The Arrival (Fixed/Extended)

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Commander Sobolynski loomed over the TAC Pad lying on his desk. His squad's scout had recently discovered a hidden plan of the remaining Covenant left on Reach. The scout, Rain, over heard the Elite general speak to the other officials about a newly discovered galaxy just beyond Reach. Rain had brought along a mic and her TAC Pad. She recorded the aliens, and thanks to the translator built into her device, she was able to successfully record their conversation.

The Commander stands up from his desk and grabs the TAC Pad. He leaves the room and heads through the hallway toward the Soldier Barracks. He passes by a man in orange and blue armor kneeling in front of a control panel.

"Morning Commander," the man closes the panel.

"Ah, Travis, just the man I wanted to see," The commander stops next to the armored man. He stands up, a black wrench in his hand.

"What do you need?" he lowers his goggles to look at his commanding officer.

"I need you to take a look at this," he presses the screen then hands the Pad over to Travis, "what do you make of this conversation?" Travis listens to the Elite conversation. After a few minutes he taps the screen,

"Well it plainly shows that the Covenant have found some new nearby galaxy, what seems so strange about that?"

"You need to hear the rest of it, it seems that they plan on going to this galaxy, the Covenant don't just randomly choose to risk troops and tech just to explore. I think there's something more, something special to them about this galaxy."

"Point taken, knowing the Covenant, there may be some sort of religious character there, or perhaps there's a great power source that's driving them into leaving Reach to go and obtain it. The Covenant have never been very easy to understand. Beyond being able to roughly translate there languages, we can't determine what they do next."

"Hmm, yes, you're right, but it appears that they are launching a ship out at around 1900 today. If we want to find out what they are doing, we're going to need someone to get aboard their Corvette."

"Who should we send?"

"I think you know who exactly we are going to have execute this, there's no one better for this than Dragon. I need you to find a nearby space craft that the Covenant won't see as a threat, I'll inform the Spartan of his next objective." The armored man saluted and ran off down the hall to their left. The commander continued forward down the initial hall and turned to enter a door to the right.

The door opened to a cafeteria with four men inside. In the middle tables sat a small marine in a casual jump suit. This soldier was the youngest of the squad at the age of 20. His name was David and he was only 3 weeks out of the UNSC's Flight School. Sitting across from him was a larger, older man who had a smile on his face. He was the squad's main pilot and the one who made constant jokes in an attempt to bring some sort of happiness to his allies. Seated next to him was the heavy weapons guy, Antonio. Finally, far in the corner of the room was the man Sobolynski was looking for. He was the tallest of the group and always kept a weapon on hand. The other soldiers saluted at their leader as he passed by before continuing on their conversation. Dragon looked up at Sobolynski as he reached the table.

"You got a new job for me, right?" he crossed his arms, the commander nodded, "lay it on me, Commander."

"Your new mission is relatively simple, I need you to get aboard a corvette, hack into the Covenant's data base and extract some information, and if possible, destroy the vessel. But, if you cannot escape alive if you deploy the bomb you will be given, then just abort and find a way back. The ship will be beyond our range so once you are on board, we cannot contact you. It leaves at 1900 so we'd better prepare right now." Dragon stands up, salutes and exits the cafeteria. He walks down the hall to the armory.

He enters and looks around before grabbing a UNSC MA37 Assault Rifle. He exits the armory and walks on down to the Armor hold. He enters and find's his custom MJOLNIR Mark V armor held up in an easily reachable display. After suiting up, he grabbed his Type-1 Energy Sword he obtained on a mission years in the past. The curved hilt consisted of what is believed to be Forerunner symbols. He attached the weapon to his right side hip closing the door upon exiting. He walked on down to the loading bay to find Travis standing by a banshee with odd looking turrets protruding from the front.
Dragon looks at the banshee then back at Travis.

"You're not the only one good at infiltration. Luckily there was a small nearby Covenant hanger with this Type-27 Exoatmospheric Multi-role Fighter, or Space Banshee, in it. There was mostly only Grunts guarding this so it wasn't too hard to get." Dragon stepped up to the alien spacecraft, taking a final look at the elongated frontal plasma cannons.

"Don't worry about knowing where to go, I set it up the waypoint on your HUD, the corvette should be leaving Reach's atmosphere by 1910, you should be able to get aboard before they enter slipspace. Dragon nodded before entering the banshee. He powered it up and shot out of the loading bay.

