Where the Hell Am I?

Chapter 1: Where The Hell Am I?

Man, it was fucking cold.

I couldn’t remember when was the last time I had ever switched the air conditioning to a setting where it felt like I was sleeping in the bloody arctic. For some reason my blanket was gone, and already I was fuming under my breath at myself for having been stupid enough to kick it off of myself in my sleep. But even as I blindly reached out a hand to pull it back over me, something in the back of my brain tickled at me, telling me that there was something I was forgetting.

Gah, never mind that, I just needed something to warm me up - it felt like I’d just taken a dip in a snowdrift on bloody Hoth.

So I slapped a hand down next to me, felt only the chilly, hard dirt of a forest floor through the camping tarp beneath me, and then I remembered.

Oh yeah. I’m not at home anymore.

Son of a bitch.

Letting out a tired groan, I rolled myself onto my stomach with tight and sore muscles that protested with every movement, until I managed to get my feet under me. Very reluctantly, I finally managed to open my eyes, creaking open eyelids that had been gummed over with the remnants of sleep, and I peered around my surroundings as the rest of my brain caught up with the events of the past few days.

Okay, Joseph, quick recap here. So apparently you were out backpacking in the forests of Tennessee on one of your occasional hiking trips, when you took a bad step and fell through some really wide, really deep hole in the ground somewhere. Damned ground looked solid enough when you stepped on it, don’t know how the foothold started crumbling away beneath you. I don’t know how you managed to somehow find Alice’s rabbit hole, but this sure as hell ain’t Wonderland.

Thank God the fall had been on a steep incline rather than a vertical drop - if I’d estimated things correctly during my rapid descent, I think I must’ve fallen at least thirty feet down. I’m no traceur, and a vertical fall like that could have easily broken one of my legs, or at the very least twisted an ankle badly. As it was, I’d been lucky to get away with only a few scrapes and scratches, and I hadn’t lost any of the camping gear I had packed for a three-day getaway in the woods from hectic city life by the time I’d rolled to a halt in a heap and picked myself up with a groan.

I’d immediately tried to climb my way back out, but that had quickly proven to be an exercise in futility. The incline had been too smooth and steep for me to climb out of the hole, even with the climbing axe I carried on my belt - there just weren’t any other handholds or footholds for me to work with. The hole I’d fallen into, however, had turned out to be a tunnel that led further inwards, and at that moment, waiting around at the entrance for help to happen by didn’t seem very feasible. The route I’d been hiking on wasn’t one that was often travelled, and it was highly unlikely that shouting for help from there would attract any attention even if I’d stayed there for hours.

I’d briefly considered using the flare gun I’d stashed in my pack before setting out on this trip in case of an emergency when I needed to send out a signal, but given how deep I was into the wilderness, I also doubted that anyone would be close enough for the signal to attract their attention.

So, naturally, I’d decided to keep on the move and try to save myself by heading further down the tunnel.

Boy, had that been a mistake.

It had only been a short, shallow descent down the tunnel before it began slowly sloping upwards. The inside of the tunnel had been completely pitch black, as was expected because the only light source was the bloody hole that I’d fallen through, and it was already dozens of metres behind me. So, I navigated my way through with the flashlight that I had packed, thinking that it would eventually lead me back up to the surface.

Under the light of my flashlight, the walls of the tunnel revealed themselves to be utterly smooth rock, and the dirt floor underneath my boots was packed and hard, as though this path had been often traversed. That alone had been enough to kindle a hope in me that a way out lay at the other end of the tunnel, and I had quickened my pace in my eagerness to get out.

In hindsight, if I’d known just where I was going to emerge, I would have immediately run all the way back to the damned hole I’d fallen through and stayed there for days just shouting for help, even if nobody was there to hear me.

When I was halfway through the tunnel, the air inside had slowly become colder, drier, less humid as I proceeded onwards. The steady incline going upslope still lent me some hope that it would eventually lead me back to the surface, and my pace quickened as I felt a draft blowing inwards from where I was walking... but by the time I got to the other end, that hope had rapidly fizzled out and died a quiet, silent death as it became painfully obvious that wherever this tunnel emerged to... it wasn’t the same place I had come from.

For one thing, the fauna looked completely different from the forest which I had been hiking through not more than ten minutes ago, and secondly... it was freaking freezing. The black cotton muscle tee I was wearing, even with the equally dark outdoors vest I had over it, was ill-suited to staving off the chills that suddenly overcame me, and I'd quickly found myself shivering from the cold even from inside my fatigues and hiking boots.

I remembered checking my compass under my flashlight while I had been inside the tunnel - though the needle had been slightly wobbly, I'd managed to figure out I was headed due East, and checked my map and course accordingly. But when I came out of that tunnel, it was at that moment I knew that I was well and truly screwed when I looked around, saw that none of the landmarks I had been using to navigate before were there any longer, and then glanced at my compass again and realized that the needle was on the fritz, jumping all over the damned place.

I’d stared uncomprehendingly at my compass for a few seconds, trying to figure out just why a freakin’ magnet would be on the fritz. Just to be sure, I pulled my iPhone out of my pocket and its waterproof casing, firing it up - just as I suspected, not only was there not a single shred of reception, even the compass app wasn’t working properly. It was even worse than my regular compass, the way it kept on spinning this way and that.

My map was useless - I'd taken a look around, and the foliage had been impossible to see through. I couldn't even see past the canopy of dark blue-green leaves that blanketed the new woods I had found myself in. The color of the leaves were a stark contrast to the bright, rich green of the forest I had been backpacking through just minutes before this, and as the fact registered with my brain, it was just all the more proof that I had absolutely no idea where I was.

And if I couldn't see past the canopy, then I sure as hell couldn't try and find landmarks in the form of hills and valleys in the distance either - it would be nearly impossible to get my bearings.

Any other normal person would have started panicking and freaking out at that point in time, and I damn near did so myself. I was really starting to regret my decision of going on this backpacking trip solo right then, but I had just grit my teeth and made the decision to carry on.

One thing at a time, Jo. I'd remembered thinking to myself yesterday as I'd barely fought off the impending freak out, reminding myself of what I’d done before to survive such a scenario once, despite the fact that it had been almost two years ago, alongside almost a dozen other trainees, and I now barely recalled a thing about it. One thing at a time. So maybe it’s been a couple of years since you’ve even touched your jungle survival skillset, much less the memories of those two obligatory years you spent serving in the military. So you’re rusty, your mindset’s changed, but still, you did not survive that one-week jungle survival course during OCS training for nothing. You can survive this. Just. Keep. Moving.

The first order of business had been to secure shelter, which had eventually landed me up with the campsite I was now waking up at. I reckoned it had been around late afternoon when I started looking for shelter for the night, but I spent nearly a better part of the day looking for a damned place where I could stay safely for the night before I finally found it at sunset.

It was a small clearing well-sheltered by the leaves above me, where I had gathered twigs and other dry branches to build a fire. Cold as it was, I'd wasted no time getting a miniature campfire going with a small block of solid fuel I'd ignited with my lighter... and that was when I had a second disturbing revelation.

I'd grown up in tropical Singapore before moving to the good old U.S. of A., so I wasn't as used to temperate cold as most of the local Americans there would have been. But if I recalled correctly, the kind of cold I was experiencing now was the kind you would have expected when it was far into autumn and fast approaching winter.

And it had been midsummer back where I had come from.

Wherever I was, it sure as hell wasn't anywhere close to home.

I'd gone to sleep that night a tired, nervous wreck from the revelation, after scarfing down dinner from an MRE pack I’d purchased from a military surplus store - good old pork sausage with gravy - with some water, desperately trying not to think about the implications of such a thing. Strange, ululating cries had come out from the woods around me as night fell, and I did my best to ignore them as I curled up in my sleeping bag, huddling up as close as I could to the heat and light of the fire I'd built.

All that mattered right now, all that I had to focus on, was securing immediate survival.

So, when I woke up, the first thing I did was to dig out breakfast, heat it up in my mess tin over a portable stove, and devour it along with a cup of instant coffee - if I didn’t have the energy to keep my movement up throughout the day, I wouldn’t be able to get anything done. It was as I was chowing down on my food when I took perturbed stock of my supplies - it took only one glance inside what was left inside my field pack, and I was already frowning.

I’d only packed enough rations for a three-day trip, but this was already my second day out here. If I didn’t find a way back to civilisation soon, I was going to have to start living off the forest if I wanted to stay alive long enough to find a way out of this damned place. Now that thought was enough to elicit a disgusted reaction out of me, and I suppressed a shudder before digging in to the rest of my breakfast, trying not to think thoughts of trapping, killing, skinning live animals, or drinking water that had come from questionable sources.

Well, if it came to that, the water would have to be purified by the purification tablets I carried - they did make the water clean and made sure it wouldn’t give me the runs (or worse), sure, but they also made the water taste like it had just come out of a chemical treatment plant... which wouldn’t have been entirely inaccurate.

My brain started recalling the seven days of disgusting slogging through the jungle I’d spent as a part of nine months of training as an officer cadet during my two years of National Service years ago, and I quickly shook my head, dispelling the quease-inducing thoughts before they spoiled my appetite - and my breakfast. My next spoonful of beef stew was halfway to my mouth when a strange, warbling cry suddenly came out of the woods behind me, and I damn near leapt right out of my skin. A last-second grab luckily managed to save my breakfast, and I quickly cast a glance over my shoulder before setting down my mess tin and reaching for my pack.

There was nothing out there that I could see, but damn if that animal cry just now didn’t sound close. I had to get moving.

There wasn’t much of my breakfast left and I’d be ready to leave soon, but I wasn’t about to get caught with my pants down. I had about six spare flares stashed inside the pockets of my outdoors vest for my signal flare gun, in addition to the one that was already loaded inside it - plenty enough for the next few days.

I wasted no time digging it out of my pack, and hastily clipped to my belt.

Now, it might not have been an actual weapon, per se, and the only times I’ve ever fired a flare gun at a target instead of straight up into the air had been in Alan Wake and Far Cry 3 - I had no idea if they really worked that way in real life, but if common sense was any indication, the light and heat of the flares it fired would probably serve well enough to violently discourage any potential predator I might encounter here.

Well... provided they were even scared by such things to begin with, or if I was even a good enough shot to hit a pouncing jungle predator with a flare pistol.

With my improvised armament secured, I quickly dug into what was left of my breakfast and scarfed it down, washing down the remnants with a swig of water before I capped my canteen and stuffed it back into my field pack along with my sleeping bag and camping tarp. Shouldering the heavy bag, I‘d been kicking some dirt over the dying embers of the campfire I’d set up when I heard that same damned cry again.

Damned if the bloody thing didn’t nearly give me a heart attack. I immediately whirled around, snatching the flare gun from my belt as I pointed it in the direction I’d heard it, and I readied myself for anything.

My heart pounded steadily in chest as nervous sweat broke out across my brow, but my hands didn’t shake too much - nine months in officer cadet school, in addition to years of recreational shooting practice, had trained me enough for that. If anything came busting out of the foliage in front of me, I’d be ready for it.

All around me, the sounds of the forest were a quiet backdrop - the calls of insects, the faint sound of leaves rustling in the wind. I kept my ears trained for any sound of movement, but even after several tense moments of waiting... nothing came out.

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding, and tucked the flare gun back onto my belt, trying to calm myself down.

“All right, Joe,” I muttered to myself. “Quit spooking yourself. First order of business for today - get your bearings. You ain’t getting anywhere closer to home if you don’t even know where you are.”

Self-pep talk was all well and good, but as I took a look around me, I realized that finding out just where I’d landed myself up in was going to be way harder than I thought. Foliage blocked my vision for almost every damn inch of the canopy I could see. I’d have to get past that first if I wanted a look around this place to see if there were any landmarks I could recognize, but just how was I going to...

My gaze went contemplatively up one of the huge, mighty trees that grew up and out of the ground around me, and I immediately shook my head at the idea that suddenly took root in my mind.

“Oh, hell no. Hell no, you have got to be kidding me.”

---

My climbing axe hooked itself on the next branch higher up on the tree, and I hauled myself up, grumbling under my breath all the way.

“I swear to God,” I muttered to myself as I grabbed on to the next branch. “If I’m not able to find my way out of here after this, I am going to break something,”

I didn’t need to look down to know that if I fell from this height... well, I wouldn’t be getting up and walking away from it any time soon. But as far as I could see, this was the only way I would even be able to get a clear line of sight past the foliage and get a sense of just where the hell I was. So, as my climbing axe hooked onto the next branch and I hauled myself up again, I just grit my teeth and carried on - it was the only thing I could do.

By the time I reached the top, my arms were burning and my legs were tense as all hell from expecting a slip or a loss of balance at any moment. Grunting against the exhaustion, I pulled myself up that last step, and suddenly found myself blinking against the glare of the morning sunrise.

Squinting against the light, I quickly lowered my Oakleys over my eyes from where they rested on my forehead. The jet-black sunglasses did their job admirably, filtering out most of the sun’s glare so that I could take a better look around... and boy, did what I see not help to raise my spirits one bit.

None of the landmarks I had been using to navigate in the forest I’d come from were even there anymore. Hell, it was like the entire damn landscape had been changed. There were hills and cliffs that I didn’t remember being there before, and where I had expected to see them, there was nothing but flat, rolling forest covered in trees.

Okay, I think I was starting to freak out right about now.

How in the hell had everything around me managed to undergo such a rapid change, until it seemed like I was in another place altogether!? The mere notion, the very idea that I might have stumbled through a portal of some sort was so fantastic, so outlandish, that I almost didn’t even dare think about the possibility.

Jesus Christ, where the hell was I? How the hell was I going to get home?

Before my mind could go spinning off into the depths of panic and despair however, I quickly seized my thoughts by the reins, and firmly grounded them.

Keep it together, man. I firmly told myself. You aren’t going to do your survival odds any good if you go spinning off the deep end. Whatever it is that just happened, I don’t care what it is - you are going to survive and get out of this jungle. Once you’ve done that, we can figure out a way to get back home.

I took a deep breath, making miniscule progress in calming myself, but I at least managed to focus my mind again on what I had to do. A moment’s scanning of the landscape revealed the location of the highest cliff I could spot - a handful of klicks away due North, judging from the position of the rising sun.

It was going to be a hell of a hike, but I was no stranger to long-distance marches. The cliff was going to be a much better vantage point than the tree I was currently perched on, and I’d be able to see much further than I could now.

And more importantly, if there were any signs of civilisation at all, like the lights of a town nearby, I would be all the more likely able to see them at night.

I only had two days’ worth of rations and supplies left - I had to reach that cliff before nightfall.

I took one look below at the tree stretching out back to the ground underneath me, and sighed, before I reluctantly began the long climb back down.

As gruelling as all of this was... well, even a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

---

Several hours later, I’d become pretty sure that Confucius had never been on a four-klick route march before, never mind the six full kilometers I’d estimated I had to hike before reaching the cliff I’d sighted. Thankfully, I made it down the tree without any of the branches suddenly breaking off on me, and I’d let out a huge sigh of relief the moment I felt my boots touch solid ground once again.

After that, I wasted no time getting my ass in gear - I still vaguely remembered which direction North lay in, and had immediately set off at a quick march, despite the weight of my pack. Once I’d covered a short distance I checked my compass again, and realized that the farther away I was getting from the hole I’d emerged from, the less jumpy my compass’ needle seemed to get. Soon enough the damn thing had finally stabilized enough for me to use it again, and I felt the uncertain tension in my chest relax slightly.

Well, that was at least one silver lining to this fucking thundercloud I’d suddenly found myself in. All the better - at least this time I wouldn’t have to climb every other tree each step of the way just to make sure that I wasn’t veering off course.

I spent the next several hours hiking through terrain that was treacherous like I’d never seen before. Ferns and underbrush concealed holes in the ground that I’d nearly tripped over and broken my ankle inside several times. When I wasn’t navigating my way through the carpet of plants that hid the forest floor from view, I found myself trying to find ways around suddenly yawning chasms, or hauling myself up steep slopes that suddenly dipped into drops that I found myself tumbling down.

I came damn close to breaking several bones during those falls, but thank my lucky stars that I didn’t come away from those with anything more than a few scratches, bruises, and a couple of banged up joints. A bit of antiseptic and some bandages from my first aid kit took care of those easily enough, and though treating those injuries still stung like a bitch, I managed to quickly get myself back on track each time.

The next couple of miles blurred away beneath me, and before I knew it, it was already midday, the afternoon sun blazing down from straight above me. The sun’s heat was almost just enough to stave off the late-autumn chills I was getting, but I still felt it nonetheless as I set myself down on a nearby fallen log and dug out another ration pack for lunch, giving my tired and screaming legs a chance to rest.

I'd been in the midst of digging into my spaghetti when I saw the damnedest thing - a small group of brightly colored insects, each about the size of a butterfly, floated into my field of vision, and three of them alighted on my outstretched hand.

Now, I'm normally very skittish around flying insects, but only because I hated how suddenly those slippery bastards could zip around your head out of freaking nowhere. Plus the fact that if they landed on you, well, the sensation of their tiny little legs skittering across my skin was just plain creepy, though this time I didn't feel much thanks to my climbing gloves.

But the only reason why I didn't immediately swat them away was because they were fluttering about so slowly, so gently, that they barely disturbed me, and they were just so damn brightly colored. I swear, that bunch of bright little flying dots gently landed on me like a bunch of butterflies, and I kid you not, I think one of them was looking at me.

The little bugger peered up at me with huge, bright green eyes that I could have sworn were blinking with curiosity, and I stared right back at it, captivated. I'd never seen anything like this before back home, and I was trying to think of what it might be when it suddenly turned towards the spaghetti in my mess tin along with the rest of its companions, sniffing curiously.

Then, before I even had the chance to react and try to swat them away, they leapt upon my damned food, and this was where I started to think I was hallucinating, because they proceeded to devour every scrap of pasta that was left in my mess tin. Sauce, noodles, all of it.

A few seconds later they were done, leaving behind a licked-clean mess tin, and I swear to God those little buggers let out tiny, satisfied burps before taking off again with a light buzz, zipping away while I stared at my empty mess tin.

… Wait a minute. "What the hell just happened?”

Welcome to the Jungle

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Chapter 2: Welcome to the Jungle

Son of a bitch, what the hell had that been just now!? Half of my lunch had suddenly been devoured by God-knows-what out of nowhere, and now I had to continue my march on a half-empty stomach! I didn’t know the specifics behind just how many calories I’d lost to the food locusts just now, but I knew that my odds of survival had taken a very sudden, unexpected dip.

Speaking of those food locusts... I looked in the direction which they had swiftly departed in, staring in disbelief. The speed at which those things had devoured my lunch was unlike anything I’d seen from any real-life insect, and come to think of it... I vaguely recalled seeing before, in a show I’d once watched, brightly colored insects that simply just devoured any kind of food that they came across.

In fact, those things just now had kinda reminded me of...

... Nah. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be.

There weren’t such things as parasprites.

Don’t start thinking on it, Joe. Before you know it, you’ll have admitted it to yourself, and that’s where you start going off the deep end. Keep your focus on what’s important - your own survival. You can afford to start thinking about this once you don’t have miles of forest surrounding you on all sides and you aren’t miles away from civilisation.

Just. Keep. Moving.

I took half an hour longer to rest my legs, stretching them out and loading up on water, taking sips from my canteen to make up for the food I’d lost. Once thirty minutes had elapsed on the heavy silver hiking watch I wore, I picked myself up from the spot I’d almost fallen asleep on, and ignored the grumbles of my stomach as I got my bearings again and continued on my path towards the cliff.

An hour later, I was starting to get the feeling that moving off without getting a full meal into my stomach hadn’t been such a hot idea after all.

Weariness wore me down like leaden weights, and my legs just refused to go as fast as I would have liked them to. My pace ended up getting slowed down by what I estimated to be at least half of what it had been before, and before I knew it I found myself looking around for a walking aid as I continued putting one foot in front of the other. Hell, I would have taken anything to take the edge off of the savage, burning fatigue my legs were suffering from this trek.

When I was about a couple of miles off from the cliff, I finally found it along my hiking path - a long, broken branch, just straight enough to use as a stave, or as an improvised walking stick. Right then my spirits lifted as I fervently thanked Lady Luck for my good fortune, and I didn’t hesitate in picking it up.

With the improvised walking aid now by my side, the rest of the hike was made marginally less tiring, but hey, at that moment, I’d have taken whatever I could get. By the time I finally made it to the cliff hours later, after two more miles of gruelling jungle road, it was already evening, and I was tired to the bone.

I plopped my pack down at the first viable campsite that I spotted, and spread out my tarp to set up a sleeping area before I started gathering twigs and other dry branches for the fire. My body was so worn out I felt limper than a spent dish rag, and at that point I’d have liked nothing more than to just collapse next to my pack and pass out into a well-deserved nap.

But I knew that to do so without at least putting together a fire would be to invite death. I still had enough rations and water for dinner and tomorrow, but the cold of the night would kill me slowly if I didn’t get a fire up and running by the time the sun went down.

So, I just kept my tired limbs moving, refusing to stop moving for fear that if I even took a moment to rest, I’d never be able to get back the momentum I’d built up.

The sun was well on its way to setting when I lit up my next block of solid fuel and tossed it into the bonfire, getting the fire crackling and staving off the cold with its blessed heat. With the fire issue settled, my mind immediately moved on to the next most important item on the survival agenda if I was going to make it out of here alive - food.

And no, I’m pretty sure the reason for thinking of food next had nothing to do with how loudly my stomach was growling.

Traps were starting to seem like a better idea by the second. They wouldn’t require much attention after I set them up, and I could check on them after I’d spent a while shoring up my other survival tools; namely, my stick. Killing two birds with one stone, bravo! Now, all I had to do was figure out what kind of hunting traps to make...

The answer was so bloody obvious in hindsight that I’d spent nearly a minute thinking on it before smacking myself on the forehead for my stupidity.

Snares. I had to set up some snares.

Wait... how was I supposed to set up a snare again?

... Damn it, I knew I should’ve paid more attention during those jungle survival lessons. I guess there was a pretty good reason why I’d only barely passed out of OCS instead of dropping out of the course entirely.

I facepalmed and scratched at my head furiously, trying to dredge up from the depths of my memory how to construct an improvised snare to trap small game while in the jungle. It’d been two years ever since I’d had to touch that skillset since I finished my former home country’s obligatory two years of National Service, and I’d never thought I’d actually have to touch those memories again. Damn me to hell, I’d almost entirely forgotten how to set up a snare trap!

A minute of head scratching later, I thought I’d recalled enough on how an improvised snare was supposed to be built, and I prayed to God that I hadn’t forgotten anything important as I set about gathering the materials for my next few traps.

In the hours between my arrival there and nightfall, I put the traps together and set them up at places I prayed were the correct ones to lure animals to. I had some bait in my pack I’d saved for emergencies in case of events like this, and with any luck, I’d have something extra to munch on for dinner at the very least.

Once the traps were done, I returned to the campfire I’d set up on aching legs, and finally plopped down on my ass for the first time in hours. I’d have liked nothing more than to pass out into blissful sleep right there and then, but there was one more thing I had to see to.

I started digging into my pack, and retrieved my swiss army knife. Flicking out the blade, I stared at its tiny size pathetically for a few seconds, then looked down at the comparatively massive girth of the stick I carried, and sighed.

This... was probably going to take a while.

---

It took me the better part of an hour, given that I’d never actually done this before, but I eventually managed to fashion one end of my stave into a sharpened spear tip by filing off the wood with the blade of my swiss army knife. I swear, this wood was hard as hell to carve; even more so than regular wood, and I’d ended up taking twice as long as I’d thought I would to finish it up. By the time I was done, my arms had joined my legs in the bitching-about-aching club, and I was starting to get right pissed with my stomach’s persistent growling.

Okay, one more improvised armament, check. At least, with this new tool on my side, my survival odds would improve quite optimistically.

Well, with my new big pointy stick in hand, I decided to go check on the snares I’d put up - maybe I’d caught something interesting for dinner. By this point, my stomach’s stubborn grumbling had grown into full-blown protesting roars, and my face scrunched up from the hunger pangs in an expression that pretty much said ‘bleagh’.

I needed to get dinner, and fast. The MRE packs still in my field pack called out to me, a sweet siren song of delicious, scrumptious food, but I stubbornly resisted it. The more I could save those packs, the more meals I would have for emergencies in case I couldn’t catch anything out here.

Turned out the snares I’d set up had caught quite some fair game - a couple of rabbits, and even a bird that I think was a quail. I’d dispatched them as bloodlessly and humanely as it was possible with a large stick before carrying their carcasses back to my campfire. But at the end of the day, the thought that I was going to eat them anyway squicked me out enough that I had to quickly shut out all of my emotions and just focus on getting some food out of the damn things. My stomach wasn’t going to feed itself, and out here, it was either kill, or be killed.

So, I flicked out my swiss army knife, and went to bloody work.

---

An hour later, my stomach had finally stopped roaring, and I was mighty grateful to finally have some peace and quiet. Leaning back in front of my campfire, I picked the last bit of rabbit meat off the tiny wooden stick I’d speared it on, and washed it down with a swig of water from my canteen.

I eyed the half-empty container pensively, swirling about what little liquid still remained inside, and bit my lip.

Damnit, I needed to get more water. Washing the meat once I had been done skinning the rabbits and quail had been an absolute bitch, not to mention I must’ve used a good half of what water had been in my canteen doing it. I had to find a river by tomorrow if I wanted to not die of thirst.

I looked up at the moon that was still rising in the sky before me, and figured that I’d waited long enough for darkness to fall. The campsite I’d picked on the cliff’s summit had a pretty good view of the landscape around me in all directions, and if there were any towns nearby, I stood a pretty good chance of being able to spot their lights.

And if there weren’t... well then, I was pretty much boned.

It wasn’t too hard to see in the moonlight - in fact, it kind of actually seemed brighter compared to how I remembered it being back home. I retrieved my binoculars from my pack and began scanning the horizon, looking for any signs of civilisation. Lights, smoke, anything that might indicate signs of settlement. I’d had to turn almost a full 180 before I finally spotted it out of the corner of my eye, and a fierce burst of hope surged through me as I quickly raised my binoculars up to my eyes, zooming the lenses in.

What looked like the lights of a small town dotted the edge of the horizon before me, and a quick glance at my compass under my flashlight revealed its direction - vaguely North-West. There was no telling just how far off it was from the cliff, but at least I had somewhere to go now.

Hot damn, I might actually make it out of this alive!

A triumphant grin spread across my face, and I had to resist the urge to do a fist pump - hell to the yeah, there was still hope!

I shivered suddenly as I realized it was starting to get mighty cold, and I took a glance at my watch - 2217. Time to crash.

With my bearing for the next day finally set, I quickly wrapped myself up in the folds of my sleeping bag, and curled up next to the fire, confident in my new direction... and I definitely did not flinch and grip the handle of the flare pistol on my belt tightly when the same damn warbling howl I’d heard during my first night here sounded again, some distance away from behind me.

Damnit, I needed to stop spooking myself like that.

---

I slept hard and didn’t wake up until well after sunrise. I was so exhausted that even the damned ground felt comfortable enough to substitute for a king-sized bed.

It must have been nearly nine in the morning before I finally thrashed my way out of my sleeping back, shivering in the cold half-awake and wondering where the hell I was. A massive krick in my neck ended up leaving me with a bitching pain on my shoulder every time I turned to the right, and before long I was already cursing and swearing at my fortune... or rather lack thereof.

God, I hated this place. I needed to kick up the pace and get to that town as soon as I could. Even another day stuck inside this forest was going to drive me nuts.

I fumbled my way out of my sleeping bag, and blearily set about making breakfast. It wasn’t until I’d made myself a cup of joe (har har) from a sachet of instant coffee powder and hot water from my thermos before I finally regained something that resembled wakefulness, and I shook my head as the caffeine started to take hold and the cobwebs began to clear from my mind.

I’d gotten enough meat from the catches last night to last me another two meals, and I retrieved some of the kebab I’d kept safe in plastic wrap for breakfast to quell my raging stomach. I didn’t waste any time wolfing the cold meat down - the fire had died out quite some time ago, but I wasn’t about to expend another rectangle of solid fuel just to start it up. I only had four of the damn things left.

With breakfast finished and my body as rested as it was going to get, I hoisted my pack over my shoulder and scattered the dying embers of the campfire with a few kicks of my boot. No point wasting a moment longer here - time to get a move on.

The rest of the day was spent hiking over trails that were hostile unlike anything I’d seen before. Like the day before, terrain was unbelievably treacherous, and my trend of close calls against the hazards of the environment continued well until even past lunch. By the time it had reached late afternoon, I had covered a couple more miles. I don’t know how much further I had to go before I reached the town, but I ran into the first river I’d encountered in this damn forest almost an hour later. The sound of running water was music to my ears, and I swear I almost tripped over myself just running over to it.

My canteen was the first thing out of my pack, and I immediately dipped it in the crystal clear waters to fill it up as I splashed the refreshingly cool water on my face, washing away some of the sweat and grime that had accumulated on my skin over the past few days. Once my canteen had been filled I didn’t waste any time dropping in a couple of purification pills, and I gave it a good shake before depositing it back inside my pack.

Then, as I finally took the time to look down at my reflection in the river’s waters, I realized something.

Jesus Christ, I looked like hell.

There were a multitude of small scratches across my face, and many tiny streaks of dirt and dried blood still remained where the river’s water had failed to wash it away. I was by no means ugly, but normally I wasn’t exactly what you would call drop-dead handsome either. The best adjective that I had ever come across describing me was ‘cute’, and to someone who was twenty-three and had been repeatedly told by his peers that he looked like he was nineteen, it didn’t exactly give me much of a bonus in the way of masculinity points.

My small, wiry, Asian frame didn’t exactly do my stature any favors either. At a mere five feet and five inches, I was bloody tiny compared to even other Asian guys from my generation, never mind the Caucasians that I knew. But either way, whatever it was that I looked like normally, I was a sight worse right now given my current state. It was a bloody frightful sight as I looked down at the poor soul staring right back at me from the river’s waters - his face was caked with dirt, and his hair, long enough to cover his ears and partially conceal his eyes, was matted down messily with sweat and all manner of grime.

I spent the next minute giving my face and neck a good scrubbing, trying to wash the dirt and grime off and out of my hair as well. I felt filthy as a pig in its sty, except that I had no desire to wallow around in the mud. As I dried myself off with my towel (a good galactic hitchhiker never forgets his towel), the water suddenly rippled around my knees, and I immediately looked up, freezing by instinct.

The river was a big one - it had to be at least tens of metres across, and given how fast the currents were flowing, I wasn’t about to try crossing it. It looked dangerous as all hell, and I sure didn’t want to find out if there was anything living inside there.

And damn if the very moment I thought that, the water instantly rippled around my legs again, and I suddenly caught sight of something huge, something vaguely moving about underneath the water. There was a very blurry flash of deep, shiny purple moving underneath the currents for an instant, and then it was gone.

Instinct instantly propelled me out of the water as I backpedalled furiously, and I let out what I assure you was definitely not a frightened, panicked yelp. My flare gun was instantly in my hand before I even realized I’d drawn it, and I stared at the spot where the underwater leviathan had passed by, not even taking my eyes off of it in case it appeared again.

I must’ve stood there for what... ten, twenty seconds, just staring at the spot with my flare gun pointed at it? After a few moments it became obvious that it wasn’t going to be coming back, and I lowered my flare gun, my breathing beginning to slow down.

Clipping the pistol back onto my belt, I ran a hand through my hair, letting out a shaky sigh. Geez, this forest was really starting to wear away at my nerves. First food locusts, and then now I was starting to hallucinate purple Loch Ness monsters. I had to get out of here, and fast.

I quickly wrung the towel out and shoved it back inside my pack, picking up my stave and orienting myself to follow the river’s flow. With any luck, this river wouldn’t do much meandering, and I’d reach the town before long. I’d been about to set off again, however, when my nose picked up on something I had somehow missed before.

Now that the pervasive stink that my body had been undoubtedly bearing for the past two days had finally been mitigated somewhat, other scents were able to make their way to my nostrils, and for just an instant, I thought I’d caught a whiff of something nasty.

It was a thick, cloying scent strong enough for me to nearly choke on it. I coughed and gagged on it for a second before I held my hand over my nose in an attempt to block out the smell. Gah, the stench just reeked of decay, and whatever it was that was giving off that smell had obviously been out here for a while.

I pondered briefly whether or not I should venture out in search of the source of the stench - morbid curiosity tempted me to at least try to investigate, but common sense won out in the end. I decided to leave well enough alone; who knows, maybe it was an animal carcass that some predator was feeding on, and it’d be really stupid of me to interrupt its meal. My energy was better saved following the river downstream and out of this forest.

So, imagine the irony then, when I came across the source of the smell around the river’s next bend, not more than twenty metres from where I had stood just now.

It was... bad. There was no other way to describe it. Blood was everywhere, dark crimson painting a morbid picture as it ran into the water of the river in little rivulets. The body lay in the middle of a pool of the red liquid, and as I stepped forward cautiously and dipped a hesitant finger into it, I realized that the blood had coagulated. The body must have been lying here for quite some time already.

Then I looked up, took a closer, proper look at the corpse, and realized something that made my breath hitch in my chest.

Holy Christ, the son of a bitch was human!

I wasn’t the only one to end up in here!

Before I could even think about what I was doing, I immediately got to my feet and ran over to it, kneeling down to examine the body closer. The body had been facing down, and the moment I turned it over and got a proper look at its face, I cringed and immediately turned my gaze to the side, swallowing bile that had threatened to rise in my throat.

By the Golden Throne, it was a mess down there.

Taking a couple of seconds to compose myself, I took a few deep breaths before looking back, steeling myself for the grisly sight that awaited me and isolating my emotions, willing myself to take in only the details.

Poor bastard had been torn up pretty bad. Scratches and claw marks criss-crossed his face until it looked like some sort of demented jigsaw puzzle, and I couldn’t recognize any facial features underneath the mass of blood and claw marks. His right eyelid had swollen shut, and a stream of blood flowed from below his eyelid and trickled to the ground beneath him - must have gotten his eyeball put out at some point.

The clothes he was wearing, a shredded outdoorsman jacket over a cotton tee, a furred hunter’s cap, and brown hiking khakis, were about as torn up as his body. Defensive wounds marred his forearms where he had probably attempted to fend off some kind of clawed attacker, and blood ran practically everywhere.

The smell soon became too much for me, and I fought the urge to throw up as I gagged and started breathing through my mouth. Emperor’s blood, it was a right mess over here... The body’s slightly bloated state told me enough, that he’d have to have been lying here for almost a day or two, at least.

Then my eyes traced down his arm, saw what he gripped in his cold, dead hand, and I literally stopped breathing for a couple of seconds.

Holy crap... This guy had come in loaded for bear.

In his rigid, rictus grip, lay a double-barrelled shotgun: a Remington Model 1889, if I recognized this one correctly. The metallic finishing of the barrel was scuffed with dirt but otherwise still looked clean enough to fire, and as I gingerly lifted it up and broke the breech open to check inside, my hopes soared. The gun was still loaded.

I’ll be honest with you, I felt lucky as all hell to have not encountered any of the native predators around here so far. But even with my flare gun and my climbing axe as impromptu weapons, I didn’t feel so hot about my chances of coming out alive in the unlikely event that I did run into one. And if the appetite of those food locusts were anything to go by, I’d be right boned if fate decided to slap a predator right on my shoulders while I was unprepared to fight it off.

I felt like a vulture for what I was about to do next, but there was no denying the baleful necessity of the act. If I wanted to up my preparedness and chances of survival, I was going to have to search the body.

I grimaced, and reached down to retrieve the shotgun from his fingers, cringing all the way.

“Ugh... Sorry about this, mate.” I muttered as I gingerly pried the weapon from his cold, dead hands, and I set it on the ground beside me before I started patting down the rest of his pockets gently in search of anything I could use.

A couple of minutes of searching turned up far more than I’d expected. I’d searched his backpack as well, and it seemed to me that he had apparently been planning for just a single day of hunting out in the woods, given what he had been packing in his bag. Just some beef jerky, a canteen of water, and a half-empty box of spare 12-gauge shotgun shells for his boomstick; twelve leftover cartridges in all. There’d been an opened box of thirty-six leftover .44 magnum rounds in the bag as well, and I’d wondered just what they were for until my face lit up in hesitant optimism as I checked his belt and spotted a flash of chrome and walnut.

Scarcely even daring to hope, I slowly pulled the beauty out of its holster, and as it emerged, my eyes widened in awe as I admired the full length of the eight inch barrel (no homo) of the Smith & Wesson M29 this guy had been packing. Now that was some serious stopping power right there; probably enough to halt even a bear in its tracks if I recalled correctly. I popped the cylinder open to check inside, and lo and behold, the lethal little bugger was fully loaded with all six shots.

I’d had to resist the urge to make a Dirty Harry quip as I appropriated his holster and slid the .44 into it, but there was no fighting the one-liner that came as I picked up the Remington. I looked the shotgun up and down, let out an appreciative whistle, and slung it over my back, all the while with only one word on the tip of my tongue.

“Groovy.”

I also then recalled the fact that there was a corpse at my feet, and that I was looting it, and immediately felt horribly inappropriate. My hands sped up, and I let out an embarrassed cough as I tried to finish up without any more slips of the tongue.

There wasn’t much else he was carrying on him that I could use, having already appropriated his food, water, and weapons. His pockets had contained nothing but a dead cell phone and a nearly empty wallet, with a driver’s license that stated ‘Kansas’ and had the name “Steven Decker” on it. The only other thing I’d picked out of his belt was a thick, heavy-bladed survival knife from its sheath, which I clipped to my belt opposite the .44 and my flare gun. It was much bulkier and heavier than my swiss army knife, sure, but as far as my experience in here so far went, I figured bigger was better - and deadlier.

As I finished checking the body, I came across something curious. I spotted a flash of rainbow on the shredded mess of crimson that was the T-shirt beneath his vest, and I frowned, pushing the obstructing vest to the side for a clearer look.

What I saw was... perplexing, to say the least. What I saw was a streak of rainbow in the vague shape of a head of hair... or a mane.

Wait a sec... What were those words next to it?

20... %... cooler...

Hang on a minute, I recognized this thing. This was a Rainbow Dash T-shirt.

This guy was a brony too?

There was little else I could chalk this little curiosity up to other than sheer coincidence. I briefly thought about the chain that hung from my neck, then immediately dismissed the thought as laughably unlikely. There couldn’t possibly be some sort of connection.

Once I was done, I adjusted Steven’s body into the best approximation of a dignified resting position I could get it into, and faced it with as much respect as I felt was possible, given the fact that I’d just looted it. Giving it a little sheepish bow of thanks, I opened my mouth with the intention of giving the poor guy a eulogy, and then lamely realized that I had no idea how to start one.

I must’ve stood there for a couple of seconds looking like a total dumbass, and after a few moments I decided that it’d be better to just leave well enough alone. I turned to continue following the trail downriver, when the bushes behind me suddenly rustled quietly, and I froze in my tracks.

Oh... son of a bitch, I should have thought of it.

If this guy had been taken down by one of the native predators, then that meant that he’d probably stumbled into its territory, and it had hunted him down just like any one of its other regular prey. And if he had died inside its territory...

Then that meant whatever it was that had killed him was probably still around here somewhere.

I don’t know what made me do it, but I instinctively slapped my Oakleys over my eyes, and my hand dipped to my belt as I snatched my flare gun from its clip and spun around, snapping it upwards.

It was all that saved me.

Something shot out of the bushes behind me, and it was already darting towards me as I brought my flare gun up, zig-zagging this way and that like a snake. Crimson eyes that glowed hellishly had locked onto me with utter focus and malevolence, and I let off a snapshot by complete reflex, yelping out in surprise.

In the light of my flare, I caught sight of the silhouette of a fluttering pair of bat-like wings as it sailed past whatever-the-hell-it-was with mere inches to spare, and the sheer heat and light sent it squawking backwards as it squirmed and writhed away from the flare.

... Wait a minute, squawking? Since when the hell did snakes squawk?

That thing, whatever it was, slowed down long enough for me to get a clearer look at it, and what I saw had me wondering for a few moments if the water purification pills I’d popped in my canteen were defective.

Hey, if you saw a snake that had the body of a chicken with bat wings for its head, you’d be wondering if someone had slipped you some drugs to mess with your head too.

The snake-chicken thing’s crimson eyes flared scarlet again, and it let out a shrill screech before darting towards me again. I felt the oddest pressure pressing down on my eyes, but that was the least of my concerns right now because fuck snakes.

In all the rush of adrenaline and terror, I totally forgot about the shotgun that I had slung across my back. Instead, my hand immediately dropped the spent flare gun, and dipped towards my belt, frantically grabbing for the first weapon it could reach. My fingers wrapped around the handle of my newly obtained survival knife, and I tore it free of its sheath just as the fowl-serpent pounced on me, its beak hissing and snapping at my face and getting uncomfortably close to my eyes.

An image of Steven’s missing right eye flashed through my head, and I screamed and struggled wildly against it. Losing my balance, I pitched backwards, slamming onto the ground painfully on my back. The bizarre claw-feet things that extended from its neck raked at my eyes, and I threw up my free arm.

The creature’s body slammed into it with a sudden, harsh impact that painfully rattled my arm all the way down to the shoulder joint. Claws and crimson burning eyes flashed as red-hot pain slashed its way down my forearm in multiple places, and I screamed again, grabbing wildly with my free hand in an attempt to pin the damn thing down.

Desperation and sheer panic powered my movements - I was on my back with practically no leverage, and if I tried to hold it off indefinitely, it was eventually going to wrench my arm aside and tear my eyes and throat out. I had to open up some distance before I could reverse the grapple, and then I could kill this thing!

I threw the arm holding on to the survival knife to the side, rolling myself around until I had the damned snake under me. My free hand finally managed to get a decent, solid hold on the thing’s neck, and once I felt myself regain some leverage, I immediately pulled myself back upright while slamming the hand that held onto it onto the ground with all my strength.

The snake-chicken thing let out a pained squawk as its head slammed against the hard ground, and I didn’t even hesitate. My armed hand raised itself, and I brought the survival knife down.

Its neck split apart like a ripe cantaloupe, and crimson splattered everywhere as its chicken-head went rolling, still squawking spastically as it twitched here and there. The rest of its body thrashed wildly as its claws raked blindly at the air, and I quickly let go of it and swiftly backed away from its death throes.

The snake-thing thrashed about for several more seconds, its body twitching spasmodically, and I didn’t even dare take my eyes off of it, panting harshly. My breath burned in my throat and down my lungs even as I watched, and I swallowed nervously as the thing’s body finally stopped moving several seconds later.

I’d killed animals before to survive - that was nothing new. But this was the first time I’d actually had to fight against one for my life. The adrenaline rush of the fight was still coursing through me, and I was still as strung up as a high-tension wire. Numbly, I wiped off the blood on the knife’s blade on my pants without even thinking, and recoiled in sudden disgust when I realized what I’d just did.

I grimaced, and washed away the rest of the offending liquid in the water at the riverbanks before returning the blade to its sheath, my heart still pounding in my chest from the close call. As I did, my mind went over the details of the brief, panicked scuffle, and as it reached something that jogged loose a memory somewhere, a couple of things connected, and I froze.

The first thing was that thing’s appearance, and the second one, that weird pressure I’d felt on my eyes...

... Wait a minute. I’ve seen this son of a bitch somewhere before.

I turned back to the creature’s carcass, took a good, long, hard look at it, and tried to come to terms with the fact that no, my eyes were not playing tricks on me.

Holy jumping shitballs, I was looking at a cockatrice straight out of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

I don’t know when my hands got all numb and tingly, but I was abruptly aware of the fact that I was clutching onto the handle of the survival knife until my knuckles were white, and my breathing had gone hard and fast again. Okay, since when did I get off the highway and take a right turn straight into Loonyville? Damnit Joe there are no such things as parasprites and cockatrices. Get your head back in the game before you lose it.

Yes, I admit it. I liked the show. I was a brony, and I was damned proud of that fact no matter how much flak I got from my friends and associates for it. But I was also a healthy, sane, rational, reasoning, thinking human being before all of that, and everything that I had seen so far just flew in the face of everything that I knew to be real or fake. There was a very fine line between fantasy and reality, and I liked to think that I stayed firmly on reality’s side of the line. There was absolutely no way in hell that I was in... in...

Oh hell no, I am not saying it. I am not saying it. Thinking about it was the first step down a slippery slope, and it would only go downhill from there. Think about your survival, man. You still have to get out of this forest, freaking out about being in that... that place is only going to distract you. You cannot afford any distractions right now when the forest is all around you - you can freak out after this is over.

Okay, so, radioactive mutant snake-thing seems like a nice alternative. Maybe not a cockatrice. No, a cockatrice would definitely have me questioning my sanity.

Yeah. That was the story I stuck with as I retrieved my fallen flare gun, reloaded it, and continued on hiking numbly with my newly obtained weapons, and it was the story I stuck by as night fell and I made camp once again, trying desperately not to think about the question that I knew I wouldn’t like the answer to, or its ramifications.

Christ, just where the hell had I landed myself?

---

When I woke up the next morning, breakfast was a quick and subdued affair. I wolfed down the beef jerky I had scavenged, washed it down with some water, and got myself moving. The numbness that had settled over me in the aftermath of the encounter had subsided somewhat, and I could finally feel my hands and legs normally again.

Of course, that didn’t make the issue of where I was hang over my head any less, but I absolutely refused to let my mind come close enough to touch the topic even with a sixty-foot-pole. The mere notion of it all was just... ridiculous.

I’d like to think that the rest of the trip went by in blissful peace because of the spanking new shotgun I was sporting. Either that, or I was just lucky, but whichever it was, I didn’t hit a snag until some time after lunch.

I’d followed the river for a couple of klicks before it finally ended off at a sizeable waterfall, and I knew there was no way I’d be able to descend something like that safely, even with my climbing axe. There was no other choice but to take a detour around it and see if there was a slope that led downwards, but if it was any consolation, I knew I was much closer to the town now.

Fifteen minutes of trekking down later, I was in the middle of walking through a clearing when I ran into my next snag. In hindsight, I really should’ve seen it coming and had the shotgun already in my grip, but come on, I hadn’t touched my jungle survival trekking skillset in years, much less the memories of my military mindset back in the obligatory two years I spent serving in the SAF. At the time, I was so focused on getting out that I’d totally forgotten that I might run into something else aside from mutant snake-chicken thing.

So, when something crashed into my back like a proverbial ton of bricks and I felt hot, putrid breath on my neck, I didn’t have my shotgun in hand, ready to respond in kind. Instead, I let out a surprised scream as I dropped my stave and reached backwards reflexively, and I started grabbing wildly in an attempt to get the damn thing off me.

Several sharp somethings raked painfully against my bare skin and my neck as my fingers found purchase, and I felt hot blood flow. Yelling desperately, I twisted violently in panic.

Contact was abruptly broken as I felt my attacker come loose, and I hurled it overhead with everything I had, gasping from the effort. It landed just a few feet in front of me in a heap, letting out a canine yelp, and as I laid eyes on it I found myself wondering for the third time since my arrival here if someone had slipped me some LSD in my water purification pills.

It looked like some sort of wolf, vaguely resembling the canine creature in shape, mostly... and that was where the resemblance ended.

Because the entire damn thing was made out of freakin’ wood.

Holy crap, I was here, face-to-face, with a goddamned timber wolf.

The wooden wolf-thing’s eyes burned a hissing emerald, and it snarled at me with a wet, rasping growl before lunging at me again. There wasn’t time for me to react - I didn’t have enough time to draw the shotgun, and if I tried, I was a dead man. The timber wolf’s pounce would just flatten me on the ground, and it’d tear my throat out.

So my hand immediately went for the next biggest weapon I could think of. The .44 cleared its holster even faster than I thought I was capable of moving, and I dove to the side in a panic, firing off a desperate snapshot, the sheer recoil of the gun sending my hand flying upwards.

I got absurdly lucky. Even without any semblance of aiming whatsoever, the heavy magnum round still managed to find its way into the timber wolf’s side, and a sizeable chunk of bark and wooden fragments went flying in a wild spray.

There was a hideous shriek of pain, and then the wolf went sailing right over me and out of sight as I crashed onto the ground on my side. Scrambling back onto my feet, I turned to face where the wolf had landed, and that was when I saw the damage the heavy round had inflicted.

It must have ripped the timber wolf’s entire midsection apart on its way out. The entirety of its belly was nothing but a mess of shredded bark, and bright glowing yellow sap oozed from the massive wound like some form of disgusting pus.

It didn't stop the wolf from thrashing around any less, though. It whined piteously as it tried uselessly to get up and hobble away, and several moments later its body went still, crumbling into so much kindling as the light in its eyes and its pus-like blood literally went out.

And I still stood there with my gun still held at the ready, breathing harshly as my heart thudded in my chest. Swallowing, I thumbed back the hammer on the .44, and braced myself.

Because if there was one thing I knew about wolves, much less timber wolves in particular, it was that they hunted in packs.

There was a bubbling snarl from behind me, and I immediately spun around, bringing the revolver up in a Weaver stance as my eyes frantically sought out my target.

I saw it almost immediately. The next timber wolf was bounding straight at me, not even bothering to dodge as it pounced, its jaws extended and slavering. Against any of its normal, regular prey, it might have been able to end the fight right there, bringing the unfortunate animal down underneath its sheer weight and ripping its throat out.

Unfortunately for this wolf, it was facing a trained, prepared human being, who was also armed with a very, very heavy revolver.

I didn't even hesitate.

Time seemed to slow down and flow like liquid as I raised the handgun. I took aim down the iron sights, bringing them in line with the fool wolf's head, and I could smell its putrid breath on me before I pulled the trigger.

I gotta tell you, the effect of a direct impact from a .44 magnum round on a mass of animated twigs and leaves is pretty damn spectacular. The heavy round hit the timber wolf dead centre on its knobby forehead, and the entire damn thing exploded into fragments in front of me. Kindling and droplets of sticky sap went tumbling past me as several bits of sharp wood cut across my exposed skin painfully, but it paled in comparison to the rush of elation I felt at watching the timber wolf just come apart beneath the fury of the .44.

"Hell yeah! Score one for human firepower, you dirty animal!" I whooped, pumping a fist triumphantly in the air.

And then I heard another snarl from behind me, and a pair of fanged jaws suddenly closed down painfully on my left calf.

I screamed as the timber wolf that had blindsided me shook its jaws ferociously, and the world went white with pain. I staggered to one side as my left leg buckled, and I struggled to stay on my feet as the attacking wolf bounded away.

Damnit, I'm going to have to learn to stop celebrating victory too early one of these days.

Swaying on my feet unsteadily, I turned to track the retreating wolf with the .44, when the hairs on the back of my neck abruptly rose, and I ducked and wove to the side on pure instinct. Another wolf immediately sailed through the spot I had vacated but a moment ago, its jaws snapping, and as I righted myself, I realized that those two new arrivals were hardly the only ones to come knocking.

I was surrounded by at least four of the damn things.

The wolves circled around me warily, their baleful gazes utterly focused and fixated upon their chosen prey; that is, Yours Truly. As for me, I only gripped the magnum tighter as I transferred it to my left hand, and thanked the heavens that the wolves were unfamiliar enough with technology that they just allowed me to slowly draw the shotgun, readying it at my hip in case one of them rushed me again.

Fear and a panicked rush of adrenaline threatened to grab hold of me, but I immediately shoved those emotions down into the deepest, darkest corner in my mind I could find, and focused on my environment, taking in only the details critical to my survival. If I was going to make it out of this alive, I had to stay focused.

Four wolves, and I had four rounds left in the .44, with another two shells in the Remington. I had to make my shots count; if I ran out of bullets halfway through, I’d be screwed ten ways till Sunday.

There was a brief, sudden tensing of movement, and without warning the first wolf leapt at me from the side. My hand just shot out reflexively, and the revolver thundered in my grip, kicking upwards violently. Once again I found myself marvelling at how stupidly lucky I got when the shot I’d fired from my off-hand grazed against one of the wolf’s hind legs, and it went tumbling to the side with a dangling stump for a limb.

Another snarl bubbled out from behind me, and this time I was ready for it. I whirled around, swinging the shotgun to bear, and the moment the barrel was pointing in the general direction of the wood-colored blur hurtling at me, I let the bastard have it with both barrels.

Okay, so in hindsight, maybe firing a boomstick one-handed without even bracing myself wasn’t such a good idea. I think I nearly sprained my wrist on that one. The shotgun roared, and my arm literally flung itself backwards from the force of the recoil, sending me reeling. The lunging timber wolf, however, fared much, much worse.

The wolf’s entire body abruptly blew apart into so much kindling, flying backwards and away from me, and I let out a loud, triumphant whoop as I recovered from the shock of the shotgun’s recoil. I didn’t need expert marksmanship to thank for that - a shotgun’s blast basically delivered as large a shock as possible at once to a single target, and up against its massive stopping power, there was no way these wolves could stay coherent.

Two down, two to go.

The fiery pain in my leg blazed again, and I nearly buckled on my feet. My vision started to blur as my head pounded, and I swallowed, gasping for air and trying to stay steady on my feet. The two remaining wolves were still watching me warily, circling around me slowly.

Their growls were just audible enough for me to know that they were pissed, and I tried not to gulp nervously as I caught sight of their fangs glistening in the light. Four of their pack dead at my hands - it must have rankled them something fierce. If I slipped up, even just the two of them would be enough to tear me apart.

So, despite my pounding heart, my shaking knees, and my trembling hands, I took in a deep breath, readied the smoking shotgun again, and thumbed back the revolver's hammer, facing the two remaining wolves with my back straight and my stance uncowed, trying my best not to breathe too hard.

Rule number one when going up against predators: Never let them see you sweat.

The two wolves seemed to pause for a second, as though considering their actions. The stalemate continued for a couple of moments as we stared each other down, when suddenly one of the wolves seemed to catch the scent of something, and it uttered a short, sharp bark to its packmate.

As one, the two wolves slinked away back into the underbrush, and I finally let myself relax, collapsing onto one knee as the pain and weariness came crashing back down on me in full force. I didn’t even bother shouting in triumph after the retreating wolves - hell, right at that moment, I’d have liked nothing more than to just collapse right on that spot and take a nice, long nap. Maybe if I just...

Fire lanced up my left leg as I put my weight on it, and I damn near bit my tongue off stifling the scream that came next.

Okay, so maybe the nap would have to wait. I had to examine and patch up this injury first. Holstering the magnum and reslinging the shotgun, I brought my left leg in front of me as I folded the leg of my pants up, and I grimaced at just how badly mangled it was.

Blood had soaked my sock and was now dribbling down my hiking boot. The flesh of my calf was torn and rent in multiple places, but it was nothing too deep. It wasn’t bad enough that I’d be crippled or anything, but all the same, the pain was going to put a serious limp on my step. Treating it would need antiseptic, bandages, and painkillers, in that order. I had all of those in the first aid kit I’d packed, so if I could just get it out, I could get around to...

I was halfway through reaching for my pack when a thought occurred to me. Those wolves had had me dead to rights, and I hadn’t even been all that sure that I could fend off another duo again. It had seemed like it was due to sheer luck that had them retreating when they did, because it sure as hell wasn’t due to the fact that I’d probably scared them off. But when it came to how predators hunted down their prey, luck was never this large a factor in the prey’s survival.

They’d had a reason for retreating, and the only reason that could’ve been was if there had been...

I became abruptly aware of something very large standing behind me, breathing slowly and heavily, and I slowly turned my head around to see a mountain lion with freaking bat wings and a scorpion stinger in place of its tail staring right at me from the edge of the clearing.

... something larger coming their way, like another predator higher up the food chain. My brain finished the thought for me, and then it politely directed my focus to the next part where I immediately snatched up my stave and shot to my feet, screaming and running for my life from the fucking manticore, the pain in my left leg forgotten as it let out a deafening roar and leapt after me.

Frankly, at this point, I think nobody would blame me if I indulged in a little supposed fantasy, because no fantasy pain or fear could possibly feel this real! First parasprites, then timberwolves, and then now manticores. It’s okay Joe, you can say it to yourself now. Nobody’s going to think you’re crazy.

Jesus Christ, I was in the fucking Everfree forest!!!

Magnums & Megawolves

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Chapter 3: Magnums and Megawolves

The forest must have been relatively undisturbed normally. Birds and the animals would just be quietly chirping away, or doing whatever it was animals usually did throughout the day. Every now and then a chase would ensue between predator and prey, but such matters would usually be par for the course, and not a lot of noise would ensue during those. Other animals who happened to be in the path of the chase would wisely vacate the premises with as little noise as possible, and when the chase concluded, things would swiftly go back to the status quo of peace and quiet.

So, when a very loud, very prominent disturbance in the form of Yours Truly came crashing through the underbrush, screaming his damn head off, it was quite understandable that every form of wildlife within several dozen meters of me abruptly got up and took right off, raising holy hell of their own on the what the fuck was that line.

I tore my way through the forest frantically, shoving aside shrubbery and hacking through obstructing branches with the survival knife. Behind me, I could hear the pounding steps and the roars of the manticore pursuing me, and ice-cold fear fueled every iota of speed I could muster.

Adrenaline dulled the searing pain in my leg to a strained throbbing, but there was no denying the spikes of agony that accompanied every step I took on my injured calf. If I didn’t ditch this manticore soon, there was no telling what kind of irreversible damage I might cause to myself.

A low-hanging branch came swinging by my head, and I ducked underneath it, weaving to the side. In a panic, I drew and pointed the .44 behind me, firing blindly and not even caring if I managed to hit the manticore or not. Hell, it was extremely unlikely that the sheer noise of the magnum would scare it away, but if it did, I’d take what I could get!

A pained roar sounded from behind me, and I frantically hurled myself over a fallen log, nearly tripping on my feet as my weight came down on my wounded leg. Damnit, it sounded like I’d managed to hurt the manticore, but it also sounded like it was getting closer. I had to find a way out, and fas- WHOA SONOFABITCH!!!

The ground suddenly dropped out from underneath my feet, and I was unceremoniously plonked down on my ass as I suddenly found myself sliding uncontrollably down a slope, steadily picking up speed. My hands clutched on to my stave and the .44 with a death-like grip, and it stayed that way even as my uncontrolled slide came to an abrupt halt when the slope suddenly ended in a sheer drop over a river dozens of feet below me.

Needless to say, I went plummeting over the edge, screaming all the way.

“Whoaaaaaa SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTT!!!”

I crashed into the river with one painful slam of an impact, and ice-cold water swallowed me whole. The combined weight of my pack and my weapons worked against me, dragging me downwards, and panic seized me - I was not going to drown here like this! Not after I'd spent so many days before this slogging my way through this goddamned jungle! Frantically, I kicked upwards, fighting against the overwhelming weight of my pack to break the water's surface.

I might as well have tried to bench press a truck for all the good it did me - it was absolutely futile. Darkness crept in from the edges of my vision, and my lungs burned as I fought against the desperate urge to gasp for breath. I don't know how long I tumbled about in the murky darkness, fighting upwards against the weight of my gear. But after what seemed like an eternity of blind flailing, I suddenly felt myself tumbling up a bank, and the water broke from above me. Free of the confines of the river's water, I began desperately sucking in deep lungfuls of blessed air, gasping and coughing.

I must have lain there for almost a full minute, just breathing in and out, revelling in the fact that I was still alive. Exhaustion weighed me down like a leaden ton of bricks, and I wasn’t able, and didn't want to do anything more than lamely twitch a couple of my fingers... at least until the searing pain in my leg flared up again, and I quite literally jolted into action as I let out a groan.

“Fuck... this... shit.”

Swearing loudly and at length, I resisted the urge to clamp down on my injured leg with my hands, and focused on suppressing the pain with several deep breaths. Jesus Christ, fuck this pain. I had to get this wound patched up sooner rather than later, and there wasn’t going to be anybody else around to do it for me.

Once I had managed to tone the pain down to something that didn’t have me biting down on my tongue to suppress the screaming, I let out a strained groan as I holstered the magnum and reached around back, trying not to move the injury while I retrieved the first aid kit from my pack. Bandages, gauze and antiseptic were the first things out as I tore the medical kit open, and I bravely wielded the cotton swab and alcohol as I set about cleaning the wound before I dressed it.

Goes without saying, it stung like a bitch. Many screams were literally bitten down upon that day.

Once the bite wounds were cleaned and dressed, I popped a couple of the painkillers from the first aid kit and stashed it back inside my pack, stumbling to my feet in a numb, exhausted haze - I just didn’t have the energy for anything else. My head was still a little muddled from my fall in the river, but there was little else I could think of doing. Had to keep walking - had to stay in motion. If I stopped, I wasn’t entirely sure I’d be able to get myself moving again.

My feet continued trudging on beneath me with barely even any conscious input from my brain, and the next... I don’t know, several hours? They passed by in a blur as I continued following the river downstream, and I paused only when I suddenly dimly realized that it was starting to get dark, and the sun was starting to set.

Oh yeah. Night was falling - I had to find some shelter. Right.

I think I must’ve hit my head harder than I thought, because I still couldn’t get my thoughts in order, even as I gave my cranium several hard taps in an attempt to wake myself up.

At some point during my exhausted fugue, I’m not sure when, I came across a nice sheltered spot underneath a rocky outcropping after sunset, and I gratefully stumbled underneath it, setting my tired haunches down against the wall while wearily dumping my pack on the ground. I numbly sat there for several minutes, just trying to gather myself back together and recover my strength, but something at the back of my mind just wouldn’t stop niggling at my thoughts, calling for my attention and denying me the peace of rest.

Groaning, I finally acknowledged the fact that I had been putting off facing for days since I got here - I was really here, in the Everfree Forest. And that also meant that I was pretty much on an entirely separate world, or even dimension, from Earth, and I was just about as far off from home as I was ever going to be.

Oddly enough, I found myself feeling hardly anything in reaction to that revelation. Perhaps it was the exhaustion, or the numb buzz of the painkillers I was on, but either way, I found myself just simply nodding at the facts and moving on to the next one.

My rational mind was still reeling at how incredulous all this was, but the emotional centre of my brain had probably just shut down from the adrenaline rush of the past two predator encounters I had barely escaped from by the skin of my teeth. I didn’t feel anything aside from dull surprise, and a vague acknowledgement of the fact that I was a really long way from home.

Taking a look at the wild forest around me, a wilderness environment that I was still at least half-familiar with surviving in while miles away from civilisation, I snorted absently. Yeah, whoop dee fuckin’ do, like being a long way from home was anything new.

Well, if I really wanted to find my way back, there always was that hole in the ground I'd stumbled into that led me here, I thought. I was just as sure that it'd lead me back home if I went back in the other way, but then I almost immediately snorted at the thought.

