nodded, and said “I, Princess Celestia, would like to extend the hoof of friendship on the behalf of pony civilization, and welcome you into Canterlot up until the time which you are able to return home. I hope that you will accept this offer, and that a friendship between our species can be forged which will stand the test of time.”
Deadman’s eyes widened underneath his helmet at this princess’ offer. He had just admitted that he was a soldier which would incapacitate threats through any means necessary, and this member of royalty decided to not only not put as many doors, walls, and continents between the two of them as possible, she invited him into a place where he would be within range to do major damage if he were to go berserk. It did not make any sense at all to him
Something had to be up, but what other options did he have? “I accept your offer of accommodations as we go onwards towards a brighter future,” he said, and snapped his right hand up to his head in a salute. Truly, he hoped he was making a good choice here.
Princess Celestia smiled, and said “Shall we go for a walk? I would very much like to know more about you and your home.” That was code for ‘socialize with me for a while so it is clear to everyone you mean no harm’ he was fairly sure.
Deadman nodded and said, “I believe that I can accommodate that request,” before making his way towards the door, careful to keep his eyes on the princess the entire way, and swung the door open, without regard for the guards standing right beside it which could have done this simple task exactly as well. “Ladies first,” he said.
Nodding, Princess Celestia walked forward, exiting the door with her guards following quickly behind. Outside he heard her say “Stand down!” followed by the mass shuffling of hooves.
He flicked on his HRV for a brief second, and saw a rather impressive amount of guards waiting outside the room quickly scurrying away from sight down various hallway. Yeah, real clever way to hide a large police presence, ponies. Turning his HRV back off, he walked outside the door, to notice several things; One, they toned down the guard presence rather impressively despite their previous numbers and their short time to do so, two, that it was approaching the sunset, and three, that the guards standing guard outside of the door were beginning to look rather tired and weary. They appeared to snap back to a fully upright and awake position as soon as they saw a large armour mass splashed with blood, though
Deadman smiled to himself as he looked to Celestia, and walked in an area to her side, although affording her a slight lead and with a two meter space in between them. It was imperative he remained respectful, after all, especially with the guards marching silently right behind them.
As they begun walking, he asked, “So, what do you want to know?”
Celestia appeared to consider this for a second, before saying “You mentioned your codename was Deadman, what is your regular name?”
“It is irrelevant,” he simply stated.
“Very well then, what did you as a hobby before you joined your agency?” Celestia asked, likely trying to keep the conversation going without it degenerating into awkward question after awkward question.
“I tinkered with things;” Deadman said, “most of them ended up either breaking or lighting themselves on fire through some circumstance I forgot to plan for, but it was still fun.” He chuckled a tiny bit under his helmet, remembering one particular time in which he had managed to get behind the fridge and ended up taping the coils on the back together through long strands of tape to see what happened. That was how he almost got his first arson charge at the young age of thirteen.
“I see, was anyone ever hurt?” she inquired, perhaps attempting to gauge whether or not he was going to go to something horrible pursuing the hobby any time soon.
“Only one over-enthusiastic youth you can possibly already guess the identity of,” he replied, leaving out the crucial fact that this youth was his younger brother, who kept on going along with his stupid plans for years. It was beyond his comprehension as to why, that kid never learned. “Now, Princess, may I ask you a question?” he inquired.
“Ask away, Deadman,” she said, maintaining her regal tone of voice as they turned a corner, down into a hallway with a view of a courtyard as the sun crept its way towards the horizon,. Although he could not see the sun itself from here, he could tell by the orange glow coming from below that it would soon be night.
Deadman asked, “Is there any way that you could have the bedroom I am to inhabit be along one of the outside walls of the castle?”
“I am sure that I am able to accommodate that request, but may I ask you why?” Celestia turned to look at him as she asked, as her purple eyes stared into his curved faceplate.
“I want to be able to see the outside world, familiarize myself with it. I can not do this from the inside,” he stated. This was only a half truth, however, he really wanted to be able to see the whole castle in one HRV sweep.
She nodded, and said, “Perfectly reasonable.”
It was that moment a presence from behind took this time to make itself known, a female voice from behind that yelling at a near incomprehensible volume, “Sister, who art this daemon that thou meets with?”
Deadman turned around to see yet another equinoi- pony with both wings and a horn.
This one, however, was a deep blue colour and a tiny bit shorter, but this was accompanied by a mane like a starring at the Milky Way on an otherwise starless night which made her appearance just as impressive as her apparent sister’s.
However, the obvious mix of anger, confusion, and distrust in her eyes seemed to rather offset this.

> Infiltration
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	As Princess Celestia’s sun began to sink towards the horizon, the occupants of the castle had begun to wrap up their own duties for the night. Maids and groundskeepers who had been diligent throughout the day were relieved by their lunar counterparts. The guards too, having stood stalwart throughout the shining day were met by their shadowy brethren; switching the watch, and allowing those who were awake to prepare for slumber themselves. That is, except for a certain maid who had yet to bother signing herself out.

The dainty figure of a unicorn trotted through the now empty and darkened halls, as the magical lights were lowered to Princess Luna’s specifications. Her black and white attire sat prim and proper atop her dark grey coat, and her black mane was kept neatly in place by a matching white bun. Her eyes, a gentle green, surveyed the halls as she let out a smirk.
“These ponies are fools, how simple it was to return to this wretched place,” she thought. “Without that little pupil of the Princess to ruin her plans, I shall begin anew my plot for taking this pony infested city for my own!” she mused, lost within her own thoughts for a second as she let out a slight fit of laughter.
        Chrysalis, Queen of the Changelings smirked, and her spell faltered as her concentration on the maintaining of the illusion and transformation spells slipped slightly, causing a slight flicker before she returned the spells to full strength. She had to maintain her concentration on those spells. She had sensed earlier that they put up wards to disable infiltration magic, making maintaining such a spell far too difficult for a drone. It was still perfectly within her reach, of course, and she was more than willing to take the fore-guard of her soon-to-be second invasion.
Despite that minor damper on the mood, the Queen was quite delighted about how stupid the royal guards had been, they neglected to check her seriously, not bothering with any magical sensors to see if she was a timberwolf in sheep's fur. She had learned from her mistakes before, she wasn’t planning on failing yet again, and she was willing to shed the blood of anypony important she or her minions took this time, there would be no quarter.

The disguised queen walked through the halls of the castle which she had passed through only months before during her first infiltration. She frowned as one particular memory replayed in her mind over and over in her mind, and she felt anger rising because of it. It had been going so well before that cursed Twilight Sparkle had shown up and became suspicious of the actions of her ‘former foal sitter’.
Chrysalis breathed in deeply, suppressing her anger almost just as quickly as it had come. She and her subjects would have their time soon though, it may have been a defeat for her grand horde but the ponies, in their foolishness, had thought she had been bested once and for all. “Such ignorance these ponies possess,” she thought, “All their struggling has done was trim some drones from my swarm, which were a pittance to replace.” She smirked, considering how generous it was of them to launch her and some of her commanders into a village of some small, fluffy creatures she never bothered to learn the name of.
The Queen walked through the halls, making sure that she appeared to have a sense of purpose and direction. If there was one thing she had learned over the centuries of cloak and dagger, it was that if you looked like you belonged, everyone would treat you like you belonged.
She had already passed by quite a few ponies who were leaving for the night, many weary and exhausted, not taking heed to the threat that was before their very eyes as she slipped through the front gates. She was now without hindrance to explore the castle as she kept her ears peeled for any sign of something to... capitalize on within her infiltration mission, prior to executing her grand plan.

“Sister, be reasonable, I am sure that he will not harm anypony except in self defense,” the voice of Celestia echoed from up ahead as Chrysalis stopped, trotting quietly to the side of the hallway and pressed her body tightly against the wall as she crept over to the edge, just close enough to hear the group down the other way clearly.
“You act as if he did not appear from out of nowhere, and covered in blood no less! We have no idea what he may do Tia, especially after that earlier comment of his.” answered a rather angry sounding voice, which she was sure belonged to Princess Luna.
“Please, Luna, I am sure he did not mean it,” Celestia argued, “It was almost surely a minor cultural misunderstanding; correct, Deadman?”
A new voice answered this time, a deep voice with an eerily unnatural undertone within it, as if it were speaking through a metal tube stuffed with metallic filters, “Blacklight protocol states that I am to respond to aggression with equivalent force. This means that if I were to be harassed by her guards, I would be perfectly fine with committing multiple acts of assault and battery if the situation demands it.”
“See, sister, he just admitted he is dangerous!” Luna exclaimed, quite obviously distraught at this current situation.
“...Deadman?” Chrysalis whispered to herself “What folly is this?”
“Sister, as much as I would love to continue this lovely debate which we sharing in, I have to remind you that we have duties to perform at this time, regarding the time,” Celestia said, most likely referring to the cycle of the sun and moon, “Shall we convene once more at the chamber?”
There was a pause for a few seconds, before Luna responded “I suppose we do have such duties, but we will continue this discussion later. What will our guest do in the meantime?”
Celestia levelly responded “I will have some of our guards escort him to the staff baths, as to clean off the blood from his armour. I am sure that this will allow him some time to himself as evening dinner approaches. I trust this is acceptable, Deadman?”
“It is not unreasonable,” the unnatural voice stated, completely avoiding the question.

The clacking sound of hoof-falls on marble approached her as Chrysalis ducked away, she wasn’t willing to be face to face with either Princess so she made herself scarce, quickly seeking cover behind one of the large statues to watch the group of Celestia and Luna, along with their personal guards trot towards the room they must go to in order to move the heavens.
For a moment it was silent before a new sound, something  metallic echoed down the hall, overshadowing the sounds of more armour hoofsteps.
Chrysalis grimaced, an unnatural  smell suddenly filling the air; it was similar to molten metal, mixed in with the scent of... blood... decay... burning, and various chemicals she could not recognize.
        There, walking down the hall that the princesses had just passed through was a figure far larger in stature than anything she had ever seen walk on two legs. The queen’s eyes went wide as the metallic glint of its armour was caked in a red hue of blood and other disgusting things of something not so long ago deceased.
She withheld the urge to gag at the scent; this creature, was like nothing else she had seen on this world. It was larger than any Diamond Dog, and none of her own kin could rival that stature, even while using their mixture of shapeshifting and illusion spells.
Like a golem from the eons before, it walked slowly and purposefully, escorted by an equal mixture of the Sun and Moon guards, numbering four total, in silence as they led it towards the baths the princesses had previously mentioned. 
Chrysalis thought to herself, “W-what is that thing?” as her eyes both widened, and focused on the beast of machinery. It was clad in metals beyond those of her own swarm's forge, as well as cloth-like materials she was sure that were far more than they appeared. On top of that, she noticed the dull glint of some material that she did not even have a name for.
For the first time I a long while, Chrysalis felt uncertainty, everything about this thing stated that it was well honed for combat. From the the pair of axe and hammer like weapons clinging to its side to the rather large weapon which was hanging from its back as the sound of small pieces of metal jingling rather quietly emenated from a box hanging from the side of the device. However, despite the weapon of alien origin, despite the size, despite the metal and the smell, what worried her most of all was the mixture of grey and black patterns on its armour. 
Camouflage, she had seen similar patterned styles before, donned by the war-like Griffons; but, even then, this was different, darker...
They told her that it fought not with honour, like the guard, but pragmatism.
The creature raised one of its arms, before bringing it up to tap something on the side of its helmet. It seemed to look around at nothing, for a second, before its gaze drifted towards her location.
She ducked her head back behind the statue and a second later she heard it stop, and the guards which were walking in front of it quickly stopped moving too, as soon as they heard the footsteps of the being fall silent.
“What is it?” she heard one of the guards ask.
“There is a maid hiding behind one of the statues,” the being Celestia referred to as Deadman stated dryly, and Chrysalis’ heart caught in her chest. How did it see her? She had ducked back behind the statue’s plinth before it was looking in her direction.
“Are you sure?” she heard one of the guards ask the giant.
“Positive,” it affirmed, and began walking towards her hiding spot, its footsteps drawing ever closer.
She had to make up a lie, and quick. Possibilities shot through her mind as she came up with various plots, before settling on the most obvious one. 
She contorted her face into one of fear, some fake, some real, as she saw the expressionless faceplate of the creature enter her view as it leaned around the edge.
“Are you uninjured?” it asked from an uncomfortably close distance.
She could smell the death all the more intensely in this close proximity, making her next lines all the easier. “I- I heard you coming and I was scared,” she said, “I hid behind the statue because I didn’t see anywhere else to go.”
“Acceptable reasoning,” the creature said before, mercifully, backing off and nodding to seemingly itself.
It turned and walked back towards the guards, joining back up with the group, and then motioning down the hall with one of its hands, which seemed to spur the guards into action as they went on and continued the way they were originally traveling towards, seemingly unperturbed by the fact that a ‘maid’ was hiding near a perfect listening position, right near where the princesses were arguing not minutes before.

As they left, she stepped out from behind the statue, and watched them silently as they left, keeping track of the fact that the guards seemed like they were not too eager to stand too closely to the creature, as they were giving it a rather wide berth. As soon as they were out of sight, Chrysalis breathed a sigh of relief. For once, her heart had stopped, and the moment that thing, that... Deadman had left, she felt a sudden rush of life return to her; how did it see where she was?
The Queen cleared her mind as she tried to think through this logically. Whatever it was, it seemed to be at least on friendly terms with the Celestia, and that would mean that if she were to go through with her plans, she would need it to be a non-factor. There was no chance that she would attempt to do so in open combat, as she knew it was likely incredibly dangerous, especially if Luna was so worried about it.
More questions crossed her mind, the more she thought about the situation. How did it get here? What was its purpose? It was clear enough that the princesses did not have any clue, and if it did, it did not tell them. More importantly, however, what was it and how could it see her when she hid so well? She wracked her brain for anything even remotely similar, but nothing came to mind, this was something entirely unknown to her, and that was what worried her. She was old, she had seen centuries come and go, absolutely nothing like this should be able to remain hidden from the world for so long without making contact with some group or another. 
But... where did it come from, then?
She would need to be subtle about this, if her plans were to succeed with such a large unknown factored in, but how would she do this? It was nearly guaranteed to be superior in skill compared to the Princess’s soldiers, and its weapons, as different as they were, would almost certainly be far more devastating against her hordes than the ponies' spears, but it was those eyes that concerned her the most. Those mechanical eyes, if it even had eyes, could see her even through a solid stone statue, nothing like that could have existed without powerful magic to support it, yet this thing bared no horn to do so.

For a brief moment, Chrysalis felt that with this creature here, her plan would be ruined; if its sight was all-seeing as it had been against her, then what was stopping it from seeing her own army advancing towards the capital? Then, a devious plan crept into her mind. She would use Luna’s rather healthy caution against Equestria, and perhaps put this Deadman in use for her own schemes.

> Showers and Dining Rooms
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

        As Deadman and his escort approached what he was sure were the barracks in the castle, he heard what he assumed was the leader of the group say “In there,” before gesturing towards a set of doors made of a heavier seeming wood than the rest of the castle.
        He was just going to assume this was some sort of waterproof door substitute in place of one made of plastic or stainless metal.
        He strode forwards and turned the handle, opening the door inwards and instantly being treated to a rush of moist air from the interior. He glanced back towards the guards one last time, to make sure that they weren’t going to insist on continuing to ‘guard’ him, before walking in and closing the heavy door behind him.
        Looking around the room he saw it was rather nicely decorated, with stone tiling of various shades spotted with a few drains, and ornate faucets, along with an attached room which resembled a locker room back home; but, it was still less decorated than the rest of the castle. Still a damn lot nicer than the Blacklight HQ showers, that is for sure.
        Walking further into the room, he froze for a second, before flicking on his HRV and doing a quick full turn scan of the area. To his relief, he noticed no one was lurking within another section of the showers, waiting for him to let his guard down. He had learned his lesson about the importance of checking his bathing area when he and several other agents decided to use a public pool shower after they thought they had cleaned out the area.
        Deadman looked around the nicely tiled area, and decided on setting down his weapons within the locker room. Walking into it, he set down both his LMG and his heavy pistol side by side, both with their safety enabled of course, before unpacking all of his extra magazines and setting them down alongside the weapons. He refrained from putting his axe and hammer away, though, he learned that lesson from the same pool shower incident. 
        Walking back into the shower, he turned one of the dials on to full blast, and stepped into the shower to scrub his armour down, using his hands due to the fact that he had no sponge, and no soap to use. He was just glad that the materials used in Blacklight armour did not stain easily.
        As he scrubbed his bloody suit down, he thought on many things, like how absolutely ridiculous he had to seem right now to an outside observer. A large man in a suit of power armour, taking a shower, without leaving said armour, in a land full of equinoids ruled by a diarchy, like it is the most normal thing in the world is a sight not often seen. However, his thoughts shifted over to more dire nature as his wanderings drifted back to duty and protocol. Would he be able to get back home in order to continue his duty? Did his presence on this world rob him of his purpose? Above all, what was he to do now? He hadn’t had no objective for years; he was at a loss for what to do. Deadman decided that he would just go with the flow for now, and decide on a course of action later. 
Perhaps he could train a local installation of Blacklight here from the native population so that HQ didn’t think he was sitting on his ass the whole time if he were ever to get in contact with them. He smiled at that novel thought as he moved on to cleaning off the hammer and the ultrasonic tomahawk, the last pieces of equipment that needed the blood off of them. Sure, it was an interesting thought, but like hell it was going to happen.
After his cleaning ritual was complete, he strapped both of those weapons back to his sides and walked back out of the showers, packed up his mags and side arms before hoisting his LMG back into his arms, and walked towards the door he had entered through.
Once he had reached the door, he twisted the curved handle, and pulled open the door once more, stepping out of the moist environment and into the halls, which were now in a darkened state as evening had set upon the land as he was cleaning himself.
Deadman turned towards one of the golden armoured guards, who was beginning to look sleepy, and had as such not noticed his presence, and stated “I believe you are supposed to escort me to the dining hall at this time.”
The guard jumped within his armour at the unnerving voice as one of the blue armoured guards let out a rather unprofessional snicker.
“Yes sir, right this way,” the guard said, now looking far, far more awake than he was previously.
He smiled at that, and let that guard and his other golden armoured partner take the front, as the two in darker armour took up position behind him. He was just going to guess that the difference in armour colouration was to draw the line between the guards of the two princesses, judging by their shared colour schemes, and the fact that it seemed like the dark armoured guards only showed up when Princess Luna had decided to make herself known and throw a fit about the giant spooking everyone. Why the distinction between the guards, though? Surely, if they ruled equally as they had implied earlier, it would make no sense to split the guards up into two groups. 
His musings were then cut off as they approached a heavy looking and tall set of doors which were, surprise surprise, well decorated. Flanking each side were three guards. As they approached, one guard from each side and broke off, opening the doors. As soon as the door opened, he saw a large dining room. Dining hall seemed far more appropriate here, he would wager.
From the ceiling hung several large chandeliers reflecting the light from candles which were almost certainly a bitch to get up there, even if they had staff members that could fly; given how that holders were hidden behind so much crystal. The edges of the walls were spotted with clear glass windows, through which he could see the night sky. Throughout the room was several tables laden with cloth and silverware, which were perpendicular to another table, more elaborately decorated and upon a raised dais. At that table upon the raised dais sat Princess Celestia and Luna, both of whom he had met earlier, each sitting at an opposite end of the table. Along with them, two additional of what he believed he had heard were called alicorns. A pink one and a purple one both sitting down by Celestia’s end of the table. Were they also princesses? Glancing around the room, he noticed that the guards here were mostly of darker armoured guard. Perhaps the dark armoured guards specialized in night operations?
He snapped out of his reverie as he heard the guards behind him pass him by, leading up to the table. He followed them up, and he could instantly feel the eyes of the every guard in the room, as well as the eyes of the princesses and what he guessed were other princesses set upon him.
His first instinct was to seize up, he was not used to this many eyes being on him except when he was torching a horde of SIVs, but his training kept him going. He looked into the eyes of each of them for a second, in order to get an idea of their moods and where to sit. He detected polite friendliness in Celestia’s gaze, but not much else. He knew the gaze of a politician well, so he was going to guess that she was hiding plenty more emotions behind that gaze. Luna looked just as guarded before, not even bothering to hide her distrust. The pink one looked as if she had no idea what was going on, so she could go either way on the possibility of pleasant dinner conversation. That is, no dinner conversation. The purple one had a look of curiosity. He disliked this, she would be questioning, and that would be unproductive to the idea of a quiet dinner.
He glanced down the table, counting the number of seats between the purple and pink pair sitting side by side, and Luna. One, two, three, four... Looks like he did not have room in order to be outside of conversation range of both of them. He would have to handle this carefully. Hostility, or questions? He briefly considered sitting as close to Luna as he could just to annoy her, but dismissed that thought quickly. He was not a school child, even if he was counting out seats like one in order to avoid being talked to.
As soon as he approached the table, he made a snap choice, and moved towards the table, he stopped once to salute the occupants of the table, considering that he was dealing with royalty. “Blacklight Agent Deadman reporting for duty,” he crisply said.
Following up the drop of his arm, he circled the table and sat beside the pink alicorn, with the purple one sitting on the other side of her. Settling his large gun on his lap, he pulled his chair in and it was subsequently concealed underneath the table.
He felt like he was going to regret this decision, but he had no other choice at this point.
He turned to them, and nodded to both of them, and instantly was assaulted with a torrent of words as the purple one opened her mouth to say, “Oh my gosh! You are the one that Celestia told us about; she told us about how you think that you may be from another world and that you have a crazy magic suit, and how that you can make moving images appear from your arm, and how that you can-” During her spiel, he mused whether he could pass it off as a cultural misunderstanding if he got up and walked over to sit by Luna.
“Princess Twilight Sparkle, I am sure you can space out your questions a bit, make it easier on the poor fellow,” said the pink alicorn, thankfully cutting off the queen of run on sentences could say anything else.
“But Cadance, how can you not be excited? This is first contact with something from another world. I’m sure he has so, so much to teach us,” The one he now knew as Twilight waxed on, words excitedly bubbling out of words at a steadily increasing pace.
“And I am sure you can ask him about things he can teach you later, with your questions paced out and maybe prepared in advance, hmm?” said Cadance, with a small smile flitting on her face as the purple alicorn’s eyes widened in realization.
“You’re right, I absolutely can not go into this unprepared, what if I had said something stupid? I have to make flash cards.” The alicorn gasped, before levitating a small notebook and a pencil from under the table, before beginning to fervently write in it.
Deadman breathed a sigh of relief as he turned his head and brought his thumb up as he flashed a green holographic smiley face in front of his helmet. 
Cadance jumped a bit, but the smile widening on her face told him that she understood the message.
He turned the hologram in front of his helmet off, and went back to politely resting his hands by his side. As soon as he had finished that gesture, he heard the distant noise of hooves on stone, and he reflexively raised his arm up to flick on his HRV and see what was wrong. His eyes widened at what he saw.
Nobles, nobles and their processions. Hundreds of equinoids all coming this way. He instinctively raised his hand to rest on his axe as he glanced over to all the alicorns sitting with him at the table. Celestia apparently sensed his distress and gave him a reassuring smile. Alright, he could do this. He was representing Blacklight on another world, so he had to do this. No bolting out after yelling, “Hey, everyone, look over there.” He could handle this.
Tonight was going to be hell.
	