Dragon ran his objective once more through his head. He was ordered to find a way into a specific corvette and obtain the information stored within. He would then destroy the corvette preventing the rest of the Covenant from hearing the important Intel.

Upon landing his Banshee into a hanger that appeared to be empty, Dragon stepped out of the Banshee and walked over to a door leading out of the hanger. Just to be safe, he reached over his shoulder and gripped his gun. Separating it from the magnetic field, he readied his assault rifle and faced the tip toward the entrance. The door began to open; Dragon shifted off to one side and waited for the worst. What walked out was just a lone grunt. Dropping his gun, Dragon quickly grabbed the grunt, and snapped the confused little creature's neck. He dragged the grunt over towards a pile of boxes and placed it behind them. He jolted back to the entrance and picked up his weapon.

Dragon peered down the hallway and was glad that there was no one else in the hall. He then began walking down the way keeping his guard up just in case he ran into any trouble. He reached the halfway point of the hallway when he heard footsteps coming from around the corner. Dragon noticed a door to his left and entered it. Thankfully the room was empty so no one would have seen him. He quickly closed the door and lowered himself against the door. The footsteps got louder; he could hear a door open and close as the footsteps sounded more and more distant.

Dragon stood up and then looked around the room. Within the room, there appeared to be little panels with what looks like a map of the ship. Underneath was alien writing that pointed to different sections of the map. Dragon activated his translator built in his helmet and began to read what each section was. One of the sections showed to him that he was in the ship's only empty room besides the map and that the Intel room isn't far. He switched his translator off and carefully exited the room. According to the map, the Intel room should be straight forward and at the end of the hall to the right. Dragon was able to walk to the end of the hall without any interference. When he entered the room, he ran into an elite. Lucky enough, this elite was one of the Heretic spies that worked with the UNSC.

"Wait! Spartan, don't shoot!" the elite exclaimed raising his hands in the air. Dragon lowered his gun slightly,

"Why?"

"I can help you, I know how this ship works," the elite replied.

Dragon pointed at the elite,

"Heretic?"

"Yeah, I didn't believe that the Prophets should lead the Covenant, so I read up on you humans and I find that you have a much more powerful reason to win this war than the prophets do. I also read up on the Spartan program, I ran into your profile, your name's Dragon right?" Dragon nodded, answering his question.

"Wait, how did you access our database?" Dragon questioned the elite.

The elite lowered his hands,

Reach has so many empty and abandoned human bases, some of them still work and are connected to the central database."

"Hmm... makes sense."

"My name's Grte Deseti by the way."

Dragon nodded his head as if to say nice to meet you.

"You don't talk much do you?" Grte asked.

"No time," Dragon answered as he walked over to the holograms in the center of the room. Dragon put down his gun and pulled out a small device. He placed it over the control panel then pressed a button. A small blue shock spread through the panel causing the holograms to fizz slightly. He then realized he didn't know what the Covenant called the newly found galaxy. Grte noticed Dragon stop and walked over to him.

"The Covenant labeled the galaxy you’re looking for under ‘the newly discovered places of the Great Journey’." He said. Dragon knew what Grte meant by the Great Journey and searched the corvette's databanks. Once Dragon had found what he was looking for, he hooked his armor up to the machine and started downloading the information into his data storage. Thankfully he was able to successfully download the Intel without any trouble. Not too long after he deleted the information of the galaxy from the Intel controls, the ship started to shake and suddenly speed up. The corvette had gone into slip-space, and was going to the galaxy it had recently found. Dragon hacked into one of the external cameras on the ship. He was able to briefly see the planet that was said to have life on it just before the corvette suddenly shut down. Dragon knew that if he was to get on this planet, the only way was to steal a vehicle and fly to it. The reason was that since the ship lost control of its direction, it would float endlessly forward until it hit something. Grte knew Dragon was going to blow up the corvette so he had placed a detonator in the engine room beforehand.

"Dragon, I have set a bomb in the engine room. All we have to do is find a Phantom in one of the hangers and then I will detonate the bomb once we are out of range." Dragon nodded, picked up his rifle, and walked toward the door. He opened it and Grte followed behind him as he headed for one of the hangers. When they reached a hanger, they noticed that in the middle of it were a Phantom and a Space Banshee. The only problem was that there were many elites surrounding the space crafts.