Yeah, good luck finding that one tiny hole in the entire expanse of this forest, Joe. I scoffed mentally. It'd be like looking for a piece of hay in a deadly needlestack. Even in the depths of mind-numbing exhaustion I was still in full-on survival mode, and I knew that it didn’t really matter where I was - only that my greatest chance of living through this fiasco still lay in getting the hell out of this forest and making contact with civilization - namely, that town I'd sighted two nights ago.

My brain tried to raise some more protests on the grounds of just how impossible this entire scenario was, but I tiredly shut it out and set about gathering wood for another fire, ignoring the voice in my head that was trying to tell me I was missing something vitally important about the town. By the time the makeshift campsite was ready, I was already shivering from the cold of the night, half-conscious from fatigue, and just about ready to crash right on the spot.

I didn’t remember rolling out my tarp and sleeping bag, but several minutes later I found myself already curled up next to the campfire, halfway nodding off to sleep. The fiery pain that burned in my calf had faded long ago thanks to the painkillers working their magic, and I lay my head back, glad as hell to be finally getting some damned rest.

I was asleep before my head hit the floor.

---

Waking up the next morning was a lesson in exhaustion and soreness. When a man's tired and sleepy enough, trust me, he can sleep almost damn anywhere, and my body just simply refused to get up from the soft and pliant slab of rock I was lying on.

Okay, rocks aren’t soft and pliant, you dumbass, quit lying to yourself.

I let out a tired groan as I finally forced myself upright when the sun started getting in my eyes. Rubbing the last vestiges of sleep out of my face, I exhaled tiredly and just sat there for several minutes, trying to boot my brain up. Eventually I figured out that getting some food would do me good, and I set about fixing breakfast.

Given my half-conscious state, I’m amazed I didn’t end up pouring my food into a mug and my drink into a mess tin. Several sticks of beef jerky, a pack of chicken pasta and a mug of instant coffee later, I finally regained something resembling consciousness, and managed to quell my stomach's ravenous rumbling. I was just so hungry that I didn't even think anything of polishing off enough food for two meals at once until I’d let out a satisfied burp, and immediately knew that I was probably going to regret this bad survival decision later.

I wasn't exactly feeling like a million bucks, but the night of straight up hard resting had done my tired body and aching leg a ton of favors. Once the caffeine kicked in, I finally felt ready to tackle the rest of the trek ahead of me, and I knew I’d need every scrap of energy I could muster to finish it.

Grabbing my stave/walking stick, I shouldered my pack and left the campsite behind, hand on my revolver. You can call me paranoid, but since my run-in with the pack of timber wolves and the manticore yesterday, I was starting to get very nervous about being jumped out of nowhere. I wasn’t going to get caught off guard like that again.

The next several hours passed by in relative peace; the terrain slowly started becoming less hostile and treacherous as I continued in the North-Western bearing I’d picked up, and I figured that I was finally getting closer to civilization. Still, it couldn’t hurt to be too cautious - checking up on my guns, I made sure that the chambers and rounds were dry in the .44 and the Remington, and replaced the spent cartridges with fresh ones, slapping each of them closed with an immense feeling of personal satisfaction.

So then, with my revolver in hand, I came across the next wreck I would find in the Everfree forest several hours later, just as it was about to reach noon.

The first sign that I was about to come across something was the sound of several bubbling snarls from ahead of me, and the sound of something tearing wetly and very gruesomely. My body immediately tensed up as I recognized the growls of timber wolves just like the ones that had assaulted me yesterday, and my grip on the magnum’s handle unconsciously grew tighter.

Easy does it, Joe. I slowed my pace down, trying not to hyperventilate, and I crept forward cautiously as I brushed aside obstructing leaves with the tip of my stave, keeping the revolver steadily pointed front and centre despite my heart’s anxious hammering. I pushed aside the last obstructing branch, got a good, clear look into the clearing, and saw what I'm pretty sure was one of the most disgusting things I'd ever seen in my life.

Three timber wolves were in the midst of the clearing, tearing large chunks of meat off of something, and the smell of rot and decay permeated the air, similar to where I had discovered Steven’s body. I almost gagged on the stench, but kept the revolver steady as I peered around to take a look at what they were so busy feeding on.

I saw a flash of dark leather, brown khakis, and that was all I needed before I immediately turned my gaze away, fighting down the sickened urge to vomit. Jesus Christ, those timber wolves were feeding on a human corpse.

A moment passed as the thought registered with me, and then the nausea vanished, replaced with a cold fury. Nobody deserved to have their corpse fed upon by the dogs; it was a disgrace to the dead body, a fucking sacrilege! Rage set my gaze aflame with red, and I shoved the .44 back in its holster, planting my stave in the ground next to me while I reached over my shoulder for the Remington.

Screw the magnum, I wanted to see these bastards come apart underneath the fury of a 12-gauge. I brought the shotgun up, sighted down the iron sights at the closest timber wolf, and didn’t even hesitate to pull one of the triggers.

There was a tremendous bang, and the shotgun kicked back against my shoulder violently, but it was nothing I couldn’t handle. The offending wooden canine however got abruptly blown to pieces, and I didn’t wait to enjoy the aftermath as I immediately swung the shotgun around, searching for my next target.

By the time the wolves had looked up to see what the sudden interruption was, I had already sighted down on my next target, and depressed the remaining trigger on the Remington. With another roar of buckshot, a second wolf was reduced to its constituent kindling. The last remaining wolf alive let out a frightened yip, and it immediately bounded away into the forest, tail between its legs.

“Damn fucking right you should run, you yellow-bellied bastards.” I muttered furiously to myself as I lowered the smoking shotgun. Emptying out the spent shells and replacing them with fresh ones by pure reflex, I stashed the empty ones in my pockets along with the rest of the expended bullet casings from yesterday.

… Yeah, don’t ask me why I did that - my days in the army were far behind me, and I hadn't touched that skillset in years, apart from the occasional outdoors hiking trip and those regular trips to the shooting range. What with my insistence on never coming anywhere near my memories of those two years of national service even with a sixty-foot pole, I'd have thought the entire skillset would've rusted over by now. Maybe it was just a strange tic I got from a few too many weeks spent playing New Vegas, but whatever.

There weren't any other visible threats, but I kept the shotgun ready and in my hands anyway as I approached the corpse. I briefly half-considered scavenging it for supplies, but a cursory glance at it already told me I was shit out of luck - probably already hit the luck quota with Steve.

Unlike the body of Steve the Dead Hunter, John Doe over here was carrying woefully nothing on himself - not even a pack, a belt pouch or anything. Savagely torn hiking attire adorned what little of his body hadn't been mauled by the timber wolves that had been feeding upon it, and I quickly passed my eyes over the more gruesome, unnecessary details, forcibly ignoring them. Poor bastard had probably been out a short hike for the day before he'd intended to return home - he probably never thought he'd actually fall through a portal into another world and end up getting mauled to death by a pack of wolves made out of tree bark and branches.

I didn't feel like staying any longer than was necessary - one dead body a week was already way above my quota for what I'd like to go seeing. Skipping right over the part where I searched his pockets, I went straight to shifting his body into the best approximation of a dignified resting posture as I could, deciding that I'd leave the moment I was done. There wasn't time for me to stick around to give this guy a proper burial, and I didn’t even have the digging tools to do it to begin with.

As I bent over his body, shotgun slung over my back and folding his arms over his chest, I spotted an odd glint of metal standing out from the rest of shredded crimson that was all that remained of his chest. Curiosity demanded a closer look, and I peered closer at it, reaching out to pick it up. Frowning, I tore the mysterious object free of the chain that hung from his neck, and when I finally raised it up in front of me to take a look, I found myself with only more questions rather than answers.

For one thing, the trinket that I held in my hand was a metal chain that ended in a pendant stylized in the shape of a lightning bolt coming out of a storm cloud.

Rainbow Dash’s cutie mark.

I stared at it for a moment, the dots connecting, and then I immediately reached inside of my own shirt, my eyes wide in disbelief and incomprehension.

Steve had been wearing a Rainbow Dash T-shirt. John Doe here was wearing a chain with RD’s cutie mark hanging off the end of it.

And I myself held up in front of me now, a pendant at the end of the chain that I wore around my own neck - the one that had been carved in the shape of a six-pointed star: the Element of Magic.

Okay, what the hell was going on here?

Every single human body I had discovered in here had at least one MLP-themed trinket on their hands, and I myself had one as well. It was possible that all of this could be chalked up to nothing more than coincidence, but for every single body I found in the Everfree Forest to have an MLP-themed trinket on them? Some things are just way too contrived for coincidence to be the cause. There was definitely some sort of connection here.

Well, whatever it was, I sure as hell wasn’t going to discover it by sitting around, pondering on the issue. There was no other evidence to be gathered here - I had to keep moving. Hefting the shotgun again, I stepped over John Doe’s body and was about to continue on my way when the hairs on the back of my neck abruptly prickled something was wrong.

I spun on my heel, bringing the shotgun to bear, and barely kept my jaw from hitting the ground when I saw not one, not three, but six new timber wolves, slinking slowly out of the woods, all staring at me with those hissing emerald eyes that burned with what I swear was the need for vengeance.

Several of them were growling, their bubbling snarls a herald of much pain to come, and I could’ve sworn the branches that composed of at least three of them looked broken and shattered, rather than whole and undamaged... almost as if something had broken them before, and now they’d reassembled to return the favor.

Something like a .44 magnum round, or a 12 Gauge.

Before I could think on it any further, my attention was swiftly redirected from them as I noticed a distinctive puke-green aura surround several branches on the ground, and then I realized something much more pants-shittingly terrifying.

The remains of the timber wolves I’d blown apart not more than a few moments earlier - they were reassembling themselves.

As I watched, the remains slowly began to form together into a cohesive whole, and then when I took in the proportions of the leg nearly as tall as I was that was forming, I realized something else.

Remember ‘Spike At Your Service’? Yeah, we all remember the combi-wolf Megazord.

I swore loudly, and quickly switched the shotgun out for the magnum - I wasn’t about to wait for this son of a bitch to reform on me while I still had two fully loaded guns on my side. I pulled the .44 free of its holster, and right at that moment, two of the wolves took the opportunity to rush me, snarling savagely.

I instantly reacted - with two very angry wooden canines descending upon me, you couldn’t really blame my immediate reaction for being HOLY SHIT KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT!

The magnum roared twice, and two more showers of kindling joined the branches on the forest floor. And they didn’t lie there for even a second before they were rapidly encased in the same emerald glow that suffused the half-completed body of the mega-wolf, swiftly being drawn back into the main body where it continued to build itself back up.

I took one look at the half-formed torso, the rest of its completed legs, the remaining four wolves which were just disintegrating as their constituent parts joined together with the whole that was rapidly beginning to complete itself, and then I realized that continuing to just stand there was a very bad idea.

Something in the back of my mind connected a couple of dots and came to a stunned conclusion - this looked like the work of a communal intelligence, something greater than the individual wolves themselves directing them to another purpose besides that of mere beasts. They weren’t just animals. Animals didn’t reanimate themselves and pursue their killers purely for the sake of revenge. This seemed more like the work of a force of nature straight out of a D&D monster manual; something was guiding these things.

That was only a tiny part of my brain, though - the rest of it was just screaming SWEET JESUS KILL IT WITH FIRE.

I didn’t even hesitate - the shotgun came up to my shoulder, and I pulled both triggers at once. Buckshot roared as the upper half of the mega-wolf’s torso got pretty much blown to pieces... and then seconds later, the remains started knitting themselves back together again, the body’s overall size only shrinking slightly. The mega-wolf shook its now-completed head, simply snorted at me, and stared down at the human that was just a mere third of its size, its nostrils flaring.

“Well, fuck that.” I muttered, and then I turned and ran.

---

If there was one thing that I had to be grateful for, it was that while the megawolf might have made itself a lot bigger and lot deadlier, it also unintentionally made itself slow as fuck. A normal-sized timber wolf probably would have been able to keep up with and even outstrip my encumbered ass, even as I ran with the weight of my pack and weapons weighing me down, but Wolfzilla back there, with all of its extra mass, was moving along at a lumbering gait that I was still barely able to keep ahead of.

I tore my way through the forest, fear and adrenaline pumping my body onwards despite the fatigue that was starting to rapidly burn away at my limbs and my lungs, and the resurging pain of my injured calf. Behind me, I could hear the sound of branches breaking and the furious roars of the megawolf, and I didn’t dare slow down even in the slightest. Flinging myself over fallen tree logs, I ducked in between whatever tiny gaps I could find, in attempts to slow the damned Godzilla ripoff down from trying to squeeze inside after me.

Surprisingly, it worked in the most unexpected way. It didn’t get slowed down from the trees I was putting in between it and myself, no - it crashed right through those as though they were made out of paper. I only managed to keep ahead of it because once it got going, it got damned hard for it to stop. Just a sudden change in direction on my part, and soon enough I’d be leaving it in the dust until it managed to grind itself to a halt to change direction and resume its pursuit of me.

Once, I faked a left after slipping through a crack in between rocks before taking an abrupt right turn off a shallow drop, and the giant canine fell for my feint as it went after where it thought I’d gone, crashing right through the obstructing trees until it realized its mistake and came pounding after me a few seconds later. When it came bounding over the crevice I’d hidden myself in and landed in front of me, I immediately hefted my reloaded shotgun at it and unloaded both barrels into its chest.

More bark, sap and branches exploded outward as the wolf’s body shrunk by another foot or two from loss of mass, but apparently Wolfzilla had absolutely zero fucks to give, given his lack of reaction to the blasts as his wooden body immediately began knitting itself back together. I immediately ducked out of the way, yelling in panic as it swiped at me with a forepaw the size of my head, and I literally felt the claws just pass inches from raking against me. The moment I recovered from my desperate dodge, I didn’t waste a second and immediately sprinted off like the devil himself was on my heels.

My breath burned savagely in my lungs as I ran, Wolfzilla’s enraged roars echoing out behind me as I heard its pounding footsteps of pursuit resume. A familiar pulsing ache in my neck’s arteries signalled that my heart was starting to take pumping too hard, and I realized with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that I was going to start running out of breath damn soon - damn me for not staying in shape for the last two years!

On my back, the weight of my pack was a burden I felt I could do without, and I was already half-considering dropping it, but I just couldn’t do it. All of my supplies were still in there - if I dropped it and still couldn’t find my way out of the forest even after I ditched this megawolf, I’d be a dead man.

I didn’t have much more to worry about, though - already, some distance away, I saw wide, open grassland beyond the edge of the trees ahead of me, and a fierce burst of triumph surged through my chest. Screw it, the forest was already starting to thin out around me the further on I ran - I was almost out of here! Come on Joe, last round - let’s do this shit!

The following hundred metres or so was the longest sprint of my life, my burning legs screaming at me to stop with every stride that I took, but I kept them pumping like pistons on overdrive. Gasping out in relief as the canopy above my head finally ended and wide grassy plains opened up all around me, my sprint slowed down into a near stumble as I came to a halt, panting desperately for air. Gods, thank the heavens, finally! I was out of that blasted place!

My throat burned dryly as I swallowed back some of the saliva in my mouth, and I already found myself longing for the canteen of water in my pack. Right then I wanted nothing more than to just open it up and drain every last drop of water I had left in it, but a series of dull, pounding steps from behind sharply reminded me that I still had a very large, very angry megawolf to deal with.

Jesus Christ, what would it take for a guy to get a break around here!?

“Okay, you know what, fuck this shit.” I muttered darkly to myself, and I swung the spent shotgun around back on its sling while pulling out the magnum. Four shots left, as I hadn’t had the chance to reload it yet since Wolfzilla had first started forming. I remembered that the megawolf from Spike At Your Service had still pursued Spike and Applejack beyond the boundaries of the Everfree, and he’d managed to somehow kill it with just a single rock in a classic David-vs-Goliath move, by throwing it down its throat until the megawolf somehow choked to death on it. Not sure how that worked, but I wasn’t going to think too much about the details.

What I’d seen of Wolfzilla so far however totally contradicted the toughness the megawolf had displayed in the episode - the bloody thing had taken four shotgun shells to the chest, and I still wasn’t anywhere closer to killing it than I had been before. But still, there was one other thing that I hadn’t tried yet. Wolfzilla could regenerate the wounds that were inflicted on the main body, but who’s to say that it could regenerate the same kind of damage that was dealt to its head?

Spike had killed the one he faced by pretty much shoving a rock down its throat - right now, I had four very heavy servings of high-velocity lead for Wolfzilla to choke to death on.

You know, I’d already spent the past four days roughing it out, lugging around enough heavy weight to develop a major crick in my back, suffered from more than enough pain of injury to last me an entire week, and gotten banged up enough in general that I was sure if I didn’t see the hated Everfree forest again even for months after this, it’d still be too soon.

I’d had enough.

I think it can be excused that I pretty much lost my composure at that point, and I vented all of the frustration, anger, and irritation I’d accumulated over the past few days into a single sentence that I shouted as I turned to face Wolfzilla’s charge.

“Hey asshole!” I raised the magnum, aiming carefully for the charging Megawolf’s head. “Why don’t you choke on this!?”

BANG!

The first round passed through the megawolf’s left jaw, and kindling was sent flying as the left side of its face exploded. Its head snapped to the left, but its charge still continued unabated.

BANG!

The rounds were starting to have an effect now - the second bullet went straight down its throat and exploded out the back of its neck. The wolf’s giant body actually recoiled backwards slightly as it stumbled unsteadily, and its charge slowed down visibly. Gritting my teeth, I took aim, and fired again.

BANG!

The megawolf was about twenty metres away by now, and the shot went wide as I realized holy crap it’s gonna run me over. Branches blew off of its side as the bullet dug into its flank, and I immediately threw myself to the right in a graceless belly flop. Wolfzilla continued pounding across the grass past me, and I scrambled onto my feet frantically, bringing the heavy pistol to bear. The giant megawolf snarled as it realized that it had missed, and it dug its heels into the ground, grinding to a halt as it turned to face me.

But by then, I had already raised the magnum, taking aim at its head again.

One round left. I pulled the trigger.

BANG!

And pulled it again. And again. And again.

The heavy magnum round went flying in through the roof of Wolfzilla’s mouth, and the upper half of its head exploded - literally. Nothing was left. The giant canine’s body teetered capriciously for several seconds, still leaning in my direction as it acted upon the last line of thought whatever passed for its brain had been dictating, and I held my breath right up until it collapsed limply onto its side like a giant sack of potatoes, disintegrating into so much kindling, branches and pebbles.

Only when the ringing in my ears finally subsided and I heard the repeated click!s of a hammer dry-firing on an expended round did I realize that some poor sod was screaming in a rage. After a moment of reflection, I realized that the poor sod had been me.

My heart was still hammering inside my chest like a jackhammer, and as my screams died down I realized that I must have hollered myself hoarse. My throat felt absolutely raw, and my hands were still shaking, clutching onto the revolver with a white-knuckled death-like grip. I suddenly became aware of myself starting to breath again, and then the full ramifications of what had just happened hit me like a battering ram.

Holy Jesus Christ, I had just fucking survived a run-in with a Godzilla ripoff.

I didn’t know whether to feel elated, horrified, shocked at my survival, or all of the above. All I knew was that I was still effin’ alive, and that much had to still count! I’d gone up against a mutant megazord-wannabe and lived to tell the tale - HA! Imagine this story being one for the boys back home!

The moment the thought of home crossed my mind however, the giddy high of my survival rush immediately came crashing back down, and my thoughts quickly sobered up as I was reminded of my priorities. Taking in a deep breath, I set aside all of the horror, fear and anxiety that had plagued me for the past several days, and focused on what was around me - namely, the two very empty guns that I was still holding on to and needed reloading. That much, at least, I could concentrate on without freaking out with what had just happened.

Lowering the .44 with still-shaking fingers, I emptied the magnum and began loading in fresh rounds one by one, thankfully not dropping any of them despite how my hands were still trembling unsteadily. I slowly got up on numb, shaking legs, when I could’ve sworn I heard a tiny squeak. There was a sudden rustle in the bushes behind me, but when I turned around to look, all was still.

Okay, so that totally wasn’t a sign that I was being watched. I mean, I was splattered in remnants of Wolfzilla’s yellowish sap, and probably looked as dirty and disheveled as Jason Voorhees right out of Friday the 13th. Even if anything had been watching me, I didn’t think they were going to dare attack me right after witnessing my horrendously bloody display of firepower.

Still, I eyed the bush suspiciously, but I didn’t go over to investigate until I had unslung the Remington and reloaded it, just in case anything might have been waiting in ambush. Feeding two fresh shells into the boomstick and snapping the breech closed, I then circled around the shrubbery with the shotgun raised, fingers on the triggers while keeping a wide berth between it and myself.

I was still shaking slightly from the leftover adrenaline of my encounter with that thrice-damned wolf-megazord, and my breath was still shallow and thready. But despite all that, I held the shotgun steady as I slowly came around the side of the bush, and I immediately sidestepped around the corner in a flanking maneuver, ready for anything.

Well, ready for anything except for nothing. There was absolutely nothing hiding behind the bush - whatever it was had probably vamoosed off already. Conflicted between vague disappointment and relief by the anticlimax, I lowered the Remington as I stepped closer to investigate. Peering at the ground, I realized that there were actually tracks in the grass, leading away from the bush.

I squinted down at them, mildly surprised at the shape I was seeing. The footprints that I saw on the ground looked more like... well, hoofprints than anything else.

… Wait a minute, hoofprints?

Okay, now that's stretching my suspension of disbelief. There is no way a horse can possibly move that quietly and quickly at the same time. I hadn’t heard any hoofsteps at all- ... Hang on.

I took a couple of mental steps back, recounting the facts. One, I'd just come out of the Everfree forest. Two, right outside that forest was one town that no self-respecting brony would ever not know about. And three, that one particular town was chock full of one particular type of resident, one that would definitely have been able to leave behind the kind of tracks that I was looking down at right now.

I nearly smacked myself over the head for not having realized this earlier - I'd landed up in the Everfree forest, of course this would naturally be where I'd end up next! God, contrived coincidence, could you ever get any more blatant?

Something inside me grimaced sourly at the thought that crossed my mind next - the town was still going to be my next destination if I wanted to ensure my survival, but the mere thought of going there just made my insides crawl in cognitive dissonance. The more I moved on, the more I was starting to feel like I’d somehow fallen into a HiE fanfic somewhere, and let me tell you, I was seriously weirded out.

I liked to think that I stayed firmly on reality’s side of the line rather than indulging in fantasy, but the more time I spent here, the more I figured I was either experiencing a very real, very vivid hallucination, or reason and sanity had gone leaping right out the window, because I was in fucking Equestria. Needless to say, this entire premise was rubbing me very much the wrong way, but the fact that I was now out of the forest, and therefore had a lot less to scavenge from, meant that supplies and my sustained survival were still a very real and very inevitable concern.

Well I sure as hell wasn’t going back inside that forest just to get more food when I already had a few more days worth of supplies still in my pack. I still had some time left to find an alternative to living off the Everfree like some sort of demented Rambo or Robinson Crusoe, and it wasn’t like there was anywhere else practical that I had left to go to.

So, turning in the direction of the town and trying to suppress a groan at what I felt was a monumentally corny and contrived decision, I began walking down the path that would doubtlessly lead me towards Ponyville.

---

Okay, I am now convinced. The universe has somehow decided to make me the butt of a cosmic joke, and I’d just reached the punchline.

I mean, there I was, lying at the crest of that hilltop, staring down through my binoculars at a town of technicolor ponies strolling about on their everyday business, and I was still having trouble coming to terms with the fact that I was really here.

My stomach abruptly rumbled again, reminding me of my logistical predicament (meaning to say that I was still going to run out of food in a couple of days), and I set aside the mind boggling fact that I was in a world of technicolor equines. I had to focus on securing more food and water for later first, however the hell I was going to do it. Indulging in an existential crisis could come later.

A direct approach was out of the question, that was for sure - the standard reaction of Ponyville residents to any form of strange, unidentified creature was the purest form of ‘HIDE YO KIDS HIDE YO WIVES’ I had ever seen, and I didn’t want to start a panic by simply just strolling into town down the street. That left stealth and an indirect approach as my only remaining option, and already I was starting to roll my eyes at how exasperatingly difficult this whole thing just had to be.

My belly let out another growl of complaint, and I winced. All right, I’d wasted enough time observing from up here - it was time to get down there.

Time to find a nice, quiet, deserted place to effect an entry.

---

I found it just about an hour later, and in about the last place I expected. As large as the countryside surrounding Ponyville was, I didn’t think I’d stumble upon Sweet Apple Acres that soon. It had been several dozen metres after my first apple tree before I noticed I was walking past several more, and it took my exhausted mind a couple of seconds to connect the dots before I even realized I was in an apple orchard.

I looked up at the apple tree that towered above me, briefly considered reaching up just to pluck an apple, and almost immediately smacked myself mentally for even entertaining the thought. That was somebody’s livelihood that I was looking at, and even if just one missing apple might not have made that great a difference, it was the entire principle of the thing that mattered. As hungry as I was, I still wasn’t a thief, period.

Still... that shade underneath the tree looked pretty inviting, and I was just about ready to collapse after having kept on the move for almost an hour straight even after my encounter with Wolfzilla from earlier. This seemed like a quiet, deserted enough place to get some rest. There wasn’t anything for me to build a fire with, but then again, I was also tired enough to think fuck it, I’ll eat the rations cold.

I didn’t even bother with the mess tin - after dumping my pack on the ground and setting the Remington across my lap, I pulled a ration pack out, tore it open, and squeezed the contents directly into my mouth, skipping on the finer points of culinary dining. Once I had some food in my belly and had drained almost my entire canteen, I flopped against the tree trunk limply and pulled my sunglasses down over my eyes, taking a moment to just sit there and do nothing.

After so many days of slogging my guts out through the Everfree, it felt good. I closed my eyes to let sleep take me, and I could have sworn that I’d actually managed to take a long, solid nap, but I swear to God it felt like not longer than a second later before I suddenly felt something poking and prodding at me incessantly. High, excited voices whispered at the edges of my hearing, and I struggled to clear the cobwebs of sleep from my mind as I strained to listen in.

“Ah’m tellin’ ya Sweetie Belle, it’s a Human! No kiddin’!”

“Come on, stop pulling my leg, Applebloom! Everypony knows humans don’t exist! They’re only mythological creatures!”

“Yeah, way to stay in denial when it’s right in front of us, Sweetie Belle. It’s right here!”

“I’m just saying, Scootaloo! It could be something else, something from the Everfree that we’ve never seen before!”

“Hmmm... ya’ll think it’s awake?”

“You think? Applebloom, we’ve been poking at it for a few minutes now - I’m surprised that it hasn’t woken up yet!”

I twitched. Oh. Oh, crap. Emperor on Earth, why did it have to be them first?

“Oh... hayseed. Um, girls? Ah... think it just moved.”

“It did? Oookay, I think it’s time we got out of here!”

“Oh, stop being such a chicken, Sweetie Belle! It’s not like it’s going to hurt us, right?”

“Scootaloo, look at it! It’s covered in dirt and sap, it’s dressed weirdly, and it’s carrying those... those... hey, what are those things, anyway?”

Oh, fuck. The guns!

My eyes shot open as I immediately snapped a hand protectively over the shotgun across my lap - no way in hell was I going to let an untrained child, let alone the Cutie Mark Crusaders of all foals, get their hooves on a firearm they could hurt themselves with. But the sheer suddenness of my movement must have scared them, because I heard three frightened gasps and a series of rapid steps retreating away from me. I blinked the remnants of sleep out of my eyes, and found myself faced with three tiny fillies any brony would recognize who were huddled together in a group, staring at me with huge, curious, terrified eyes.

Okay, easy does it now, Joe. You’ve got them like deers in headlights - last thing you want to do is startle them further.

I slowly raised a hand, palm out in what I hoped was a placating gesture, and spoke slowly. “Look, I-”

I didn’t get any further. My voice was deep, but still hoarse and cracked from dehydration, and the moment the first word of my sentence had left my mouth, the three fillies immediately screamed and bolted off in the opposite direction. As I watched the crusaders flee, I saw them rush past a certain recognizable tree house the size of a small room, and I belatedly realized that in my exhausted stupor, I’d picked a camping spot just a few trees away from the CMC clubhouse.

Way to go, genius. So much for keeping a low profile.

Okay, now I had to double it up. With three panicked and frightened fillies out there raising the alarm, I had to disappear before someone came looking for me. There was hardly any doubt which mares the crusaders would go to first - either a certain chromatic pegasus who would be the fastest monster ass-kicker they’d think of, or the most dependable, most overprotective big sis known to the Apple clan, and I certainly didn’t want to be on the receiving end of any beatings either of them might be itching to dish out if they ever spotted me.

I didn’t waste any more time - I gathered up my things and set off at a quick lope, praying to the Lord that I wouldn’t have any more unlucky chance encounters. Moving quickly and quietly, I exited the orchard and spent the next five minutes after that circling around the perimeter of the town looking for any particularly deserted street or alleyway where I could make my entry before I finally found one.

I took a quick glance around to make sure that there wasn’t anybody around looking, and my descent down the hill after that was a quick, quiet, and practiced one. Making sure that all the straps and holsters of my weapons were secure, I ducked into the deserted alley that I’d spotted, and immediately crouched up against the nearest wall as I crept forward, sticking to the shadows.

A shadow passed overhead briefly, the profile of a pegasus flier starkly obvious in the bright sunlight, and I reflexively cringed backwards underneath the nearest roof, praying that I hadn’t been spotted. Great, now I had to keep an eye on the sky as well - as though keeping a lookout for threats on the ground wasn’t hard enough already.

Keeping in mind that I now had to stay out of open, unsheltered areas, I spent the next several hair-raising minutes darting stealthily between alleyways and across deserted roads, trying to minimize the time I spent out of being hidden in the shadows. The streets were surprisingly empty for this time of day, and I could see only a handful of ponies strolling about, chatting with one another or otherwise carrying out their daily routines. I’d caught sight of Roseluck tending to her garden when I’d been slinking in between alleyways, and had narrowly avoided being seen by a hairsbreadth when she looked up from watering her plants just in time to see the edges of my silhouette disappear around the corner.

I must’ve just stood there for several seconds with my back pressed against the wall, my heart pounding and my breath held, just waiting to see if she got a bit too curious for her own good. Thank God she didn’t decide to come and investigate in the end - I was clutching onto the .44’s heavy steel frame tightly in my right hand, and though the hammer wasn’t cocked back and I didn’t have any intentions of shooting anyone, if I got spotted up close and they were within reach, I wasn’t above attempting to pistol whip them into unconsciousness to prevent them from raising the alarm.

Then again, I’d also probably feel horrible as hell while doing it, but the last thing I wanted was a general panic shutting all the doors of the town to me. I had to get to at least one particular house and find that one particular unicorn who was the least probable to go apeshit on me upon sight, before I could see if I’d be able to ease an appearance into Ponyville, instead of appearing out of nowhere without any prior explanation covered in dirt and timber wolf sap.

I had to get to Twilight Sparkle’s library.

The huge tree-house thing wasn’t hard to find - large as it was, it almost towered over the rest of the buildings around it, and it was kind of difficult to miss it. I could already make out the upper floors by the time I was only a couple of streets away, and those were thankfully as deserted as the ones I’d spent the past several minutes sneaking through. A couple of alleys later, I was swinging myself over the fence surrounding the library in a running jump, and came down next to one of her windows with a soft thud.

Okay, at this point, I had to admit myself that I probably hadn't thought this all the way through. I would go to her library, gain access to it, and then what? I’d bust in and hold her at gunpoint, demanding food and shelter?

No freakin’ way - there are some things that people are able to do and still be able to sleep at night. For me, this was absolutely not one of them. I didn’t threaten innocent civilians with bodily harm even if it meant compromising my survival. Perhaps I could try to negotiate a deal of some sort with her using logic and reason? Yeah, good luck getting past the fact that she’d probably start spazzing out at the notion of discovering an entirely new species of ‘magical creature’, which she would doubtlessly think I was.

All right, screw this - the more time I spent out here in the open, the greater the likelihood I was going to be seen. I’m just going to have to make this shit up on the fly. I reached for the window, got my fingers underneath it, and was about to try lifting it up when someone tapped me on the shoulder.

“Oi, Suzy!” Someone said quietly from behind me, and I briefly wondered to myself who the hell even uses that phrase anymore?

Hey wait a minute... that high, scratchy voice sounded kinda familiar.

I turned around, already preparing myself to dodge, but all I saw was a sky-blue hoof hurtling right at my face.

WHACK!

Everything went black.

First Contact

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Chapter 4: First Contact

Jesus Christ, my head... It felt like I’d just headbutted a dump truck I’d been on a collision course with...

“Look, I know that you were trying to help, Rainbow Dash, but really, did you have to knock it out so violently?”

“Look Twilight, Scootaloo came up to me with the rest of the crusaders babbling something about a ‘human monster’ thing that they ran into at Sweet Apple Acres, and the kid was terrified! You think I wasn’t going to head out looking to kick this thing’s flank? Besides, it looked like it was about to break into your house! And look at that weird stick thingy it’s carrying - that thing just spells bad news! What did you think I was gonna do?”

Voices weakly filtered through my ears, sounding as though they were coming from the end of a very long tunnel. I recognized the words, but some of the gears upstairs must have been knocked loose because I couldn’t assemble any meaning out of them.

Hang on... those voices... they sounded vaguely familiar...

“Well, I’ll give you that, Dash, but what have I told you before about the use of excessive force? You could have broken its neck and killed it!”

My vision was slowly beginning to come back into focus, and now instead of a big black blur I saw a big white blur. Fuzzily, I looked up, and saw pretty much what was the last thing I expected to see. Two quadrupedal silhouettes stood above me, outlined in the light, and they seemed to be debating on what to do with the half-conscious human at their feet.

“Well, wouldn’t that be a heartbreaker. Relax egghead, I always know when to pull my punches. It’ll wake up with one hay of a headache, but nothin’ worse! Don’t worry about it!”

No shit ‘one hell of a headache’, I feel like the Hulk’s going to town on the inside of my skull. Hey wait a minute, isn’t that...

I focused my gaze upwards, at the one on the right - the one who sounded like she’d been the one to knock me out. It could’ve been a trick of the light, but I could’ve sworn that I saw just a hint of a rainbow...

“Oh, would you look at that! See, he’s just fine! What’d I tell ya, Twilight?”

“Well, all well and good then. Let’s just hope you didn’t cause any lasting harm. Go and gather the girls and the mayor, Dash - they need to know about this so we can decide what we’re going to do with it.”

“On it! You sure you’re gonna be ok alone with this thing though? I don’t like the way it’s looking at us...”

Hey, you try not glaring murderously at the person who’d just given you a good whack over the noggin! I’m going to be feeling that bump for weeks. Uh oh, I don’t like the way it’s starting to lean towards me right now...

“I’ll be fine, Rainbow. In the meantime, we should get it to the hospital at least, maybe they can do some sort of checkup on- Wait, Dash? What are you doin-”

Before the other voice could get any further, the silhouette on the right reared a hind leg back, and- WHACK d’oh knocked out again!

---

Waking up with a monstrous headache seemed to be becoming a habit for me these days. Piledrivers repeatedly pounded against the inside of my skull, a litany of agony that literally pummelled me awake, and I opened my eyes with a groan, trying to remember just where the hell I was.

The last thing I remembered was two four-legged shadows standing above me after one of them nearly succeeded in smacking me into unconsciousness. I vaguely recalled some kind of discussion going on between them right before they noticed me waking up, and this time the one that nearly knocked me out had succeeded in doing so. Blackness blanketed my senses right up until the herd of banthas tromping around in my head finally roused me, and I finally forced my eyes open.

My eyelids creaked open by a slit, and light immediately stabbed at my eyes painfully through that slit, intensifying the massive headache I already had by several magnitudes. I nearly went off on a string of blistering oaths that would have shamed a sailor for not having done better, but I bit the succession of curses off at the last second and settled for a pained, exasperated groan.

What I didn’t expect, however, was for there to be a sudden gasp of surprise at my groan, and I was abruptly aware that I was not alone.

"Oh, look, it’s awake! It’s waking up!”

“Technically, I think ‘it’ is actually most probably a he, Rarity - that much I’m certain of. Just look at that stubble - he almost looks like a bipedal stallion!”

“A stallion, Twilight? Oh for shame, he certainly looks nothing like the sort! If I had to say, he looks more like a... eh...”

“Ya can say it, Rarity, nopony’s gonna think any less’o ya for sayin’ what we’re all thinkin’ - darn thing looks more like’a tall, upright monkey if ah’ve ever seen one.”

“Oh! Oh! Do you think he likes cupcakes? He’s probably kind of tired and hungry now, I mean he looked so beat up when you and Dashie dragged him here, Twilight!”

“Pinkie... we don’t even know what he eats. Maybe we should just wait for him to open his eyes, then you can ask him.”

Multiple, numerous, female voices. That I all recognized.

Emperor on Earth, was I really in the same room with...

I forced my eyes open the rest of the way, trying to ignore the intensifying pain that the action brought, and blinked several times in dull surprise when I saw what I quite believe to be the last sight any brony ever expects to see, but secretly dreams of witnessing at least once before they die.

Gathered right at the foot of the bed I realized I was lying in, lined up in a neat little row and staring at me with wide, curious eyes, were the Mane 6.

Well, maybe not all of them - Fluttershy was practically hidden behind Rainbow Dash, taking only the briefest of peeks over her pegasus friend’s shoulder at me from behind the curtain of her mane, and she looked downright terrified. But then again, that should’ve been expected from her, shouldn’t it?

Dear Lord, that kick to the head must have actually broken something upstairs and caused some brain damage along with some far-out hallucinations. Either that, or my neck had actually been broken, and I’d died and gone to heaven.

“Uhh... Twilight?” Rainbow Dash suddenly piped up, turning to look at her purple-furred friend. “It’s awake, and it’s looking at us. It’s... staring.”

Okay, so maybe I wasn’t dead and in heaven - there is no way I can hallucinate Dash maintaining that kind of sass, whether I was in the land of the living or not.

With the realization that I was indeed still alive came the fact that I was face-to-face with the Mane 6, and then the stark reality of the situation came running up to me and drop-kicked me right in the face with all the subtlety of a WWE wrestler.

I was face-to-face with the Mane 6.

Holy shit, I was face-to-face with the Mane 6.

I swear with Ceiling Cat as my witness, I nearly died inside from a fangasm for all of about three seconds before my more cynical side rapidly reasserted control, and immediately hung a lampshade over every single damn HiE story I had ever read. I’d read about this moment tons of times before, in dozens of different iterations, all of which had felt monumentally cliched and contrived, but I have to tell you, once you’re actually there, in their shoes, you can’t really blame them for reacting the way they reacted - i.e. the brain switching off as they experience the urge to do something truly, universally, monumentally stupid.

Hell, I would’ve reached out to pinch Twilight Sparkle’s cheeks really hard just to see if I really wasn’t hallucinating this, if not for the fact that I suddenly realized that my hands were restrained.

Both of them were. Straps had my wrists secured tightly to the sides of the bedframe, preventing me from making any sudden movements, and for a frustrated second I wondered to myself just why they thought they might need such restraints. It wasn’t like I was about to just get up and attack them, right?

… On second thought, if I encountered a strange creature for the first time that was as cut up, bandaged, and splattered with dried blood, sap and dirt as I had been when I emerged from the Everfree, and was armed to the teeth with strange weapons I didn’t understand, I sure as hell wouldn’t be leaving it unrestrained either.

Some of my thoughts and frustration must’ve shown on my face, because Twilight immediately reached a hoof out in reaction as I began tugging at the straps experimentally. “Hey, hey! Don’t panic, relax! You’re in a ward in Ponyville General hospital now, relax. You’re safe. We aren’t going to hurt you - we just want to ask you some questions. Can you understand me?”

I stopped pulling at the restraints and raised an eyebrow at the purple mare, but otherwise said nothing. I mean, how could I have? I was literally at a loss for words right now - I was still coming to terms with the fact that the Mane 6 were standing right in front of me, and I really had no idea what to say or how to react. Fangasm? Spazz out? Deny all forms of reality and start demanding for myself to wake up from this too-vivid hallucination?

The stress and fatigue of the past several days finally caught up to me. I’d gone for almost four to five days and nights setting aside my emotions and focusing on my survival, staving off impending freakouts by concentrating on what was important and shutting out the rest. Right now the emotional centre of my brain was raging and thrashing inside my head like a caged animal, demanding to be let out, because goddamnit it all to hell this entire scenario was just not possible.

“Sure,” I began with just a hint of hysteria creeping into my voice, my eyes still scrunched up from the pain of the pounding in my skull. “I can understand you all right, despite the massive headache and probable brain damage that you guys gave me. I mean, this must be pretty normal for you, huh? Kicking newcomers to town in the head without even so much of asking why they’re there?”

“Stars above, it speaks,” I heard Rarity murmur faintly out of the corner of my hearing, but that line of thought got quickly overridden by the cyan pegasus I suddenly found getting right up in my face.

“Hey, you better watch that tone of yours, chump!” Rainbow Dash suddenly stepped forward, her expression growing confrontational. “You’re a stranger in our town, Scootaloo came up to me babbling something about a monkey-like monster, and I caught you trying to break into Twilight’s library. We were already kind enough to bring you to the hospital when we could’ve left your unconscious flank out in front of her house or tossed you in jail. Don’t push it!”

Okay, best pony or not, I already had to fight down the growing urge to snap back impatiently at her. Annoyance and irritation were the foremost things on my mind and dammit the headache was just not helping; the first few words of my next sentence came out of my mouth before I even had the chance to consider what they sounded like. “I wasn’t trying to break in, I was trying to... Ugh, never mind. Just... just give me a second.”

I held an open palm out from one of my restrained hands, closing my eyes and trying to gather myself back together despite the heated anger that threatened to rise. Geez, first contact and I was already on the verge of blowing it by losing my head. Keep it together, man - you don’t want to screw up your first impression here if they’re your ticket to getting a roof over your head and three meals a day.

Dash however didn't seem satisfied with my answer, and she took another step closer, sticking her chin out belligerently. "What, trying to come up with an excuse now? Save it chump, we caught you red-hoofed!"

"Rainbow, relax," Applejack said, holding a foreleg out across the pegasus mare’s chest to stop her. "Can't ya see he's tryin'a catch his breath? That kick ya gave him to the head was a doozy, just give 'im a chance to recover."

Out of the corner of my vision I saw Twilight giving the two mares an approving look, and all I could think at the moment was are they seriously trying the Good Cop Bad Cop routine on me?

They must’ve missed my incredulously raised eyebrow, because Rainbow backed down after a couple of seconds, grumbling inaudibly under her breath as she looked away. Applejack gave me an apologetic look, and shrugged. “Sorry about that. She can be a little hot-headed sometimes. If it’s any comfort, ya ain’t the first one she’s bucked in the head before she started asking questions.”

“Somehow I find that even less comforting,” I muttered, tugging at the restraints again with a frown. “Honestly, do you guys mind getting these straps off? I need a drink - I’m thirsty as hell, my head’s hurting like a bitch, and frankly this is starting to seem a lot like an interrogation more than an interview.”

“Who says it’s an interview?” Dash spoke up again belligerently, glaring daggers at me. “You’re not going anywhere until we’ve gotten some answers outta you.”

“Rainbow Dash! Honestly!” Rarity huffed in what I swore was irritation, and the white-furred dressmaker was actually shooting an annoyed stare at her. Okay, so maybe it isn’t so much of a Good Cop Bad Cop routine here as it is just Dash being Dash. “He hasn’t even spoken a word of his intentions, and while his language may be a little uncouth, he has done nothing to warrant such hostile treatment from you!”

“Girls, calm down!” Twilight called out, stepping in between the two mares before the situation could continue its hopeful degradation into name-calling and catfights. “I think you’re taking this a step too far, Rainbow Dash - let me handle this.”

“Fine, but don’t come crying to me when he bites your hoof off or something,” The hotheaded speedster muttered as she stepped away, stalking off to another corner of the room where Fluttershy followed her, asking quiet, concerned questions that I couldn’t even begin to make out. Hoofsteps from in front of me caught my attention, and I looked back to see Twilight giving me an intense, studying look, as though I were some sort of specimen instead of a living, sapient creature. Needless to say, I started fidgeting nervously underneath that stare very soon.

“Well then,” The lavender mare began. “Since you could respond to our questions, I guess that safely means that you can understand us. Let’s move on then - how are you feeling? Aside from Rainbow’s kick to your head, that is. You’ve got a welt the size of an orange back there - I think that one’s still going to be smarting for a while.”

My mouth was already half-forming a smart-assed answer on just where she could shove another one of Rainbow’s kicks when I thought about what she said, and realized something surprising.

Apart from the splitting headache that I was suffering, the rest of my body felt great. The weariness, aches and pains of the four days I’d spent in the Everfree had all but faded, and there was no longer a dull, throbbing ache from the bite wound on my calf. Even as I flexed the muscles on my legs to test them, I felt only a dull twinge as opposed to a fierce stab, and for the first time in days I actually felt rested.

I said as much, and Twilight gave me a small smile. “Well, that’s great to hear. When we brought you in, your body was covered in cuts and bandages, and there was this terrible bite wound you had on your leg. We had the doctors treat most of the injuries, but just where exactly did you come from? And what were you doing in there that got you those kind of injuries in the first place?”

Ah. Well, this is probably where things were going to start to get awkward.

“Well, I, uh...” Okay, I had to answer this one carefully. By right, I was supposed to be a newcomer to this world who knew practically nothing about the place - I couldn’t just drop names left right and centre like I knew Equestria like the back of my hand. Taking in a deep breath, I formulated my answer carefully. “Okay, it was that forest surrounding the edges of your town. I just spent the past four days trekking through it on my own trying to find my way back to civilisation, so I’m sorry if I seem a little short tempered or irate. Fatigue from wilderness survival can do that to you.”

There was a collective jaw-drop at my statement, and six pairs of eyes stared at me goggle-eyed. “What!?” Twilight spluttered. “That’s just- Four days? On your own?”

I don’t know what it was about my statement that triggered it, but if Rainbow Dash was giving me suspicious looks before, she was now regarding me as though I were a ticking time bomb. The others on the other hand seemed more like they were staring at me in awed fear; the kind of look you would give a guy you'd seen pull off something really dangerous, and while you respected his cajones, you really didn't want to cross him at the same time.

Honestly speaking, I didn’t really get why. I mean, it isn’t like they haven’t done it before themselves, right?

"What? What about four days?" I looked at them, nonplussed.

"Four days in the Everfree of all places is just unthinkable, my dear!" Rarity shook her head. "I wouldn't even last four hours before going crazy, but to do so on your own? Oh, the filth would have driven me absolutely insane!"

Applejack shot the melodramatic seamstress an odd look, then shook her head and turned to me. "We’ve been through it ourselves, so we know what yer talkin’ about. But we’ve never gone any longer than a few hours inside, and inna’ group ta boot - ya must be mighty tough if ya can rough it out through that kinda road fer four days straight by yerself, stranger," the farmer drawled. "Ah can appreciate that at least - ain't never heard'o nopony livin’ in this town who'd even dare spend a single night in the Everfree alone, never mind four days.

She paused for a second as she seemed to consider something though, and shrugged noncommittally. “Well, then again there is Zecora, but she’s kind of a special case, seeing that she lives in the Everfree an’ all."

Pinkie just stared at me. "Wow. So you are a toughie! I knew I wasn't mistaken about those scars!"

Scars? I raised an eyebrow. Ah, she was probably referring to the injuries I'd sustained through my traipse in the Everfree. Huh. So apparently by pony standards, outdoors survival is viewed as the epitome of badassitude?

... Nah. This was a small country town after all, and they were mostly a superstitious lot to boot when it came to the Everfree. They hadn't been trained in jungle survival; of course the standards with which they judged it by would be different.

"Well," Twilight visibly gathered herself back together, bringing the conversation back on track. "That would certainly explain the wounds - the Everfree doesn't take kindly to trespassers. Although then, that would imply that you were a trespasser to begin with... Which then begs the question: just where did you come from?"

Oh boy. Here comes the game breaker.

I pursed my lips, thinking. The answer to this question was one that was going to shape the tone and direction of quite probably the rest of my time here in Equestria, be it weeks or months or however long it took them to help me find a way back to that portal in the Everfree I’d come in through. First impressions lasted, and I wanted this to be as smooth an entry into Equestrian society as possible. I did not want to screw this up.

I blew out a breath, and spoke slowly, choosing my words very carefully. "To be honest... I'm not entirely sure how I got here, wherever 'here' is. But... I'm pretty sure I'm not from around here."

Rainbow Dash snorted. "Yeah, like that wasn't obvious enough. Thanks for enlightening us, genius."

Twilight shot the cyan speedster a reproving glare, and she cleared her throat. “Well, apart from not being from Ponyville, which you couldn’t possibly have meant since that’s painfully obvious, the only other possibility is... Are you saying that you’re not from Equestria?”

The lavender mare’s expression was incredulous and disbelieving, but I simply shrugged, trying to be as cryptic as possible - the more mystery I provided, the more time I would have to piece together what their reaction might be to the truth. “Equestria, huh? Hm. Well, I only know what I see, and I know that what I’ve seen so far is nothing like what I’ve seen back home.”

“And just where is this ‘home’ you’re talking about?” Twilight riposted verbally. “You still haven’t answered my question.”

Damn, but Celestia’s prized student was sharp. I shouldn’t have expected any less out of her. I immediately started racking my brains for another answer, one that wouldn’t make me seem like some crackpot junkie spewing crap about portals to other worlds and alternate dimensions, but... oh who the hell was I kidding? I’m terrible liar, and I couldn’t tell a falsehood to save my life. I could however stretch a truth longer than an American highway, as long as there was a grain of honesty to whatever I was talking about. Perhaps there was still a way I could bullcrap my way out of this without sounding like a complete loony.

Or I could simply just tell them the truth, and not have to worry about covering my ass with even more lies and coverups later.

Sigh.

Look, when it comes to dealing with people, I’m a simple guy. Much as I’m able to spin and weave tales of inaccurate half-truths, I liked to have things straightforward and out in the open instead. I honestly preferred playing on the level with people and being honest with where I stood with them.

However, sometimes being straight up with the truth just isn’t enough.

“Look, I could tell you, but you probably wouldn’t believe me, or even know where it is, either. I don't even know how I got here, much less how to get back. I guess... You could just say that I'm just really, really lost,” I shrugged helplessly at Twilight, and quickly changed the tack of the conversation before she could question me further. “Hey look, miss, no offense, but you’ve still got my hands strapped to this bed like I’m some sort of dangerous animal, and I’m kind of starting to resent that. Do I look like I’m about to attack you?”

It spoke volumes of just how trusting and naive these ponies were as looks of chagrin immediately began coming over Twilight and Applejack’s faces, while Rainbow Dash immediately looked away from me, averting her eyes before I could read anything off her expression.

I pressed on further before their expressions could make me falter.

“Cut me some slack here, guys,” I sagged against the pillows behind me in a show of weariness. “You said that you weren’t going to hurt me, but somehow I’m getting the feeling that you’re afraid I’m going to hurt you. I’m not. So how about we take these restraints off, show each other some trust, and take it again from the top? I promise I’ll be good.”

I colored my last few words with a wry smirk, and the room was very quiet for a couple of seconds.

“All right then,” Twilight said in an unexpectedly small voice, and her horn sparked aglow. The straps around my wrists abruptly came undone as a reddish hue surrounded them, and I rubbed at the abraded skin sorely. A glass of water came floating up to me a second later, wrapped in the same bright magenta glow of Twilight’s aura, and I gratefully accepted it, sipping carefully. My throat was absolutely parched, and the water burned as it went down, but damn it felt good.

After I’d drained about half the glass, I set it down on the bedside table next to me and looked at the six mares standing in front of me. “All right then - I know where I am, but nobody told me who you six are. So... Who am I talking to here?”

This was all a show of ignorance, of course - I wasn’t about to go all meta on them by revealing that their entire existence was nothing but a children’s cartoon to us, and I wasn’t supposed to even know any of these things in the first place. I had to keep up appearances, so despite the fact that I knew every single one of the six mares standing inside the room, I kept up a genial poker face as introductions went all around, nodding my head and saying hello as though I were meeting them all for the first time.

“Well, I guess we might as well start with me,” Twilight said. “I'm Twilight Sparkle, and I’m the librarian of the Golden Oaks library in this town we live in, Ponyville. And you are...?”

“Joseph,” I answered. “Joseph Ryan Ang, but my friends just call me Joe.”

“Joe, eh? As in coffee ‘joe’, or Donut Joe?” The cowpony who stepped up to my right said jokingly, her distinctive Southern twang tinged with just a hint of guilt. Still, she did a good job hiding it behind a hearty grin as she extended her forehoof. “Well, the name’s Applejack, and ah’m the owner of this here town’s Sweet Apple Acres, finest apple orchard you’ll ever lay eyes on. Though, ah got a feelin’ you might’a already been there to take a look fer yerself, if my lil’ sis Applebloom ain’t pullin’ my leg.”

Nice, I was detecting healthy levels of snark behind that grin of hers. I already had a feeling this mare and I were going to get along swimmingly.

My right arm was still on prickly fire with pins and needles, but that didn’t stop me from raising it to meet hers. I thought of going for a handshake at first, but then remembered something else at the last moment and formed a fist instead, bumping her outstretched hoof with my knuckles. Applejack’s eyes widened slightly at the gesture, and I flashed her a cryptic wink and turned my gaze to Rarity before she could think to ask anything.

"Oh, me?" The dressmaker blinked in surprise as she realized that my eyes were on her. "Well, I'm Rarity, the owner and tailor of Carousel Boutique, and having taken a look at your clothing sir, I simply cannot let this go unsaid: black is so last season."

I blinked.

Hang on; did Rarity just try to open up a first contact conversation by commenting on my fashion sense?

"Well, that aside, just what did you go through that left you with those gash marks?" She continued, oblivious to my reaction. "The Everfree certainly wouldn’t have been kind, but those kind of wounds are the kind you would from running into a manticore, or a timber wolf!"

“That’s kinda because I did,” I deadpanned, and the unicorn’s eyes widened. “Had to fight a whole pack of the wolves off by myself, and halfway through they just turned tail and hauled ass, only because a manticore had shown up. I only narrowly escaped from the bastard - he nearly had me down for his afternoon chow.”

“Well, that certainly would have put a damper on things…” Rarity pursed her lips, looking thoughtfully at me for a second before her eyes lit up. “Aha! I have just the thing in mind - with your clothes as torn up as they are, why don’t I make a small, new selection for you to replace what you have right now?”

I blinked at the sudden, unexpected turn of generosity, right until I remembered just who it was coming from. “Uh, all right, why not? How are you going to get my measurements though?”

The fashionista tittered, putting a hoof to cover her mouth, and she gave me a bemused look. “Oh, don’t worry about that darling, I have a natural eye for this sort of thing! I should have your new clothes ready within the week! Oh, designing this new line is going to be so exciting!”

Thankfully at that moment, Twilight stepped in, stopping Rarity before she could continue any further down that train of thought. But unfortunately, whatever words they exchanged flew over my head as I found myself distracted by a very belated, distressing realization on the topic of clothes.

I wasn’t carrying any of my gear - hell, I wasn’t even wearing any of it. My T-shirt, vest, fatigues and boots were all gone, as I could tell by the feel of the sheets against my bare skin and toes as I wiggled them about, and a peek under the sheets told me that I was clad in a simple hospital patient’s gown... and only that.

Doctors are professionals, they don’t even have nudity taboos here, and besides your clothes were filthy. Now get your goddamned head out of the gutter before you start freaking out. My brain pointed out several important facts before I could start thinking about the implications, and I took in a deep breath, trying to ignore the fact that I was conspicuously and very uncomfortably naked beneath the patient’s gown.

On that note, where the hell was all my stuff? I figured they must have had it stashed somewhere, but before I could begin to wonder just where, my thoughts were suddenly and very rudely interrupted by a pair of very large, aquamarine eyes staring right into mine just inches from my face.

“Hey, I just met you!” A high-pitched, hyperactive voice that I recognized all too well jabbed at my ears in a sing-song manner. “And this is crazy! But here’s a cupcake - please eat it maybe?”

I looked down just long enough to see a small cupcake with a liberal smattering of blue-white frosting on it being offered to me by two pink forehooves, and glanced back up to see Pinkie Pie looking right at me with huge eyes, blinking hopefully at me.

“How... did you...” I began disbelievingly, but Pinkie cut me off as though she knew exactly what I was about to say.

“Know that song? Oh, silly, that little matchbox-thingy of yours has got so much music inside it!” Pinkie tittered as though it explained everything, hopping off the bed to stand next to me. “Didn’t take me long to figure out how to use it - all I had to do was follow the arrows and symbols! Anyway, my name’s Pinkie Pie, and it’s super duper nice to meet you! I baked the cupcake specially for you when I heard from Twilight that you were in the hospital, so I guess that makes it a ‘Get Well Soon’ cupcake, but I wanted it to be a ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ cupcake, so I guess that kinda makes it both! Welcome to Ponyville!!!”

The rest of her rambling got automatically tuned out as my brain picked up on something, and it immediately set it up with red warning flags as it shoved it to the forefront of my thoughts. Wait a minute... she’d spent the entire time I’d been unconscious listening to my iPhone?

“Hang on,” My mouth caught up with the rest of my brain as the implications sank in, and Pinkie Pie abruptly stopped right in her verbal tracks. “What the hell have all of you done with all my stuff? That’s all I had on me when I came here!”

“Whoa, easy there, tiger!” Applejack held out a placating hoof. “We stashed ‘em in your bed’s footlocker, relax. We ain’t thrown away nothin’ yet - we figured that stuff was important to ya.”

Well, that was a reassurance, at least - the stuff I’d had on my back wasn’t much, but it was all I had that I could actually call my own. If I lost any of it, then I’d really know what it would be like to literally have nothing to my name, and it wasn’t a feeling I cared to experience any time soon. I let out a sigh of relief, nodding in thanks and sagging back against the pillows.

“Speaking of which,” Rainbow Dash suddenly said, and she reached down to pick something up before tossing it on my lap - the .44’s heavy metal frame landed atop my thigh, and the pegasus gave me a pointed look. “You mind telling us what this is supposed to be?"

I stared blankly at the revolver. Okay, I hadn’t expected this to come up in conversation so early - I was completely unprepared for the question, and found myself flailing mentally for an answer.

“What do you mean, ‘what is this supposed to be’?” My mouth reflexively responded with a defensive question even before I’d even thought about it. “Maybe you’d care to be more specific?”

Something twitched above Rainbow’s eyebrow, and her glare intensified. “You know what I’m talking about - if you’re as harmless as you say, then would you care to tell us why you’re so heavily armed carrying these things around? Fluttershy over here says she saw you blow apart a giant timber wolf with it!"

There was a collective round of gasps, and the rest of them immediately began staring at me as though I’d grown a second head. Ah, so she was the pony I’d heard scamper off from the bush in the aftermath of my altercation with Wolfzilla. Groaning, I pinched the bridge of my nose and tried to stave off the massive, unnecessary headache that this pegasus was starting to give me.

“And who am I speaking to here?” I hinted at her horrible lack of diplomatic skill, and got another dirty look flashed at me in return.

“The name’s Rainbow Dash, chump!” She not-quite spat, but it still sounded pretty damn close. “And you better not forget it!”

It didn’t seem likely that I was going to get any other sort of reaction out of her, so I decided to humor her. Unlikely as it was that they’d even understand what a gun was, if giving answers would garner their trust, I figured I should be as forthcoming with information as I could.

"Well, if you wanna know what that thing is, that is precisely what kept me from becoming wolf chow," I replied dryly. “Do you have something against me using a weapon in self-defense, Miss Dash?”

“I sure as hay do when you scare the living daylights out of my friends while you're doing it!" Dash snapped back. "Self-defense or not, you're dangerous, pal. Don't think I haven't got my eye on you."

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, and I could already see Twilight holding back a sigh as she gave Rainbow a long-suffering look. Behind the rambunctious pegasus was the second flier of the group, and the last one who had yet to introduce herself. I peered over Rainbow's shoulder trying to get a better look at her, but she automatically moved further back behind Rainbow, ducking out of sight the moment I caught a flash of a turquoise green eye, wide and apprehensive.

“Don’t mind her,” Twilight said almost automatically as though she’d gone through this introduction dozens of times. “That’s Fluttershy, and she can be a little... well, shy, at times. She’ll probably take some time to warm up to you.”

“I’ll bet on that,” I muttered underneath my breath, stifling a stinging pang of hurt - in my own humble opinion, Fluttershy is best pony, but seeing her duck away from me in fear just like that was like having your favorite celebrity suddenly run away screaming the moment she’d even caught sight of you. I was surprised at how much it actually hurt, given the fact that prior to my entry into this world she had been nothing more than a fictional character. I wasn’t supposed to be taking this so hard, dammit.

Bringing myself back under control with a deep breath, I exhaled slowly, looking at the six mares standing in front of me. Twilight and Rarity were looking at me curiously, while Rainbow was still giving me the stink eye. Applejack simply regarded me steadily, and Pinkie was still bouncing on the edges of her hooves, grinning excitedly.

“Well, now that we've gotten introductions out of the way," Twilight said after a moment. “I think there's still one thing we still don't know yet, Joe... Do you mind if I call you Joe? Or should I call you Joseph?”

“Either one’s fine, really,” I shrugged, speaking before even thinking. “It isn’t the first nickname I got saddled with - I had a bunch of friends calling me ‘Jojo’ for a couple of years once.”

There was a round of suppressed snickers, and I sighed mentally - now why did I do that? Great, now I wasn’t ever going to live that name down either. Twilight was the first to compose herself again, and she nodded with a ghost of a smile and a thoughtful expression on her face. “Well then, Joseph, so what you're saying is that you're hopelessly lost, you have no idea how you got here, and you have absolutely no clue how to get back to wherever it is you came from - am I right so far?"

"Pretty much," I nodded.

"And this place you came from, you're saying that there isn't a point telling us where it is because we wouldn't know where it is, or that we wouldn't believe you, correct?" I nodded again, and the young librarian's violet eyes narrowed, a grin spreading over her face. "Try me."

"Born in Singapore, lived there for twenty plus years, moved to the United States of America and took up residence in New York for two years, travelled to San Francisco and Tennessee to tour for a bit, all of them places nations and states on this good old ball of dirt we call Earth," I savored the nonplussed look that came over her face as she watched me rattle off a whole list of names she probably hadn't ever heard of in her life. "You were saying?"