> Dinner and a Show
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Deadman tensed as soon as he saw the mass of ponies began flooding the room, all rushing to take up their spots at a table.
As the massive wave continued, he shifted into a more tactical mindset after beating down on his urge to flip the table and retreat to a spot out of the public eye. 
He noted that there was, despite the size of the fancy tables, a significant lack of ponies compared to the amount that he had spotted earlier when he did his initial HRV scan of the castle. He struggled to come up with an explanation for this, before he came to the most obvious realization; those that were here were obviously the elite of the castle. With this realization in mind, he took a look at the three other tables throughout the room.
One was occupied which he could only imagine as nobles, given their choice of clothing as well as the presence of what he assumed were personal servants, given their more plain dress, and the fact they were all standing beside one particular figure or another, never taking a seat.
At another table sat what he guessed were military, given their general uniformity of colour, as well as their posture and general orderliness compared to the other groups.
The last he was far less sure about, they had neither the opulent suits and ties of the nobles, nor the uniformity of the military. If he had to guess, they would be the heads of various departments which took care of the expansive area, as he could see no other roles which would be represented here.
With all this in mind, he looked over the crowd and debated whether or not he making a break for it and throwing whoever got in his way at the military would slow their action or make them act faster.
Before he could plot any further, he noticed multiple sets of eyes were looking up from their tables, and glancing at him, before turning back to the other occupants at their own table. At roughly the same time, he began to hear the whispers of the various occupants discussing things among themselves quietly, and he had no doubt as to what the subject of these discussions was.
Then a chorus of sound filled the room as some previously unnoticed heralds trumpeted for some reason or another, causing him to almost kick the table forward to take cover.
Breathing in deeply, he looked towards the door to see a lone unicorn walking through into the dining hall.
"Prince Blueblood of Equestria," he heard a loud voice, presumably one of the heralds announce.
Blueblood proceeded to trot across the room, an obviously faked smile upon his face, as he neared the table, Deadman silently prayed he was wary enough of the presence of an unknown being to not sit by him.
As Blueblood went around the back of the table, Deadman's hopes were quickly crushed as he heard the chair next to him slide back, prompting a sigh unheard outside of his armour.
Just then, he heard the same herald say "Ambassador Ironbeak of Gryphonia."
Refocusing on the entrance, Deadman saw, surprise surprise, a gryphon. He could honestly say that he was not surprised to see that a lion screwed an eagle, considering he was in a land which has talking ponies with wings and horns ruling over castles.
The old-looking gray and brown gryphon marched down towards the table, glancing over at either him or one of ponies beside him; it was hard for him to tell given that one of the gryphon's eyes was blind. Soon enough, the gryphon circled around the other side and sat a few seats down from Luna.
"Captain Shining Armour of Equestria," the very same herald announced once more, this time leading into another white unicorn entering the room, although this one seemed much more legitimately happy, and less... douchey was the only way he could put it. As he neared, though, Deadman could see hints of the same march that the military had coming out. He was no Captain simply born in the position, it seems.
Deciding that this wasn't going to get any more interesting than it already was, Deadman turned on his HRV again. He would deal with the rest of the bullshit this planet it would bring when he had to, he would see if there was anything interesting happening elsewhere.

Looking around the castle, he could see a few other pockets of population in castle, although he could also see a few groups of guards patrolling.
He did not look over his shoulder to check behind him, however, he had to make it at least seem like the ponies of this room interested him more than the stonework on the wall behind him.
He turned it back off and snapped to a better posture as he heard a loud voice; he turned to the far end of the table to see Luna saying "Good citizens of Canterlot, today we have the great honour to once again come into contact with a new species. As so many great diplomats before have come to Canterlot before, the time has come again to welcome a new representative to the world at large. With us today we have this figure, who I assure you will live up to your expectations for a figure whose actions have such weight." Did she just call him fat and pin all the moral obligations of a diplomat on him? He glared at Luna, with it safely concealed beneath his helmet. "May I introduce Deadman of the Blacklight Agency!" she finished, and turned to him.
Looking out into the crowd, he saw every set of eyes on him. The last time this many eyes were on him was during an "Onslaught" operation, and then he was expected to mow them down with his LMG. That memory was not helping his stress levels at all. The fact that they had also closed the doors over gave him the odd feeling of they were trying to lock him in, but his rational mind discounted that possibility.
However, his Agency was counting on him to make a good first impression, and he was going to do it the best he could, following Blacklight protocol to the damned letter.
Deadman pushed his chair back and stood his LMG in his arms, before standing up. Glancing around for any signs of panic, and seeing none, he started the speech he was making up on the fly to fit protocol.
"Greetings on the behalf of everyone at the Blacklight Agency," he said, "My codename, as you know, is Deadman, and I am pleased to represent my agency here in this new land. As per Blacklight doctrine, I plan on helping to ensure peace as much as any one man is able to through any means at my disposal. I would like to thank the Government of Equestria for allowing me temporary residence within the country, until which time I can work out further operational details with headquarters. Upon that time I shall continue to advocate peace and the safety of civilians, as the agency I represent always has. Thank you for your ears, eyes, and hearts, Citizens of Canterlot."
He sat back down at that, and took a look around the room, to notice that no one was voicing their disgust at some slip up, or their anger at some cultural slight, or even unease at his 'promises', in fact, a few of them were stomping their hooves on the floor from their low chairs.
Then a few more.
And then the entire room was filled with the sound of the stomping of hooves.
He was almost certain this was some sort of call for blood before he took a look at their faces, and saw general approval not the least bit hidden.
Holy shit, that actually worked? He was shocked beyond all measure, last time he had spoken to civilians he had almost caused a riot. There was a reason that they got Deacon or Lazarus to speak in the instances it was required rather than him.
Several seconds later, the stomping quit, and the room went quiet again. With that massive load off of his chest, he breathed out a breathe he did not know that he was holding. If he were any older, that would have made his heart go far more surely than conflict with The Order ever would.
"Then without further ado, let the Royal Weekly Evening Meal begin," a voice to his other side said, which he was certain was Celestia.

As soon as she finished her speech polite conversation began at low volumes both at this table and the others before the doors at the entrance swung open as quite a few of the castle staff entered through the doors holding various metal platters, the metal tops of which obscured the food which was on them. They filed through the room they placed various platters on the tables, all filing up and through until all of the trays has been placed upon the table. Oddly enough, though, not one was placed on the higher table which the high figures and himself were sitting at.
His curiosity was soon invalidated as a few larger and more opulent covered platters came through the door. He watched intently as the servers carried the plates towards them and up the stairs of the dias. All the plates were summarily placed upon the table from the front, and the most of the servers left, closing the door behind them once more and leaving a small contingent behind.
He turned his head slightly to the left, and glanced out of the corner of his eye at Twilight, and saw her taking repeated notes under the table while occasionally flicking her eyes over in his direction before returning to her notes again with the... levitating feather and inkwell she had stashed under the table. He was never going to get used to that telekinesis crap, he would have to ask them later about what they were using to do accomplish it. Not Twilight though, he could sense that would end in a lecture and him spending more time in contact with a civilian than needed. Looking over to the pink princess he had heard referred to as Cadance, he quickly drew the conclusion that she may be the better one to ask; if they were to ever meet during other circumstances, he could ask his question.

The servers from earlier moved up towards the front of the room, and lifted the large lids off of the plates, revealing various vegetarian dishes, as well as... did that dish have some sort of tofu looking substance, and that other one spaghetti?
He glanced towards the other end of the table to confirm his suspicions, and yes, yes they did.
He subconsciously licked his lips as memories of his bachelor days began flooding back, where he would gorge on those two things since they were cheap in his old area.
Well, the bottom of the barrel crap he got from a super store was cheap, at least, which fit with his general spending habits.
Looking around the room, he saw the already removed lids contained far less variety in the foods than the table in front of him. Mostly, he would say that this was due to the generally vegetarian diet compared to up here, which although still vegetarian, branched out a tiny bit more from the greens and beans which he was seeing.
His hypothesis was that this was either to appease the gryphon ambassador or to guess his own tastes.
Regardless of the reasoning, he was going to try his damnedest to enjoy it.
Glancing around the table, he saw various attendants, one to each of the "high" diners, who seemed to be in conversation with the corresponding diners, likely acquiring their preferences for their meals.
Spotting movement out of the corner of his eyes, he turned to see a lone brown unicorn standing still on the over side of the table. He really should have noticed him earlier, it seemed like he was too busy being an overly introspective idiot, he mused.
"You are here to acquire food items for me, correct?" Deadman questioned.
"Yes,' sir," the attendant simply said. Deadman had a feeling he was going to like the staff here if they were all this professional.
"I take it the white substance is a food item by the name of 'tofu', correct?"
"Yes, sir," the attendant repeated. Deadman nodded, he wasn't even going to bother to question how the hell everything was named like back home, he had reached his threshold for caring about that stuff at approximately the same time he had prepared for a siege by a group of ponies.
"Then I would like tofu, spaghetti, and garlic toast if it is currently available," Deadman stated.
The unicorn telekinetically lifted up the plate, and said "Very good, sir," as he left for down the table, where the food he had asked for was.

“So you must be that new warrior from elsewhere that auntie told me would be joining us for dinner tonight," said a pony to his side, which he had assumed must have been Blueblood.
"Aye, that would be me," he said, looking to the side to face the source.
The unicorn he had not paid too much attention to due to boredom earlier was a pristine snow white, and wearing a suit with his blond mane carefully teased into a hairstyle which was far out of the norm compared to the other styles of manes he had seen while he was here. "I am quite the warrior too, you know?" Blueblood said.
"That's nice for you," Deadman said as he glanced around, seeing if his attendant was going to be back soon.
"What? You don't believe me?" Blueblood incredulously questioned.
"I never said that," Deadman stated.
"I'll have you know that I captured three changelings during their invasion of Canterlot!" Blueblood said, how offended he was at someone not stroking his ego showing in his voice.
"Once again, that's nice for you," Deadman said and glanced down the table towards the attendant who was in the process of gathering up the requested food. All he wanted was to eat dinner in peace.
"So no comeback then from the warrior? Nothing that you have done that compares to that?" Blueblood continued.
Deadman sighed, wishing he had sat by Luna now more than ever. At least he would have probably not been harassed.
He checked to see if he was being watched closely before leaning over and quietly whispering "Nah, I would have to lower my actual statistics to compare to that. I'm the type who neutralizes a mixture of two hundred and forty-one SIVs and Order Agents over the course of fifteen minutes during a classified operation.”
Blueblood’s eyes widened in shock, not only not expecting such a large claim, but the matter of fact tone Deadman used told him he was likely not a braggart.
“Now let us eat dinner in peace, hmm?” Deadman said in a very slightly more amicable tone as he turned back forwards and leaned away from Blueblood.
With the timing of a clockmaker, the waiter from earlier had shown up once again and placed the platter in front of him. “Your meal, sir,” he said before laying the plate full of spaghetti and tofu in front of him.
At this point, he began ignoring any conversation that may be going on at the table, not including any mention of the names ‘Blacklight’ or ‘Deadman’.
It would appear that is was time for him to take his helmet off. He lifted his hand up beside his helmet and tapped the HRV on last time, looking for anything potentially dangerous lurking beyond the walls, before turning it off and reaching down along the base of the helmet and dehooking the latches keeping it in place.
With no small amount of trepidation, Deadman lifted the helmet off of his head as it depressurized.
Deadman removed the helmet from his head, allowing his short brown hair to fall down upon his brow He sighed and brushed it off his pale forehead and to the side.
He would have appreciated a comb to tidy himself up just a bit, but oh well.
Looking around the room, he noticed that a disturbing amount of eyes were on him once more.  It screamed against his instincts to be in the presence of so many without his helmet on, but he would endure. He almost shivered, but suppressed it, thinking of the possibility of someone aiming for his head right now, but if he were to return his helmet to his head he could risk diplomatic issues which he would not be able to deal with. To one side, he noticed that both Celestia, Cadance, and Twilight were all looking at him to some degree. In two of the three cases they were polite enough to not stare at him, and were consequently subtle about it. Twilight, however, was not. It was obvious from her gaze that she was closely observing him. He immediately redirected his gaze to the other side as to attempt to dissuade any attempts at heavy questioning.
He completely ignored whatever Blueblood’s reaction was and focused on the gryphon and Luna. Almost immediately, he noticed an inquisitive look on the gryphon’s face and turned back to his food.

He was going to have his dinner in silence one way or another.
Gently bending down slightly and placing his helmet between his legs as he gripped it with his feet, Deadman went on to lift the silverware fork beside his plate up and stab it into one of the small pieces of tofu.
Remembering his manners, he ate as cleanly as he could, as well as turning his head ever so slightly as to see Cadance’s plate of the corner of his eye. He matched his pace of eating to her’s in order to remain polite in yet another way he could potentially screw up. However, he kept a few bites behind to make himself not blatantly obvious.

Once he had finished, he risked a brief glimpse down the table and saw that everyone was now conversing with others around themselves, in polite chit-chat.
Looks like he would have to also engage in such activities. Wait, he had a plan.
He turned towards Celestia and said “Excuse me your majesty, may I talk to you when you have a moment?”
“Of course, Ambassador, what is it?” Celestia replied, keeping that practiced smile on her face. He was certain that she knew he didn’t like that.
He put on a slight frown and said “If it isn’t terribly rude, it appears I will have to retire a bit early. Rather unfortunately, when I don’t sleep for too long, I start to get migraines which leave me extremely ill for a few days, and I have been up ever since two days ago. As I have been kept aloft only by medicine up to this point I feel as if I should go to my assigned room now, so it does not wear off and I ruin this wonderful dinner by getting sick.” All of this was technically true.
Her face turned into a frown as well, which he imagined was slightly more genuine than his, and said “I understand, I will have a few of my guards to escort you to your room.”
“Thank you, your majesty, I will have to see you at a later date, then,” he said as he smiled and reached back down to pick up his helmet and place it on his head.
Rehooking the latches and hearing it reseal, he quietly pushed his chair out and rose, and said at a volume just enough to be heard by the rest of the ‘high’ table “I apologize, I must take my leave now in order to attend to my continued health.”
With his helmet back on, he dropped the false expression and turned over to two guards which he heard approaching from behind him. With a single nod, they turned and began escorting him through all the stares and out of the grand dining hall.
As soon as they were out of the door, he felt the tension leave him in a flood.

> Dreams and Paranoia
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Deadman quietly followed his escorts through the corridors of the castle, occasionally glancing at some painting, tapestry, or other. He learned during his time taking history during high school that one could tell a lot about a group of people by the subject of the artistry that they kept around.
        It made logical sense, of course, a more conflict oriented group would more likely have quite a few pieces of artwork around depicting such actions in a highly positive light. However, a civilization at peace would likely have artwork picturing either such conflicts in a negative light, or artwork which depicted peaceful events more often than the other groups. It was a rather simple theory, the background of the artist influenced their subject matter.
        At least, it did in humans, but he could afford to assume in his idle speculations. They seemed to be startlingly human-like so far.
        Overall, it appeared to him that they were a part of the latter group, or the artists were at least from part of the country that was peaceful, as he saw hardly any artwork depicting conflict. Hardly being the operative term, of course.
        They had earlier passed a stained glass window which would require further investigation; it depicted quite a few ponies in golden armour squaring off against a horde of black, chitinous looking creatures. Above one side were two ponies which happened to look eerily similar to Princess Cadance and Captain Shining Armour. Over the other side, there was another, larger chitinous looking creature. What he found most curious, however, was that every one of the chitinous looking creatures had both a horn and wings, which otherwise seemed to be reserved for princesses alone.
        The question of whether or not the creatures having both wings and horns was the artist’s rendition was something that needed investigation. He certainly could not discount even more sapient species being here, especially after finding out about the presence of gryphons on this world.
        If he did not have his Blacklight training, he would probably be flipping his shit right now at the thought of everything that had been dumped on him today. Were he not sure of his mental stability, he would have thought he had gone insane, he mused.
        He was broken out of his train of thought as his guards approached a door and stood on either side of it.
        He approached the door and swung it open, a rush of cool air greeting him from the open balcony door. To the back  left of the room sat a rather nice set of carved wooden dining furniture. Along with that, primarily a window to the outside, with a few supports to keep it up. Thankfully, these windows had curtains. Towards the back right of the room, a four poster bed rested with a nightstand by one side, and a bookshelf by the other. Near the bed there were a few dressers for any clothes he may acquire during his stay. Along the other in a corner he saw some cushions set on the floor, and heading towards the back he saw a door which, judging by the tiled edge of tiled floor he saw heading into the room, was his washroom.
        He turned back to his escorts and said one simple word, "Dismissed." He then closed the doors and engaged the lock. Walking over to the balcony wall, he closed the balcony door, locking it too, before swinging the curtains shut. He was going to decrease the possibility of anyone breaching security to minimum.
        He set down his LMG on the top of one of the dressers and unpacked all of his ammo, as well as bringing his cleaning kit out from one of his armour’s pockets. And so, the evening ritual began. As he took apart his gun in order to clean it he thought over his plans for representing the Blacklight Agency in this world, his hands starting to go on to autopilot.
        This situation meant that the Agency's strategy of staying outside of the public eye was certainly not going to work, although he would attempt to minimize situations where he had to appear or speak in public. The amount of time he spent speaking was directly proportional to how many people were calling for blood in the past.
        Chuckling at that slightly amusing thought, he reassembled his gun and pulled out his pistol to do the same.
        He wondered if the ponies in the hall were faking it, in order to appear polite in front of him, as foreign dignitary. It was very possible, as he could have very likely he intimidated them into faking it. The way he gave his speech gave it quite a few spots where he could be misinterpreted as wishing to heavy handedly enforce the will of the his organization. Too late now to go and revise it, though.
        Fitting the suppressor back in place on his pistol, he finished his maintenance on his guns and walked over to put his pistol and ammunition into the nightstand’s drawer. Heading back over to the dresser, he grabbed the LMG and went back over to his bed. Kneeling down, he slipped the gun and ammunition underneath it.
        With all of that taken care of, Deadman lifted up the covers and slipped under the sheets, laying there fully armoured. He wasn't going to take any unneeded risks in such an unsecured location without someone there to watch his back, even if it meant he had to sacrifice the feeling of a nice, soft bed. The inside of his armour wasn't that uncomfortable anyhow.
        He closed his eyes, and drifted off to sleep moments later.

        As Luna sat on her bed, she thought about how glad she was that her sister agreed with her her more than what she let on, especially after it was brought up that all of the evils that had besieged Equestria over recent years had the ability to alter one's mental state.The notion that  her sister herself could very easily be compromised probably helped too. It was agreed upon that he was to be treated hospitably until they knew for certain of his intentions, however.
        She supposed that it made it much less damaging than her proposed methods to their reputation as it were if she turned out to be wrong.
        Another thing they had settled one was surveillance of this 'Deadman;' perhaps they could divine some more information about him and his organization by watching his actions and words carefully.
        Tonight she planned to go a bit deeper than that.
        Closing her eyes, she focused her magic and weaved it into a spell which she had cast many times before. Releasing it, she drifted into the realm of dreams with much more control than the average dreamer.
        Within seconds, the spell found its intended target and propelled her into his dream, an image slowly coming into existence. Much to her surprise, she wasn't within her own body.
        No, she was looking out from behind the casing of Deadman's helmet. This was not a normal dream, it was a dream of the past, a memory being replayed.
        The first thing she noticed that she had a startlingly unrestricted field of view, looking out into the world as if there was nothing at all there. The only reason that she knew there was a helmet of some sort there was that there was the memory of the feeling of something resting on Deadman’s head. Something else then caught her attention. In both the bottom left and the bottom right of vision there was a semi-transparent set of numbers on top of some sort of a gauge. Along with these, there was a set up of three what she assumed were names with a set up similar occupying the middle of the left edge of the screen and a small list to middle right, although she could not read the text.
        She wondered if he always saw these strange markings, or if they were the result of the same arcane construction that allowed him to see out through the front of the helmet.
        Tearing her attention away from the detailing of the inside of the helmet, she looked out beyond the helmet and saw a street of a kind she had not seen before.
        The ground, where there would be a conventional road there was a smooth, light grey surface made up of what looked to be smaller stones, bound together by something that looked like it must have been a liquid at some point. To either side of this narrow road had large buildings rising into an overcast sky, reaching up to six stories in height, dwarfing most pony structures by far, with colourful signs and wires hanging in between them. However, something seemed a bit off about the signs… It was then she realized was off.
 The signs were semi-transparent, they all seemed to project in mid-air by some force of magic. Truly, whatever Deadman was, they were likely more potent than ponies magically, on average. To keep up so many precise enchantments would be quite magically draining on their inhabitants to a high degree, and the precision that each has in rendering their chosen sign in the air points to fine magical control.
        Deadman lurched into motion and began walking down the street. "Remember, Agents, the mission is a smash and grab, we are to retrieve the scientist from The Order then get out. If we can't accomplish that, we are to make sure that the scientist is iced before we go, clear?" Deadman stated in a voice devoid of the metallic tone that she had heard earlier, although just as cold.
        "Deacon acknowledging," a male voice responded from out of nowhere with an accent she could recognize, sounding so close that it seemed like they were talking right into Deadman's ear.
        "Viper acknowledging," said a bored sounding  voice.
        "Ghost here, orders clear," said a third voice with a fair amount greater amount of bravado, before continuing "Hey, maybe we are going to get lucky and we're going to get to shout at someone to, as said by Deadman, 'Get in the fucking bag' again."
        "Can it, Ghost," responded Deacon, as three sets of footsteps settled in behind Deadman, "It wasn't as if you were coming up with any better idea to get him to come along without shooting that guy and dragging his bleeding ass back.”
        "Come on, Deacon, you know I meant that we should threaten to shoot him," the one known as Ghost moaned.
        "And that is why you were aiming at him from where he couldn't see you, right?" said Viper joining in the conversation.
        "Ladies, slap fight back at base, mission now," Deadman flatly stated.
        They all went quiet, and walked on in silence for a few minutes among the stone, the metal, and the illusions.
        Then Deadman raised his hand up to the side of his helmet and depressed a button. The  world was then awash in a shade of blue overlaid in places with numbers. Luna wondered about the purpose of this for a second before it all became clear to her. It saw beyond the street in front of them, and into the buildings to the side, providing a general outline of the inside of buildings on the side of the street. Within a few of the buildings she saw a few yellow coloured shapes of what she guessed were members of Deadman's species, laying down in most cases, or stumbling around in a few others. In addition to this, there was a large number of orange shapes some distance ahead.
        Luna shuddered, thinking about the implications of this. Whatever the Tartarus Deadman's plans were to do in the castle, he could further them without them even knowing if he wished. Unless he was carefully watched at all times, he could out maneuver them with no trouble, and pursue his goals in secret. Not to mention that if he wanted to eliminate someone in particular he would have no issue making sure not only they were alone, but that no one would see him enter or leave the crime scene. That alone would made him a major threat if he were to have evil motives.
        "Looks like the mass of SIVs is still around the safehouse," Deadman said, continuing to walk to the destination. Weren’t SIVs the victims of that disease her sister had mentioned? "We are approaching the 'smash' part of the operation, but I think that I saw something on top of a building, three or four blocks from the place. Looked like it was artillery. We'll proceed there and see if we can snag some fire support,” he continued
        As they further approached the building, Deacon piped up in a joking tone "Santa must have left a gift on the roof since they didn't have any chimneys."
        Deadman lifted his hand up from whatever he was holding out of vision and tapped his helmet again, turning the front of his helmet blue and showing the large mass of orange bodies again as well as a lighter blue object on top of a nearby roof.
        "Deacon, on me. We're going to check out the top floor. The fire-escape is down,” Deadman said, and motioned over to a ladder hanging from the building. Deadman looked around for a second, before settling on a taller than average building. “Ghost, Deacon, three blocks away at four-o’clock there is a building for you to cover us from,” he continued.
        “Confirmed,” came a chorus of three voices as he finished, before two sets of feet from behind Deadman moved off.
        Deadman looked back over his shoulder, and Luna saw another armoured Agent standing there, in a set of armour similar to Deadman’s, but lighter, and holding another one of those fancy tube items which he seemed to carry everywhere, albeit with different size and detailing. Perhaps they were some sort of ceremonial club indicative of ranking?
        “I’ll take point,” Deadman said and turned back around and began walking towards the building, before starting to climb up a vertical metal ladder, which would be near impossible for anything but a biped to get up.
        Upon reaching the top of the ladder, Deadman started to creep his way up a set of stairs made out of the same metal, with Deacon’s set of lighter feet making quieter steps behind Deadman.
        Reaching the roof, Deadman directed his attention to its center, where rested a tube with some smaller cylinders propping it up to the sky. Beside it was a large, closed case as well as a smaller slab resting on top of the case.
        Deadman lifted the tablet off and said “Change of plans, we have additional firepower. We are cleaning the SIVs before we go in,” passing the tablet to Deacon, he opened the case, exposing the contents to the air. Inside the case were three bronze cones, laying gently there on some sort of foam. Clearly, they were important.
        “WP,” Deadman said, probably reading the intelligible letters off of the side of it.
        “Are we seriously going to use that shit? You know what it does to people,” Viper said, sounding more and more agitated as he spoke further.
        “SIVs aren’t human any more, Viper,” Deadman flatly stated. “Set it up,” he continued
        Luna figured that was the name of his species. At least they could attach a name to his kind now, besides ‘Agent’.
        “Sir, is that an order?” Deacon questioned.
        “Yeah, it is,” Deadman flatly stated again, propping up metal tube on the two smaller ones attached to it, before dropping one of the bronze cones into the top, wide end first. As Deadman looked back, the tablet  which was now in Deacon’s hands was lit up. “Deacon, you aim, I’ll load. Ghost, Viper, get in a good place to watch the place. Make sure the mark doesn’t get away,” he continued, flipping on his HRV and looking through the terrain once more towards the SIVs. He then flipped it off, and looked back down at the open case, grabbing another bronze cone.
        “Viper confirming positioning,” a voice came over into Deadman’s ear.
        “Ghost confirming position,” a second voice followed.
        “Deadman acknowledging,” he said, and nodded “Deacon, first shot behind the safehouse. Don’t allow that escape avenue.”
        A short pause went by as the tubing beside Deadman seemed to adjust itself, before Deacon said “Firing.” A loud bang filled the air, followed by a whistling noise, and a thick cloud of white smoke spreading from a point off in the distance.
        Deadman gently dropped another cone into the mortar, and flipped his HRV on immediately after. “Torch the mass front first,” Deadman stated as he turned it back off to see the world normally as it was, accompanied by the hissing sound of the smaller tubes readjusting.
        “Firing,” Deacon stated once more, and the same loud report came from the tubing, followed by another cloud of smoke filling the area. In the distance, the SIVs went into a frenzy, rushing around the area in search of some attacker but somehow oblivious of the loud noise in the distance.
        Grabbing the final cone, he slid it in the mortar and said “Hit the back of the horde, maximum injuries.”
        “Yes, sir,” Deacon said as the tube adjusted itself again, before firing the same loud report it had twice before.
        “Moving in on the site. Ghost, stay on overwatch, Viper, flank around to the side with your cloak,” Deadman commanded and whipped around to the stairs to descend. Deacon picked up his rifle and walked not far in step behind him.
        Once Deadman hit the ground, he began moving at a far greater rate than he had before, moving down the street while taking faster and longer strides, with another set of covered feet not far behind him.
        As Deadman rounded a corner into the area which was thick with the smoke, Luna would have shivered in horror as disgust overtook her, if she currently had a body to do so with.
        Through the slowly dissipating smoke, there were bodies in a very similar shape to that of the Agents she had seen, burnt to a mess of deep red, with white where the bone was shown due to the flesh around it falling away into nothing but ash. All throughout the square, there were bodies resting where they fell for the final time in most assuredly painful last moments. The terrain around was not spared either, as among the burnt bodies were burning parts of the normal terrain, thick clouds of white as well as fire obscuring what was being burnt. She distinctly hoped that they were not more bodies in similar circumstances. 
To think that one could do this was boggling to her mind. Even if their minds were gone, they didn’t deserve this; it was too far! But what if the intention behind this was to save lives in the long run? 
He seemed to be very big on protecting others in his earlier speech, and she could hear no insincerity in his voice then. If this was how far he would go, she did not know her opinion on it. There was always the choice of going around or sneaking through, he didn’t have to do this… but it was a quicker and likely more effective way to do the deed than either of those, and she had to wonder if he disregarded the means fully if it brought the desired ends.
Without regard to the moral dilemmas Luna found herself trapped in, Deadman walked on towards the building, through the flame and the ash like it was not there. “SIVs, coming from the east,” Ghost’s voice sounded, prompting Deadman to whip around at a startling speed for such a figure, and drop on to one knee before heaving an object which she recognized as the thing he carried around with him everywhere up to eye level, looking down another illusion as what she assumed was some kind of aiming assist. She had to wonder what use the obviously heavy device would have for it, though.
Her questioned was immediately answered as another human, foaming from the mouth came from around the corner, and promptly fell dead with a large chunk of his head missing the same instant a loud bang and flash issued from the object Deadman was holding.
Then more humans in a similar state, and another bang came from the side, followed soon after by Deadman’s weapon crashing like the continuous roar of thunder during a fierce storm, blocking out all other sound as the center of the aiming assist moved in through the horde, sprays of red mist erupting from each SIV which passed in the center of the circle.
She had seen enough.
With a single flash she found herself back in her own body, the feeling of being a pony rather than a mass of bipedal armour, a relief she never thought she would feel.
Standing up from her bed, she walked towards her doors. She was increasing the guard around his room as much as she could, and she was going to put the order in to have magic woven into his room under the guise of it being for his own protection from assassins. Soon as she was done that, she was going back into the realm of dreams and informing her sister of this. She needed her counsel about this.
It was clear that Deadman was dangerous, but she didn’t truly know if he was a threat.
That worried her.