"I've got an idea," Grte started, "I will distract them, and when I get them out of range, you run into the Phantom. If I don't get on within 5 minutes after you get on, leave without me." Dragon nodded and Grte walked out over to the other elites, starting his plan. Once the elites were far enough away from the vehicles, Dragon ran for the Phantom and ran up its back ramp into its storage area. Within the storage area were a few boxes with plasma weapons inside. Dragon ignored the boxes and went into the cockpit of the Phantom. He started it up and waited for Grte. Four minutes had passed and Dragon prepared to leave when he heard something come up the Phantom's ramp. Dragon whipped around and saw Grte enter the Phantom quickly closing the back door.

"Go!" Grte shouted. Dragon turned back around and used his knowledge of driving a Phantom to lift it up off the hanger floor. He space locked the door and lift entrances; then fired up the accelerators and flew out if the hanger. He then located the planet similar to Earth and headed straight for it. Grte then detonated the bomb. He could see the center of the corvette light up as it started to explode.

Dragon and Grte head toward the unknown planet in their stolen Phantom. As they enter the planet's atmosphere, Dragon grips the controls a bit harder as the Phantom begins to shake violently. A bright blue aura appears around the Phantom before eradicating leaving the phantom's hull to feel the embrace of the atmosphere. The planet's ground draws closer and closer, bringing the pair to hard and painful impact.
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Dragon's POV

"Urgh" My whole body felt strange. Pain was imminent, for crashing a spaceship into a planet would normally kill most other soldiers. Especially the lightly armored marines. I attempted to stand up, but I could feel a heavy object on top of me.

"..." what? Is that a voice? I lifted my head up. The voice sounded distant. My vision was messed up; all I could see was a blurry violet blob.

"H...? ...e y... o...?" huh? What was that? It sounded closer, but what is this violet blur in front of me? Good, my vision is clearing... Wait, the violet blob looks like a pony. A bright purple pony. I tried to get up again but something must have been on top of me because I still couldn't move. The voice sounded even closer.

"Hey! Can you hear me?" the pony's muzzle moved along with the words. Wait, did that pony just talk? I must be imagining things, ponies can't talk. Right?

"Can you hear me?" That defiantly was the pony.

"Um, y-yes," I said meekly.

"Okay, that's good. Although you look hurt."

"W-what makes you say that?" I said still in shock.

"Well for starters it looks like that thing behind you hit you and some heavy material landed on top of you." I twisted my head around and saw that the phantom had crashed, and I had fallen out. I turned back and got a good look at the pony. She had a violet coat and her mane and tail was a dark navy blue. Within it were light purple and pink stripes. At her forehead was a horn. Huh, guess unicorns do exist, but I might be hallucinating, I had only just gotten conscience again. Her eyes were a darker shade of her coat. She had a mark on her flank that looked like a purple star with little white stars around it.

"Wait, who are you?" I asked. Considering that the planet I'm on is unknown to both the UNSC and the Covenant, assuming that these ponies were the dominant species were my best guess. The shock disappeared from my voice.
"Well I am Twilight Sparkle and this is my friend Rainbow Dash," she answered pointing toward another pony I hadn't noticed. The other pony had a sky blue coat with a rainbow mane and tail. Her eyes were colored magenta. On her back was a pair of wings. She had a mark on her flank that looked like a lightning bolt in a cloud. The bolt of lightning had streaks of red, yellow, and blue in it.

"Here, let us help you out from under that... thing."

"I don't need any help!" I reached around to grip the grass to crawl out from under the metal plate with no luck; the numbness in my fingers stopped me from advancing.

"You’re going to need our help."

After a few minutes of struggling, I gave in, "Fine."
Twilight and rainbow Dash then pulled me out with their... hooves, I guess. They each wrapped their hooves around opposite shoulders. Normally I would have readied myself just in case the ponies were to attack, but I couldn't find my weapons and I hurt pretty bad, so I just laid on the ground.

"What is your name?" Twilight asked after they helped me out from under the Phantom.

"I am Lima-030, but I am normally called Dragon," I answered.

"What were you doing out here before this thing crashed?" Rainbow Dash asked me. "You don't look like you’re from around here." I didn't show it, but I was confused, ether I all of a sudden have sight problems or hallucinations and I'm imagining them as ponies or there are more humans on this planet.

"Wouldn't my appearance give it away?" I asked.

"No not really, you look like any other pony," she replied.