"I... Well..." Her spluttering was almost positively adorable as I watched her flounder to recover. "Well, I'll admit you had me there, but if you came from a place we've never even heard of, then how did you even get here? Most of our entire world of Equus has already been mapped, and the Unknown Regions are far beyond our borders. There's little we haven't explored on our world - so just how did you manage to travel as far into Equestria as the Everfree without any sightings of you on our news?"

"Well, if you really wanna know... I fell into a hole and landed up in the forest," I said simply, and almost laughed at the incredulous expression on her face. "See? I told you, you wouldn't believe me."

I was met with a stunned silence for a couple of seconds, and then Twilight cleared her throat awkwardly. “Well, um... Okay, but even if what you said was true, then... Why here? Why did you come to our town instead of just trying to find your way back home through that hole you fell through?”

I sighed, and resisted the urge to apply palm to forehead. “Like I said, I fell into the hole. It wasn’t as though I didn’t try to climb back out, but it was too high up and I didn’t have any handholds. I couldn't climb back up, and when I walked out the other side I found myself in that forest you called the Everfree. I didn’t have anywhere else to go, so when I saw signs that your town was here on the outskirts of the forest, I figured my best shot at survival was to get back to civilisation, and I’d figure out the next step when I got there.”

Twilight looked very thoughtful as I finished the summary of my past several days, and after a moment she met my eyes, something I couldn’t determine setting itself in her expression.

“Joseph, could you excuse us for a couple of minutes? The girls and I just have to discuss something for a moment first.”

I nodded, and she jerked her head towards the door to the others, the six mares filing out of the room in quick order. Soon, I was alone in the ward as the door shut, but apparently they must have thought I was deaf or something, because although their voices were slightly lowered, I could still hear them nearly clear as day through the door.

“Okay, girls, so what do you make of him?” Twilight’s voice was only slightly muffled from outside in the hallway, and with a little bit of focused effort I could still make out what she was saying.

“He seems pretty on the level to me - he ain’t tellin’ us everything, that’s for sure, but ah’ve got the feeling he wasn’t lyin’ to us either. Poor guy's all alone here - he obviously needs some help. Ah think we can trust him,” Applejack’s accented twang responded, only to receive an immediate scoff in response.

“What? Are you kidding me, AJ?” RD’s high and scratchy protest was unmistakable. “That thing’s dangerous, and I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw a manticore! You saw what he did to that timber wolf, right ‘Shy?”

Whatever Fluttershy’s reply had been was inaudible, as expected, but judging from Rainbow’s reply it must have been the verbal equivalent of a nod. “See? Even Fluttershy’s scared of him! I'm telling you, he can't be trusted!"

"Rainbow, Fluttershy's scared of everything," I heard Twilight deadpan, and I snorted. “You might want to get somepony who’d give a more convincing account before you start hurling accusations left and right.”

“He does intrigue me a little, though,” Rarity thoughtfully mused rather audibly. “I initially thought his mannerisms were rather gruff, but he was also rather well-mannered when speaking to you, Twilight. Such a mixture of refined mannerisms and rough brusqueness - I wonder what his background must be like... Judging by the fact that he even wears clothes, surely he must come from some sort of civilisation as well!”

“I’m just excited we got a new friend in town!” Pinkie’s excited bubbling suddenly cut in. “I can’t wait to put together a ‘Welcome to Ponyville!’ party for him, we can welcome him into the town and introduce him to everypony else! Oh, it’s gonna be so huge, it’ll have games and decorations and drinks and snacks and- Oooooh, does he likes cupcakes? What about hay fries or daisy petals or bubble gum? Hmmm... You know, I’ve never heard what humans like to eat before; hold on, I’ll go ask him!”

There was the sound of frantic scrabbling, and I smothered a knowing grin as I heard Twilight’s panicked voice quickly overrule her friend’s hasty decision. “Pinkie, wait! We don’t even know what he is - we’ve only heard Applebloom’s suspicions that he really is a human, but I’ve never seen anything like him before in my books... That, and material on humans is woefully limited. He’s... Honestly, he’s a mystery as far as any of us are concerned, but he definitely looks like he could use some help, and I think he can be trusted too. Applejack’s a good judge of character, and she hasn’t steered us wrong so far, has she?”

Twilight must have been looking at Rainbow Dash at the last part of her sentence, because I heard a sullen mutter of assent from the speedster through the door. “Yeah, well... I still don’t trust him.”

“You don’t have to, Rainbow - just trust me. We’ll be fine,” Twilight said confidently, and I felt my hopes raise themselves up just a little bit - maybe this was going to turn out alright after all.

There was some inaudible murmuring from the other side - probably Fluttershy, and Rarity let out a chagrined gasp. “Oh stars, you’re right, Fluttershy! Even if we decided to take him into the town as a resident while we help him find his way back, where would he stay? He obviously doesn’t have anywhere to go; he’d be on the streets the moment he gets discharged!”

“And we wouldn’t want anypony catching sight of him without a chance to ease in his introduction to the rest of Ponyville either,” I heard Twilight agree, showing a lot more common sense than I'd expected. “We need to sequester him away someplace quiet first, someplace where not a lot of ponies go by while I try to figure out our next step.”

“He could stay at the farm,” I heard Applejack offer, and my hopes abruptly took a running leap off a skyscraper and began to soar. “We don’t get much visitors ‘part from Cider Season, but that ain’t till next year. The only ones who come ‘round to the farm regularly are you girls, so he should be fine there.”

“Excellent idea, Applejack. I’ll make arrangements with the doctors for when he gets discharged,” I had to practically fight to keep the triumphant, relieved grin off my face. A moment later I heard a couple of hoofsteps, and I kept my expression neutral as though I hadn’t heard anything while the door to my ward opened up and the six of them walked back in.

“Well, Joseph, I guess that you don’t have a place to stay, and since you said that you’re hopelessly lost, I suppose you need a place to crash, right?” Twilight asked, and I nodded in assent.

“Well, I really do hate to impose,” I began modestly. “But I guess I don’t really have much of a choice if I want to survive now, do I?” The wry response elicited a giggle from a couple of them, with the exception of Rainbow Dash who just glared at me as though I was trying to be smart with her.

"Well," Twilight began, still smiling. "Applejack was kind enough to volunteer her homestead on her farm for you to stay, so she'll be here to bring you there once you've been discharged. Is that all right with you?"

"Long as I get a roof over my head and three meals a day," I shrugged, to which Applejack nodded agreeably. "I'm fine with anything that gives me more time to figure out how I’m going to get uh... home.”

The mere mention of home however was certainly a sobering one, and grins and friendly smiles faltered all around as we were starkly reminded of the fact that I was still an outsider here, and one that needed to find his way back as soon as possible. After a long, heavy silence, Twilight finally broke it by sparking her horn, picking the .44 off of my lap and gently setting it back inside the footlocker.

“Well, you should be recovered enough to be discharged within a few days,” She told me somberly. “I understand that you were probably thinking of keeping a low profile, so I’ll have the doctors here sworn to secrecy about your being here. You won’t have to worry about having anypony on your tail. Applejack will be here to pick you up on the morning you get discharged, and she’ll bring you over to Sweet Apple Acres - sound good?”

I didn’t see any more favorable alternatives, so I agreed to it. My nod of assent was all Twilight needed, and she beamed at me, giving a satisfied nod and filing out of the ward with the rest of her friends. Rainbow Dash continued glaring daggers at me the entire way, but it was so expected out of her that I simply took it right in stride, giving her an innocent smile that I knew was sure to tick her off just to mess with her head. The door closed on me as Pinkie Pie, the last one out, gave an enthusiastic wave of goodbye, leaving me alone inside the room with my thoughts, and I slumped down against the pillows, still trying to wrap my head around all of this and figure out my next step.

The most important thing regarding my survival was now out of the way - I was pretty much guaranteed a roof over my head and three meals a day now, meaning that I wouldn’t have to worry about death by starvation or exposure any longer. Which left my brain free to move on to the next most important issue: now that I’d at least guaranteed my survival, how the hell was I going to get home?

The hole through which I’d emerged into the Everfree was several days’ worth of hiking deep into the forest. Not only that, but I also had absolutely no idea how to retrace my steps back to it. My recollections of the jungle trek were nothing but a hazy blur right now.

My best bet of finding it again was probably to head inside with a full search party numbering in the dozens who knew exactly what to look for, and the odds of finding the people I needed for that here were astronomically low. If what I knew of the Equestrians was anything to go by, they were terrified of the Everfree, and other than the Mane Six and the CMC, few others would be willing to venture into the dangerous woods for the sake of a strange creature they had hardly even met.

Speaking of which, there was yet another impossibility that severely rankled my brain, still pushing and shoving against my common sense and acceptance in denial of what I was seeing right here with my own eyes.

I was really here. In Ponyville. With the Mane Six.

Against all possible logical odds, in defiance of everything that I knew to be real, true, and scientifically possible, I had come to Equestria.

Truly, sometimes, reality is stranger than fiction, eh?

In all honesty I felt like I should have been spending a lot more time than just a few moments trying to figure out just how it was possible that I was even here right now, but after a couple of minutes it became pretty obvious that no amount of rumination on my part was going to be giving me any answers. I was never one to stay in denial about what was happening right in front of my face when the evidence was incontrovertible, so I figured the best way to go about it was to simply get with the programme and roll with it.

And now the only question, I guessed, as I drew the sheets over myself trying to ignore the splitting headache starting to assail me, was if I was going to be stuck here for much longer.

Home on the Range

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Chapter 5: Home On The Range

The next few days passed by uneventfully, with nothing more than the movement of the sun and the regular arrivals of breakfast, lunch and dinner to mark the passing of time. The wounds I’d sustained through my traipse in the Everfree had already healed up nicely, and the welt on the back of my head I’d received from Rainbow Dash was fast disappearing - I guess I had the regular spell treatments of the doctors and the weird gunk they smeared over the lump at the end of each healing session to thank for that.

Not that the experience was entirely pleasant, though. Each time they focused their efforts on fixing the welt, the entire affected area would start tingling as though I had a thousand ants crawling around inside it. My skin would start crawling right before every healing session scheduled, but thankfully the green goop that they smeared over it after the healing spells were done left the welt blissfully cool and numb.

The doctors told me it was a healing salve meant to complete the repairs of my body that the restorative spells they cast had started, and I figured I might as well just take their word for it. To be honest the whole ‘healing salve’ thing sounded like it’d come straight out of World of Warcraft, but I did have an entire body’s worth of small scratches and cuts that had been healed over a matter of hours when I’d first been admitted here, so I guess it must’ve had something going for it.

Surprisingly, I found that the doctors and nurses were all remarkably professional and calm throughout my stay there, given the fact that they were caring for a strange new creature they’d never encountered before in their lives. I’d received only a couple of wide-eyed stares, but those hadn’t lasted longer than a few seconds before they promptly carried out the rest of their duties, professionally proceeding on with the checkups and tests before declaring me completely recovered three days later.

And thank God for that - I was starting to go crazy with the hospital food I’d been getting. I mean I wasn’t exactly expecting a five star palate, but seriously, gelatin cubes? Spinach and broccoli? Nuts and beans? Three days straight of nothing but vegetarian meals for me were more than I cared to go through, and when the doctors told me that I’d be ready to be discharged the following day, I nearly cried out in relief.

When the morning came that Applejack was supposed to pick me up from the hospital, I already had my gear stowed and my bag packed with almost indecent haste before the sun had even risen. There seemed to be only one thing missing - the metal chain of Twilight’s cutie mark I’d been wearing across my neck, but through the exhaustion of my panicked exit from the Everfree, I’d completely lost track of it and wouldn’t have been surprised if it turned out to have somehow come loose during my mad dash out of the forest.

Still, it was a minor thing, and I didn’t spare it a second thought - there were way worse things to lose than a simple metal chain I’d gotten customized for myself. Moving on to the rest of my gear, I’d been tightening the straps on my vest and pulling on my hiking gloves when the door to my ward swung open, and Applejack stepped inside. The orange mare took one look at me, clad fully in black, toting a shotgun and a magnum, festooned with all manner of miscellaneous equipment, and I could tell she was already smothering a grin.

“Yeah, ah can see now why Rainbow Dash would’a thought you were some sorta bad guy.” She remarked mirthfully. “At first ah thought she was just pullin’ mah leg, but ah see what she means now.”

“If you think I look scary right now, you should’ve seen me when I’d just come out of the Everfree,” I replied wryly as I shouldered my pack and the shotgun, kicking the footlocker closed. “Covered in dirt and grime, and probably splattered with that timber wolf’s sap stuff as well - I’m not surprised Fluttershy just ran away at first sight.”

“Eh, ah wouldn’t say ‘scary’.” There was just a hint of playful mirth in her voice as she gave me a sardonic grin. “More like, ‘ten miles of bad road’. It’d still probably be enough to send her scamperin’, though.”

We shared a hearty laugh at that, finding myself agreeing with what she said - I did pretty much look like hell once I’d gotten out of the forest, and I for one was pretty glad to finally be wearing clean clothes and not covered in all sorts of forest detritus for once.

After that, we moved on to business - I followed her out of the ward and through the corridors of the hospital, eventually reaching the reception counter where she settled the rest of the paperwork needed for my dischargement. We passed by several doors on the way there, but thankfully all of them were closed - it was still an ungodly hour in the morning (six-a.m., according to the wall clock that I spied above the receptionist’s desk), and many of the patients still had their doors to their wards shut for privacy’s sake.

“So,” Applejack started as the receptionist continued shuffling papers around in front of us. “You never really said anything about who you are or where you’re from, Joe. Care to fill me in a little?"

Now that I was standing next to her, I could take proper stock of the differences in our heights, and only then I realized that she was actually about five feet tall standing on all four legs, instead of the four feet I’d expected. The top of her head only just reached my chin, and Applejack had to look upwards at me as she talked. The effect was mildly disconcerting; back home, I was usually the one looking up at people to talk to them, given the fact that I was often the shortest one around.

“Well, there’s honestly not much to tell.” I shrugged as I tried to deflect the question - if I answered in earnest, the resulting infodump was probably going to fly right over her head anyway. Twilight would be able to absorb the information far better, but for Applejack, it’d probably be better if I kept it simple. “I wasn’t really anybody significant back where I came from - just another guy amongst the masses in the country I lived in. I wasn’t ever really famous or anything.”

“So you’re just some average guy?” Applejack looked somehow skeptical as she reached out and took the sheaf of papers that the receptionist handed her, placing them in the small saddlepouch that she wore on her side. “Do average guys from your country all have crazy jungle survival skills that let ‘em survive in the Everfree for days on end, then?”

I nearly snorted, but managed to suppress the impolite noise and just grinned instead, following her as we began walking to the glass doors that led to the hospital’s exit. “Well, when you put it that way... Nah, not really. I did have some military training in my country’s army and got commissioned as an officer for a while, but that was just for two years of National Service, and it didn't really stick."

"Military trainin’?" The blonde cowpony raised an eyebrow as we strode through the doors. "You mean you were in the Royal Guards or somethin'?"

"Not... quite," I chuckled. "My country didn't have a Royal Guard per se, but I was in the army for a couple of-" I stopped right in my tracks as I realized just what we were walking towards, and a questioning finger made its way up. "Uh, Applejack? What's with the wagon and the tarp?"

Applejack looked at me as though I were stupid, and continued walking towards the wagon that was positively laden with apple baskets, boxes, and had a large, white tarp covering about half of the wagon’s top. “What, you thought just cuz it’s six in the mornin’, other ponies won’t be up and about? Ah ain’t the only early riser ‘round these parts, Joe. Twi’ said we have ta keep you outta sight for now, and if anypony asks why we’re totin’ about such a huge cart so early in the mornin’... Well, honestly, ah suck at lyin’, but now’s about the time’a day that we finished stockin’ up our apple stall in the Ponyville market, so at least we’ll have a good excuse. Ain’t that right, Big Mac?”

“Eeeyup.” I nearly jumped as a resonant baritone replied from somewhere behind the cart, and a second later a crimson giant of a stallion came striding around the side of the wagon, walking up to me. Big Macintosh’s stone-silent gaze travelled over me as I felt him eye me critically, and I found myself staring up, agog, at the stallion that towered over me.

In hindsight I should’ve been mentally prepared for it, even if I was seeing him for the first time in the flesh, but at the same time holy geez he was just so freakin’ huge. Mac had to have been at least a full foot taller than his sister, which put him at almost half a foot taller than me, and the sheer amount of mass he was packing on his massively muscled frame meant that even his shoulders looked like they were broader than mine. There sure as hell was nothing little about this pony.

“So,” Applejack’s older brother began in an even tone. “Yer the one mah sister’s pickin’ up?”

It took me a couple of moments to get my mouth working, and after a few seconds I finally managed to remember the process of moving the lips and the tongue that one generally needed to form words. “Uh... Yeah, that’d be me.”

The big stallion snorted - or at least, it sounded like he snorted, but for all I knew that could’ve been just him exhaling rather loudly through those nostrils of his. A tiny corner of his mouth quirked upward, and he extended a hoof. “Pleasure. Name’s Big Mac.”

“Joseph.” I replied equally simply, giving his foreleg a firm hand/hoofshake, I wasn’t quite sure which to call it. I figured that Mac wasn’t one for idle pleasantries, so I decided to skip straight to business. “So, I guess I’m gonna be hiding in the cart while you two bring it back to the farm, right?”

“Eeeyup,” The crimson giant nodded, and that was all he said for the rest of the morning. He gestured for me to get on the cart, and I clambered aboard with an ill amount of grace. Setting my pack down next to my side amongst a veritable forest of boxes and baskets, I crouched down on one knee to face Applejack as she came around in front of me.

“Okay, you’re gonna need to stay under one of these boxes, and the tarp’ll cover everythin’ else, so there’ll be little to no chance somepony’ll be able to see you underneath all that,” She told me. “Ah picked out one that should be big enough to hide you and your stuff under it, so just stay under it and everythin’ should go just fine.”

“Hide under a box and hope they don’t notice me, eh?” I grinned mostly to myself, briefly being reminded of the times I’d played Metal Gear Solid. I wonder if the box would be made out of cardboard? “Can’t say I don’t have any experience in that. So where’s that box you picked out for me?”

AJ glanced at me bemusedly, as though she couldn’t quite decide if I was taking the frak, and she reached to the side and dragged out a wooden crate that could have easily held an entire drum set with room to spare. “Right here.”

I eyed the thing critically, trying to envision myself fitting into that, but even after several seconds I couldn’t deny that I would probably still be able to stay seated under the crate with my pack, and remain comfortable while doing so. Shrugging, I lifted one end of the crate upwards and brought it over myself, depositing my rump down on the wooden surface of the cart while letting the crate fall over me, encasing me in dank, chill darkness.

“All right, looks good,” I heard AJ say encouragingly from beyond the four wooden walls surrounding me. “Ah can’t even tell you’re in there. Now, just stay there and stay quiet - ah reckon it’ll take us half an hour to get to the farm, and once we’re there we’ll come to get ya out.”

“Just don’t forget about me and we’ll be fine,” I quipped, and I heard a chuckle from the other side before silence ensued. There was a brief rustling of cloth, and whatever little light that still managed to seep in through the cracks in the crate was blotted out - that would be the tarp, then. Applejack had no doubt covered the crates up, and any second now we’d be off.

True to form, a couple of seconds later I felt the wagon lurch into motion, and I settled back against the side of the crate, leaning my head against it and closing my eyes. The journey was no doubt going to take a while, and despite the wagon’s jerkiness, I figured I might as well catch some extra shuteye while I still could.

Of course, I could’ve done without the spine-jarring impacts from the wagon rolling over potholes in the road every few minutes, but then again, beggars couldn’t be choosers, right?

---

“Joe?” *knock knock knock* “Hey, Joe, wake up in there! We’re here!”

“Huh guh buh wha?” I muttered blearily as my eyes snapped open, trying to blink them back into focus. “I’m awake, I’m awake. What is it?”

“Ah said we’re here,” The voice from outside wherever the hell I was replied with a hint of bemusement, and when the walls lifted up from around me I remembered that I’d dozed off inside the crate while waiting for the wagon to reach Sweet Apple Acres. Rolling my head around and discovering that I’d acquired an entirely new set of stiff joints, I let out a groan and stumbled off the wagon, grabbing my pack while grumbling underneath my breath the entire way. Applejack gave me a bemused look as I stumbled drunkenly around for a moment trying to find my feet, and once I seemed to have regained some semblance of balance she and Mac came up to either side of me as we walked up to the wooden fence gate that undoubtedly led up to the farm.

“Gotta say, we don’t usually get visitors ‘round here,” The farmfilly remarked as she unlatched the gate and pushed it open, Mac dragging the rest of the wagon behind him as we went on through. “Only time we ever expect to see other ponies ‘round these parts is during cider season, but other than that, it’s just us and the rest of the girls. Still, ah gave the rest of the family a heads up that ya’ll would be comin’ up here to join us, so they shouldn’t be too surprised to see ya.”

“The rest of the family, eh? They’ll probably be pretty surprised once they realize I’m something they’ve never seen in their lives before,” I riposted wryly as the rest of my brain booted up and chased the remnants of sleep away. I shook my head as full wakefulness returned to me, but the sudden return of clarity to my thoughts made me awkwardly realize that I was actually still armed, and I fingered the .44 and the shotgun nervously. “Hey, you figure I should put these guns away or something first before I introduce myself?”

Applejack turned to look at me confusedly for a second, before she realized what I was talking about. “Oh, ya mean those weird stick thingies that you’re carryin’.” The blonde cowpony shrugged, evidently not thinking very much of weapons that could very loudly and very violently end a life instantly from as far as several dozen yards away. “Well, odds are they won’t think too much of it, and as much as Rainbow Dash is tryin’ ta convince me that ya used one of these ‘gun’ thingies to kill a giant timber wolf, ah still find it kinda hard ta believe. It still don’t look like much of a weapon to me.”

“That’s because you haven’t seen it in action yet.” I shot her a dry grin. “And trust me, you don’t want to, because if things get bad enough that I have to pull these bad boys out, that’d mean the shit’s already hit the fan.”

Applejack looked oddly at me at the figure of speech, probably not getting it, but her expression still remained skeptical nonetheless. “Well, if ya say so, pal. But ah, word to the wise? Don’t let mah sister Applebloom anywhere near ‘em - ah don’t want her gettin’ any ideas on where she might get her next cutie mark. Not to mention that tinkerin' around with stuff that belongs to you and she just might break ain’t something ah want happenin’ on my watch. Y’know, Apple hospitality and all.”

“Got it.” I nodded simply as we stepped up onto the wooden porch and in front of the door. Mac stayed behind for a bit to unhitch the wagon from his yoke, and Applejack simply pushed the door open and strode right through, beckoning for me to follow her inside.

“Granny! We’re home! And we brought the guest back!” Applejack called out as we walked into the living room. Looking around, I had to say that I was actually rather impressed - the Apples had one heck of a spacious living room, and all the furniture was made out of well-worn wood, the couches topped with large, comfortable cushions that looked like I’d have to climb my way out of them the moment I sat down. The table was huge, big enough to seat a family three times as large as the Apples had now - which made sense, given how they’d need the space to accommodate the rest of the Apple clan when the rest of the extended family came over for the family reunion. Pictures decorated the little side tables that had been placed here and there, all of the members of the Apple clan in various poses and situations.

That was all I managed to take in before I heard an aged, cracked voice reply from upstairs. But despite the apparent age in the voice, there was no mistaking the steady power and underlying unyielding strength that thrummed in it. Granny Smith had the timbre of someone who had watched the decades pass by, seen the changes they had wrought upon the world, and went ‘meh’.

“Ah hear ya - be right down in a jiffy!” The unmistakable voice of the matriarch of the Apple clan echoed out from the upper floor. A few seconds later there was the slow but steady sound of hooffalls against wood, and Granny Smith came ambling down the stairs to meet us.

The wizened mare walked up to us, giving me an appraising look as she approached, and a few seconds later she nodded as though I’d passed some sort of unseen test. “Well, sonny, you got the look of someone who’s seen his fair share of hardship. Ah can always respect that in somepony. When lil’ Applejack told me she was bringin’ someone over from one’a the neighbourin’ lands, ah never thought ah’d see somethin’ like ya. Come to think of it, ah’ve never seen anything like ya’ll in all of my years. Pray tell, sonny - what exactly are ya?”

Neighbouring lands? I fought to keep my face neutral, lest a raised eyebrow give anything away. Well, technically it was kind of true - I certainly wasn’t from the land of Equestria, that was for sure. And AJ didn’t really know about where exactly I’d come from, so she couldn’t really lie about something she didn’t know - for all she knew, I could really have come from some distant land from the Unknown Regions Twilight had mentioned they hadn’t mapped yet.

“I’m a human, from a land from what Applejack’s friend Twilight called the Unknown Regions. My name’s Joseph Ryan,” I replied smoothly. “Truth be told I’m not really sure how I got here into Equestria, but wherever I came from definitely isn’t anywhere on the Equestrian map. Believe me, I checked.”

That much was definitely true, at least - I’d gotten my hands on a few books regarding Equestrian geography during my brief stay at the hospital, and while I was still a long way from deciphering their long, flowing, alien script, I didn’t need to be able to read in order to recognize the shapes of landmasses on a map. Equestria was surrounded on all sides by foreign nations and territories as well, though I couldn’t read any of their names, and the Unknown Regions lay far beyond its borders. The landmasses I’d seen however didn’t correspond to anything I knew of on any map of Earth, leaving very little doubt that I was no longer on my home planet.

Granny Smith looked as though she was about to snort when she heard me say I was human, but to her credit she managed to keep a straight face. Instead, she just gave me a look that was uncannily similar to the one that I’d seen AJ giving me when she’d first met me at the hospital, and she nodded after a second, giving me a warm smile. “Well then, ah guess that’d make ya lost as all hay now, wouldn’t it, Joseph? Ya must be a really long way from home, sonny. Why don’t ya make yourself at home first, put yer hooves up and take a break? Ah’ll discuss the rest of the arrangements with Applejack here.”

"Granny's right, why don't ya take a seat?" Applejack gestured at one of the couches. “Ah’ll get Big Mac to show ya to the guest bedroom once we’re done here.”

“Guest bedroom?” I let out a huge mock sigh of relief. “Phew, and here I thought I was going to be crashing in the barn.”

The little quip elicited a snicker from the farmfilly, and she gave me a lighthearted grin. “Well, if ya want to stay in there instead, we could always arrange that...”

“It’s fine, it’s fine!” I shook my head frantically, holding my hands up with an innocent smile on my face. “I’m totally cool with the guest bedroom!”

“That’s what ah thought.” AJ snickered, and she walked out with Granny Smith to the porch where Big Mac was waiting. Left to my own devices in the living room, I figured I might as well put my feet up while I still could, and I settled down on the ridiculously soft upholstery of the couch, dumping my pack down on the floor next to me. Leaning my head back against the cushions, I’d decided to close my eyes just for a couple of seconds when a slight prod on my leg prompted me to open them again.

I looked down, and damn if I didn’t see the most adorable thing that came within inches of giving me a spontaneous heart attack. Applebloom was standing next to me, the filly’s wide, curious eyes looking up with dozens of unspoken questions floating around behind them, and she looked just about ready to unleash a veritable flood of queries.

“Um, ‘scuse me, mister?” Well, to her credit, she seemed to be starting it off fairly restrained, but if only because for all of her questions, she seemed to have no idea where to begin. “Are ya... Are ya the human that mah friends and ah ran into at the orchard?”

I saw no reason to try and bullshit the poor kid - she looked just about as earnestly curious as a puppy would be about anything. So I simply nodded, and replied, “Yeah, I am.”

“And Applejack says yer gonna be stayin’ with us for a while?” The filly sounded almost... hopeful. Just what was she thinking of anyway?

“Seems like it.” I shrugged. “At least, until we can figure out what the next step is. But I guess I’m going to be here for more than just a few days.”

“Oh,” Applebloom said, looking more weapons-grade adorable than she had any right to be. “Well, ah was just wonderin’... Ah mean, mah friends Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo didn’t really believe me when ah said it, but you really are a human, aren’t ya?”

“Last time I checked, I was,” I replied with a dry grin, trying to keep myself from snorting. God, that answer was something so was painfully obvious to myself that I couldn’t imagine giving any other kind, save for the sole purpose of messing with her head. Still, I didn’t troll people just for shit and giggles - most of the time, at least - so I decided to just answer her straight up. That, and I had to keep up the image that I was a complete newcomer here, so I decided to go through the motions of meeting someone I’d never seen in my life. “And you are...?”

“Mah name’s Applebloom!” The little filly answered enthusiastically, evidently warming up now that the conversation had gotten going. “What’s yours?”

“Joseph Ryan, but just call me Joe,” I replied, smiling to put her at ease more than anything else. “Most of my friends do, anyway.”

“All right, nice ta meetcha, Joe!” Applebloom beamed cheerfully, leaping up onto the couch to take a seat next to me. “Wow, it’s just... ah never thought ah’d meet a real, live human in mah lifetime before! ‘Fore this, mah sister always told me humans were supposed to be mythical creatures!”

“That so?” Ah, now I got it. If I was reading this right, I was in a situation where I was being faced with the pony equivalent of a little girl realizing that unicorns were real by straight up meeting one. Applebloom was definitely going to be in a positively gushing mood and be very ready to volunteer information, what with being faced with one of her childhood fantasies and all. “What do they say about us humans in the myths?”

“Well... ah actually never read much about ‘em...” Applebloom remarked sheepishly. “And Applejack never told me a lot about ‘em, so ah don’t think she knows either. Ah only know that ya’ll are supposed ta be really powerful and really rare, somethin’ that still roamed Equestria back when the world had just begun, alongside the Princesses!”

Ah ha! Fandom, eat your heart out! That’s one piece of headcanon I just knew was right! So apparently, humans were just as mythological to Equestrians as unicorns and pegasi were to us - God, I really should’ve seen this one coming. I tried to suppress the internal guffaws that threatened to claw their way out, and barely managed to keep a straight face. Luckily, the little filly was too busy gushing to notice the little slip of my facial expression, and she continued straight on as though nothing had happened. “Golly, but ah’ve got so many questions! Are ya really that powerful? Are the myths true? Didja really walk with the Princesses when the world started?”

“Ah see you and mah sister are gettin’ along just fine.” Applejack’s voice suddenly cut in from behind us, mercifully sparing me from answering an undoubtedly unending barrage of questions. No doubt she’d had to rein in her overenthusiastic little sister in dozens of similar occasions, but the grin in her voice told me that it wasn’t something she’d get tired of anytime soon. “Applebloom, don’t disturb him too much now! He’s a guest in our house, so treat ‘im with the respect you’d give ta me, Big Mac, or Granny. Now go outside, Mac needs some help with the wagon. Ah gotta get our friend here settled in.”

“Yes, Applejack,” Applebloom intoned reluctantly in something that hinted the reply was more automatic than anything else, and she hopped off the couch, turning to give me just one final glance. “It was nice talkin’ to ya, mister Joseph! Maybe one day ah’ll bring mah friends over, and you can meet the rest of the crusaders!”

I masterfully hid the wince that the thought brought, and I simply waved cheerfully as the young filly trotted off. Only when she was out of sight did I let the wince out, and Applejack visibly held back her laughter as she caught sight of my expression.

“Aw, c’mon, Joe, they ain’t so bad once ya get to know ‘em,” The farmfilly remarked as she walked up next to me. “Those three get up to all sorts’a wacky adventures all the time. If anythin’, you’ll never be bored with them around.”

“God spare me from that,” I sighed. As adorable as the crusaders were to watch, I was terrible in dealing with kids, and being drawn into their shenanigans was just about the last thing I wanted to do. “I’m just not good with kids.”

Applejack gave me a strange glance, and upon catching my expression she looked slightly sympathetic. “Ya don’t like kids?”

“I don’t dislike them, per se,” I answered. “I’m just not comfortable in dealing with them, that’s all. They can be quite a handful sometimes, and it’s really hard to communicate with someone who just isn’t quite thinking on the same level of experience and maturity as you are.”

The cowpony looked at me thoughtfully for a second, as though trying to puzzle something out. “Yer full’a surprises, aren’t ya, Joe? Ah never figured you’d be one to use words big as the ones that Twilight usually does. Dash wouldn’t hesitate ta call ya an egghead if she ever heard ya talkin’ like that.”

“Well, you learn something new every day,” I replied idly as I got to my feet, shouldering my pack. “So, where’s that guest bedroom you said I’d be staying in?”

“Right over here.” Applejack beckoned for me to follow her, and I walked after her as she led the way through the house. As we walked through the place, I realized just how freakin’ big their house was. I’d spent most of my childhood years growing up in a three-story bungalow, and the size of the Apple household easily gave my childhood home a run for its money. We passed by a few other rooms in the corridor on the way, and when Applejack opened up the door, I poked my head inside to see a room that was nearly twice the size of the bedroom in my apartment in America.

“Well, I’ll be.” I let out a long, appreciative whistle as I stepped inside the room, taking in the generously large full-sized bed, the large wardrobe dresser that stood in the corner, and the small dressing table to the side. Given how rarely I figured the guest room was actually used, the place seemed remarkably free of dust and cobwebs. “Yeah, this’ll do just fine indeed. Hey, does anyone else use this room regularly? This place seems rather well-kept.”

“Rainbow Dash actually comes over to crash every now and then... sometimes literally,” Applejack replied, eliciting a surprised arch of an eyebrow from me, and when she caught sight of my expression she began to explain. “Her trainin’ brings her flyin’ all over the place, and more often than not her stunt practice leads her to start usin’ our orchard as a makeshift obstacle course. Ah keep tellin’ her that it’s an accident just waitin’ ta happen, but the girl never listens. So, every time she bumps or scrapes against one of them trees at those speeds she usually goes at, poor girl ends up with one hay of a bruise on her wing. So we bring her in, fix her up good as new, and let her sleep it off for a while in the guest room.”

“Damn,” I winced. “How often does it happen?”

“Once every couple weeks, tops.” Applejack shrugged. “After the first couple times it happened, Mac figured we might as well keep the room ready at all times in case she has another ‘accident’.”

“Guess that just makes me lucky at her expense, then,” I not-quite chortled as I stepped inside to inspect the rest of the room. After looking around for a few seconds, I was satisfied with what I saw and nodded approvingly, setting my pack down next to the bed. “Okay, this will do nicely. So, what am I going to be spending my days doing here? I guess Twilight is looking into helping me find a way back, right?”

“Well, that’s what she said she’d do, so ah reckon that what she’ll be doin’.” Applejack shrugged as though that ended the discussion right there and then. “But then there’s the matter of what you will be doin’ while she’s workin’ on it.”

“Well, if you need me to help out on the farm to earn a keep here, I’m totally all right with that.” I decided to pre-empt her, and felt a surge of satisfaction as she gave me a surprised look, seemingly astonished that I’d said exactly what she was thinking. “What, you didn’t think I was some kind of freeloader, did you? Besides, if I spent my days here doing absolutely nothing constructive, I’d go nuts with boredom. Helping out with some grunt work is something I don’t mind doing at all.”

The farmer let out a sigh of relief, and she wiped at her brow. “Well, glad yer volunteerin’ then - spares me the trouble of havin’ ta convince you to do it. Ah was afraid ya weren’t gonna be agreeable to it, what with havin’ just gotten outta the hospital and all.”

“Yeah, well, I figure I’ve been sitting on my ass for a little too long already,” I remarked blithely. “Three days of doing nothing but lying in bed is more than enough to get me stir crazy; I can already feel my body telling me to get off my ass and get moving.”

My last sentence was colored with a liberal smattering of whimsical self-deprecation to ease the mood, and Applejack let out a little snicker. “Well, ah won’t bore ya with the details too soon then. Ah’ll give ya a day to get settled in, get yer bearings an’ all, but after that, yer gonna have to get to work along with the rest of us. Ah’ll tell ya what yer chores are gonna be tomorrow, sound good?”

“Never better.” I gave the mare a thumbs up, and she eyed the gesture oddly before giving me an amused look.

“All right then, ah’ll see ya tomorrow mornin’, Joe. Ah gotta head out to continue with the harvest, but ‘Bloom and Granny will still be around ta fix up lunch and dinner for ya.” Applejack turned to walk out, pausing only to give one last piece of advice. “Oh, and try to get an early night’s sleep, alright? Us Apples tend to get up at the crack of dawn around here, and ah wouldn’t want us to have ta drag ya outta bed to join the rest of us.”

“Reveille at 0500 hours, got it.” I grinned insouciantly as I called out after her, and only when she was well out of sight and earshot did I let my expression fall and the grin turn into a reluctant scowl.

Great, now I was starting to regret having volunteered my assistance so readily. I treasured whatever hours I got to spend snoozing it off, and if I’d known just what kind of schedule I was getting myself into, you could bet I would have been a lot less ready to speak up.

Geez, the only time I’d ever had to consistently wake at the crack of dawn every morning was when I’d been in the army - once I’d finished the obligatory two years of service, it had been right back to sleeping in until nine a.m., which was still kind of a luxurious hour to me. That extra four hours of shut-eye made an entire world of difference for me, and knowing that I was going to have to spend the next several weeks here dragging myself out of bed when the sun hadn’t even risen yet was more than enough to put a damper on my mood.

Of course, now that I had already volunteered my assistance, I very well couldn’t back out of it now without severely undermining my already positive standing with the rest of the Apples, Applejack in particular. The farmpony seemed to be the one amongst the six that I was getting along with the best right now, and gaining her trust would help me in making huge strides to earning the trust of the rest of them as well - Rainbow Dash in particular. That chromatic mare was going to be a problematic one, that was for sure, but if there was one thing I was pretty damned sure about, it was that if you made friends with one of them, you made friends with all of them. And the more friends I had around here, the greater my chances of survival were in case anything went pear-shaped.

“All right, suck it up, Joe. They’ve already been kind enough to let you stay here and provide food and shelter. The least you can do is pay them back for it,” I muttered truculently to myself, opening up my backpack and beginning to unpack my things. “Things could be much, much worse right now. At least nobody else apart from a few of them know you’re here, right? Just lie low for a while, and everything will eventually turn out just fine.”

At least, that was what I kept telling myself as I plugged in my earphones, humming to the tunes of Guns & Roses and AC/DC as I unpacked. But if I’d known just who my existence was about to be made known to, I can tell you, I’d have been feeling a lot less sanguine about my situation throughout the rest of the day.

---

The room was quiet, save for the quick, frantic scratching of a quill against parchment. Upon completion of its latest sentence, the quill raised itself from the paper, dipping itself in a nearby inkpot to renew itself, before it lowered itself to scribble upon the parchment once more, surrounded as it always was by a bright magenta glow.

Twilight Sparkle’s lips pursed thoughtfully as she read over her letter again, and she lowered the quill to the side, dipping it in a small pot of nearby water to wash off the excess ink before putting it aside. Her signature aura wrapped itself around the letter as it neatly rolled itself up into a scroll, and she tied it together fastidiously with a red string, placing her personal wax seal upon it to mark it as an urgent missive.

“Spike!” The young librarian called out, turning towards her door. “Spike, where are you? I need you to help me send a message to the Princess!”

The dragonling in question however was downstairs in the kitchen, still nursing his cup of morning coffee, and when he looked up from his breakfast at the table, his expression was truculent enough to have given pause to even the surliest griffon.

“For Celestia’s sake, it’s only eight in the morning!” Spike grumbled as he picked up the last of his gem-encrusted sandwich and stuffed it into his mouth, chewing with rather more force than was necessary as he washed it down with the last of his coffee, hopping off his chair to attend to his surrogate sister. “All right, all right, I’m coming already! Geez, couldn’t it have waited, like, another five minutes? I was in the middle of breakfast!”

“Sorry about that.” Twilight grinned sheepishly as Spike strode through the door dourly, already reaching a clawed hand out for the aforementioned scroll, and she levitated it into his waiting grip. “It’s just kind of urgent - I’ve only just managed to finish writing it, and the Princess needs to know about this as soon as possible.”

“Is this about that human thing you and Rainbow Dash found just outside the library?” Spike asked, and when Twilight nodded he could only sigh in resignation. “All right then, I’ll get right on it.”

The young dragon took in a deep breath, and when he blew it out it came in a small but steady stream of emerald-green fire that consumed the scroll, converting it into a wisp of similarly colored arcane energy that sent itself spiralling out the open window and into the sky beyond. Twilight watched the message as it departed, and Spike couldn’t help but notice the way she was nervously biting onto her lip.

“Err, Twilight?” He inquired concernedly. “You all right?”

“No... Not really, Spike,” The lavender-furred unicorn admitted after a beat, and she turned around to face her shelves, scanning the books that lay upon them. “Joseph is a mystery, there’s no doubt about that, but while I’m quite sure he’s harmless himself, I think his arrival here carries implications that we haven’t even thought to grasp yet. I’ve been scouring all the shelves for the past three days trying to find any material I can regarding humans, but all I’ve been able to come up with are vague references and half-completed tales! I just can’t shake the feeling that I’m missing something here... something really big.”

“His name is Joseph?” Spike asked incredulously, as though that was the only thing he managed to make sense out of from his adopted sister’s logorrhea. “Well, it certainly sounds like a weird one. So, what did you say was the problem again?”

Something twitched in Twilight’s eyebrow, but she masterfully controlled her reaction as she turned to face her assistant again. “I’m saying that I’ve reached my wits’ end trying to figure this out! I need the Princess’ help - only she would know what to do in this case now. Never mind the fact that I can barely even figure out what he is or where he came from, I can’t even begin to figure out how we’re going to help him find his way back!”

“... Oh.” Spike’s only reaction was to shrug. “So you are going to try to help him find a way back?”

“It’s the only logical course of action.” The young librarian sighed as she slumped down onto a nearby chair. “He’s an outsider here, and I’m quite sure he doesn’t want anything more than to return home either. I just don’t know how to do it on my own... which is why I’m asking the Princess for help.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Spike raised a questioning eyebrow. “I mean, judging from how little you’ve told me of this guy, I guess you’re trying to help him keep a low profile - is letting the Princess know about him going to help that?”

“She’ll definitely keep it a secret. She’d certainly understand the need for discretion... Especially when it concerns something as far-reaching as a creature arriving in our world from the Unknown Regions,” Twilight said gravely as she turned to look out the window again, as though it would speed the missive further on its way to Celestia. “The implications of this are something that will affect not just ponykind, but the other nations and races of Equus as well! I just can’t shake the feeling that something huge is about to go down; something big enough to shake the foundations of Equestria itself... and he’s only a tiny part of it.”

The look that Spike gave his surrogate sister suggested that he thought she’d been staying up one too many nights in a row and had acquired the accompanying crazy that came with severe sleep deprivation, but after a moment he decided to chalk it up to her characteristic nervousness regarding anything that was unknown to her. “Right... and what exactly gave you that idea?”

“Just... a hunch. It’s a gut feeling I have, I can’t particularly describe it,” Twilight shook her head cryptically. “But I just know it.”

“Uh... huh...” At this point Spike was starting to get the hint that there was something Twilight wasn’t telling him, and he looked at her thoughtfully. “You know... You seem to be remarkably calm about this, considering how you used to freak out over even the littlest things before, like those reports you had to send to the Princess ‘regularly’.”

The young scholar let out a giggle, and unexpectedly she suddenly drew her adopted little brother in for a hug. “That’s because I’ve got you to help me keep everything in check, number one assistant. That, and I learned my lesson from that incident with the Smarty Pants doll - I certainly don’t want to repeat that again.”

“Darn right you don’t.” Spike let out a laugh and a grudging grin as Twilight released him, his mind taken off the issue of what was bothering her - if she was still relaxed enough for insouciance, then she was certainly going to be fine. “I guess you finally learned to lighten up a bit, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess I have.” Twilight smiled, but to tell the truth, it was more of a mask than anything else. It took all of her willpower to keep the nagging doubt and nervousness that she was feeling from showing on her face as Spike walked out, and only when the door to her room closed again did she look back at the drawer in her desk, where the source of her anxiety lay.

It was the one thing she hadn’t told Spike about, and was exactly why she had gotten that premonition that Joseph wasn’t telling them everything, and something huge was about to go down. Magicking the drawer open and drawing the item out, she levitated it before her as she eyed it pensively, unable to quell the nagging sense of disquiet that worried at her the more she looked at it.

After all, just how could a creature, hailing from the Unknown Regions and never having been in Equestria before, much less know anything about it, have a metal chain in its possession that was carved in the exact same shape of her cutie mark?

The implications chilled her to the core, and she immediately shut away the pendant and all thought associated with it, all but shoving the drawer closed as she sought to quickly put it away.

Let the Princess look into it when she got here - Celestia would know what to do.

---

Dear Princess Celestia,

I don’t even know how to begin to describe this, but something very, very strange has just happened. I have tried to puzzle this out on my own, believe me, I have, but after I exhausted all my avenues of information, I felt the need to bring this to your attention. This is something the likes of which I have never encountered before.

You remember how I always used to have questions about the Unknown Regions, correct? How I always spent days and nights on end hunting through every book in the Royal Archives for any details about them that might have been documented?

I think you’d also remember how my searches would turn up absolutely nothing, and I would spend the following days bemoaning the fact to you over a glass of milkshake during the tea study breaks before I moved to Ponyville, but that’s besides the point. The point is, Princess, I think I’ve just encountered something from the Unknown Regions!

He, and I am quite positive that it’s a he, claims to be a human, and calls himself ‘Joseph’, his full name being ‘Joseph Ryan Ang’. The places that he said he was from, I have never heard of anything like their names before, and it led me to conclude that he does indeed hail from the lands beyond the regions that have been mapped on our world.

He seems to be relatively harmless so far though, and right now he’s staying with Applejack at Sweet Apple Acres while we try to figure out our next step in helping him find his way home. Everything that he’s shown us so far indicates that he is of no threat to us, and he wants nothing more than to return to his homeland, but I can’t just can’t shake the feeling that he’s hiding something from us.

It isn’t just an unfounded gut feeling I’m having - I found something that serves as evidence. He has a metal chain with a pendant that should be impossible for him to have, Princess. He’s from the Unknown Regions, and he claims to have no knowledge of Equestria, but the pendant on his chain is carved in the shape of the Element of Magic! My Cutie Mark! There is something that he isn’t telling us, and the implications of that chill me to the core.

We don’t know what’s out there in the Unknown Regions, Princess. There’s no way I can possibly verify whether or not whatever he’s telling us is true, and if it is, I scarcely dare think of what the implications might be.

I fear that something momentous is afoot, and Joseph is but a tiny part of things to come. Princess, I urge you to come to Ponyville at the soonest opportunity to see this for yourself, or at the very least, to send someone in your stead. I feel that this is something you are going to have to see with your own eyes.

Your faithful student,

Twilight Sparkle

---

Celestia’s eyes narrowed as she took in the last of the letter, and she set it aside on the table next to her as her expression set itself into a grim, stony mask. The diarch’s horn sparked, and in a flash of golden energy she disappeared from her chambers, reappearing a split-second later in an entirely separate tower, the room around her decorated in swathes of midnight blue and dark purple, a stark contrast to the whites and sky blues that her own chamber’s decor consisted of.

Not wasting a moment, the alicorn princess of the sun strode towards the humongous king-sized bed that lay in the centre of the room, and gently nudged the pony-shaped mound that lay underneath the sheets.

“Hmm? Who’s ther- … ‘Tia?” A muffled, confused voice answered from beneath the satin sheets as it stirred, and after a moment a head of midnight blue fur and an ethereal mane dotted with floating stars emerged, her mane dishevelled as she let out a yawn. “Is something the matter? I have only retired just mere hours ago, the night before was most exhausting...”

“Rise, my sister,” Celestia spoke softly but seriously. “Dire portents are afoot. I have received word most unexpected from my student, and I need you by my side.”

“Twilight Sparkle?” Luna’s enunciation became clearer as she blinked the remnants of sleep out of her system, and she slid out of her bed effortlessly, slipping smoothly into the role of the second diarch of Equestria, the princess of the moon. “You received dire portents from her? What foulness is afoot now? Has there been word of a disaster of some sort?”

“No... Not news of that sort.” The sun princess shook her head, and in a tiny flash of gold the letter from Twilight that she had set aside earlier appeared floating in the air next to her, levitating towards Luna. “Read this, and you will understand.”

Her brow furrowing in confusion, Luna nevertheless reached out to take the letter and unfurled it, her eyes rapidly moving left to right as she scanned the contents of the scroll. By the time she reached the end her eyes were nearly as wide as the namesake moon that she bore upon her cutie mark, and she looked at Celestia with a stupefied expression.

“‘Tis true, then?” The lunar diarch’s voice was but a mere whisper, slipping slightly into her old ways of speaking ancient Equestrian as shock colored her voice. “Hast he returned?”

“I do not know, sister.” Celestia shook her head again. “We both knew how unlikely that would be, when we left the Old World behind in the Unknown Regions. But it is possible that some form of his legacy came to live on when we left. If this Joseph truly does hail from the Unknown Regions, perhaps he might have answers as to what happened to our erstwhile protector.”

“I see...” Luna pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Should we prepare the Ardent Dawn to receive him, then?”

“No, it is still too soon. We still don’t know enough about him, and he is too much of an unknown quantity. He needs to be... evaluated.”

Luna took one look at her sister’s face, and she immediately took a step back. “‘Tia... I do not like the expression ‘pon your countenance. You are thinking of going down to take a look for yourself and then bringing the human back to Canterlot, aren’t you?”

“I know that you disagree with such a course of action, Luna.” Celestia sighed. Her sister always had been of the opinion that they, the ruling diarchs of the Principality of Equestria, were not meant to appear in public unless it was for nothing less than a significant event such as a festival, accompanied by the obligatory full-blown public ceremony - any other time of theirs had to be devoted to staying in the castle, overseeing the matters of state. “But this matter is much too urgent for me to delegate this task to somepony else. I must oversee this personally.”

“If you must, then at least promise me that you will keep a low profile.” Luna said pleadingly, stepping forward to nuzzle her sister briefly. “The populace would certainly be disquieted if rumors were to spread that you made a public appearance somewhere to make contact with a strange creature they have never seen in their lives.”

“I will, so far as I am able to.” Celestia smiled as she returned the nuzzle. “If he has drawn some attention of his own to himself, no low profile I keep is going to help him much. If the occasion calls for me to put to use the authority of my office, then I shall. But for now, I will need your assistance for the next several days - I need to retreat into my scrying chambers to observe this human and his tendencies first, before I approach him.”

“Do what you have to do, my sister.” Luna nodded. “And may Faust watch over you. I shall hold the Day Court in your absence.”

“My thanks, Luna. I will need all the time you can buy me,” Celestia thanked her, and in a flash of golden light she vanished, reappearing inside her own chambers a moment later.

The celestial diarch let out a small, pensive breath as she raised the letter before her again, and she began reading over it once more - in particular, the paragraph where Twilight had written down the human’s identity.

“It has been at least two thousand years since we last saw you,” Celestia murmured softly to herself, lost in thought. “And now, your kind returns to haunt us again. Twilight is more right than she realizes... Nothing small can possibly come from the presence of a seed of chaos.”

I Didn't Choose The Farm Life...

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Chapter 6: I Didn’t Choose The Farm Life...

If there’s one thing I never thought I’d actually get to spend my days doing, it’s working on an honest-to-God farm. I was pretty much born in the city, and had lived the city life pretty much every day of my life right up until today. The closest I’d ever gotten to roughing it out in the country was every single outfield exercise I’d ever gone for during my two years in the army, but I sure as hell didn’t consider that a lifestyle choice.

But these past several days I’d spent at Sweet Apple Acres… I have to say that they really opened my eyes to what it was like in the country life.

You know, for once, I can actually see why people would want to live like this. Life was simple, routine, free of the hustle and bustle of city life. It was quiet, tranquil, and despite how hard the daily work was, I couldn't have possibly asked for anything simpler.

Well, at least… barring the regularity of having to get up at ungodly hours in the morning.

“Joe?” *knock knock knock* “Hey Joe, drag yerself outta bed already, it’s almost six!”

For fuck’s sake, the sun hasn’t even risen yet!

Groaning as I rubbed the remnants of sleep out of my face, I fumbled my way out of the sheets and stumbled towards the door, groping blindly for the knob for a couple of seconds before I managed to pull it open, and got rewarded with the sight of Applejack looking up at me expectantly.

“Missed yer alarm again?”

“Slept right through it,” I croaked hoarsely as I yawned and cleared my throat, trying to sound less like I’d just crawled out of a grave. “Sorry ‘bout that AJ, I’ll go get ready now.”

The blonde earth pony simply gave me a wry smile, and she looked at me patiently. “Still not gettin’ used to risin’ at the crack of dawn every morning?”

“Takes a while to get back into the swing of things,” I grunted in assent as I turned away, eyes blearily roaming around in search of the dresser while I shambled back into the room. “I used to do this regularly, but it was years ago and my body clock hasn’t quite adjusted back to it yet.”

“Well, don’t keep us waitin’, eh?” Applejack remarked as she began walking off. “Mac’s already got the wagon and baskets prepped - we’ll be haulin’ in the rest of the harvest today, same as yesterday.”

“Be there in a few minutes,” I called out after her, pulling the dresser open and picking out one of the few t-shirts I’d brought out with me at random. I had at least three sets of spare clothing with me, barring the one scratched and torn set that I’d worn throughout my little stint in the Everfree The plain white muscle tee went over my head as I tossed the grey tank top I was wearing into the waiting laundry basket (hardly a surprise the Apples had one - they may not wear a lot of clothes, but bedsheets and pillowcases are still things that need washing), and I traded the shorts I was wearing for another set of black hiking fatigues before stepping into the bathroom.

I fumbled a little bit more with the faucet, twisting it open, and once I got it running I immediately took a handful of water and splashed it over my face. The ice-cold shock did wonders in kickstarting my lagging system into work, and I took some time to scrub the rest of the sleep out of my face and eyes, grabbing a nearby towel to dry myself off. As I did so, I thought briefly about the past several days I’d spent on the farm, and figured that apart from the ungodly hours in the mornings, things probably weren’t that bad after all.

I wasn’t exactly in terrible shape - I might have been the short and skinny type, but I did my fair share of working out at the gym and went for regular (if short) runs to maintain my improvements to what would normally be incredibly shoddy stamina. Two years in the army had rendered me no stranger to grunt work, and I took the several consecutive days of shifting hay bales around the barn and lugging baskets of apples from the wagons AJ and Mac brought in from the orchard into storage right in stride.

Don’t get me wrong, the chores were all strenuous as hell, and my muscles would be screaming at the end of each day, but I gotta tell ya, the absolutely mouth-watering dinners that Granny Smith would prepare for us every sunset made every hour of back-breaking work worth it.

I swear, I had no idea a diet could consist of nothing but vegetables, fruits, and baked apple pastries and still be so gorramned delicious. I was never going to look at apple pies and apple fritters the same way ever again.

Well, that was basically how the past few days had gone down for me, and it was already day four right now. But even as I pulled my scratched and worn hiking gloves on, trudged through the kitchen, grabbed an apple for breakfast on the way out and stepped out the door to meet AJ and Mac on the porch, I still found myself not being any more of a morning person than I had been for the past three sunrises.

Hell, I squinted up at a sky that was still dark, the barest beginnings of the sunrise beginning to peek over the horizon in the form of faint pinkish rays, and the only thing I could think of at the moment was what the hell am I doing up at this hour?

“Joe! Over here!”

Ah, right. That.

I turned to where Applejack was calling me, and saw her waving at me next to Big Mac, the hefty stallion already having hitched the wagon to his yoke and preparing to haul it off to the apple orchards. Rolling my neck around to get the last few kinks out of it, I bit into the apple in my hand again and walked off to join them in the morning chores.

The next several hours were spent doing exactly what we’d spent the past three days doing, and day four on the farm looked to be shaping up to be no different. As I followed Mac and AJ out into the fields, we would place the empty baskets from the wagon around the apple trees, and the orange cowpony would start bucking trees left and right, a majority of the apples falling neatly into the baskets while I picked up the stragglers and tossed them in. Mac would save his energy for the actual lugging around of the cart, so when it came to shifting the filled-up apple baskets back onto the wagon, the onerous task would fall to me and Applejack… but mostly me.

I thought I knew the meaning of back-breaking work right up until my first hour of apple basket lifting, and that was when I learned an all new definition to the term ‘back pains’. Still, I wasn’t anything if not fast at adapting, and soon enough I was lugging apple baskets just about as quickly as Applejack was when my out-of-practice muscles finally kicked into gear. Toss apple stragglers into baskets, lug baskets onto wagon, move on to the next batch of trees, position new empty baskets, rinse, lather, repeat.

The hours blurred past us, and I didn’t realize the sun was directly above us in its noontime position until I noticed that I was sweating buckets, and my stomach was starting to rumble something fierce. I whistled to Mac, miming taking a drink from a bottle as I did so, and the crimson stallion nodded once before reaching into his saddlebag. With a deft flick of his neck he pulled something out, and tossed me a glass bottle filled with a clear, yellow liquid that I caught out of the air.

A simple twist of my gloved hand got the bottlecap off, and I drank deeply from the bottle of the Apple family’s godlike apple juice. I’m not kidding - I’ve never tasted anything as sweet or as revitalizing as this back home. AJ’s apple juice was like the nectar of the freakin’ gods.

… Okay, that phrase sounded a lot less erotic in my head.

Despite the painful mental wince I made at such an uncouth allusion, I let out a long, satisfied burp as I finished chugging down almost half the bottle straight, and a short giggle that was abruptly cut off with a snort came from behind me. I turned around, and saw Applejack looking at me with an unabashed grin on her face. “That good, huh?”

“Best I’ve ever had.” I raised the bottle in cheers towards her, and took another generous swig. “I don’t know how you guys keep this chilled so well, but this is some divine stuff right here.”

“Well, you’ll get more of it back at the farmhouse, don’t worry,” Applejack chuckled. “But we’ve gotta finish up here first ‘fore we take a break fer lunch. Mac, reckon we’d be done soon enough?”

“Eeyup.”

That was all the answer we were going to get out of the big stallion, so after a moment I shrugged and finished off the rest of the bottle before capping it again and handing it back to Mac. He accepted the bottle without a word and placed it back inside the saddlebag, and we finished filling up the last few empty baskets we had left on the wagon before wrapping up and heading back to the farmhouse.

By the time we were back my stomach was growling like a beast out of the depths of hell itself, and I desperately tried to look innocent as Applejack gave me knowing looks out of the corner of her eye every time my belly rumbled. Mac, as usual, took everything as phlegmatically as he always did, and there wasn’t even a minute shift in his stoic exterior as he pretty much ignored my rumbling stomach, wordlessly bringing the wagon straight to the storage shed. Applejack gestured for me to follow her back into the farmhouse, and I gratefully followed, relieved simply to get out from underneath the sun and to some food into my stomach.

What I wasn't expecting to see when I walked through the doorway was a lavender mare to be sitting on the living room couch, her snout buried in a book that had probably come from the saddlebag she wore, and judging from Applejack's reaction, she was just as surprised as I was to see her.

"Twi'?" The farm pony's eyes widened in surprise. "Nopony told me you'd be swingin' by today. What brings ya over?"

"Huh?" Twilight's head jerked up from the book as though she'd just remembered where she was, and she looked over to us, lowering the reading glasses that she wore (which looked positively adorable on her by the way, but really, reading glasses? Maybe there was more to this world than what I'd seen in the show). "Oh, Applejack! Yeah, sorry about popping over unannounced, but I needed to speak to Joseph about something."

My ears perked up at that, and my eyes immediately zeroed in on her. "Is it about getting me home?"

Twilight looked mildly uneasy at that, and she fidgeted about uncomfortably. "Yeah, about that... Sorry, but I haven't really made much progress over the past few days. There's just so little information for me to go on - I was hoping that you could answer a few questions for me so that I'd know where to look better."

Something at the back of my brain started whispering to me about how odd it was that she was asking these questions only now rather than when I'd first taken up residence on the farm. Twilight was smarter than to go down on a wild information goose chase unprepared, so just what had she spent the past few days doing, if she had been 'looking for a way to send me back' like she professed?

And why would she be fidgeting uncomfortably discussing the subject anyway?

Maybe because she's hiding something. The more paranoid side of me whispered, but I viciously cast the thought aside - this was Twilight Sparkle we were talking about here! You didn't get much more Lawful Good than her unless you were Superman or Captain America or something! Besides, it wasn’t as though I could say that I wasn’t keeping secrets of my own, right? Like I was in a position to throw stones.

"Well, if you think it'll help." I shrugged, pushing my doubts aside. "I'll take whatever I can get at this point." You don't think she's gone to Princess Celestia about this, do you? Oh, shut the fuck up, brain.

“Well, he’s all yours, but don’t take too long with ‘im; we still need him for the afternoon chores,” Applejack said with a grin as she walked off to the kitchen, no doubt to grab lunch for us.

Twilight looked at me as the farmpony left the room, and the nagging sense of paranoia in the back of my head only got more intense when she said, “Joseph, do you mind if we speak in private?”

“Uhh, sure thing, I guess.” I ignored the nagging feeling and walked off to the guest bedroom I’d taken up residence in, Twilight following close behind me.

“So, how’s the past few days at Sweet Apple Acres been?” The lavender mare asked in an evident effort to make small talk.

“Pretty simple, even if the work’s a little hard. Still, it’s nothing I can’t handle,” I replied as I grabbed a towel from the dresser to wipe off the worst of the sweat and the grime, and I plopped myself down on a nearby chair. “So what was it you wanted to ask me?”

“Oh, right! Well, you see, I was looking over my books, trying to find material regarding humans so I would know more about you and where I should start looking, but most of the references are really obscure and lacking in details.” Twilight looked mildly flustered as she spoke, as though embarrassed that she’d actually been unable to find something in her books for once. “I’m not quite sure if I’m looking in the right places, so if you could give me some more information about your background and the place you came from, it would really help.”

Even as she spoke, her saddlebag lit up in her distinctive magenta aura, and after a moment a pencil and notepad came floating out. Twilight gave me an eager, enthusiastic look, and I found myself getting the feeling that this was going to be a really long interview. “So, shall we get started?”

---

I think we must’ve spent the next several hours just sitting there, with Twilight spouting off question after question regarding my background, my home... hell, pretty much my entire damn life story. I told her whatever the pertinent details were - my age, what the country I was born in was like, what kind of schooling I’d gone through in my youth, but I veered away from answering in detail whatever questions there were about my personal life; namely those about my family. As far away from home as I was, I didn’t want to dwell too much on it - the less energy I spent needlessly worrying about something I couldn’t do anything about myself, the better.

Twilight also had an endless amount of enquiries about humanity and our civilisation in general, but I avoided answering those questions in detail like the plague - I sure as hell didn’t have the energy to answer questions as complex and all-encompassing as that. Applejack came in with lunch about half an hour into the interview, chuckling to herself about how Twilight was getting carried away before letting me know that she had the rest of the day’s chores covered, so I could take my time with Twilight.