> Early Mornings and Negotiations
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Deadman opened his eyes and sat up from this place in bed, breathing in the questionably fresh air that his helmet filtered in to him with a deep gasp.
He had had the dream again. That mission still stuck in his mind, even after so many deployments. It was not productive to keep on replaying his failures to himself over and over again. If only his subconscious was more helpful, perhaps giving him time to think of strategies for his current situation.
Looking around, he realized that he had thrown the sheets off of himself during the course of the night. It appears his body did not rest well, the same as his mind.
Reaching down to his wrist, he pressed a button causing a holographic screen to spring to life. Pressing another button, he displayed the time and date.
It was Five-thirty AM, August the twenty third. Glad that his internal clock was still right on time despite the lack of rest he had gotten recently, he flipped his legs over the edge of the bed and stood up.
He retrieved his pistol from the nightstand and put it in his holster, and then grabbed his extra magazines. He then kneeled beside his bed and grabbed his LMG, slipping it behind his back and letting the magnetic holster do its work, holding the middle of the gun snug directly below his heal injector. He then placed the extra ammo for it in a few of his pockets. It occurred to him then that the day-night cycle may not be aligned with the time back on Earth. He would have to check that out. Flipping on his HRV, he glanced over towards the door out of his room and saw roughly eight guards loitering out there, far more than the amount that he was comfortable with waiting outside of his room. But he would deal with them later. Flicking his HRV back off, he walked over to the balcony door and pulled the curtains open, before opening the door.
Stepping onto the balcony, he first noticed that it was still night time, with the moon progressing towards the edge of the sky, although it was rather bright for it being the night. The balcony overlooked some sort of hedge maze which sprawled out quite some distance, green hedges giving it the impression of some sort of particularly wavy green sea being frozen at one particular moment.. The third thing he noticed was that the balcony was only on the second floor. Looking back into his room, he decided that it would be far better to deal with a short drop than being annoyed by eight guards. Reaching in, he pulled the curtains back over the door and shut the door itself behind him, before making a move towards the edge.
He put one foot on the top of the short railing, and stepped over the edge. As he was falling through the air, he braced himself for impact, the short fall reminding him of air deployment over Balik. The period of reminiscing was cut short, however, as he hit the ground with a dull thud as his boots impacted the grass below.
Looking around and seeing nothing, Deadman flipped on his HRV once more and looked for an entrance to the maze. Seeing one around the corner of the maze, he started walking towards it and turned the HRV back off. Soon after, he rounded a corner and saw a green archway further down the path. Speeding up slightly, he soon entered the maze and began to wander aimlessly amongst the green corridors. Although he could ‘cheat’ with the HRV, he had no reason to do so. It was quite relaxing walking amongst the long corridors and the junctions, even if he cleared every corner as carefully as he would be if he was on a mission, and that he constantly was looking around for some sign of possible ambush.
Not long after, he came across an area which widened out, a square clearing with an oak tree sitting in the center amongst the short grass. This would be a good place to stay for a while, we figured.
He sat down beside the tree, and looked up at the night sky over the roof of the castle. He privately wondered if the sun was one of the stars up there, if home was out there, but he just didn’t recognize it. Then again, he could be trapped in another universe, with just as little explanation for how he managed to find his way over to Equestria. For some reason, though, the idea of being dumped on to another planet and just not recognizing home troubled him far more than being trapped in another universe did. It was one thing to be lost, it was another entirely to be lost with home in sight but with no ability to get back. Sighing, he pushed that thought aside and began to look for patterns amongst the stars. After that little chain of thought he needed something to distract himself with.
Before he had a chance to get quite into the spotting of patterns, however, he heard the distant flapping of wings. Flicking on his HRV and turning his head towards where the distant sound came from, he saw Princess Luna flying over the hedge maze directly towards him. Oh boy, he sure felt the need to deal with her at six in the morning.
She landed across from him with a dull thump, the expression on her face displaying a mixture of annoyance and anger. At least it was easy enough to know where you stood with her, he supposed.
“We understand that thou removed thyself from the room thou were assigned,” she said flatly, her eyes trying their best to kill him with a steely glare alone.
“Indeed I did,” he stated, tilting his head slightly. He was mildly inquisitive about her transition into an older dialect. An investigation into this was needed at a later date, perhaps at a same time he investigated the creatures in the tapestry.
“Might thou enlighten us as to the purpose of the absence?” Luna questioned, a small amount of anger creeping into her voice.
Deadman sat up more straightly than before and explained “I got up at my usual time and figured that it was a good time to get some fresh air as well as watch the sky for a while. The path of least resistance was to drop from the balcony.”
“Thou came out to watch the sky?” Luna asked, a small note of disbelief in her voice as she took a small step closer.
“Aye,” he answered, “When there isn’t a significant risk in going outside, I often go out and watch the night sky for a while if I have don’t have duties to do as soon as I get up. I find it peaceful.”
“There are not many who appreciate the night sky here,” she said, with a hint of sadness in her voice.
“I can not imagine why,” Deadman said, “It is not as if the stars here are any less interesting than the stars back home. Big balls of nuclear fusion hundreds of times larger than the world so far away that they turn it takes the light from them hundreds of years to reach the world? Who wouldn’t be interested?”
“I believe that our stars may be quite different,” Luna stated, dropping out of the older dialect entirely at this point, and being replaced with curiosity. “Our stars are motes of light hovering just past the moon but before the end of the sphere of the sky.”
“Our species often believed similar until we had the ability to look very closely at the sky. Do you have scientific evidence of your theory?” Deadman asked. He had a hard time believing that a species with a good grasp on how to levitate things did not have knowledge about what the stars were.
“Do you not believe that the Princess of the Night has not been up to inspect them herself? I can most assuredly tell you that they are small but extremely bright motes of energy,” Luna responded with a small portion of the annoyance from earlier creeping back into her voice.
“Then our stars are truly quite different,” Deadman stated, feeling a measure of relief. Even if we was not completely sure about her visiting the stars herself, she had no reason to lie about what they were. At least he wouldn’t be looking up at the sky and wondering if he was staring at home without knowing. While it was still worrying that he was in another universe, it was far better for his nerves than the alternative.
Unexpectedly, Luna asked “How are your stars able to lay in your sky if they are so large?”
“They are far away, I think the closest is around… I believe a bit over four or so light years away,” he stated, before realizing he should probably relay the speed of light too, “And light itself travels around three hundred thousand kilometers per second if I remember correctly,” he said before he realized that their measurement systems might not even be remotely the same. Figuring a way around that fact, he spotted and picked up a small piece of stone from the ground. Rising from his sitting position, he lifted the stone to a low height before throwing the rock straight up in the air, to the mild confusion of Luna, while he kept a careful watch of how long it was in the air. Satisfied with the result, he said “To give you an idea, that was in the air for around two and a half seconds. Given how many seconds there are in the year, you can imagine how far four light-years is.”
“If the closest star to your home is four light-years away, they must truly be far…” Luna began before a flash of remembrance crossed her face and the steely gaze from earlier returned. “Before this conversation continues on, however,” she continued “We request that you meet my sister and ourself in one of castle’s meeting rooms directly after the sun rises. We trust that you will be able to find us there without worry. Have thy any inquiries?”
“No,” he stated, and narrowed his eyes. Even though he certainly did, he was not going to voice them here and now. The fact that she implying she had knowledge of the HRV wasn’t lost on him. Action may be required if there has been a significant leak of information. Too bad on the front of attitude, he thought that she was warming up to him for a minute there but at least he now knew that she was easily distracted when one started talking about the sky.
“Very well, the meeting shall happen at said appointed time then,” Luna confirmed and turned away, before spreading her wings out and flying up into the air once more, before gliding out of sight over the hedge maze.
Deadman sighed. It was never simple, was it? Assuming that they actually knew about HRV, he needed a plan in case of him being accused of spying. If they knew about the HRV, they probably knew about his other gear, and there was a very high chance that they were going to try to get him to relinquish his arms and armour. Such would be a bad idea, and completely against protocol.
Turning towards where Luna flew off to he flicked on his HRV and followed her form through the air. Looking towards where she was headed, he spotted Celestia up higher in a tower. Perhaps there was some sort of morning ritual to be attended to before the meeting. Flicking his HRV back off, he started retracing his path through the maze, although with far less care for cheating than before. He walked through the maze constantly checking the route with his HRV to find the most efficient way out. Within ten minutes, he exited the maze and on to the soft grass again. With a sigh, he started to walk in the direction of the tower Luna was moving towards before. Turning on his HRV once more, he noted that both of them were still up there, and as he got closer, he noted that there were more than a few guards on the same floor as him, guarding a door into the tower, with some more on the floor below guarding a different entrance. Turning his HRV off back once more he noted as he approached the large wooden door that the light from the sunrise was just starting to creep into the sky.
He had two options here, he could either try and go in and try to get up to them, or he could simply wait for the sun to finish rising to confirm the meeting position.
After a moment of thought, he decided that the second was almost definitely the better option, and started leaning against the wall as he watched the night fade.
With an abrupt shift, the small cracking of dawn shifted into full morning as the world became abruptly brighter, although he could not see the sun of this world himself as it rose from behind the tower. Deadman looked around, confirming that what he saw just happened. That was most certainly unusual, to say the least. He waited a few more moments before turning back towards the building once more and turning on his HRV. Right on the other side of the wall, there were the princesses, the guards saluting as they passed by in silence and continued down the set of stairs to the other entrance he saw earlier. He waited for them to pass the threshold on that entrance and close the door behind them before he turned off his HRV and swung the doors in front of him inwards.
He paid no attention to the guards as they shuffled uncomfortably at his presence and closed the doors behind him before wordlessly continuing down the stairs. He had no business with them, and they did not try to stop him, therefore they were a non-factor.
He opened the door and quietly stepped through, closing it behind him once more, of course, and activated his hyper reality visor to make sure of their position before continuing on through this much drearier section of the castle. If they did not know of the HRV, he was not going to give them more reason to suspect its existence. It looked as if this section of the castle had not been used for a while, with cobwebs building up in some places. The stone in the windowless corridors appeared not only appearing to be cut of far lower quality rock, it appeared worn slightly, as if maintenance had not happened for quite a while.
He turned down a side-path and saw at the end of the corridor a short, heavy looking door made of a dark wood. With just a brief flash of HRV to check that the princesses were in there, and they most certainly were, he walked up to the door and quietly opened, stepping inside silently and closing the door behind him.
The room was made of a dark stone, perhaps a variety of gabbro, and the princesses sat on the right side of a low table on low cushions, and both of them quietly watched his approach with emotionless faces as he made his way over and sat cross-legged on the cushion across from them.
“You did not inform us of the capabilities of your weaponry, nor did you tell us of your ability to see everything that goes on in the castle,” Celestia stated flatly.
“Indeed I did not,” Deadman confirmed.
“Mind informing us as to why?” Celestia questioned, leaning over the table.
“The Blacklight Agency is a low-profile organization when it comes to operations, Agents are not trained for diplomacy,” he stated.
Celestia frowned and asked “So you thought it was best to not tell anyone about the capabilities of your equipment when it could endanger the lives of many around you?”
He was not oblivious to the implications of her saying that he could endanger lives. She thought that he could snap. However, he forced down the anger rising at the idea that she thought he would kill a civilian. It was logical for them to attempt to minimize the threat.
“If I had any hostile intents, I simply would have exercised the ability to do so long ago. Perhaps in the room that was full of most of the country’s command structure,” Deadman asserted.
“You must understand, ambassador, we are not concerned about you causing an altercation, we are concerned about the actions of others,” Luna said, keeping carefully neutral.
“I can’t particularly say that I see your cause for concern, your majesties. After all, I keep my dangerous equipment on myself at all times, and I am very vigilant in guarding it. Even if one were to try and get at my equipment while I am asleep I would wake and neutralize them,” He said, recognizing this particular brand of politics bullshit. Hiding behind the statement was the fact that they meant they didn’t trust others to not trigger him in some way.
“Still,” Celestia continued, “It may be safer if you were to hand your equipment over, for safe keeping.”
“I’m sorry, but unless it is guarded all the time by soldiers recruited Spec Ops a well a trained and geared up even further, it will not be safer outside of my reach,” he explained, resisting to add in that even if they took his equipment it would only delay his response, not stop it.
“You guard it even while you are asleep?” Celestia asked.
“Yes, if I didn’t wake up when someone tries to sneak into my room I would have likely been killed,” Deadman said before leaning across the table while a smirk hidden underneath his helmet. “Even if one were to somehow miraculously remove my armour and weaponry from my person without waking me, not only they be completely untrained in its use, they would be the completely wrong body shape to be able to use it. I would then find them and eliminate the threat before they would be able to figure out what does what.”
“I would imagine that with the ability to see through walls without the slightest issue finding them would be of no issue to you,” Luna said which prompted a quick glare from Celestia.
“And so we get to the core of the matter,” he grumbled at a low volume before continuing “So, mind telling me how you happen to know about the HRV, which is a technology entirely exclusive to Blacklight Agents and member of The Order, both organizations of which you did not have knowledge of the existence of until yesterday? I do not remember telling you of it.”
Luna shifted uncomfortably in her seat before uncomfortably declaring “I attempted to use a spell to contact you in your dreams last night and you happened to be reliving some memories when I witnessed your… HRV in action.”
Wait, spell? They had something that was explicitly magic and not some advanced technology? Well, that certainly explained a lot. If the laws of physics accommodated magic here, he should be glad that they weren’t different enough that he immediately explode upon ending up here. However, it made him quite a bit more worried. It was yet another unknown factor here out of his control. “Let me just confirm that you used a spell, something that was for certain magical to look into my dreams,” he queried. 
“What else would I have used to contact one in the realm of dreams?” Luna asked, causing Deadman to lean back and look up at the ceiling. “I find it hard to believe that you didn’t develop a spell back home to see into dreams if you developed one which can accurately locate others from far away and through walls,” she continued. He felt like he really should feel more angry about Luna watching his dreams, but the revelation that it was done with magic drowned out any anger that was building.
“Well, that isn’t exactly magic,” Deadman explained, “There is no magic at all back on Earth. Zero, none, or at the very least not enough for us to ever notice.”
“But then how are you able to do anything you do! It should be impossible,” Luna stated, and shook her head, drawing another glare from Celestia.
“I would say the same about magic, but here we are,” Deadman responded.
“But how would the sun and moon move? How would the seasons change?” Luna questioned, although these questions drew a mildly inquisitive glance from Celestia, rather than the earlier glares.
“Perhaps I could ask you about how it works on your world, and I will in return tell you about how it works in my land?” he questioned.
“I believe we have an accord, but afterwards we must continue discussion on the subject of you are your weapons.”
“Very well, you brought up how the moon and sun move through magic here, how do they do that?” Deadman asked before shifting his position on the cushion to be more comfortable. He felt like this was going to take a long time.
“The sun and moon are moved by my sister and myself through magic around the planet every day, through a spell renewed by both our strength at dawn and sunset,” Celestia answered. If it wasn’t a magic-casting talking unicorn with wings from another universe that told him that he would have been tempted to disbelieve it.
Deadman continued this line of questioning, asking “And what are they composed of?”
Luna answered this time, saying “Both are primarily composed of magic, but the moon is composed of a non-radiant magic which is much more solid, while my sister’s sun is composed of magic similar in composition to the stars but of greater heat and brightness.”
Well, he should have expected that given their names and Luna’s earlier explanation regarding the stars here. “Alright, on to home,” Deadman said, “Back home our sun is a large scale, long time going fusion reaction many times the mass of Earth at its most basic form. This produces a gigantic surplus of light and radiation which reaches our world, which is around eight light-minutes away. We orbit it, rather than the other way and a high speed and distance keeps our orbit stable. The moon orbits our world through a similar mechanism of speed and distance, but is made of various rocks and minerals rather than a similar reaction as the sun.” He paused for a moment to let this sink in, before asking “Now, how about the seasons?”
“Life on this world rotates the seasons through changing the production of weather and I personally lower the temperature of the sun for the colder months,” Celestia said.
“And the weather? How is it produced and controlled?” Deadman queried. The idea of the weather being entirely controlled by magic was weird to him to the extreme.
“Pegasi and other flying species have factories where they produce it clouds, and they then place them where they are needed. Granted, they do need to compensate for wind, but for the most part it is under control,” explained Celestia.
“Back home weather is a result of heat causing evaporation of the oceans as well as winds generated by the same heat. Clouds form around particles in the atmosphere and when they are unable to hold more water due to cooling of the cloud the extra water precipitates out until they are able to hold the remaining water. Different conditions such as differentials in temperature of static charge causes different types of weather, as does the intensity of winds,” Deadman stated.
“However, before we get distracted any further,” Celestia said, reminding him that even if he got either of them off topic it wouldn’t last forever “We must discuss the matter of your weapons in the castle.”
“Giving up my weapons or otherwise leaving them in the care of others would be a poor idea, as it would go against Blacklight protocol,” Deadman flatly stated, earning an almost angry seeming glare from Celestia.
“While I would like so, I understand that it is unlikely. However, I wish to have some basic guidelines for your… weaponry and HRV while in the castle,” Celestia stated, her eyes narrowing at Deadman.
“What are your rules?” Deadman questioned. He hoped that they were reasonable.
“Your weapons are to be kept in a state in which they are not able to be fired at all times. None of your weapons are to be drawn at any time. The HRV is to be used strictly as a navigation tool, and not to pry into the private lives of others. You are not to go out of your way to avoid contact with guards sent to communicate with you. You are not to use your HRV or any other methods to sneak into areas which the general public is not allowed into. You are not to go into the city area without express permission from either my sister or myself. You are not to fight, except in self defence, and you are not to goad another into fighting you. When you fight, you are only to stick nonlethal methods unless your life is in danger and there is no other option,” Celestia laid out, causing Deadman to nod his head in agreement. Those demands were reasonable, and although they had no way to know if he followed a good portion of those rules, he would respect them. They were things he didn’t really do anyhow.
“I agree to your terms,” he stated, before continuing “Was there anything else that you wanted to talk to me about?”
“There is currently nothing,” Luna spoke. It was interesting that she said much less on matters of policy than her sister here. Perhaps she wasn’t good with discussions like this? She seemed to be plenty eager to participate when he first arrived yesterday.
“Then I must return to my room, if you have no objections,” Deadman said, rising from his cushion.
“Wait!” Luna called out, prompting him to turn his head towards her. “If you ever want to exchange information again, contact me during the night. I will reciprocate your sharing of information,” she continued. It appeared that her curiosity had won over her concern for now.
“I believe I will,” Deadman confirmed, before exiting the room with a glare from Celestia burrowing its way into the back of his skull.
He wondered if Celestia’s sudden lack of friendliness was caused by a reversal of attitudes, or if she just pretended to be nice in public.