"Huh?" I then looked down at myself and noticed that my hands and feet were replaced with hooves, and my skin had turned to a light orange color. There was a mark on my flanks that resembled two light blue lightning bolts. Also, I had a tail and a mane that was a dark orange. Wait, are those wings? Apparently I have wings, and I'm a pony. No need to panic, there's a reason I was transformed. Plus when have I ever panicked? Never before, but then again, this is the first time I've become a whole different species. Let's go over what happened before our rough, sudden landing. The last thing I remember is feeling a tingling sensation all over, and then crashing straight into the control panels due to the abrupt landing. I stared at my hooves blankly as I thought, attracting the rainbow maned pegasus's attention.

Rainbow Dash looked at me with a confused expression, "Are you okay? You look like you just lost a leg or something." Before I could answer, I could hear rustling of metal shards moving behind me. I spun around to see the remains of the door between the cockpit and storage of the Phantom move as if something was pushing it from the inside. The heavy purple remains then burst open as Grte appeared out of the entrance. And what does he do? He starts talking to himself.

"With the damage of the cockpit, there is a very slight chance that anyone could have survived, even a Mgalekgolo could barely survive." He then looked to his left and saw Twilight, Rainbow Dash and I.

"Huh, you must be this planet's species," Grte said to himself. All the while, Twilight and Rainbow Dash were staring at him with a surprised look on their faces.

"W-who are y-you?" Twilight asked nervously.

"Why, I am Grte Deseti, a Sangheili. And who might you be?" he answered.

"I-I am T-Twilight Sparkle," she then pointed to Rainbow Dash, "this i-is Rainbow D-Dash," she finally pointed to me, "and t-this is D-Dragon."

"Dragon?" Grte then looked closely at me as if he was scanning me to see if I am who he thinks I am. He walked down the remains of the front of the Phantom to where I was laying down and crouched before me.

"Do you mind?" I asked moving my head back a bit.

"You remind me of someone I know, or to be more exact, just recently met," Grte said,”might I ask, how did you get all scratched up like that?"

I pointed my hand, I mean hoof at the Phantom, "I was hit by the Phantom."

"How did you know that the ship is called a Phantom?"

Crap, I forgot that this species doesn't know what a Phantom is.

"Um...I...uh," I stammered.

"You’re the Spartan, aren't you?"

"Yeah... I am," I said while staring at the ground.

"If you’re him, then that means that you survived the crash and somehow turned into one of this planet's species! Haha! What an interesting outcome," He exclaimed standing back up.

"Wait," Rainbow Dash cut in, apparently not scared of Grte anymore, "you’re not a pony?"
I looked back up at Rainbow Dash, "um, no."

"If you’re not a pony than what are you?" Rainbow Dash asked while hovering in front of my face, making me feel pressured by her.

"Uh...well, you see...um," her stare was making it hard for me to form words.

"If he is the Dragon I know, then he would be a Human," Grte had saved me from Rainbow Dash's question. Rainbow Dash then backed away from me and sat on the ground. "Hey Twilight, are you okay?"

I almost forgot that she was still shocked from seeing Grte. Rainbow Dash walked over to her and waved a hoof in front of her face. Twilight snapped to her senses and looked straight at me.

"So humans look like ponies?" she quickly asked me.

"No, actually humans look more like Grte than ponies, but are smaller and have jaws and a few other differences like our hands and feet are different," I explained.

"Well then how did you turn into a pony?" she asked.

"I'm not really sure, Grte and I had escaped in this space craft here, and when we got into the atmosphere I had felt some strange aura form right before crashing. The last thing I remember after blacking out was you waking me up." Wow, this is the most I've ever talked before now.

"hmm... if that is true, then that means that neither of you have a place to stay. Oh! I know! You two could stay at my house. I have plenty of room," Twilight stated.

"How would we get Grte to you house without people seeing him, I could blend in but Grte would stand out," I said.

"That would be a problem," Twilight added. After a few minutes, Rainbow Dash spoke out. "I've got an Idea! We could hide him in the back of a carriage or something like it, and bring him in when it becomes night!"

"That's a great idea Rainbow Dash!" Twilight then turned toward me, "Dragon do you think you can come with me?" I had almost forgotten about being all bruised and scraped, but a Spartan fights to their last breath. Even if they turned into a pony. I started to stand and could feel pain more intense than anything I've felt before, surge throughout my body. I then decided to use my new wings to help lift myself to my feet. Even though I felt a lot of pain, I said,

"I can go."

Twilight responded with,

"Are you sure? Rainbow Dash and I could..." I cut her off,

"I'm fine."