While the whole interview thing was going down, I found myself with my first chance to observe the lavender filly up close and personal, and it was for the first time since meeting her did I realize one very important fact - she didn’t have wings. The Twilight Sparkle sitting before me was still just a unicorn, and that alone was a pretty good indication of when I was in Equestria.

“So, let me try and sum this up,” Twilight said as she tapped the back tip of her pencil against her lip thoughtfully, an oddly human gesture. “You’re saying that you’re just a regular person born in a moderately well-known city in your civilisation: Singapore, as you called it, before moving to another nation that your species calls ‘the United States of America’, and you’re considered a young adult where you came from. You’re an only child, but you have a handful of close friends that you keep in touch with, am I right?"

“Mhmm.” I nodded, taking another sip from the bottle of apple cider Applejack had brought in with lunch. A salad, some tofu, a side of cashew nuts and a slice of apple pie were hardly what I’d consider satisfying after going so long without having some meat, but as long as it was food going into my belly, I could hardly complain.

“And you spent a couple of years drafted into your country’s military, the Singapore Armed Forces as you called it, as an officer, but it didn’t really stick to your lifestyle, correct?”

“That’s pretty much it.” I shrugged. “I couldn’t stand taking orders from the top and being expected to follow them blindly, so I decided to strike out on my own first chance I got. They don’t have conscription over here?”

“No, we don’t.” Twilight gave me a bemused smile. “The Royal Guard is an all-volunteer unit, and their training is really rigorous, so only the best of the best can join them. It helps that everypony who signs up to join has made the choice to commit their lives to that path - otherwise, I think the dropout rate would be a lot higher than it is right now!”

“Kind of figures…” I muttered darkly. “Doesn’t really help that more than half the regulars in my country’s army signed on only because of the pay…”

The unicorn cocked her head curiously at me. “What do you mean by that?”

I opened my mouth right there and then, almost ready to launch into a tirade about how money was the motivation for pretty much everything back in the country I was born in until the government had to go to the lengths of dangling inordinate amounts of money in front of its citizens in order to convince them to sign up for the armed forces, but I bit it off at the last second. I didn’t want to sound bitter or anything, and it was also more than likely it was just my leftover biases against my two years of national service speaking out here. No need to pile all of that negative energy right onto Twilight.

“... Nah, it’s nothing.” I waved it off, eager to change the topic. “Forget I said anything.”

The lavender unicorn looked at me oddly, but didn’t pursue the subject. “Okay then… So what did you spend your years doing after you finished your stint in the army?”

“Not much, actually.” I shrugged nonchalantly. “It’s only been two years since I finished my service. I was still unemployed at the time, so I moved to the States hoping to find an education in the arts and getting a job somewhere that involved designing stuff."

"Oh, so you were some sort of aspiring artist, then?"

“In a manner of speaking,” I said with a grin, doubting that she’d understand what I meant if I said that the design part mostly had to do with designing video games - a career path that pretty much embodied my childhood hobby of gaming. "Like I said, the army just wasn't for me. I might be a military enthusiast, but I'm an arts person to the core. I couldn't live the lifestyle of a military guy even if my life depended on it."

"Sounds like you'll get along just fine with Rarity as a fellow designer, then," Twilight chuckled, levitating the daffodil sandwich she'd packed for lunch to her mouth to take another bite out of it. "She's a dress designer, and she's one of the best that I've ever seen. Some of her designs have even made it to be featured in Canterlot's top fashion brands!"

Ew dresses. Don’t get me wrong, I can appreciate a beautiful woman in an evening gown at any time, but appreciating a dress required a woman to be filling it out first before I could start appreciating said dress on my part. Dress designing sans said woman still sounded too girly for something I wanted to be associated with myself, and I still had my male pride. Still, I stoically kept the grimace from showing on my face with a forced smile, and shrugged.

“She sounds like a great lady - I wouldn’t mind getting to know her.” Well, barring the fact that I already knew pretty much everything important there was to know about all of them, but I wasn’t about to say that.

“I’ll see if I can arrange a meeting between the rest of us again sometime soon.” Twilight’s eyes twinkled as she smiled, and I have absolutely no idea how I managed to notice that but something about the way she was looking at me reminded of how Dumbledore’s eyes were described to twinkle in the Harry Potter books whenever he was hinting at something he knew that Harry didn’t. Suddenly, I felt very much like the aforementioned teenage wizard at the moment. “In the meantime, I think that’s all I need from you right now. Thank you so much for your time, Joseph, this information is going to be a great help in finding out more about where you came from - we should be able to start helping you get back in a few more days!”

“Not a problem,” I replied distractedly, still being bothered by the nagging sensation that there was something I was missing here, and Twilight wasn’t telling me everything. Nevertheless, I still got up from my chair to shake Twilight's hoof as she packed her saddlebags, readying herself to depart. "So you'll let me know once you've found a lead on getting me home, right?"

“Of course!” Twilight answered a tad too quickly for my liking, and my suspicion only grew. “Don’t worry too much about it, once I’ve got something you’ll be the first to know.”

The purple mare left the room as I took a glance at the clock, and noted with mild surprise that it was already four in the afternoon. I heard Twilight bidding goodbye to Applejack before there was the distinctive swing of the main door opening and closing, and when I stepped out of the guest bedroom, I saw the orange cowpony already waiting for me in the corridor, eyeing me with a sardonic grin.

“So, ah see Twilight seems ta have taken an interest in ya.” The cowpony remarked idly, leaning casually against the wall. “Ah haven’t seen that girl that curious about someone since the first time she saw Zecora come into town.”

It took nearly all my willpower not to casually remark on having seen that before, and I merely arched an innocent eyebrow in response. Thankfully my poker face seemed to have been sufficient, because Applejack simply shrugged and turned around. “Well, Mac and I have finished up most of today’s harvest, and we can wrap the rest up ourselves over the next couple of hours. Take the rest of the day off till dinner, Joe - ah think you’ve earned it.”

I blinked - well, that was unexpected. “Uhh, thanks, I guess?” I called out after her, and once she was out of sight I retreated back into the guest bedroom, flopping down onto the bed and sighing as my aching muscles cried out in relief. My hand reached out to grab my iPhone where I’d left it on the bedside table, and I started scrolling idly through the screens.

Something curious I’d noticed about it was how ever since I’d come to Equestria, the phone never seemed to run out of battery. In fact, it seemed to be in a perpetually charging state, always maintaining itself at a hundred percent charge no matter what I did with it and how many apps or videos I was running at the same time. I didn’t exactly understand why it was so, but then again I was in a land of talking magical ponies - a perpetually charging phone was the least of all the supposedly fantastical things I’ve seen so far.

I wasn’t about to question it either, so what I did was to instead take full advantage of the fact, and I spent the next couple of hours lounging on the bed with my earphones plugged in as I fired up my video player and started rewatching several episodes of Attack on Titan.

A couple of hours later, I’d just about reached the part where Mikasa had been cornered on both sides by the two titans, the mortal enemies of mankind in the series, and this was where watching this particular episode became very satisfying for me. As I watched, the stoic young woman on the screen let out a stirring battle cry in what would have certainly seemed like a final blaze of glory as she prepared to charge… right before the foot of the titan behind her crashed into the ground right at her feet, tossing her into the air.

And then it proceeded to completely ignore her as it continued on to deliberately smash its fist right into the face of the other titan, punching it right in the kisser and sending it’s entire head flying.

“What the hay!? Ah thought titans were the enemy!?”

I jerked violently in place as the iPhone nearly went flying out of my hands, and I snapped my head around with a surprised yelp to see Applebloom staring at me over my shoulder with an incredulous expression on her face.

“JESUS CHRIST HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN STANDING THERE!!?” I nearly screamed as I tried to calm myself down. I’ve never been one to deal with sudden shocks well, and I usually went with one of two reactions: either I completely go stock, stone-still, completely freezing up while I tried to think of how I was supposed to react, or I would jerk violently into motion and start freaking the fuck out.

In this case, it was pretty much the latter.

“Ah’ve been here since ya started watching those moving pictures on that doohickey of yours!” Applebloom protested with a pout. “Ah couldn’t hear anything cos of those thingies ya got plugged into yer ears, but ah can read just fine! Them words on that there screen told me everythin’ ah needed ta know about what was goin’ on. Ah kinda figured the story out as you were watchin’, but there’s still one thing ah don’t get, Joe: what’re Titans?”

Emperor preserve me. I briefly considered telling her about the series, and had, for just one horrifying moment, a vision of three hyperactive fillies jumping in the air screaming ‘CUTIE MARK CRUSADER TITAN SLAYERS YAY!!!’

“Applebloom,” I began firmly but gently, trying to slowly guide her away from the idea that what she had just seen on screen was another chance at getting her cutie mark. “Titans are completely fictional creatures to my kind, and what you just saw was essentially a… recorded play, if you could call it that. It’s a work of fiction back where I come from, and basically it can’t be done in real life. There’s never been a cutie mark for titan slaying, after all.”

“Oh… Ah see...” The little filly’s ears drooped noticeably at the mention of the lack of a cutie mark, but she continued looking at me curiously regardless. “So, the whole thing you were watching, it’s kinda like a story, then?”

“Pretty much.” I nodded. “Still, just because it didn’t actually happen doesn’t make it any less awesome to watch, though.”

Applebloom nodded, her expression one of dawning comprehension. “Yeah, kinda like those Daring Do books Rainbow Dash is always reading!”

“Exactly like that.” I nodded, and the filly’s expression brightened considerably.

“That’s so cool!” Applebloom gushed. “Are there any more stories like this back from where you came from?”

“More than I can count.” I grinned. “I only know just handful, but-”

“Hey Joe! Applebloom! Dinner’s ready, come on out here!” Applejack’s voice called out from outside.

“Comin’!” Applebloom shouted right back, abruptly jumping off the bed and cantering out of the room. “C’mon, Joe! Granny Smith’s makin’ us apple fritters tonight! You can tell us more stories from your home at dinner!”

My rumbling stomach was all the motivation I needed to haul myself off the bed and onto my feet. Apple fritters sounded like a positively heavenly prospect right now, and even if I was going to be eating vegetarian sandwiches and salads, the baked apple goods made it all worthwhile.

---

Ten minutes later, I was at the dinner table alongside the rest of the Apples, with Applebloom and Applejack roaring with laughter as I continued on through my recount of what I remembered as hands-down the funniest scene ever in Bruce Almighty, barely keeping my laughter in check myself. “So Bruce is basically screwing around with Evan while he’s in the middle of a live broadcast - everyone in that city can see what’s going on. And he’s using his powers as God to edit the script on the fly, so essentially you have a pretty much standard news script suddenly being changed into “The prime minister of Sweden visited Washington today, while my tiny little nipples went to France.”

Applejack burst out into a fresh series of guffaws as Applebloom nearly fell off her seat shrieking with laughter, and even Mac and Granny Smith were grinning. “And the best part is, those exact words are showing up on the prompter.” I continued with a mad grin on my face, going on with the re-enactment. “The White House reception committee greeted the Prime Rib Roast Minister and I do the cha cha like a sissy girl.”

By this point, Applejack was pounding the table with a hoof as she practically howled, and Mac actually snorted into his salad.

“So imagine the guy in charge of producing the entire thing looking over his script, and then realizing that the whole thing has just edited itself right in front of his face.” I adopted my best ‘dafuq?’ expression, and this time Applebloom really did fall off her seat. “And imagine what Bruce makes him do next?”

“Ah can’t… Oh stars ah can’t breathe…” Applejack wheezed, still cackling wildly. “And what… what did he make Evan do next?”

I cleared my throat, made a few sounds, and then proceeded on to recite the most hilariously nonsensical bout of gibberish I had ever taken the time to sadly memorize (seriously, I have no idea how Steve Carell does it). By the end of the entire thing the two youngest siblings of the Apple family were rolling about on the floor in stitches, and even Mac was sniggering. Granny Smith was giving me a vaguely disapproving look, probably at the brand of the humor, but there was no denying the smile she had on her face looking at her grandkids having so much fun.

“Oh, geez.” Applejack climbed back onto her seat with visible effort, still in a fit of giggles. “Oh, my sides… Joe, you are one hay of a riot, ah’ll give ya that. Between this and the work you’re helpin’ us get done on the farm, ya just might become an honorary Apple family member. It’s a real shame Twi’s gonna have ta send ya back in a few days.”

My expression froze at her words, and I tried my best not to let anything show outwardly as I nervously laughed it off. It was obvious that she was just joking about the family member part, but I nevertheless couldn’t suppress the cold shiver that slithered up my spine.

The mere mention of family reminded me of exactly why I had to get back home as soon as possible - Mom, Dad, and my friends were probably worried sick about not having heard from me by now, having been missing from my hiking trip for days. That, and becoming an honorary Apple family member pretty much meant that I could then become obliged to stay in Equestria - as much as I loved it here, I sure as hell didn’t want to spent the rest of my life in a world of technicolour ponies when I had my own family waiting for me back home.

“Well, I’m pretty sure we can figure out some way to keep in touch,” I replied in a rather half-hearted platitude - I wasn’t even sure how cross-world communication could be managed, even if Twilight probably had some magic spell that could do just that. I certainly didn’t. Still, Applejack seemed satisfied with my answer, and dinner continued on with me regaling them with more ‘outlandish tales from my land’, which was basically me retelling them the plots of the various comedy, science fiction and fantasy movies that I’ve watched over the years.

What they didn’t know was that I’d actually spent the rest of the entire night hiding my thoughts behind a dissembled mask of joviality. While I busied myself with telling jokes and recounting stories, I desperately tried not to think about the possibility that I might be stuck here for good, and by the time we had all retired to our rooms for the night, the mask fell and the sombreness took over.

As I gazed up at the moon through the window, I couldn’t help but wonder if Twilight really was making progress in finding me a way back. The feelings of suspicion I’d experienced during that little ‘interview’ I’d had with her certainly didn’t help her case much either. More than anything, I just wanted to go home, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of foreboding that things weren’t going to be that simple.

“Y’know, Princess Luna…” I muttered up at the moon I was staring at whimsically, sighing. “I don’t know if you’re listening or anything, or if you even know I’m here. But if you are… I’d really appreciate it if you and your sister could do something about getting me back. Not that I wanna rush you or anything but, uhh… Yeah.” I finished lamely, rubbing the back of my head.

I wasn’t even really expecting a reply, honestly - I was just rambling introspectively to myself at that point. As I turned over on my bed and pulled the covers over myself, I shut out all thoughts regarding home and how I was going to return, simply concentrating on getting some rest for the next day ahead.

And I had absolutely no way of knowing it at the time, but as it turned out, somebody was listening.

---

Day Five on the farm now. The next morning, I was in the midst of taking a short break when I caught sight of my first pony outside of the Apple family in days. I was sitting on the porch with a bottle of apple juice in hand when I saw a tiny little blip of grey approaching the fence gate where the mailbox was. As the little blip got closer I noticed the little dash of golden-blonde that decorated the top of its head, and I froze for a second.

On the one hand, I was technically supposed to be keeping a low profile, and as few ponies as possible were supposed to even catch sight of me - the less mouths there were to spread around rumors, the better.

But on the other hand, HOLY CRAP IT’S DERPY!!!

While I sat there for several moments, caught in a bout of indecision, the grey-and-blonde blip resolved itself into the tiny but visible outline of a pegasus, and it approached the mailbox, opening it up to evidently deliver the letters for the day. I saw its head tilt in my direction, and I could just imagine the curiosity behind the gesture before it raised a foreleg at me, waving back and forth.

Completely nonplussed at the completely normal and shockingly human gesture, I numbly waved back before my brain had even processed the fact, and only after she had left did I realize what had just happened.

Derpy had just waved hi to me.

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE- *ahem*.

I made several furtive glances around, and thankfully, nobody had been around to witness my little squee-ing fit. Now that I thought about it, it seemed a little odd that a pony outside of the mane six had caught sight of me, and not freaked the fuck out.

… Huh. Did that mean that Twilight had already succeeded in easing in my introduction to the rest of Ponyville?

The thought stayed with me even until hours later, while I was busy loading up the apple wagon again with Big Mac and Applejack. I must have been showing at least some of my pensiveness on my face, because Applejack eyed me curiously for a couple of seconds before speaking up. “Hey, Joe. You feelin’ all right there? Yer lookin’ mighty distracted - bit fer yer thoughts?”

“Huh?” I blinked, looking at Applejack as though I’d just remembered she was there. “Oh, just thinking about how I spotted Derpy at the mailbox today. She waved at me before heading off - has Twilight eased my introduction in to the town already?”

Applejack gave me a very odd look, and she set down the basket of apples that she had been carrying. “Derpy? You mean Ditzy Doo, right? How do you know her? Ah don’t remember ever tellin’ you about her, or her nickname.”

I froze for a millisecond as I realized what I had just said, and then my brain started racing for an explanation. Oh crap, how could I forget about the fact that I was supposed to not know a majority of the townsfolk here when I was a newcomer!?

“Well, uh, Twilight told me about her when she came over,” I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. Applejack hadn’t been around when Twilight and I had spent hours just going over my background, there was no way she could possibly know what we had actually discussed. “She told me she was gonna start slowly introducing me to the town soon, so she thought I should know who’s who first.”

Applejack’s raised eyebrow didn’t lower itself, but she seemed to take my lie at face value as she shrugged. I got the feeling that she didn’t fully believe me, but she didn’t pursue the subject, and that was all I needed. The next few hours passed by in the silence that normally accompanied intense work, and the sun was high over us at noontime when I felt the inexplicable sensation of someone’s eyes on me.

I looked around for Big Mac and Applejack, but the both of them were faced away from me, busy with their respective duties. That bugging sensation still refused to go away however, and in a flash of insight I finally deigned to look upwards.

There was only a single lone cloud up in the sky, and where else could it have possibly been but right above us? Because over the edge of the cloud I could see a flash of rainbow topping a cyan-blue head, and a pair of rose-colored eyes watched me from on high with no small amount of hostility evident within them.

“Uh, Applejack?” The orange mare looked over to me, and I pointed upwards at the cloud. “Is that normal?”

“Huh?” Applejack gave me a nonplussed look, and only when she looked upwards did her eyes widen in understanding. “Oh, right. Don’t mind Rainbow Dash, she does this to everypony new she meets that she doesn’t trust. Hay, if ah remember correctly, she thought Twilight was a spy that time Nightmare Moon tried to take over. First day she’d even met the girl and she was already gettin’ up in her face about it, heh.”

The cowfilly let out a little chuckle, and she grinned at me casually. “Don’t you worry about it none, Joe. Dash’ll come around soon enough, and she’ll see that ya ain’t so bad after all.”

“As long as she doesn’t buck me in the face again until then,” I muttered wryly as I glanced at the cloud again, and saw Rainbow Dash glare at me threateningly before pointing at her eyes with a forehoof, and then pointing towards me again.

There wasn’t much translation needed for the universal sign of I’m Watching You. Rolling my eyes, I shrugged off the exasperation that came with it and soldiered on with the rest of the harvest alongside Mac and AJ. It wasn’t long before we were done with the share of the harvest they had planned for the afternoon, and I followed them back to the farmhouse, sipping from another bottle of apple juice. The sensation of eyes upon my back still refused to go away however, even by the time we reached the barn - I looked upwards, and just as I thought, Rainbow Dash’s cloud was following us, the pegasus mare still watching me with truculent eyes.

“Ah’m gonna help Mac out with unloading the cart first,” Applejack suddenly said as she split off to walk with her brother. “You head on back to the farmhouse, go get yourself some lunch.”

“Hey, wait a minute,” I blurted out as I realized just where that left me. “What about-”

“Oh, you’ll be fine, Joe.” Applejack smirked back at me as she walked off with Mac. “Rainbow Dash doesn’t bite. A few minutes alone with her hoverin’ over yer head ain’t gonna kill ya.”

‘Says you.’ I thought sourly to myself as I began trudging in the direction of the farmhouse, and just as I expected, Rainbow Dash’s cloud continued trailing after me.

After a couple of moments of enduring the prickling sensation of her gaze upon the back of my neck, I decided I’d finally had enough of this passive-aggressive nonsense. Halfway to the house, I stopped in my tracks and turned to face the cloud. I raised a hand, and beckoned downwards with a finger.

The cloud abruptly disappeared in a puff of white, and a cyan blur leaving behind a prismatic trail streaked down towards me. Just a mere second later Rainbow Dash landed heavily on the ground in front of me, folding in her wings in a manner that oddly reminded me of someone crossing their arms, and she eyed me with the same kind of look one would give a particularly nasty bug. “What do you want, monkey?”

I sighed, again resisting the urge to apply palm to forehead. I seemed to be doing that a lot in her presence lately. Whatever, this dumbass back-and-forth of a one-sided cold war she seemed determined to wage with me was a waste of time and energy that I had no intention of dragging on. I had to put an end to it as soon as possible. “Look, Rainbow Dash, you and I both know that I’m pretty much harmless, and I’m not going to hurt you or any of your friends. You can see that I’m getting along pretty well with Applejack, and Twilight was just over to interview me yesterday. Why are you still treating me like I’m some kind of monster in disguise that you’re just waiting to beat up?”

Up until now, I had never thought it possible for Rainbow Dash to have such a capacity for bitchiness, but her next words proved me absolutely wrong. “You may have the others fooled, buddy, but I’m not gonna be taken in so easily. You’re dangerous, and nothing is gonna change my mind about that. I saw the remains of that giant timber wolf you killed - there is no way you could have done that with your bare hooves.”

The hot-headed pegasus took several steps closer to me, and she shoved a hoof in my chest, prodding aggressively. “You might look harmless, but I know what you’re really capable of. And you can bet that I’m not going to be letting you hurt my friends - not on my watch.”

A vein in my forehead twitched, and I desperately tried to fight down the instinctive urge of retaliatory hostility that threatened to rise up in me. I nearly slapped away her hoof on instinct, but thankfully, clearer heads managed to prevail, and I instead set my hand on her foreleg and gently but firmly pushed it aside.

“Rainbow Dash, if I wanted to hurt your friends, trust me, I could have done so days ago when I first arrived here.” I tried to keep the exasperation out of my voice, trying to keep as patient as possible. “Come on, cut me some slack here. I’m God knows how far from my home, I don’t know anybody else around here, and Applejack’s been kind enough to take me in while Twilight helps me look for a way back. What makes you think I would even want to do anything to hur-”

Before I could even get any further, there was a sudden shout, and a crash from the direction of the storage shed behind the barn. Rainbow Dash’s head whirled around simultaneously with mine to the source of the noise, and the two of us glanced at each other for only a second before we both took off at the same time for the shed.

Both of us could recognize the sound of Applejack screaming when we heard it.

The pegasus blitzed straight ahead of me as she took flight with her wings, and she disappeared around the corner before I had even gone five paces, even while at a dead sprint. As I rounded around the corner mere seconds later, I heard more shouts and crashes, and one other sound that unnerved the hell out of me - the sound of skittering legs and buzzing wings.

“Mac, don’t let ‘em reach the shed! If they do, our tools are gonna be goners! Darn it, Rainbow, ah said get back! Somethin’s making ‘em more aggressive than usual this time!”

“Like hay I will! I helped you chase the rust beetles off the last time, and I’m gonna do it again!”

Rust beetles? “Guys, what the hell is going on her- JESUS CHRIST WHAT THE FUCK ARE THOSE THINGS!?”

I turned around the corner, and nearly fell flat on my ass in shock when I caught sight of what the commotion was all about and almost shat my pants. I thought I’d seen the worst of it all during my traipse through the Everfree, but apparently fate had seen fit to throw another curveball my way.

Let it be known that giant fucking bugs are one of the creepiest thing you will ever fucking see, period. When I turned around the corner, I saw Applejack, Macintosh and Rainbow Dash all simultaneously facing off against a pair of the biggest freakin’ beetles I had ever seen, each of them about the size of a small bear. True to the name I had heard Rainbow Dash call them, their exoskeleton was a shade of rusty reddish-brown, and the mere sight of the pair of giant insects made my flesh scream and my fingers itch desperately for either my shotgun, or the world’s biggest can of bug spray.

At the sound of my voice, Applejack’s gaze shot up from the rust beetle she was staring down, and her eyes widened in surprise. “Joe? What the hay are you doin’ here? Git goin’, tell Granny and Applebloom not to come out until we’ve dealt with these varmints!”

The two Apple siblings had positioned themselves firmly between the rust beetles and the storage shed, fiercely cutting off any attempt to approach the tiny little building with powerful, vicious bucks to their chitinous little heads. The fully-loaded apple wagon stood forgotten off to the side, and curiously, the rust beetles made absolutely no attempt to approach it. In fact, they seemed to have eyes only for the storage shed, which I knew contained lots of farming tools and equipment that had loads of metal parts.

Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash zipped about the beetles while in the air, raining down blows upon them in a manner that looked a lot like some form of aerial jousting. She would streak by a beetle, landing a solid kick with her hind legs as she veered past it, and then immediately dart out of the way before it could lash out in retaliation with its clicking pincer-jaws, hovering just out of reach for a second before diving in to repeat the process.

The entire thing, however, seemed to be accomplishing little more than giving the beetles minor bruises given their thick carapace, and I had no idea how they intended to fight them off if this was the kind of damage they were doing.

“Ow! What the hay, AJ!?” Rainbow Dash yelped out as one of the pincers came a little too close to catching her, and she darted away with a long line of crimson decorating her hind leg. “They should’ve been scared off by now with the beating we just dished out! What gives!?”

“Ah don’t know, for some reason they’re a lot more persistent than usual this time!” Applejack yelled back in a panic as she dodged another snap of the second beetle’s jaws, and she looked over to me with a wild look in her eyes. “Joe, what the hay are you doin’ just standin’ there!? Get outta here, yer not prepared to fight these things!”

I barely even heard Applejack’s words. My mind was too busy recoiling in horror and disgust at the sight of the two oversized insects, their buzzing wings and chittering cries resonating through my head, setting my teeth painfully on edge and sending my skin crawling.

Right at that moment I wanted nothing more than to just scream out in gibbering hysterics while running as fucking far away as I possibly could from the abominations of nature, but the sight of Applejack and Rainbow Dash standing fast in the face of the threat rooted my feet to the spot. I couldn’t just run and leave them now, could I? Not when two girls were facing down a pair of giant bugs, displaying more giant brass balls than I’d seen most men even possess in my lifetime.

Call me a neanderthal, but I absolutely refused to be showed up in that department. If there’s ever a woman in distress, it is my function as a man to leap into the fray and solve the problem with extreme prejudice, period.

That didn’t mean I couldn’t be smart about it, however.

My legs braced themselves, and then I took off back towards the farmhouse in a dead sprint.

---

“What the hay!? Where does he think he’s going?” Rainbow Dash cried out as she watched Joseph abruptly turn tail and run back to the farmhouse. “I knew that dirty coward would leave us out to dry!”

“Oh, shut up, Rainbow Dash!” Applejack retorted sharply as she cut off another advance from one of the beetles with a powerful buck. “You know he can’t possibly fight these things off, not like we can! If he tries to help us, he’s only gonna get himself hurt! Ah’m not gonna have his injuries on mah conscience just because of yer misguided sense of machismo!”

Rainbow Dash had no choice but to grit her teeth in silent, grudging agreement with what Applejack had said. Still, there was no denying that something was seriously amiss here. Given the kind of beating they’d been dishing out, the rust beetles should have been chased off by now already, but the giant bugs still seemed as determined as ever to get to the shed and the metallic meals that their diets made them crave so much.

Spinning around, Applejack delivered a powerful kick to the side of one of the bugs that would have punched a hole in the barn wall, but there was nothing more than a dull thud and a minute shift in the beetle’s sizeable mass, its chitinous shell shrugging off the blow. Normally however, that would have been sufficient to discourage the beetle from any further attempts at the shed. But she had already landed at least four other such kicks, and the beetles still refused to give up and go home. “Consarnit! Mac, this ain’t going so well!”

“Eeyup.” Her brother agreed as he whirled around and bucked the other beetle in the face just as it surged forward again, sending it stumbling backwards chittering. The big stallion made to retreat back to his sister’s side, when the second beetle abruptly came barrelling towards his open flank from the side.

“Mac! Look out!!” Before he could even react, a prismatic blur slammed into his side, and he found himself being knocked out of the way. Macintosh landed heavily on his side with a loud ‘oof!’, and when he looked up he heard Applejack scream, and saw Rainbow Dash pinned beneath the massive bulk of the beetle that had rushed him. The pegasus mare was screaming as the beetle reared over her, and its pincer-like jaws opened, moments away from descending upon her.

Mac knew he couldn’t just stand by and do nothing - he immediately got his hooves under himself, and was in the midst of preparing himself to lunge forward and bull rush the beetle’s jaws out of the way when there was a sudden, tremendous blast of noise that sounded like Pinkie’s party cannon, but multiplied by a million times in volume.

And then the beetle’s entire head exploded in a shower of yellowish ichor.

Rainbow Dash’s screams grew even louder as the ichor splattered all over her, turning into a disgusted mantra of “Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew ,ew”, and Mac saw the second beetle turn towards the source of the noise, screeching in what he could have sworn was surprise - right before there was second deafening BOOM! just like the first one, and the second beetle’s head exploded as well, its hefty bulk collapsing to the ground beneath it like a limp ton of bricks.

Mac burst into action. The stallion’s forelegs shot forward, grabbing Rainbow Dash, and he snatched her out from beneath the first beetle’s bulk before it could collapse on her as well. As the dust settled from the encounter, all three ponies turned towards the source of the cannon-like blasts, and stared in mute shock as they saw Joseph holding up the long, metallic stick that he had called a ‘shotgun’, the tips of its twin barrels smoking.

“So big…” The human muttered in a detached monotone as he eyed the carcasses of the rust beetles, and he lowered the shotgun from his shoulder, nothing but frigid ice showing from his eyes. “So angry… so dead.”

Applejack and Rainbow Dash were still so shaken from the pegasus’ narrow escape, that only Big Mac had the presence of mind to notice that despite Joseph’s outward nonchalance, the young man’s hands were beginning to shake.

... The Farm Life Chose Me

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Chapter 7: … The Farm Life Chose Me

"And you're absolutely sure that's what you saw?"

Rainbow Dash gave Twilight a look that seemed to suggest that the unicorn had gone daft, and she nodded her head dourly. “Look Twilight, I might have been covered in rust beetle guts, but that didn’t mean I went blind! I saw him wielding it clear as day - that thing he called a shotgun, he just grabbed it and used to kill those beetles like… like it was nothing!"

"RD... RD's right, Twi'." Applejack's voice came shakily from the side, and the unicorn looked over to the orange mare, who was sitting on her farmhouse's living room sofa, wrapped in a towel and her mane still damp from the hosing off she'd put herself through to wash the stains of rust beetle ichor off from her coat. Applejack looked strangely subdued, her gaze vacant and staring, and her expression was unnervingly hollow. “Ah’ve never seen such eyes like that - not in a normal pony. They were so… so cold. The last time ah saw eyes like that…”

The earth pony swallowed, giving Twilight a meaningful look, and Twilight knew exactly what Applejack meant.

She hadn’t been there to see the event for herself - by the time she had gotten word about it from a frantic Applebloom who had galloped over to the library to pass her the news, most of the dust had already settled. The rust beetle carcasses had been disposed of before they'd begun to smell, and both her friends had gone through a thorough hosing off to wash off the worst of the blood, seating themselves in the living room wrapped in towels while Granny Smith set out some hot chocolate for them to calm their frayed nerves.

But when she had arrived, she didn’t need to be Celestia’s prized student to figure out what had happened. The sight of Joseph stalking off silently to the guest room while her two friends sat, silent and subdued, in the living room, was more than enough to set off the alarm bells ringing in her head. And when Rainbow Dash and Applejack had told her what he did, her breath nearly froze in her lungs as she connected the dots.

The last time they had seen such coldness in someone’s eyes, the readiness to kill, the nonchalance of taking life without even a second thought… had been in Nightmare Moon.

“Ah don’t know what he’s gone through to have eyes like that, but…” Applejack started uncertainly, shaking her head. “Ah just… Ah just don’t know. He seemed nice enough, and Applebloom loved those funny stories he kept telling us. Ah thought he was harmless, but…”

“I told you, AJ,” Rainbow Dash muttered sourly from the couch opposite her. “I told you he was dangerous. I told you that he couldn’t be trusted!”

Applejack’s gaze abruptly snapped over to the cyan pegasus, her eyes narrowing and mouth opening to deliver an undoubtedly acidic reply, and Twilight found herself frantically stepping in between the two of them before things could come to a head.

“Rainbow, stop. Please.” Twilight pleaded softly but firmly, fixing her friend with a stern gaze. “I understand that the both of you are shaken by the fact that he just killed the rust beetles instead of chasing them off. But you are also forgetting the fact that he saved your lives. Applejack, you and Big Macintosh were having trouble chasing the beetles off, and Rainbow had been pinned by one of them before Joseph returned to intervene, right?”

Applejack nodded, but not before Rainbow Dash shot to her hooves, protesting vehemently. “Hey, I had things under control! I could’ve busted out of there no problem - I didn’t need that creep’s help!”

“Rainbow Dash, you were seconds away from getting gutted and mah brother was about to throw himself into its path just to make sure ya didn’t get hurt.” Applejack said such sudden force that Rainbow abruptly stopped in mid-tirade, and the pegasus turned to stare at her in shock. "You did not just try to make light of the mess that we were darned lucky Joe was there to pull you out of. You, and probably mah brother as well, could be dead right now if not for him."

Rainbow Dash blinked, stunned into silence. She had never heard Applejack speak with such repressed fury in her voice before, but right now, the apple farmer was giving her a stare that would have burned right through a dragon's scales, and she looked downright livid.

Faced with the stark reality of the situation, whatever hotheaded reply she would have normally given died before it had even reached her lips, and the pegasus sank back into the couch staring sullenly into her mug of hot chocolate. The room was very quiet after that as Applejack calmed down, and Twilight slowly walked over to the couch where she sat, exhaling audibly as she sat down and sought to come to grips with the situation. "Well, everypony's okay now, and that's what really counts here, right?"

Rainbow Dash let out a half-hearted grunt of assent, but when Applejack didn't respond, Twilight's worry only grew. “Applejack? Where’s Joseph now? What did he do after everypony had calmed down?”

“He… He just stood there. Staring at their carcasses.” Applejack mumbled insensately after a few moments. “Ah didn’t wanna look into his eyes, but his expression…"

The farmer swallowed, obviously reluctant to continue, but she pushed on ahead regardless. "Ah think he regretted it. When Mac started pullin’ the carcasses away fer disposal, he just stalked off to his room. None of us have seen him since.”

The farmer fell silent after that, staring into her mug as intently as Rainbow Dash, and Twilight realized she wasn’t going to get any more of a clearer picture of what had happened from either of the two of them. The unicorn let out a quiet sigh, and got off the couch, walking towards the guest room where she knew Joseph resided.

When she reached the door, she raised a hoof to hesitantly knock, but even after a few taps, there was no response from within.

“Joseph?” Twilight called out, hoping to hear a reply. “Are you in there?

When there wasn’t one even after several seconds, she tried the doorknob, and found to her surprise that it was unlocked. “I’m coming in, okay? Don’t… freak out or anything, all right?”

The unicorn pushed the door open, stepping inside the guest bedroom, and the first thing she noticed was how dark it was inside. The curtains had been drawn, allowing the shadows to begin creeping in as the noon’s daylight was denied from entering the room. She had to look around for a couple of seconds before she noticed Joseph seated on the bed in the corner, his legs drawn in and crossed in front of him.

The young human's bangs fell over his eyes like a dark curtain, rendering his eyes unreadable, and what little she could see of his expression was worryingly grim. On the dressing table next to the bed lay his shotgun, broken open in half through the middle, and a few stray cylinders, small and red, lay scattered next to it. Twilight noticed that two of the shells looked as though they had been blown open from one end, and judging from the two open holes running through the front end of the shotgun, she had a rather sinking suspicion of exactly what they had been used for.

"Joseph?" The unicorn tried again hesitantly, taking a cautious step towards him. "Are you all right? What happened out there?"

The young man remained silent for a worrying number of moments, and Twilight was on the verge of giving up on investigating as a lost cause when he suddenly spoke.

"I did what I had to." He said in a voice so low Twilight almost failed to catch it altogether, and when she looked at him, she realized his fists were tightly clenched, trembling with tension. "Rainbow Dash might be dead right now if I hadn't taken action."

"I don't doubt that for a moment, Joseph." Twilight said soothingly as she took a seat on the dressing table's chair next to the bed. "Rainbow Dash and Applejack are just rather shaken right now, that's all. Even Applejack acknowledges the necessity of your actions, we're just-"

“So why is Rainbow Dash still acting like I’m the bad guy here?” Joseph spoke with sudden vehemence, and Twilight found herself being taken aback at the frustration she heard in his voice. “Tell me something, Twilight - did I do something wrong? Is it wrong to save someone’s life, even if you had to kill to do it?”

“Killing is never justified.” Twilight found herself saying by reflex before she had even considered her words, and she winced internally at the sudden flinch that Joseph made. Great, real smooth, Twilight. He’s obviously stressed out about how this might affect his standing with us - he’s afraid that we might cast him out because we think he’s a killer. Rainbow Dash certainly isn’t helping with her attitude, but if he’s considering the ramifications of his actions like this, he obviously can’t be as bad as she thinks he is!

“However,” The unicorn continued, trying to salvage the situation. “Sometimes, it might be necessary. I can’t claim to be familiar with this sort of situation, but my brother’s Captain of the Royal Guard, and I hear plenty of second-hoof war stories that he heard from his predecessors regarding this sort of thing from him.”

The young man before her didn’t respond, but he was evidently listening, and Twilight took it as an encouraging sign as she went onward. “The way I see it, you did what you had to do to protect my friends. Whether you had to kill in order to do it is just a matter of detail - while I’m sure that there might have been a less violent solution, all I’m grateful for is the fact that Rainbow Dash is still alive and well, thanks to you.”

A moment passed before the corner of his mouth quirked upwards in a sardonic grin, and he turned slightly towards her. “You really have a way of surprising me with what goes on in that head of yours, don’t you?”

“Heh, I guess I do.” Twilight chuckled, letting out a tiny sigh of relief as she felt the unspoken tension in the room finally defuse. “Are you sure you’re going to be all right?"

“As all right as I can be, given what just happened.” Joseph shrugged, sighing. “I guess I’m just… worried, that’s all. I figured that you Equestrians had some kind of ‘all life is sacred and killing is forbidden' thing going on - just the impression that I got while I was here.”

Twilight chuckled, and gave him a reassuring smile. “We actually do believe that, but sometimes we also have to acknowledge the necessity of having to take a life when the circumstances call for it. Our Guardsponies are more aware of that than anypony else. You don't have to worry, Joseph; what’s done is done. Applejack knows you did what you thought you had to, and Rainbow Dash will come around eventually.”

“I can only hope she does…” Joseph muttered pensively, letting his head fall back to rest against the bedpost. “She’s stubborn as a mule, that one, isn’t she?”

“Careful, don’t let her hear you say that!” Twilight giggled. “Well, she’s not any more stubborn than Applejack usually is. But she usually comes around on her own - just give her some time.”

The young man before her merely grunted, but his expression was no longer so grim, and after a moment she figured that her job was done here.

Twilight got up from her seat, turning towards the door, striding out of the room, and after she shut the door behind her, the young mare leaned against it and let out a tired sigh, closing her eyes and racking her brains on what to do next.

There was only the aftermath to deal with now - so how was she going to break the news of this little event to Princess Celestia?

---

Dinner that night was a highly subdued affair. The table was abnormally quiet - even Applebloom, who had been positively clamoring to hear more stories from me last night, was staring quietly at her food as she ate with a distinct lack of energy. The young filly hadn’t been told exactly what had happened, and while she had to be positively bursting with questions on the inside, she knew better than to break the sombre mood at the table with inappropriately-timed queries.

Applejack, though, looked downright haggard, and her gaze was unnervingly vacant. Mac, as usual, looked as phlegmatic as ever, but I noticed that he seemed to be picking at his food a smidgen more slowly than he usually did. Only Granny Smith seemed to be acting as though nothing had happened at all, handing out the portions with a carefree smile, but if you looked closely enough, you could see the worry lines that creased her already wrinkled brow. She was feeling just as strained as the others.

And there was hardly any wonder as to why the atmosphere was like that, wasn’t there?

What Twilight had said to me earlier in the room was starting to ring more hollowly in my ears the longer it went on. Applejack might have accepted the necessity of what I’d done, sure, but it sure as hell didn’t look like she’d come to terms with it yet either.

After several long, tense moments of silence, I couldn’t take the tension at the table any longer. I shovelled the rest of the meal into my mouth, practically inhaling my food, downed the rest of my glass of apple juice, and excused myself from the table. Applejack and Granny Smith’s looks of surprise followed me out the door, even though Mac barely even reacted, and Applebloom’s gaze just grew even more curious. Once I was outside, I let out a sigh and sat down on the porch, running a hand through my hair.

Geez - how had it all gone so wrong so fast?

I simply just sat there for several seconds, staring up at the moonlit sky and trying to distance myself and my emotions from everything that was happening in the house behind me. Guilt and frustration danced about in my head, trying their damndest to rile up a storm, but I refused to let them gain the upper hand.

Closing my eyes and taking a deep breath, I willed my thoughts to a halt and began concentrating on my breathing, bringing with it silence and nothingness - a little meditation technique a friend of mine had once taught me. I rarely had cause to use it in its entirety, given the fact that I was almost constantly using an incomplete version of it to keep myself under control if I ever got a little too hot-headed, but right now, I could definitely use all the inner peace I could get.

Several moments passed in silence, and I was almost feeling ready to head back inside when I heard the sound of hoofsteps behind me. I stiffened without even realizing I was doing it, trying not to give a sign that I’d heard anyone coming, and the hooffalls eventually stopped some distance behind me.

“Joe?” I heard Applejack’s voice call out hesitantly. “Are… Are ya all right?”

For just a second I entertained the notion of not even answering her - I didn’t even want to, see - but my common decency immediately slapped the notion down. Now wasn’t the time to be an impolite ass, you dick! I took in a deep breath, and exhaled, bracing myself for the conversation that I was completely not ready to have right now.

“I’m fine, Applejack,” I said, probably a little more flatly than I’d intended. I didn’t need to see Applejack to visualize the wince she probably just made, but she continued speaking.

“I, uh…” The farmpony cleared her throat awkwardly, obviously uncomfortable. “D’ya mind if ah talked to you for a bit?”

I pondered on it for a moment, and sighed. Might as well address the elephant in the room while we’re at it. I patted the spot on the porch next to me, and Applejack stepped forward, taking a seat by my side. I didn’t say anything, didn’t turn to face her - I merely stared straight ahead, waiting for her to speak.

The farmpony began hesitantly. “Joe, ah understand that ya think ya did what ya had ta do - really, ah do. And ah’m grateful that Rainbow Dash and mah brother are still alive thanks to ya.”

“Mhmm.” I grunted, still looking straight ahead, but I gestured for her to go on.

“It’s just that… Rainbow Dash’ll never admit it, but she feels the same way we do - what ya did back there scared us, Joe.” Applejack swallowed, evidently still distressed. “How… How did you do it? You just killed those rust beetles like it was so… so easy. Us Equestrians have always valued life, no matter what kind it might be. The fact that ya could just kill them just like that, without a second thought…”

I said nothing, but the unspoken implications still hung in the air, clear as day.

“Where did you come from, Joe?” The young mare asked softly, her gaze set upon me intently. “What did you go through that left you like this? Yer nice enough, ah know that - Applebloom loved the stories that ya told us last night, and ah think yer a nice, upstandin’ guy from what ah’ve seen the past couple days. So why did ah see that kinda coldness in yer eyes when ya killed those beetles?”

I kept silent for several moments, debating with myself on what to tell her. Applejack was obviously still unnerved by the afternoon’s events, and she was looking for some sort of justification - any justification, really - that would explain to her what she had just seen. She wanted that justification because it would explain just why the amiable guest she had taken in under her roof for the past several days had turned out to have a hidden, homicidal side - something that would convince her that not everything was all bad, and that she wasn’t sheltering a violent psychopath.

Honestly speaking, I couldn’t blame her for it. Were I in her position, I would have felt the exact same way and have demanded the exact same thing she was asking me politely for now.

But I didn’t want to traumatize Applejack with recounts of the darker aspects of human nature, especially since most of the Equestrians I’d seen so far seemed rather innocent of the cruelties the real, natural world was capable of - not the little controlled sphere of environmentalism they had carved out for themselves in Equestria. And if she wanted to know exactly why I felt the need to act with extreme prejudice when a friend was about to die right in front of my eyes-

The moment the thought even crossed my mind, I abruptly slammed my mental walls right back up, and forcibly blanked my mind out as I clenched my eyes shut before the memories could come back.

No. I was not going to let this get to me. Not. Again.

“Sorry, Applejack.” I muttered, deflecting aside the question. “Just a… just a bad memory. Seeing Rainbow Dash getting pinned underneath that rust beetle reminded me of something I saw back home and I… I just lost it.”

“Do ya… wanna talk about it?” The farmfilly asked uncertainly, but I shook my head.

“No,” I said flatly, refusing to say any more on the subject lest it invite more unwelcome thoughts. “I don’t like bringing it up. Just leave it, Applejack. Please.”

A heavy silence hung between us for several seconds, and Applejack sighed after a while. “All right then. There’s obviously somethin’ botherin’ ya, but ah won’t pry. Just… promise me ya won’t do somethin’ like this again, okay? Yer a real nice, upstandin’ guy, and ah like havin’ ya around with us - but ah just can’t keep ya on the farm in good conscience if ya might be a danger to my friends and family...”

“I can’t make promises I can’t keep, AJ,” My voice grew tight. “But I can tell you that if I wanted to hurt any of you, I could have done it at any time within the past several days. Don’t go pulling a Rainbow Dash on me now.”’

I kept my gaze averted from her, but I could see her biting her lip out of the corner of my vision, obviously chagrined. After a moment, she swallowed before muttering a mollified, “Sorry.”

“S’all right.” I waved it off with a grunt. “All I want is to get myself home, AJ. Nothing else. You have my word that I have no intention whatsoever of hurting any of your friends, or your family.”

The farmfilly looked at me for a moment, giving me that strange look that she always did when she seemed to be looking for a lie, and after a while she sighed again. “Well… ah guess that’ll have ta do.” After several moments, it was obvious that the conversation had reached its end, and the farmfilly wordlessly got up to her hooves, walking slowly back into the farmhouse where the rest of her family waited for her.

I stayed where I was, on the porch, alone with my thoughts, as the moon gazed serenely down upon the farm.

---

“Awww, really? C’mon, Joe, pretty pleeeease?”

“I said no, Applebloom, and no means no.” I looked down sternly at the filly standing at my feet, doing my damndest to resist the effect of the pleading puppy dog stare she was giving me. And let me tell you, when an adorable kid decides to turn those ray guns up to eleven, you better start praying for God to have mercy on your soul, because they won’t.

Despite the tension at the dinner table the previous night, Applebloom’s burning curiosity had not abated at all. The moment she had managed to find me alone and separate from Applejack and Big Mac after lunch, she had descended upon me with a virtual tornado of questions, asking and pleading and pestering me to show her the shotgun I had used to dispatch the rust beetles, and believe me, I was trying my best not to try to give her too many ideas on where her next cutie mark might be coming from.

Applebloom pouted so hard it looked like as though her mouth was about to fall off, but I stood firm, and shook my head again. “Applebloom, those guns of mine are not toys, and you could seriously hurt yourself if you try to use them without being properly trained! They’re for grown-ups only.”

“But ah’m a big pony…” Applebloom muttered sourly as she looked away to the side, finally admitting defeat. “They’ve gotta be somethin’ really powerful if they could chase those rust beetles away fer good! Ah just wanna know how they work, seein’ how Granny Smith’s sayin’ those beetles won’t be comin’ ta bother us again after ya used ‘em. And maybe ah could earn mah cutie mark while ah was at it...”

“And I think that it would be a really bad idea,” I emphasized again, turning back to the pile of tools in the shed that I was currently digging through, accounting for all the farming implements that the Apple family owned and making sure that they were all completely rust-free. “Come on, Applebloom, just drop it, please. I’m not letting you anywhere near those things, even with supervision. You notice that I don’t let Applejack or Big Macintosh touch them either, right?”

“Ah… guess so…” Applebloom sulked. “But if yer not gonna let me take a look at 'em, could you at least please tell me how they work? Pleeeeeease?”

I let out a long suffering sigh, and set aside the pitchfork that I had been inspecting. God, I’m so going to regret this…

I got up to my feet and turned to face her, taking a seat atop a nearby barrel. “Okay, fine, if only to get you to stop bugging me.” Applebloom’s resulting cheer was so damned loud it nearly drowned out the rest of my sentence, and I blinked and waited a moment for the ringing in my ears to subside. "Okay, but I wanna lay down some ground rules first. I don't want you to use this knowledge to attempt to create anything on your own, and I want you to keep this to yourself, all right? Tell nopony else.”

“Ah promise!” Applebloom looked like the cat that ate the canary right at that moment, and she sat down at my feet, staring at me attentively.

I blinked - well that was unexpected. I had expected a whole torrent of questions regarding the completely irrelevant expectations that she’d come up with regarding guns, but she actually seemed genuinely eager to learn.

I mentally shrugged - well, this would just make this all the easier for me.

I spent the next hour or so covering every single aspect I could remember on the spot about how guns worked, from the very beginning of the gunpowder being stored in the casing to the bullet projectiles to the actual mechanics of the guns themselves and their various actions. Applebloom listened with rapt attention the entire time, raising a hoof only if she had a pertinent question to something I had overlooked or forgotten to cover, and hadn’t realized until she’d pointed it out. I swear, she was practically eating it up, and I was astonished that a kid her age had that kind of an attention span.

Then again, it could have been just because of the subject matter, but if this was just another cutie mark quest for her, she seemed to be doing extraordinarily well for a starter.

“So that’s pretty much how guns work,” I finished, clearing my throat and wishing I had a bottle of apple juice with me right then. “Got all that?”

“Mhmm!” Applebloom chirped enthusiastically. “Basically, ya've got that gunpowder stuff kept inside the bullet casing, and at the back ya got the primer which ignites the gunpowder, which explodes and uses th' gas from the explosion ta send that little bullet head thing at the front flyin' out the gun's barrel. The primer gets set off when ya pull the gun's trigger to let the hammer fall on th' firin' pin, which hits the primer and sets tha primer and the gunpowder off!"

I stared at her and blinked.

My God, I had no idea she had actually taken it all in.

"Uhh..." I raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, that's actually pretty much the basics of how they work. I honestly didn't think you'd take in that much. Of course, if you wanted to actually make and use a functional gun that fired rounds with gunpowder, that's a whole different story altogether..."

“It’s easy!” Applebloom chirped. “We could easily find some of that gunpowder stuff in Pinkie Pie’s fireworks, and with a little woodwork and metalwork, ah could-”

“WHOA, whoa, Applebloom, slow down there,” I exclaimed as I held out a pair of startled hands to stop her mental train in its tracks. “Remember what I said? Don’t try making one on your own. I don’t want you trying to make your own firearms with what I told you, or try to examine one of mine up close either. Are we clear on this?”

“Awww, but can’t ah-” Applebloom whined, but I stood fast.

“Nuh uh,” I emphasized again, shaking my head. “I was already kind enough to explain it out to you - don’t take that for granted. Just be glad that you know how they work, and leave it at that.”

Of course, I knew that the odds of her leaving the subject alone for any period of time was about as likely as me growing a horn and opening a donut shop, but I had to at least do what I could to dissuade her - God help Ponyville if Applebloom actually managed to invent firearms, and God help Equestria too if she managed to rope in the rest of the Cutie Mark Crusaders to do it as well. Applebloom started giving me the puppy dog eyes again, but after it became obvious that I wasn’t going to budge, she finally gave up.

“Oh, all right then.” She pouted, kicking dejectedly at the ground with a foreleg. The little filly trudged away with her head hung in disappointment, and I had to literally stop myself from going to comfort her. Said comforting would probably give way to more puppy dog stares, one thing would lead to another, and soon enough I’d be handing her my .44 and the Remington while feeding her the secrets on how to build her own goddamned M60.

Nope, I decided as I turned back to the tools that I had been inspecting; this was one trade secret that was going to be staying with me.

---

Applebloom kicked again at the ground glumly as she trudged back inside the farmhouse, grumbling to herself the entire time. “But ah’m a big pony, ah don’t see why Joe won’t let me take a look at those guns! Ah understood how they worked just fine, ah can handle ‘em!”

The young filly passed by the corridor that led to the guest bedroom, still simmering with resentment, and when she glanced in the direction of where their guest resided, an idea struck her.

Well, if Joe won’t let me take a look at those guns. Applebloom glanced furtively around to make sure that nobody else was watching, and then she began cantering towards his room. I’ll just check ‘em out myself!

She made sure to keep her hoofsteps as quiet as possible, creeping towards the guest room door. When she was sure that the coast was clear, Applebloom stealthily slipped inside, slowly shutting the door behind her.

The door closed with a quiet click!, and Applebloom let out the breath she had been holding, turning to look around the room. Joe hadn’t been staying on their farm for that many days yet, but he had still managed to leave his mark on the room regardless. The standing dresser at the side still lay open, its doors ajar to display the strangely-shaped clothes that he always wore everywhere all the time. The odd shaping of the garments obviously meant that they wouldn’t have fit a pony if they had tried to fit themselves inside, but Applebloom wasn’t looking for those.

The little filly continued casting her eyes about the room, on the search for her prize. Next to the bed, which sheets lay haphazardly made, was his backpack, and its zip lay open, displaying its contents for all the world to see. Applebloom stuck her head inside to take a quick glance, and once determining that its contents had everything to do with camping equipment and nothing to do with either of his guns, she continued looking elsewhere.

The last place she saw objects she didn’t recognize being strewn about was the dressing table next to the bed, and when she hopped onto the chair in front of it to take a look, her eyes lit up with child-like glee.

“Found ya!” she snickered to herself as she finally caught sight of what she had been looking for - the heavy, steel frame of Joseph’s revolver, its cylinder open and hanging out, and the long, thin, wooden body of his double-barrelled shotgun, broken open in half through the middle. Applebloom’s heart nearly burst from the sheer excitement of what she was about to get her hooves on, what with the pounding it was doing, and her eyes were practically sparkling with anticipation by now.

Now, if only she knew where to start…

The filly’s mind raced over the details of what she had gone over with Joseph earlier regarding how guns worked. From what she remembered, the bullets were supposed to go inside some sort of ‘magazine’ before the gun could be considered loaded, and the examples he had given her had included where the bullets went in revolvers and ‘breech-loaded’ shotguns, whatever those were. Apparently his Remington belonged to the latter category, and she kept that information in mind as she began looking around the table for any loose bullets that may have been lying around.

The entirety of the table was practically covered in various odds and ends that were all dedicated to gun maintenance. Applebloom recognized the items from Joseph’s descriptions: a small bottle of the cleaning oil that Mac usually used for their farming tools, an oil-soaked rag, several small bristly brushes that were caked in soot, a long, thin metal rod, and lastly, what Applebloom was looking for - two half-filled small boxes, one containing several large, golden cylinders that were nearly as long as her hoof was wide, and the other carrying even larger, bright red canisters that were almost double the size of the golden cylinders - most probably the bullets that Joseph had been referring to.

Evidently, he had been in the midst of cleaning it, probably last night. Although, leaving them out in the open like this seemed awfully careless of him to Applebloom, but all the better for her if it would just make it easier for her to get her hooves on it.

The young filly took one look at the empty holes in the revolver’s cylinder and the shotgun’s open breech, and came to a swift conclusion - the smaller golden cylinders went inside the revolver, and the bright red canisters went into the shotgun, judging by their size. Feeling immensely pleased with herself at having deduced it on her own, Applebloom decided to move on to the next step - loading a gun and cocking it.

She reached forward to one of the bullets with a hoof, and then immediately realized one fatal flaw in her plan - she had absolutely no idea how she was going to get the bullet inside the revolver’s cylinder. She’d always seen Joe manipulate small little objects so dextrously with those little digits extending out of his hands that he called ‘fingers’ - truth be told, they reminded her more of Spike’s claws than anything else, but that was besides the point. Aside from using her mouth like most ponies did, how was she going to get the bullets into the chamber?

The young filly briefly considered using the crease of her wrist, but it didn’t look like she’d be nearly dextrous enough with that to load the bullet inside. A moment of wracking her brains later, an idea struck her, and she grabbed one of the bullets in between her teeth, letting the projectile end of it hang downwards as she took hold of the revolver in between both her forelegs, balancing it vertically on its barrel.

Holding the bullet between her teeth gingerly over the exposed cylinder, she slowly and gently lowered inside one of its six empty holes. The cartridge fit inside perfectly, sliding into the chamber smoothly, and Applebloom lowered the revolver back down horizontally on the table, nudging the cylinder back inside with a hoof as she spat the aftertaste of metal out of her mouth - boy, she wasn't going to be trying that again anytime soon.

All right, now what was next? Joe had mentioned something about cocking back the hammer, so that it could strike the firing pin, which would then set the primer off, igniting the gunpowder and discharging the bullet. Applebloom wasn’t quite sure which doohickey was what - she only remembered the process that Joe had told her about. Hammer falls on firing pin… maybe it was that weird little r-shaped thingum at the back of the gun?

The young filly held the gun down in place as she placed a hoof on the hammer and slowly pushed it down - the cylinder began to slowly rotate as she did so, the loaded bullet disappearing inside the gun as it aligned itself with the barrel, and once the hammer reached the bottom, it locked itself in place with a satisfying click!

Okay, now from what Joe had told her, that meant that the gun was now cocked and ready to fire - all she had to do was pull the trigger.

Applebloom's eyes fell upon the trigger, and that was when more of Joseph's words came back to her - specifically, a warning that he had spared no effort drumming into her head.

Now I want you to remember this, Applebloom - bullet projectiles are extremely dangerous. He had told her, his expression stern enough to have given Princess Luna a run for her bits. They can hit like miniature cannons, and the ones that I have are some of the more powerful ones of the lot. If you ever see me pointing one of them around ready to shoot something, I want you to hit the dirt and stay low, all right? I don't want to end up hitting you by accident.

“They must really powerful if he calls ‘em miniature cannons!” The filly whispered to herself in excitement, staring in awe at the loaded and chambered revolver before her. Right then she wanted nothing more than to see for herself what kind of power these deceptively small and thin objects held, and she took hold of it with a hoof, holding her other forehoof close to the trigger.

Still, better to point it someplace where it wouldn't hit anypony when she fired it. Slowly turning to point the revolver out the window and into the sky, the little filly squeezed an eye shut sighted down the barrel, the way Joseph had told her guns were aimed. Her tongue stuck itself out slightly in concentration, and her hoof slowly tightened down on the trigger...

Oops- Horseapples! Applebloom cursed mentally as her grip slipped, and the revolver tumbled out of her hooves. The young filly could only stare in mute horror as it fell to the floor, and she squeezed her eyes shut, slapping her hooves over her ears to shut out the inevitable impact...

---

I stayed where I was for the next five minutes after Applebloom left, continuing my inspection of the farming tools, and I didn’t even look up and over my shoulder when I heard a series of heavy hooffalls coming from behind me. “Hey Mac, ‘sup?”

“Everythin’ ok?” I heard the big stallion’s voice inquire from behind me, and I waved a hand casually over my shoulder.

“Everything looks fine so far - I can’t really find any signs of rust. I guess those beetles didn’t manage to leave their mark after all.” I shrugged, dusting off my hands and straightening myself. “Still, haven’t gone through all of them yet - I still have at least half the shed left to check through.”

Big Mac grunted, and after a couple seconds I heard some shuffling coming from my side - I turned, and saw him coming up next to me, taking a seat and another one of the tools in his hooves, looking over it closely. I shrugged, but didn’t say anything more - Mac had seen fit to help me out a little bit, I saw no reason to dissuade him from it.

Our work continued on in companionable silence for several minutes, neither of us feeling the need to fill the silence with inane chatter, and it seemed to me that it was pleasantly shaping up to be another quiet, uneventful afternoon.

That was when the round hit.

It came out of nowhere. Last thing I knew, the big guy was holding up a spade to examine it further, when suddenly there was a deafening BANG!, followed by an equally loud CLANG!, and then something wide and large smacked me right across the face, sending me tumbling into the dirt behind me in a complete daze.

There was a roaring series of crashes right after that, and I instinctively took to my feet… or at least I tried to. For some reason the entire world had suddenly set itself on tumble dry, and it took me a couple of tries to get my hands and feet moving before they finally began to respond. I hauled myself upright with no small amount of effort, and the entire shed around me just spun. I nearly fell back on my ass as a wave of vertigo threatened to overwhelm me, and I instinctively threw a hand out to the wall next to me in an attempt to steady myself.

Instead, my hand passed through empty air, and I found myself flailing and stumbling about blindly as I thought to myself where the fuck is the bloody wall!?

I shook my head vigorously, trying to dispel the wave of vertigo that had settled over me, and succeeded at least partially - the world went from spinning laundromat to merely roller coaster, and I glanced around, trying to figure out just what the fuck had just happened.

Then my eyes took in the half-collapsed shed around me, a shattered structural support that had probably caused said half-collapse of the shed, the detached head of a spade on the floor that had probably been the one to smack me across the face, and the half-buried red mound that lay underneath a pile of broken planks…

Abruptly, the vertigo vanished as my adrenaline spiked, and I found myself rushing forward, grabbing the planks and throwing them aside as my heart began hammering in sheer panic. No, not here, not again, I wasn’t going to let this happen again-

“Damnit, MAC! MAC!!!”

Windows to the Soul

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Chapter 8: Windows to the Soul

When the knocking on my door came half an hour later, I was still tucking my revolver and shotgun on top of the wardrobe, with their hand grips still within my reach, but certainly beyond that of any more potential overinquisitive, troublesome fillies.

I turned towards the guest room's door to answer it, once again cursing the complete lack of lockable drawers I had discovered inside here in very consternating hindsight. If I hadn't been so complacent, if I hadn’t just assumed that ponies wouldn’t even be able to use guns thanks to their lack of fingers, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. I didn’t know. Maybe Applebloom might’ve found some other way, maybe Mac might still be okay, but either way, thanks to the guns that had belonged to me, both of them had been hurt.

Screw it, I was probably already dead anyway - Applejack was gonna kill me when she got back, that was for sure.