> Time Wasting and Questions
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Deadman sighed and walked down the hallway, back the way he came. With that out of the way, he really didn’t have anything to do for the rest of the day.
If he wanted to take up Luna on her offer, he would have to wait until the evening, and even then, he would likely not be occupied for the whole evening. Perhaps they had somewhere he could train for a while or a library where he could read up on some of the matters which he had noted earlier.
Flicking on his HRV, he noted that the royal guards at the entrance were still there. Perhaps they could give him some directions. He didn’t particularly want to risk seeing something that looks like a library in the distance and walking the entire way to the other side of the castle to find out it was a room for the entertainment of foreign dignitaries.
Opening the door at the base of the stairs, he began walking up the uncomfortably short stairs. Once he reached the top of the stairs, the guards instantly snapped back to attention.
He turned to the closest guard and said “I need a way to get to a library, some research needs to be done.”
The guard walked over to one of the doors leading into another section of the castle. “Sir, the nearest entrance to the library is down the hallway and to the right after about seventy hooves. You can’t miss it, sir,” he stated.
“Thank you for your assistance,” Deadman said while making his way over to the door.
When he reached the door, he took one last look over his shoulder before leaving the room.
Not far down the hall, he noticed there was a large set of doors along the right the wall opposite some windows into the gardens. Noting the location for future visitations, he stepped to the door and swung it open, revealing a very, very large library. Looking down the many, many tall aisles of bookshelves Deadman realized that he had no idea where he was to start. There was truly too much to do, and too little time to do it in.
Sighing, he walked over to one of the shelves and took a look at the spines of the books, hoping to find something that would interest him. It was then he realized he couldn’t read this language.
Staring at the shelf in front of him, he tried to puzzle out this logical conundrum. It made no sense that while their spoken language was the same their written language was entirely different. Perhaps he was in a section containing foreign books. He started walking through the aisles, and his hopes of finding something he could understand dropped more and more as he went through aisle after aisle with not a lick of English in sight.
Fucking hell, it looks like he had to learn another language. It was bad enough that he had to learn Russian to communicate with the survivors during his initial deployment to Balik, now he had to learn another written language too. At least he didn’t have to learn a spoken language as well.
Flashing his HRV, he noted that there was someone reading a book off by themselves roughly twenty meters off from his position. Perhaps he could glean some information from them.
Deciding on that course of action, he walked around the corner and with one glance down towards the pony sitting on a cushion at within a small enclave in the edge of the library he kept on walking without even breaking pace, hoping that she didn’t notice him. Down there was the inquisitive purple one, and there was no one to save him from the inevitable torrent of questions if he were to be caught. Luckily, she had a book in her magical grip and was far more interested in that than her environment. Perhaps if she wasn’t laying down he would have noticed her wings and have avoided this situation. However, there was no issue in thinking about what he should have done, he could only hope he could slink off now.
Just as he was rounding the corner he heard her say “Hi Deadman!”
Cringing internally, he turned around and said in a voice with faked friendliness “Good morning, Princess Twilight Sparkle, I didn’t expect to find you here.” He turned his head towards her before continuing “While you read you are quite quiet.” He caught the issue in his little bit of truth-bending too late. If he knew she was reading, he had seen what she was doing before, therefore he noticed her and remained quiet. Hopefully she would just pass it off as him assuming a logical action.
She nodded enthusiastically, and quickly chattered “I know, sometimes while I was young I would hide in here and no one would find me for the longest time because I kept on moving to find new things to read so I was always ended up forcing multiple people to search for me because I always would keep on moving so they would search again and and no one would find me for the longest time because-” He waited for her to break out of her mental loop. Perhaps she would be stuck like this long enough for him to just leave and say that he was going to get the medical staff.
“Anyway, enough about my childhood,” she finally said, crushing his hopes of a quiet escape into somewhere nice to meditate on further actions, “I prepared my questions, after Cadance pointed out that I should write up a list of my questions I got up early this morning to list down everything that I need to ask you in a notebook, and I was here waiting to hear about where you were from the guards outside of the room, but they said that you had disappeared from your room and no one knew where you were so I was worried that you had decided to leave to your home without telling anyone you were going so I came here to read and see if I could find anything about Blacklight Agents to figure but where your home was so I could send a message to you with all the questions but I didn’t find anything so I was a bit sad but then you showed up!”
“I appreciate your concern, but it appears that I am probably not leaving anytime soon,” Deadman stated, dreading how long this list of questions was.
“Well, would you be able to answer a few of my questions about you and your home for a while?” she asked, beginning what he felt like would be a long, long streak of questions.
“While I can’t answer everything, some things are rather strictly classified, I will answer as much as I can,” he said, neatly dancing around how little he wanted to answer her questions. However, to refuse, even politely, may deal damage politically, given her status. He was bound by protocol to avoid that.
“It might be a good idea to get comfy, I can’t imagine you want to be standing for the entire time,” Twilight cheerily stated and motioned over to the cushion beside her, her the book she was previously perusing forgotten at her side.
Deadman followed shortly, moving his way over to her and sitting down, his suit of heavy armour and greater statue sinking him a good deal deeper into the surprisingly deep cushion. “What is your first question?” he queried, wanting to jump right into it now. There was no need for further pleasantries.
“Ah, alright then, let us see here…” she trailed off before digging into a bag hidden on the other side of the cushion and shortly after pulling out a notebook. She floated the notebook in front of her in her magical grip before also retrieving a dip-pen and inkwell from her bag, also floating in her grip. The notebook then flipped open to the first page and she read out “Question one: How exactly are you able to get around with your helmet on? I don’t see anywhere in your helmet where you can see, hear, or even breathe through.”
“A series of sensors within my helmet detect the area in front of my helmet and relay it to the inside, where it is shown on a screen. A similar set up applies to hearing, there are devices which relay the sound to the inside. Air is let into the helmet after it passes through a set of filters, which ensure air cleanliness,” he stated, not stating the tactical advantages of each of these. The screen ensured he would not be able to be blinded by any sudden light changes as well as granting him the ability to see at night, the sound system allowed him to pick out noises more easily as well as avoiding most deafening excluding excessive damage to his body and suit itself, and the air filtration bestowed the ability to ignore biological weapons alongside most chemical weapons.
She scribbled down in the notebook, possibly below the question before asking “And why did you need these back home?”
“There was a great sickness back home and Blacklight devoted a large amount of resources to help assist with neutralizing the disease. Armoured up like this there was no point of entry for the sickness. This greatly helped with minimizing the spread of the disease,” he explained, carefully dancing around his exact role in the conflict. By the time Blacklight intervened on a large scale against SIV infected areas humanitarian efforts had already effectively failed.
“I thought your organization was a military one? They do disaster relief too?” she asked, cracking a smile. Sure, that was close enough.
“I suppose we do also do disaster relief, we definitely lightened up everyone’s load with our deployment there,” Deadman stated before nodding. Less SIVs and Order forces around, less things for the average civilian in an infected area to worry about.
“How noble,” the purple alicorn stated, tilting her head slightly to the right before scribbling down that answer too and going down the through her exceedingly long list of questions, wasting both of their time with questions about either completely inconsequential things or things he couldn’t answer. How she thought that he was going to answer about his family or the exact operations of his Agency he didn’t know. Although he could technically talk about the former, he preferred to not do so. As time went on, he began to lose more and more interest, before she said a question that interested him.
“You can’t be all business all the time. What is it that you do in your free time?” she questioned with a smile on her face. At least she wasn’t a hostile interrogator, although he didn’t like being questioned, her friendliness was starting to grow on him ever so slightly. Didn’t he already answer this question with Celestia, though? At least he knew that she didn’t leak information from their conversation earlier to Twilight. Perhaps if she went back to the friendly mare he talked with she could be his confidant here. After he made sure she wasn’t leaking any personal information to any others, of course.
“I tinkered with parts and things. Sometimes I took something apart and put them back together. Sometimes I built things from spare parts. It was a good time sink,” Deadman explained, deciding that this conversation had gone on long enough he came up with a plan before continuing “I would love to stay here to answer more questions, but I am afraid that I have to go now, but I have a bit of a gift… from my people to yours. Do you have a sheet of paper?”
“Of course!” Twilight exclaimed as she levitated a piece of paper in a purple aura from her bag over to him.
Grabbing the piece of paper from her telekinetic grip, he began searching around his pockets for his pen. He was sure he had one around somewhere.
        It was then he found his ballpoint pen, in a small zipped up pocket. He took it, clicked the end to extend the tip, and leaned forward to use the floor as a makeshift drawing surface. He supposed that when one is able to levitate objects they really didn’t need to worry about having a good writing surface.
Gripping his writing implement tightly, he began sketching out the internal anatomy of the very style of pen he was using. First he made a rough sketch of the overall shape, then then made another sketch of the contained internal ink reservoir, and finally he made a quick diagram of the tip of the pen, as well as how it worked. Of course, he had to make that part of the sketch far larger in scale than the rest of the diagram, but it worked. He had taken apart quite a few pens when he was young to try and figure out how they work until his father got sick of the messes and found a diagram that explained it on the internet. Turns out that ballpoint pens used different methods to pressurize the ink inside. 
The one he was sketching used a spring as he figured that it was the most simple way for it to work without having to depend on the ink formula heavily. For that part, at least. It still depended on the ink being quick drying and being not too thick or thin, but they could figure that out. Making a few more sketches, he detailed the way the mechanism for retracting the tip worked. Although that bit of the diagram he was a tiny bit more rough, they could probably figure that out.
Making a few final notes about the the structure of the pen, such as that the ball should probably be made out of a steel or brass, he clicked the end of the pen to retract the tip once more and slid it back into the same pocket from which it came before zipping the pocket back up.
Sitting back up, he held the paper out to Twilight, who took it from him in her magic, levitating it over to inspect it.
“What is it?” she asked, a curious tone in her voice. Somehow, she didn’t clue into the fact that it was a pen of a very similar design that he was just using a few seconds ago. Maybe she didn’t get a good view of it.
“A ballpoint pen. It uses a small ball and an internal reservoir of ink for efficient writing. It uses a very small amount of ink for the surface area covered, and it doesn’t need the ink to be refilled for a long period,” he explained, waiting carefully for his chance to get away.
Her eyes lit up at that, but before she could say anything and undoubtedly ask another question he said “Consider it a small gift from Blacklight to your government. However… I would advise you talk to the other princesses about what exactly to do with it. You might need to do some experimenting to get the ink working right.”
“I’ll make sure I will!” Twilight exclaimed, her tone telling him just what he needed to know. She had taken it on herself, she would probably be busy for a while with that. After all, she had an example of how a nicely made pen would work, something to aspire to with testament that it can be done. Perhaps she would forget the rest of her questions by the time she was done with the ink formula and the pen mechanics.
“Now I must sadly take my leave, see you at a later date,” Deadman said and rose from the cushion, walking away from her towards the entrance from whence he came.
“See you later Deadman!” Twilight said as he turned out of the enclave. As he kept on walking, he heard her comment far behind him “Wait a second, this isn’t in Equestrian!” That was his cue to get the hell out of here, he forgot about that after the session of questions. That particular problem would be dealt with later, he was not in the mood to have her jumping on him to either learn her written language or her trying to learn his.
“Deadman?” he heard her call out, and the distant sound of hooves hitting the floor. He hauled ass as quietly as he could out of the library, avoiding the source of the questions about his presence behind him. By the time he had slipped through the door he no longer heard the sound of her hooves on the ground, only distant calls from some corner of that fuck-huge library. 
He sighed, and decided to go back up to his room. Looking back over his shoulder, he flashed his HRV to make sure that he was not being followed by the purple one any further, who was still looking through the library for him, he turned his head and charted out the most direct path to the room that he was given. Once he got in there, he would lock the door and wait out the rest of the day there.
Walking at a speed just slightly slower than that of a jog, Deadman made his way to his room, passing the occasional guard who seemed to tense up in his presence. That was a fair enough reaction, he supposed.
Taking a glance out the window, he noticed that he had somehow pissed away time to the later day. Raising his wrist as he climbed a set of stairs, he turned on the holographic screen and checked the time. The display read six thirty, he noted. He had skipped all three of the day’s meals, it appeared. Perhaps he could grab a meal with Princess Luna when he visited her court tonight. He found it odd he didn’t notice the missed meals, but he supposed that perhaps the fact that he ate late meal last night that was far larger than the average was to blame. He was used to those fucking nutritional bars that absolutely nobody liked and MREs, that stuff probably overloaded him a bit.
Noticing the door he recognized as leading into his room, he walked over to it. He thought that maybe he would have a bit of a bit of a break before he visited Luna. A quick nap may be beneficial. However, as he pulled the handle to open the door it didn’t open. It was then he realized his mistake.
When he jumped off the balcony he forgot to unlock the front door.
	

> Bad Ideas
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Deadman realized that he should have really planned this in advance. While it was obvious in retrospect that it was a bad idea for him to jump out the window with the front door locked, he could not dwell on that now. Looking down at the lock while feeling a deep disappointment in himself for not remembering something so simple, he began to formulate a plan.
He couldn’t pick locks, he shouldn’t break down the door, and he probably couldn’t climb up the wall easily. It was then a plan formed in his mind. He could grapple up, with some supplies.
He flashed his HRV, he tried to locate anything that he could use to grapple up to his ledge. Seeing what looked like a laundry room in the distance, he walked towards it, occasionally flashing his HRV to avoid the occasional passerby who would have intersected his path, who was most often a maid, but occasionally a guard. Oddly enough, he didn’t come across nobles. Perhaps they lived outside the castle rather than in it and came here only on business. That would have to be another thing he would research later.
As he approached the room he believed was a laundry room, he flashed his HRV quickly and frowned. Inside the room was a pegasus maid, going about washing… something, he wasn’t sure if it was a tablecloth of some sheets. It appeared she was using a very archaic set of washing machinery which didn’t look very efficient.
Quieting his footsteps and sneaking up on the doorless entry, he flashed on his HRV once more. Her back was turned to him, it was was time for him to make his move.
Creeping around the corner, he made his way into the room while keeping an eye on both the maid and the light. He had to be careful with the lamp that hung from the room in the center. If he were to remain undetected he had to keep his shadow from casting where she could see. Glancing towards the drying rack, he realized that if he took a sheet from there it would certainly be noticed. 
However, the ‘dirty’ pile appeared to be right beside her. Taking up a position to the left of the lantern, he stood there roughly two and a half meters behind a maid who had no idea he was even there. This could go exceedingly poorly if she turned around and realized he entered here without her realizing. At least watching her wash the cloth and run it through the machine next to the washing basin was more interesting than looking through a library he had no idea how to read. As soon as the cloth finished passing through the press and she picked it he readied himself. This was his chance.
Quietly darting forward, he grabbed two of the sheets of cloth before vacating the room, all the while keeping an eye on the mare who was trying to balance the now clean sheet on the line, likely trying to make sure it was balanced so it didn’t fall. Quietly, he backed out of the room, all the while minding the light of the lamp carefully.
Alright, he had his makeshift rope, now he just had to find a hook. It was then he realized the solution was right in front of him. His ultrasonic tomahawk had a small area that he would be able to use as a hook, as long as he turned off the axe to make sure it didn’t cut through anything.
He made his way back towards the gardens, passing through the halls without so much as a whisper, and ducking into the occasional empty room whenever his occasional scans revealed that there was someone coming. Making his way out into the garden, he checked to make certain that there were none watching his movement over the grass and towards his room. He would have slipped away into that maze to conceal his movements, but he figured that no one was trailing him, unless they were very, very good at rushing away from the windows when he reached to his HRV to check.
As he approached the balcony he recognized as his, he stopped and took a tied the sheets together into a nice, probably long enough makeshift rope. Once that was done, he made a new knot and tied the end of the long fabric to his tomahawk. He really hoped that this worked. Pressing the button to deactivate the ultrasonic portion of his ultrasonic tomahawk, he prepared to throw it, aiming in between two of the supports of the railing. If he managed to land it there, it would probably hook as the distance between the two supports wasn’t too large.
Raising the tomahawk up high he aimed carefully towards one specific gap, the closest pair of supports to the provided the ideal spot. He made a final few adjustments before making his throw. The axe flew gracefully through the air, flying up and bounced off the bottom metal railing with the harsh clang of metal on metal before being redirected to the balcony, where it skidded to a halt out of sight.
With a smile, he reached out to the makeshift rope and pulled it once. The axe came back towards the edge and he felt it hook on either side. He then gave it another, harder tug. It didn’t move any more, so he was sure that the axe was hooked in place.
Gripping the rope tightly with both hands and placing his feet against the base of the wall, he began scaling the wall at a slow, deliberate pace. It was then he saw one of the sights he least wanted to see. The knot between the tomahawk and the rope was coming undone, an outcome he didn’t anticipate. Time seemed to slow for Deadman as he became acutely aware of the downward momentum that he had managed to acquire, his body giving him just enough time to regret his decision.
Deadman groaned as his a mild pain shot up his back as he hit the ground, the tied blankets falling onto his visor and obstructing his vision. In retrospect, that wasn’t his best plan.
Sighing, he brought his arm up and gingerly brushed away the sheets covering his helmet. He comforted himself by thinking that at least it wasn’t his worst plan either, before slowly pushing himself into a sitting position and turning his HRV on. He needed to know if anyone saw his little moment of shame. Seeing no one in front of him, get got up off the ground and turned around. It appeared to him that there was no one watching him from afar, everyone was in the castle doing their business. The closest he could see was a unicorn wandering through the hedge maze. Seeing as they had no wings are were far away, odds are that they didn’t see his little issue.
Looking up to the balcony, he saw his tomahawk was stuck up on the deck, he couldn’t re-tie the knot and retry, he had to come up with another plan. It was then he saw it. Up there on the floor above was a very, very narrow ledge which blended in rather well with the wall it was attached to. It was maybe one and a half times the length of his feet at most, and it appeared to run all the way along, right over to a window without a pane of glass covering it a good twenty meters away from the area over his room. He sighed, it looked as if this was his only other option.
Picking up his makeshift rope once more and untying it, he began to retrace his steps back to the laundry room with his bundle of blankets in arm, he was going to drop them back there, and with any luck no one would realize that they were gone for a while.
In a case of startlingly good luck, no one was there when he got there, and he didn’t have to duck out of the way of any castle staff going about their daily activities on his way there.
With that out of the way he turned on his HRV once more, and mapped a good route to his destination before setting off. Unfortunately, there looked to be either a unicorn or one of the two more diminutive alicorns sitting in that room. He would have to check before he went in, unless he wanted to undergo another question and answer period when he had something more important to deal with.
Quietly passing by a maid, who not so subtly moved to the other side of the hall as he was approaching, he neared the room.
As soon as he was standing right outside the door, he flashed his HRV quickly and recognized the figure beyond the door. Right there, sitting at his own table with no one else suffering his company, was Prince Blueblood. Deciding that he didn’t want to hear anything that Blueblood had to say while still having a claim to innocence if he was questioned about ignoring him later on, Deadman lifted up his arm and brought up a holographic screen as he began to type with his opposite hand into a search function for the things stored in the memory of the computer in his suit. Soon enough, he came across what he was looking for, which was the music folder which Agents were allowed to keep for their break periods when they didn’t want to remove their armour.
Immediately, he put on a song from an OST of a game he couldn’t remember the name of and cranked the volume up high. If anyone asked, he could legitimately say he didn’t hear the prince of whatever the fuck speaking to him.
Opening the door, Deadman immediately closed it behind him and walked towards the balcony, boots falling on the stone floor. However, he could not hear them. A quick glance towards Blueblood confirmed that although he was talking, Deadman couldn’t hear his voice at all over the sound of guitar riffs and drums.
As soon as he got to the balcony, he carefully stepped over it, turning his face towards the castle wall. Although he would have preferred to go across in a different position, the fact that he had his gear with him meant that he could not. LMGs and heal injectors weren’t particularly compact items.
Taking one last glance towards Blueblood, who was now looking quite shocked, Deadman began making his way over to his room, taking precarious step after the precarious step towards his balcony.
Much to his delight, he made it to a position over his balcony. Now he just had to figure out how to get down easily.
Looking down, he guessed that he had a good two and a half meters to the edge of the balcony, he was very unlikely to miss that unless he threw himself off into the air with all of his might. Settling on what he imagined might be the more dignified looking approach. He prepared himself before taking a single step off backwards, letting himself drop through space for a brief time before impacting the stone floor with a dull thud.
Kneeling down, Deadman picked up his ultrasonic tomahawk and resheathed it, before turning around and walking back into his room and turning off his music.
Reaching down to his wrist, he opened up an application and set his alarm to nine o’ clock. Were he to visit Princess Luna tonight, he would want to be well rested, and a two hour nap would be just the thing to make certain of that.
Making his way over to his bed and laying down, he closed his eyes and let sleep take him for a while.