"Okay, if you say so," she turned to Rainbow Dash, "Rainbow Dash, can you stay with Grte while we look for a carriage?"

"Can do!" Rainbow Dash saluted to Twilight as she turned back to me.

"Well then, let's get going Dragon." I nodded and we started walking away from the Phantom.
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Dragon's POV

Twilight and I have been walking for about 10 minutes and I'm about to ask when we should get to where ever we are going when I see a town appear.

"Is that it?" I ask.

"Yes." Upon entering the town, I notice that they don't seem to have most of the inventions that our species have. They appear to be in an Age similar to the medieval Times. Also I notice a pink pony with a slightly darker puffy pink mane and tail turn toward us as a smile grew on her face.

"Hey! Twilight! Who's your friend there? I haven't seen him before! Oh! Is he new to Ponyville? What's his name? Where's he from? Is he from Cloudsdale? He must be, for he's obviously a pegasus, Ah! We should have a party! How about at the library! No, oh! We should have it at Sugarcube Corner! What kind of cake should I get? Chocolate, Vanilla, how 'bout both!"

"Pinkie! This is Dragon, he doesn't have a home yet so he is going to stay with me for a while," Twilight explained.

"Oki doki loki! Hey, why's he all scratched up? Did he crash while trying to perform some trick like Rainbow does? No, wait, you can tell me at the party! I'd better send invites! See you later!" Pinkie then happily bounced away.

"So, who was that?" I asked.

"That was Pinkie Pie. She can be a little strange and talk a lot, but she is kind-hearted. So now to find a carriage." Where would there be a carriage, to make things harder, I don't know this town.

"Maybe Applejack has a carriage or a wheel barrel we could use," Twilight murmured to herself.

"Huh?" I asked.

"Applejack is a friend of mine, and her family owns an apple farm called Sweet Apple Acres. We could ask her if she has something we could hide your friend in that we could borrow. Follow me," she answered. As I follow Twilight, I notice that other ponies are staring at me. Most likely this is due to how scratched up I am. My legs are starting to feel weak; I should rest for a while before I...

"Urgh" my legs gave out.

Twilight heard me fall and turned around, "Dragon! Are you okay?"

"Yeah, but my legs hurt too much to walk."

"Maybe you should just fly the rest of the way."

"Fly?"

"Yeah, you have wings."

"Oh yeah, I do." I slowly opened my wings and raised them up. I've seen how birds fly; I can do the same can't I? I then quickly brought them down and back up then repeated over and over. I then began to levitate off the ground and I could feel the pressure disappear off my legs. Flying isn't as hard as I thought it would be; I could even say it feels natural.

"Ready?" Twilight asked.

"Yeah." We started heading toward Applejack's apple farm. I looked at the building to my left and I was sure that someone was staring at me. It made me feel uncomfortable.
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Dragon was being watched. Within the building Dragon had looked at was one of Princess Celestia's guards that was spying on the injured pegasus.

"Princess! The guard you sent to look at the alien crash-site, he spotted a pony."

"A pony?"

"Yes, the pony was underneath the object, but before our guard could get close to the thing, Miss Sparkle and Miss Dash went over to it."

"What were they doing out there at the time?"

"We're not sure, but the guard flew back to the castle to get reinforcements to spy on the unknown pony. As far as we know, Miss Twilight and the pony are heading through Ponyville apparently looking for something. Also the pony is extremely hurt to the point that his legs gave out and used his wings to get around..."

"What does he look like?"

"I'm sorry your highness, what was that?"

"What does this pony look like?"

"Oh yes, well he has a light orange coat with a darker orange mane and tail and he has an average pair of feather wings."

"What is his cutie mark?"

"His cutie mark is two light blue lightning bolts."

"Keep an eye on this pony and my apprentice. That pony doesn't seem to be from Equestria."
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Dragon's POV

I'm sure that we're being followed. As I flew next to Twilight Sparkle toward Applejack's apple farm, I had looked behind me a multitude of times. Although every time I was sure I saw someone or thing hiding behind a rock or tree. When we got to the farm,

"Twilight, I think someone is following us."

She turned to look at me, "What do you mean?"

"Well," I spun around and gesture to a point behind us, "I was sure I saw something over there behind those rocks and trees." Twilight began walking to the spot I had pointed to.

"Wait!" I flew up behind her as she neared rock. We peered over it and we saw a young looking pony. The pony looked up at us. The pony was a unicorn with a dark blue coat and a dark purple mane with light blue highlights. Her eyes were dark blue to match her coat and her cutie mark was a raincloud. For a while we just stared at each other. Twilight was the first to speak,

"Who are you?"