In the wake of the accident, I'd immediately dashed towards my room, and found a pale, ashen-faced Applebloom staring at the fist-sized hole the revolver shot had punched in the wall. The filly responded only after we had spent several seconds shouting at her, and Applejack had to holler at the top of her lungs right in her sister’s ear before Applebloom finally turned to us and yelled, "WHAT? SPEAK UP, AH CAN'T HEAR YA!"

Deciding that we'd start tossing the blame around later and focus on treating the injured first, we'd bundled the little kid together with her brother before Applejack had seen them off to Ponyville Hospital - Mac, thank his lucky stars, had sustained nothing more than a huge bruise across his entire back when the shed's thin wooden ceiling had collapsed in on him, and the big lug was still able to walk, albeit with an extreme limp.

Applejack had said it was probably nothing more than a sprain, but no sense taking chances - she'd taken both her siblings on a cart straight to Ponyville, leaving me on the farm to run the investigative board.

I ran aftermath cleanup, and I didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out what Applebloom had done. Cursing my stupidity, I’d started looking all over the room for any lockable cabinets, and found to my consternation that there were absolutely no secure drawers whatsoever. Even if I hadn’t gotten careless and tried to make sure my guns were properly secured while I wasn’t around, there was no guarantee Applebloom wouldn’t have gotten her hooves on them anyway.

Another series of knocks on the door abruptly broke me out of my reverie. I strode over to the door, opening it, and when Applejack looked up at me with a haggard, strained expression, I stood there and braced myself for the worst.

"How is he?" I asked, and when the farmpony cracked a weary smile, I felt the intangible knot of tension between my shoulders disappear - the man lives to fight another day.

"He'll be fine," She drawled tiredly, stepping inside the room. “Doc said it’s a sprain, but nothin’ life-threatenin’. Just a couple weeks of bed rest, and he’ll be fitter than a minotaur on a protein binge. Applebloom had a burst eardrum, but the doc’s healing magic should fix it up quickly enough - just a couple days to make sure that she’s all right, and she’ll be back home.”

I let out a sigh of relief, sinking back into the dressing table’s chair. “Well, that’s good to hear. I was afraid the big guy was seriously hurt or something… Thank God he’s all right.”

“It'll take more than just that ta put mah brother down for the count." Applejack grinned with a hint of pride in her voice, but the smile rapidly faded away as she caught sight of the guns I’d tucked away on top of the cupboard, and she directed a severe look at me. “But now that we’ve got that outta the way, there’s another thing we need ta talk about.”

I hid my wince behind a hand, and took in a breath to brace myself. “Okay, Applejack, I’m really sorry about what happened, but-”

“Don’t ya feed me those lines now, Joe.” Applejack cut me off firmly, and while there wasn’t any overt anger in her voice, there was a definite hardness to it that made it plain that she wasn’t in a joking mood right now. “Ah trusted ya, but while ah really am thankful ya really aren’t out ta hurt mah family, fact remains that somethin’ happened here thanks to what you brought with ya. Ah don’t know if ya had anythin’ ta do with it, so ah’ll give ya a chance: what’d ya find out while ah was away?”

“There’s not a single lockable cabinet in here, AJ,” I said immediately, pointing at the wardrobe that my guns were now stacked on top of. “Even if I’d tried to keep the guns safe by stacking them on top of the wardrobe, there’s no guarantee Applebloom wouldn’t have tried to knock the guns off of them. I tried to tell her it was dangerous and I didn’t want her fiddling around with them, but I guess she just didn’t listen.”

Applejack’s hard gaze didn’t waver even in the slightest, but the slight pursing of her lips told me she was thinking about it. Several tense seconds later she nodded, and I resisted the urge to let out a sigh of relief right in front of her. “All right, so I guess this ain’t yer fault. Ah’m gonna be havin’ a stern talk with mah sis after this, but… be careful with that stuff of yours, all right? Ah really don’t want somethin’ like this happenin’ again.”

“You have my word, Applejack.” I bowed my head solemnly, already promising myself that nothing like this would ever happen again. Not only would it jeopardize the trust I’d been painstakingly building with them, but someone just got hurt, damnit! I should’ve known better than to attempt to sate Applebloom’s curiosity - I should’ve known that she would have tried something like this.

“That ain’t the only thing we gotta be worryin’ about, though.” Applejack’s voice shook me out of my self-recriminations, and I stared at her in disbelief.

“Wait, there’s more?” I asked incredulously. The farmpony nodded, and I threw my hands up in exasperation, biting back a curse. “Great, can this day get any worse?”

“Don’t jinx it, Joe,” Applejack said warningly, and the inexplicable sensation that something was about to go very wrong intensified as I saw her cast a nervous glance out the window. “Some of the townsfolk got pretty curious on how Mac got himself injured like that; ‘farm accident’ don’t exactly cover it. Twi’s been tryin’ ta ease yer introduction to the town best she can, but rumors have been flyin’ around faster than we can manage.”

“What kind of rumors?” I asked, not wanting to hear the answer, but when Applejack pursed her lips, I already had a pretty good idea of what to expect.

“Not the entirely pleasant kind,” She answered after a moment, glancing nervously out the window again as she bit her lip. “It ain’t good, Joe. They wanted ta see fer themselves what’s been the cause of all the racket at our farm that got Mac injured like this.”

I blinked, thought about the implications of that statement for a moment, and compressed my sentiments into two words. “Well, shit.”

“Ah hear ya,” She agreed wearily, sighing. “These rumors have been flyin’ around fer days now. Most of the townsfolk were just curious, but after Mac got injured, some of ‘em got scared. They won’t be easy to wave off when they’re like that.”

“Well, what if we just-” Before I could get any further, I got cut off mid-sentence by a knock on the door. Applejack opened it to let Twilight poke her head in, and that was when I realized that the librarian looked frazzled out of her mind.

“Sorry to interrupt, Applejack,” The unicorn mare rushed out breathlessly, her eyes wild as she looked right at Applejack, giving me all but the most sidelong of glances. “But I really need your help out there.”

“Ah, shoot.” Applejack spat, shaking her head, and she turned to me. “Okay, just stay here and don’t make any noise, all right Joe? Ah’ll handle this.”

“Wait, handle wha-” Before I could even finish my sentence, the two mares rushed out, slamming the door behind them and leaving me alone inside the room with several unanswered questions.

What the hell was going on out there? What was it that had Twilight looking so frazzled and Applejack so on edge? The crowd couldn’t possibly be here right now, could it? It had only been half an hour since Mac got injured!

Damnit, I couldn’t just sit here and wait it out - the tension was killing me. I had to find out what was going on out there.

It couldn’t hurt to be prepared, though - belting on the holster for my .44, I slid the heavy handgun into its sheath and stepped out of my room, hand on the pistol’s handle just in case. Outside, I could hear hints of a rather large commotion going on, and despite my common sense screaming at me to just leave well enough alone and go back inside the room, I didn’t like not knowing what was going on any less.

From beyond the door I could already hear Applejack’s voice calling out loud and powerfully to someone, but what she was saying was still muffled enough that I couldn’t make it out entirely. Curiosity won out in the end, and I stepped forward to the ajar main door leading to the porch, pushing it open as I stepped out into the light.

“Ah’m tellin’ ya, there’s nothin’ ta worry about! Big Mac’s injury was an accident-”

“Hey, AJ, what the hell is going on-”

I froze where I stood, screeching to a halt mid-sentence as I stared at the massive crowd of ponies, which seemed like the entire freaking population of Ponyville, that stood clustered at the gates to Sweet Apple Acres.

They stared back.

Applejack and Twilight, who were standing in front of them in an obvious attempt to wave the crowd off, whirled around to face me at the same time, and the farmpony’s jaw dropped open in an expression that plainly screamed ‘What the fuck are you doing!?’

Aw, piss.

“Oh my stars, it’s a human!” I heard a mare’s voice cry out, and I immediately recognized the source of the cry - a certain mint-green unicorn, no surprise there, was hopping up and down excitedly in the midst of the crowd in her attempts to get a clearer look, and the crowd’s murmurs were rapidly intensifying as Lyra’s words began to sink in.

Without a word, I immediately spun on my heel, walked back inside the house, slammed the door closed, and immediately pressed my back against it, barely even breathing.

Outside, I could hear the crowd’s clamoring begin to grow in volume, and Applejack’s voice was steadily raising itself in a futile attempt to match them. One mare could hardly out-shout an entire town all by herself, and I sure as hell couldn’t step out there myself either; I wasn’t prepared to face off with an angry, frightened mob!

“You know, hiding away here isn’t going to solve anything.” Celestia said from next to me.

“Gyah!” I whirled around in a shock, my arms instinctively coming up into a ready stance and bracing myself for a fight before I even realized what I was doing. “When the hell did you come in!?”

In response, the statuesque, majestic alicorn before me that had certainly not been in the living room a few seconds ago let out a bemused chuckle, and she fixed me with a calm but reassuring look. “I have always been here, watching, young one. My name is Princess Celestia, ruler and steward of this land, and you have nothing to fear from me, young Joseph Ryan; I'm here to help.”

Of course. What were the odds that Twilight didn't spill the beans on my arrival to her mentor? Even if she hadn't, what were the odds that a goddess of the sun wouldn't have noticed my arrival anyway?

"Well, I don't suppose you could get the crowd outside to go away first?" I groaned tiredly as I fought the urge to just lean against the door and sink down on my ass, my heart still beating wildly in my chest - this was way too much stress to go through in the span of just half an hour. “I’m not exactly ready to face a mob right now.”

“Hmm… I’ll see what I can do.” Celestia simply gave me an enigmatic smile, and she stepped past me to push open the door, gesturing for me to follow her outside. The effect was immediate - the moment the princess stepped out into the open, the crowd outside fell silent so abruptly, I almost got auditory whiplash.

Twilight and AJ blinked in surprise at how suddenly the crowd had gone quiet, but when they followed their gaze to us, their expressions were priceless. AJ’s jaw just dropped open, followed immediately by the rest of her body as she knelt along with the rest of the crowd in deference to their ruler. Twilight’s eyes practically bugged out, and her body somehow seemed to go through the motions of bowing and galloping towards us simultaneously, finally deciding to go with a short bow before rushing to her mentor’s side.

“Princess Celestia!” She cried out, her mane already visibly fraying at the edges. “Thank the stars you’re here! I’m so sorry about the mess we made, I didn’t think you’d get here so soo-”

“It’s all right, Twilight.” Celestia simply reassured her student with a bemused smile. “Nopony was hurt, and I can let slide a little bit of unruliness.”

Turning to face her still-kneeling subjects, Celestia gestured for them to get up. “Rise, my little ponies. Everything is fine,” The solar princess spoke out in a voice that didn’t sound any louder than the one she had been using indoors, but somehow managed to carry itself across the crowd all the same - the effect was astounding. “You have nothing to fear from this human - yes, young Lyra was correct in her deduction.”

The mint-green unicorn in question seemed gobsmacked that her ruler knew her name personally, never mind the fact that Celestia knew what she had blurted out to the crowd in her excitement - it certainly reinforced her image of being an all-knowing goddess, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had been intentional on her part.

“This human's name is Joseph, and he comes from a distant land far beyond our borders. He is still searching for a way home, but in the interest of our kingdom's security, I must ask you all to remain quiet regarding his presence here, as he is quite unlike anything we have encountered before. Equestria is not ready for this news yet. I can assure you all that he is of no danger to those around him, and had no involvement in Big Mac’s injury - you have nothing to fear from him.” The princess addressed her subjects firmly but gently, undoubtedly impressing upon the fact that they didn't have to be afraid, but all the same, the need to keep my presence here a secret had remained.

“Please return to your daily business; I will be negotiating the terms of Joseph’s stay here in Equestria until such a time he can return home.” All at once, the crowd began to disperse. Some were more reluctant than others, casting doubtful looks over their shoulders as they left, but if it was any consolation most of the fear I had previously seen building up had already been assuaged. Celestia's skill and influence must have been considerable in reality if she could sway such a crowd with only a few well-spoken sentences, rather than simply throwing around the weight of her crown.

With that out of the way, once the last of the crowd had disappeared down the road leading back to Ponyville the solar princess then turned to me, and her expression took on a more somber, serious tone. Without even turning to look at Applejack and Twilight, she said to them, "Twilight, Applejack, please make sure that rumors don't run out of control in Ponyville - I need time resolve this matter, and Joseph's presence being made public will only attract more attention that he does not need."

"Wait a sec, then what do I do? What's gonna happen to me?" I blurted out without even thinking, and immediately wished I could just suck those words right back into my mouth. The moment I spoke, the alicorn princess locked her eyes with mine, and I literally felt her intense, piercing gaze bore right into the depths of my soul.

"I need you to come with me immediately to Canterlot, young Joseph," Celestia stated, her tone brooking no argument. "Now that the immediate crisis has passed, I have many questions for you."

---

If there was any doubt to Celestia’s power, they were put to rest when the light faded from around us, and I found myself standing in an opulent, luxuriously decorated room, with all of my belongings lying on the floor around me, perfectly organized. The window outside showed the sun still high in the afternoon sky - barely even a moment had passed since she had teleported us from Sweet Apple Acres.

“This room will be your residence for the foreseeable future, until we have decided what course of action we shall take.” Celestia stated as she stepped forward without even looking at me. Her horn sparked briefly, and I felt the most peculiar tingling sensation prickle over my skin before it rapidly faded. “Leave your belongings here first, and come with me. I will have to ask you to remain silent while we are outside - it would not do for us to attract undue attention.”

Before I could reply, the doors leading outside the room swung open, and she stepped outside into a corridor of white marble. Not wanting to be left behind, I started after her at a brisk walk, but when I stepped out into the corridor proper, I had to practically hold myself back from gawking openly at my surroundings.

There wasn’t a doubt where I was - this was Canterlot castle, the heart of the capital city of Equestria. Opalescent marble and rich, red carpets decorated the walls and floor, and the ceilings were intricately carved with ostentatious designs that would have had Renaissance-era artists and architects green with envy - seriously, the decor here made five-star hotels back on Earth look like two-bit motels.

In all my life, I had never seen such lavish decorations in the flesh. Such things belonged to the realm of fairy tales and fantasy video games, but as I passed by another stained glass window that looked out upon the mountainside city and it's gleaming, elegant spires, it truly hit me.

I was really here.

This was really happening.

I could have easily passed off the past few days as an intensely vivid and realistic hallucination, but faced with the stark reality of the entire world splayed out physically before me, the fact hammered home harder than ever - this was real.

Engrossed as I was in the world around me, I barely even noticed that the halls around us were completely quiet. As I walked through the corridors behind Celestia, I realized that there wasn’t a single other pony in sight.

“Did you… like, clear the entire castle out for this or something? I haven’t seen another pony since we got here.” I asked quietly as we passed by another empty hallway, and Celestia let out a mirthless chuckle.

“Not really - I just have a rather good sense of where ponies are and are not sometimes.” The diarch gave me an enigmatic look as she turned briefly to face me, continuing on walking without even batting an eyelid. “Still, I took the liberty of casting a minor illusion spell on you before we entered the corridors - to any other pony’s eyes, you would simply appear as a nondescript earth pony. It should help keep some attention off your back, at least for a while.”

Staring at Celestia’s back, I found myself getting more and more confused with her every passing second. Her demeanour seemed to shift from whimsically cryptic to frighteningly serious every few moments, and try as I might, I just couldn’t get a read on her.

For a second I thought it was the infamous Trollestia at work, but I immediately discarded the thought - if I assumed Trollestia was at work when Celestia was in fact being utterly serious about the matter at hand... well, let’s just say I didn’t want to find out what happens when you piss off a physical goddess that embodies the sun.

We continued walking in mutual silence for several more minutes, and in that short period of time, not a single other pony crossed our paths. If not for the fact that I could faintly hear conversations being carried out in some of the rooms we passed by, and I saw a pony or two walking through the corridors we didn’t go down, I would’ve thought the entire place had gone all ghost castle on us. Soon enough, we came to an enormous set of double doors where the first ponies I’d seen since coming here stood - two unicorn Royal Guards, dressed to the nines in immaculate golden armor, and just as stoic and unblinking as I remembered them being in the show.

In an impressive and slightly unnerving display of coordination and discipline, the two guards saluted as one, both their horns lighting up simultaneously to pull the doors open. Even as I passed by them, not once did their gaze flicker towards me, and they stared unflinchingly straight ahead as Celestia and I walked into the room beyond.

As we stepped through the doorway, I realized just where we had walked into: Celestia’s throne room, glorious and resplendent in all its magnificence. Lining the walls were familiar stained glass designs that I recognized easily - scenes depicting Nightmare Moon’s return and subsequent redemption at the hands of the Elements of Harmony, Discord’s second imprisonment, and the royal wedding between Shining Armor and Princess Cadence. There was one particular mural that I realized was missing, however - the stained glass window after the scene depicting the royal wedding was still blank.

That meant Sombra hadn’t shown up yet, then - the Crystal Empire had yet to make its appearance. By extension, I guess that also meant that I was most probably in between seasons - this was apparently Equestria as it was in between seasons two and three.

“Well then, now that it’s just the two of us here,” Celestia’s voice echoed throughout the spacious throne room, shaking me out of my reverie before I could get any further down that train of thought. “Perhaps we can begin our discussion. Twilight has told me everything that you told her about yourself - who you are, what you are, and where you come from. But there are still other questions that hasn’t been answered yet - how you came to be here, and why.”

“In my defense, Princess, I already told Twilight everything I know about that,” I replied, perhaps a little too hastily for my liking. “I honestly don’t know how I got here, much less why. As far as I know, I was out on a hiking trip when I fell through a hole. Walked through a tunnel, came out the other side, and bam, there I was in what you call the Everfree forest. I really don’t know anything else aside from that.”

The look that Celestia gave me was skeptical, if the raised eyebrow was any indication, but she didn’t seem disinclined to believe me. Probably giving me the benefit of the doubt, but not totally buying my story at face value at the same time.

That, I guessed, was a rather promising sign at least. I would actually be kind of worried if she’d bought the story wholesale without even batting an eyelid - now that would have been far too easy.

“Well, even if you had no knowledge of how you came to be here, there is still the question of what you will be doing while you are here.” Celestia’s expression didn’t change, and the disconcerting intensity of her earlier gaze began to return. “Forgive me if this may seem… rather draconian of me, but I have to be sure that your intentions are pure if you are to stay with us in the castle for the time being. You understand, after all, that I have to care for my subjects’ safety as well.”

“Oh, it’s no problem, Princess, I totally understand.” I held my hands up noncommittally, simply relieved that she was still being reasonable about it - frankly, I was still waiting for my luck to turn around and for Luna to suddenly appear and condemn me to the dungeons or something. Things seemed to be going a little too quickly and conveniently for me to be comfortable with, and something about the whole thing was just setting off subconscious alarm bells ringing in my head as I waited for the other shoe to drop. “But, uh, how exactly will you make sure that I intend to do no harm?”

The alicorn gave me an unreadable smile, and the pressure of her gaze on me inexplicably grew even further. “There is a certain way that I can… gain the measure of somepony, by gazing into the essence of their very being, to see them as they truly are. It isn’t quite so much as reading their mind, as it is simply looking through a window to have a glimpse of their soul. The method is called a-”

“Soulgaze?” I finished for her, and tried not to grin at her slightly widened eyes - totally called it.

“How did you know it was called that?” Celestia cocked her head quizzically at me, and I shrugged.

“I have some pretty similar stuff back from where I came from - I just didn’t think the name would be the same.” I answered, trying to hide my grin at the sheer irony of it - I’d honestly just thrown out the reference to the Soulgaze from the Dresden Files at random as an inside joke, but I didn’t think I’d actually get it right. I waved a hand at her, trying to wave it off. “Never mind, it was just an inside joke thing. I hope this is a consensual, non-invasive procedure?”

“No need to worry, young Joseph,” Celestia replied, smiling reassuringly. “In order for the soulgaze to be maintained, your mind would have to willingly remain open to mine, and I would not be able to initiate it unless you willingly maintained eye contact with me.” Okay, eye contact? Seriously, the sheer number of coincidental match-ups with the actual Soulgaze I knew of was starting to get very disconcerting. “Now, shall we begin?”

Nothing to lose, I thought to myself. Might as well just go ahead and get this done and over with. With the thought, I shrugged and nodded to her, signifying my readiness as I locked my eyes with hers. “All right, do what you have to, I guess.” Here goes nothing…

In front of me, Celestia nodded as her eyes bored into mine, and the pressure of her gaze became almost impossible to resist. “Very well then. Try to relax, Joseph - this may feel a little strange. Just relax… and embrace eternity.”

Hearing those last two words in that particular order made me anything but relaxed. Embrace eternity!? How the f-

The blackness of Celestia’s orbs rushed forward to encompass me completely, and I found myself falling into the depthless ocean of her eyes, their incomprehensible magnitude crushing me completely from all sides as I found myself blinded by a searing flash of light. An overwhelming sense of vastness overcame me, so inconceivably infinite that it complete defied my imagination - seduced it and utterly defeated it. Vertigo tossed my senses up and about as I lost all sense of up and down, left and right, and all I could feel was the immense, soul-searing heat and pressure of the sun itself all around me. I was a gnat, burning within the very core of a star, and I helplessly flailed for purchase within its crushing depths.

I would have screamed, if not for the fact that I had no vocal chords, or even any skin or flesh to burn and melt off to begin with. All that there was of me was my tiny little soul, stripped bare of its mortal, earthbound shell and exposed to the searing power around me - power that I realized was Celestia.

This was who she was, all that she had ever been and ever would be. There couldn’t have been a more poetic, more symbolic expression of the constant, immutable force that she represented. As comprehension dawned upon me as I beheld her awe-inspiring power, I realized something: Celestia didn’t just control the sun - she was the sun, and she would remain so until she or the sun itself perished in an age still eons in the coming, washed away by the tides of time.

Yet for all of the blinding, scorching heat and light of her soul, there were still marks and stains of imperfections, dark sunspots that blemished the otherwise perfect luminescence of her spirit. Past mistakes that she had made, traumatic events of her past - even as I passed by one of them, images flashed through my head, faster than I could comprehend them, yet each one irreversibly and indelibly imprinted upon my memories, where they would stay starkly and vividly fresh till the day I passed on.

Luna’s first fall to darkness, her transformation into Nightmare Moon as the Nightmare took over her body, the blackness spreading through her body like a vile corruption as Celestia struggled against all odds to save her sister. The two sisters battling each other as Nightmare Moon vied for her rule, mercilessly battering her sister as Celestia held back throughout the entire fight, unwilling to harm her only sibling. The elder alicorn eventually resorting to her final, most desperate option - the Elements of Harmony - and her subsequent anguish and crushing guilt as fully hit her that she had sealed her sister away for a thousand years.

More images flickered by, images of events that I realized hadn’t been part of the show, but recognized nonetheless. Her battles against Sombra with Luna by her side before his imprisonment, the desperate sealing of Discord with the Elements of Harmony in the chaos of Equestria’s early history; every significant, traumatic event of her life that had marked her, I experienced flickers and images of those moments and emotions as though I had lived through them myself. Yet, even though those flickers were nothing more than mere shadows of the memories they represented, I found myself overwhelmed by the sheer vividness of what I was experiencing.

As the flickers of her memories continued, they continued to grow more hazy and indistinct, and I felt the coherence of the stream of her consciousness - and mine - fading as my view of her past continued deeper and deeper. The images became less vivid the earlier I delved, the heat and pressure around my soul easing as I felt the intensity of Celestia’s presence around me slowly dwindle. Just as it was about to fade to nothingness, there was a sudden wrenching sensation, and I found myself back inside the throne room seated on the floor, looking up in awe at Celestia as she stared back at me with wide, disbelieving eyes.

“That… That’s unusual,” She whispered, evidently as surprised as I was overwhelmed by what I had just seen. “Usually, there… isn’t a glimpse back.”

I blinked, uncomprehending as I tried to gather myself back together. Right then I should have been in gibbering hysterics thanks to what I had just borne witness to, but I was determined not to embarrass myself in front of the ruler of an entire nation, and I drew myself back together with an effort of will. “W-wait, what do you mean by that?”

“Normally, the Soulgaze is one-way, from mine to yours.” Celestia explained as her horn sparked, her expression rapidly reasserting itself into a queenly mask of serenity, and I felt a force gently tugging me back onto my feet. “But it appears that you may have gotten a glimpse back into my soul in return as I looked upon yours. This is most unusual…”

“Well, unusual or not, are you satisfied with what you saw?” I tried to redirect the conversation back towards more comprehensible ground as I attempted to calm down my hammering heartbeat - whatever the reason was for the Soulgaze going two ways instead of its usual one way, it was far beyond my understanding, and I didn’t want to know why, much less even begin to broach the topic of what she had seen in me. If the soulgaze she had cast on me really was as in-depth as the one I knew from the Dresden Files was… well, let’s just say I wasn’t ready to take such a deep glimpse inside of myself yet. “I would hate to have unintentionally scarred you or anything…”

Something in her expression shifted, but the celestial diarch quickly covered it up with an amused grin before I could catch any more of it, and she shook her head. “No need to worry, what I saw inside was more than enough to convince me of your innocence. You are more than welcome to stay in Equestria until we have found a way for you to return home, young Joseph Ryan.”

Oookay, I guess that meant she’d deemed that I was harmless thanks to whatever it was she had seen in me through the Soulgaze. I wasn’t going to speculate on what she had seen, but as long as it meant that my ass was out of the fire, I was totally fine with that.

“Now then, since we have established that you aren’t a danger to my little ponies, I believe the next point of discussion is in order,” Celestia continued, turning around to walk towards the throne as she gestured for me to follow her. “I would like to know more about the place that you come from, Joseph - more about your race, about humanity.”

She only knows that I call myself human - how did she know that the word for my species was humanity? My mind whispered its suspicion as she took her seat upon the throne, gesturing for me to join her as another chair flashed into existence next to it, but I cast the paranoid thought aside quickly.

Celestia was a millennia-old goddess; a literal force of nature that had more than likely borne witness to the rise and fall of entire civilizations. She was bound to know a few things that I didn't - did I really want to start suspecting her of something just because of that? The way I figured it from all the fantasy and sci-fi fiction stories I had read and video games I had played, when you got to be several thousand years old, you'd pretty much earned the right to keep a few enigmatic secrets.

Deciding to ignore the fact that she knew something that she wasn't telling me (that much was practically a given, due to her age), I decided to let the revelations come as they did instead of seeking out answers - in fact, it seemed that Celestia was the one seeking them out this time, and it was now my turn to dispense them out.

"All right, then.” I sat down on the chair, and started digging through my brain for answers to whatever questions she might ask. “What do you want to know?"

---

We spent the next half an hour just sitting there, Celestia asking me questions about what mankind was like, what Earth was like back home, what our civilisation was like, and I had absolutely no way of dodging those questions this time - it seemed like mankind was all that she wanted to know about. The more the discussion went on, the more it seemed as though she was looking for something in particular in my answers, and whenever I told her something about what life was like back on Earth, she seemed mildly perturbed, as though the answer she had been expecting wasn’t the one I had given her.

“So, humanity itself doesn’t have a single culture to begin with, because there are so many different nations despite all of you being the same species?” She asked me, a questioning eyebrow raised she slowly sipped at the tea she had conjured for the both of us, though I had politely declined a cup.

“Well, humanity is a… melting pot if you asked me, honestly speaking.” I scratched at my head as I pondered my answer to Celestia’s question. “We seriously have all kinds of different people ranging from the inspiringly great, all the way to the atrociously horrible. It would take ages just to list out all the examples, so you’ll just have to take my sweeping statement for it.”

“I see…” Celestia murmured, pursing her lips thoughtfully. “And yet with so many different nations and their cities scattered all around the world, your race still manages to keep everything linked together in a single network - how do you achieve this without magic?”

“Technology,” I replied simply, shrugging. “It relies on something we call electricity, with a whole bunch of additions like microchips, transistors and circuits coming together to make bigger things like computers, making all sorts of things possible. Basically, us humans studied the laws of physics and experimented with chemistry so much that we ended up understanding the laws of nature so well we almost made it our bitch.”

The solar princess nearly looked in askance of that, her eyes widening visibly at my description, and it was a few seconds later before she started speaking again. “Oh, my… To be able to achieve so much, without even having access to magic! Twilight would certainly have a rather engrossing time grilling you for answers and knowledge on everything you know.”

There was a slightly amused twinkle in her eye as she mentioned her student, and I quickly shook my head. “No disrespect intended to your student, Princess, but I think Twilight could grill me for thirty days and thirty nights on everything I knew, and she still wouldn’t be able to learn everything there is to know about my race - I just don’t know that much compared to some of the real experts out there. I’ve just got general knowledge and a few specialized topics on my side.”

Celestia let out a small chuckle, nodding in agreement, and the discussion continued. The questions just kept on coming, asking more about our culture, the locations of our cities, more elaborations on our level of technology, and though I told her everything that I knew to the best of my ability, every answer that I gave seemed to make her grow more and more disconcerted.

By the time I finished answering her questions on how life was America and what the country was like, her expression was a study in consternation. If anything, she seemed more puzzled than anything else despite all the explanations I had given her, and it seemed as though she had ended up with even more questions than answers after all I had told her.

“Well, that was certainly… enlightening,” Celestia said slowly, leaning back on her throne with a thoughtful expression as she began muttering to herself. “Perhaps I was mistaken about where you had come from…”

Wait, what? I raised an eyebrow, frowning. “Uh, pardon, Princess?”

The solar diarch’s gaze shot up, almost as though she had forgotten I was there, and she quickly shook her head, waving me off nonchalantly as her expression quickly reasserted itself into a friendly, reassuring smile. “Oh, my apologies, it seems that I had made some erroneous assumptions on your origins. I had actually thought you to be somepony else, but no matter - I stand corrected now."

The unspoken implications were not missed by me as I connected the dots: Humans beings portrayed as mythic figures in their legends? Thousand year old goddess seemingly knowing about humanity and having expectation out of it? Said goddess actually recalling a specific individual that she had believed to be human? Humanity definitely had a connection of some sort to Equestria, I realized with growing certainty, but what that connection was, I couldn't even begin to piece it together without making several potentially hazardous, and erroneous leaps of logic.

I waited for the Princess to explain further, but Celestia did not say anything more even after the silence between us dragged on for several more moments. “Well then, I… guess we’re done here?” I hazarded cautiously, and internally sighed in relief as Celestia nodded.

“That will be all that I will require of you today, Joseph Ryan.” She rose from her throne, gesturing for me to walk with her as she strode towards the throne room’s exit. “Hopefully, your stay here will be as short and uneventful as we can make it - it would pain me to have to put you through any unnecessary trouble.”

On the surface, it sounded like anything polite a diplomat would tell a visiting dignitary, albeit one that was visiting a particularly dangerous country, I mused to myself as I walked outside with her and back through the corridors leading to my room. But then, something about the way she had worded it sounded… suspiciously specific.

I eyed the princess critically as we made the walk back to the suite she had assigned me, trying to decipher just what it was about her words that kept on nagging at me. Something didn’t feel quite right here; Equestria was largely known to be a peaceful nation, practically devoid of crime on its streets - kind of like the country that I had grown up in, now that I thought about it. So why would she specifically mention making my time here short and uneventful without putting me through any ‘unnecessary trouble’, if Equestria wasn’t known for such things, much less in Canterlot itself?

The thought kept worrying away at me throughout our entire trip through the corridors, which was as silent and uneventful as our earlier walk to the throne room, but even by the time we had reached the doors to my assigned suite, the answers still didn’t come.

As we stepped in front of the doors, Celestia turned to face me again, her expression warm but strangely distant. “Now, keeping a low profile will be absolutely critical for you until I am able to piece together an adequate cover for your presence here. In the meantime, I will appoint a single contact to attend to your material needs - you will meet him tomorrow. As for now, please do get some rest. I understand that it has been a rather harrowing day for you, no?”

That would have been an understatement - everything had just rushed by me in a blur ever since the accident that had injured Big Mac. Now, for the first time since the shit had hit the fan, I had a few quiet moments to gather myself, and I realized just how exhausted I was. Right now, sleep sounded like a very tempting prospect.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” I admitted, running a hand tiredly through my hair. “So, you just want me to stay inside there for the time being and not come out, huh?”

“Only temporarily.” Celestia reassured me, opening the door to the suite and ushering me inside with a wing. “There is no need to worry about needing to stay inside for long, I will be working on a means for you to walk amongst us incognito eventually. Now please, do take whatever time you need to regain your bearings - I must go attend to the Day Court now.”

I still had a million other questions that I still wanted to ask her, but before I could say anything else, her horn sparked, and the doors closed between us, leaving me alone inside the spacious suite she had seen fit to give me.

With nothing else left to do, I turned around to inspect the room more closely, thoroughly impressed with the lavish decorations and opulent furniture that adorned the place. A single window framed by luxuriously red curtains overlooked the castle courtyard, where I could see nobles and royal guards alike walking through it, but that was my only view of the outside world. I briefly tried opening the windows, but after a couple of seconds, it became obvious that even if I had a crowbar to try and pry them open, they weren’t going to be budging anytime soon. I tried the door leading back into the corridor as well, and finding it similarly locked, I came to a rather disconcerting resolution that I’d rather not have arrived at.

As luxurious as the room was, I could recognize it for what it was - a prison cell; albeit a very comfortable one.

Celestia wanted me to stay inside here, with minimal contact with the outside, and only my own activities to keep me occupied - I recognized what house arrest sounded like when I heard it. Justifiable as her reasons were, since I could literally cause a panic if I appeared in public here without a prior explanation, I still found myself rankling at the decision she had made on my behalf to keep me here anyway, bristling with offended indignation at the choice being foisted upon me without any concern about what I wanted.

Well, on the other hand, there were certainly worse alternatives, weren’t there? All things considered, I actually kind of had it pretty good already. Staying in a castle suite, with all my material needs provided for at the snap of a finger until they found a way to send me back home? I could hardly complain about that either. Huffing in resignation, I brushed my feelings of indignation aside, swallowing my pride and accepting that Celestia had simply been acting in the interests of her citizens, which rightly should have been her foremost concern.

Still, it didn’t change the fact that I was probably going to be here for a while. I may as well start making myself comfortable. Turning to my belongings, which were still laid out on the floor as neatly as they had been when we had first arrived here, I started arranging them around the room, stashing them in the appropriate cupboards and making sure this time that the guns were stashed inside someplace lockable and secured… and as I did so, my mind wandered back to the words that I had heard Celestia say before the soulgaze had begun: embrace eternity.

The little things that I had been telling myself to ignore thus far were starting to add up one by one until I could no longer deny them. Rainbow Dash making a Modern Warfare reference before she knocked me out, rust beetles straight out of The Powers of Harmony fanfic that looked like rust monsters out of a Dungeons & Dragons monster manual, a soulgaze spell all too similar to the actual soulgaze from the Dresden Files, and now Celestia saying the exact same words the asari from Mass Effect did before beginning a mindmeld? What the hell was going on here that this place was starting to seem like an amalgamation of every sci-fi and fantasy series I had ever read and played?

There was no doubt that this world I had ended up in was real, so why were all these little things that were beginning to make me question if all this was really just a hallucination cooked up by a fever-addled brain starting to pop up all over the place?

If anything, Celestia was more than likely to have the answers, but even as I laid back in the suite’s bed and tried not to sink too far into its ridiculously soft upholstery, I realized that I didn’t know just how forthcoming the millennia-old diarch would be with the explanations. If there were any reasons for any of this, I would probably have to find them out on my own.

Well, if anything, I mused as I closed my eyes for a much-needed nap, it looked as though that my stay in Equestria had just gotten a little more interesting...

---

Celestia sat within her chambers, looking out through the window upon the city of Canterlot. Though the solar princess was the very picture of serenity for anyone who looked upon her from the outside, inside was a very different story.

Her mind continued to race as she digested the visions that she had seen when she had opened up the Soulgaze between herself and Joseph, and found herself growing more perturbed by the minute as she contemplated the meaning behind it. Her sister was still holding the Day Court in her absence, but night was about to fall, and during the few hours that they had in between the closing of the Day Court and the opening of its opposite number, she had called for Luna to meet her within her chambers to discuss her findings.

She did not have to wait for long - minutes after she had lowered the sun and the moon had begun its slow ascent into the sky, her dearest sister had quickly come trotting through her chamber’s doors, a concerned look on her face.

“Tia!” Luna exclaimed as she quickly came to kneel by her sister’s side, looking at her concernedly. “So what did you find out? Was he what you expected? Did he know anything about our guardian and what happened to him?”

Celestia slowly turned to face her sister, and Luna’s face fell as the sun princess shook her head sadly. “Unfortunately, it seems that I was mistaken, Luna. Wherever he is from… whenever he is from, it definitely is not from humanity as we knew it, however little it was that we knew. And he most certainly does not hail from the Unknown Regions, or from the Old World at all. I saw as much when I looked inside him.”

Luna’s eyes widened as she let out a small gasp of surprise. “You soulgazed him? Sister, but the use of that spell has been forbidden for millennia, has it not? Ever since…” The lunar princess faltered, biting her lip as she hesitated to continue, and Celestia felt a pang of pained empathy as she understood why.

The soulgaze was a spell that had been forbidden from use by the general populace of unicorns because of how it afforded to viewer such a deep, vivid insight into the soul of the one that they had cast it upon, that if the subject’s soul was particularly potent and strong enough in its essence, it could potentially leave its own mark upon the viewer, affecting their own behavior in some way as they inadvertently adopted some of the traits of the one they had cast the soulgaze upon.

And Luna remembered just where her first soulgaze that had gone wrong. More than a thousand years ago, when she had gazed into the blackened, shadowed heart of a king gone mad, the seeds of darkness had been planted inside her heart, where they began to fester and take root, showing their effect only decades later. If you looked into the soul of a being that was mad or evil enough, you could very become like that very monstrosity you had gazed into, and Luna still carried the mental and spiritual scars of the internal battle she had fought, and lost, against the Nightmare to regain control of herself.

On instinct, Celestia reached out with a wing, and brought her sister into a comforting embrace, nuzzling Luna softly. “It’s all right, Luna. It wasn’t entirely your fault - I know that you fought against it with every fibre of your being when it took control of you. And there is no need to worry about young Joseph either. What I saw was heartening in the sense that we truly have nothing to fear from him, but yet…”

The elder princess bit her lip hesitantly, and Luna looked up at her sibling curiously. “What is it, sister? What did you see?”

Celestia remained silent for several more seconds, and when she finally spoke, her voice was an awed whisper. “When I looked inside him, Luna, I… the Aether spoke to me.”

“It spoke to you?” Luna backed away slightly in surprise as she stared at Celestia in shock. The all-pervading field of ambient arcane energy that made all life and magic on Equestria possible to begin with, the one that had sometimes been perceived to actually have a will of its own, had finally spoken to Celestia again after so long? “But such a thing hasn’t happened since we founded Equestria!”

“That’s exactly it,” Celestia emphasized. “Nothing like this has happened in millennia, which makes me want to heed its warnings all the more. I couldn’t decipher much of what it was trying to tell me, but the one thing I did understand was this: great, dire events are about to come upon us, and the Aether showed me that he is but a part of the centre upon which it all revolves around.”

“He is the centre of it all?” Luna arched a skeptical eyebrow, but the lunar princess still looked thoughtful nonetheless. “Were it not for the fact that it were the Aether itself speaking to you of this, I would not be very inclined to believe that. Then, what of his soul? Is he a protector, or a destroyer?”

At that, Celestia gave Luna a tired, knowing smile - trust her sister to still always assume the worst, if only to be prepared and ready for it. Sometimes it really did make her seem like a pessimist, but Luna had also always been the colder, more pragmatic of the two. “I did tell you earlier, Luna, I knew that we had nothing to fear from him when I gazed into his soul. But all the same… he is indeed a troubled one.”

“Troubled? How so?”

Celestia pursed her lips as she struggled to find the words to describe what she had seen. The young human was a scarred individual indeed; his soul bore the marks of loss more acutely than most of her little ponies in this age, and yet he held on to his pain like a lifeline, wearing it like a suit of armor as he stood guard valiantly against all other threats, defending his loved ones with a determination and doggedness that she had only seen in few others.

“I saw…” Celestia began…

---

As Celestia began to cast the spell, the brown orbs of the young human’s eyes rushed forward to meet her, and she found herself falling inwards, a familiar sensation that accompanied every soulgaze spell she had ever cast… but when the world reassembled itself around her, she found herself greeted by a sight unlike anything she had ever seen before.

All around her, for as far as the eye could see, a dry, barren wasteland stretched outwards, the sandy ground cracked and pitted, and overshadowed by an eternally twilit sky. All around the wasteland that she gazed upon, numerous swords and rifles stood where they had been thrust into the ground, each serving as a marker for a headstone that wasn’t there. The endless struggle, the utter war that seemed to stretch on eternally for those who walked it; Celestia could feel the anguish and agony that the world around her bore, the scars of pain and loss that had desecrated and destroyed this land so.

Yet, as she turned around, she beheld a sight that was a complete contrast to what she had borne witness to; for in the centre of the barren field of blades, there stood a lush, verdant field of vibrantly green, healthy grass, a sanctuary of life and hope that had been sealed off from the desiccated, destroyed wasteland that surrounded it by a large, glowing barrier.

Finding herself moving towards the field of her own accord, Celestia passed through the barrier with some minor discomfort, and looked up in wonder at the tall, mighty oak that stood tall and proud in the centre of the field, towering over the saplings and younger, smaller trees that grew in the shade of its wide canopy. Upon setting her gaze upon the oak, she could immediately sense the aura of protectiveness that it emanated, the purpose of guardianship and unshakeable faith and resolve that composed every iota of its existence. The oak had grown tall and strong to protect the younger saplings and trees under its charge, casting its canopy protectively over them as it sought to shelter them from the storms and the other elements of the wasteland outside, yet she could still recognize that in doing so, it deprived its younger charges of the sunlight that they so vitally needed to grow, stifling them and limiting their growth.

The sheer symbolism of it all was not lost on her, and she found herself being more and more impressed with what she was seeing as she moved closer to the oak. As she drew nearer, she realized that the oak bore not fruits, but rather large, silvery drops of memory - concepts and principles given form.

Chivalry, honor, and compassion all featured prominently, and she immediately recognized the principles of a knight when she sensed them, but every now and then she would catch sight of a darker, blackened splotch of diseased fruit, a sickness that threatened to eat away at the health of the oak, even as she felt the tree itself fight back against the sickness that threatened to consume it. Anger, pride, and ruthlessness were all concepts that she recognized, and there were more than their fair share of diseased patches fighting for domination against the principles that the oak had built itself upon.

She began to approach the tree’s base, and as she did, a metallic glint caught her eye, and she realized that there was a sword stuck in the base of the oak, having been thrust in blade-first. The sword’s blade was incredibly rusted, yet somehow it still managed to gleam in the light, its simple, unornamented handle giving off a soft glow that still managed to speak volumes of its untapped, unrealized potential. This here was a primed spell, a loaded gun, just waiting to go off - all that mattered now was where the sword was going to be directed, at once it was drawn from the tree’s base.

And just as she was about to grasp onto the hilt of the sword with her magic to pull it out and find out just where the sword would take itself, a torrent of images rushed through her head, meaning and concepts forcibly imprinting themselves upon her synapses, and she comprehended.

Then there was the familiar, yet sudden wrenching sensation of the soulgaze ending, and Celestia found herself thrown back into her own body. The alicorn blinked as she recovered herself, and when she looked down, she found Joseph staring up at her and shaking madly, his face white as a sheet as he visibly struggled to control himself.

And as certain as she was right now that she had nothing to fear from the young human before her for her little ponies, she was also just as certain that as deep a glimpse she had gained into his soul… he had also looked right back into hers with equal intensity.

“That… That’s unusual,” She whispered. “Usually, there… isn’t a glimpse back.”

---

“And when I grasped onto the hilt of the sword to try to pull it out with my magic, that was when the Aether spoke to me.” Celestia finished. “It’s entire message didn’t get through, but when it felt that I understood, it withdrew, and the soulgaze ended.”

“I… see…” Luna said slowly, her expression perturbed. “Sister, I… This cannot possibly bode well for the kingdom. You know what happened the last time the Aether spoke to us directly like this.”

“I know, Luna.” Celestia nodded morosely, her expression growing pained. “And yet he, a singular lost soul so far from his home, may be our only chance at weathering the oncoming storm. He wishes nothing more than to return home, Luna - and knowing what lies ahead of us, I have to deny him that chance if our kingdom is to have any chance of surviving.”

“You’re going to keep him here!? Against his will, and hiding that fact from him, no less?” Luna gasped, and she gave her elder sister a cross look. “Sister, I know that I myself advocate the cause of acting in the interests of the greater good, but there are limits even to my pragmatism! I may understand the necessity of your actions, but I cannot condone them!”

Luna had nearly half-expected her sister to give her a defensive reply, but to her surprise, Celestia merely gave her a tired smile, and nodded in resignation as she turned to gaze out upon the nightscape of Canterlot.

“Indeed you should, Luna,” Celestia agreed unexpectedly. “It is a good sign that you are starting to learn the beginnings of compassion. All the more that it will help you to understand just what a ruler must feel when making the hard decisions that have to be made.”

Luna didn’t know what to say to that. Stunned into silence by her sister’s own unexpected admission to her own necessary cruelty, the younger sibling of the night simply walked up to her sister’s side, and sat down next to her, leaning into her and watching the night sky together.

She may not have understood the situation as thoroughly as Celestia did, but if her sister was this torn up over the decision that she had to make… then the very least she could do was support her all the way through with it.

Never again, She swore to herself as she and her sister draped their wings over each other, finally able to truly enjoy each other’s company regularly after having been separated for a thousand years. I will never leave your side ever again, sister.

Darkening Skies

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Chapter 9: Darkening Skies

Waking up the next morning was quite the new experience, I found. This being the first time I’d had a taste of what royal bedding felt like, I nearly found myself suffocated on all sides by the ridiculously soft upholstery of the suite’s luxury bed when I woke up - seriously, the damn stuff was so impossibly pliant that I must’ve sunk at least a full foot into it before finally stopping.

I had to claw my way out of the sheets and the pillows before I finally managed to fumble my way out of the bed, and when I’d finally done so, I’d proceeded to unceremoniously roll out the side, fall straight out of bed, and land on the floor below with a pained grunt.

Real dignified exit, yeah.

“If I may say so sir, that was a most grand exit from the bed. Will you be needing any further assistance for the rest of the day, I wonder?” A wizened, cultured voice came from the side, mirroring my thoughts almost perfectly, and I immediately scrambled to my feet to salvage any vestiges of grace I had left, turning to look towards the source of the voice.

What greeted me was a sight that had me experiencing a curious sense of déjà vu. A tall, composed, grey-coated unicorn pony stood next to the door leading out of the suite, standing at attention and clad in an immaculate butler’s suit. His steel-gray mane was neatly slicked back, and he was sporting the most British moustache I swore I had ever seen.

Yet despite the outward servile airs that he was putting on however, the dryness and sarcasm that he had laced his earlier statement with didn’t get past me. I just couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d seen someone like this guy from somewhere before.

“Don’t mind me, that was just a one-off. I don’t usually sleep in beds like this,” I grunted anyway as I rubbed at my eyes, trying to boot my brain back up. I seriously wasn’t ready to entertain a visitor this early in the morning. “I take it you’re the contact Celestia has assigned to me while I’m staying in here?”

“A most astute observation, sir.” The stallion nodded, the barest hint of a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth as he bowed slightly towards me, not seeming even the slightest bit fazed by my appearance or my attire, even as I stood before him in all the non-existent glory of my morning pajamas. “Sir Bitworth, at your service. I am - or rather, was the vice-manager of the castle’s domestic staff, before I was assigned by the Princess herself to attend to your material needs for the duration of your stay here at the castle. A rather important, crucial assignment, she quite impressed upon me, so I see no reason to believe it otherwise.”

Bitworth? I thought incredulously to myself as an eyebrow raised itself while he spoke, and my brow scrunched up in thought as the sense of déjà vu intensified. Okay, now I know I’ve seen someone like you somewhere before… but where?

“As of now, my duties are to ensure that all meals are delivered to these chambers on time anonymously, that your material needs for your personal comfort are seen to, and that the servants remain none the wiser to your identity.” Bitworth continued as though completely oblivious to my expression, though the knowing glint in his eye seemed to indicate otherwise. “I can also make arrangements for any furnishing or redecoration requests you may have to the adjacent room connected to this suite should you wish to make them, as the room is currently unoccupied and not being put to any use.”

“The adjacent room’s empty?” I blinked the sleep out of my eyes as my brain seized upon the fact. Immediately, I strode over to the door leading next door, finding it surprisingly unlocked, and opened it up to confirm it. As I peered through the door, I blinked in surprise as I realized that yes, the adjacent room was very much empty, and it was a lot bigger than I’d thought it would be. The room had to be the size of a full-sized gymnasium, or even larger - I suspected that it could have held an entire tennis court, and still have enough room leftover to add on a dojo’s sparring floor on top of that.

Well, I certainly hadn’t expected that. I closed the door and turned back to Bitworth, who was giving me the same kind of smile that one would patiently give to a particularly slow child, as though waiting for me to come to a conclusion myself. “So, will sir be wanting to make any furnishing request for the adjacent chambers?”

“Not… quite right now, Bitworth, thanks.” I held up a hand, shaking my head and still trying to come to terms with how quickly this was all moving. This was just… way too convenient. Did Celestia actually plan on placing me here? And if she did, then what for? “Just… give me a minute to think things through. I’ll let you know when I have some ideas.”

“Very good, sir.” The old butler nodded in deference. “Now, while you are busy pondering whatever ideas you may have, perhaps you may wish to indulge in some food first. I took the liberty of preparing breakfast for you before I arrived - I was uncertain as to what diet you may prefer, so I erred on the side of caution and prepared something I know you have eaten before. I understand that you have been residing at Sweet Apple Acres for the past week, so some apple pastries, a few slices of buttered bread, and a glass of orange juice should be just fine.”

I blinked again, for the first time noticing the tray that he had been almost imperceptibly levitating behind his back, surrounded by a faint gunmetal gray aura as it floated silently behind him and carrying the aforementioned food items that he’d just described. My stomach immediately rumbled in agreement with his suggestion of breakfast, reminding me of just how hungry I was, and I grabbed the tray as it floated towards me, eagerly digging in.

As I ate, I began pondering on my next step, chewing thoughtfully on the slice of apple pie I’d been brought - so far, the goal had been to find a way home, and as far as Princess Celestia’s promise had went, the fulfillment of that particular wish was entirely in her hooves now. Which left me in a curious state of waiting right now - I didn’t exactly want to spend the entire time doing nothing, and living in the lap of luxury was a fast track on the way to becoming lazy and complacent; something I knew all too well thanks to the years in my youth before the rude awakening that was National Service.

If I didn’t want to fall into that personal trap of mine, I needed something to occupy my time with, something productive; even if it was something as repetitive and gruelling as the hard, physical labor I’d been going through at Sweet Apple Acres the past several days.

… Come to think of it, the gears in my head ground as my train of thought continued chugging along, I could actually think of several things to keep myself busy with. I haven’t been training much lately ever since I moved to the States, and if my trip through the Everfree is any indication, I am really out of practice.

Well, there was no denying that particular truth - before I had moved to America, I’d dabbled a little bit in practicing Wing Chun back in my home country, certainly pandering to the stereotype that All Chinese People Knew Martial Arts. But ever since my migration halfway across the world, I hadn’t had the time, energy, or the reason to practice it, or bring the topic of my knowledge of martial arts up in conversation.

The same went for what few kendo and parkour lessons I’d informally received from a friend of mine; other than that, most of what I already knew about swordsmanship and freerunning had been self-taught. But judging from how many close calls I’d been through in the Everfree, it sure as hell still wasn’t enough.

I’d only barely survived my run-in with Wolfzilla in the Everfree thanks to what I’d learned in running the hell away as fast as possible through the most direct route possible, and my reflexes had been barely enough to react sufficiently quickly to take down my wolven attackers, only thanks to the combat training I had previously undergone, but neglected to maintain. Not only did that worry me, but Celestia’s words from yesterday echoed ominously through my head as well as I contemplated them again, their meaning growing more and more ominous by the minute.

Hopefully, your stay here will be as short and uneventful as we can make it - it would pain me to have to put you through any unnecessary trouble...

Well, call me paranoid, but it sounded like she had been hinting at something else entirely with that sentence, and I wasn’t about to let myself get caught unprepared. I didn’t survive the Everfree by not listening to my survival instinct, and right now, it was screaming at me to batten down the hatches, because it was only a matter of time before shit started going down.

Now the only question was how I was going to do that, and as the gears in my head finally clicked into place, an idea began to solidify.

“Say, Bitworth,” I said as I turned to look at the old, wizened butler curiously. “You wouldn’t happen to have any experience in putting obstacle courses and training areas together, would you?”

---

Over the next few days, the suite’s adjacent room underwent its gradual transformation into a makeshift obstacle course and training area, and Bitworth showed just how scarily competent he was at getting shit done without me noticing. Seriously, the room was right next door, and you would have thought that setting something up as large as an obstacle course would at least give off some noise, but the old butler and the servants he had undoubtedly called to shift the stuff up didn’t make even a whisper. I’d woken up two mornings later to a tray of buttered pancakes with maple syrup, and once I’d finished wolfing it all down, I’d gone to check on the adjacent room, to find to my awed disbelief that at least half of the obstacle course had already been set up.

By the time I’d finished picking my jaw up off the floor, Bitworth had appeared next to my shoulder as soundlessly as he always did, levitating the empty breakfast tray and looking at me expectantly. "I take it that sir is satisfied with the improvements we have been making to the adjacent suite?"

"It's uh... going up a lot faster than I expected." I nodded, leaving out the part about how freaked out I was on how quietly they were doing it too. "How much longer before everything's set up?"

"It shouldn't take longer than two more days at the most," Bitworth replied sagely. "In the meantime, shall we continue with your attempts in learning how to decipher written Equuish?"

I gave the old butler a deadpan look as I registered the subtle jab, but I took it in good humor and shrugged, walking over to the nearest bookshelf and picking out the book on Equestrian law that we had been going through translating yesterday.

Over the past two days, while waiting for the training room to get set up, I’d decided to at least try to give the books that stocked the suite’s spacious bookshelves a read, but the meanings of their flowing, alien script that looked like some strange cross between Spanish and Japanese continued to elude me. Bitworth, in all his generosity, had offered to teach me how to read written Equuish in an attempt to offset my apparent illiteracy, which looked very strange to a pony; according to him, I spoke perfect Equuish, yet for some odd reason I was simultaneously incapable of reading even a single word of it.

Of course, I didn’t speak my thoughts out loud, but to me, they were speaking something that sounded exactly like English, which had somewhat rather disturbing implications now that I thought about how Celestia seemed to have personal knowledge of humanity itself, but that was besides the point. Still, when in Rome, do as the Romans do, right? I’d taken the old butler up on his offer, but my attempts at learning to read Equuish had been… lacklustre, at best.

I’d somehow managed to stumble around learning the language’s written script even worse than a newborn, butchering the transition from written to spoken word badly enough that I think I would have given Twilight an aneurysm had she been here; seriously, I’d read something as simple as “no” and translated it to “do not want”. Despite my fumbling attempts at mastering their written language, Bitworth had shown a herculean amount of patience as he coached me hour after hour in deciphering Equestrian texts, shrugging off my mistakes patiently despite my embarrassment each time I mangled the translations beyond all recognition.

Of course, that didn’t stop my attempts at continuing to master it either, despite all the embarrassing mistakes that I kept on making time and again even two hours into our fifth lesson a full week into my residence at Canterlot castle, when he had already finished setting up the training area and I was intending to test it out after we had finished our translation lesson for the morning.

“Sir, that word is ‘freeze’, not ‘cheese’.” Bitworth explained patiently again as I stared embarrassedly at the mistranslated word so hard I was surprised I hadn’t burned a hole in the book yet. “I don’t think that a guard shouting ‘cheese’ at a fleeing criminal would be all that common a sight, after all.”

“Ugh, right…” I let out a tired sigh as I shut the book, pinching the bridge of my nose in frustration at my failed efforts once again. “Well, I think that’ll be all for me for today, Bitworth. Barring those translation spells you told me about, and you said that they were pretty advanced, learning Equuish on its own is just bloody hard. This is just... aggravating."

“There is actually a saying amongst us Equestrians, sir.” Bitworth suggested as he dutifully levitated the book out of my hands and returned it to its bookshelf. “‘A watched flank never receives its Cutie Mark’. It takes time to learn things new things that you haven’t grasped yet. There really is no rush in this, so there is no need to be so hard on yourself. But I suppose you don't really need me telling you what to do - shall we be moving on to your test run of the training room then?”

Well, that certainly sounded like something I'd do a lot better at than my recent flailing attempts to master reading written Equuish. Bitworth’s little piece of wisdom bounced about in my head for a bit as I considered it briefly, but I was still too frustrated and sore over my failings at reading Equuish to really consider it. Instead, I simply nodded, and got off the chair to change out of my shorts and tank top into my more rugged hiking attire, something more suited to physical activity, as Bitworth understandingly vacated the room to go check on the training room’s equipment while I switched kits.

Once I was done, I stepped into the training room proper, and took a moment to admire Bitworth’s work for the first time since I had commissioned him to get it set up for me: an obstacle course that could have easily contended with the interiors of some of the parkour gyms I’d been to decorated at least three quarters of the room, putting to shame the obstacle course I'd run through during my time in Basic.

In addition, the last quarter of the room off to the side held a smaller training area where a number of punching bags and practice dummies in various positions stood, along with a rack of wooden practice swords that I had requested. The practice swords came in various shapes and sizes, mostly in the form of medieval European weaponry with your typical shortswords and longswords, though to my surprise they even had a few Eastern analogues as well, Bitworth having managed to produce the very distinctive daishō pair of a katana and a wakizashi, both of them as wooden practice bokkens.

Apparently, they did use those kind of swords in the Royal Guard, as a mark of respect to their officers who hailed from the Neighpon province of Equestria, with other types of swords signifying the heritage of other provinces (i.e. Cavalry Sabers for those hailing from Manehatten, Spathas and Gladius’ for officers from Cloudsdale, Viking Swords for officers from Stalliongrad, and Jians and Daos for officers who were born in Chineigh. Don’t look at me like that, even I think the horse pun on ‘China’ was cringe-worthy), and very often you could tell where in Equestria an officer hailed from simply by looking at his sword.

Bitworth had explained as much to me upon seeing my raised eyebrow, and I decided not to look at a gift horse in the mouth - there’d never been a Neighpon or a Chineigh province featured in the show, another sign that this was a living, breathing world that I was residing in, not just a vivid hallucination cooked up by a fever-addled brain, and there was more to this place than just what canon seemed to dictate.

And hey, if they had what I was looking for, who was I to complain?

I went through several practice drills on the dummies to test them out, and nodded in satisfaction once I was sure they weren't actually old surpluses that were on the verge of falling apart. Bitworth had seen fit to outfit the room with equipment that seemed like it was fresh off the metaphorical factory line, because the wooden longsword that I set back on the weapon rack barely bore any marks of having been used before me. I gave the old butler a thankful, approving nod, and moved on to the obstacle course, stretching and warming up for what was going to be my first practice run in at least three years.

"Will you be needing me to put the first aid kit on standby just in case, sir?" Bitworth suggested as I stretched out my back, and it let out a particularly wince-worthy crack, showing just how stiff and rusty I was. "It seems like you've been out of practice for quite a while as it is."

"I'll be fine, Bitworth." I shrugged his concern off casually as I tugged on my half-fingered hiking gloves, and tried to ignore just how blatantly I was tempting fate. "How bad could it be?"

---

*CRASH*

*BANG*

*TUMBLE*

*CRACK*

“JESUS CHRIST OW, WHAT THE FUCK!?”

---

"Well I did warn you, sir," The old butler said as he crouched over me, binding the sprained ankle that I'd scraped out of a bad landing, wearing the purest expression of I told you so I'd ever seen a pony wear on his face, and I furiously tried not to think about the fact that I'd barely even made it past the first half of the obstacle course before my epic fumble. "No need to fret, really; it does take a while to get back into the swing of things."

I didn’t say anything, but my ears still burned anyway as I beat the embarrassment off with a mental wooden stick, and I merely nodded with a grunt.

As Bitworth finished binding up the injury and helped me to my feet, I realized something a little strange: despite having kept at a sustained sprint throughout my entire run, I wasn’t as tired as I thought I’d be at the end of it. Granted, I was still rather winded by the time I’d hit the halfway mark and made my epic fumble, but I wasn’t doubled over while gasping for air and clutching at the muscle stitches in my sides - a sensation I had become intimately familiar with throughout my earliest parkour training sessions when I had just picked it up, as well as my mad dashes throughout the Everfree.

Odd, but certainly not unwelcome. Maybe all that work at Sweet Apple Acres hadn’t been a total waste of time after all, I reflected mildly to myself as I accepted the proffered glass of water that Bitworth passed to me and drank deeply from it, setting the empty glass back on the silver tray he held out once I was done with it.

“So, barring the injury you sustained, are you satisfied with the work on the training room, sir?” Bitworth enquired, and I nodded emphatically as I limped back to the suite’s main room.

“You did a great job, Bitworth.” I acknowledged as I set my hand down on the doorknob leading back into the main room and twisted it to pull it open. “Thanks for the effort, really. I’d probably go stir-crazy if I didn’t have something to keep myself busy with aside from reading those Equestrian texts. Anyway, I-”

I pulled the door open, took a step forward, and my sentence immediately screeched to a halt as I registered the alabaster-white alicorn that stood towering over me in the doorway, looking over my head with a curious expression on her face.

“My, my… This is certainly unexpected,” Celestia mused to herself with a bemused grin as she glanced over my shoulder into the adjacent room, and I stared agog up at her in surprise. “Has he been keeping you busy, Bitworth?”

“It was nothing I couldn’t handle, Your Highness,” Bitworth replied with a hint of pride in his voice, and though it seemed physically impossible given his typical posture, he seemed to stand even straighter at attention. “Master Joseph has been most reasonable with his demands so far - it certainly is a refreshing change of pace from having to oversee an entire castle all at once, needing to attend to only a single pony’s needs.”

“It certainly must be.” Celestia let out a matronly chuckle, and she directed her gaze towards me. “If you don’t mind, Bitworth, could you excuse us for a moment? There is something I need to speak to young Joseph about.”

“Of course, Your Highness. Do let me know if you need anything.” Bitworth nodded in acquiescence, and the old butler retreated out of the room in silence, leaving me alone with the immortal alicorn goddess that had decided to house me here.