Waking up to the sound of a harsh beeping being broadcast directly into his ears by his helmet, he immediately slammed a button on his wrist with his other arm, turning off the infernal noise. Groaning internally, he flopped on to his side and cracked his eyes open to the sight of the room he had been loaned.
He rolled until he was at the edge of the four poster bed, before sitting up and yawning. Standing up, he felt slightly woozy, his body was giving him an odd feeling of unreality. It almost felt as if he was a bit drained from his period of sleep, rather than more rested from it. He joked to himself that perhaps Blueblood’s mere presence sucks the life out of one. Stretching his limbs to shake the tiredness from them, he made his way over to the door and flashed his HRV. To his surprise, waiting right outside of his door was Princess Luna.
Flicking his HRV off, he walked over to the door and steeled himself. He had no idea what he did to make her wait outside of his door, be it good or bad. Surely she had duties to carry out, he couldn’t imagine that she had a terribly large amount of spare time. Pushing that line of thought aside, he unlocked the door and opened it.
“Good evening, Princess. What do I owe the honour of your visit to this evening?” Deadman queried.
“Ah, I was hoping you were there,”she said rather joyfully before continuing “Night court was empty so I decided to see if you were here to take up my offer on visitation.”
“Of course,” Deadman said, rather happy to see her. While she still likely had quite a few questions, the equal sharing of information and her rather nice voice made question and answer period far more tolerable than with others. “Is there anything in particular you had in mind for this evening?” he asked.
“In fact, I wanted to introduce you to the night-life of the city below. I have heard from my staff of a place that does not quiet during the night,” she said, smiling and tilting her head a tiny bit to the right, her eyes betraying a bit of doubt. She didn’t seem entirely certain of her own plan, perhaps because she wasn’t sure about what her staff had told her. He considered his options. Either he could go out with Luna, who seemed rather keen on bringing him with her for whatever reason, or he could stay here. 
Were he to stay here, not only would be have nothing to do for the rest of the night besides maybe sharpening his skills or visiting Twilight again, he couldn’t go to sleep. He had just napped for a couple hours, he wouldn’t be able to sleep for a while. On the other hand, if he went, there was a fair chance of there being a mass panic or his poor social skills causing a disaster. Deciding to go against his better judgement as well as maybe get an in with the Princess of the Night for his Agency, he settled on going.
 He just hoped it wasn’t a club blaring techno music with a whole bunch of spinning coloured lights somehow managing to point directly into his eyes no matter where he turned. However, he discounted that possibility. What were the odds of that happening?
“That sounds to be a good plan,” Deadman stated. Although he was unsure about what type of ‘night-life’ ponies had, it was a nice surprise. Perhaps he would get to see how ponies lived outside of the castle.
“Wonderful! Shall we go then?” Luna asked, turning away from him before looking back over her shoulder to where he was.
“Lead the way,” he said.
With a nod, she turned away and began walking down a hallway in silence, with just one another. Following her, they were soon into a part of the castle that he had never seen up close before, it looked to be a more used hall. Soon enough, they were at a large, wooden door flanked on both sides by guards which saluted and opened the door as Princess Luna approached.
Walking by the two of them, Deadman gave them a glance out the side of their eyes while he passed. He could guess from the, they were either not too concerned about one of the two rulers of the country going out unescorted with the diplomat of a very foreign place.
Shrugging off that thought, he continued walking quietly behind Luna and out onto a cobblestone path which lead towards a set of tall walls and a gate, and continued even further past that. Right outside of the gate was a ornate looking chariot with an enclosed carriage with a two pegasi tied up to it in order to draw it.
He decided not to crack a joke about the fact that there were ponies drawing the carriage, instead asking “So where exactly is this place?”
“It is in lower Canterlot,” Luna replied, giving him very, very little to go on.
As they approached the carriage, Deadman darted out ahead and opened the door to the carriage, holding it open for Luna. He might as well be a gentleman, it never hurt to be polite by default.
Luna flashed Deadman a brief but quite warm smile as she past him and climbed into the golden carriage, sitting down on a wide bench on one side of the carriage.
Turning around, Deadman stepped up and into the carriage, closing the door behind him before sitting down across from Luna, whose almost unnaturally large smile told him that she was very happy about something. Whether it was that she was doing that with an alien from what was likely another universe was unclear, however.
“So, what do you think the purpose of the establishment we are going to is?” Luna asked him, causing him to stare at her in an unpleased manner, although due to his helmet she had no way of knowing he was doing so.
“You didn’t ask your guards about what they do where we are going?” Deadman questioned, resisting the urge to voice his disapproval. Why and how did one of the rulers of the country go out with an ambassador from a place they didn’t previously know of to a place they only know of from indirect accounts? This whole situation started to smell a bit of trap to him. He would have to be on his guard.
“Nay,” she said, causing him to suppress a small chuckle despite the situation, “They told me it is a place where ponies congregate to socialize, even in the depths of night and not much else.”
Fucking hell, if ponies were similar to humans on a social level, where they were going could very much potentially be some sort of large club. He just hoped that their taste in music here was a tiny bit less headache inducing than the loud, thumping noises of clubs back home.
He had enough of clubs after one deployment had them evacuate a building under a ‘bomb threat’ to take out the area that was being used a testing zone by The Order underneath. One containment breach later and they were shooting SIVs as lights strobed into their eyes and loud noise from dozens of hidden speakers masked all other sound aside from gunfire.
He silently shuddered at that memory. It was not particularly something that he looked forward to reliving any time soon.
His reminiscing was interrupted by the carriage starting to move, and then, much to his distress, began lifting into the air of its own accord.
He realized too late he should have been suspicious of the fact that it was two pegasi pulling the cart. He gripped the edge of his seat through his gloves. Here he was, in the air by power of pegasi which shouldn’t even logically be able to lift him into the air. He resisted the urge to bail before they gained much height. If they wanted to get rid of them, now was the perfect time. Those wings weren’t for show, and there were no windows to tell him what they were doing out there. They could go over a large cliff, she could step out and take to the air, and then they could drop him. He couldn’t stop it if they did, aside from taking them with him. Even though he knew, logically, that would be a poor move, he couldn’t shake the feeling of worry and unease. He would have to avoid this mode of transport in the future.
“Are you well?” Luna asked, snapping him out of his train of thought. Turning his gaze to her, he realized that she was looking at him with a moderately concerned expression on her face as well as a small frown. 
He simply nodded.
“You became quite stiff and quiet for a while,” she said, “I was beginning to become worried that you were sick or were reacting poorly to the flying.”
“I have no issues with flying, I’m fairly certain I’ve jumped from higher than this. Granted, I used a parachute, but the point still stands,” he stated, freeing one of his hands from his grip on the seat. He sighed, hoping that they would be at the wherever they were going soon.
“What exactly is a parachute?” Luna asked inquisitively, tilting her lead slightly to the right.
“Err, think of it as a big, strong sheet which folds out of a bag on your back to slow your fall. It remains connected to the back of the user by a few stretchy straps,” he said, turning his head to glance out at the night sky, which was just barely visible through the small hole on the door of the carriage. He needed something to focus on besides his current situation.
Seconds later, much to his relief, he saw the tips of roofs through the small slit as they began to descend. “That sounds quite interesting, although I hope they don’t see too much use,” Luna said.
“Indeed,” he confirmed, “I think I remember reading of a statistic a while back that showed that flying in a plane, the general term for our flying machines, is much safer than using a regular personal transport vehicle.”
“Really? Why do you think it is like that?” Luna questioned as they touched down and began to slow down.
“You saw those vehicles on the side of the road in my dream, yes? Anyone given even half a brain and and a book can get cleared to drive one of those. People who pilot planes have several years of training under their belt as well as hundreds of hours in simulators before they even touch the controls of an actual plane,” Deadman rattled off. That was one of the statistics everyone always seemed to hear about, even though no one could point to the study which found that statistic. He was almost certain the statistic didn’t accomplish anything besides making people more wary of cars.
“Shall we?” Luna asked, gesturing with one of her wings towards the door.
Deadman nodded, and stood before making his way over to the exit of the carriage, much more calm now than he was during the flight.
Opening the door, Deadman stepped outside the carriage, holding the door, and immediately there was a set of gasps from a group of ponies ahead. There was a group of ponies lined up along the side of the street, held back from entering the club by one particularly large fellow in the top half of a suit wearing sunglasses. The building itself was a large and brightly painted with a sign that looked almost like neon; however, the material looked much more solid than neon, more like it was a solid material radiating light than a light radiating from inside of a glass container. While he could not read the words on the sign itself, he definitely recognized the image of a stylized record right next to the sign. It appeared that the worst case scenario had actually happened.
He shuddered before hearing Luna step out of the carriage behind him, followed by yet another gasp from the line of ponies, followed by a not so subtle whispering. He briefly considered remarking on the situation as if he knew what they were saying to freak them out, but he decided against it.
“Come, Deadman,” Luna said as she made her way towards the door, disregarding the fact that there was a line. He supposed that it was an advantage of being royalty to not worry about lines. Perhaps he could milk this ambassador thing for all it was worth and have similar perks. He smiled at that point as Princess Luna walked towards the door, and he followed a few steps behind her and to the right, the bouncer becoming ever more nervous as they approached.
When they got within ten, the bouncer’s front legs seemed to give out under him, causing a chain reaction with the ponies from within the line, who followed the bouncers lead and put their heads close to the ground while keeping their back legs in place. This was probably their version of bowing, if he had to make a guess.
Luna moved closer to the bouncer before saying “Rise, my subject.”
Immediately after hearing that, the bouncer shot back up and said in a tone which was half way between an acknowledgement and a question “Yes my princess.”
“Is this the establishment known as ‘The Flank Spanker’?” Luna asked, causing the guard to let out an involuntary seeming shiver.
“Yes your majesty,” the smaller pony quietly confirmed, shaking slightly more with his eyes flicking towards Deadman for the briefest second before locking back on Luna. Deadman privately wondered whether he was more freaked out about him or Luna.
Granted, the fact he was staring more at Luna pointed towards the latter, but on the other hand, he could have been avoiding looking at him to avoid angering him in some way for a perceived cultural slight. It was certainly not normal to be worried less about the alien than the princess, although that is in humans. It could be different here, given that their psychology could perhaps only happen to resemble the human psyche. He was getting too wrapped up in his inquiries again, however. This was likely one of those things you would never find the answer too.
“Good,” The Princess of the Night simply said, before swinging the doors inwards with her magic and walking forwards.
Deadman made to follow silently behind her, but not before turning towards the bouncer and flashing a holographic smiley face as well as giving him a thumbs up. Although he was sure the pony didn’t know what it meant, he had to commend the poor sap for not pissing himself, if only barely. He probably would have if an alien diplomat that came to the world yesterday and the Prime Minister approached him while he was on duty at that part time job at the butcher’s shop he had when he was younger.
Following Luna into the club, his ears were immediately treated to some rather loud techno music. The club itself was everything that he feared. The ceiling had many coloured lights on it, although they were off at this time, and there was a elevated platform which looked like a DJ station being tended by a white unicorn with blue hair and glasses opposite the bar itself. Both were separated by a dance floor which looked like it was fully capable of lighting up, but once more it seemed to be deactivated. To the side of the bar closer to the door, there was quite a few tables as well as a few booths. The only thing that was missing was all the ponies. There was only a few ponies in the bar. One of them was the bartender, one was the DJ, and the rest looked to be either waiters or security. The security seemed to be comprised of two teams of three, with one member of each normal pony species. If anything, he would guess that the pegasi were to spot issues, the earth ponies were there to break up the fights, and the unicorns were there to provide support if needed. It was a rather smart setup.
And all eyes were on them again, excluding the DJ who seemed to be too engrossed in her music to notice a few more additions to the bar. Granted, there were also far fewer eyes on them than before, but it was still moderately uncomfortable for him.
He shivered, and quietly followed Luna as she made her way over to the bar. “We have need for one of the stalls. I trust that need can be accommodated,” Luna stated rather matter of factly, almost causing Deadman to chuckle at the near terrified expression on the face of the barkeeper, who was a brown stallion who appeared to have been cleaning mugs before they made their way into the room.
“O-Of course your highness,” the scared pony said, nodding fervently.
Deadman didn’t wait for any indication from the barkeeper for which stall they were to take before making a quick dash towards the corner stall. It was the most easily defensible position in the case of something going wrong. 
Deadman slid into the seat without a word, taking up a position slightly to one side of the center. From here he could see the major features of the bar, as well as most of tables. Here was a good place.
Luna walked over to the table in a manner which he could easily identify as regal, before rather unregally sliding into the booth and sliding her way over to him. Much closer than he would have preferred. She was practically touching him, and when she turned towards him and smiled he realized that her face was almost very uncomfortably close. She appeared to have no concept of personal space. Maybe it was just ponies in general did not have this concept and the rest in a position to get physically close to him were too uncomfortable to do so. It was then he came to the realization that they had barged in before the opening of the bar. Why else would there be ponies outside but none inside aside from the staff?
Deadman nearly groaned due to the situation he found himself in, but restrained himself.
While Deadman was attempting to think of himself as somewhere else, a small unicorn mare walked over to their table, levitating a notepad in hell grip. “What can I get both of you?” she cheerily asked, either not noticing the fact she was serving an alien and a princess or just not caring.
“You have any rye whiskey?” Deadman asked the waitress and Luna thankfully turned from examining him closely and to the waitress instead.
“Yes sir,” the enthusiastic waitress beamed.
“Please get me some of rye whiskey, then, on the rocks if at all possible,”  Deadman said, before glancing over to Luna, who seemed to be deep in thought about her drink of choice.
“I would like a blue margarita, and I wish for you to bill any of our purchases to the crown,” Luna said, causing Deadman to turn towards her out of surprise. Were they back home they would be super pissed about even a cent of taxpayer money going towards the ruler of the country’s booze. It appeared that it either wasn’t so here or Luna didn’t particularly care. Monarchies did have a bit of a history of doing what they want in regards to spending their country’s money.
It was then the club actually opened, the sound of the hooves of a few ponies on the ground was heard just barely during some low points of the loud music. Seconds later, the first pony entered his vision and began making their way over to a table, followed by another group, and the room started to fill up as such.
A minute or so later, the waiter returned, levitating a tray with their drinks on it, before telekinetically lifting it and setting both drinks down in front of them.
“Anything else I am able to help you with?” the waitress asked, but Deadman was too deep in thought to really respond properly. He was trying to come up with a logical reason as to why she would levitate a tray with their drinks on it over rather than just levitating the drinks over.
Deadman thought for a moment before saying “If you are able to get some snacks, that would be good.” He had almost forgot that he hadn’t eaten for over day now.
The mare nodded and walked off, upon which time Luna raised her drink in her own telekinetic grip and said “To the future.”
“To the future,” Deadman agreed, grabbing his rather small glass and toasting with Luna. As she took a sip, he lifted his arms and began to delatch his helmet with a sigh. He did not particularly want to take it off in public, but he had no choice. Were he given a choice they would have done this in a closed area, with all entrants screened, but he couldn’t have everything.
With a sigh, he unlatched his helmet before placing it in between his legs and gripping it tightly with his feet. He then reached forward and grabbed glass, before raising it and taking a brief sip. As the rather familiar flavour danced on his tongue he smiled briefly before setting his drink back down. Looking towards Luna, he saw that she was intensely focused on his face to the point he was certain he had committed some unforgivable social faux pas.
“What is it, your majesty?” Deadman questioned, readying himself to react.
“Part of your face doesn’t quite match the rest of it as it moves,” she simply stated, focusing her gaze intensely on the right side of his face before bringing up one of her hooves and probing the area she was focused on gently. “And it feels different,” she said after a moment.
Deadman blinked for a moment, before sighing in relief. Was that all? “That is because part of my face is a synthetic replacement,” Deadman said.
“Oh,” was her simple reply, before she paused for a moment before saying “I apologize if this seems too prying, but how much is your body is a synthetic replacement?”
He smiled a bit wider before saying “What makes you think that more of my body is synthetic?”
“That would be because your right eye doesn’t quite match your left,” she observed before smiling.
“You caught me,” Deadman said, subtly moving away from her probing by leaning on the table taking a small sip from his glass. “I would say a fairly high portion of my body has been is artificial. Off the top of my head I can remember part of my face as well as my eye, my right arm, my left leg, most of my spine, and various parts of my internal anatomy,” he stated, before flicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth. That sounded about right to him.
Luna’s eyes widened in shock. “So much?” she asked, seeming almost uncertain about his presence in front of her.
“Yes, I took quite a bit of damage over the years. I suppose it was either keep going or retire, and I made the choice to slap some machines into myself and keep going,” Deadman reminisced. It became much easier after the first replacement part.
Luna seemed rather shocked, staring at Deadman with wide eyes as he raised up his glass and joked “At least I don’t have to worry about that leg falling asleep any more,” before taking another sip, but not before flicking his eyes cautiously towards the now bustling club that cast quite a few glances towards their little corner.

Several hours had passed, and it turned out that he was correct in his earlier assumption. Luna really didn’t have any idea what personal space was.
Over the course of the evening she showed a startling lack of restraint when it came to drinks, and after each and every one she seemed to move slightly closer until she was effectively leaning on him. He doubted that she could even walked properly at this point.
He, luckily, was far more conservative with his drinks, only taking the occasional sip. He also learned that a single plate of nachos was not enough for the two of them. They both had to order a plate which was supposed to be for a table on its own. However, him eating one made sense. He was not only twice the height of the average patron, he hadn’t eaten for over twenty four hours beforehand. He wasn’t sure where she crammed the contents of her plate, but he was certain that, logically, her body shouldn’t be able to hold that much. 
His guess on the matter was that alicorns had higher nutritional needs by multiple times due to having wings, a horn, as well as the higher power muscles to power. If Twilight’s question and answer period was useful for anything, it was indirectly giving indirect information on the this land. Apparently those features were the most energy consuming part of a pony’s body, and alicorns had all three features, so it would stand to reason that they had higher caloric and nutritional needs.
Nudging Luna with his shoulder, he said “I think it is time to go.” While the music was still pumping and the ponies were still partying, the blood alcohol of everyone in the room went up past the acceptable level for a group of unknowns. He was beginning to become uncomfortable again. Anywhere in the crowd could be a threat, one with a weapon meant for self defence. The alcohol could lower their inhibitions enough to use it. Their presence made them a big target because they stood out. There were too many uncertainties
The Princess barely responded, speaking in a low tone which Deadman could not pick out the words of over the music.
“Come on now,” he said as he grabbed and put on his helmet before he slid towards the edge of the corner booth, dragging Luna with him as gently as he could manage. With a sigh, he stepped into the ground and assisted Luna to her feet as he supported her and began the slow walk towards the door.
They only managed to get a few steps before he felt something impact the back of his skull, the music suddenly becoming far too similar to the music in the club in the years past for his liking. His mind jolted into full alertness as he recognized that there was a hostile. He reacted as years of training guided his limbs.
He pivoted on the spot, dropping low and spinning on the spot. There was a pegasi with a cream coat and unnaturally unfocused green eyes hovering in the air behind him, with a hoof outstretched towards the spot where his skull was seconds earlier. Hostile spotted.
Deadman shot forward, carefully putting the VIP behind him as his armoured fist crashed into the snout of the hostile with a cracking noise.
Damage was estimated to neutralize the hostile for all effective purposes. Ponies were beginning to react to the strike, some looking in their direction were starting to flinch out of shock. 
They would have to escape he realized as he pivoted around the room, looking for the best possible escape route while picking up the VIP and carrying her over his shoulders. There was a fire escape roughly twenty feet from their position, no high risk threats like the two bouncer squads near it.
He bolted, knocking ponies out the way as the veteran soldier knocked the door open and ran out into the night with the VIP, intent on getting her to a safe zone.