"I'm Nova Rain."

"Why were you following us?" I asked.

"Well, you're orange friend over there looked injured so I started following you. I work part time at Ponyville Hospital and assumed he needed some help."

"Don't worry about me I'm fine," I cut in.

"Oh, and I heard that the two of you were at the crash site of that alien thing, I've always been a fan of Science Fiction so I wanted to know what it's like."

"Where did you hear that?"

"From one of the royal guards."

"How did you get a royal guard to say anything to you?" Twilight seemed shocked by this.

"My father's best friend is a royal guard and he tells me everything he knows. By the way, what were you and Rainbow Dash doing there?"

"We were... Wait, how do you Rainbow Dash's name?"

"I told you, my father's friend tells me everything! Also I know your name is Twilight Sparkle and your other friends are Applejack, Fluttershy, Rarity and Pinkie Pie!" Nova said cheerily.

"Wow, your father's friend really does tell you everything! Wait, what does your father do?"

"He owns a business in Canterlot. Also have you seen Derpy? Not to go off topic, but she's the mailmare and a few ponies around here haven't gotten their mail yet."

Suddenly something fell out of the sky and as I looked up, I could see what looked like a grey pony just before it crashed on top of me. Pain came back to me as the pony laid on me.

"Ow... That didn't feel very good. Oh! I'm sorry sir!" The grey pony said.

It really hurt but, "It's fine, but could you get off of me?"

The pony got off of me, "I'm really sorry, it's just that I hurt my wing earlier and it's hard to fly." I then got up and looked at her; she was a light grey pegasus with a blonde mane. She had five bubbles as her cutie mark. Her iris was similar to her hair, a yellow blonde color. She was carrying a mail bag on her back, but her most noticeable feature was that her gold eyes weren't looking in the same direction.

"Derpy!" Nova had run out from behind the rock and hugged the blonde pegasus.

"Hey, you’re my muffin's friend right? Nova Rain wasn't it? Oh yeah, Twilight, your book you ordered came in," Derpy reached into her bag and pulled out a blue cover book, "Here you go!"

Twilight took the book from Derpy with her magic, "Thank you Derpy!"

"Okay! I'll be going to my next stop now!" Derpy started to fly away when,

"Wait!" I stopped her, and she then looked back at me. "Why did you suddenly fall out of the sky?"

"I wasn't paying attention and ran into a cloud. Bye now!" she then turned back around and flew off.

"Howdy Twilight!" I heard behind me, when I turned around, I saw a light orange pony with a blonde mane. Her mane was held together by a red band close to the end of her hair. Her cutie mark was three apples, and she wore a cowboy hat with a circular cut in the front to match her southern accent.

"Hi Applejack! I would like to introduce these two," she pointed at Nova and I. "This is Dragon and Nova Rain. Dragon and I were wondering if we could borrow a wheel barrel."

"Well sure, y'all can borrow one, but what do ya need it for?"

Twilight leaned near Applejack, "Can you keep a secret?" AJ nodded.

"Pinkie promise?"

Applejack crossed her heart and put her hoof over one eye, "Pinkie promise." Twilight got even closer so Nova couldn't hear and whispered to AJ about Dragon and Grte.

"Are ya sure?"

"Yeah, Dragon came from his planet, was turned into a pony and crashed his... Um, I think he called it a Phantom."

"Hey Dragon," I heard Nova say.

"Yeah?"

"I have to help out Ponyville's nurse, so can you tell Twilight and Applejack I left?"

"Sure."

"Thanks!" The little unicorn then ran off out of Applejack's apple farm.

"Okay! Let's go get the wheel barrel Dragon!" Twilight said, “say, where's Nova?"

"She told me that she left to go help out Ponyville's nurse," I explained.

"Okay, well anyways, Applejack, can we borrow a wheel barrel?"

"Sure! Come wit' me," we followed Applejack to her family's barn. She pushed the barn's door open and walked inside. I could hear her moving something around, and not to long after, she came out pulling a red wheel barrel.

"Here we are! Now y'all can get this Grte fellow to Twi's house."

"Thanks Applejack! You're better at carrying heavy things, so could you come with us?"

I stepped forward, "I can pull the wheel barrel!"

Twilight put her hoof on my shoulder, "Hold on Dragon, I'm sure you could if you weren't so injured. We need Applejack to pull Grte because he probably will be too heavy for you."