“Well, I see that you’ve certainly been busy preparing,” Celestia remarked, eyeing the training room behind me as Bitworth closed the door behind him. “Expecting trouble, are we?”

“Well, I’ve been through a few hard knocks. Life has taught me to… take precautions whenever I can,” I replied carefully as I shut the door behind me, stepping back into the suite’s main room. “But you don’t need to know my entire life’s story for that, Princess. I take it that you’re not down here for a social visit?”

The corner of Celestia’s mouth quirked upwards in a smile, and she chuckled lightly. “Very well, let us cut to the chase then, since I can tell from the past few days that you’re not one to be caught up in pleasantries if you can help it.” I raised an eyebrow at that - had Celestia been watching me? Still, the princess didn’t say anything else regarding that, and she merely gave an enigmatic smile as she strode back into the main room, with me following close behind her. “I have your means to walk incognito amongst us, but there will still be limitations that you have to abide by, both for the safety of my subjects as well as your own.”

I nodded in compliance, understanding where the princess was coming from. “All right, I can deal with a few restrictions, though would largely depend on what exactly they entail.”

“Not a big fan of rules, are you?” Celestia laughed, and her horn sparked as a simple, silver amulet suspended on a chain flashed into existence before me. “Well, I’ve tried my best to keep them as reasonable as possible, but the fact remains that it would be an ill-advised course of action to let you roam around the castle unguided.”

You mean ‘unsupervised’. The traitorous thought slithered into my mind unbidden, but I held my tongue as Celestia levitated the amulet towards me, gesturing for me to take a hold of it.

“This amulet was personally crafted by myself for your own use, and you will have to wear it whenever you step outside of this room.” She explained as I grabbed the amulet out of the air, holding it closer and scrutinizing it carefully. “It will layer an illusion over you whenever you wear it around your neck, and make you appear as an earth pony to anypony who lays eyes on you. I spent quite some time tweaking the intricacies of the illusionary enchantment I layered on the amulet, so it will accurately mimic many of your actions and translate them into the movements a normal pony would make, and it will also feel as though you were a flesh and blood pony were they to lay hooves on you."

“Interesting…” I murmured to myself, impressed with the level of work that had gone into the amulet, despite how simple and unadorned it was. Slipping the silver chain over my neck, I felt a curious tingling sensation briefly wash over my skin before it rapidly faded, and I strode over to the standing mirror next to the wardrobe, examining my reflection closely.

From the other side of the mirror, a relatively tall (for their species), lanky earth pony stared back at me. His messy jet-black mane hung lazily over his hazel eyes, partially concealing them from view and barely providing a contrast to his dull, ash-grey coat, making me appear as though I was Octavia's long-lost brother or something.

Well, this was probably the most low-profile appearance I could assume while walking out in public, because the only thing about my illusionary disguise that stood out was its cutie mark: that of a bright, silver sword, flanked on both sides and partially covered by a pair of folded wings. I eyed the Cutie Mark on my pony self’s flank curiously, wondering just what had prompted that sort of imagery, but dismissed it after a moment - Celestia had been the one to put the illusionary enchantment together; it was probably just a result of her work, rather than supposedly being some sort of symbolic omen.

“All right, what else is there?” I asked as I lifted my hand and rolled my wrist around in an experimental movement, watching my pony reflection in the mirror do the exact same thing with his foreleg, mirroring my own movements perfectly as he rolled his hoof around in a circle, his lips moving in perfect sync with mine to mimic my words. “You haven’t said anything about those restrictions I’d have to abide by first.”

“Well, for one, you would always have to be escorted around by a personal guard each time you leave the room, and I’m afraid you will have to be barred from leaving the castle’s grounds for the time being. For your own safety, of course,” Celestia hastily added, and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at the restriction I’d seen coming from a mile away. Of course she would assign me a personal guard and keep me inside the castle; wouldn’t be very smart of her to let me run around the city unsupervised now, would it? “The guards will be in plain clothes though, because we would not wish for you to attract too much undue attention by always walking around with a guard in full uniform. In that regard, I believe it would be best for you to get to know your guards personally as friends, if at least to just maintain a convincing cover.”

“You want me to make friends with them?” I raised my eyebrow in skeptical disbelief as Celestia finished her explanation, scarcely able to believe what I was hearing. What was this, the pilot episode of My Little Human: Friendship is Survival?

Still, despite what the rules that Celestia was proposing looked like, I had to admit that the princess had a pretty sound reasoning. If the guards accompanying me everywhere were going to be out of uniform all the time, it would hardly look like a convincing cover if we hardly spoke a word to each other and maintained strictly professional distances at all times. Such displays would certainly invite curious stares and equally curious questions, but a bunch of friends walking around and talking amicably would hardly attract a second glance.

If anything, it was worth the effort, so I decided to humor Celestia’s request… at least for now. If I found myself unable to get along with the guards that she had assigned me, well, I could at least still say that I tried. Shrugging after a moment’s thought, I nodded at the princess. “All right then, I guess I can work with that. So who will these guards be?”

“Oh, I hoofpicked them personally, so I’m quite sure you will get along splendidly with them.” Celestia smiled with a twinkle in her eye, and she gestured towards the door. “In fact, they’re waiting right outside.”

Before I could say anything else, the solar princess turned towards the door, and she called out, “Lieutenant! You and your soldiers may step inside now.”

“Of course, Your Highness.” A cool, relaxed, female voice answered, one that I didn’t recognize, and the door swung open to admit inside three unarmed, unarmored ponies, all of them missing the distinctive golden armor that dictated their position as a soldier of the Royal Guard.

The first pony that strode inside was a unicorn mare, tall, lithe, and graceful, the feminine contours of her figure accentuated by the toned muscle that belied the steel hidden underneath the red silk jacket that she wore, covering her forelegs and upper body. Poking out from underneath the edges of the sleeve covering her right foreleg were dark purple streaks that I couldn't begin to identify, inked into her light yellow fur and skin, but I quickly got distracted by the shock of scarlet-red hair that was her mane, blown to the side in a very distinctive manner that revealed a captivating pair of golden-yellow irises.

Then the mare strode through the doorway, admitting the next pony through, and I just stared at the monstrous hulk of an earth pony stallion that shouldered his way through.

I'd thought Big Mac was large for a pony, but this white-furred stallion, with his neat buzzcut, absolutely put Applejack's brother to shame. I could say with complete honesty that this guy's biceps had biceps, and he nearly matched Celestia both in height and stature. Yet despite the imposing figure he cast, the stallion wore an open, friendly smile on his face, and he regarded me with the same look one might give a potential new drinking buddy before he followed the first mare to stand by Celestia's side, leaving the third and final pony to stride through.

And when I saw who it was, I froze.

Orange fur, electric blue mane standing up and blown backwards, with a single lock of stray hair falling in between his eyes, the lean pegasus stallion that came in gave me a curious look before he walked to join the rest of his comrades by Celestia's side, and I just stared at him impassively, unable to comprehend what level of cosmic coincidence would have enabled this particular stallion to actually be a part of the group of guards that had been assigned to watch over me.

"Joseph, I would like you to meet Lieutenant Starfall, and her subordinates." Celestia gestured at the ponies standing by her side. "Staff Sergeant Brick Wall, and Corporal Flash Sentry."

---

Twilight knew that Rarity was the kind of pony who could easily get caught up in her work whenever the mood struck her. Honestly speaking, the young bookworm knew exactly how her fellow unicorn felt. More than once, she had gotten caught up in her own academic projects more than once, completely deaf to the world around her and forgetting about her own physical needs until she had ridden the wave out and finished what she was working on, and she knew just how Rarity felt about her projects.

So when she strode through the door into Carousel boutique on a morning one week after Joseph had been whisked away to Canterlot by Celestia, she was not surprised at all to find the fashionista unicorn fast asleep at her work table, snoring daintily (something that Twilight had no idea how Rarity managed), with her head resting over the half-finished pieces of her latest project. Neatly folded on the table next to her workstation were several other completed pieces, and at first glance, none of them looked like they had been tailored for pony anatomy, but before she could examine them more closely, Rarity abruptly jerked awake, stammering out a greeting.

“Oh, welcome to Carousel unique, where everything is fique, boutique, and magnichi- Oh, what am I saying!?” The unicorn tiredly slurred out by reflex before she shook her head and gave herself a slap across the face to wake herself up. Looking up and realizing that her visitor was only Twilight, Rarity quickly got out of her chair with an embarrassed cough. “Oh, it’s just you, Twilight. I’m so sorry I couldn’t answer the door, darling, I think I might have overextended myself a little on my latest project…”

"I can tell," Twilight giggled lightly as she embraced her friend, looking at her concernedly as they walked towards the dining room. "You've been pulling all-nighters again for the past several days, haven't you?"

"Indeed, and as much as I would love to sleep right now..." Rarity's sentence was interrupted by a massive yawn, and the fashionista hid her open mouth behind a hoof before she resumed talking. "Terribly sorry, dear. I'm just really tired, but designing this new line of clothing for our new friend was too good a challenge for me to pass up on! I didn't even realize I was pulling all-nighters until the third day, and even then it was just too much fun to stop!"

Realizing that she'd started squealing, Rarity quickly reassumed her daily posture of collected grace with a dainty cough, and turned to face Twilight again, who was giving her an amused grin. "Oh, but enough about me. I appreciate the visit, Twilight, and it's always a pleasure to see you, but given what's been happening lately, I suppose you're not here just here to check up on me. Is something the matter?"

"Well, you're not wrong there." Twilight bit her lip in slight hesitance, and then placed the newspaper she had been carrying on the table before Rarity. "I just saw this in the papers this morning, and I thought it was something I should let you and the others know about."

Her curiosity piqued, Rarity leaned forward, peering closer at the headlined article that Twilight wanted her to read. On it, the picture of a large, heavyset griffon clad in a suit was plastered all over the front, showing him standing in front of a podium, addressing a teeming mass of his fellow citizens who all had their claws and forelimbs raised in an evident show of cheering and support. The griffon's stance was wide, and powerful, his gestures passionate and energetic, and his audience seemed to return that energy tenfold as they roared their approval.

And right above the picture, the headlines screamed in large, block letters: 'GRIFFON COUNCILLOR CALLS FOR ANNEXATION OF EQUESTRIAN TERRITORIES - RECEIVES OVERWHELMING SUPPORT FROM GRIFFON CONSERVATIVE PARTY'.

Rarity stared at the headlines, unsure what exactly it was that Twilight wanted her to see. "I'm sorry darling, but I don't quite follow." The fashionista shook her head sadly.

Twilight sighed, and retrieved the newspaper, turning it back to face her. "Princess Celestia asked me to keep myself updated on the political situations in the other nations, and putting it simply, one of the Councillors of the Griffon Hierarchy, Sigrid Stormbrewer, has been lobbying for the expansion of the Hierarchy's territory into Equestria’s lands for the past several years. His political movement never really garnered any support until recent months, but even then he’s never really received this kind of response from the masses before.”

Rarity brain latched on to the most important part of Twilight’s explanation, and the unicorn’s eyes widened in surprise. “Wait, this Councillor wants the Hierarchy to expand into Equestria? But that’s insane! Equestria has had a standing peace treaty with Griffonia for decades! Half of our material imports come from there - in fact, many of my fabrics come from Griffonian suppliers! Acting to break the peace treaty is tantamount to madness! Why would this Councillor Stormbrewer want to challenge the status quo so suddenly?”

“That’s just it - I don’t know,” Twilight said gravely, her eyes scanning over the headlines’ picture again. “I can't understand what his motivation is, or more importantly, how he was able to garner so much support, and so quickly. And the timing of it all is just too convenient…”

Rarity blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Don’t you think it’s a little coincidental that the right-wing conservatives of Griffonia suddenly get up in arms in response to Councillor Stormbrewer’s call to expand into Equestria, just as our new friend pops up in our town?” Twilight replied questioningly. “It’s either a very unlikely coincidence, or he has something to do with it, which… actually sounds just as outlandish, if not less unlikely than coincidence, now that I think about it.”

Rarity looked at her lavender-furred friend worriedly, already seeing the gears grinding along inside Twilight’s ahead. She recognized the familiar pattern the studious bookworm went through each time she went beyond the realm of speculation and started climbing epileptic trees in a fit of wild mass guessing, and she knew she had to quickly intervene before Twilight started getting ahead of herself again.

“Twilight, darling, relax. You’re thinking too much.” Rarity quickly set a hoof on her friend’s shoulder, stopping her in her tracks before she could go any further. “If you want to think about how unlikely it is that Joseph has something to do with this sudden uproar in Griffonia, then why not think about the things that he’s done for Applejack so far? I may not have been there, but I heard what happened nonetheless from her, and it sounds to me that he's certainly a morally upstanding pony and an absolute gentlecolt, don't you think? Do you think he would really be involved with whatever that dreadful griffon councillor is planning?"

As she listened to Rarity's explanation, Twilight's eyes flattened against her head, obviously chagrined at how quickly she had jumped to conclusions. "Yeah... Yeah, you're right, Rarity. I really shouldn't be so quick to judge, but all the same..."

The lavender mare bit her lip, and she stared at the article again, her thoughts still churning. The timing of it all is really too convenient. If Joseph doesn't have anything to do with this, then... what does?

---

As Twilight walked through the streets of Ponyville on her way to Rainbow's, it became apparent to her that Joseph's departure from Ponyville had been anything but overlooked. Even in the wake of the Princess' order that his presence be kept a secret, gossips would be still be gossips, and as she passed by Roseluck's stall in the Ponyville market, she heard the crimson-maned mare chattering with her friends Daisy and Lily on their sighting of the strange human.

"I don't think he's been staying at Sweet Apple Acres all this time, you know." Twilight overheard Roseluck say. "Who knows when exactly he arrived? I think he'd been slinking around town at least a few times - I thought I'd been imagining things when I saw that silhouette darting into the alleyway next to my house last week!"

Daisy and Lily let out astonished gasps at that, but before Twilight could hear what their replies were, the market's late morning crowd swallowed her up again and she fell out of earshot. All around her, she could hear similar topics being discussed in hushed tones, all regarding their mysterious visitor, and how Celestia had been so quick to whisk him away.

Ponyville may not have been showing it overtly, but the little countryside town was practically in an uproar about it.

Well, then again, it probably wouldn't last either. As long as he doesn't show up in public again, they should forget about him in a week or two. Twilight thought as she passed by Lyra and Bon-Bon seated at an outdoors cafe. The mint-green unicorn was gushing to Bon-Bon about the human she had sighted over a slice of pumpkin pie, and her companion was simply enduring her rambling with a long-suffering look.

As she passed by the cafe and continued down the road towards Rainbow Dash's, Twilight tried not to dwell too much on the events of the past several days, and took comfort in the fact that this too was probably just a phase that the town would pass through, and everything would soon be back to normal.

Ponyville is a weirdness magnet, and strange things keep happening here every other month, if not by the week. She tried to reassure herself. This craze should die down in a while, just like everything else that's happened here.

Or at least, it should... shouldn't it? So why am I getting the feeling that this isn't going to blow over just like that?

---

Whenever somepony was knocking on Rainbow Dash's door, she usually expected to see one out of three different faces when she answered it: either the mailpony, Fluttershy, or Pinkie Pie on the odd day that her fellow prankster decided to be particularly random with how she wanted to get in touch with her. Visitors weren't something she got often, seeing that she put her spacious cloud mansion to use only as a place to sleep at night, and spent most of her time soaring about in the air outside putting herself through her aerial exercises. Most ponies who wanted to find her during the daytime knew they were more likely to find her in the vast expanses of sky above Ponyville than checking her own residence to see if she was home, and they always acted accordingly.

So when a series of knocks on her front door roused her from the bliss of the one morning of the week she had reserved for sleeping in, the cyan speedster got understandably agitated as she let out a blistering string of curses and dragged herself out of bed the answer the door, grumbling to herself every step of the way. There were no mail packages scheduled to arrive today, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie both knew not to disturb her on those mornings barring emergencies, so all in all there shouldn't have been a disturbance like this rousing her to begin with.

"I swear to Celestia, this had better be good," Rainbow Dash muttered as she trudged down the steps into her living room, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. "If it's another one of those Nightmare Moon's Witnesses, I am going to stick my hoof so far up their-"

She swung the door open, blinked once at her visitor, and all mental processes immediately ground to a halt as she registered who it was.

"Gilda?"

"Hey Dash," The female griffon standing outside her doorway looked distinctly uncomfortable, the way her canted yellow eyes seemed to dart from side to side, but she seemed relieved to see Rainbow Dash nonetheless. "You, uhh... Got a minute?"

"Uhh... Sure?" Rainbow simply blinked, completely nonplussed as she numbly stepped aside to her old friend inside her home. Where had this suddenly come from? "Come on in."

"Great, awesome." Gilda practically sighed in relief, and she quickly darted in, showing an uncharacteristic amount of apprehension that Rainbow was not used to seeing in her otherwise hot-headed friend, her eyes still darting about nervously even as she stepped inside. "Sorry about popping over unannounced, but I don't have much time. There's something that I need to let you know about, and I can't stick around for long."

Now the mental alarms were going off in Rainbow Dash's head. Gilda, apologizing? Gilda, scared? The young griffon looked like a foal that had her hoof deep inside the cookie jar, desperately hoping that her parents weren't watching, and that alone was enough to signal to the pegasus that something was very, very wrong. Gilda usually didn't care about that sort of thing.

"All right, what is it?" She answered carefully as she took a small, measured step back and eyed Gilda. "You'll excuse me for being a little less than warm, G, but the last time you were here, you left in a storm of insults aimed at my friends without even saying a word to me, and now you've suddenly come slinking back looking like the foal who has her hoof in the cookie jar. What gives?"

Gilda looked like she was expending a Herculean amount of effort not to roll her eyes, but she resisted the urge anyway, and looked at Rainbow Dash square in the eye. "Look, I don't have time to justify myself or apologize to you, Dash. I shouldn't even be here right now. I came here to warn you about something: If you've been reading the papers, you should know about what's going on in Griffonia right now."

Rainbow Dash simply stared at her - okay, now she was really confused. "Uhh, no, I actually don't. Is there any reason why I should?"

This time Gilda did roll her eyes, and she let out an exasperated groan. “Okay, then let me give you the short version: Something big is going down back home, and Equestria is in the line of fire. I can’t say any more than that. I’m here to offer you a way out - I don’t want to see you hurt, Dash. But if you’re still in the neighbourhood when the fire comes down, I can’t guarantee you’re going to be safe.”

Rainbow Dash’s eyes narrowed in thought as she took in Gilda’s explanation, and she immediately picked up on what the griffon had in mind. Gilda still considered her a friend, that much was apparent, but if she went ahead with what her old friend was proposing, that would mean that she would probably have to leave her friends in Ponyville behind. Rainbow Dash didn't know exactly what it was that Gilda wanted to keep her out of the line of fire from, but if she was going to have to leave her friends behind in harm's way, there wasn't any question as to what she was going to do.

"No can do, Gilda. Whatever is going on in Griffonia, I'm not going to be ditching my friends just to keep myself safe from it. You should know that by now," Rainbow said firmly, shaking her head. "What is going on back there anyway? I thought things back home were pretty solid for you. Why the sudden nervousness?"

"I... really can't say." Gilda clicked her beak nervously, averting her eyes. "I promised not to tell anyone. But things back home have been changing, and rather radically too. I’m not counting on it to remain peaceful for long, so I’d rather we all battened down the hatches and got ready for a storm."

The griffon looked almost regretful for a second, before she turned back to look at Dash, her expression resigned. "So you're sure you don't want to come back to Griffonia with me? I’m not going to be able to give you another chance like this."

“G, don’t get me wrong here. You’re one of my oldest pals, and believe it or not, I’m still cool with you despite what you did the last time you were here.” Rainbow Dash placed a hoof on Gilda’s shoulder, her expression resolute. “But my place is here, with my friends. I’m not leaving them behind even for the world.”

“So I guess your mind is made up, huh?” Gilda said, her mouth set in a grim line. “All right, then the most I can do is wish you luck. I've already overstayed my welcome. Stay safe, Dash - you’re going to need it.”

Before Rainbow Dash could think of a reply, Gilda had already turned around and exited the house, leaving in no small amount of hurry. By the time Dash had made her way to the doorway, she was only just in time to watch the griffon dive off the edge of her cloud mansion, taking flight a moment later and soaring into the clouds above, disappearing from sight.

“Now what the hay was all that supposed to be about?” Rainbow Dash wondered absently to herself as she cocked an eyebrow at the spot where her friend had disappeared through the clouds. “And what has got her so spooked that she couldn’t say a word about it, even to me…?”

Lost in her thoughts, the pegasus didn’t notice that she had another visitor until she realized that somepony was yelling her name repeatedly from down below. Peeking over the edge of the cloud balcony, she saw that Twilight was looking up at her mansion, and in her telekinetic grip, the unicorn held on to a copy of the day’s papers.

“Rainbow Dash! Come on down here, there’s something I think you need to see!”

Gilda had mentioned something about how things were pretty much in an upheaval back in Griffonia - Dash was never one to keep up to date with current affairs by reading the papers, but if the griffon’s behaviour was anything to go by, it would be foolish of her to not keep herself informed in this case. Taking flight with her wings and soaring down to where Twilight waited, Rainbow Dash thought about the underlying fear that she had unmistakably heard in Gilda’s voice, and desperately tried not to think about just what it was that might have inspired such anxiety in her brash, hot-headed friend.

Because whatever it was that was headed their way, if it had Gilda of all griffons scared of it, then she had very, very good reason to be ready to meet it head on, before it started coming for her and her friends instead.

Shadows of Canterlot Castle

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Chapter 10: Shadows of Canterlot Castle

I stared at the three guards seated before me.

They stared back.

“So, uhh…” I tried hesitantly. Celestia had departed from the room, leaving me alone with the three guards she had assigned as my personal watch, and I had to say that I wasn’t feeling particularly thrilled about being in the same room with three professional soldiers whom I barely even knew. “I guess it’s… nice to meet you all?”

The big stallion sitting next to Starfall - Brick Wall, Celestia had called him, gave a jovial snort at the awkward introduction, but he didn’t seem to be judging all the same. “Likewise, kid. No need to feel all awkward around us - Starfall and Flash are a friendly bunch. Aren’t you guys?”

Flash simply shrugged amicably as he grinned, but Starfall didn’t seem to be feeling as casual as her subordinates. Instead, she let out a little sigh, and gave me a look that obviously bore very little patience. “All right, let’s just cut to the chase, shall we? The Princess has told us what we need to know about you, so you can assume that no secrets were kept. We know who you are, and what you’re doing here, so let’s not try to be too skittish, all right?”

I sighed, trying not to think about the fact that they still wouldn’t know what I hadn’t told Celestia. “Okay, so I assume then that you know that I’m not really a pony despite my appearance right now, and I’m not really from Equestria?” Starfall’s nod was all the answer I needed, so I went on. “And you already know what my race is called?”

“Princess Celestia told us that you were a human, which is pretty far-fetched in and of itself.” The unicorn lieutenant frowned. “In fact, I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t heard it from the Princess herself. But I have no reason to doubt Her Highness' words, so here we are."

"A little assurance would be nice, though." Flash piped up from the side, looking curiously at me. "I was always a little curious as to what a human looks like anyway. I remember the stories I heard when I was just a colt, but there never were any pictures."

I stared again at the orange-furred stallion, still unable to comprehend the fact that the one male character that had managed to single-handedly earned the ire of over half the fandom was sitting the exact same room as me, and he was proving himself to be just as much of an individual as the next guy, rather than the shallow, flat character he had been demonized out to be. Given how much hate the guy had received from fans all over, I was expecting at least some facet of it to be reflected in this world that I had been thrown into, but Flash had shown that he was just as amicable and easy-going as one would be with an old drinking buddy - it was really hard to summon up even the slightest bit of ire around him.

Not that I wanted to, of course - personally, I’d always thought Flash was an okay character, and probably would’ve been a decent guy one would like to be around if he’d ever been a real person. Not seeing any reason to deny them my true appearance, I shrugged and hooked a finger around the amulet circled around my neck, lifting it over my head.

With the tingling sensation of the amulet’s residual magic fading from my skin, I took the amulet off, and watched as Flash’s jaw practically dropped open in surprise. Starfall’s eyes widened only marginally, though the shock was clear in them, but Brick Wall’s reaction took the cake.

“Holy horseapples, Lyra was right all along!” Brick Wall roared with laughter as he slapped a hoof down on his thigh. “And to think, all these years I thought it was all just a load of crock! I always thought that crazy cousin of mine was a few haystacks short of a barnhouse, but I guess she was on to something this entire time.”

Starfall’s gaze immediately shot to the stallion. “Wait, since when did you have a cousin that was obsessed with humans?”

“Uhh, since I mentioned it just now?” Brick Wall snorted. “You guys never asked! Besides, Lyra’s just a distant cousin of mine - she was always considered the family eccentric, so we were never really close."

Again, I found myself bowled over by the sheer number of coincidences that were stacking up one after the other. Was Equestria really that small of a world that I would just keep bumping into ponies I knew, or ponies that were connected to those that I did? It was too contrived for it to be realistic - more like some form of bizarre wish fulfillment. Once more, the possibility that this was all nothing more than an incredibly vivid dream crossed my mind, but it was at odds with the sheer level of detail and clarity with which I was experiencing it that screamed at me that this was real.

By that point, I didn't even know what to think any longer. I'd already pondered the question for hours going around in circles, and had gotten absolutely nowhere with it. Rolling with the punches seemed like the best thing to do at the moment, so I just shrugged and replied to Brick Wall. "I think I may have spotted her during my short stay at Ponyville before the Princess brought me here. Then again, she spotted me too, so I guess she must be feeling pretty vindicated right now if she's as obsessed with humans as you say she is, Brick Wall."

"Please, just call me Brick. All my friends do." The stallion grinned at me, and for just a moment I heard the voice of the huge, musclebound bruiser from Borderlands speaking to me, right before I came to the stark realization of how uncanny the stallion's resemblance to the berserker of the Vault Hunters was. My gaze shot towards Starfall and her vividly red mane, peering at the strange, deep purple patterns that had been inked into the fur of her left foreleg, and for just an instant I could have sworn I saw Lilith the Siren sitting there, instead of the Royal Guard lieutenant.

Flash was the only one who didn't have some sort of uncanny resemblance to a character from elsewhere that I already knew, but that could have been easily attributed to the fact that one, he was already a canon character, and two, his casual attire was devoid of any distinguishing characteristics. I suppose that would be easily remedied once I saw them in their combat attire, but for the moment it was still two incredible coincidences too many for me to just write off just like that.

Back where I'd come from, I had been an avid fan of Borderlands, but what were the odds of encountering two ponies here in Equestria that pandered almost completely to my expectations? When I thought about the implications of that, I realized that it almost meant that my thoughts and memories somehow reflected or held sway over what I encountered in this world, but... the mere notion of it to begin with was just so ludicrous I almost slapped myself for even thinking it. That was just crazy! ... Right?

"Hey! Joseph!" I was suddenly aware of Flash calling my name, and realized that he was clapping his hooves right in front of me to get my attention, looking at me with a concerned expression. "You all right there? You look like you've just seen a ghost there, mate."

"Uh... Yeah, don't worry about it, it's nothing." I tried to casually wave it off, suddenly seeing the three guards before me in a whole new light. "Just thinking about something back home."

"Aww, feeling homesick already?" Brick laughed, but he nudged me with a friendly hoof anyway. "Don't worry about that, you'll find more than enough to keep your mind occupied when you're with us."

"Oh, stars, I hope that doesn't mean you're planning to take him along on one of your bar brawls, Brick." Flash groaned. "I was in the infirmary for a week after you brought me on one of those."

“That’s cos you’re a little pansy that can’t take a hit,” Brick laughed as he clapped his comrade on the back, and judging from the roll of Flash’s eyes, this was something that happened often enough for it to be nothing of concern. “How many times have I been trying to get you to hit the gym and step inside the ring with me, eh?”

“He does, Brick. You’re just too busy pumping iron to see him training his stamina, which you are neglecting,” Starfall remarked dryly, before turning her gaze back to me, eyeing me speculatively. “So… This is what a human looks like. Can’t say it’s any odder than what we’ve seen out in the field before, and trust me when I say that we’ve seen some shit most Royal Guards wouldn’t even dream of.”

The appraising look that Starfall was giving me was uncomfortably similar to the one Twilight had given me upon our first meeting, except that while Twilight’s had been more academic in nature, Starfall’s look seemed to be more along the lines of threat assessment. Now that I thought about it, I had no idea how the hell I was picking this all up, given that I used to be terrible at reading people in-depth back on Earth, but impressions were just… imprinting themselves on my mind each time I took the time to really look at the ponies to get a sense of them.

But putting that aside for the moment though, the look Starfall was giving me seemed to give me the sensation that I’d been judged rather stringently, and been found sorely lacking. The lieutenant’s expression was reserved as she leaned back in her chair, and she continued giving me that speculative look, as though she was expecting something.

I decided to take the first step then. “Well, like what? I assume that means you three aren’t exactly a part of a normal Guard regiment or something, then?” I asked as I slipped the amulet back around my neck, and felt the residual tingle of magic against my skin return.

“In a manner of speaking,” Starfall replied as the illusion overlaid itself over my body, and I returned to the appearance of a pony to their eyes. “The three of us are from a company of elite soldiers that each have their own specializations, and we usually get assigned with high-priority missions. Which begs the question of who you are, if the Princess saw fit to assign us to you in what pretty much amounts to babysitting detail.” Starfall looked at me questioningly, obviously wondering why such high-level operatives had been saddled with such menial work.

To be honest, I was wondering the exact same thing too, but who knew what was going on in Celestia's head? All I could tell them was what I already knew, but it was unlikely that it would answer any questions Starfall had. "Well, you wouldn't have to worry about that, because the Princess wasn't keeping any secrets when she told you I'm not anybody important back where I come from - just an ex-military officer and general run-of-the-mill guy. That was what she told you, right?" I shrugged, directing a questioning look at the lieutenant.

My answer, though, didn't seem to satisfy Starfall much, and she gave a flat "Uh huh," in reply but nothing else, obviously not convinced. Well, she was just going to have to live with that then. She was apparently fixed on the notion that I was an individual of some importance, since Celestia had assigned her and her subordinates to act as my bodyguards, and it didn't seem like she was going to be changing her mind anytime soon.

Although, perhaps to Equestria, I did make a rather significant individual. I was pretty much a mythological creature come to life for them, and it certainly would have carried the same kind of impact it would have on humans if my existence ever became public. If anything, the only reason why the three royal guards' reactions to my appearance seemed so blasé was probably because their world was one where physical gods walked the earth, and myths and legends came to life around them with semi-regularity; they'd probably seen even weirder, more eldritch shit at some point in their lives, that even the appearance of a supposedly mythological creature was hardly enough to faze them.

"Aww, c'mon Starfall, don't be like that." I heard Flash Sentry speak up from the side, suddenly interrupting my reverie. "There's no need to be so hard on the guy on your first meeting with him, right? The Princess told us to take it easy on this one, so why don't we just lighten up for a bit? If you ask me, it's been a little too long since our last stretch of R&R."

Starfall didn't say anything in reply to that; she simply leaned back in her chair and continued glaring at me suspiciously. Sighing, the pegasus stallion shook his head and looked over to me, flashing me a friendly grin. "Don't mind her, she gets like this sometimes. You said you were ex-military, right?"

I quickly nodded, relieved at the change of subject, and Flash beamed. "Well, as far as things in common go, that's gotta count for something! Got any interesting stories to share?"

I opened my mouth to answer as memory lane opened itself up, and almost immediately, my blood froze, the sound of bullets flying and the screams of men dying around me roaring back into my ears. The fingers on my right hand began twitching violently against my own volition, and my breathing began to quicken as the noise gradually began to grow louder.

But before it could get any further than that, I immediately clenched my fist, forcefully slamming the door shut on that stream of memories with an ironclad grip, and I quickly forced a cheery smile to cover up the little hiccup in my composure, praying that they hadn’t seen it. "Oh, like you wouldn't believe.” I forced a chuckle, forcefully blocking out the memories that threatened to come screaming back, and I dug back deeper into my memory for happier, more carefree times. “Really, you ought to hear about some of the shit that my section-mates and I got up too while we were in Basic Training.”

“Oh, we swappin’ bunk stories now? Now this I gotta hear!” Brick’s eyes lit up, the massive stallion leaning in closer as he listened eagerly, and I launched into the stories, falling back into the same old routine that had gotten me into the Apples’ good graces, and hoping that they would do the same for me right now as Flash and Brick started roaring with laughter, and Starfall even cracked a smile or two.

If anything, it was at least a good distraction from what I knew lay behind the ironclad door I’d left inside my mind, and the breakdown that would ensue if I ever let it loose.

---

Nearly a week later, I had to admit that things were going much better than I'd expected. And by better I meant 'safe, but godawful boring'. Even with the obstacle course and training room Bitworth had put together for me, I was this close to slitting my wrists out of boredom, what with the mind-numbing routine of regularity that I had no choice but to settle into.

While I technically had been let out of my room to go outside and explore the castle a few times, I always needed at least one of my three guards to be outside accompanying me while on my little excursions, and I was never allowed to roam any further than one or two corridors away from where my suite lay, the reason I was given for such restrictions being merely 'Princess Celestia's instructions'. My three guards each took shifts keeping watch over me, rotating watch once each day where those who were off-duty were presumably off to take care of their unit's day-to-day matters whenever they weren't saddled with what Brick had affectionately termed as 'babysitting time', clearly out of good-natured but insensitive humor.

The rest of my time was spent inside the suite, either working out or trying to brush up on reading written Equuish, with the only social contact I ever had being with Bitworth and my three guards. It wasn't exactly what one would call very fulfilling; though Brick and Flash were friendly enough, Starfall was frosty enough that despite her resemblance to Lilith, she was starting to seem a lot more like Maya, the other Siren from Borderlands 2, to me. She was barely enough of a conversationalist during her shifts that I nearly rolled my eyes in relief each time she left the room and either Flash or Brick took over.

So in that light, it wasn't much of a surprise that when I received my first outside visitors since my arrival at Canterlot, I seized upon the sudden change of schedule to create an opening to slip out from under the surveillance net that Celestia had so masterfully draped over me, taking the opportunity to go about exploring the castle for a bit and see just what it was that Celestia was so adamant on me not seeing or hearing.

The first sign I received that things were about to suddenly change was when Bitworth came to me while I was in the middle of my afternoon workout. I was in the midst of a series of push-ups when the door to the suite swung open to let the old butler step inside, and he looked slightly harried, which was something I realized to my alarm that I had never seen in him before.

"Sir?" Bitworth asked as he trotted towards me. "You have a few visitors here to see you. I tried to get them to wait outside first, but one is being most impatie-"

"HEY THERE, JOEY!!!" A blur of pink abruptly streaked through the door and past Bitworth, and I suddenly got the breath knocked out of me as I found myself pinned against the floor with something ball-bustingly heavy sitting on my back. "We haven't seen you in ages! Do ya still remember me? Do ya? Do ya?"

"Pinkie, get off. I can't breathe." I wheezed.

"Okie dokie loki!" The pink ball of hyperactive fluff obliged a second later, and the weight on my back abruptly disappeared. Hauling myself to my feet, I dusted myself off and saw Pinkie standing right next to Bitworth with a shit-eating grin on her face, while the rest of the Mane Six were slowly filing in through the open door leading into the suite. Rarity, as expected of her, was busy admiring the tapestries on the walls and the general decor of the place as she walked in, but the others had their attention fixated on me, beaming smiles and welcoming grins on Twilight’s and Applejack’s faces as they came forward.

"Joe! It's been way too long, sugarcube - how've ya been?" Applejack beamed as she extended a foreleg for a hoofbump, which I returned obligingly as I ignored the distrustful look Rainbow Dash was throwing my way. "We ain't heard a peep from either you or the Princess ever since she took ya to Canterlot!"

Well, that was unexpected - I would've thought that Celestia would have kept at least some form of correspondence with Twilight as to what was going on, who would then pass the word on to her friends. But, it looked like not a single scrap of info regarding my presence here had even been leaked.

Just why was Celestia so determined to keep me a secret anyway, even to the ponies who already knew I existed?

"Eh, I'm fine, just bored out of my mind, though." I shrugged as I let the question slide and paid it no further heed. "I didn't expect to even see you girls pop up here, honestly - what's up with the sudden visit?"

"Rarity has something for you!" Twilight said excitedly, nudging Rarity with an elbow and jostling the fashionista out of the trance she had gotten herself into by admiring the decor of the place. "C'mon Rarity, weren't you the one who got so excited about the project in the first place?"

"Huh?" Rarity abruptly snapped out of her daze as she tore her gaze away from the curtains and turned to face her friends as though just remembering that she were there. "Oh, right! Pardon me, it's just been so long since I've been in one of the castle's suites - you are so lucky to have gotten these accommodations, Joseph! Oh, but what am I doing, tottering on about the luxuries of royalty, I finally finished those clothes I said I’d be working on for you! Here, have a look!"

As the ponies before me whipped out a large carrybag from behind them that seemed big enough to contain an entire week’s worth of clothing, I tried not to blink in alarm, wondering what sort of girlish horrors awaited me, given the fact that a high society fashionista was the one that had designed my apparently entire new wardrobe. My fears, however, were quickly assuaged when Rarity actually pulled out not some overly-sequined shirt, but a beautiful, incredibly stylish leather duster that seemed to be perfectly tailored to fit me. I swear to God, it was almost love at first sight.

The leather of the coat was a dull, matte black that barely reflected the light off of it, just the way I liked it. Rarity levitated the coat towards me, and I took it, noticing that the hem ended just above my knees. "I thought this would fit your image perfectly, so it was one of the first pieces I started working on!" The fashionista tittered. "Your clothing was just so rugged and utilitarian, I couldn't help the inspiration that came my way to try and spice it up a bit while maintaining the original feel! Do you like it?"

Her question broke me out of the daze I'd gotten into while admiring the duster, and that was when I thought about something that I should have realized was off earlier - the duster was made out leather.

"It looks fantastic, Rarity, I can tell you put a lot of work into this," I thanked her, simultaneously scratching my head mentally as I wondered how the hell I was going to break the question to her. "It's just that, uhh..."

"Hmm?" Rarity briefly gave me a puzzled glance, confused, but a moment later her eyes widened in realization. "Ohhh, I recognize that look," The seamstress giggled unexpectedly as though she knew exactly what I was thinking, and she set a hoof on my shoulder. "Don't worry about it, Joseph, I get the same questions from some of my regular pony customers whenever they see me working on an order for a griffonian client. Griffonia is a major exporter of leathers and furs, and a seamstress simply must expand her field of expertise into other materials so that she can make outfits for clients from other cultures. Don't you agree?"

"Well, I can't really argue there." I shrugged as I set the duster aside. "So what else is there? That suitcase looks like it's got at least a week's worth of clothing inside."

"Of course! You didn't think I would've made just one measly coat for you after that offer I made to revive your tattered wardrobe for you, did you?" Rarity smirked as her horn sparked, and the clothes within the suitcase were encased in her horn's distinctive sapphire aura. "Such a crime against fashion cannot possibly go unanswered!"

The clothes in the suitcase floated out, and I found myself pleasantly surprised by how restrained Rarity had been in the liberties she had taken while reconstituting a wardrobe for me. Granted, there were a few unexpected changes, such as the clothes being made out of silk instead of the run-of-the-mill cotton and cloth I was used to, but by and large, what Rarity had made was a pretty faithful recreation of the simple, utilitarian clothes that I had brought with me to Equestria in my haversack, along with a few other slightly altered designs that seemed meant for everyday wear.

"Wow, Rarity, that's... I don't know what to say." I shrugged honestly as I gave her a helpless grin. "That's really a lot of clothes you're making for me for free!"

"Oh, nonsense, darling! Just saying 'thank you' is enough!" Rarity waved a hoof at me with a smile as though it were the most natural thing in the world. "It was the least I could do for somepony who needs clothing as much as you do, honestly."

"Well, now that that's out of the way, why don't cha tell us what ya've been up to the past few weeks?" Applejack drawled as she leaned forward. "Applebloom's been askin' after ya since ya got brought here by the Princess, and ah still got no idea what to tell the poor girl!"

Before I could answer however, it was at that moment that my assigned guard for today decided to return from the bathroom break he'd gone on, and Brick Wall poked his head through the doorway to see me surrounded by the Elements of Harmony.

"Hey, nopony told me we were having visitors today!" The big bruiser beamed as he strode into the room. “Joseph, you didn’t tell me you were friends with the Elements of Harmony!”

“Oh, who's ya friend, Joey?" Pinkie bounced forward to meet Brick at the door with a wide smile on her face before I could reply to him, and I braced myself for the imminent collision of the two boisterous personalities. "Hola there, amigos! Methinks we've ever met before, so introductions are in order! Name's Pinkie Pie! What's yours?"

"Brick Wall, but just call me Brick." Brick answered with an amused grin as he looked down at the hyperactive pink ball of fluff that barely came up to his shoulder. "I'm one of the bodyguards Princess Celestia assigned to Joseph here."

"Uh huh, uh huh," The pink mare nodded, looking at the big bruiser up and down. "Daaaaaayum son, you BIG. You could give Jackie's brother on the farm some runs for his bits! So how much of them irons do you pump every day, hmm? Gotta be a lot for you to get jacked like that - ain't I right, AJ?"

I raised an eyebrow at Pinkie's bizarre manner of talking as Applejack groaned at the terrible pun Pinkie had just made, and I began half-wondering to myself why she had suddenly gotten all faux-ghetto on us. It reminded me unnervingly of an unholy mix of Tiny Tina and Deadpool's mannerisms, and I silently prayed to whatever gods that were still watching that her weirdness at least had an upper limit of some sort.

As the rest of the Mane 6 went to the front door to welcome Brick inside, with Brick taking Pinkie's exuberant energy surprisingly well, I quietly slipped over to Bitworth and whispered to him, "Hey, could you make sure that they've got everything they need while they're here? I can make do on my own for a couple of hours."

"Sir?" The old stallion looked at me in surprise. "Well, if you insist, sir, though I am rather loathe to leave you unattended even by your own order."

"I'll be fine, Bitworth." I reassured the butler with a pat on the back and sent him forth. "And get something for Brick too, will you?"

The poor, confused butler went forth to carry out my request, which left me with just seven problems to deal with. By the time Bitworth came back with enough refreshments for all of us, Brick and I were thoroughly engaged in conversation with the six mares in the room - though for me, it was only insofar as Rainbow Dash doing her best to pretend that I didn't exist, and Fluttershy still seemed to be scared out of her wits of me, but the rest of them seemed to be sociable enough.

The first few questions we had to answer were what exactly Brick meant by 'bodyguard' - we had to spend a few minutes on that topic explaining the arrangement Celestia had made, but once that was out of the way we quickly moved on to much more light-hearted topics. After a few stories had been exchanged and a round of laughs were had over tea and biscuits courtesy of Bitworth, I sent the butler off to get another round of food for the others and excused myself off to the training room for what I told them was my 'afternoon workout'. While it didn't garner any questions and only a couple of giggles from Rarity and Twilight, the glares that Rainbow Dash had been sending my way didn't grow any less suspicious as they followed me out of the room.

While the Mane Six busied themselves with talking to Brick, I made a show of excusing myself to the training room, and quietly slipped out the back. I stayed at the door for a couple of moments to make sure that nobody, especially Rainbow Dash, was about to come looking, and once I was sure that I was going to be alone, I immediately broke open the cupboard that I'd placed next to one of the windows leading out of the room, pulling out the gear I had stashed inside there in case of such an opportunity.

I'd been waiting for weeks for a chance like this, to slip out from under the watch I'd been saddled with, and it looked like the six mares in the room outside were the ones I was going to have to thank for that. The windows leading out of my suite were the only routes out into the castle that weren't under almost constant surveillance, and they'd been unlocked after my first day in the suite so they could let fresh air into the rooms. I doubted that they even expected me to be able to climb outside, given that the balconies ended over a sheer drop that was probably several hundred feet down, but that was where they had sorely underestimated me.

I still had some leftover climbing equipment in my pack from my hiking trip before I'd stumbled into this psychedelic dream of a fantasy world, and here was where it was finally going to be put to good use. Out from the cupboard where I'd discreetly stashed my climbing supplies, I pulled a generous length of nylon climbing rope, about fifty feet of it coiled into a loop, and threw it over my shoulder as I clambered over the window sill and onto the balcony outside.

From the adjacent balcony that was connected to my suite, I could hear Brick's roaring laughter, probably at Pinkie's antics or some other equally hilarious story that they were sharing, and I doubled my efforts to stay quiet. It wouldn't do for me to be discovered at this juncture. Looping the rope around one of the pillars of the balcony's parapet, I tied several secure knots, then looped it around the horizontal railing and tied several more - one could never be too careful with this sort of thing.

Making sure that my disguise amulet was secure around my neck, I pulled on my climbing harness, knotted the rope around a carabiner after giving it about thirty feet worth of slack, and hooked it onto the harness. Once that was done, I then hopped over the side of the balcony facing away from the suite's bedroom where the others sat, clinging onto the parapet's edge as I prepared myself for my descent.

It was then that I looked down and saw the dizzying height over which I hung precariously, and it was with no small twinge of fear that I realized just how ridiculous what I was about do was. For a second I got a tiny impression of what Altair and Ezio Auditore must have done on a regular basis, and I can’t say that I particularly envied them at that particular moment. Then I shoved the thought aside, ignoring the cold chill crawling over my skin that had absolutely nothing to do with the wind, and took a deep breath to brace myself before I started rappelling down to the lower floor.

I kept the loop of rope close to my body, releasing out the length only as necessary, and once I had reached the balcony directly beneath mine, I silently alighted and fastened the remaining loop of rope with a cable tie for quick retrieval once I’d made the return ascent back up to my floor. Once that was done, I made a quick peek over the corner of the window, checking to see of the coast was clear and praying that I hadn't just rappelled down onto a balcony outside a room full of guards.

When I’d ascertained that the room on the opposite side was indeed empty, I vaulted over the windowsill and kept to a crouch. Keeping my profile as low as humanly possible, I crossed the room in complete silence, and creaked open the door leading out into the corridor outside. Once I was sure the coast was clear, I quietly slipped out.

The next several minutes were like a montage of moments straight out of a Splinter Cell game. Even with my illusionary amulet on, I still stuck out like a sore thumb - though I had the appearance of a pony to their eyes, I was still an unidentified civilian who was undoubtedly trespassing within a restricted area, and I definitely didn’t have the clearance I needed to be in here. Getting caught outside by a guard who wasn’t one of the three assigned to me would most probably be a fast track down to the dungeons, and Celestia would probably have to do a lot of awkward explaining in order to get me out.

In other words, I couldn’t afford to get caught out here. I had to tread very lightly. Sticking to the shadows and memorizing wherever I took a turn so I'd remember the way back, I darted from cover to cover, avoiding the wider corridors where places to hide were few and far between. Keeping myself concealed behind pillars and inside broom closets whenever a patrol of guards or a servant got too close to me, I began eavesdropping on conversations whenever I could to get a feel of the grapevine around here.

Having been pretty much confined to my room ever since I had gotten here, I literally had no idea what was going on outside of my suite outside of what Brick and Flash had told me during our conversations with each other, which to be honest was woefully limited. Listening in on gossip was the only avenue of information gathering open to me right now, and though most of what I heard was nothing more than inane everyday chatter, it wasn’t long until I caught wind of the first juicy tidbit of information that my guards had neglected to mention to me in the weeks that I'd been confined to my suite.

When I heard the distinctive hooffalls of royal guards in armor coming in my direction, I immediately ducked inside the nearest broom closet and quietly shut the door, holding my breath as their hoofsteps slowly approached. As they came nearer, the words of their conversation became clearer, and I craned my ears as I started listening in, trying to figure out what it was about.

"... I'm just saying, stuff like this is unheard of! Equestria hasn't had a major war in over several centuries, and not a single Equestrian Guard regiment has ever been fully mobilized." The first voice, a younger, more sprightly guard probably judging from the tone of it, insisted. "Why suddenly start now?”

“Because, Silver, you should already know how rough things are on the border.” An older, rougher voice replied - probably his sergeant or something. “What with the attacks going on, the Princesses would be fools not to step up the guard."

"Well, yeah, but to order the entire First Company on standby and post out at least half of the entire Equestrian Guard’s current active forces to double up the garrisons and patrols on the border?" The first guard replied. "Don't you think even that's a bit much? We're only talking about a few border skirmishes, Steel. Surely it doesn't warrant putting almost half the Guard on high alert and putting the entire country on the defensive as though an invasion’s about to happen."

His compatriot gave a lengthy, heavy sigh, and I could practically see the exasperated gaze he was fixing his subordinate with now. "One of these days, Silver, you're going to learn why complacency like that is going to get you killed. The Princesses have faultlessly led the Equestrian military in maintaining the peace of our country for centuries, and they know better than anypony else what they need to do to maintain that peace.”

“Well, yeah, but-” The first guard tried to get a word in edgewise, but his companion didn’t give him the chance.

“If Princess Celestia thinks that we should be stepping up security on our borders, than that’s what we should be doing.” He continued, his tone brooking no argument. “Peace like this doesn’t come by itself, you know, and just because we’re Royal Guards in the capital city so far away from the border doesn’t mean that we get to slacken off either. We’re both soldiers of the cream of the crop, so you’d better start acting like it!”

“Yes sir, sergeant,” Silver muttered begrudgingly as their hoofsteps continued onward past the broom closet I was hiding in without any sign of slowing down, and I let out the breath I’d been holding in, contemplating my next move.

That little tidbit of information I’d just picked up had piqued my curiosity - Equestria was expecting war? How the hell had I not come to know about something as major as this? I’d have thought Brick or Flash would have at least mentioned a hint about it to me whenever we were talking about what was happening outside.

As the two guards continued walking away, I realized that I was now being faced with a choice. I could tail them here from the shadows, in the hopes of learning more about what else was going on out here, but that carried with it the very real risk of getting caught. I was by no means a master spy - for all the stealth games I'd played, coupled with the military training I'd received, I was still several leagues out of Sam Fisher's or Solid Snake's. If I got caught out there, there would be no convenient reset button or 'Reload Last Checkpoint' option. I would, instead, be looking at a very definitive trip to the dungeons.

The other option was for me to return to my suite right now while I still could, minimizing my risk of being discovered, but that would mean denying myself whatever information was out here that I could find out. The notion of knowing that a potential war was on the rise out there, and then intentionally letting myself run blind into it by not gathering what intel I could went against everything I knew and had been trained to do - it was, by my standards, a monumentally stupid decision.

The fading hooffalls in the distance reminded me that the clock was ticking, and I rapidly came to a decision - I couldn't let myself go running blind into a potential war any more than I couldn't have just let myself lie down and die while I'd been in the Everfree. I had to know everything I could in order to be prepared for it and maximize my chances of survival when the shit, inevitably in my experience, hit the fan.

So I silently creaked the door open, slipped out without a sound, and started hugging the shadows as I continued tailing the guards.

"So how did you hear about the mobilization orders for the Guard anyway?" Sergeant Steel asked Silver, his head turning to focus on his comrade, and I took the opportunity during his lapse in attention to his surroundings to dart closer towards them before they walked out of earshot. "You have a brother in the Fillydelphian Warhawks, right?"

"And a cousin in the Cloudsdalian Drop Troops as well, plus the old friends I have back in the Baltimare Steel Legion,” Silver replied with a smirk. “I still have a few connections, you know."

“Well, just don’t go sniffing around for information that isn’t yours to know, and you’ll be fine,” Steel grunted as the duo continued walking along, and I continued tailing them silently from behind, staying out of sight behind the pillars and darting from cover to cover. “You know how the captain is about information leaks ever since that infiltration of Canterlot during his wedding.”

“Yeah, no kidding.” Silver chuckled in reply. “We had to turn the entire Royal Guard upside down just scrubbing it clean. How many changelings did we bag over those few months when we caught them posing as a few of our soldiers?”

Ah, so they were talking about the Royal wedding. This might prove to be interesting... “At least a few dozen, which is troubling enough already with the security protocols we had in place back then.” Steel’s voice turned troubled, the stallion’s gait slowing in pensive thought, and I took the chance again to close the gap silently before they got any further. “If the changeling infiltrators were good enough to get past those to that degree, who knows what else might have been compromised…”

And just as if to prove that fate was out jerking my chain, just as I was several feet away from the next pillar, the sergeant’s ear twitched, and Steel’s head began to turn in my direction. "Hey, did you just..."

Throwing myself into a slide across the carpeted floor at the last second in a panic, I gave silent thanks to whatever gods still watched over me as the slide was made without even a whisper, and I ended up right inside the shadow of the pillar I'd been dashing for. Pressing myself up against it in a crouch, I held my breath and started praying to high heaven that the guard wouldn't decide to investigate. Please don't look here, please don't look here, please don't look here...

Luckily for me, Silver made that decision for him before Steel could. The younger, brasher guard merely snorted, and he turned to continue walking down the corridor. "What, you're hearing ghosts now, just as we’re talking about our security protocols? You’re being really paranoid now, sir. I didn't hear a thing."

"Well, I could've sworn..." The older guard frowned, looking down the corridor in my direction just a few mere feet away from me, and I desperately tried to keep my breathing quiet despite the tense, terrified hammering in my chest.

After the longest damned three seconds of my life, Steel finally shook his head and turned around to follow Silver down the hallway. When he was finally a good distance away, I let out a quiet sigh of relief, and the knot of tension between my shoulders dissipated somewhat, letting me breathe easier.

Well, so much for that. That one had been way too close for comfort, and all I'd gotten out of the close encounter were only the names of a few Equestrian regiments. The names sounded vaguely familiar, now that I thought about it - it felt as though I'd heard of those names somewhere before, but like the curious sense of déjà vu I'd experienced with Bitworth, I just couldn't put my finger on where.

But whichever it was, the fact remained that the information I'd gotten was next to useless in telling me what was happening out there. I was going to have to find alternate sources of info, and I certainly wasn't going to be tailing that patrol anymore.

Once the two guards had turned around the next corner much further down the corridor, I glanced around to make sure the area was clear, then continued my skulking around as I stuck to cover and hid whenever someone got too close. I picked up a few more conversations from the closets and empty rooms I'd hidden in, but it was again nothing more than idle castle gossip - chaff that I had to filter through.

Several corridors later, I was starting to get positive that this was all a unnecessarily dangerous waste of time, and I would have been better off just heading right off back to my suite. I was just on the verge of simply turning around and heading back the way I’d came when I rounded around the next corner, and my blood ran cold when I overheard what was going on in the room just next to me.

“As I have said before, Princess Celestia," stated a voice that I didn't recognize, but possessed a distinct flanging effect that I couldn't possibly miss - it almost sounded as if a turian was speaking in the next room. "The demands of Councillor Stormbrewer are not to be ignored. Equestria has had sanction over the Whinnean mountains for centuries, and it is not something that the Councillor intends to ignore any longer. Those mountains are the rightful historical territory of Griffonia, and he intends to make it so."

"Be that as it may, Ambassador," Celestia's voice, ever so composed and unflappable, replied from the other side of the door. "History also speaks clearly enough for itself. The outcome of the Battle of Whinneapylae was dictated centuries ago, and it was your nation's defeat at that mountain pass that allowed for your government's reformation into what it is today. Griffonia has been peaceful and prosperous enough thus far, has it not? Surely a centuries-old grudge isn't something worth disturbing your kingdom's peace for."

Immediately, I started looking around for a better vantage point to eavesdrop from as I listened closely to Celestia's words, making sure that I didn't even miss a single one. I did not want to miss out on this. Nearby, I spied a conveniently placed ventilation shaft grate in the shadows, and I raised an eyebrow in mild surprise, unsure if such a thing was supposed to be out of place in a baroque-era medieval castle.

On closer inspection however, it turned out to be a no-go. The shaft was way too narrow to afford me much mobility if I crawled inside, and realistically speaking I was also more than likely to be making all sorts of noise just clunking my way through, which kind of defeated the purpose of being stealthy to begin with.

The ventilation shaft out of the question, I frantically cast my gaze about searching for other options, and in the room behind me, the conversation continued.

"Don't patronize me and the councillor, Princess." I could practically hear the sneer through the flanging of the other voice. "Griffonia's prosperity does not change the fact that your kingdom came to possess those mountains through unlawful force - mountains that were the rightful territory of the Griffonian Hierarchy. Councillor Stormbrewer has been all too aware of this, and he intends to rectify that. If you will not yield these mountains to us diplomatically, then the Hierarchy will not hesitate to use force to annex them."

"The Councillor will not hesitate to use force, you mean." Celestia's voice replied with complete surety, as out of the corner of my eye I spotted an overhanging pipe running along the ceiling of the corridor, easily within reach from a nearby ledge that was within jumping distance. The next thought that crossed my mind was so ridiculous I almost facepalmed, but it was the only avenue of stealth left to me that didn't involve tailing people at ground level and risking getting spotted. What the hell was this turning into, a Splinter Cell level?

"I am aware that his political movements have gained some momentum as of late, but I am by no means taken by the illusion that he has the backing of the entirety of the Hierarchy's government." Celestia continued from behind me, and I realized that time was starting to run out. Crap, I think the discussion is coming to an end! Not having a second to waste, I immediately chucked my doubts aside and flexed my knees, bracing myself for the jump. "You aren't fooling anypony here, Ambassador; if Councillor Stormbrewer wishes to take Equestrian land by force, he will have to contend with opposition both here and from within Griffonia. I stand by my decision: Equestria will not yield to the Councillor's demands."

"Then this discussion is as good as over." I heard the Ambassador reply with a foreboding amount of finality in his voice just as I leapt upwards and immediately took hold of the ledge, trying not to grunt from the exertion. "The Councillor will be receiving my report within the week - you can expect to be hearing from him after that."

I'd just managed to get myself onto the pipe, bringing my legs up to wrap my ankles around it and hug the ceiling as closely as possible, when the double doors to the room directly below me swung open. A thin, reedy specimen of a griffon stepped out, flanked on both sides by two burly bodyguards that were nearly twice his size, his expression thin and dour. Well, either that or that was just what his face looked like, given his narrow eyes and sharp beak - I wasn’t too sure.

The trio of griffons turned right upon exiting the room, heading down the corridor in the direction where I'd come from, and just a few seconds later, Celestia emerged from the room, flanked by her own Royal Guards, her own expression a perfect picture of queenly serenity. The Princess went in the opposite direction of the griffon ambassador, and I stayed where I was on the ceiling, perfectly still and not even daring to make a single noise.

Once both Celestia and the Griffonian diplomat were a decent distance away, I finally started breathing again, and slowly began shimmying along the pipe in the direction where the griffons had gone, silently praying that the pipe would hold underneath my weight and willing myself to be as quiet as possible. I had no idea how securely this pipe was secured to the ceiling, but everything now hinged on how well the castle's plumbing had been constructed - something that I didn't exactly have a lot of faith in.

But by some sort of divine miracle, the pipe actually held up underneath my weight quite nicely, and I caught up to the griffons a few moments later after quickening my pace slightly. As I neared them, the words of their conversation slowly became audible, and I tuned my ears in again, listening closely for any valuable intel I could pick up.

"... not going to take this news well." I heard the ambassador mutter to one of his aides, his voice low and nervous. "He'd expected Equeatria to just roll over to accommodate with his demands in the name of 'peace and co-operation' or some such, but I knew this would happen. The Councillor has no idea how Equestrian society works, and yet he expects me to work miracles with the Princess!"

"You already did everything you could, sir," One of the ambassador's bodyguards replied. "So, what's our next move?"

"Let the councillor know what the princess' response was, and await further instructions." The ambassador's reply was tight-lipped, the stress evident in his voice. "What happens next will be in the claws of the spirits."

"You don't think he would honestly try to take the Whinnean mountains by force, would he?" The other bodyguard asked with a hint of incredulity. "All he would do is prod awake a sleeping giant - there is no guarantee that Griffonia would be able to win a war against Equestria in this day and age. Our soldiers may have superior training, but they have the numbers and magic that trumps our furycrafting. Only a fool would pick a fight with that sort of opponent."

"The councillor has assured me that he has a plan for that, and he seems to have faith in some unknown benefactor that has been supporting him from behind the scenes - he would not tell me anything more than that," The ambassador replied as he hurried along the corridor. "He seemed convinced that we could win against Equestria should we wage war against them, though. I do not know what gives him such confidence, but I know that he is not one to be prone to flights of fancy. It chills me to think of what might have given him such sureness that we could get away with this."

"It's madness, I tell you - madness." The bodyguard on the left muttered, shaking his head. "But we have already sworn an oath to the Councillor's service - what else can we do?"

"There is little else we can do now, aside from waiting and hoping that this madness unfolds no further." The ambassador sighed, pinching the bridge of his beak. "So we pray. In nomine spiritus."

"In nomine spiritus." The guards echoed with a hint of near-reverence in their voices, their heads bowing briefly, and I reeled mentally in shock as I took in the information. So the two royal guards from earlier hadn't been indulging in idle gossip - there really was a shitstorm still in the midst of brewing, and it was only a matter of time before the ticking time bomb went off. Was this why entire weeks had gone by without even a peep from Celestia about how the search for a way back to Earth was going?

The party continued walking along in tense silence, and it wasn't far before I found myself unable to follow them any further as the pipe I was shimmying along came to a stop and turned into the ceiling.

Forced to come to a halt, I could only watch the party of Griffonian delegates turn the next corner, unable to follow them any further. Once they were out of sight, I kept an ear out to make sure nobody else was approaching, and then I started to slowly ease myself down from the pipe. All right, Joseph; time to get out of here. I think that's all you need to learn for today.

Quietly dropping to the carpeted floor in a crouch, I bit back a grunt of pain as my knees took the fall harder than I'd thought, but luckily I didn't break or sprain anything. Looking around, I took stock of my surroundings, noting to my relief that I was already halfway back on the path returning to my suite. Well, thank God for small mercies - it would've been a bitch to retrace my steps back to my infiltration point if the griffons had gone down an entirely different path.

A few minutes of sneaking about and dodging patrols later, I slipped through the door of the room that I'd first emerged from onto this floor, and darted over to the rope that was still waiting there for me to make my return ascent. Without wasting a second, I grabbed a hold of the rope and clambered up as fast as I could - it had almost been half an hour since I'd sneaked off on my little trip, and there was no telling if Brick and the others had realized I was actually gone.

I hauled myself over the parapet the moment it was within reach, and by some small miracle, I could still hear the sounds of laughter and cheer coming from my suite, Pinkie Pie's high-pitched giggles most prominent of all. Quickly retrieving the rope from downstairs, dismantling all the knots I'd tied, and stuffing my climbing equipment back into the cupboard, I'd just finished packing everything up when I heard Pinkie's voice through the door. "Hey, Jojo's been in there for quite a while, hasn't he? Wonder what he's doing!"