> Under Attack
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Chrysalis smiled, for all was going to plan. As she walked down the street in her disguise with two also disguised drones discretely flanking her all she could think about was how easy the ponies made her job for her. The Princess of the Night had decided to place the creature into a situation where it was easy enough to provoke a reaction in it and then had the courtesy to make herself incapable of stopping it. All it took was a spot of mind control upon a bar patron who was more than eager to get in a room alone with her and she had a ready way to trigger a reaction.
Granted, she did have to move her other plans forward in order to pull this off but it really didn’t matter. All of those were planned infiltrations were made completely irrelevant by the fact her plan did indeed a draw a reaction out of this ‘Deadman’ creature.
The severity of the action it took made her plan even easier. The fact that it took the incapacitated Princess of the Night with him as it fled after shattering a few of the stallion’s bones certainly drew the attention of the night guards rather well. After most of them went off into the city to find their princess a large portion of the day guard had to be woken up as well in order to cover their holes in the defences of the castle. Of course, this portion of the guard is rather poorly rested at this ungodly hour, and they are going to be no use. Even then, the night guards were even worse off than the day guards. Most of their number were scattered throughout the city looking for their precious princess and the accursed creature which had stolen her away.
She didn’t have to use her magic to know that the guard wasn’t going to find them. Chrysalis heard of the story of the alien mysteriously disappearing from its room before sunrise that she heard from her puppets in the castle. Try as they might, ponies were not built to be searching out renegade creatures in the night, especially ones that could apparently sense one’s presence without effort. She suppressed a small shudder as she and her two minions walked up the street towards upper Canterlot. 
All that she had to do was wait for her drones to get in position outside of the disguise disrupting field and then she would begin a glorious assault on the castle once more. With the creature as well as half the leadership out of the way she could lay siege to the castle without much issue, beyond maybe the infernal pair which were her downfall last time.
She mused that this time she wouldn’t be so merciful, she was going to prioritize making sure that she personally tore both of their throats out. Cadenza broke easily enough the first time and that was merely after realizing that her love was being mind controlled. Chrysalis couldn’t imagine how badly she would snap after seeing the light fade from her husband’s eyes in front of her. Perhaps she would give Cadenza a few minutes of mourning so she could feed on her sadness.
She smiled at that thought as they approached the castle, guarded now by only a few of the attentive night guard.
Turning down the street directly before the final stretch, she mentally ordered the two drones to turn down the road opposite she was going down. She couldn’t have ponies thinking they were suspicious and she did hear the quiet flapping of the wings of a night guard pegasi just a few minutes earlier. Those wing-beats did stay close for an odd amount of time, certainly a cause for caution.
As she trotted down the street her eyes darted left and right before she flicked her ears, listening for out of place sounds which would indicate a watcher in the dark.
Hearing nothing, she turned and walked down into an alley before going up to a wall and standing perfectly still. Drawing up magic from deep inside, she began weaving a series of spells far too complex for a changeling lesser than herself to cast. 
First, she shifted back into her original form before she began shape shifting again, albeit at a much more minor level. Her familiarity with her natural form made the spell far easier to cast than in an inferior form. She felt tiny crystalline structures grow from chitin as her hair bunched up and became a more solid mass, which the very same crystals then also grew over. Protective lens grew over her eyes before the very same crystals formed over the lenses. To counteract the refracted view that was a side-effect of this, she cast a quick spell to turn her vision back to normal, although with a bit more warping around the edges leading to the favourable side-effect of a larger field of view.
As the transformation spread to the rest of her body she continued to layer on more spells. Next up was a minor alteration to the composition of her muscles, increasing their density. It was then she put up protective wards and set them to trigger her shapeshifting in order to harden and increase their density of her carapace in a localized area if she were to be struck.
Finally, she cast the spell which would make this truly well and impossible for any pony to prepare for. The function of the crystals was revealed as her innovative cloaking spell was cast. It used the crystalline structures she created from her shapeshifting and another spell so that the crystals became a colour based off of what it detected on the opposite side of her body, even emitting light as needed, to make her nearly invisible.
Chrysalis felt pride as she felt her entire body fade away into the air. After her embarrassing defeat last time she took it upon herself to make find all the applications she could for her magic in combat. As she walked forward she was reminded of how the spell was not perfect, as with each step she took there was a brief period in which the displayed image did not quite matchup with the background. It was plenty sufficient for her purposes, she thought as she felt the telepathic sign that her army was ready, waiting disguised and hidden just outside of the dispelling field. 
Aside from their main siege force heading for the castle they had two groups headed by changeling commanders ready to harass the guards out in the city trying to find the princess to make sure. They had to be sure that they couldn’t recuperate and mount a coordinated retaliation against her main army of changelings while they were making Canterlot castle theirs.
Perhaps if they got the siege over and done with quick enough they could capture most of the ponies in the city proper before they would be able to get away. The fact that none but the most observant ponies would be able to get even the slightest hint of the presence of her changelings until it was too late contributed quite a lot to that. It was highly unlikely that any of the ponies would notice her forces against the night sky and the only ones that could reliably do so were tangled up in a mess of their own.
Walking down the street and looking towards the castle, Chrysalis gave the signal to attack and she immediately felt her hive comply earnestly, taking to the sky outside of the city and into the air.
As she approached the corner she turned towards the castle and walked down the same road that she avoided earlier. Walking down the pathway at a slow pace to keep the flickering of her form to a minimum, she kept careful track of the progress of her minions, given that their approach was rapid.
Getting closer to the gate, she noticed two stallions there, both day guard cruelly awakened, were standing watch from behind the archway.
Slowing her pace even more to make herself almost invisible, Chrysalis walked right by the guards before looking back to them casting some of her magic from behind. It was certainly a good idea to cast from behind them, where they wouldn’t notice the dull green glow piercing the darkness. She smiled as she broke into the mind of the unsuspecting stallion without any major issue, followed by giving him a gentle suggestion; that he and his partner should both go for a nap, and that the best way to get that nap would be to be knocked out.
The controlled stallion turned in place towards the other while not saying anything, before he telekinetically raised his spear and smashed its shaft against the back of the other unicorn’s head.
The other pony stumbled and let out a gasp, but before he could do anything else the unicorn slammed him with the wooden section of the spear again, and this time he went down with a clunk of armour to the ground.
This time, it was the possessed unicorn’s turn to go down as he raised his spear high into the air before slamming the shaft into his jaw, going down to the ground in a crash with a stupid grin on his face.
This brought yet another smile to Chrysalis’ face as she used her own magic to levitate the two unconscious ponies off the path and into a shrub next to the gate before going on her way. She could certainly have a little fun in a city she was about to own.
Turning her head back, she continued to march forward into the city, her each step quiet against the smooth stones. As she continued her slow march to the castle, she felt that her changelings were approaching, they would be to her location soon enough, and they would have their feast after the castle had fallen.
Walking up to the main doors of the castle, she mused for a brief second that perhaps this would prove a double benefit. If the ponies thought that the creature was against them with her changelings, they could very likely convince it to come over to her side entirely.
She chuckled at that, flicking her ears once more to make sure there were no other sound aside from the approaching buzzing wings of her swarm and the breathing of the knocked out guards before magically pulling the large door open, her magical grip breaking the lock with a sharp crack followed by a continual high pitched tone nearly out of her range of hearing. A silent alarm, a clever way to alert the guards to stop a thief, but not a full fledged invasion force she thought as the buzzing sounds of her changelings’ wings approached most of them flying past her and into front gate while a few commando groups flew overhead towards their designated targets in the castle, which could be more easily be attacked through a few balcony doors conveniently left unlocked by her puppets earlier in the evening.
She wondered as she herself marched into the hall and made her way towards the throne room on foot if the guards would be even able to mount a proper resistance, most of the ones here were half asleep and none of them were expecting a great force.
It was then she felt the signal that first contact had been made, a small group of guards which didn’t even get a chance before they were rendered unconscious. As much as she hated ponies, she wasn’t about to kill every single one of them. She only had plans to execute the important ones and the ones that put up a large fight. After all, it would be a shame to waste all of that food, almost criminal really.
She sighed as she continued her march onwards, feeling a small amount of nostalgia for the time she had the rule of the city. While the time she had doing so was brief, it was enjoyable. While the city was under her rightful reign she had the most of the ponies she could capture put into cocoons or otherwise dealt with, and that was certainly a joy to do. She smiled at the memory of those lucky ponies who were still conscious struggling against the grips of the changelings who were shoving them into the pods for later feeding. The terror they felt was exquisite, completely delicious. She had planned on turning the dungeon into a center where they could tailor individual rooms to the pony within for maximum emotion absorption. One could learn quite a bit by drugging a pony up and mimicking one of their friends.
Alas, her plans were cut short by that meddlesome couple and Twilight Sparkle. She had to resist the urge to snarl at the mention of Twilight’s name.
She had foiled her plans, and she would have to be executed as soon as anyone found her, if she was here. She was too much of an annoyance to let live. However, he train of thought was cut off as she was informed of increased resistance being encountered, but not enough to disrupt their plans. However, she figured that if the trend of increased resistance continued they would have trouble with a few very defendable points. 
Ahead she heard the sounds of either five or six ponies breathing rapidly, apparently quite stressed. It appeared that there were a few of them which were getting their act together, even if they weren’t doing it well.
“What exactly are we going to do?” she heard a stallion whose panic was thick in the air said. It sounded to her as if he was almost fresh out of training as well as rather tired. He was very much unlikely to be a threat.
“What we do,” responded a much calmer and more experienced sounding voice “Is to keep moving until we can reconnect with the rest of the group.”
As she approached the source of the voices, she made a decision to sidetrack herself a bit and find that ‘group’ they were talking about. If she could find that group, she could send forces to strike at it when they weren’t expecting it and take out a possible nodule of resistance -before it had a chance to form.
With a small smile on her invisible face, she stepped around the corner to a group of five rather stressed day guard walking through the hallway away from her position. Now was her chance to take out a few ponies as well as gain some intelligence on the positions of the guards.
Considering none were looking in her direction, she increased her trotting speed to close on them while she remained quiet. She ignored their conversation as she crept ever closer to the guards. When she was this close she could hear the tone of their breathing and distinguish between them. After a few seconds of them marching in silence, she figured out which one of them was the new blood, and made a note of who he was. She would make sure he survived what she was about to do.
She focused her magic, causing her horn to light up dully through the shroud of invisibility. Focusing her power on the pony at the back, he only had a brief moment to recognize that he was being held before she stopped him dead, lifting him into the air and forcing all air from his lungs with only a quiet wheeze.
With another not-so gentle squeeze, she completely closed the unicorn’s airway while at the same time she changed sprinted towards the group, closing the distance fast while swinging the now unconscious pony towards his fellows.The next pony in line had just enough time to turn around to check on the absence of hoofbeats behind him before the very fellow he was trying to check on smashed into his face, knocking him right out as well as bowling him into the next pony in the line.
Chrysalis carried on her charge as a living mirage as she leaped into the air and pounced on the pony in the center of the line, the experienced sounding one, as he spun around in response to two of his troops going down. He barely had a chance to raise his spear before she knocked it out of the way with an invisible hoof.
What she did next would live on in her memory for a while, for it was the first time she had used such an ability in combat against a guard.
With a smile she raised that same hoof and focused her transformative powers on her hoof, lengthening the tip of her own hoof into a sharp point.
Jabbing the point towards the pony, she was rewarded with the gurgle of blood being choked on as she pierced his neck through to the other side before withdrawing her now blood stained hoof and turning it back into its regular shape.
Looking towards the last two, one of which looked like he was just about ready to faint from fear. She smiled at the thought of the ‘gift’ she had for that pony before her horn flashed as she teleported behind them once again without them even giving them the pleasure of seeing her.
“What the buck was that?” the scared pony shouted as the other survivor was lifted into the air behind him followed by a sickening snap as the immobilized pony’s neck snapped.
Snapping back around as the corpse fell to the ground the scared pony whimpered out of what Chrysalis tasted was both terror and confusion.
Grabbing the pegasus in her magical grip much more gently than the rest, she pinned his wings to the pony’s side as she took a step forward and dissolved her cloak excluding the cloaking over her eyes. She chose instead to make that section of her body merely transparent. She couldn’t risk a random attack damaging her, after all.
She contorted her face into a look of false love and stepped towards the pony, who struggled against her magical grip but not doing much. She called a few of her stray drones to her, but she ordered them to stay out of sight for now. She had work to do.
Stepping even closer to the pony and resisting the urge to feed off of him right now, she leaned close to him with that same loving look on her face as he struggled more and more to get away. The rapid pace at which he was breathing and the cauldron of emotions in front of her was so very tempting.
“What’s wrong, love?” she asked, leaning in close enough for him to feel her breath… as well as close enough for her to make him a bit more susceptible to her lies. While she could just break the mind of the weak willed fool, it would render him useless for her current purposes.
The pony froze looking at her, his confusion now overpowering his fear as he stared at her. He must have been quite confused about his current situation.
“I understand that you are scared,” she said in a voice containing quite a bit of faked sadness “But you must understand, I came here for you. You are the greatest pony I have ever known of and I want you to be king rather than just a mere guard, destined to fight and die for some ruler that has never given you more than a passing glance.”
“But what-” the pony began, fear fading away slightly and his breathing slowing as she put her hoof on his muzzle, silencing him.
“Hush now, my love, although I’ve come to you after so terribly long we can’t be together for now. I worry about you getting hurt, my love,” she said and moved her hoof from his lips to his cheek and rubbed it gently, noting that although the small crystalline structures didn’t have much of a visual effect they made her chitin much more rough. He didn’t flinch nearly as much this time, instead staring her directly in her eyes as he began to fall for her lies with help from the spell.
“But when, then?” he asked, causing Chrysalis to twist her expression into one of happiness.
“After the battle, my love. They may hurt you or even kill you if they knew about this, so I need you to go and find where you were going. Tell them some drones wiped the rest of your squad out. Tell them you couldn’t see how many they numbered. Tell them you saw them perk up and look towards the south and all flee urgently,” she commanded, causing the stallion to dumbly nod in agreement with her as she continued to resist the urge to feed upon his misplaced emotions right then and there.
“Thank you, my love. My changelings will not hurt you, but stay safe regardless,” she said, leaning in and planting a deep kiss on the stallion while closing her eyes, simulating a kiss between two lovers which lasted for a few seconds before she broke it and opened her eyes, giving the stallion a smile as his breathing quickened once more.
“Now go,” she ordered sternly as she released him “Secure your right to be treated like the wonderful stallion you are.”
The pony started up at her in shock as she walked past him and back the way she came before she heard the sounds of his hooves on the ground as he rather calmly with only a slight note of faked panic ran away down the hall they were marching down before.
She dropped the act as soon as he was around the corner and mentally commanded the earlier called changelings to follow that pony from out of sight. She would find where any resistance was forming unless that pony was a lot smarter than he looked and she also got to test out her new shapeshifting. A very good situation indeed, she thought to herself as she disappeared once more as she reactivated her spell and continued on her path to the throne room as she did before. If there were anyone important taking charge of the situation, she would find them there.
At that she went back to plotting what she would do with the place after it belonged to her. The windows could certainly do with replacing, she would have to have them covered over when all resistance was squashed.

> Tactical Strike
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Deadman’s eyes darted around the area as he flicked on his HRV once more, moving quietly with the now snoring Princess of the Night being carried upon his shoulders.
He was approaching the castle, having successfully avoided the sudden influx of activity throughout the night. The aerial scans of the area gave him all the more reason for him to return her to the castle as soon as possible. Whatever had caused such a panic, it was surely not good.
Hearing a sharp cracking noise from the direction he was walking, he spun into cover and flicked his HRV on. In the castle there was a large amount of fighting between two varieties of yellow shape, and Deadman instantly came to the realization that they were being invaded.
Action was needed. First, he needed to drop Princess Luna off where she would be safe from harm.
Looking around, he located Princess Celestia and a group of guards were holding in a tower, which he assumed was her personal quarters.
Shrugging, he turned off his HRV and marched along the outer perimeter of the castle. He was not dumb enough to enter through the front door when an invasion was going on and the attackers were already inside. His plan was to find another entrance, possibly a door from the gardens or something similar.
Circling around, every so often checking his HRV to make sure there were no invading forces coming towards him, he found a site he knew well. It was the hedge maze which he had visited in the morning.
Smiling, he made his way towards the area he had been led to earlier. He remembered that there was a path leading towards the area he saw Celestia was in. Double checking to make sure she was still there, he continued his long walk with a passed out princess in his arms.
As he approached the door, he heard chittering on the other side which caused him to immediately freeze. Flashing his HRV, he noted that there was a group of three hostiles on the other side of the door similar to those ponies with both wings and a horn, but they were much more lean looking as well as having bodies which were far more damaged looking. He could not imagine that wings, horns, or legs with holes in them were practical at any level. Knowing the bodies of the position of those standing in between him and his goal, he now needed a plan.
Inspiration dawned on him as he saw a small rock lying in the garden. He gently placed the princess on the ground to one side of the door before standing beside her and throwing the rock hard against the castle wall on the other side of the door. Almost immediately the door swung open and the first creature, covered in some sort of black chitin, exited the castle and turned towards the sound.
Deadman drew his tomahawk but waited. It was not time for action yet. The second creature exited soon after the first, but he still held position.
As soon as he saw the snout of the third creature cross the threshold of the open door and turn towards the source of the earlier noise, he sprung into action.
Springing forward with his tomahawk, he brought it down down hard on the neck of the one in the rear, the blade slicing rather cleanly past the initial hard layer before it bit into hard bone, a second skeletal structure in addition to the layer of chitin plastered on top. He was not biologist, but he was certain that it was not normal.
The other two in the line were beginning to react to the cutting sounds behind them, undoubtedly they had heard the sound of the ultrasonic tomahawk sinking into their comrade’s neck.
Yanking his axe free as the body dropped, Deadman sprinted forward as they began to turn. He had to eliminate them quickly and quietly to make sure escort duty was a tiny bit more safe.
He threw the axe directly at the being first in line while closing on the second before pouncing in close quarters combat as his target turned around and he saw for the first time the pupil lacking eyes of his enemy.
As he grabbed the neck of his enemy he heard the distinct noise of his thrown weapon cutting into the flesh of the other remaining hostile followed by a gurgle. It seemed likely to him the axe landed in its neck.
The creature in his grip began to panic, raising his hooves to try and push him off but its strategy was rather ineffectual. The creature was not only outmatched strength wise, but it was also in a bad position to strike back from, especially for a quadruped.
He twisted the neck of the creature once in one direction before following up rapidly with a twist in the other direction, causing it to go limp in his grip as he felt the internal bone structure as well as portions of the external bone structure give away under his grip.
Dropping the creature and making his way over towards its fallen comrade in front, he crouched down and removed his axe before pressing a few buttons on his wrist to designate all of these creatures as hostile. making his way back over to the princess. As he picked her up again, he remembered the stained glass window. These creatures did hold quite a similarity to the ones which he had seen in that piece of artwork, perhaps they were the same species if not the same faction.
With Princess Luna resting on his shoulders, he marched into the castle, ever watchful and rerouting his course as needed to avoid groups of hostiles. Facing off against an enemy without any advanced scanning equipment was a pleasant change.
After some time of careful avoidance, Deadman had reached the beginning of a tall staircase spiraling upwards. Sighing, he flashed on his HRV, confirming that they were still up there, before beginning his long climb upwards.
As he approached the top of the stairs, he flashed his HRV and saw a small group of guards standing ready outside of the doors of the princess’ quarters, with a fair few more guards within.
Deadman rounded the corner and was immediately greeted with the guard ponies at door pointing their spears at him. Resisting the urge to incapacitate them on the spot, he said “VIP secured, I require entry to deliver her to the designated safe-zone.”
The guards, to their credit, didn’t budge from their spots and still held their spears at the ready.
“I require entry to the safe-zone for the VIP to be delivered. Non-compliance will result in this safe-zone being declared rogue and appropriate action being taken,” he threatened.
The guards flinched a bit more at this, causing Deadman to latch onto this momentary weakness for all it was worth.
“Go get Celestia, I saw plainly that she is in there by the way so don’t bother telling me she isn’t here, and tell her I have brought escorted her sister back here safely,” he stated and gestured to the unconscious alicorn on his shoulder.
The two guards looked at each other for a few seconds before one of them made his way over to the door and opened it, slipping into the room which only had a few soft mumbles emanating from within, which were almost immediately quieted by the opening of the door.
As soon as the pony was in through the door it shut behind him, and silence reigned outside as he turned quietly turned to lean with his back against the wall. Granted, carrying Luna made it a bit awkward, but he pulled it off. It was a small price to pay to disallow any attackers the ability to sneak up on him from behind.
Several minutes of awkward silence later the door opened again, and the guard pony from earlier stepped back out and walked towards his previous position before motioning towards the now open door.
Stepping inside, he saw that there were far more figures of importance than he saw in here before. Celestia, Captain Shining Armour, Princess Cadance, and Princess Twilight Sparkle were all around a table, with Celestia at its head, looking down on a series of maps with some figurines placed on it with a very clear resemblance to their forces and the forces of their enemies. This was their command server.
He felt the need to reprimand them for placing themselves where one well placed artillery shot could crumble the entirety of their upper command, but he resisted the urge when he saw Celestia glaring at him.
“What did you do to my sister?” she snarled, leaning forward over the table a bit towards her as the guards around the room as well as the other VIPs at the table became increasingly worried.
What exactly had he done? All he did was evacuate her after they were attacked because she was unable to support herself on the way back.
The realization came to him moments later when he realized how bad that must have looked from an outside perspective. A creature of a species previously unknown which was constantly in heavy armour appeared in a drinking establishment with one of the co-rulers, followed by the co-ruler being incapacitated mentally and the warrior rearranging the face of a citizen before disappearing into the night with the co-ruler over his shoulder. It explained those ponies doing searches of the area.
“I evacuated her because she incapacitated herself on rye and nachos before we were engaged by hostiles on the way out,” he stated, keeping his voice carefully level as he looked around the room, searching for somewhere to place Princess Luna down. He had to get back out there soon. The siege must be broken.
“And why am I supposed to believe you? There were multiple eye witnesses that said that you carried my sister out into the night and injured a pony who tried to stop you!” she exclaimed, causing him to look around uncomfortably. He hoped that this room was sound-proofed. They couldn’t let them know where they were.
“Because they seem to only have part of the story. The pony who tried to stop me attacked me first, and I used force to secure your sister from other potential attackers with minimal risk to her. Besides, if I had any ill intents why would I come here? You know as well as I that I could have removed myself from his city with your sister if that was my intent,” he explained, moving over to a couch and gently laying the sleeping Princess of the Night down while keeping his eyes on Celestia the entire time.
“Then why avoid the night guards looking for you?” Celestia queried before glancing towards one of the maps, which looked to be of the Canterlot area and had several grids on it. IF he were to hazard a guess he would say that was the map of the area they were searching for him.
“Because I had no proof of their intentions. If an attack was to occur on your sister it would be possible that it was done by someone who could access guard uniforms. However, I knew that if I could find you it would be a safe area from potential assassins if they were attempting to be at all subtle,” he said, growing rather bored of this little session of questions with obvious answers.
Celestia stared at him for several seconds more before she let out a sigh of relief. “Fine,” she said, “I believe you. Will you help us?”
“I believe we can make an arrangement, Princess Celestia,” Deadman said, formulating a plan rather quickly.
“Now is not the time, Deadman,” Celestia growled as the rest of the table continued to be silent.
“Please let me finish, your highness,” he requested before walking up to the table and beginning to look over the maps “The terms of the agreement I propose is that you lift the restrictions towards my weaponry for the duration of this siege as well as any regulations in regards to the treatment of the invaders. In return I help your force and use the HRV to locate hostiles accurately right here and now for you.” At this point he didn’t care about the rest of the command and some of the guards knowing about the HRV. Celestia and Luna could just leak information about it whenever they felt like it anyhow.
Celestia paused for a second before her expression brightened. “You can consider it a deal,” she confirmed, causing him to start to reach up to flip on his HRV before the voice of another pony gave him pause.
“Wait a moment, wait a moment, what is HRV and how exactly does it help us right now?” Captain Shining Armour asked.
“The Hyper Reality Visor is a technology employed by Blacklight Agents which enhances the capabilities of an agent further. Long story short, it allows us to locate objectives, targets, hostiles and the like through walls as well as providing various miscellaneous functions,” he explained.
“And you’ve had this all this time and neglected to tell anyone?” Shining Armour asked, his expression indicating suspicion. He would likely be suspicious too, if an alien was concealing something that big.
“I assure you, both Princess Celestia and Princess Luna knew of its existence. We met earlier and discussed it,” Deadman said and smiled under his helmet, carefully avoiding the fact they extracted knowledge of it from his dreams.
An inquisitive look in Twilight’s eye told him he would have to avoid her for a good while after this blew over. He considered asking Cadance subtly to save him from her, but the very same suspicious look in her eye as the the one in Captain Armour’s stopped that thought in its tracks. The maze was probably a safe place to lay low.
“Anyhow,” Celestia intervened “We need the positions of the changelings, Deadman, what have you got?”
“Why don’t you take a look for yourself, your highness? Be ready to rearrange your maps. Something that shows up yellow is a pony, something orange is a changeling,” he said before turning on his HRV and pressing a few buttons on his wrist to link up his HRV to the holographic projector and turning it on too.
He took up a position where he could see as much of the castle as he could before saying “Update away,” follow by the rapid shifting of the tokens on the map. While they were doing that, he noticed one thing in particular: down deep below the castle there was a fairly high amount of immobilized ponies and active ‘changelings’ as he heard Celestia call them. A changeling down there that drew his eye was one which stood a good deal taller than the rest of the them by about a factor of two, in a similar way that Celestia towered above the rest of the ponies, and to a lesser degree Luna as well. Perhaps taller changelings tended to be important, as he didn’t see another example of such a large specimen. He should bring that up with them when they were done moving figurines.
A few moments later,the last statuette settling as he turned off both his HRV and the projector. “I have an inquiry,” he said.
“Go ahead,” Celestia said, nodding.
“I saw a changeling twice as tall as the rest down with the captured ponies. Is it significant in any major way?” he asked.
Both Princess Cadance and Shining Armour shuddered at the mention of a larger changeling.
“It could be their Queen, Chrysalis,” Princess Cadance said “She was responsible for their last invasion too, during Shining Armour and I’s wedding. She is powerful and able to cast many types of foul magic. She is also able to truly shapeshift her body into that of another pony, rather than just casting an illusion which makes her look like one.”
Having effectively confirmed his hypothesis regarding the changelings and the tapestry, he nodded before saying “She is near a bunch of other ponies. They could be either castle staff, guards, or both. I think that it would be the most efficient path to both free them and cut the invasion off at its head if we attack that location.”
“And how do you suggest we do that? Our forces are split up and if she is by all those captives, she is in the dungeons, which would bottleneck what forces we do have into places where they would be sitting ducks to a powerful enough spell. One ball of fire could kill dozens in such an enclosed place.


“Blacklight Agents are recruited from special forces and trained as well as geared up even further. If I were you, I would be more worried about how much you have to clean the area of the dungeon I kill her in before it is usable again,” Deadman stated, ignoring the bit of absurdity that was the power of love bit. In a land full of magic he expected that something like that would pop up eventually.
“Do not underestimate her, I made that same mistake in the past,” Celestia said as Deadman began to walk towards the door.
“I shall not, this will be done by the book,” he stated and smiled, stepping through the door and closing it behind him, ignoring the stiffening of the two guards he had passed by earlier. He imagined that no one had any idea the rules about agent conduct would come into play on another world, but whoever designed them would likely be proud of them being held up even here.
As he trudged down the stairs, he took out his pistol and slipped a magazine into it before slipping it back into position and doing the same with his LMG. The familiar weight of his gun in his arms comforted him as he flicked on his HRV and confirmed the positions of the changelings. While we may not like it, he had to remain as quiet as possible prior to his arrival at the hostile leader.
Too much gunfire before he had her backed into a corner could scare her off, and an enemy commander on the run was a truly dangerous thing. Necessity was the mother of innovation, after all, and an intelligent being with both pressure on them and time could come up with unpredictable strategies.
As he reached the bottom of the stairs his eyes darted left and right before he took off down a corridor, rerouting his path every once and a while to avoid a group of changelings he spotted through the HRV. Awareness of your surroundings was the pivotal factor in winning or losing a fight, and he had awareness beyond that of a normal person.
After a few minutes of running he recognized a door to the dungeons right around the corner. One problem was that the was a group of changelings outside. The second problem was that they were all facing away from the door, so he had no chance of sneaking up on them.
Going around to locate another entrance could take too long, they could dig in heavily in that time period. Weighing that against alerting them to his presence, he decided to go loud. The stealth part of this operation was over.
Gripping his gun tightly, he placed his back up against the wall before pivoting out into the open while aiming down the sights. The first shot was his, they were taking their time with processing his appearance.
He fired off a single, loud shot at the furthest most left changeling, splattering its brains on the wall behind it as well as showering the area in bits of skull.
He smiled as he leveled the gun against the next changeling and fire out a three shot burst directly into its chest, downing it as the rest of the changelings began to react to his presence. This brought back pleasant memories.
As the other three began to run towards him, he fired off a single round into two of them, dropping them also before retreating behind the corner. The last one was close, and he didn’t want to use any more ammo than needed. He was on a limited supply, after all. Now that he thought about it, he should have done without the three round burst.
Waiting at the corner, he put away his LMG and instead took out his hammer, checking to make sure that it was ready as the changeling approached.
As soon as its head appeared from around the corner, he brought the hammer down hard on its skull, the captive bolt triggering and multiplying the force of the blow to cause its skull to explode in a shower of red pieces. With its body tumbling from its previous momentum, he noted that the pieces of bone impacted from the impact site were bigger than expected. Perhaps the presence of both and endoskeleton and exoskeleton was what was to blame for that.
He checked his HRV once more before he walked down the steps, opening the door and stepping into the darkness of the dungeon, which was quickly corrected by his visor.
All the torches in the dingy prison had been extinguished and in places there was a green and black coating on the walls. He had a very bad feeling about this.
As he walked through the dungeon, he flashed his HRV again. He couldn’t see Chrysalis anywhere. Where did she go?
“I believe we need to have a bit of a talk,” he heard a very alien female voice behind him say.
Whirling around, Deadman spotted a much, much taller changeling standing in the middle of the hallway. He resisted the urge to shoot her for now. She indicated that she wanted to talk, and he would. Perhaps he could glean some weakness from what she said to be used against the rest of the changelings if this assassination did not have the intended effect.
The queen was for a changeling tall, on par with Celestia’s height, and her chitin was jet black, even a bit more than the rest of the changelings he had seen. Long, green hair flowed down from the top of her head to close to the ground, and her tail was of similar colour and length. Insect-like wings rested jutted from her body, attaching to a dark green section of her upper body, which became lighter the farther it went down her back. In addition, it connected to a glossy looking area on which circled her midsection. A wicked looking horn jutted from her forehead, looking rather sharp and generally menacing.
What really contributed to that appearance was the holes in the end of her legs as well as in her horn, hair, and wings. The fangs were a nice touch. He couldn’t exactly tell if they had any use or if they were merely for intimidation.
The pupils of her eyes had a similar gradient effect with similar shades to her back, and her iris was slitted. Overall, she would be a rather intimidating specimen. That is, if he was a civilian and unarmed. Both his training and his arms made her far less intimidating.
“Alright, speak,” He said, training his gun on her but not firing yet.
She paused for a second, her horn glowing a sickly green before she disappeared and reappeared in a green flash a few feet closer to him.
“I simply want to help you find peace so far from home, lord Deadman,” she purred, her horn beginning to glowing green again, but more intensely than before.