"Well sure ah can pull yer friend. Where is he?"

"He's over near Everfree Forest with Rainbow Dash. Follow us!" Twilight turned around and told me to get in the back of the wheelbarrow. Since I am a soldier, I followed orders. When we reached the crash site, I could see that Grte had taken out some of the undamaged weapons that were in the Phantom. Rainbow Dash was floating near his head. I quickly flew up to Grte, "What are you doing?"

"Guah!" he dropped the plasma rifle in his hands.

"Oh, it's just you Dragon. Don't just sneak up on people like that!" he reached down and picked up the rifle.

"Still, what are you doing?" I asked.

"I was showing Rainbow Dash our weapons. Also, Dragon we found your armor and Energy Sword."

"Really! Where are they?" I was quite excited about this. I hadn't seen my armor since I was a human.

"It's over there by the..." I ran over to it before he could finish talking.

Over where Grte pointed to, there was my Sage Mark V armor laid out across the ground. I ran over to the helmet and picked it up. I stared at the visor before turning it around and lifted it on top of my head. It was very tight on my muzzle but I still was able to fit it on. I turned on the helmet's HUD to see if I still had the data I acquired. Thankfully it did, but it would be difficult to look at or add data to the helmet as a pony. To solve this, I opened my armor's hip storage pack and pulled out my TAC pad. I took my helmet off and placed it next to the TAC pad. I hooked the two together and turned the TAC pad on. I went to type something but then realized that I don't have fingers. I was too preoccupied with my armor that I hadn't noticed that everyone was staring at me.

"Uh... Why are you staring at me?"

Grte was the first to speak, "Dragon, you were talking to yourself this entire time."

Twilight spoke next, "That was a little creepy; it was like you were talking to the helmet like it was another creature."

"Um... well let's pretend that never happened," I could feel sweat drip down my neck, "more importantly, how would I type on my TAC pad?"

Rainbow Dash flew over to me, "I'm not sure what a TAC pad is, but if it's this rectangle thing then you could use a stick, or maybe Grte could type it for you with his claw things." I looked around for a branch. I saw a tree nearby and flew over to it. I found a reasonable sized stick and used my mouth to break it off. I flew back to my helmet and sat in front of it. I took the stick and typed the transfer code on the TAC pad.

"Dis is find of diffifult."

"What?" I spit the stick out of my mouth.

"I said this is kind of difficult."

"Oh," Rainbow dash sat down next to me and looked at the TAC pad, "what exactly are you doing?"

"I'm transferring the combat and civil data information within my helmet's memory storage to the TAC pad."
Rainbow Dash stared at me.

I sighed, "I'm moving stuff from the helmet to the box."

"That's better!" Rainbow Dash flew back to the others. Once the transfer was complete, I shut the helmet off and picked up the TAC pad. I walked over to Applejack.

" 'Ey Dragon, do ya need a bag fer yer Pad thingy, right?"

"Yeah, do you have one?"

Applejack reached into the wheelbarrow and pulled out a bag that was similar to Derpy's mailbag but slightly larger.

" 'ere ya go!"

I took the bag and placed it on my back, "Thanks!" I put the TAC pad inside it. I walked back over to my armor and noticed my Energy Sword next to it. I picked it up and placed it along side my pad in my bag. I then sat on the ground realizing that we were going to wait until night time.
-------------------------------
Dragon's POV

I took out my TAC pad and looked at the screen. During the wait until night, I had put a description of everyone I've met since this morning. So far I've seen all of Twilight Sparkle's friends except Rarity or Fluttershy. I left their file blank until I see who they're like. The sun has almost gone down; I put away the TAC pad and the stick I use to type on it. I got up and walked over to the wheelbarrow.

"You ready?” Twilight said, "Grte is in the wheelbarrow with a big cloth over him and Applejack's ready up front."

"Let's get 'er started!" Applejack began pulling the wheelbarrow towards Ponyville with Twilight, Rainbow Dash and I following behind. We walked the way there with no problems other than the time I tripped over a small rock. We went into the town and as we thought, everyone was asleep. We reached Twilight's tree... Library... House thing. Twilight and I helped Grte out of the wheelbarrow as Applejack hid it behind Twilight's house. She then entered with Rainbow Dash. Grte had to crouch to walk into the library. Once inside, Twilight spoke to us,

"You two will be sleeping in the room down those stairs," Twilight pointed at some stairs, "I will be upstairs if you need anything. Oh, and Applejack, Rainbow Dash, thanks for the help."