"You know... I am rather curious about what this little 'workout room' of his that you told us about looks like, Brick." Rarity's voice came a few seconds later, and the moment I heard that, I immediately started double-timing it for the weapon rack in a panic, just so that I could look like I’d been practicing something before they came in. "Might we go in and take a look?"

"I don't see why not." Brick's nonchalant reply came through the door just as I grabbed the first sword on the rack and pulled it off, turning towards the nearest practice dummy and immediately starting to run through some practice drills.

Just in time - the moment the sword’s wooden blade made contact with the dummy with a dull thwack!, the door to the training room swung open, and my cover was barely maintained as Brick stepped inside with the Mane Six in tow, their mouths agape as they took in the entire obstacle course I’d gotten set up inside here.

“Hooo-lee horseapples, this is one solid lookin’ course ya got set up here, Joe!” Applejack whistled as she walked into the room, staring at the obstacle course. "How'd ya get the whole thing built?"

"Oh, I had a little bit of help from Bitworth - wouldn't have been able to do it without him." I replied, faking a slight breathlessness as though I'd spent the past half hour working out - not too difficult, considering that my heart was still pounding from the adrenaline of all the times I'd nearly been discovered downstairs. I only hoped that they didn't hear any trace of the nervousness I'd tried my best to hide, as I tried not to think about the foreboding discussions of war I'd overheard downstairs. "Wasn’t expecting you guys to come in before I was done - what'd I miss while I was in here?"

"Oh, we were just having a nice chat with Brick Wall, but it wasn't really anything important. It's not like everypony doesn't know about the scrapes we've been through as the Elements of Harmony, right?" Twilight replied, and I tried very hard not to cough at the irony of the thought that by right, I wasn't supposed to know anything about them, even though I actually did. Rarity though seemed to pick up on Twilight's unintentional faux pas of exclusion, and she threw the unicorn a shocked, offended glare on my behalf before giving me an apologetic look.

There wasn't much else I could do besides shrug casually at her without raising suspicion, but after that Pinkie suddenly bounded forward, eagerly bouncing on the tips of her hooves as she pointed excitedly at the obstacle course. "Oh, but that course looks like a lotta fun, Joey! Think we could run a couple of rounds on it? Dashie and AJ are gonna love competing to see who can finish it first!”

“Betcha twenty bits I’ll clear it before you do,” Rainbow Dash butted in, nudging Applejack with an elbow as she grinned confidently. “Without using my wings.”

“Oh, yer on, sugarcube!” Applejack returned the grin with equal enthusiasm, and she looked over to me. “That is, if ya don’t mind us usin’ yer course, Joe?”

“Go ahead - I think I’d like to see how this turns out.” I gestured for them to go ahead as I leaned against the practice dummy, glad for at least something to distract me from the ominous news downstairs. “Let’s raise the stakes a little - Brick and I bet thirty bits each on AJ finishing the course first.”

Brick’s eyes widened slightly as the stallion raised an eyebrow at me, but I gave him a conspiratorial wink and said nothing more. Of course, Rainbow Dash couldn’t help but rise to the bait, and before I knew it she was hovering up in my face as she glared at me challengingly. “Hey, buster, you’re looking at the fastest pegasus in all of Equestria! If you wanna lose thirty bits that badly, be my guest - just don’t say I didn’t warn you!”

“By all means - show me.” I gestured at the obstacle course with a maddeningly serene smile on my face that I knew would drive her crazy, and I could practically see the steam coming out of the pegasus’ ears before she stomped over to Applejack and began dragging her friend towards the course, ignoring AJ’s protests.

As the two ponies started their pre-match warmups and the rest of the mares in general began chatting excitedly about how they thought they were going to handle the obstacles that had been set up, I took in just how light-hearted and carefree the atmosphere in the room was, and realized to my consternation what a stark contrast it made to the grim tension I had felt in the air downstairs, when I had been eavesdropping on Celestia’s conversation with the Griffon ambassador. It wasn’t a pretty thought, but a rather harsh, sombre one, that all this was more than likely going to take a turn for the worse within a few weeks.

None of the ponies here in this room might have realized it yet, but war was already looming over the horizon, and as far as I knew… aside from Brick, none of them were prepared for it.

And for some reason, that mere notion chilled me even more than the thought that I myself was going to get swept up into this before I’d even gotten the chance to return home. Whatever storm that was on the way, none of us here were going to be coming out the other side unchanged.

A Stranger Who Found An Even Stranger War

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Chapter 11: A Stranger Who Found An Even Stranger War

As it turned out, the Mane Six had a couple more weeks ahead of them that they had planned to spend in Canterlot, what with Twilight wanting to have some time to speak with Princess Celestia and visit her brother and parents while here. It wasn’t something that I had much of a problem with, though - all it did was give me more opportunities to slip through Celestia's watch.

When Pinkie and AJ dropped by the next day to visit, Flash was my guard for the day, and indirectly getting the girls to keep him and Bitworth busy was just as easy as it was yesterday. Once the time for my 'afternoon workout' rolled around, I excused myself from the room again as Flash busied himself with making conversation with Pinkie and AJ, and I quietly slunk through the door before getting my climbing equipment out again.

Ten minutes later I had rappelled down to the same floor as yesterday, and was going about on another data-gathering trip. The royal guards I'd eavesdropped on yesterday had mentioned something about attacks occurring on Equestria's borders, but I had little more information than that. It was time to rectify that.

After about ten minutes of filtering through the chaff of castle gossip, I was finally able to pick up from where I had left off yesterday, eavesdropping on a pair of well-dressed members of the Equestrian nobility passing through the hallway beneath me while I hugged the pipe on the ceiling, keeping as quiet as possible.

"So what's the latest word on that little tizzy going on at the borders?" One of the nobles asked his companion in a high, nasal voice that bordered on insipid, never once taking his nose off the lofty summit it occupied at the very top of his posture. "I don’t suppose the princess finally decided to do something about it by sending more troops over?”

“I hear that most of the Manehatten Iron Guard were mobilized to deal with it. Some dreadful business with hostages at some village in the North-East, close to Stalliongrad… what was it called? Peach-Fjord? That lot of attackers seemed awfully bold!” He sneered with almost disgusting disinterest, like he didn’t care. “Worst of all was the damage to the bridges outside town were destroyed as the brutes tried to make off with their victims. Now I can’t supply my wineries with the Peaches from the farms I own!” The other noble scoffed.

“Seems ridiculous that the Guard could be so reckless with hostages. I hear they didn’t even bother negotiating with the attackers, they just stormed them and cut them down!”

“Well, as long as there weren’t any fatalities amongst the hostages, I suppose there’s no harm, no foul.” The conversation continued, with both nobles none the wiser about the eavesdropper just a couple of metres above them. “The Guard’s rapid response Storm Trooper teams ARE trained for this sort of thing, after all. I’m just glad that none of the ponies got carried off - most of my paying customers come from Peach-Fjord, and it would be simply dreadful if any of my clients’ payments got delayed simply because of a little kidnapping.”

Okay, I thought nobles were self-serving, ignorant, bigoted sycophants before this, but this was just disgusting to listen to. I’d heard what I came here to find out, and it was disturbing news indeed - more attacks were indeed going down on the border, and yet another corps/legion/whatever the hell they called the various groups of the Equestrian Guard was being mobilized to deal with it. I let the two nobles continue on their way as I quietly stayed where I was, and once they were out of sight I dropped down to the ground and took cover inside the nearest broom closet, digesting the information I’d just gotten.

The question was, then, who exactly was behind the attacks? I still didn’t know if Equestria was just fighting off rogue bandits, or was it actual government-sanctioned assaults from the Griffonian government that we were dealing with here. Granted, from the fact that the two nobles had been talking about hostages, it was unlikely that the attacks were something that were sanctioned by the Griffonian government, but all the same, you never knew. Assumptions were a dangerous business, and I had learned long ago never to make them if I could help it.

I poked around for about thirty more minutes, and was lucky enough to be able to find two more conversations to eavesdrop on that got me the information I needed; one from a pair of overly-talkative Royal Guards, both rookies from the looks of them, and the second from a trio of loose-tongued palace servants who were trading gossip on the matter.

As it turned out, the information the nobles had gotten off the grapevine hadn’t been that far off the mark - the Equestrian Guard’s Storm Trooper teams (damn it, there was that strange sense of déjà vu again) had indeed managed to save most of the hostages that had been the victims of attempted kidnapping; attempted being the operative word. The identity of the culprits, on the other hand, was something totally new to me. I never knew that Griffonians had extremists, but all the same, the news of a Griffon terrorist group making border raids and attempting to make off with loot and hostages, all in the name of ‘reclaiming lost territories and rights’, didn’t surprise me as much as I thought it would.

Apparently, even across worlds, certain things still never changed.

Even organizational names that end up in rather unfortunate-sounding acronyms, like the Griffonian Territorial Freedom Organization.

I had to wonder, considering the fact that they were attacking Equestrian territories that they perceived as formerly belonging to them, if the irony of their name wasn’t lost on them.

That being said, while the Guard had managed to retrieve most of the hostages before the Griffonian terrorists had managed to make off with them, a few raiding parties had managed to escape with their victims, and were now holding the hostages for ransom. The Griffonian Hierarchy, though, was denying any involvement in these attacks, and was giving its full cooperation with the Equestrian Principality in retrieving its abducted citizens, judging from what I had heard from the palace servants who were gossiping as though they had been around when Celestia had been meeting with the Griffon Ambassador.

Of course, I was under no illusions on how long that would take, judging from what I had learned about the bureaucratic process while I had been in the army. By the time both governments came to a consensus, it would already be far too late for the poor victims being held hostage.

And while my mind was in the midst of digesting all of this, I got mite too distracted, and as a result I got blindsided when I turned around the corner and ran into the last pony I thought I would encounter.

“Oof!” The white-furred stallion I had bumped into stumbled backwards a step as he recovered, and he immediately began dusting himself off. “Watch where you’re going, servant! This suit is worth five times your annual pay, and my tailors didn’t spend weeks getting me fitted only for-”

The speech abruptly cut off as the stallion looked down at me and realized just who he was talking to, and Prince Blueblood’s eyes turned as wide as dinner plates. “A peasant!? Filthy commoner swine, how did you get inside the castle!? Who permitted you inside!?”

Aw, fuck me, why the hell did it have to be him of all ponies?

Blueblood fixed me with a baleful glare that was evidently meant to intimidate me and lock me in place, and it utterly failed to do so. Not that he knew it, of course - the empty-headed ponce simply looked down at me from the bridge of his nose as I simply kept silent, my mind racing to come up with a way out, and his eyebrow twitched when he realized that he was being faced with someone who seemed to be simply not impressed or intimidated by his social standing. “Oh, playing the silence game, are we? Well, let’s see how talkative you’ll be when the guards are here!”

Abruptly, my heart rate spiked as the prince turned around, barking out a sharp order to the hallway behind him, where a Royal Guard patrol would undoubtedly be patrolling a couple of corridors away, able to respond to his order within moments, and my frantic mental planning nearly erupted into outright panic. Within a minute or two, they would already be here, carrying the chains and irons that they would most probably be clapping me in before dragging me off into the dungeons, and Celestia was then going to need to make a lot of awkward explanations before getting me out… if she was feeling inclined to do so in the first place.

Which was why by the time Blueblood had finished barking out his order and he had turned his gaze back to me, I was already gone.

I wish I could’ve stuck around to see the expression on his face when I’d given him the slip, but unfortunately I couldn’t observe much from the ledge I was hanging on to for dear life, right below the window that had been conveniently adjacent to us when he had blindsided me. All I saw as I looked up was a blonde-maned head sticking itself out the window for a couple of seconds, looking left and right, and when he didn’t find the unknown commoner that had managed to mysteriously vanish from his sight, he went away, no doubt wondering if he had been partying too hard last night if fanon regarding his character was anything to go by.

I waited a couple more moments after his head had disappeared back inside the window before climbing my way back up, my heart still hammering in my chest at the sheer closeness of the call I’d just gone through. Immediately, I decided that this was going to be the last of the risks I was going to be taking today. No more sneaking around; I had most definitely outstayed my welcome here.

Fortunately, I managed to get back to my suite without any further incident, and re-emerged into the suite’s main room to see that Applejack and Pinkie Pie had already left. Flash was seated on one of the suite’s couches, idly leafing through a couple of the books from the room’s various shelves, but Bitworth was nowhere to be seen.

“Hey Flash,” I called out, and the pegasus’ head snapped upwards to look at me. “Where’s Bitworth?”

“He left to escort ladies Applejack and Pinkie Pie out. I figured he could use something to do, since you seem to be telling him to take care of them instead of you each time the girls pop over.” Flash shrugged as he shut the book in his hooves and looked curiously at me. “Brick told me how yesterday went. You know, you do realize that Bitworth was assigned to you as your caretaker for a reason, right?”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t take care of myself,” I answered off-handedly as I flopped onto the bed and tried to make it look casual, trying to conceal my rising nervousness. Damn it, and I was hoping that they hadn’t begun to catch on to what I was up to. “I am a grown adult, you know.”

“Sure, whatever you say, pal.” Flash shrugged, appearing not entirely convinced but still amicable enough to drop the subject, if only to pick something even worse as he continued looking at me with that discerning stare. “Still, Joe, you were in that workout room of yours for almost an hour. That’s not too odd on its own, but I have a little brother at home who practices his martial arts in his room, and even I can still hear something while he’s exercising. It was awfully quiet in that room when you were inside.”

I tried to keep my expression under control even as my heart leapt to my throat, and fought to keep my voice neutral as I replied casually, “Soundproofing. Privacy purposes, y’know?”

“Uh huh, right…” Flash simply nodded, but he didn't seem any more convinced than before. Thankfully, he didn't pursue the subject any further, and simply gestured at a plate of biscuits and a cup of tea still resting on the coffee table. "Well, Bitworth left out some afternoon tea for us, so you might as well dig in while it's still there."

I thanked the pegasus guard as I walked over to the table and sat down before digging into the snacks, an amicable silence settling down comfortably around us as Flash went back to reading his book. No words were exchanged, but while Flash was probably taking it as some quiet time to relax, I was considering it anything but.

My mind continued churning with my thoughts as I turned over and dissected every scrap of information I'd collected downstairs in my head while I ate, picking the intel apart for the important stuff and filtering out the chaff. As far as I could tell, the situation thus far was that Equestria was being attacked on its borders by an extremist Griffonian terrorist group, Griffonian Councillor Sigrid something-or-other was simultaneously calling for the annexation of the Whinnean mountains, and more and more regiments of the Equestrian Guard were being mobilized to deal with the military threat while Princess Celestia was busy trying to fend off the diplomatic one.

It wasn’t a pretty picture, honestly speaking, but now that I had a more-or-less complete idea of what was happening out there, I could finally start thinking about my next course of action… the options for which were woefully limited, unfortunately. In fact, only one reasonably feasible option was open to me, since I really didn’t feel like having to sneak out all Solid Snake-like every time I wanted to foray outwards from my suite.

Unless I was able to strike a deal of some sort with Celestia, I was going to be stuck inside here, confined to my room, for the foreseeable future… which probably included the point in time when the war actually broke out, and the proverbial shit had finally hit the fan. Call me paranoid if you will, but I preferred to actually have freedom of choice and movement on my side when the Griffonians inevitably came knocking.

So now, all that stood between me and a potential messy end at the hand of a group of Griffonian warmongers that I could do absolutely nothing about, was an audience with a millenia-old goddess who embodied the power of one of the most primal forces of nature, asking her for what amounted to letting a tiger roam free in her beloved city.

Yep, definitely no biggie at all.

I spent the next several hours just thinking over it wordlessly, trying to figure out how I would gain that audience with Celestia without arousing suspicion about my recent activities, and then how I could frame my request such that she wouldn’t immediately reject it out of hand. Flash spent the rest of the evening sitting in the corner, reading quietly, and I took advantage of the silence to try and concentrate on my current predicament.

Hours later, when I finally gave up on the twisting circles I’d been going in within my mind, the pegasus guard was still up reading, and I went to bed with the knowledge that by the time I woke up the next morning, Starfall would have somehow silently swapped places with him the way they always did whenever changing shifts.

The unicorn lieutenant wasn’t one who was much for conversation and idle chatter, but that was just as well. I was probably going to be spending a lot of time thinking rather than talking tomorrow. It was also probably for the best that I’d decided to hold off on any further forays downstairs right before Starfall was due to start her shift. She would definitely notice if anything was amiss, and I didn’t think I would have been able to slip anything by her. A low profile would do me a lot more good right now than actively skulking about, and I went to bed for the first time in days not worrying about what I was going to be doing tomorrow.

---

The next few days passed by uneventfully - there wasn’t even a peep from any of my guards about a certain prince kicking up a fuss about some unidentified commoner lurking about in the castle. Rarity, Twilight and Applejack dropped by a couple more times to visit, with Pinkie Pie hanging on to their group every single time, though Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were both nowhere to be seen during both occasions.

Once, Twilight even brought Shining Armor along to introduce her brother to me, apparently having sought Celestia’s permission for it. Though, I doubted that was really necessary - as the commanding officer of my three personal guards, he probably knew all about me and what I really was already, even if he had never personally met me. I didn’t really speak with him that much during the one time he visited, but from the first impression I got from our conversations, I felt that the unicorn captain was someone I could definitely trust during my time here.

Overall, the quiet lull of inactivity over those few days was more than welcome, as I continued formulating my strategies on how I would approach Celestia. In fact, it was so quiet that I was starting to think that I’d managed to get away clean with my escapades downstairs… that is, until I woke up one morning to find the Solar Princess standing right next to my bed.

“Good morning, Joseph,” Celestia greeted me with a bemused grin while I untangled myself from the sheets I’d gotten myself caught in via my surprised, uncontrolled tumble from the bed. “I trust I’m not interrupting anything?”

“No, no, by all means, do pop up right next to my bed unannounced whenever you feel like giving me a heart attack in the morning,” I deadpanned before my brain caught up with my mouth, and the look of chagrin on my face was more than enough to widen the smile she was wearing at my expense. “You know, a little bit of advance warning would’ve been appreciated, Princess.”

“And spoil the surprise?” The white alicorn answered with one of her infamous Trollestia grins, and she stepped back to give me some space as I got up, grabbed a change of clothes and went behind the changing screen to start getting dressed. “Besides, I do believe I owe you an answer by now about how the search for a way back to your homeland is going.”

“Yeah, I was wondering what had happened to that after all these weeks.” I remarked dryly as I stepped out from behind the screen, wearing one of the sets of clothing Rarity had tailored for me - a black pair of tough, leather pants, paired off with a white fitted silk shirt that hung comfortably off me like a second skin. Damn, but that seamstress knew her work, I marvelled silently - just a few glances and she already had my measurements down pat. I seriously had to thank her for it more sincerely the next time I saw her. “So, what’s the word on it?” I prompted the princess, already half-expecting what I knew her answer was probably going to be.

“I am deeply sorry, but other matters of national importance have occupied our attention lately. I have just been unable to spare the ponypower to mount a search.” Celestia bowed her head towards me in a surprising show of humility that almost took me aback. “I understand that after so long, you must have started feeling rather frustrated and cooped up inside this suite of yours no matter how luxurious it is, no?”

“You know, actually, apart from the fact that I’m probably millions of miles away from home and am going to be stuck here for the foreseeable future, I could actually get used to living here.” I deadpanned, smirking wryly. “I mean, the food is good, I’ve got stuff to keep me occupied, and I don’t have any obligations whatsoever! What’s so bad about being stuck in a castle with your every need being taken care of, even if you’re the only one of your own species around?”

Celestia laughed at the little jibe, and she gave me a matronly look. “Come now, Joseph, let us be frank and call a spade a spade, shall we? Your conditions lately have been nothing more than that of a bird being trapped in a gilded cage - I suppose that is why you went on those little secretive excursions out of your suites while Twilight and her friends were visiting, correct?

The princess’ knowing smile only got wider as I visibly blanched and looked at her sheepishly. “So, you knew about those, huh?”

"Well, it was rather entertaining to watch you skulk about in the shadows trying not to be seen, when I would have explained the situation to the guards and gotten you pardoned if you had been caught." The immortal princess chuckled, giving me an amused grin. "I also thought it would be a good opportunity to see just what you thought you could get away with when nopony was watching. I saw how good you were at evading our patrols, and the little slip you gave Prince Blueblood that left my nephew thinking he hallucinated the whole thing - I enjoyed that little display, by the way. You showed a remarkable amount of restraint. Given your skills, you could have had almost free reign of the castle, yet you chose to try to disrupt it as little as possible. I respect that sort of prudence in an individual."

"How do you know what kind of skills I have?" I raised an eyebrow at her, not quite believing what I was hearing. Celestia actually wasn't mad at me for breaking the rules she had set and sneaking out of my suite? And she had actually been watching what I was doing the entire time? If I didn't know better, I would have called 'stalker' on the whole thing, but my gut started telling me that when a millennia old goddess who ruled over an entire nation had been watching you enough to take note of your 'skills', more likely than not it was going to be for some sort of purpose.

I already had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that I knew where this was headed.

“Let’s just say that I’ve been around long enough to be able to tell at a glance when somepony has already been baptized in the fires and shadows of war,” Celestia answered simply, still giving me the unreadable expression of the practiced dissembler. Whatever was going on in her head, I couldn’t even come close to getting a read on it. “And it is exactly the sort of thing I am in need of right now. I shall be frank with you, Joseph, so let us not waste any more time mincing words. I came here to ask for your help.”

Great, so the stranger to the magical land which he stumbled into by accident is now the only one who can save it. I groaned internally as the tropes continued piling up. Why am I not surprised? I couldn’t even get out of Equestria without getting dragged into some epic conflict of some sort, huh?

However, as much as the entire situation sounded like some sort of bad fantasy cliché, I still had to face the facts. When I thought about just what Princess Celestia was going to be asking of me, I couldn’t deny the fact that deep down, at least some part of me, probably the part less connected with reality, had wished for exactly this sort of thing to happen to me at some point during my life. Granted, I hadn’t exactly envisioned it to be occurring under these sort of circumstances, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, right?

“And what could you possibly need little old me for?” I asked Celestia innocently, trying my best not to start sweating bullets. If what was happening here was really what I thought was happening, then I might just be on the precipice of a chain of events from which there would be absolutely no return. “I mean, you know that I know about the border raids you’ve been suffering thanks to that griffonian terrorist group, but don’t you already have entire contingents of soldiers and royal guards for this sort of thing? What difference could I make?”

“The right pony in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world, Joseph,” Celestia said, and a slight chill ran down my back as the sound of another man’s voice saying almost those exact same words, but with all the inflections in the wrong places, echoed through my mind. “My sister, Princess Luna, and I have been debating this course of action for many nights now, and though she is more distrustful of outsiders than I am, I believe that it is time we entrusted you with the knowledge of what is happening in our kingdom right now.”

I nodded wordlessly, my mouth going dry as the sensation of standing upon a precipice intensified, and Celestia continued speaking. “As you would probably have learned by now, tensions between us and the Griffonian Hierarchy are high now, given the border raids that we have been suffering, and though we have been unable to obtain definitive proof so far, my agents are very sure that they are operating out of Hierarchy territory. With Councillor Stormbrewer simultaneously calling for the annexation of the Whinnean Mountains and whipping his supporters into a frenzy, diplomatic relations between us and the Hierarchy are… tenuous, at best. The general of the Equestrian Guard has been clamoring for me to grant him permission to send our soldiers into Hierarchy territory to hunt the terrorists down, and it is all I can do just to manage this diplomatic nightmare. Both of our kingdoms now teeter on the brink of disaster. We are standing in a very precarious position right now, Joseph - all it will take is the slightest push to tip the scale, and I fear that war is a very real danger right now.”

“So basically, you’re all sitting on a powder keg, and it’s only a matter of time before somebody lights the match.” I summarized, and Celestia nodded gravely. “Well, sorry if this seems ignorant of me, but remind me who this Councillor Stormbrewer is supposed to be again?” That much was news to me, because there had never been any mention of any named griffons in canonical events save for Gilda. I needed to find out who this new name was if I wanted to have any idea of what I was getting into.

“He is a prominent member of the Hierarchy’s ruling Council of Elders, who are led by the Primarch, and is one of their most outspoken right-wing politicians as well,” The solar princess explained as we shifted the conversation to the sofas around the suite’s coffee table. “Traditionalist, conservative, whatever term you wish to use to call it, he is the foremost individual amongst the griffons who wish for a return to the days before the Treaty of Whinneas. The days before the establishment of the Hierarchy, when they believed themselves superior to us, and sought to prove themselves as the master race of this world.”

“And judging from the lack of fascist griffons walking around, I suppose you guys fought them to a standstill or something?” I guessed, and Celestia nodded.

“It was a long, and costly war, one that nearly brought both of our kingdoms to their knees. It is... something I would not like to see a repeat of. But perhaps I should start at the beginning, so that you might better understand just what is happening here.” The solar princess continued, and I settled myself in for what seemed to be a lengthy history lesson. “The Griffons were originally a very proud warrior race, and they still are, though their pride has been somewhat tempered in the more recent centuries. In the distant past, more than a thousand years ago, they were once a mighty, singular kingdom, and they were thought by many for centuries to be indivisible and undefeatable by any… save for their own pride and greed.”

Celestia’s expression grew heavy, and I realized to my startlement that her expression was one of reminiscence - it seemed as though she had actually been there when the first Griffonian kingdom had collapsed. I'd always known that the Princess had been around for at least thousands of years, but this was the first tangible sign I had seen of just how old she was.

Before I could say anything, however, the princess quickly recomposed herself, and she continued her explanation. “When their first empire finally collapsed under the weight of its own corruption, the seven noble houses of the empire each formed their own Successor States, and the entire Griffonian kingdom dissolved into a bloody series of conflicts that we know as the Succession Wars. During these civil wars, each Successor State was governed by the House that founded it, and they were responsible for the griffonian citizens under their banner. The Succession Wars lasted for centuries, and much of their technology, culture, and knowledge of the arcane arts was lost in the savage fighting. Councillor Stormbrewer’s family was one of the oldest and most powerful of the Griffonian Houses when the fighting broke out, and after centuries of warfare with the others, they were also the first House to rediscover the innate power of the Griffon species: Furycrafting.”

The princess then looked at me oddly as I recovered from my sudden coughing fit, and I tried to maintain a poker face as I gestured for her to continue. Okay, I had not been expecting that. I mean, seriously, furycrafting? I thought I’d been hearing things when I heard the Griffonian ambassador mention that when I’d been eavesdropping on him and his guards, but apparently my ears had not been shitting me; the griffons really did have a mystical ability that shared the exact same name as the elemental powers of the Alerans from the Codex: Alera - yet another Jim Butcher reference.

Of course, whether this meant that I would eventually be going up against firebenders and the like in the near future, only time would tell, but the appearance of yet another name that matched up exactly with what I had read back on earth had shaken me something fierce. Forcing the distraction out of my head, I continued listening to what Celestia had to say.

“Using their newfound abilities, House Stormbrewer began systematically conquering their neighbouring Successor States and forcing the other clans to bow to their rule over the next several decades.” Celestia continued. “Eventually, every last Griffonian clan was brought underneath the Stormbrewer banner, reunifying the Griffonian Empire, with House Stormbrewer as the acting rulers of their kingdom.”

“So, essentially it was a dictatorship?” I remarked wryly. “You know, those never actually worked out well back where I came from. I can’t imagine that the whole empire thing could have gone very well for the Stormbrewers either.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised.” Celestia gave me a bemused smirk. “The Stormbrewers were actually very competent rulers, for they were the only ones amongst the noble Houses who had any vision at all for what they wished Griffonia to be. Councillor Stormbrewer’s ancestor, Ulfric Stormbrewer, had a vision of a unified Griffonia, and he managed the near-impossible. He succeeded in not only unifying seven different warring states after they had gone through a bloody series of wars, but also led them to prosper… at least, until they grew discontent with the lands they already had, and sought to expand outwards.”

“Yeah, sounds pretty familiar. I get what you mean,” I chuckled as I thought of Hitler’s attempts to rebuild and strengthen post-WWI Nazi Germany, which would eventually led to the eruption of World War II and Germany’s inevitable second downfall. Drawing the parallels between the two, I couldn’t help but think that Ulfric Stormbrewer had ended up leading his empire down the exact same road. “There’s a fairly well-known bit of history back where I come from that goes down pretty much the same way. I assume that Ulfric met a fair bit of resistance when he started expanding his empire outward?”

“More than you know,” Celestia’s smile had a hint of amusement in it. “Griffonia’s expansion was contested by only two other major powers - the dragon clans of Draconica, and us, the Principality of Equestria. Between the two of us, it was rather obvious which nation they would choose to attempt to expand into.”

“Yeah, because attacking an entire nation of badass fully-grown dragons is totally a great idea that will totally not result in getting your ass handed to you on a silver platter,” I chuckled. “So they thought you guys would be easy pickings then, huh?”

“They certainly did have that impression, but we were quick to educate them otherwise.” The humor in Celestia’s smirk disappeared as her expression turned dark. “The Griffonian Empire attacked us in force, attempting to take our lands for themselves. The Equestrian Guard suffered many losses during that war, and much of our lands were ravaged in the midst of all the fighting, but we did not go without a fight. We retaliated against each of their attacks with equal force, responding in kind with every attack to show that if they wanted our lands, they were going to have to pay for it in blood.”

“As the war had dragged on, Ulfric was steadily growing older and his mind growing more unstable. His actions became paranoid, erratic, and by the time we finally ground their invasion to a halt with our victory at the Battle of Whinneapylae, House Stormbrewer had become quite unpopular in Griffonia. Not just because of Ulfric’s growing paranoia, but also for all of the resources and soldiers they had been throwing into a war that was proving too costly to be fought when we would have just as readily opened up trade talks with them. Rebellion was not far behind from there, and soon enough the Stormbrewer dictatorship was brought crashing down from the inside by the other noble Houses they had subjugated.”

“Well, there has to be some sort of catch there, right?” I raised an eyebrow. “I mean, what was to stop them from fighting over who gets to rule over the empire once they’d overthrown the Stormbrewers? Nothing would have changed then.”

“Well, we were the catch, young Joseph,” Celestia answered, smiling. “Once we had managed to reach an armistice and begin negotiating a peace treaty with them, we offered our services as mediators and peacemakers to the Griffonian Houses to… how you say… ‘sweeten the deal’ with them.”

Celestia grinned to herself at that, as though enjoying some private little joke, and she continued with her explanation. “Once we had helped them to settle their differences, we aided them in forming their new government in exchange for trading rights and a formal alliance to be established between the two of us. The new Griffonian Hierarchy’s ruling government was formed out of each of the original families, ruling together in concert with the head of each House taking a position in a ruling Council, headed by a single Primarch who would be elected from the ranks of the Council every five years to serve a tenure of leadership.”

“So, instead of them fighting wars over the position of top dog, you turned them towards the games of words and politics.” I smirked, impressed with the way the Equestrians had so cleverly turned the Griffonian government around on its head without even firing so much as a single shot. “Very clever of you, Princess.”

“Oh please, you give us too much credit,” Celestia laughed. “We merely gave them the ideas and inspiration that they needed - the noble Houses did the rest on their own. Once the Council of Elders was established and a Primarch was chosen, we left them to their own affairs, and relations between our kingdoms have been peaceful for centuries.”

“Until now,” I pointed out, and Celestia nodded gravely.

“Yes, until now.” The princess of the sun sighed. “House Stormbrewer was faced with a lot of opposition when we suggested that they have a seat on the Council of Elders as well. The other noble Houses had originally meant to exclude them from the Council entirely, and it was only through our counsel that the Stormbrewers were allowed to rule alongside the other Houses to begin with. Yet even then, ever since the formation of the Hierarchy, not a single Stormbrewer has ever been elected to serve as Primarch. This has left Ulfric’s descendants bitter, disenchanted…”

“And wishing dearly for the days back when they were in charge,” I finished for her as it clicked, and Celestia nodded in affirmation.

So, I thought to myself. That’s what Councillor Stormbrewer’s motive is. He thought that if Griffonia could be brought back to its supposed glory days before the formation of the Hierarchy, if he could sway the like-minded portion of the populace with a sufficient display of strength to win them over to his side, he might be able to install himself as Primarch... or better yet, stage a coup to overthrow the Council of Elders entirely and rule as a Stormbrewer dictator once more.

No prizes necessary for guessing what he would be doing next once he was top dog amongst the griffons once again.

“So, this Councillor Stormbrewer is the one inciting civil unrest in the Hierarchy, and at the same time, you’ve got this terrorist group tearing up your borders. Your general wants to get permission to invade Hierarchy territory in order to hunt down those terrorists, yet you can’t do so without inciting more of the Hierarchy’s wrath and giving Stormbrewer even more cause to go to war with you. Am I right so far?” I asked, and the princess nodded.

“Yes, but that is not all. There is something else that you should know, and it is the same reason why I have come to ask for your help,” Celestia replied. “The timing of these attacks on our borders, coupled with the sudden show of local griffonian support for Councillor Stormbrewer’s political movement, is too convenient for it to be credited to sheer coincidence. I have a feeling that things are not quite as much as they seem, and I suspect that there might be another party at work behind the scenes trying to play us against each other. It is for this reason that I hoped to enlist the aid of an outsider, one who would have the benefit of an external perspective, to examine this situation from the outside, and hopefully discover who this mysterious third party is and what their motives are.”

“And let me guess, that outsider would be me,” I guessed with a wry smirk, and Celestia returned it with a bemused nod. “So, how much did your sister dislike this idea again?”

“Enough that she won’t be speaking to me for the next few days once she finds out that I went ahead with my decision anyway, but she’ll come around eventually.” Celestia chuckled. “So, young Joseph, what will it be? I cannot order you to do this, nor can I offer you any form of payment or reward, because I know that material possessions would mean little to you in a world that you are a stranger to. All I can do is ask: will you be willing to aid us in this respect in our kingdom's time of need?

And there it was. My chance to dive headfirst into the brewing storm that was hovering over Equestria, to make a mark in the events that was Equestrian history in the making, and to bring to life one of the fantasies of grandeur I had spent years privately entertaining in my head, having resigned myself to the fact that those dreams were never going to come true… until now.

All it would take was my whole-hearted commitment to a cause that would most likely get me killed eventually, the forfeiture of a return trip back to Earth any time soon, and the fact that I would most probably be stuck here for good.

Okay God, it’s been a nice psychedelic trip so far, but could I please wake up now?

Conflicting thoughts and desires raged about in my head in such chaos that my mind was practically a battlefield, as my thoughts wrestled and fought with one another. As much as my more delusional side wanted to grab at this chance for its fantasies to be fulfilled, my more rational side still managed to keep enough of a grip on its sense of self-preservation to remind me that this whole thing was just insane, and that getting myself involved in their affairs was probably going to be a very bad, very dangerous idea.

Unfortunately for me, I also had a track record of going along with very bad, very dangerous ideas.

Faces began to flash through my mind, names that meant the world to me, and I realized that if I decided to go through with this, I was going to be leaving behind a lot more than I thought I would be. Friends, family, my loved ones… If time had been passing through here at the same rate as the real world, I would probably have been missing for months now.

My family and friends were probably worried sick about me, and I was most probably presumed dead. Common sense dictated that by all rights, I should have been doing my damndest to try to get back to them - people were waiting for me back home. If it weren’t for the fact that the portal was in some undetermined location in the Everfree forest that I would probably die before ever reaching, I would have left Canterlot myself weeks ago and searched for a way back on my own. The circumstances weren’t exactly in favor of me returning to Earth here, no matter how much I wished I could go back.

And besides, if somebody in need asked me for help, and I felt that it was within my capacity to do so, I couldn’t have turned them down any more than I could have forced myself to stop breathing. Celestia wasn’t ordering me to stay in Equestria to help her - she was asking. Nicely.

Orders that she could have given by throwing around the weight of her crown were something I could have easily dismissed out of hand by simply telling to her face that she had no sovereign authority over me. But when she had requested for my help instead of outright forcing me to do it, impressing upon me how dire the straits Equestria was in were, it made it that much harder for me to turn her down. I couldn't turn my back on her, on an Equestria in need - I just couldn't.

You are so going to regret this one of these days, My more rational side reminded me one last time before he quieted down for good, and I braced myself internally for the metaphorical leap I was about to take. "All right, Princess, you had my curiosity, but now you have my attention. Let's say that I agree to help you and place my skills at your service - what exactly would you have in mind for me, then?"

I had to give the Princess credit. Even as I gave her the answer she had more than probably been hoping dearly for, she kept her composure and didn't show any outside sign of relief whatsoever. "What I would have in mind, young Joseph, would be for you to be given the authority to roam the castle and the city as a guard would without being questioned, so that you would be able to serve as my eyes and ears. Listen to what you hear and watch what you see closely, and should you spot any anomalies or strange patterns that you can interpret, I would need you to bring them to my attention immediately.”

“Hmm, sounds easy enough.” I stroked my chin thoughtfully as I mused over the circumstances. All in all, she was just asking me to just keep an ear out and report any unusual findings to her - not undertake a one-man stealth mission deep within Griffonian territory to take down the terrorist group or assassinate Councillor Stormbrewer, which honestly speaking was what I had been half-expecting to hear from her.

Compared to that, the mission Celestia had given me seemed laughably easy. Adding on the fact that I would be given the freedom to roam about as I saw fit, which was what I had been planning on asking Celestia for to begin with, if I took Celestia up on her offer, I would pretty much be killing two birds with one stone... Albeit with a decidedly higher risk to myself now that I was obligated to put myself in harm's way if completing the task Celestia had given me necessitated it.

Although, when I really thought about it, I realized that whatever the choice entailed, it was still better than being stuck inside this suite every single day, that was for sure.

With the faces of my family and friends hovering at the edges of my mind, whispering to me of just what I was consciously leaving behind, I took a deep breath and pushed past them, extending a hand. “All right, Princess. You’ve got a deal. I am at your service.”

Placing a hoof in my outstretched hand, Celestia shook on it with a knowing smile as though she had known all along what I had been going to say, and her horn sparked as a small, badge-sized token flashed into existence next to her.

“Then thank you, Joseph Ryan, for agreeing to aid us. It is a decision I know that you have not made lightly,” The princess thanked me as she levitated the token towards me. As I plucked it from the air to inspect it, she continued speaking as her voice took on a decidedly official overtone. “Thus I have decided to ensure that the gravity of what I am about to bestow upon you appropriately fits the magnitude of the decision you have made. This badge has been marked with my personal seal of authority, and you can use it to bypass almost any security barrier or form of bureaucratic red tape that might otherwise impede your investigations. I trust that you will not misuse or abuse the power that I have just granted you."

The princess couldn't have made it a more blatant Test of Character even if she'd tried. Still, as I looked at the badge-sized medallion that she had given me, embossed with the emblem of a blazing sun, I couldn’t help but think about all the things I could do and get away with just by using this token alone… Right before I viciously quashed the urge as I thought about the gesture of trust that Celestia was extending to me. If I broke it, that would just be the epitome of dick moves, not to mention that I sure as hell didn’t want to piss off the supreme ruler of a nation right when I was right in the seat of her power.

No, this token had the kind of power and authority that I had to respect when using it. There was no telling what I could screw up if I went around mucking about with things that I hadn’t been meant to find out. If I wanted to keep Celestia’s trust and not royally screw anything up, I was going to have to use it as Celestia had intended it for me, and nothing else.

“You have my word that it shall be used as you had intended.” I promised as I pocketed the token. “So, when do I start?”

“You may begin your investigation tomorrow,” Celestia replied. “Since you will be seen quite often in the castle and Canterlot from now onwards, you will need an alternate identity that the guards can associate with you, should anypony wonder where this new stallion has come from. Once I have put on the finishing touches for your alter-identity’s background, you will receive the details for it tomorrow morning, and you can get started with your investigation once you have familiarized yourself with it.”

“Fair enough.” I shrugged. “Any ideas, suggestions or leads that I should begin with?”

“Nothing as of now, but I should have something for you to start with by tomorrow,” Celestia answered as she stood up to leave, with me following suit a moment later. “In the meantime, I would suggest that you read up on Griffonian history and their current government's organization to orient yourself so that you have an idea of what to expect. There are some historical events between Equeatria and Griffonia that are considered common knowledge, after all. It would be ill-advised for you to seem ignorant of these things."

"Yeah, that sounds like a great idea, Princess." I nodded as she opened the door leading out of the suite and stepped outside. "There's just ah, one little problem there."

"Oh?" The monarch cocked an eyebrow at me. "And what might that be?"

"I can't exactly read Equuish."

Celestia simply gave me an unreadable smile. "Oh, I'm sure you'll find a way around that. Bitworth is teaching you how to read it, isn't he?" And before I could say anything about how abysmally slow my progress was in that area, she shut the door in my face.

In Her Majesty's Secret Service

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Chapter 12: In Her Majesty’s Secret Service

I spent the next couple of days roaming about the corridors of the castle and familiarizing myself with its many winding corridors and hallways, entering my second month in Equestria with a feeling of freedom and ease that was a stark contrast to the air of stifling secrecy that I had spent the first month restricted by. To my surprise, my three guards no longer hovered completely over my shoulders during my trips out the suite - rather, they would just hang around in the general vicinity, at the very most two or three corridors away, ready to intervene at the slightest hint of trouble, but still not being too obtrusive or giving any kind of obvious sign that they were any sort of personal retinue.

Personally, I was just relieved to finally have the space to myself, if anything else.

Twilight and her friends had already departed the capital city of Equestria since last week, having already overstayed their visit by several days when Pinkie Pie had insisted on visiting every single pastry shop in Canterlot at least once to sample their wares. That left me with minimal distractions to deal with as I spent my waking hours wandering around the castle, going back to my suite once the sun had set to keep up with my physical training, and continue reading up on Griffonian history - with Bitworth’s help as a translator, of course.

Celestia’s suggestion for me to educate myself on general Equestrian history had actually paid off in spades - from what I had learned from the books, I'd realized that the Griffonian Hierarchy's war-torn past was a string of events that very closely mirrored various key moments in Earth's own history. More than anything, I was eerily reminded of humanity's own bloody trail that had been left behind in the annals of time as I read over the various wars and conflicts that the griffonians had fought amongst themselves and against Equestria, and when I moved on to learning about their technology, that alien sense of unnerving familiarity with the savagery of their race began to intensify.

Apparently, Equestria had been content to develop utilitarian technologies to aid in the improvement and streamlining of their civilization's infrastructure and the development of their cultural arts. But instead of devoting just as much time to advancing their defence forces however, they had left the defense of their nation to the traditional methods of wielding might and magic, as demonstrated by the Equestrian Guard, the massive army that oversaw the defense of Equestria's borders, and their elite counterparts, the Royal Guard.

As though to provide a counterpoint to that, Griffonia itself seemed to be in the midst of an Industrial Revolution, comparatively speaking. While they were nowhere close to humanity’s level of tech in the 21st Century, they had already mastered the use of gunpowder, and were just beginning to learn how factory manufacturing worked. If I had to put an estimation on it, I would say that they were roughly between 17th and 18th Century tech. Flintlock pistols and front-loading rifles were apparently already in mainstream use in their armies, and steam engines were also prevalently used to power vehicles and other rudimentary machines.

That pretty much gave me an idea of what I was up against, and though I had tried to look further into Griffon furycrafting, there was pitifully little information available on the methods they used to carry it out. Apparently, the art of furycrafting was a closely-guarded Griffonian secret, and few Equestrian scholars had been able to document the causes and methods of their abilities. All the books mentioned was what I had suspected all along - that the Griffons were indeed able to control the very building blocks of the world around them: fire, earth, water, wind, alongside wood and metal. However, there was also brief mention of one type of furycrafting that I had not recognized, something that had not been a part of the Codex: Alera series that the Griffonians had seemingly ripped their powers off from.

According to the texts that I had read, some of the older griffons, particularly those who were old enough to be the heads of Houses and hold the positions of Councillor, would eventually come to unlock a final form a furycrafting that only came with age and the maturation of their minds: mindcrafting. When I tried to look it up further however, I turned up with zilch again - the only thing that Equestrian scholars had learned about it so far was that it entailed psionic powers of some kind, powered solely by the will and intent of the elder griffons’ matured, powerful brains. But what powers those were, there was absolutely no mention of them anywhere in the books.

Briefed as I was on my potential opponents, I spent my daylight hours familiarizing myself with the layout of the castle, with its winding corridors and various different rooms and chambers. After a few days of wandering around, flashing the badge Celestia had given me to every guard that stopped me and giving them the cover story the Princess had cooked up, I had become familiar enough with the castle that I could navigate most of it confidently without needing to refer to a map, and I could safely say that I knew where most of the rooms and wings were. At the very least, I wouldn't become hopelessly lost in an emergency if I found myself needing to get somewhere particular in a hurry.

After that came the next step in the mission Celestia had given me - intelligence gathering. To be honest, I didn't really have an idea of where to intentionally start, so most of the information that I'd gathered had been accidentally so while I'd meandered around the castle, eavesdropping on what I could. But after several days of aimless wandering and barely anything new on the grapevine to show for it, I decided it was time for me to really put the executive power Celestia had given me to use.

“Halt! Who goes there?” One of the two guards that stood in front of the double doors that led to my destination barked out as he raised a hoof to stop me, and I could see his spear already beginning to lean slightly in my direction.

“Easy, fellas.” I flashed Celestia’s badge at them, barely even slowing down as I recited the cover story the princess had cooked up for me. “Agent Legacy from the Lunar Guard. I’m on royal assignment from the princess.”

The guard took one glance at the badge that I was flashing his way, and I could have sworn that I saw his eyes widen almost imperceptibly before his posture went even more ramrod straight, if that was even physically possible. “Of course sir, go right on in.”

The guards almost immediately parted before me, and I held back a grin as I strode on through. Once I had gotten accustomed to the alter identity that the princess had forged for me to use, getting around the castle had been almost laughably easy, but I supposed that was only because I had confined my roaming to the areas where even servants still had general access. Getting into restricted areas like the one I was walking into was another matter altogether, as I still wasn’t exactly sure what the badge allowed me to get away with, but so far it seemed that I almost had free reign of the castle now.

And that was exactly what I needed, because I needed to be able to get to certain places like the room I was walking into right now without too many questions being asked. As I strode into the room, the doors behind me closed with a resounding thud, and the white-coated unicorn who sat slumped on the desk in front of me groaned as he continued scribbling away at the mountains of paperwork that sat before him.

“I believe I specified that I wasn’t to be disturbed for the next several hours, sergeant?” Another lock of electric blue hair twinged out of place as the unicorn’s writing grew a little more agitated. “The castle had better be on fire or something, or I’m assigning the rest of these deployment forms to you.”

“You might wanna hold off on that, Shining Armor,” I cleared my throat, and the captain of the guard’s gaze shot up to stare up at me in shock and disbelief. “There’s something I need to ask you.”

“Joseph?” Shining Armor squinted at me as the sound of my voice caught on, almost as if he couldn’t believe that I was outside of my suite and in his office. To be fair, the guard captain hadn’t actually seen me in my pony disguise before, as the one time he’d come over to my suite had been when I wasn’t wearing the illusionary amulet. I couldn’t really blame him if he couldn’t recognize me at first sight. “That you? That's... quite the getup you're wearing. So the Princess finally decided to let you out of your suite, huh?”

“Only because I let myself get drafted into a little assignment of hers that she says she needs my help with.” I shrugged as I sat myself down on one of the chairs in front of his desk. “I'll be brief - you know about the border attacks going on, right?"

"That's right, along with the tensions that are simultaneously running high with the Griffonian government, as though there wasn't enough going on already," Shining Armor groaned as he ran a hoof through his mane. "Let me guess, Celestia told you about what's happening and she brought you in for what she probably said was your 'outsider's expertise', right?"

I raised a surprised eyebrow. "How'd you know all that?"

"Because I was one of the ponies the princess was discussing the idea with before she came to you about it." The unicorn stallion got up from his desk as his horn lit up and began rifling through his drawers telekinetically. "And incidentally, I was also one of those in favor of bringing you in to help us too. I heard that you used to be a military officer, so I thought that some more perspective would be better than none."

A few seconds of rummaging later, Shining Armor came up with a tightly bound manila folder that was stuffed full of papers, and he levitated them over towards me. "I figured you'd show up one of these days, so I compiled a report of every single out-of-the-ordinary occurrence that the Guard has picked up in the city. It's honestly a lot of chaff to filter through, but it's somewhere better to start than just wandering aimlessly through the corridors trying to eavesdrop on what you can, right?"

He shot me a knowing grin, and I let out a groan. "Oh come on, is there anything the guard captain doesn't know around here?"

"Well, when more than a few of my patrols start running into an agent of the Lunar Guard one after the other, and they all report that said agent seems to be wandering around hopelessly lost, you can't really expect me not to put two and two together.” Shining chuckled as he sat back down at his desk. “I’m surprised that the Princess made being a Lunar Guard agent a part of your cover story though, now that she’s got you running around outside. What was the alter identity she cooked up for you anyway?”

"Apparently, my name is now Remnant Legacy, an orphaned earth pony who spent his early years in an orphanage, signed up to serve in the Equestrian Guard the moment he was of age, and was chosen to be inducted into the Royal Guard a few short years after that," I told him. "Shortly after that, he was then drafted into the Lunar Guard to serve as a royal agent in a more subtle capacity, hence my current skulking around."

Shining Armor looked as if he was struggling to hold back laughter as I went on with my explanation, and by the time I was done he was practically shaking in his seat with suppressed chuckles. "Well, that's quite the cover story she created for you. I know quite a few royal guards who would hate you if you'd really managed to be chosen for induction into the Royal Guard after just a few years of service with the grunts. It's not easy to get into the Royal Guard, you know."

"So I heard." I nodded, thinking back on what I had read (or rather what Bitworth had translated for me) about the rigorous trials that a prospective recruit for the Royal Guard had to go through. If the Equestrian Guard was really equivalent in any way to the Imperial Guard, then the Royal Guard pretty much had to be the freakin' Space Marines. As far as my opinion was concerned, 'Remnant Legacy' had to have been one hell of a Gary Stu to cruise through the Royal Guard's selection process like that, and then get drafted into the Lunar Guard, which was pretty much the equivalent of getting drafted into the Inquisition’s Deathwatch, or the Officio Assassinorum.

Personally, I don't know what possessed Celestia to come up with a cover story like that for me, but what I did know was that the street cred that came with being a part of the Lunar Guard had pretty much opened almost every door in the castle there was to me… or at least, the ones that I could reach. That alone made my almost-cringeworthy cover story at least worth it, so I wasn’t about to start complaining.

“Well,” I continued, getting back on track with the conversation as I held up the folder. “The folder’s all well and good, Shining, but like you said, it’s a lot of chaff. Are there any leads in here that you think I should get started with first?”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to color your perspectives with my own judgments and experience,” Shining Armor replied first, though he frowned slightly in thought after that. “Although, if it’s all the same to you, I’d still start looking at the activities that directly involve griffons first. They are the most obvious lead after all, and you might spot something I missed.”

The guard captain took a look at the ticking clock that hung on the wall at the side of his office, and he began to get off his chair as he started to speak. “Well, I hate to leave you like this, but I’ve got a meeting with the rest of my officers that I’ve got to get to. Good luck with the rest of that, Joseph - honestly speaking, I think you’re going to need it. I’ve had my analysts go over these dozens of times and we haven’t found any discernible patterns that we could make use of. It could be that we’re looking for the wrong things, really, so I hope that somewhere in that head of yours is the perspective we need to put all of this together.”

“Don’t worry about it, Captain. I’ll do my best.” I gave Shining Armor a mock salute as I took the cue that the meeting was over and began to get off the chair myself. “I’ll let you know if I find anything unusual or worth noti-”

Without warning, the door suddenly burst open, and the two of us whirled around to see a panting stallion, clad in minimal armor and carrying what looked like a courier bag, gallop into the room, stopping just a few paces past the door.

“Captain Armor!” The courier gasped as his eyes flickered past me for just a second before they locked onto Shining Armor. “Urgent news from dispatch - Ponyville has just been attacked!”

---

“So what do you think happened?” I asked as I sprinted alongside the galloping stallion, following a now-armored Shining Armor as he took off down the corridors, his expression a grim mask. The moment the guard captain had received the news, his expression darkened to the point that it could have easily been likened to a mounting hurricane, and he’d stood up without a word before his horn sparked. The armor on his stand to the side of his office had immediately leapt off its resting place and assemble itself around him, the entire suit locking into place within seconds, and he had gestured at me to follow him before galloping straight out.

“I don’t know - frankly, I think the princesses would have received word before we did. Princess Celestia, especially. She would probably know what’s going on.” Shining Armor dodged around a servant with amazing dexterity, considering the fact that he was wearing half-plate, and he continued on without even breaking stride. “But there’s no time to waste - we have to get to the courtyard, that’s where the mobilizing forces will be!”

“Wait, don’t you have to coordinate those or something?” I asked as I weaved around another servant who was balancing a tray of what looked like hors d'oeuvres, and started catching up to the armored stallion. “I mean, you are their commanding officer after all!”

“My sergeants and lieutenants all know what they have to do in times like these - they’re trained to have initiative like that. I only step in when things are in dire need of direct intervention,” The guard captain answered as his voice slowly descended into a furious growl. “And I would say that the town my little sister lives in getting attacked is dire enough for me to step in - when I find out who’s responsible for this, somepony is going to pay.”

I winced at the thought, familiar with the concept of the protective furies older brothers could get into whenever their little sisters were in danger. Whoever was going to be on the receiving end of Shining Armor’s fury was gonna have a bad time.

Once we reached the courtyard a few minutes later, Shining Armor and I emerged to a cacophony of shouting voices and clanking armor, and what I saw nearly blew my mind. Ranks upon ranks of Royal Guards, all clad in resplendent golden armor, stood in the courtyard in almost perfect formation. If I had to guess a number, I would say that there was at least an entire company’s worth of soldiers amassed in front of me, and they were all in organized motion.

There was a line of large armored chariots, at least six in total, that lay waiting at one end of the courtyard, each big enough to contain at least a dozen ponies inside, and they were all manned by at least four pegasi guards each. Already, the ranks of guards were breaking up into smaller squads as they filed into the chariots, and once a chariot was fully loaded, its doors would slam closed and the pegasi pulling it would take off without a second wasted, the chariot moving with a swiftness that could have easily contended with a dropship taking off.

On the other side of the courtyard was another line, but this time of what looked like teleportation circles, each manned by three unicorn guards each. The royal guards who were formed up in front of the circles were clad in much heavier armor and were carrying much larger weapons than the ones that had boarded the chariots, and they were each stepping into the glowing circles, where the unicorns would then focus their horns in synchronization for a few moments before the teleportee would vanish in a flash of azure light, leaving the space free for the next guard in line to be teleported away.

“Captain!” A familiar voice called out, and I turned around to see Starfall, similarly armored as well, marching up to us. The unicorn mare shot me a brief, surprised look, and then turned to her captain. “Third Company is already halfway through its deployment. Reports from the field indicate that we managed to catch the raid in its early stages - the damage to the town isn’t too extensive, and none of the raiders managed to make it off with any hostages.”

“Great work, Lieutenant.” Shining Armor nodded, only the slightest signs of relief passing over his face as the stony expression of a seasoned commander took over. “Have there been any complications?”

“We’re still working on locating and securing the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony, but we have at least three of them safely secured in the town hall now,” Starfall replied briskly. “Ladies Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash are still at large, though.”

Shining Armor mulled over it for a second, and he glanced at his lieutenant, his expression tightening. “And that’s the only thing?”

In front of me, the unicorn mare looked distinctly uncomfortable and aware of the fact that there was an outsider present at the discussion, but she pressed on anyway after a moment. “Lady Twilight is becoming quite insistent on leaving the safety of the town hall to go and look for her friends. We’re starting to have trouble convincing her to stay put.”

Surprisingly, Shining Armor’s expression relaxed, and he grinned slightly. “Well, now that sounds more like my little sister. Get a teleportation circle for me running, Lieutenant - I want to be on the ground five minutes ago.”

“Understood, Captain.” Starfall nodded, and she turned around and started barking orders to the unicorn guards on duty at the teleportation circles. Meanwhile, Shining Armor turned to me, his expression grim.

“Legacy,” He began, using my cover identity’s name now that we were out in public. “I need you to go back in the castle, get whatever gear you need, and then come find me in Ponyville as soon as you can. This is the latest attack we’ve seen so far so this is as fresh a scene as we’re going to get. I need you on the ground to see what information you can dig up.”

“You got it, Cap’.” I snapped a serious salute this time, and Shining Armor nodded gravely.

“Starfall!” The unicorn mare’s head snapped around, and she trotted over. “Go with Agent Legacy to get his equipment. Once he’s geared up, teleport him immediately to my location - we don’t have any time to waste.”

If Starfall had any protests or complaints whatsoever, she quickly stifled them as she snapped a salute to her commanding officer and then turned to me. “Yes, captain! Come on agent, let’s move!”

Without wasting a moment, Starfall took off at a gallop back into the castle, and I followed suit a heartbeat later. The moment the two of us were away from any potential eavesdroppers however, Starfall’s neutral mask fell away, and the unicorn mare turned to glare at me hotly.

“What in Tartarus are you doing out here, Joseph?” The question came before I could prepare for it. “I thought the Princess had you looking into the patterns of the griffons’ activities? What were you doing following the captain out here?”

“I was in his office with him when the word that Ponyville had been attacked came in,” I explained as we bolted down the now empty corridors. “I was asking him if he had any leads that could help me out, and he was about to pass me a file on what he had so far when the courier burst in. I would’ve stayed to look at it, but I think the fact that Ponyville is currently under attack is a more urgent matter than a manila folder sitting in an office that isn’t going anywhere, isn’t it?”

“Right,” The unicorn lieutenant grunted in concession, but she kept her gaze directed ahead and refused to look directly at me. “So where the hay is Flash? Wasn’t he supposed to be your assigned guard for today?”

“I’m right here,” I heard the pegasus reply from somewhere above us, right before I felt a slight draft slide down the back of my exposed neck. Probably a result of his beating wings - apparently, he had decided to break cover from shadowing me and join us in our mad dash down the hallways. “No need to brief me, ma’am - I’m already up to speed. Following ‘Agent Legacy’ around here and not being noticed was a pain in the flank, but I managed to pull it off reasonably well, I guess. Where’s Brick?”

“Already on the scene at Ponyville - he was one of the first our mages sent over to secure the town.” Starfall replied as we turned around the final corner leading to my suite. “Nopony’s been seriously injured or successfully abducted, but we’ve only begun to secure a perimeter around the town and run the raiders out.”

“Then we’d better move fast then - wouldn’t want the scene to get stale before we get there,” I muttered as we reached the door, and I wrenched it open, sprinting over to the cupboard where I stored all of the gear that Celestia had given me in case things ever got dangerous, now that I was running around carrying out missions for her.

A short-bladed sword went strapped to a belt that went around my waist, followed by a leather vest lined with mail that had, according to Celestia, been enchanted to be more resistant to physical blows. Similarly lined and enchanted gloves, forearm guards and shin guards went on shortly after, but I stopped when I reached the two items that I hadn’t touched since arriving in Canterlot - the shotgun and the revolver.

Honestly speaking, if I wanted to maintain my cover, those were the two things that I absolutely could not bring along. But the only alternative that I had to a ranged weapon was a manually cocked hand crossbow and a handful of spare bolts, and I wasn’t confident enough in my use of it for it to prove as reliable an emergency weapon as one of the guns would be.

“We don’t have time to waste, Joseph,” Starfall snapped as she saw me staring at the guns. “Get your tail in gear and get moving!”

There wasn’t any more time to waste on pondering over it - I strapped on a holster, shoved the hand crossbow into it, and slotted a handful of spare bolts into a small quiver that I clipped to my belt before I turned to Starfall and nodded. “All right, I’m ready.”

The unicorn didn’t waste a second. Immediately angling her horn towards me, azure sparks began to flare from the tip of it as a similarly glowing circle materialized around my feet. Soon after that, the boundaries of the circle began to intensify in brightness that within moments, I was standing within a blazing column of light.

“Okay, if this is your first time teleporting via ritual circle, Joseph, I should warn you,” Starfall began as the circle began to crackle with what sounded like electricity. “The initial trip can be pretty rough if you’re not prepared for it. Just brace yourself for one hay of a ride, and you should come out of the other side okay without too severe a bout of nausea.”

“Wait, what do you mean by ‘one hay of a ride’?” I raised any eyebrow as I started eyeing the circle nervously. “What exactly should I be expecting in there?”

“It’s like being wrung through a meat grinder while doing bucking tight loops on an open-topped flying chariot that’s going sixty,” Flash Sentry answered. “But don’t worry about it - it only lasts for like, what, a couple of seconds at the most?”

“Well, gee, that’s real reassuring, Flash." I stared at him flatly. “Why don’t you step in the circle here with me and see how you like the trip as well?”

“No thanks, mate, I think I’d much rather fly over there,” Flash snorted as he grinned at me. “I’ll ask you how the trip went when I see you in Ponyville.”

“Put a horseshoe in it, Corporal, I’m teleporting you there too after him,” Starfall grunted as sweat began to bead on her forehead. “All right, the spell’s almost complete. Brace yourself, Joseph, because you’re about to experience a new kind of mileage in three, two…”

And before Starfall could even get to one, there was an unexpected jerk from behind my navel, and my entire existence and perception of the universe shrank into that single point. Sucked into a black hole, my entire body coiled and contorted into impossible geometries and angles that bent my mind as I tried to reconcile the sensations with an image in my mind’s eye, and all the while, an incredible sense of velocity kept me disoriented as my perception continued tumbling in every conceivable direction.

I don’t know if it was an eternity or a mere split second later, but just as suddenly as the sensations had began, they stopped, and the world reassembled itself around me. I tumbled out onto my knees as the sensation of gravity rapidly reasserted itself, and I lasted only a second before motion sickness won out and the contents of my stomach promptly vacated the premises.

“Oh, Jesus Christ, what the fuck was that?” I groaned right before I dry heaved another time, coughing and sputtering out the aftertaste of vomit. “It wasn’t even nearly this bad last time with Celestia…”

Next to me, there was another flash of azure light, and Flash Sentry tumbled out onto the ground, barely staying on his hooves as his face contorted in the familiar expression of someone on the verge of projectile vomiting.

“Oh, geez, Starfall really needs to work on her teleportation spells…” The royal guard groaned. To his credit, he managed to keep himself from throwing up. “You know, it’s amazing how she’s easily one of our best mages, and yet she can’t perform a decently comfortable teleportation spell for nuts.”