> Close Combat
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Deadman stared at her, trying to wrap his head around what exactly she just said. Where did she get ‘lord’ Deadman from?
Who exactly did she think he was?
“I apologize, but I regretfully have to decline your offer, it goes against protocol, after all,” he said, sighing.
“You are more strong willed than I thought,” she said, her tone changing in an instant to a snarl.
In what way? All that he heard was possibly the least convincing lie he heard in a while. If she was trying to influence him with magic, the spell probably wasn’t designed with a human target in mind.
“You are going to either be captured or killed, make your choice,” Deadman stated, rapidly becoming aggravated with her.
“I pick the third option, in which I take Canterlot and feed off the love of all Equestria for eternity!” she yelled, a sheet of a green material from nowhere materializing over her eyes.
Squeezing the trigger once, he launched a three round burst into Chrysalis. She did pick the second option, after all.
The bullets pounded into her chitin, but they did not puncture, the sections of her carapace he hit becoming even darker and more metallic looking for a brief moment before fading back to normal when struck. A growl of minor pain was the only reaction he got from her. This was going to be harder than he thought.
“Were it that simple it would have been done a long time ago, agent,” she laughed as she began to fade from sight followed by the rest of her disappearing in a flash. Great, cloaking.
Deadman turned on his HRV and looked for her. The area in front of him was clear. Either she could teleport or her invisibility was somehow HRV-proof despite no such technology existing here before he arrived. This was now truly a perfect day. Whirling around, he saw her orange highlighted shape in the HRV blocking off where he came from, and it appeared she was charging a spell to fire at him.
Flicking his HRV off, he watched the spot he saw her in, and the very faint green light from over there.
A blast of green fire launched towards him in a jet, prompting him to dart off to the side and begin charging forward. No matter her abilities, the threat would be eliminated. He was a member of the Blacklight Agency, and the Blacklight Agency was on a whole other level than some particular nasty insects.
As he closed in on her at a rapid pace she turned the jet of green flame towards him, causing him to feel oddly ill at ease inside of his armour. Feel that something was not right about that fire, he raised up his LMG and fired a few rounds towards her.
She yelled out in pain and ceased the stream of fire as the bullets impacted her invisible form, splotches of the same dark shade appearing where the rounds hit. She appeared to take more damage when her attention was otherwise engaged, he noted.
“You little wretch!” she shouted, launching a blast of some sort of green energy from her horn that he had no time to avoid.
Slamming into his armour, the blast felt like it was directly searing his nerves as well as his armour, blowing him off course and backwards. He grunted in pain as his back hit the ground, but he felt his augments almost immediately distribute a few powerful painkillers to his body, dulling the pain quickly.
Seeing the flicker of distortion at the edges of her invisible form as she moved closer, he instinctivity rolled to the side, an invisible hoof impacting where he was and cracking the floor beneath it. Whether or not she knew it, she gave him a perfect chance to engage. Deadman grabbed the hoof which was where he previously was and yanked hard while getting on one knee, causing her to stumble as she attempted to get away and giving him chance he needed to put away his LMG and grab his tomahawk.
Deadman swung his axe towards the leg he held, hoping to server it with a single strike. He knew from back home that hardening based reactive armour tended to not fare too well against ultrasonic blades and, in addition, if she was bleeding she would be easier to track.
A piece of the shattered flooring encased in a green glow levitated in front of the his swing, slowing down the strike considerably right before the impact. However, although the strike contained less power when it did hit, it was still an ultrasonic blade.
Upon hitting her flesh there was a brief momentary hardening of the invisible chitin before, with the sound of a blade cutting into meat, it bit into her flesh below.
With blood in the air and her struggling against his grip, he smirked and pulled the axe free, before bringing it back to let loose a second strike.
Before he could swing again, she disappeared and reappeared back on her feet a few meters away from him. The cut on her leg was still visible, making it quite easier to spot her. Swiftly, he got back up and put away his axe and drawing his LMG again as he saw her charging up another magical attack.
He traced up towards her chest area, and prepared to fire, he was going to put as many rounds into her as he needed to.
His aim was thrown off as he saw from the corner of his eye a green glow forming on a section of wall.
Stepping backwards quickly, he got out of the path of the projectile by taking a single step backwards, making the chunk of stone hit against the wall opposite its original position with a crack.
“It is a shame you had to deny my kind offer,” Chrysalis said “You are a fine warrior.”
Saying nothing, he did not respond, he knew that she was trying to distract him with conversation before going in for a kill. What sort of madman would engage in debate with his adversaries while they were fighting?
He took aim at her again but she disappeared in a flash of green before he could get a shot off.
Quickly, he pivoted on the spot to see if she was going to attempt yet another surprise attack, but he saw nothing, not even the blurring around the edges of her motion or the slight green glow that shone through her cloak when she cast magic.
Flipping on his HRV, he saw her on the other side of a nearby wall preparing another spell.
Chrysalis certainly got her credit for trying, at least, he hadn’t had a fight one on one like this in too long.
Pulling out his breach hammer, he ran up to the wall before hitting it with a thunderous crack, the familiar sound of the captive bolt resounding alongside the sound of stone crumbling as the wall in between them fell.
“What!” she shouted through the dust, giving him her exact location as he recocked the hammer.
Swiftly shotting out a hand a foot below where he heard her voice come from, Deadman wrapped his hand around a section of chitin he was fairly certain was her neck.
As he swung the hammer towards where he was reasonably certain her face was, a hoof shot up and deflected the attack above the top of her horn.
The limb then shot out towards his gut, causing him to dodge to the side as he saw its surface shimmering and changing shape.
He lashed out with one of his legs towards we wounded front limb, the heavy foot impacting the joint part way up with a crunch. The chitin breaking just the same as the bone underneath, caused Chrysalis to yell in pain, teleporting away in a flash.
It was obvious to him at that moment that her joints appeared to be more vulnerable than the rest of her, even more so than the rest of her when she was distracted.
When he heard the sound of stone cracking behind him, he immediately jumped out of the way on the incoming rock. It never came.
Instead, as the cracking noise spread beneath him he realized what it was.
Sprinting back towards the impromptu entrance he made, he was just a touch too slow to get out before the floor fell away.
As he prepared to land to the rubble landing on the cell below, she came out of nowhere and smashed into his chest, knocking him on his back and increasing the speed at which he hit the ground below.
He grit teeth as be felt a small piece of something metal pierce through his armour as well as his biological arm and go and out the other side. Not even the most skilled could aim with something like that in.
She stepped off of him and took a couple more steps back, before taunting “So there is some flesh in that suit of armour after all. I hope that you have seen the folly of resistance and are ready to comply now.”
A glimmer appeared briefly around her wounds on her leg before they began to knit back together before his very eyes.
As he rolled over and got up onto one knee he could not help but muse that If she wanted to play like that, he would as well.
Putting away his hammer he instead reached behind his back and pulled out his health injector, grunting in pain which he pushed past.
“Not even able to stand up? How sad. Just give up already, you won’t get any closer to winning than you were before I renewed my physical strength,” she taunted once more, sure of her victory.
With a small grunt of pain, he lifted his arm and grabbed the small silvery piece of metal which protruded from his body before yanking it free without a word and instead electing to press the heal injector up to his wrist and depressing the button, dispersing the repairing fluid into his body.
Dropping the piece of metal, he drew his weapon again as he felt his armour repair itself as his flesh below was rapidly regenerated by the gel.
“You insolent little- Gah!” Chrysalis was cut off as he leapt towards her and smashed her with his shoulder into the ground. Now was the time. He had his chance to neutralize her and the knowledge to do so. However, it had to be fast.
Deadman pulled out his LMG and fired a quick, three round burst into where he saw the silhouette of a frontal leg join. Ignoring her screech of pain, he fired another quick burst into the middle joint of her other front leg, crippling it too.
She disappeared in a flash again, annoying him, but the fact he heard the buzzing of wings behind him alerted him to her presence far more easily than before.
His gun stabilized as he took aim. This ended here and now.
As she charged up a particularly nasty looking spell, if the sparks coming off her horn and diverting off into the environment were any indication, he took aim at the center of her mass and held down the trigger.
The first few of the bullets flew through the air and impacted her like the ones earlier, but the inevitable stress of the impacts gave birth to a new sight as her chitin cracked and the bullets began entering her flesh properly.
Counting out the rounds carefully, he managed to the recoil of the gun to make sure the majority of his shots hit.
Her spell dissipated rather rapidly as her wings stopped and she fell to the ground into a bleeding heap, green internal fluids splattering the ground below her.
Cautiously, Deadman kept his gun trained on her as he flashed his HRV. She was still indicated as orange in the visor, she was out like a light but alive.
Turning his HRV off, he watched as the cloak she had previously dissipated, leaving her broken form in full view.
Deadman edged closer to her, keeping his sights trained on her head, nothing that her chitin also appeared slightly more smooth looking now.
As he prepared to finish her off with a couple of bullets directly to her skull, just to make certain that she wasn’t retrieved and healed, a thought came to him. She could be a valuable bargaining chip to get further aggressions by the changelings to cease if he knew his politics correctly. She may actually be more valuable in regards to protecting civilians alive than dead.
Deadman struggled with the the choice for a few moments. On one hand, she could be a good bargaining chip. On the other hand, if the changelings made a deal for her safety and did not follow through on their end of the bargain, they could be even more dangerous than ever.
Coming to a decision, it was decided that it be best to capture her and give her over to the Equestrian Government to do what they would with her. If he were to take such action, it would have to be fast; however, she was losing quite a lot of blood.
Bringing his hand to his wrist and switched off the friend or foe identification as well as cranking the sensitivity up as high as it would go. This may make the HRV nigh useless for his regular purposes, it was perfectly usable for this.
He turned on the HRV and immediately saw her internal structure and not much else beyond it, the rest of the area beyond the room obscured from his vision.
Inside her wounds he saw several small shapes which he recognized well; bullets in her flesh.
Luckily, he hadn’t wasted too much ammo on her once her armour was punctured, so he only had a few to remove. With a sigh, he put away his gun and took out his ultrasonic tomahawk, turning off its edge. It was a good enough prying tool.
Using the thin, long edge opposite the side used for cutting, Deadman gently navigated it into the bullet wound while holding the wound carefully open with his other hand.
Chrysalis shifted and let out a small cry of pain while she did so, but remained otherwise unconscious.
Deadman continued without regard to her discomfort, dragging the first bullet free of her body, it sliding from the wound covered in blood. Quickly going on to the next wound, he repeated the process in silence with the only sound in the room Chrysalis’ whimpering alongside the weak movement of her limbs.
Soon enough, he had managed to remove all the bullets and placed them in a pile beside him.
Putting away his impromptu surgical tool he drew his heal injector, and toggled a twitch on its side to put it into low dosage mode. She needed to be in stable shape, not full fighting condition again.
Pressing the injector against her side he depressed the button and felt a needle shoot out of it and into her flesh as it went to work.
The injuries on her rapidly healed as the gel travelled through her bloodstream, expanded in her wounds, and then promoted the regeneration of her flesh inside of the wounds. He still had yet to figure out how exactly it worked.
Stepping back, Deadman drew his LMG and aimed it at her once more, but not before switching his HRV back to its normal mode. Given a bit of free time before she woke up, he flashed the HRV to check on how the ponies were doing. Judging by the blobs of colour throughout the castle, most of the changelings were gone, most likely retreated given the lack of a significant number of corpses. It had seemed that his information had helped the ponies greatly.
“What hap-” she said, but cut herself off as she spotted him, eyes rapidly widening.
“Get up,” Deadman commanded, “If I see any magic you are going back down.” An odd feeling said that the LMG pointed at her made his point nicely.
She got to the ground on unsteady legs, fearful eyes never leaving him.
He turned towards the open door of the cell they had fallen into. “Out that door and to the…” Deadman said, trailing off as he checked for directions in the HRV, “left. Maintain a steady pace without attempts at escape or suffer the consequences of your actions. Remain silent unless asked a question.”
That seemed to have scared her into line, as she made no effort to go in any other direction than the one he directed her in as she left.
He made his way to the door immediately after her, tracking her carefully though the scope the whole time, occasionally saying directions that were obeyed by the distressed changeling queen without any challenge.
Around the time they left the dungeons he decided that it would be for the best to not make contact with any groups of ponies until it could not be avoided for handing her off.
They could react poorly and neutralize her on reflex, going against his plan. Granted, if they chose to execute her on the spot after he handed her over, deciding she couldn’t be used as a bargaining chip, he wouldn’t particularly have a problem with it.
Soon enough, he saw her tense up even further as she went turned around a corner which he knew was the one leading towards the staircase to Celestia’s room. In addition, he heard the shuffling of armour and weapons being repositioned.
“Hold your fire!” he shouted as he rounded the corner after Chrysalis, weapon still pointed at her.
At the base of the stairs the entire group of ten ponies present there flinched, likely both from the volume and what his voice sounded like run through the speakers on his suit. They were all standing at ready, with spears pointed in their direction. It reminded him of earlier in the evening.
“I have a captive. Get someone authorized to deal with prisoners of war now,” he commanded.
The guards at the end of the hall neither moved or said anything, further reminding him of earlier tonight.
“Get someone or I get someone,”  Deadman threatened, causing a few uneasy glances back and forth before a pony broke off from the rest, going up the stairs. That pony made a good choice.
Deadman looked back towards the changeling queen, who was staring at the ground in front of her.
Now all that he had to do was wait.

> Capture and Ill Rest
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Deadman stood in silence, aiming his gun at Chrysalis for a few minutes before he heard the noise of hooves on the stone stairway, heading downwards towards them.
Celestia shortly came around the corner, flanked by Captain Shining Armour as well as some extra guards. As the procession came to the bottom of the stairs, they stopped in perfect step with each other. Princess Celestia was the first to speak.
“It was a poor choice for you to come back here, Chrysalis,” she said, glaring at her with enough intensity to break down most.
“I understand that now, given that you have him on your side,” Chrysalis said, glancing back over her shoulder.
“Evil never triumphs, Chrysalis, I thought you would have figured that out after the first time you tried to take Canterlot. Perhaps I gave you too much credit,” Celestia said rather coldly.
“Evil is subjective, Celestia,” she spoke, obviously trying to sound intimidating but her current weak state made it come out like far more like a whimper.
Shining Armour stepped forward, fire burning in his eyes and said “There is nothing subjective about invading the home of somepony else and trying to take it over for your own nefarious purpose.”
“That is an opinion, Captain, not an objective fact,” Chrysalis retaliated, eyes narrowing at him. Deadman could feel the history between the two of them, it was very distinctly a hated born of something that happened in the past. He would have to look up information on past interactions later.
“Enough! Captain Armour control yourself,” Celestia shouted, causing Shining Armour to flinch “Chrysalis, you have wronged my subjects, and that action is not without consequences. I hereby sentence you to confinement to the dungeon until further notice.” She turned to one of the nearby guards and said “Get the standard, the unicorn, and the pegasi restraints,” she commanded.
“No...” muttered Chrysalis as she went to take a step, before stopping as Deadman reminded her of his presence by tapping his foot on the ground. It appeared that she was more scared of him than she was of imprisonment.
One of the guards, the very same pegasi which went to get Celestia earlier if he remembered correctly left, presumably to get the aforementioned restraints.
“No? I want you to come up with a reason why I should not put you in there and throw away the key,” Celestia challenged.
“Let us be realistic, there is nothing that I could possibly say that you would change your mind on this,” Chrysalis spat, looking up from the ground for the first time in a while and staring directly into Celestia’s eyes.
“I dare say you may be correct, there is no justifiable reason for your actions,” Celestia said, taking a step towards Chrysalis.
“I would advise you against that, your highness. She demonstrated some highly dangerous combat abilities that I was not briefed upon, and thus must assume were previously unknown to your government,” Deadman said. Even if Chrysalis could not stand her own ground in a fight right now, she could still cause some major damage if she were to get a chance to attack Celestia while her guard was down.
“Very well,” she said, stopping and going back to her previously position.
Soon enough, the guard who had flown off returned with a set of metal manacles with four cuffs, a harness which looked like it was meant to wrap around the midsection of a pony, and a ring attached to a set of gear. His guess was that the cuffs were to restrict leg movement, the body harness for restricting wing movement, and the headpiece for restricting magic use.
The pegasi passed off the head and body harness to two other nearby ponies, who cautiously approached Chrysalis as a group, under the watchful eye of guards near the stairs as well as Celestia herself.
She stood perfectly still as the pegasi fastened the cuffs around her hooves with a clank for each cuff closing, restricting the range her legs could move in massively.
A unicorn levitated the set of wing restricting gear into the air before undoing the straps on it. He put it onto Chrysalis slowly, pinning her wings down. Tightening the straps, the unicorn finished his third of the process.
The third and final pony, also a unicorn, lifted the piece of headgear and slowly slipped the ring over her horn, sliding it down right to the base before before doing up the straps on it as well.
“Thank you, now escort her to the dungeon, guards.” Celestia said, the guards who had strapped her in immediately flanking Chrysalis and the one towards the back jabbing her with the dull end of a spear, prompting her to start walking forward, guided by the guard in front. As she was escorted away Celestia turned to Deadman “I must speak to you, preferably right after you get some rest. I imagine you must be tired after a regular day followed by fighting through the night.”
“Thank you, your highness, I will be certain that I will,” he began, lowering his gun into a resting position as the changeling left sight “But I must request that I be allowed to accompany Queen Chrysalis to her cell for security reasons.”
“I will allow it. Are you worried about her escaping? She is secured quite well,” Celestia said.
“Her combat abilities far surpass what I can assume your guards possess, if we use the combat performance of her forces and the state of the castle when I arrived to estimate their ability. Even without magic she could be still be a threat,” Deadman explained, trying to hide his rather low opinion of their effectiveness. They weren’t very good at their jobs if this incident was any indication.
“I see… It may be best if you are off now, if you want to accompany them,” she said, gesturing with a wing towards the path down which the procession had gone.
“Thank you, I will be off then,” he said before turning away and jogging after the procession, coming across them quickly thanks to the fact that their pace was slowed a great deal by the walking speed of their changeling prisoner.
The guards there didn’t seem too terribly startled at his sudden presence bringing up the rear, as they just continued on what they were doing without giving him more than a collective glance to confirm who it was. Chrysalis, however, shivered a bit. It was apparent to him that he may have traumatized her a bit, making her at least a bit afraid of him.
Try as he might, he could not think up any negatives to that. It certainly made his job a lot easier.
Following the silent procession they soon enough started retracing the path which he had taken to get to and from the dungeon earlier, reaching the very same door with the dead changelings outside.
The guard in front telekinetically opened the door without a comment and continued through into the dungeon. As they passed by, Deadman noted that there was bodies were pushed off to the side, but not cleaned up. It was likely they moved resources through here recently. The blood smears from the movement of the bodies was also fairly fresh looking, so it seemed likely to him that whoever moved the bodies did it minutes before this little procession arrived here.
As they continued into the dungeons they went deeper than they did previously, down three sets of stairs into what he guessed to be, given his earlier looks at the structure of the castle through the HRV, the deepest reaches of the dungeon.
As the guards proceeded the lead one eventually came to a door which looked to be as if it was more recently moved than the rest, pointing towards the cell being prepared.
The lead unicorn once more took the initiative, swinging open the door to reveal a room that was rather nice, at least for a cell.
The cell was above average in size, and there was a comparatively looking nice mattress lying on the ground in the corner along with a moderately well stocked looking bookshelf and some basic amenities scattered around the room. All in all, it was certainly a lot nicer than what he had to come to mind when he heard Celestia say dungeon, it reminded him of a modern prison more than anything else.
Chrysalis stepped in the room and the pegasi from earlier stepped into the room and removed the manacles from her, giving her legs a full range of movement once more.
She stretched her limbs out, all the while staring out the door at Deadman as the nervous looking pegasi guard retreated from the room.
The guardstallion bringing up the rear closed the cell door and locked it, leaving the Queen of the Changelings alone with her own thoughts.
With his job done, Deadman turned away and walked away at a rapid pace back towards the entrance of the dungeon, outpacing the guards by a good portion given his longer legs.
Shortly, he reached the entrance to the dungeon and left it before steering his course back towards his room.
Bringing up his wrist, he checked the time as he was walking. It was four thirty AM and he really wished he had gotten some sleep. Deadman felt more tired than he should be, and he was chalking that up to the fact Princess Luna had chosen to drop in on his dreams during the previous night he slept and the fact he had only had a nap since then. Granted, he did not know for certain that it was her fault or if dream magic even worked like that but it was the easiest solution he could come up with, so he was going to stick with that until he was proven otherwise.
Reaching his room, he opened the door and trudged into his room before closing it behind him and locking it. He then moved over to the window and made sure that it was locked before setting down his guns and ammunition in their usual spots in the dresser and under the bed. Deadman then made his way into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.
Stepping into the shower while still in full armour, he pulled the curtain over before starting the water.
Sighing, he grabbed a rather nice looking rock and began to scrub his armour clean. The fact that he had to clean it twice in the few days that he had been here was probably not a terribly good sign.
As he scrubbed away at his armour, he was quite thankful that it was easy to clean. It was almost impossible for him to imagine how great of a hell it would be to get all the bits and pieces from over the years out if it was not. That particular thought caused him to shudder, he didn’t particularly like cleaning and that much cleaning would be a special kind of hell.
Finishing the scrubbing, he decided that it might be for the best to pry himself out of the armour and clean his actual body too.
Turning off the water, he flashed his HRV, looking around for anyone who might be lurking to ambush him in the shower. As he saw nobody nearby he stepped out of the shower and began to strip himself of his armour.
Dehooking all of the surprisingly fiddly seals, he placed the helmet by the sink before repeating the process with the rest of his armour. He shuddered as it peeled from his skin in a way that reminded him a bit of how one’s back would peel from a leather car seat on a hot day if you happened to be driving with no shirt. It was certainly not a pleasant feeling in the least.
Looking around the room, more cautious than before, he lifted his biological arm up to smell it. Immediately upon catching his own scent, he jerked his arm away from his nose in disgust. Grimacing, he realized he smelled like someone left a piece of ham in the sun on a hot summer day.
Deadman cautiously stepped back into the shower and turned the water on again, although this time leaving the shower curtain open just enough for him to see the door. If he saw it move his plan was to dive for his hammer.
Granted, Chrysalis proved that one could teleport into the bathroom and make an attempt on his life that way, but he was almost certain that he would hear or see it if they did that, and he believed he could get to his hammer before his aggressor got their bearings. Such a process must be extremely disorienting.
Shivering in mild worry at the prospect of an attack, he grabbed a bottle of shampoo from the side of the shower, he began washing his hair, making the process as quick as possible.
As soon as he finished that off he went over to washing his body with the contents of a different bottle. There could be someone in the room. They could be waiting for him, and if they were he couldn’t see them in advance. Trying to push past the stress, he scrubbed down the mechanical parts of his body carefully. At least they didn’t smell.
Hurriedly finishing off his shower, he jumped out and rapidly dried himself off with a towel.
The agent set his eyes on the door and placed his back against the wall opposite the entrance as he dressed himself back up in his armour. It may not be safe. He had to be ready for anything. Chrysalis could have escaped and currently be lurking outside. A guard could have gone rogue and set a trap. Celestia or Luna could have decided, given a live demonstration of his ability, that he was too much of a threat to be allowed live and have forces waiting for him outside.
Finishing off and placing his helmet on his head, his hand darted up to the HRV, flashing it to reveal… nothing. His room was entirely empty, as was the area outside of his door.
Deadman let out of a sigh of relief, turning his HRV back off and walking over to the sink as he felt tension leaving him from with a flood.
Much more relaxed now, he lifted up the faceplate of his helmet and began searching the various pockets of his armour. Deadman knew that it had to be in here somewhere.
Smiling, he pulled out a tube of toothpaste and his toothbrush. His breath had to be stinking almost as bad as his skin was at this point. Due to the results of his earlier test he decided against it.
Without any further musings as to how bad his hygiene had been of lately, he made sure that his teeth were most thoroughly brushed in an attempt to make up for the lapse.
As soon as he was finished he put his visor down and flashed his HRV as he was putting his tooth brush away.
Readying himself, he took a few slow steps out into the room, checking the corners as he went as well as the area above him. It would be a poor choice to discount the possibility of a flying enemy, given the capabilities of the natives of this land.
As he approached his bed he took a few careful looks around the room, before gently slipping under the covers.
Deadman shivered, not feeling safe. No matter where was in the room, he still had to have his back turned to a potential entrance way. Jumping out of bed, he ran over and grabbed one of the chairs from the up until now unused dining set. Carrying it, he moved over to the balcony door and stuck the back of the chair under the handle while putting the chair itself on a tilt. Even if one had a key, they weren’t getting in through that way without making a hell of a lot of noise and giving him enough time to turn around and analyse the situation.
He walked back over to his bed and slipped in, turning to face the door into the hall, now much more calm. It may have been only a small change, but it was nice to have the entrance he had to turn his back on be more secure.
Closing his eyes, he relaxed his tense muscles and waited for sleep to take him. Thankfully, it soon did.

Chrysalis laid on the bed of her little cosy cell, left with nothing left to do but wait and see what fate they had planned for her.
Marking the page of the book she was reading first, she closed it. They were kind enough to stock her cell with a vast amount of smutty romance novels. Although she would have preferred a stockpile of alternate-history adventure novels, they had to do. She pondered who thought putting that book in her room was a good idea, though. It was completely unsuitable for anyone’s reading pleasure.
She glanced over to the completely soaked book which rested beside the toilet. Once she got out of this damned prison she was going to smite the author of that particular novel with the fury of Tartarus itself. 
She knew for a fact that, despite what any author looking for a quick bit said, changelings wouldn’t shine in the light like a shimmering stone, nor did they regularly fight vamponies to keep the love alive amongst ponies throughout the land.
Chrysalis wasn’t sure where the author got the inspiration for that last one.
Were she to get out to carry out that revenge, however, she would have to deal with that Deadman in some way or another.
A shiver ran up her spine at the thought of his name. That human had the will enough to block direct attempts at magically manipulating his form through telekinesis or mind control, and his armour was strong enough to block most attacks from conventional means. She reminded herself that he was not invulnerable, though. The human bled, that meant that he could be killed, however difficult that it may be.
Perhaps it would be better just to deal with him in another way. If she were to get a chance to flee, she would merely have to time it at a point where he was otherwise occupied and she could get away without a scratch. She did not know exactly how much damage those thunder-spewing weapons would have on her currently weakened form, but if they could reach as far as a well aimed arrow it would certainly be most prudent to not be within reach of them while she was escaping.
The guards would be no cause of trouble even in her current state, however. They were rather ill trained and she had the advantage of reach, even without magic. Perhaps she could seduce one of them the old fashioned way and have them remove the horn ring, and everything could go from there after she topped herself off as it were from them.
Chrysalis rolled off the bed and made her way over to the sink and the mirror above it. As she looked into the mirror and examined her features once more, using a hoof to comb her hair. Unfortunately, she discovered that they were not stupid enough to make the mirror out of glass. It was actually a variety of stone that was polished to a high sheen. If it was glass, she would have had a fairly easy way to get herself out of this thrice damned harness.
All it would have taken was a solid hit to break the mirror into shards and some sawing and she would be free to cast magic. Then she could have opened the lock magically, or teleported through the door if the wards were weak enough, and freedom would have been her’s again.
It was a nice flight of fancy to think of what would have been, but it didn’t help her in any way except by killing time.
Finishing her hair off, she checked up on where she was wounded earlier. There was not not a mark left on the smooth chitin; whatever he had done to the wounds completely healed them without even leaving a scar, albeit leaving her a bit light headed when she first got up.
Due to a lack of things to do beside reading more trashy romance, Chrysalis went back to her bed and slipped below the covers before closing her eyes. While she did fall to sleep, it was not a particularly restful sleep. Her dreams were filled with half formed images of strange devices, strange places, and strange situations which had a decisively real feeling to them.
Cylinders threw fire in great arcs across jagged metal spires, giants moved not under their own power but from directions of an unseen eye, and lightning spoke a universal language to interpret for others who did not speak in a universal tongue.
It was an odd dream, to say the least.

> Meetings and Flashlights
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Celestia glared at the mountain of paper in front of her. The incident reports from both the military and civilian sections of the government disrupted by the invasion had come in earlier and it was truly an unholy amount of paperwork. Knowing that she would have to get through all of this before she could even think about taking a break, she sighed. Looking to the clock and then towards the exit of the office longingly, she figured that she would not be getting out of this place until at least six in the evening. 
She was just glad that there were few seriously hurt or killed, aside from those poor souls that ran into Queen Chrysalis herself. Sending out the letters to the families of the deceased was always a horrible thing to have to do.
The Solar Diarch paused in her work as she heard a knocking on the door. “Come in,” she called. Who it could be?
“Acknowledged,” a strange voice from the other side responded before the door swung open, revealing Deadman. The human stepped inside before swinging the door shut behind him, sealing the room once more. “You wanted to speak with me, your majesty?” he questioned.
And the source of the majority of the paperwork decided to show himself. Everything that he did yesterday just created more and more reports to go through. Assault, inciting mass panic, foalnapping of royalty, the fact that he and her sister was in a nightclub in the first place, evading arrest, acting as a foreign military force on Equestrian soil, damage to the dungeons, and even more issues she cared not to list really added on to her workload.
“Yes, and first of all I would like to personally thank you for your assistance. Without your help, the invasion could have turned out far worse than this,” Celestia said and gave him a smile. As nasty as all the paperwork was, she was most certainly glad that he stepped in and stopped more ponies from being injured.
“It was my pleasure, your majesty,” he said, a green image of a smiling face briefly appearing in the air in front of his helmet before disappearing again.
“However,” she said, her tone suddenly becoming a bit more scolding “I need an explanation as to why you hit a pony in the nightclub, who is now in the hospital mind you, before running out into the night with my sister over your shoulder.”
Deadman did not seem to externally react at all to that, and stated “They hit me first and I hit back. I did not know whether it was the start of an attack by a group of hostiles, and as such I evacuated Princess Luna to a safe location.”
She sighed and asked “Did you really think that a lone, probably drunk pegasi taking a swing at you was indicative of a greater threat?”
“Yes,” Deadman simply responded, although she was certain that there was more than that behind it. Last night he didn’t even care
“In normal circumstances I would ask you very nicely to go hospital and apologize in person followed by paying for the medical bills. However, with your recent service I wish to let it pass, although I would recommend that you write a formal letter of apology,” she said. That was actually only part of the reason that she didn’t want him anywhere near the hospital. It would be most decidedly not be good for anypony’s recovery were they to see the world’s least subtle armoured giant stomping his way down the hall. Besides, if she knew the tabloids, they would end up crying out about how he came to finish the job or intimidate the pony into silence were he to do that.
“I believe that I will do so, your majesty, but I believe that I will need a small amount of assistance,” Deadman stated as he continued to stand completely still.
“Oh, with what?” she questioned. Celestia couldn’t particularly picture him as the type to ask for help.
“To put it quite simply, your written language and mine are not the same, despite the shared spoken language,” he stated without a hint of anything resembling emotion.
“What?” Celestia mouthed “How does that even work?”
Deadman sighed “If I knew I would tell you. I’m blaming magic, considering that the odds of it happening on its own is very small. Hell, it is even more unlikely than both of us somehow speaking the same language in the first place.”
“Regardless of how it works, we have to teach you our written language if you are to function in Equestrian society at all,” she explained. Celestia had never heard of such an event happening before. What were the chances that they spoke the same language but did not share the same written one? Granted, she didn’t hear of a creature from another world appearing here without the magical mirror before either, yet here they were.
“I imagine. What is the earliest date at which a teacher could be brought in?” he questioned.
Celestia thought it over with a hmm before she answered “I think that a teacher may not be the best bet for this. A linguist would probably be a better fit in this rather… unique situation. I think that during some time over the next few days somepony could be hired.” She made a mental note to add that onto her already large workload.
Nodding in acknowledgement, he then requested “Do you think that there would be any chance that you would be able to tell me what you have planned with Queen Chrysalis?”
She paused for a moment as she expected that she was going to be the one who broached this subject. Perhaps she could get him helping her with what she had planned. The Solar Princess decided that a bit of prodding towards his protective instincts was in order. “Our plans are currently to hire a psychologist in order to put her through therapy and figure out why she attacked us as well as-” she began.
“I’m sorry, your majesty, but that is just beyond a bad idea,” Deadman cut in.
“Mind telling me why?” Celestia questioned, taken aback at being interrupted. She couldn’t remember the last time anypony did so on purpose.
He took a moment to compose himself before arguing “First of all, she has magical mind control abilities if the little conversation I had with her before the fight indicates anything. Queen Chrysalis tried to do so on me and failed, but she seemed experienced with it. If there was ever an issue with that magic-restraining horn-harness she could just control someone in the room and use them to cut her out. Second, she is quite physically capable. An issue with one of the other restraints could easily result in a complete containment breach even with guards there. Third, she has to be a skilled manipulator, which could make her a threat even while disabled. After all, Princess Cadance said that she could shapeshift into another, and implied that she has done so in the past. Unless she mind controls everyone who knows those who she imitates, she must be fairly good at emotional manipulation even without her magic.”
She frowned and did her best to look like she was considering his argument, even though she was grinning like a madmare internally. He reacted just as she expected. “You raise a very good point, Deadman,” she replied “Indeed, you are the only one that we know of who is either immune or very resistant to her skills. Would you be willing to help monitor her when she is taken out of her cell?”
Deadman appeared to be deep in thought for a moment before saying “That would work, I believe. Just let me know when you need me.”
Celestia smiled and said “I’ll be sure to do so.” It was wonderful that she was able to get him on board so easily.
“Mind if I go now?” he asked, tilting his head slightly to the right.
“No, not at all. I’ll be sure to talk to you later,” she answered. For now at least, their business was done.
He nodded and slipped back towards the door and exited, closing the door silently behind him.
Privately, she wondered what he did with his spare time.

Deadman dug through the shelves of the maintenance closet, looking for anything that resembled a light bulb. Earlier this morning, he had noticed that the lights in the roof of his room were neither candles nor electrical in nature. Of course, he couldn’t pull apart the chandelier in his room to satisfy his inquisitiveness without major consequences.
However, he couldn’t imagine anyone would know or care that something from here got ‘lost’. It was then that he spotted it.
Towards the back of the shelve that he was searching looked to be a flashlight, albeit with a very large button to make it more usable with hooves.
Flashing his HRV to make sure that nobody was coming, he pocketed the flashlight and slipped out of the closet. With haste, he made his way back to his room and slipped in.
Immediately, he locked the door and moved over to the dresser, which would be his workbench for this operation.
Flashing his HRV, he made sure that nothing that looked too important was close to the surface of the device before he drew his tomahawk and ever so carefully cut into the device, the plastic-like material giving away easily under the stress. Making one long incision from right below the bulb to the base of the handle, he noted how similar it was to Earth plastic, even in how it was cut.
Using the axe again, he continued from the end of his cut to the left, and then back up to the top and turning right, cutting a square section completely off from the rest of the light. He removed the section and placed it off to the side.
The inside was almost disappointingly simplistic. There was a large, eight sided crystal prism which took up most of the handle connected to the light by two rubber coated wires, both of which were soldered to the opposite ends of the crystal in the handle. In addition, a third wire connected the crystal to the very base of the handle. He assumed that, logically, this was the ‘battery’ of the device. The large button itself looked to be a fairly simple push button toggle switch which broke the circuit by cutting off the connection between the crystal and the light through the wire merged into the top of the crystal.
“Reveal to me your secrets, light,” he muttered to himself as he sliced away more of the casing.
It didn’t take a genius for him to figure out that the battery for it was charged through the wire connected to the bottom, somehow. He guessed that the battery was magic based and that one could ‘feed’ power to it through the base and that wire. Deadman hmmed, figuring that it would probably have a sufficiently large battery life despite the fact that it probably required a unicorn to charge it. After all, they designed the button to be large enough to use with hooves, something that the unicorns wouldn’t need.
Carefully, he examined the ‘bulb’ of the device. Unlike bulbs back home, there was, surprise surprise, another crystal in the center, although the shiny surface coating the rest of the bulb interior was roughly the same.
Interestingly enough, the bulb didn’t appear like it was meant to be removed, it was built in. However, the glass lens that was sealing away the light was able to be removed rather easily. Perhaps this indicated that maintenance was an issue with the presumably light emitting crystal.
Deadman believed that it was time to test if the device was still functional. Withdrawing his tools from its structure, he depressed the button, toggling the disassembled flashlight on.
The light slowly came on, starting to glow red before transitioning into yellow, and being fairly comparable to an incandescent light from back home. The battery showed no physical change, which he did not expect. He thought it would start glowing a bit too.
It was then he heard the creak of his balcony door, which he had unbarricaded that morning, as it opened. Now that he thought about it, he probably should have left it barricaded. Glancing back over his shoulder, he attempted to ascertain the identity of the intruder.
To his surprise, Princess Luna was standing there in the doorway to the balcony. “Greetings, Deadman!” she spoke at a rather high volume. He prayed that she would not have an issue with the destroyed flashlight.
“Oh, hello Princess,” Deadman said, grimacing internally.
“How do you do on this fine night?” Luna queried, smiling as she walked into the room.
Deadman tilted his head before asking “Night?” and looking out the window. Indeed, the sun appeared to have just begun. “I suppose it is, and I am well, I suppose,” he stated.
“You did not know that the moon rose? What could you have possibly be doing that absorbed your…” she started, but trailed off as her eyes focused on the mess beside him. She sighed and shook her head “Why is there an active hand-held light cut apart on your dresser?”
Deadman shuffled on his feet uncomfortably before reaching over and depressing the button once more, turning the light off. “This isn’t what it looks like” he said on reflex.
Luna’s glare was rather unamused as she stood there waiting for the real answer.
Looking away, he admitted “Alright, Alright. I couldn’t figure out how the light bulbs here work without electricity, so I found something to take apart,”
She raised her brow inquisitively. “And that is why you found a flashlight to bring back to your room and cut apart?” she inquired.
He shuffled his feet once more as he looked for a way out. “Yes,” he confirmed.
“And you never thought to simply ask?” she prodded.
“Nope,” he confirmed again, once again missing the most obvious route of action.
Her expression softened as she came over to his side and looked down on it before saying “Did you at least figure out how it works?”
Blinking, he glanced over to her. He was okay with this outcome. “I think that I have the general idea, even if I don’t have the exact details. There are devices similar back home,” he explained.
Luna nodded, continuing to focus intensely on the pieces on the dresser. They both stood there for a while before she asked “Perhaps if you helped me out with something I would forget about the fact you dragged crown property up to your room to cut it apart.”
He sighed “Your majesty, are you really attempting to blackmail me?”
“It was an attempt at humour, Deadman. Besides, its something I think that you’ll enjoy,” she said. He didn’t think it was particularly funny and while he was most certainly interested, he was also a bit worried. What could one of the rulers of the country possibly want his help with?
“Mind telling me what exactly you want without being vague, your majesty?” he asked, too late realizing that perhaps he could have used a bit of tact there.
“To put it quite simply, most of the ponies around here could use a good scare and as the Princess of the Night, I am the pony most suited for the task. However, I could most certainly use some help, if you happen to be interested that is,” she explained.
Turning to her, he replied “Is fire hot?” Although she could not see the smile hiding under his helmet, it was most definitely there.
The Princess chuckled at his small joke before saying “I will need your… HRV for this as well as the remnants of the flashlight.” Deadman tried to figure out what she was going with this.
“You have my cooperation in this matter,” he said.
Nodding, her horn glowed as she lifted up the materials from the flashlight. She separated the light-crystal from the rest of the items and levitated it up to the ceiling lights. It glowed more intensely while it was up there, its colour changing to blue, before coming back down. Luna then placed it back into its original slot and fit the glass lens back into place. “There, it should now be able to control any of the castle lights it is pointed at,” she stated with pride.
“Is your plan to turn lights off on ponies through walls?” Deadman asked, sighing.
“Yes, why?” Luna replied “What is wrong with my scheme? It shall most certainly make them think that they are being plagued by the spirit of a trickster from beyond the grave!”
“Listen, your majesty, it is a bit… light on the trickery. It could just be a faulty wire or something like that. It won’t scare anyone.”
“And what do you suggest if you are so skilled at pranks and the like?” she asked, huffing a bit.
“Well, remember when I told you that one of my eyes is artificial?” he queried.
“Indeed I do, what of it?” she raised her brow again as she asked, obviously wondering where he was going with this.
“First, that eye comes out. Second, we are going to need some cream,” he chuckled deviously.

Deadman stood across from Princess Luna with his helmet off, pretending to be holding up his tomahawk for her to examine. The truth was that they were waiting for the guard who was heading towards their position right now. He was very surprised that she went along with his plan. His impression of ponies was that most of them were emotionally soft, squeamish beings. Luna, however, was cut from a different cloth, it seemed, if she agreed to go with this. Hell, she even had some ideas of her own to make it all the better.
The remote was resting beside one of Luna’s hooves, ready to step on it and trigger it at as soon as the time came.
Indeed, all that they had to do was wait for the guard who was doing her rounds to come around and pass right by the light-switch over there. They were positioned perfectly in the moderately narrow hall for this prank. Deadman’s back was to the direction from which the guard was approaching, and they were just the right distance from the wall that the guard had no choice but to walk through on the side with the switch.
As soon as he heard the guard come around the corner behind him, he started talking with Luna, who was only pretending to be listening. Instead, she was carefully watching the guard’s progress out of the corner of her eye, as per the plan. He could not do so himself, however, as his right eye was currently unlinked to the rest of his body. Shortly after they got here, he used the fact that his armour was hooked into his augmentations to decouple the artificial eye’s connection to the socket. While it was annoying being half blind, he could manage.
“And now, about the handle of my tomahawk. The grip is designed to be beneficial for both swinging and throwing,” he said, faking conversation.
With the sound of the guard’s hooves slowly approaching the designated position, Luna tapped her hoof on the floor twice, signaling that it was time.
Her hoof drifted over to the right, and she gently prodded the button of remote, the lights flicking off.
“Gah!” he yelled as he rapidly retrieved the packages of cream from his pocket and impaled them on the pick-like end of the ultrasonic tomahawk with a wet sounding stab before tossing the remainders of the packages away. Dropping the tomahawk on the ground, he dropped into a kneeling position and closed his right eye. Luna really had an excellent idea in magically blocking sound created here from going far.
“What happened?” Luna asked at a high volume, although he fucking knew for a fact that the Princess could see as easily as if it were day. There was no way that ruling the night didn’t come with night vision.
There was the sound of a pony fumbling around in the dark, before the light came back on with a flash.
Luna gasped and knelt down to examine him “Deadman! Are you hurt?” Off to the side, he heard another shocked gasp, this one coming from the guard.
His arms shaking, he reached down and grabbed the tomahawk, staring at the blade coated in the thick white fluid as well as making sure the angle was right so the guard could see it too.
“My eye,” he mumbled.
“Oh no…” Luna said, going slack jawed in mock-shock as she too stared at the blade.
He dropped the tomahawk once again, it clattering to the ground. With it at rest, his head slowly swivelled over to face the guard, who herself seemed to be stuck in a state of very real shock. “You did this,” he stated with a grim look on his face, standing back up to his full height as the shaking of his limbs disappeared.
“I- I didn’t mean to!” the pony stammered out, backing up into the wall and almost actually knocking out the lights this time.
He simply stared at her, and slowly walked over to the guard, who seemed to attempt to shrink away as he closed the gap. “Look at what you did,” he whispered, hand reaching up to his face.
“Please, Deadman, it was an accident!” he heard Luna call behind him in fake fear, but he ignored her, as was the plan.
With a small pull, the eye and the fake optic nerve came free from his eye-socket with a single grunt, but it was still hidden behind his hand. As the guard stared up at his imposing figure, he crouched down to look straight at her shaking figure and pinprick pupils. Her reactions further lowered his opinion of the guard, as she was a tiny bit too thick to even attempting to get help. 
He then ever so slowly turned his hand around and shoved the eye directly in her face, which seemed to stare directly into her soul. “Look at what you fucking did!” he shouted in false anger, attempting to not smile.
A shrill scream piercing the air as the guard screeched with all her might, sounding more than a bit like what one would hear in a horror movie before her eyes rolled back and she collapsed into a heap.
For a few moments both Deadman and Luna stood there in silence, Deadman taking that time to reattach his eye, before they both broke down into fits of laughter.
As Deadman laughed he barely had enough time to get over to where he laid down his helmet down and slip it back on before he had to start supporting himself against the wall, his lungs calling for air as his eyes watered.
Luna too had similar issues, slumping against the wall and staggering towards his position as her fucking loud laugh echoed through the hallway.
Continuing to howl, Deadman slid down the until he sitting down, back resting against the wall. This was just too much for him to handle. The look on that mare’s face was beyond priceless. If one were ever to develop a scale to measure fear quantitatively, they should use that mare’s terror as the base unit. This made his regular pranks look like nothing.
Stumbling her way over, Luna, eyes watering, all but collapsed against his side, wrapping her front legs around his neck to stop herself from falling completely to the ground.
While it supported her for a while, it didn’t last forever. Deadman realized that he was starting to laugh hard and long enough that his stomach started to hurt as he slowly fell forward and curled up into a ball, lying on his side.
Luna was involuntarily dragged down too, landing beside him as she finally started to stop, if only because she ran out of breath to laugh with rather than ceasing to find it funny.
Stopping soon after, Deadman looked to the alicorn in front him and smiled before coming to an unfortunate realization.
“So, did we have any plan to get out of this without getting in shit?” he asked, still chuckling a bit as he finally managed to catch his breath.
“Nay, I don’t believe that we did,” Luna said, also catching her breath rapidly “But I think I have one.”
“And what is it?” he questioned, looking over to the unconscious pony across from them and almost breaking down into laughter again.
She stood up on slightly shaky legs and walked over to the pony before her horn lit up with magic and created an aura around the pony. A second later, the pony disappeared in a flash of white. “There, I teleported her back to her bed in the barracks. When she awakes she will probably think that all of this was a weird dream. Even if she doesn’t, who is going to believe her, especially with your eye intact?”
Picking up his tomahawk and standing back up, Deadman walked over to Luna and said “I must say that I had fun hanging around with you, Princess Luna.”
She smiled, turning and starting to trot down the hall. Pausing mid-step, she turned back towards him. “Do you want to accompany me as I raid the pantry?” Luna questioned.
Nodding, he walked alongside her and stated “When we get there I’m cooking you something from back home, Princess Luna.”
Chuckling and starting to walk again, she smiled “Please, Deadman, when we aren’t in a formal setting, feel free to call me Luna.”
“Acknowledged, your maj- Luna,” he said, following her into the castle and away from the scene of the crime.