As though on cue, there was a third flash of light in front of us, and Starfall emerged into sight, amazingly looking no worse for the wear. “C’mon you two, enough bellyaching. On your hooves! We’ve got a job to do.”

“Yes ma’am,” I hauled myself to my feet as I tried not to reply sardonically, failing that for the most part, but Starfall didn’t do anything more than shoot me a dirty look out of the corner of her eye before she moved on ahead without waiting for either of us.

The three of us hustled onward, and as I took in my surroundings I realized that Starfall had had the prudence to teleport us right where we needed to be. I remembered Shining Armor saying that I had to go find him the moment we were in Ponyville, and here we were, just a street away from the town hall. The roads around the town hall were packed with the townsponies that had been evacuated here while the royal guards set about securing a perimeter against the griffonian raiders, and nearly all of them had looks of fear or nervousness on their faces. Every here and there a royal guard would be standing in the midst of the crowd, making sure that order was kept and that the townsponies didn’t panic and turn into a mob, but the tension in the air was only concealed by a paper thin veil. Anyone could easily see that the the crowd was only a hair away from being triggered into a riot.

Starfall, Flash and I wove our way through the crowd towards the town hall, which had obviously been converted into a communications hub of some sort, judging by all the royal guards that were still streaming in and out of it. When we strode through the door, I noticed Pinkie and Rarity standing off to the side amongst the crowd of ponies inside, but both of them had their eyes fixed on the altercation that was currently taking place in the middle of the room.

Every pony in the room was giving the argument a wide berth, and in the centre of it all were what were probably the two most powerful unicorns in Equestria, currently deadlocked in heated debate.

“I’m telling you, Twily, you need to stay put. My guards are already out there in force securing the town, and we’re not going to risk losing track of any more of the Bearers. You and your friends have to stay here.” Shining Armor was practically staring down Twilight at this point; the two siblings were almost nose to nose, and I could sense a strange static charge in the air that I couldn’t put my finger on, but it was unnerving enough that the hackles on the back of my neck were already beginning to rise. The elder stallion's hard gaze was tempered with concern for his sister’s safety, but Twilight was stubbornly refusing to back down.

“I am not leaving my friends out there with those raiders on the loose, Shining!” Twilight wasn’t stomping a hoof to punctuate her sentence, but she delivered her message with such a finality that she may as well have. “Every second that goes by where they’re not found is another second where they could be discovered and kidnapped! I have to get out there and make sure they’re safe!”

“And risk getting captured yourself as well?” Shining Armor shot back, and the static charge I felt building up in the air intensified even further as the hairs on the back of my neck bristled. “I already have my guards out there looking for them Twily - I’m not going to let you go out there and endanger yourself unnecessarily!”

“You can’t just expect me to sit here on my tail twiddling my forehooves while my friends are out there, Shining,” Twilight said determinedly before she turned away from her brother and began marching towards the door. “Your guards can keep looking if they want, but I’m not going to be staying here while my friends are in danger - I’m heading out there.”

“No you’re not.” I quickly stepped in the unicorn’s way, blocking her off despite the rising hackles on the back of my neck, and feeling as though I had just placed myself square in the crosshairs of a 120mm cannon. Twilight stared up me, and blinked in surprise at the sudden intrusion. “Shining Armor’s right, Twilight - you shouldn’t be going anywhere.”

“Joseph?” Twilight stared up at me for a second in surprised recognition before her eyes flashed, and then narrowed. “And why exactly is that?”

“Because I’m the one who’s gonna be out there looking for ‘em, not you.” I grabbed the unicorn by the shoulders and turned her back around to her brother, lightly pushing her back towards him. “Captain, any word where are the other Bearers located?”

“Now hold on just a second!” Twilight butted herself back into the conversation before her brother could reply, turning around to face me. “Joseph, those are my friends out there, I can’t let you just put yourself at risk without me out there as-”

“Last I checked, they’d become my friends too, Twilight,” I replied without even looking at her, keeping my eyes locked on Shining Armor, who nodded grimly. “But the fact is that it’s more important for us to keep you safe here, and if you’re that worried for your friends’ safety, then don’t sweat it. Between the guards out there and Starfall’s team with me, we’ve got it covered. Either way, you’re not setting foot outside of this building.”

Twilight’s lips worked in visible effort, the unicorn visibly trying to come up with a better reason for her to be the one heading out into the fray instead of me. But after a moment, common sense finally won out, and she backed down. “All right, Joseph. You win. I’ll stay here with the mayor and try to keep everypony calm.”

“Long as I’m a pony to your eyes, the name’s Legacy, Twilight.” I grinned at her. “Probably a little joke of the Princess’ when she gave me this cover identity. Don’t worry about it - we’re going to bring your friends back home safe.”

“I’ll stay behind here to co-ordinate the town’s defense, and make sure Twilight doesn’t go anywhere,” Shining Armor said, ignoring the pointed look that his sister shot in his direction. “You three find Brick Wall and take him along with you while searching for the Bearers - against these raiders, you might need the muscle. And Legacy - don’t forget what you’re here for.”

“Investigate the scene and search for any information there might be on who’s instigating these attacks.” I nodded. “Got it, Captain.”

I turned to leave with Starfall and Flash, and we exited the building together. As we stepped outside, Flash breathed a sigh of relief, and he immediately started talking.

“Man, am I glad to be out of there!” The pegasus guard said as we wormed our way through the crowds and took a shortcut through the first alley we saw to get out of the mass of packed bodies. “ The tension in the air in there was packing even more charge than a runaway thundercloud!”

“I'd say. I saw how big the bloody berth in there was,” I remarked. “Still, I didn’t think they would actually come to blows, though. Those two are brother and sister, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have actually come down to a fight - not sure why everyone in there was circled around them like a bomb was gonna go off.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that, Legacy,” Starfall said suddenly. “You’re not trained to recognize magical auras like we are - Lady Twilight was more than ready to blast her brother aside and blow a hole in the building if it meant being able to go after her friends. It was good that you stepped in when you did, I suppose - the surprise of seeing you in your pony disguise threw her off enough to redirect her attention off of her brother and onto yourself. Though why you would risk the ire of an angry Bearer of Magic is another issue altogether…”

As Starfall’s voice trailed off into muttering, I thought about the unnerving static charge I’d felt in that room, and nervously laughed as I directed all thoughts away from just how close I had unwittingly come to being on the receiving end of a barrage of magic missiles from an angry purple unicorn - that was certainly not a side of Twilight I had ever wanted to be on. It was a hell of a magic bullet I’d just dodged, but it certainly had me looking at her in a completely new light.

“So, how do we find Brick?” I decided to change the subject. “The guard’s got a perimeter all around the town. How do we know which side of town he’s on?”

“The same way we always do, agent.” Starfall paused as we exited the alley, and she grinned as her ears twitched. “Follow the screaming.”

---

At first I’d thought Starfall had been embellishing, but as we approached the perimeter that the guard had set up, I realized that the unicorn hadn’t been exaggerating at all. Before we had even come close to reaching the perimeter, I could literally hear screaming coming from the direction Starfall was leading us in, and amazingly, laughter as well.

For a second I started to wonder what kind of demented soul would be laughing in the midst of a battle of life and death, but when I turned around the corner with the others and saw Brick standing in the middle of the street right beneath an almost literal pile of griffonian raiders, I kinda saw why.

“Come on, I said give me a real fight!” The massive bruiser cackled as he hurled aside the griffon that he was holding up by the throat with a casual fling of his foreleg, seemingly unburdened by the four or so other griffons hanging off of his body in various places that were trying to drag him down. “Are the rest of you raiders all a bunch of pansies? What are you waiting for?”

Laughing maniacally as he did so, Brick swung himself around in a massive sweep, sending screaming griffons in all directions. Those that landed on the ground instead of being flung against the walls and through nearby fences quickly scrambled to their feet, and immediately ran for the hills with their tails between their legs.

“Forget this, I’m outta here!” I overheard one of them scream as he took off at a dead run, not even caring to pick up the longsword that had fallen loose from his belt. “I didn’t sign up to get myself killed by some flippin’ insane earth pony!”

“Let’s get the fuck out; he’s flippin’ nuts!” His comrades’ sentiments seemed to agree heartily, and they hastily fled the scene. Before I knew it, the entire street was deserted, save for Brick, us, and a couple of groaning, unconscious raiders.

“Heh, losers,” Bricks chuckled as he turned towards us, crushing a griffon helm underhoof as he walked. Now that I had a clearer view of him, I could see that his armor was vastly different from the suits that Flash and Starfall were wearing. Starfall was wearing the same half-plate that Shining Armor had been clad in, while Flash’s armor was more minimalistic and only had a few thin plates protecting his vital areas, but Brick was practically encased in metal that made it look like he was a walking Terminator. “Heya there, Flash! Took you guys long enough to get here. These raiders have been nothing but a bunch of pushovers, I haven’t had a decent fight since I got here!”

“Well, if you actually had one while you were up against these jokers, then something would really be wrong here,” Flash laughed as more guards came up behind us, taking into custody the injured griffons that were still lying on the ground. “Agent Legacy is here to investigate who’s instigating this attack, but he somehow managed to get himself roped into looking for the remaining Bearers of the Elements while out here.”

“Which was our original mission anyway, in addition to securing the town.” Starfall quickly reset the conversation back onto a no-nonsense track. “Judging from your lack of injuries, Brick, I suppose these raiders aren’t even close to being up to par?”

“They really should’ve sent more well-trained troops here, if you ask me.” Brick nodded. “They might’ve been able to give an Equestrian Guard garrison a run for its money, but they couldn’t have possibly hoped to match themselves against Royal Guard soldiers. Not sure why they even bothered attacking Ponyville to begin with.”

As Brick spoke however, something suddenly clicked in my head. “Wait, hold on to that thought. Brick is onto something.” The three guards looked at me as I spoke up. “Why send cannon fodder to a town that's so close to the capital it can be reinforced with the Royal Guard almost as soon as an attack starts? These guys are supposedly terrorists working outside of the law who aren’t that well-supplied, right? Then they’ve obviously got to pick targets where they know their chances of success are at least decent. They should have known that attacking a target as secure as Ponyville was going to fail, unless it was exactly what they... wanted us to... think..."

Momentary silence followed.

“Son of a buzzard, I can’t believe I missed it.” Starfall facehoofed violently, mirroring my sentiments exactly. “This was all just a diversion for another target altogether!”

The unicorn mare took off in the direction of the outskirts of town without another word, and all three of us looked at each other for just a second, nonplussed, before we sprinted after her.

“Wait, Starfall, just hold on one second!” Flash called out to her as we tried to catch up to her. “What did we miss? What could they be after that’s valuable enough to warrant a distraction as costly to them in manpower as this?”

“What else is there in Ponyville that’s worth risking a reprisal from the Royal Guard for?” I replied for Starfall, the pieces starting to fall into place in my head as well. “This is the home of the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony! In all likelihood, the raid was probably a smokescreen for an abduction attempt!”

“And we already have three element Bearers unaccounted for,” Starfall continued for me as we exited the streets, and began running down a dirt road that led across a familiar bridge. “We can’t afford to let them make off with any of them! The Elements are one of Equestria’s major trump cards, and one of the only things that are keeping many of the more unpleasant forces of nature at bay! If their cohesion is broken…”

There’s no telling what would happen if one of the Elements loses its connection with its Bearer. Starfall’s sentence finished itself mentally in my head, and my lips tightened in grim agreement. It was safe to assume that the Elements of Harmony was a capricious force of magic that was beyond the comprehension of most mortal ken, and its power was the only thing keeping things like Discord and God-knows-what-else sealed away from the world. With the stakes that high, it wasn’t worth the off-chance of letting even one of the Elements of Harmony come to harm, and risking the seal upon Discord’s prison unravelling the moment they lost their connection to their Element.

We had to prevent any of the three Bearers from being abducted, no matter the cost.

Abruptly, a sudden chiming came from Flash’s direction, and I noticed a small stone that had a glowing rune inscribed on it pulsing with light attached to his cuirass. The pegasus guard quickly grabbed it with a wing and placed it inside his ear, and after a second he looked at his commanding officer.

“Ma’am, I’m getting reports from Third Company’s Assault squads,” Flash said, his expression tight. “They’ve checked out the cloud mansion of the Bearer of Loyalty - she’s nowhere to be found.”

“The Devastator teams we sent to sweep the grounds of Sweet Apple Acres managed to find Lady Applejack in her home, though. They had to fight off a few raiders who were trying to make off with some of her other family members, but the rest of the Apple family has been secured.” Brick followed up soon after his own runestone began chiming, and that maddening sense of deja vu crept up the back of my head again, but I couldn’t spare it any thought with the urgency of the situation.

“And what about the squads that were sent to check Lady Fluttershy’s residence?” Starfall asked, and I saw Flash Sentry blanch out of the corner of my eye.

“There hasn’t been any response from them over the spell channels,” The pegasus guard answered. “I’ve been trying to raise them over the past minute, but they’re not answering.”

“Then that probably means that they’re in trouble.” Starfall’s voice hardened, and she started galloping even faster. “Let’s get moving!”

As we ran, the feeling of foreboding that I felt creeping up the back of my neck began to intensify. The Royal Guards were pretty much the freakin’ Space Marines of Equestria’s military - if the guards that had been sent to check out Fluttershy’s cottage weren’t responding, then the likeliest scenario was that they had been taken out somehow. The thought of exactly what kind of force would be needed to take out entire squads, plural, of the medieval equivalent of Astartes super soldiers wasn’t something that I really wanted to think about, because it was more than likely that the four of us would soon be going up against that exact kind of foe.

If anything, I was definitely going to be coming out of this with more than just a few bruises.

After several minutes of going at an all-out run over the dirt roads leading to the town’s outskirts, the bridge that I knew led to Fluttershy’s cottage finally came into sight, and I realized to my amazement that I barely even felt winded. Compared to how rapidly exhausted I used to get when going at an all out sprint, I was doing amazingly well keeping up with the royal guards next to me. The four of us tore our way across the bridge, and when the front of Fluttershy’s cottage came into sight, my bottom of my stomach dropped faster than a pair of concrete shoes in the river.

The front door had been completely shattered, blown inwards on its hinges as what few ragged splinters that were left hung off weakly from the door frame. That alone would’ve been enough of a bad sign already, but the sight of several unmoving royal guards scattered across the front yard, including one that was hanging halfway out of a broken window, simply exacerbated the sight. There was the sudden sound of breaking glass and shattering wood inside, and without even saying a word, the four of us began running even faster.

“I’m telling you creeps, you’d better back off!” I heard a familiar hot-headed voice come from the inside of the cottage, laced with the desperation of a cornered animal. “You punks don’t know who you’re dealing with!”

“Oh, the little pegasus fancies herself a badass!” The distinct flanging of a griffon’s voice followed soon after. I could practically hear the scorn and derision dripping off of it - whoever the owner of that voice was obviously had a too-high opinion of himself. “What say you guys we put that to the test? Not that what we’ve been doing so far has been too strenuous for her, has it?”

More flanged laughter came from the inside of the cottage, and the heat that had been simmering in the pit of my gut roared into a full-blown fire as my fists tightened. The bastards had obviously been toying with their prey, and that thought alone was enough to incense me to the point that even a bare-handed beatdown at the hooves of Brick would probably have been too lenient for these assholes.

The four of us immediately barrelled right through the open doorway, Brick going in first as he smashed the remnants of the door aside, with Starfall and Flash bringing up the rear as the pegasus guard drew two hand crossbows from his holsters, holding them in some convoluted manner with his wings’ feather-fingers that I didn’t really want to examine too closely. Inside the cottage, four griffons that were dressed in the same leather armor as the raiders we had encountered earlier had corralled their two victims to one side of the living room, cutting off their retreats to both upstairs and the door. Before them, Rainbow Dash was standing protectively in front of a cowering Fluttershy, the cyan pegasus’ teeth bared in a defiant snarl as her wings flared out.

Upon our entrance, one of the raiders immediately turned his head in our direction, and his eyes narrowed sharply. “Royal Guards again? Really? We haven’t come this far to get busted now - take ‘em down, boys!”

“What, there’s only four of you?” Brick chortled as he lumbered towards the griffons who were turning towards us, grinning the entire way. “This won’t take long!”

“Oh, that’s what you think.” The smirk on the massive raider’s face as he stepped forward to meet Brick’s advance stopped me in my tracks. My instincts immediately started screaming at me that something was wrong here - confidence like that sure as hell didn’t come from posturing or foolhardiness.

Obviously, Starfall had picked up on the same cues I did, because she immediately raised a foreleg to stop her teammate. “Brick, wait, something’s not-”

“Can’t hear you, clobbering time!” Brick’s chortle turned into a cackle as he reared up, and swung a meaty foreleg at the griffon in front of him in a massive haymaker. Against any other griffon, I would have expected the fight to end right there and then, but to my utter shock, Brick’s opponent simply braced a foot as he raised up a clawed forelimb, and he tanked the hit, barely even flinching.

Brick’s eyes widened for a second, and he had just enough time to mutter “What the-” before the griffon made a swing of his own in a vicious counterattack. A balled claw-fist slammed into Brick’s gut, sending him flying through the wall and outside the cottage in a shower of splinters, and the griffon followed him outside in a powerful leap not a second later.

“Damnit, Brick!” Flash cried out as he dashed forward in a blur of speed, but when I blinked I suddenly saw that he had been intercepted by another one of the smaller raiders, moving with a frightening swiftness that easily matched Flash’s. There was a flash of steel, and the pegasus abruptly jerked backwards, but not before a thin streak of blood was sent flying through the air. Flash landed back on his hooves in front of me, panting wildly, and my blood froze as a cursory glance at the shallow slash mark across the barrel of his chest told me that he had come within inches of having his throat sliced open.

The griffon who had struck him raised the saber that he had drawn and attacked with in a single motion, its tip still dripping with the royal guard’s blood, and he grinned savagely. “If anything goes flying next, it’ll be your head.”

“Interesting,” Flash responded breathlessly with a surprising amount of insouciance as he holstered his hand crossbows, and he drew a curved shortblade from its sheath across his back, smiling humorlessly. “You know, I’ve always wanted to duel a windcrafter and see who’s actually faster. What say you and I take this outside?”

“With pleasure.” The second the griffon’s sentence ended, he disappeared in a blur of motion, rushing straight at Flash. The pegasus was more than ready to meet his charge, and he leapt backwards into the air as his wings took flight. Flash’s blade whirled defensively, meeting his opponent’s steel in a flurry of sparks, and the two of them crashed out of one of the few windows that were still intact, leaving Starfall and I with the last two raiders inside the room.

Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were both staring at Starfall and I with wide eyes, frozen with shock and indecision. I took one cursory glance at them, but I couldn’t pay them much mind. There was a much more immediate threat at hand - the two massive leonine birds in front of us.

Well, granted, they were massive compared to the ponies - even the shorter, more slender of the two may have been larger than both Starfall and I, but the obviously female griffon was still smaller than Brick. If it came to a physical contest, I would probably be able to beat her if I played it smart, but only if-

“Oh no, don’t even think about it.” A brick was nearly shat when the female griffon’s claws came alight with fire as Starfall stepped in Flash Sentry’s direction, and a beat of her wings had her cutting off the lieutenant’s path out of the cottage. “Eyes on me, bitch - I’m your opponent.”

“If you are, then the Jägers must be letting anypony into their ranks these days.” A feral grin spread across Starfall’s features, and the temperature in the room abruptly spiked upwards by several degrees as some of her tattoos began to take on an eldritch glow. “Legacy, you take the last one. This harpy is mine.”

Before I could protest, the both of them leapt forward snarling, and two superheated balls of roiling fire clashed in mid-air with such force that they were both sent flying out the cottage through the wall opposite the hole that Brick had left behind, leaving me alone with the last raider. The sound of the raider moving tore my eyes away from the hole Starfall and her opponent had left in the wall, and I turned around to see the griffon looming over me, several hundred pounds of leather armor, steel and corded muscle standing between me and the Bearers I had come to rescue.

I believe it bears mentioning that he had to be at least twice my size, and he was cracking his knuckles with an expression on his face that could have been likened to a sadistic child finding a new toy to play with, on a Christmas that had come several months early.

“Oh, son of a taint.”

This was gonna suck so hard.

Author's Notes:

It's probably a good thing that I decided to cut short what I had planned for this chapter, otherwise this would have taken forever to get finished. The upcoming fight scene and subsequent events have pretty much been half-written out and planned out already, so HOPEFULLY it won't take too long for me to finish everything up.

Other changes also include some edits and additions to Chapter 11 to make sure that Joe's decision to remain in Equestria was given proper consideration, seeing that he still has friends, family and loved ones back on Earth to think about when he was deciding whether or not to willingly stay (even though circumstances probably made staying the most sensible choice as opposed to wandering through the Everfree alone without any support whatsoever). So if you'd like to see a more well-thought out main character who gives proper thought to his former life before deciding to commit to the scenario before him, be sure to check it out!

If anything, it's good to be back.

First Blood

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Chapter 13: First Blood

“Just the little one then?” The griffon in front of me grinned. “This is going to be easy.”

Before I could say anything else, he raised a leg and stomped a foot onto the floor, and my eyes nearly bugged out in shocked recognition as an entire wall of rocky spikes abruptly burst forth from the ground around Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, cutting off any chances of escape they might have had before. Both the pegasi yelped out in surprise as the wall spiked upward, though in Fluttershy’s case it was more of a squeak. Within moments, they were both cut off from the rest of the room, and it was just the griffon and I.

“Not sure why the royal guard would’ve sent a whelp amongst their elite. I never knew they actually did take on babysitting jobs.” The raider cracked his neck ominously as he stepped forward. “Your presence is so pathetic that even a hatchling has got a stronger aura than you do."

Son of a bitch, I was right about the nature of their furycrafting - this guy’s a freakin’ earthbender! I thought frantically to myself as I reflexively drew the short blade I’d brought and raised it in a defensive stance, placing a foot backwards to brace myself. If my guess is right, then he’s probably got the whole package deal going for him as well. Okay, think fast, Joseph, what are the counters that you’ve got for-

“What’s the matter whelp, cat got your tongue?” The griffon abruptly cut off my train of thought, and he rushed forward, swinging a massive claw-fist at my head. “Keep your head in the fight!”

The blow came at me with more speed than I was braced for, and I bit back a startled yelp as I barely managed to duck under it in time. Reflexes that had been hardened in combat kicked in, and I immediately dashed forward, slashing at the griffon’s exposed midsection as I rushed past him. I spun around the moment I’d recovered from my sweep to readjust my guard, and my eyes widened in shock when I realized that the blade hadn’t even left a mark on his cuirass. Jesus, that was a clean strike - what the hell is his armor made of!?

“What, was that it?” The raider laughed, and he picked up the chair next to him. “If that’s the best that you’ve got, then you're mincemeat, kid!"

The griffon flung the chair in my direction, and I hastily ducked out of the way, literally feeling it whiz right by my head as it missed me by inches. I was ready to rush forward in a counterattack the moment I’d recovered, but the second I straightened up, I was greeted by the sight of the broad end of Fluttershy’s dining table, seconds away from colliding straight into me.

The blade in my hand reflexively slashed upwards, something other jolted through my sword arm, and the blade sliced the table into two halves that went sailing past me on both sides. I didn’t have any time to marvel at how pants-shittingly close I’d come to getting turned into paste against the wall though, because the moment the two halves of the table parted, the griffon was already rushing towards me with a fist raised, immediately following up on his attack. I jerked backwards to avoid the first cross, and ducked underneath the jab that followed before I retaliated by slashing upward at his outstretched arm, hoping to at least cripple it.

The griffon reacted faster than I could have possibly anticipated. The blade hadn’t even crossed half the distance to the griffon’s arm when he struck downwards with the same elbow that I was aiming at, and shards of steel went flying.

Son of a bitch! I instantly knew that something had gone horribly wrong, and threw myself to the side away from him to open up the distance. Quickly rolling to my feet, I glanced down, and then I stared in mute horror at the sundered shortsword that I now held in my hand, its blade broken in half.

“You might as well give up now, whelp.” The griffon laughed as he slowly strode forward, obviously enjoying every second of this. “You’re pretty good at fighting on two legs, I’ll give you that. You might be able to fight off a few of those pathetic schmucks we hired as cannon fodder, but you don’t stand a chance against me.”

“Are all griffons this mouthy, or is it just you?” I snapped in annoyance, fighting down the rising uncertainty in my gut as I raised the broken blade, trying to reassure myself that I could still use it just as well as I could a knife or dagger. “You must really get off on toying with your prey, what with how much you’ve been running your mouth off.”

“That would imply that you were something I thought was worth hunting.” The griffon let out a harsh bark of laughter. “As of right now, you're not even worth the time it would take to skin your worthless hide. What do you think you’d be able to do with that broken blade anyway, huh?"

“Just try me,” I snarled, my grip tightening on the blade’s handle as I pushed a foot back, bracing myself. “You’ll find that I’m full of surprises.”

“As are the Jägers, whelp.” The griffon stepped forward. “But this is going to be the last mistake you’ll ever make.”

He took another step, and I raised the blade to prepare to strike, when the griffon abruptly vanished from sight.

I only had time to blink before a freight train collided with my chest, and the whole world went white.

---

Staff Sergeant Brick Wall had been enlisted within the Equestrian Guard, and subsequently the Royal Guard for at least a decade by now. Over his many years of service he had borne witness to all manner of sights, and participated in just as many kinds of fights - from boarding actions over the skies of Griffonia, to extensive ‘bug hunt’ campaigns rooting out rampant Changeling hives, to even the occasional unpleasant spat of having to put down feral, insane dragons.

In all his years as a member of the elite corp that was charged with the defense of Canterlot and the Princesses themselves, he had not encountered many opponents that could manage to match his size, or his strength for long. Those few that could were worthy opponents that Brick relished the chance to to fight against, but unfortunately those adversaries were few and far between.

The common raider before him now however, was doing more than just match his power blow for blow, and when another hammer blow descended upon his armor, he began to contemplate the possibility that he might have severely underestimated the strength of his opponent.

“You’re one hay of an earthcrafter, I’ll give ya that,” The stallion remarked as he shook off the blow and grunted as he blocked another one, shouldering it aside before retaliating with another shoulder charge. “You sure you’re just some run-of-the-mill bandit on the run from the law? Because I’m pretty sure that common criminals usually aren’t this good!”

The guard’s powerful rush hurled the griffon to the ground, but even as he crashed to the floor, the ‘raider’, which Brick was becoming more and more convinced by the second that he was actually not, merely grinned and rolled aside to avoid the stallion’s elbow drop, rolling deftly back onto his feet.

“Pretty bright for such a big hunk of muscle.” The griffon remarked as he pulled upwards with both of his claws, and in response, several boulders of hardened earth, each the size of a basketball, shot up from the ground. “Too bad we were ordered to leave no witnesses, otherwise you’d be able to get the word out how thoroughly the Jägers trounced the Royal Guard!”

The griffon thrust a claw forward in a savage punch, and the earth boulders responded in kind, blasting towards Brick as though fired from a battery of cannons. The royal guard ducked out of the way of what he could, tanking the hits that he couldn’t dodge even as he let a out a pained grunt with each impact. By the time the barrage was over, Brick’s armor was dented in multiple places, and he didn’t even have enough time to recover before the griffon descended upon him again, raining blow after heavy blow down upon the defending stallion.

So that’s why he’s so freakishly strong! It dawned upon Brick as he weathered the barrage of punches. Despite the stallion’s massively muscled frame, Brick also possessed a deceptively sharp, cunning mind - all the Royal Guards did. After all, one didn’t join one of the most prestigious military branches in Equestria by being a dense moron.

That mind now raced with the implications as he realized who his opponent truly was - the Jägers were the elite commando units of the Hierarchy’s military, a branch consisting entirely of the some of the most powerful furycrafters in the whole of Griffonia…

---

… so if she was up against a Jäger, then Starfall had a pretty good idea of who had been funding the raiders and sending them against Equestria the entire time.

“You must be pretty confident of beating me here if can disclose your identity just like that,” Starfall remarked as a shimmering barrier of energy sprang up between her and an oncoming torrent of flame, and the unicorn blasted it aside with a burst of power.

One of the many tattoos going down the left side of her body glowed a bright, blinding white as she drew upon the power stored inside them, and a spark of her horn sent a lance of energy spearing towards the griffon. Unfortunately, the griffon batted it aside in another wave of conjured fire, and the two combatants continued circling each other, watching each other warily for any openings or signs of weakness.

“The Jägers’ honor has been stained enough over the past several centuries when the Hierarchy’s government started selling our military out as sellswords to the highest bidder!” The griffon spat as she hurled another wave of fire at Starfall. “We were warriors born, and we fought for honor, for pride! The Hierarchy’s government today knows nothing of honor! The world may not know that the Jägers beat the Royal Guard today, but my comrades and I will know, and that will be enough!”

“Assuming that you’ll be able to beat us here, of course,” The unicorn drawled as she ducked and rolled out of the way of the fire wave, conjuring another barrier to shield herself as the griffon leapt forward, flaming claws intent on eviscerating her. The griffon crashed uselessly against Starfall’s shield, and the unicorn leapt away again, unleashing another blast of energy from her horn as her tattoos glowed briefly. “You do realize that we’re going to kick your tails anyway and bring you in for questioning, right?”

“That’s not going to happen.” The griffon smirked, and a click of her talons ignited her entire forelimbs in a conflagration of flame and heat that did not burn her, but quickly set the grass at her feet burning up in embers. “Because you’ll be dead by Jäger claws by then!’

The griffon thrust both her arms forward, yelling in effort, and from her outstretched arms spewed forth a tsunami of fire that dwarfed anything that Starfall had seen from her opponent thus far. The tidal wave of flames washed over where the unicorn stood, engulfing and consuming everything in its path, and when the smoke cleared, the entire field was blackened and charred, with no sign of Starfall whatsoever.

“Heh. Didn’t even put up more of a fight than the other bozos who showed up earlier,” The griffon chuckled as she blew off a smoking claw. “The boss must have really overestimated them if he thought they actually posed a threat to the mission.”

“You really have no idea who you’re bucking with, do you?” Starfall’s voice came from behind her with a lilting ethereal quality to it, and the griffon’s pupils abruptly shrank as she sensed a rapid buildup of arcane energy behind her. “So how would you like to be done? Original, or extra crispy?”

Starfall’s opponent barely even had time to turn around before the unicorn exploded back into reality right behind her, and the griffon was sent flying in a conflagration of fire and smoke.

---

The windcrafter griffon landed back on his feet unsteadily, his claws gripping onto his blade with desperation as he brought it up again in a defensive stance, barely parrying aside the next volley of strikes as Flash Sentry descended upon him again. “Impossible! How the hell are you so much faster than before!?”

“You got the drop on me once,” Flash panted as he thrust his blade forward at an angle, trapping aside the griffon’s sword, then leapt up before viciously drop-kicking the griffon in the chest with all his strength, quickly righting himself in mid-air with his wings as the supposed raider crashed through a fence and into the cottage’s backyard. “Not gonna happen again.”

“Bastard, so you were holding back this entire time!” The griffon snarled, picking himself up. “Don’t you dare insult my honor as a Jäger by going easy on me!”

“Fair enough. The kid gloves are off then - come at me, bro.”

Flash’s sheer casualness and insouciance elicited a savage snarl from the griffon, and he lunged back at the airborne guard, his blade working in a furious blur. Unfortunately, the pegasus was more than ready for it. Flash smoothly parried aside the blows before shoving an elbow into the griffon’s gut, driving the air out of his lungs. The raider collapsed to the ground on his knees, and he barely brought his blade up in time to stop Flash’s sword from taking his head off.

“But… But how-!?” The griffon spluttered. “The intelligence that we were given said that only regular Royal Guards would have been mobilized to respond to the incursion…”

“Your intel was faulty,” Flash grunted as he pressed further with the blade, inching it closer to the griffon’s neck. “You might want to tell whoever was giving you your info to get their facts checked.”

The blade pressed an inch closer, and a cold sweat broke out over the griffon’s brow. His eyes flicked towards the emblem on the royal guard’s pauldron, getting a clear look at it for the first time since the fight had started, and the griffon’s eyes widened in fear.

“Son of a- y-you’re a First Company Veteran!” The raider choked out as he recognized the silver heraldry that denoted the Royal Guard’s deadliest soldiers, and Flash grinned savagely.

“Damn right, and you’d better remember just who it was who kicked your tails to the curb when we toss you in the slammer!” The pegasus knocked the griffon’s blade aside, and slammed the flat of his sword into his temple before he could react. The griffon toppled to the ground like a limp sack of bricks, and Flash finally allowed himself to breathe a sigh of relief. The guard stepped away from the body and sheathed his blade, raising a foreleg to the runestone in his ear as he turned back to the house. “Sentry here, I just managed to wrap things up on my end. Everyone else all right?”

“Took you long enough,” Starfall’s voice responded a moment later. “These overblown hunters thought they were hot stuff, but apparently they weren’t expecting to run into us here.”

“Just one second, guys,” Brick’s response was a strained grunt, and there was the brief sound of someone struggling against a chokehold that slowly died away before Flash heard a dull ‘thud’, and Brick’s voice came back on. “All right, that takes care of that. Gotta say, he did put up a pretty good fight though! Makes up for all the boring cannon fodder they were throwing at me earlier.”

“I’d have bet on that if these guys really are freakin’ Jägers,” Flash muttered in agreement. “No wonder they took out the squads that we sent here first so easily - nothing short of us showing up would’ve even come close to stopping these guys.”

“We were just lucky that we got here in time,” Starfall groused. “If Joseph hadn’t pointed out the discrepancy in the raid’s patterns, we wouldn’t have spotted it soon enough.”

Flash halted in his tracks, and his breathing came to a horrified stop.

“Oh, son of a buzzard. Guys, is Joseph all right?”

---

The world reassembled itself through the sound of splintering wood and the sensation of a wall giving way against my back, and I righted myself once more through the haze of pain and disorientation, gritting my teeth as I struggled to stay conscious.

Even a brain dead kid would have been able to figure out that the fight was going badly. Since it started I’d done nothing but get smacked around like a rag doll and get thrown against walls and into furniture, breaking and shattering wood wherever I landed. I’d rolled defensively with the blows in attempts to soften them that had worked somewhat, but sooner or later, the injuries I was accumulating were going to take their toll.

I could feel blood coming out of the side of my mouth in a thin, warm trickle, and numerous other small cuts and lacerations marked where the splinters had been none too kind against my skin. My entire body was aching with the bruises of several narrow dodges that had turned what would have been direct hits into glancing blows, and I was sure to be feeling those in the morning tomorrow. But worst of all, the right side of my chest was already blazing afire with pain that stabbed at me with renewed intensity each time I moved too quickly or breathed too harshly.

The raider had managed to get the drop on me with his first burst of speed, and the direct hit he’d landed had probably broken a rib - that much I suspected from the series of burning knives that buried itself in my chest with every breath I took. My reflexes had seemed to make up for it after that though, because I refused to let myself get caught by surprise again, and I’d managed to react to his movements just quickly enough not to get my ass turned into paste against the wall.

What really got my goose however was the fact that I had yet to even touch the fucker. Every blow I’d thrown at him had been effortlessly tanked or deflected, and not a single one of my attacks had had any effect on him whatsoever.

There was another flash of heat from outside and the sound of blades clashing, and an absent thought crossed my mind. Great, so everybody else outside gets to re-enact Borderlands, and I get stuck inside here with a Dark Souls boss fight.

The moment my senses came back to me, I reacted without thinking, and juked to the left just in time to avoid a hammerforce punch that shattered the wood where my head had been just a second ago. I immediately let off a literally knee-jerk counterattack as I jerked my knee up at the unguarded spot between the griffon’s legs, and bit back a howl of pain as my kneecap nearly broke itself against the Great Wall of China- er, his codpiece.

“Got you this time!” The griffon crowed triumphantly as he raised his arms to deliver a final blow, obviously thinking that he’d boxed me in. His interlocked fists came down with enough force behind it to shatter concrete, but I was already braced for it - the moment he committed to the strike, I dove through the tiny opening on his left that he’d been careless enough to leave me.

The griffon’s interlinked fists landed on the spot that I’d occupied just a heartbeat before, and I couldn’t help but grin to myself as I rolled to my feet and saw his back wide open to me - a nice, large, inviting target, and the first damned opening I’d seen since this godawful fight had started. Oh yes, it’s all in the timing.

I still had the broken shortsword in my hand, but broken or not, it was all I needed. Dashing forward before the griffon could recover, I came up right behind him and stabbed the several inches was left of its blade up through the biggest chink in his armor I could see.

The resulting howl of pain sent a jolt of savage joy through my senses, but that joy quickly turned into something more akin to ‘oh crap’ as the griffon didn’t go down, but instead swung around, tearing the sword from my grip.

I barely had time to jump to the side and raise both my arms in front of me. The griffon’s arm slammed right into my guard, and I was sure that the enchanted leather armor I was wearing was all that prevented the bones in my forearms from shattering as I was sent flying across the room.

Furniture cracked and splintered beneath me when I landed, and I was pretty sure that I’d just broken Fluttershy’s coffee table. I became dimly aware of a furious shout rapidly growing louder, and I reflexively rolled to the side right before a crushing knee drop landed right where my neck would have been.

“That hurt, you little asshole!” The griffon growled as I clambered to my feet, and as I watched him rise, I knew I’d effectively hamstrung him. His movements were now pained and slower, and a steady stream of blood was dripping from the shortsword that stuck out of his back.

“That was kinda the idea,” I smirked, trying my best to keep a confident mask on while painfully aware of the fact that I was now unarmed. Step One: ‘Handicap Your Opponent’ had been achieved, but now that my hands were empty I’d completely forgotten what Step Two was supposed to be. “You wanna keep dancing? I can do this all day.”

“You’re gonna pay for that, you little shit!” The griffon growled, and he lunged forward again, fists swinging. I dodged and weaved as quickly as I could, trying to circle around him to get at the blade sticking out from behind him and kick it in to cause even more damage, but his anger had made his attacking that much more furious, even though it had also gotten as reckless as I had predicted. The backstab I’d pulled off just hadn’t dealt as much damage or slowed him down as I’d hoped. I was too busy avoiding his punches that I couldn’t even exploit the openings he was leaving me, and after several more narrow misses, I realized that sooner or later he was going to get lucky, or I was going to get careless, and the fight was going to come to a very fast, messy end.

I had to make a stand now.

I leaned backwards to dodge another sweep of his arm, and then dove past him again in a roll. Unfortunately he’d already seen that trick once and had seen it coming, and his fist clipped the side of my leg before I’d completed the roll. When I came to my feet, my right leg, my knee in particular, let out a wordless scream as I put my weight on it, and I nearly collapsed on it.

I nearly bit off my tongue cutting off a string of unmentionable words - probably a fracture, adrenaline’s dulling the pain as it is - and my crossbow came up in a flash as I drew it from its holster. The griffon had already halfway turned towards me when I’d lined the sights up with his head, and he was already taking his first step in my direction when my finger began to tighten down on the trigger.

Then the griffon made another unstoppable, impossibly fast charge, and I barely registered the moment of pure oh crap that my brain processed before a brawny claw smacked aside the crossbow just as the trigger was pulled, sending the bolt flying harmlessly to the side. My entire left arm blazed with pain - yup, definitely broke a few bones there as well - and before I could even react, the griffon used a foot to sweep my injured leg out from under me. This time, I let out a scream as my wounded knee came down on the floor, eliciting a menacing crack!

The griffon pulled a fist back, and I had just enough time to think to myself ‘Yup, I’m definitely screwed,’ before it slammed into my chest, and I felt something inside give way as I was sent flying through another piece of furniture, neatly breaking it in two as I crashed through it.

I lay there in a haze of agony, unable to do anything but cough up blood and desperately try to recover my sense of where the hell I was even at, as the raider strode over to where I lay prone.

“I’m gonna fuckin’ enjoy this,” The griffon growled as he picked up my right arm in a vice-like grip, twisted me around until my arm was twisted backwards, and he began rotating his grip slowly as I felt the horrifying sensation of my shoulder joint popping out intensify. “First thing I’m gonna do is tear your arms out of your sockets… and then I’m gonna beat you to death with your own fucking limbs while your pathetic little Bearers watch!”

“G-Guh! Gagh!” I wordlessly choked through the haze of mounting pain. My shoulder was coming dangerously close to popping free of its socket, and my breath was coming in short, desperate gasps. His tightening grip was a boa constrictor, squeezing the life out of its prey, and unless I did something fast, a disabling dislocation was going to be the least of my problems.

I frantically cast my mind about, desperately searching for options, and I came up with absolutely nothing. Starfall and the others were still outside fighting the others, and judging from the flares of fierce heat and intermittent flashes of sparks, it wasn’t likely that they were going to be finished anytime soon.

No call for help was going to be answered - I was alone, and on my own.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy staring at me from between the earthen bars of their rocky prison. The hot-headed spitfire was pounding and kicking against the rocks barring her way, looking at me with a mixture of fearful apprehension and desperate encouragement - her face was screaming at me to get up and fight, you crazy fool! Do something! He’s killing you!

I blinked at her, struggling to think through the pain. The walls of the cell around me were as dusty as the floor I was being forced down against as the rebel behind me jabbed the barrel of his rifle further into my back, screaming something in Arabic.

My squadmates stared helplessly at me, at their lieutenant, their eyes burning with the need to take action despite the fact that they were under the guns of several other rebels as well, watching closely, and when I blinked the terrorists and the AK-47s and the terrified expression of my friends and comrades who were too young to die here all vanished, replaced by the frightened expressions of Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy again, but I could still hear their silent screams, their pleas for me to get up, to continue to fight, that I couldn’t let it end here-

My heart was pounding against my ribcage like a wild animal, my pulse thundering in my ears. I watched the world through a haze of red as I saw Fluttershy’s expression, one of a fear so sick, so heartwrenching that she was going to watch one of her rescuers die right in front of her eyes, and that she was going to die here as well, and there was nothing that she or Rainbow Dash or anybody could do about it, just like the faces of my squadmates that had died that day. I felt so sick inside I just wanted to vomit - oh gods what the hell am I even doing here, why am I fighting to save these ponies when I could so easily just die here, I should have just gone back home, I couldn’t even protect anyone, we’re all going to die here and it was going to be my fault because I wasn’t strong enough, because I couldn’t do anything-

-fighting-

-die-

-strong enough-

-do ANYTHING-

Something snapped inside me.

Something else reformed back into crystalline ice.

I was not going to let this happen again.

I couldn’t.

By the power of all that was holy and righteous, I hadn’t realized it when I’d first arrived here, but this was a second chance that I was being offered and I was going to fucking take it.

“Don’t try to fuck around with me...” The growl that began softly in my throat began to rise in volume, and a cold fury so great and so terrible that it pushed aside the crushing despair that had filled me, that it blotted out all other sensation began to surge through my core. Blood sprayed from my mouth with every word, and I barely felt a thing.“You punk-ass raiders…”

I planted my left hand - my broken hand - on the floor solidly, and felt the pain as a distant, far-off distraction.

“Just who…”

Otherworldly strength, the same otherly sensation that had jolted through my sword arm earlier in the fight, coursed through my entire body, and with that single piece of leverage I still had, I pushed.

“... the hell…”

I felt the griffon look down, I could feel his gaze upon my back, and I could sense the sheer shock and surprise on his face. “What the-!?”

“... DO YOU THINK I AM!!??”

A haze of blood curtained over my vision, and everything descended into crystal clear noise.

With more strength than I knew I had ever come to possess, I lifted both the combined weights of myself and the griffon off the floor, and with a single, mighty shove of my entire body, I heaved myself back onto a standing position, complete with the griffon’s entire weight on my back, while simultaneously pulling my right arm closer towards my body.

A single, powerful twist, a small, decisive shift of leverage, and abruptly I had reversed the griffon’s hold - now he was the one with his arm twisted behind him, and it was with the slightest of grabs and efforts that I could have just taken his arm and wrenched it out of his socket the same way he had threatened to do so to me mere seconds ago.

However, I couldn’t make the broken fingers of my left hand grab onto anything worth for nuts despite the distant, inconsequential pain that I felt in it, so I decided to just use the next best thing. I slammed my left elbow directly between his shoulder blades while doing the same thing with my good knee in the small of his back, and drove the bastard beakfirst into the wooden floor.

There was a satisfying crunch! and a muffled cry of pain, but I wasn’t done yet. Just for good measure, I maintained my hold, stepped over him in a circular motion, and using the momentum I’d gathered and all of this newfound strength I had, threw him bodily into the air with a furious yell, far further than I should have been able to hurl such a mass, towards the hole in the wall Brick and his opponent had left when they had made their dynamic exit.

And that was when Brick, Starfall, and Flash Sentry all leapt yelling through the hole in the wall all at once to intercept the airborne griffon, and all three royal guards descended upon him simultaneously.

I gotta tell ya, sometimes, watching an opponent that had been previously curbstomping you be on the receiving end of a three-on-one no-holds-barred beatdown can be exceedingly satisfying.

By the time they were done and the griffon was lying in an unconscious heap on the floor, the haze of blood that had descended over my vision had already dissipated like the morning mist, and when Starfall turned towards me, I was already on my knees, giving them a tired grin as the pain returned with a terrible vengeance, doing its best to drive me into unconsciousness.

“Praise… the sun…!” Was all I had the strength to pant as I weakly raised my arms in a triumphant outstretched ‘V’, before my brain decided that I’d already suffered enough damage, and it was going to clock me out before I did anything else stupid.

I toppled backwards into blissful unconsciousness, and blackness overtook me.

***

“Damnit, Legacy!” Starfall rushed forward the second the dark gray pony began to keel over, but his head had already hit the floor with an unfortunate thwack! by the time she got there. She wasn’t worried about the little bump on the head, of course - if he could survive the wounds he looked like he’d sustained in the fight with the griffon, he would live through a little love tap from the floor. What had her concerned for her charge was the probable multiple broken bones that he had, in addition to the numerous bruises and lacerations that covered his body.

In the background she could hear Brick striding over to the earthen barriers that were keeping Ladies Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash imprisoned, and a few decisive kicks from him easily shattered the rocky spikes, freeing the two pegasi who quickly ran forward to check on their injured rescuer.

“Quick, pulse check.” Flash peered over Starfire’s shoulder as she knelt next to ‘Remnant Legacy’s’ prone form, a hoof pressed gently against his jugular. “How’s he holding up?”

The unicorn held her hoof there for a few seconds, before nodding to herself and turning her attention to his chest. The moment she saw it still rising and falling in shallow breaths, she let out an almost inaudible sigh of relief.

“He’s not in any danger for now, but we should take him to the town hall so the medics can have a look at him as soon as we can. He definitely suffered a lot of broken bones in that fight.” She stepped back and motioned to Brick, “All yours, Brick.”

The heavyweight earth stallion moved to sling Legacy’s body over his back, but he was unexpectedly interrupted as Fluttershy cut in while he knelt down.

“Wait! I can—” She quickly hid behind her mane with a small ‘eep’ as the three Guards turned to look at her.

“Go on.” Flash shot her a reassuring smile.

The yellow pegasus hesitated for a moment before she swallowed and shifted her posture, standing a little taller than before. “I… I can help him. I look after the animals here, and I’ve learned how to, um, cast broken wings and things like that. If I can bind his injuries first and give him some first aid, it’ll make moving him less dangerous while we bring him back.”

“I can vouch for that. She’s the best healer this side of Equestria! Isn’t that right, ‘Shy?” Rainbow Dash added on without a second’s hesitation. The timid pegasus blushed and turned away, but smiled regardless, glad for her friend’s intervention.

“Well, I wouldn’t say best…”

Starfall gave the pegasus an appraising look for several seconds, before the corner of her lips quirked upwards in a wry grin. “Well, as much as I should resent being told how to do my job, m’lady has a point. I don’t see why not,” She mused after a moment, “The sooner we can get him some medical attention, the better. Go get your things, Miss, we’ll be right here.” She glanced at Flash, who nodded, clearly understanding her silent message of ‘make sure she stays safe’.

As the two pegasi departed, Rainbow’s gaze kept flicking between the two Guards still keeping watch, and the dark grey stallion lying on the floor. During the fight, she hadn’t been able to help but notice the stallion’s odd fighting style. Equestrian soldiers were trained to wield their melee weapons with their forehooves, while keeping their balance on their hind legs and fighting bipedally. Their gait while doing so was still a little awkward though, because ponykind had been meant to walk on four legs, not two.

However, this stallion had moved almost too fluidly on his back legs during the fight - too naturally, too dextrously - almost as if he’d been walking on them his entire life. His throw had been too perfect, his grip unusually strong for a pony...

And then there was also that weird prayer and gesture that he’d made before he fell unconscious, because she’d never heard anypony pray to Celestia like that before.

It all smelled something fishy to the speedster, and she intended to find out what.

“You guys are Royal Guard, right? Well who’s this?” She pointed at Legacy, who almost inaudibly groaned in pain. “I remember you guys from guarding Joseph’s suite, but I don’t remember seeing this stallion around. And why is his uniform all different from yours?”

“That’s Agent Legacy, m’lady.” Starfall recited curtly, already used to deflecting queries and familiar with the cover story Joseph had been given. She knew about the Element of Loyalty’s apparent animosity to the human, and figured that things would probably go over much more smoothly if she were none the wiser to his identity. “He’s a member of the Lunar Guard who was attached to the detachment that was sent here. He’s here to investigate the recent terrorist attacks on Equestrian cities to try and find out who’s behind them.”

“Right,” Rainbow remarked dryly, glancing at the half-dead stallion lying on the floor, who didn’t seem to be doing much in the way of investigating. “He seems to be doing a terrific job of it so far.”

Starfall stiffened slightly, and she immediately bit back what would have been a scathing retort - while she didn’t really trust Joseph as readily as she would any of her fellow guards of the First Company, she still respected him as a fellow soldier, and hearing the sardonic words spill out of Rainbow Dash’s mouth without even the slightest consideration chafed something fierce at the common bond that all soldiers shared. Bearer of Harmony or no, Rainbow Dash was certainly toeing the line here.

“To be fair, he did kinda save your tails back there, you know,” Brick spoke up in her place, his voice a chastising rumble. While certainly not as acerbic as Starfall could be most of the time, the big bruiser still never hesitated to speak up whenever he saw something that didn’t sit right with him. Despite his intimidating appearance, Brick had a heart of gold with a size to match his stature, and whenever he was not in battle or in one of his more jovial moods, he could be unexpectedly gentle yet firm with his words. “You could at least appreciate the fact that he nearly broke himself in half trying to make sure that you and Lady Fluttershy were safe.”

“Yeah, so he did, but that’s not what I’m-” Rainbow Dash cut herself off, trying to get her thoughts in order. Brick was right, and she knew it, but that wasn’t what felt so off about this. “Look, he’s a member of the Lunar Guard, right? Aren’t they supposed to be, like, super-tough ultra-ninja badasses who can take on entire armies by themselves and win? So why the hay did this ‘Agent Legacy’ have so much trouble taking down one griffon by himself then?”

Starfall and Brick looked at each other, their nervous glances each confirming the others’ thoughts - Rainbow Dash’s guess was both way off the mark, and yet scarily close to hitting the nail on the head at the same time.

Blame the embellishments of the Lunar Guard’s accomplishments in the history books and their subsequent portrayals in Equestrian popular media, but the cyan speedster had a very skewed idea of what Lunar Guard agents were supposed to be capable of.

Yes, they were selected from only the very best of the Royal Guard, which was already a cream-of-the-crop unit in itself, but assuming open conflict, a single Lunar Guard agent would only at best be able to clear out several rooms of enemy grunts on his own before being overwhelmed himself, not entire armies. If one played their cards right and was properly equipped, a single squad might be able to clear an entire enemy fortress on their own, but only if they were sufficiently prepared for it, and they didn’t run into any complications along the way.

Going up against fellow elites like the Griffonian Jägers for example, because that turned it into an entirely different manner. In a one-on-one battle against a Jäger, a Lunar Guard agent would still prove superior, but only by a very moderate margin. Winning a two-on-one fight would have been a nearly impossible feat, though Starfall had heard stories of such encounters before, but it didn’t change the fact that a true Lunar Guard agent wouldn’t have gotten his ass so thoroughly kicked by a single Jäger.

And Rainbow Dash’s suspicion of the inconsistency was right on the mark - ‘Agent Legacy’ had had way too much trouble in subduing the single Jäger he had been facing.

“Who is this guy, really?” Rainbow Dash asked again, and when Starfall and Brick both remained silent, the pegasus’ patience ran out.

“You know what, forget this,” She sighed before striding forward. “If you’re not going to tell me who he is, then I’m going to find out for myself.”

“M’lady, I have to insist that you don’t-” Starfall tried to intercept her, but Rainbow Dash brushed the unicorn aside, and knelt down next to the groaning stallion, her eyes already set on the strange pendant that she had spotted him wearing. It was the only thing that was out of place on his otherwise completely utilitarian attire, and she figured that if she grabbed it or took if off him, something might happen.

It had to be the only reason why the guards’ lips were sealed so tight; that they were nervous that she might find something out.

Her hoof hooked under the chain that kept the pendant around his neck, and she brought it up over his head. There was a brief shimmering of light around the stallion’s body, and-

“Celestia’s gaskin!” Rainbow Dash stared down at him for only a second before she whirled around to her two guards. “What in the hay is he doing here-!?”

The cyan pegasus’ building tirade was suddenly interrupted by a horrified gasp, and all three heads swivelled around to the stairs, where Fluttershy stood staring at them with wide eyes, a first aid bag lying forgotten in her hooves. Flash’s head appeared over her shoulder a second later, a casual expression still on his face. “Hey guys, what’s going o-”

The pegasus guard caught sight of Rainbow Dash standing seething over Joseph’s human body, no longer disguised, and quietly muttered, “Oh, boy.”

“Lady Fluttershy…” Starfall began, her expression steady. “I know what this looks like, but-”

The lieutenant had read the psychological profile on the Bearer of Kindness, and had already known partially what to expect if she had ever found out Legacy’s true identity, but Starfall received the shock of her life anyway, when the cream-colored pegasus didn’t shy away, didn’t recoil, but instead hardened her expression, and immediately stepped forward with even less hesitation than before.

“Excuse me,” Fluttershy said with a surprising resolve in her voice as she pushed past Starfall to kneel beside Joseph, immediately retrieving the first aid supplies from her bag with a practiced air, and Rainbow Dash was staring at her childhood friend as though she had grown a second head.

“Umm… ‘Shy?” She asked with an eyebrow raised uncertainly. “What are you-”

“Hush now, Rainbow,” Fluttershy shushed her friend softly but firmly, not even taking her eyes off of Joseph’s injuries as she very gently poked and prodded at them, eliciting only the softest of groans from the unconscious young man. The pegasus only responded with quiet little shushes, and tiny whispers that nobody else in the room heard, but Rainbow Dash knew what they were anyway.

It was exactly the same kind of whispers that Fluttershy would give to soothe the injured animals that she tended to.

After a moment of examination, she began to speak, her voice steady and professional - Rainbow Dash knew immediately that Fluttershy had slipped into that state of mind; what the cyan pegasus had dubbed ‘Doctor Mode’, because whenever Fluttershy did, her shy little friend seemed to become an entirely different pony. “His left hand and forearm have been broken in multiple places, and the same goes for his right leg. His right kneecap’s probably riddled with hairline fractures as well, because it feels like it’s about to give way. His ribs…”

Fluttershy paused, swallowing. “His ribs have nearly caved in, but somehow they’re still holding together. He has a few broken ones, but nearly all of them have to be cracked at least. He’s in shock, and is also probably bleeding internally quite a bit. I… I don’t know how he’s still alive. We have to move him to the healers as soon as possible. I can bandage his cuts easily enough, but splinting his limbs is going to take a moment.”

“Take all the time you need, m’lady.” Starfall nodded, letting out an internal sigh of relief. “We’ll be right here.”

If Starfall had been honest, she’d been worried that Fluttershy would freak the moment she’d seen the human that she was reportedly so terrified of - Starfall had heard through the grapevine she shared with Brick and Flash of how she had not been present amongst Twilight Sparkle’s entourage each time the Elements of Harmony had dropped by Joseph’s suite to visit him during his… ‘internment’ in Canterlot Castle.

Lady Twilight had made it no secret that both the pegasi of their group had no desire to see the sole human that had made it into Equestria, though for wildly differing reasons - Rainbow Dash simply just didn’t trust him, and Fluttershy… as Twilight had put it, while the group had been in Canterlot, the timid pegasus had simply responded with a fearful shake of her head before shutting herself in her room each time Twilight had offered to let her join them in their trips to the castle to visit Joseph.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out just what kind of opinion Lady Fluttershy had of Equestria’s only human, which only made it all the more baffling why she was so resolute and steady in treating his injuries now.

A minute or so passed in silence as Fluttershy worked quickly and efficiently, cleaning the cuts before bandaging them, and then moving on to immobilizing and splinting the limbs that had been broken before wrapping cold compresses from the first aid bag around them for good measure. Pained groans came out from Joseph each time Fluttershy’s hooves went around his chest as she began taping his ribs, but otherwise he remained blissfully unconscious. Every now and then Rainbow Dash would glance at Fluttershy with a very confused, discerning look, and Starfall could tell that the Element of Loyalty was just as lost as she was.

Fluttershy’s last act was to retrieve a small bottle of liquid that Rainbow Dash recognized as a healing potion that was commonly used to deal with internal injuries, just as how salves were applied to external wounds. The pegasus poured the potion slowly into Joseph’s mouth, and after a few seconds, the young man’s labored breathing began to ease up, and some of the pain in his expression faded.

“All right, he should be fine to move for now,” Fluttershy said as she finally stepped back and wiped off her forehead. Her steady expression faded, and her more usual withdrawn demeanour immediately took its place. “Umm… you can uh… go ahead and just… do your thing.”

“Right. Brick?” Starfall gestured, and the big stallion immediately stepped forward. With a ginger carefulness that belied his massive frame, Brick slung Joseph’s unconscious body over his shoulder, and Flash Sentry made sure to loop the young man’s illusory amulet back over his neck before they left. The glamor shimmered back into existence over his body, and the three guards stepped outside the cottage with their sole casualty as Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash followed them out.

As the three guards walked ahead, Rainbow Dash lagged behind slightly to where Fluttershy was trotting after them, and she immediately began to whisper harshly to her friend.

“What the hay was all of that about back there, Flutters?” Rainbow Dash asked, thoroughly confused by her friend’s behaviour. “I thought you were terrified of him!”

“That… That’s just it, Rainbow,” Fluttershy replied softly, her expression confused and wildly conflicted. “I still am, but… But I couldn’t just leave him like that! I… I know that he’s really not as bad as you think he is, but something inside me just… I…”

The cream-colored pegasus let out a distressed sigh. “I really don’t know how to say this…”

Rainbow Dash gave Fluttershy an odd look, not quite satisfied with her answer but knowing better than to push for one. And it was just as well, because Fluttershy’s thoughts were in complete disarray.

It didn’t help the rationality of her case when she found herself overcome by an overwhelming sense of impending doom whenever she found herself in close proximity to Joseph, and her irrational fear was causing her to stay as far away from the human as possible, despite there being no real good reason for her not to trust him. The only reason why she had even been able to treat his injuries just now was because her animal lover instinct had for some reason kicked into overdrive when she’d seen him bleeding and battered on the floor, and she had felt an irresistible compulsion to do whatever she could to make sure that he would make it through the day alive.

That instinct had managed to override her crippling irrational fear of him, at least temporarily. But the moment she had finished tending to his injuries, that impending sense of doom had immediately come crashing back down onto her shoulders like the weight of the moon itself, and it had been all she could do not to immediately backpedal away from him screaming.

Fluttershy peeked out from behind her mane to peer at the unconscious stallion draped over Brick’s shoulder, and when his eyelids began to twitch, she immediately darted back, not daring to risk even meeting his eyes. Something was definitely very off about him, that much she could say for sure.

The animal lover prided herself in her ability to intuitively sense the moods and perceive the ‘auras’ that surrounded most living beings — it mostly manifested as a ‘vibe’ that allowed her to understand any creature or animal’s emotions and state of mind, letting her reach through to them on a level most other ponies weren’t able to.

It was this talent that allowed her to be so good at handling animals, though she generally didn’t like using it to observe her fellow ponies. The intensity and complexity of their thoughts usually resulted in overpowering empathetic impressions that overwhelmed her each time she dared to ‘look’ directly at them, and it usually took her quite a while to become familiar and comfortable with even one pony’s presence, let alone entire groups. Animals had a certain beauty of simplicity to their thoughts, and it was why she enjoyed their company so much more.

If anything, it certainly explained just why she was so cripplingly shy when it came to dealing with new ponies, and why it took so long for her to warm up to others.

But she had never encountered anything like Joseph before. Most ponies’ ‘auras’ may have been overwhelming to her but at least they were somewhat consistent. Joseph’s aura kept changing and fluctuating in the most maddeningly confusing ways, and whenever Fluttershy focused her empathy sense on him, it was like staring into a blinding kaleidoscope of vibes and impressions. If it was an indicator of anything, it was that he was obviously a wildly conflicted individual, but throughout the numerous flashes of moods and emotions that she had observed in him, there had been one consistent vibe she had always been able to pick up on, and it was this vibe that made her so terrified of being around him.

The young man stank of death.

Fluttershy couldn’t even imagine what Joseph must have gone through to have Death’s stench mark him like that, hanging around him like a floating miasma of doom. If she hadn’t known any better, she would have pegged him as a manifestation of the Grim Reaper itself, for her first memory of him had already been etched irrevocably into her mind, as she had watched him face down a Giant Timber Wolf by himself... and mercilessly gun it down.

And that stench of Death, that overpowering sense of Doom that seemed to settle down around her whenever Joseph was near… She had never felt more smothered, more choked by this invisible miasma, than when he had suddenly gone berserk while fighting the griffon.

Kindness was a very all-encompassing aspect that Fluttershy was very much capable of taking on, and it also included the principles of trusting in others and giving them the benefit of the doubt even when you had every reason not to. But as she considered just how wrong that sensation had felt when Joseph had surged up from the ground beneath the griffon, possessed of a frightening power unlike anything she had ever sensed before, Fluttershy began to think that perhaps there were things even her kindness didn’t want to have to face.

Equestrian Joe

by HellRyden

Where the Hell Am I?

Welcome to the Jungle

Magnums & Megawolves

First Contact

Home on the Range

I Didn't Choose The Farm Life...

... The Farm Life Chose Me

Windows to the Soul

Darkening Skies

Shadows of Canterlot Castle

A Stranger Who Found An Even Stranger War

In Her Majesty's Secret Service

First Blood