"Yer mighty welcome Twilight!"

"No problem!" The two mares then opened the door and left. I stared at the stairs wondering how I was to walk down them with my current form. Grte nonchalantly walked past me into the lower regions of the tree. I swear I could see what looked like a smirk, but mandibles are so unknown to me. I slowly started my walk down,

"Wait! Dragon, just so you know, I have an assistant named Spike," Twilight looked back at me.

"Why's his name Spike?" I asked.

"Because he's a baby dragon!"

"Okay." I turned my head back around and continued down the stairs. I tripped on one of the steps and tumbled down the rest of the way. I heard Grte laugh at me as I stumbled to stand up. I walked past him and crawled into the bed.

A Sudden Change (Again)

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Twilight Sparkle slams open her front door; Spike made a small squeal releasing his grip on the books he was putting on the shelf. Twilight quickly noticed him and walked over. She watched him regain his balance before speaking.

"Hey Spike!"

The small purple dragon walked down the ladder he was on,

"Yeah?"

"Is Dragon still here?"

"Yeah, he's still sleeping. So is the leathery dinosaur guy," Spike walked in a small circle bending over to pick up the books he had dropped. He continued when he had them all in his claws, “both of them are still downstairs if you want to talk to them. Although, the dino guy seems to make a lot of noise when he sleeps," he climbs back up the ladder as he continues talking about Twilight’s guests and how long the “Dino guy’s” fingers are and how he has no jaw. Twilight rolls her eyes and walks away as Spike continues his rant. She canters down the steps over to where there are two guest beds that she had pulled out the night before.

Sleeping in one of the beds was a big alien who Twilight had come to know as Grte Deseti, and an orange pegasus she knew as Dragon in the other. She walked over to the one with the pegasus. She noticed something off about Dragon's face. She studied it closer and saw some differences than how it appeared yesterday. It looked... smaller, curvier, and all around more feminine than the day before.

"Hey Dragon," Twilight softly pokes the pony.

A quiet moan came from Dragon, opening one eye he sleepily looks at the violet equine. "Is that you Twilight?"

"Uh... Yeah, you look and sound different."

Dragon opens his other eye and sits up, "What do you mean?"

"Well," Twilight started, "for starters, your voice is higher, and you’re noticeably smaller than yesterday."

"Huh?" Dragon brought his hooves up to his face. Looking them over, he notices how much thinner they are than before. He tests his voice to hear a sound of a higher octave than his usual speech. "Hey, my voice is higher! What’s happened to me?!" Dragon drops his/her hooves down then looks up at Twilight.

"I-I'm not sure but somehow you turned into a mare!" She stared back at Dragon; she was just as confused as he/she was.

"How did this happen?"

"I'm not sure, but maybe somepony in town knows. Come on, let’s go!"

"Wait, go outside? Like this?!" Dragon lifted a hoof to refer to him... Er herself.

"Yes, that might be the only way to change back," Twilight replied calmly. Dragon swung his back legs to the edge of the bed. He quickly dropped on all fours onto the floor, "Can't you just use a spell from one of the tons of books you have upstairs?" He points to the ceiling gesturing toward the many books above them.

"I might be able to come up with something, but we don't even know how this happened yet. If we find out how, then I can find a cure," Twilight starts up the stairs; she turns her head, "let's go."

Dragon didn't want to go outside with his... her appearance, but wanted to revert back more, well back into a human, but that seems less likely at this point. She grabbed the saddlebags that were hung on the back of the bed. Within it were two items, Dragon's TAC pad and the energy sword.

"Fine," Dragon followed Twilight up the stairs. When they get into the main room, Twilight sees that Spike isn't there and makes an assumption that he’s most likely taking a nap upstairs.

"Spike, we'll be going out," Twilight calls up at where she assumes Spike is at.

"I'll be here, taking a nap." Spike groggily calls out followed by a yawn.
Twilight opens the door and they walked out of the house; Twilight closes the door behind them.

Dragon's POV

We exited Twilight’s tree library and began walking into town. I still don't understand how or why I became a female. Staring down at the ground, I began to ponder my circumstances. In under one day I've destroyed a Covenant corvette, crashed on an unknown planet run by magical ponies, been turned into one of these creatures and even have been given wings, met other talking ponies and some of their friends, and have swapped my gender to go along with the whole flying pony appearance. Now how are-

"I think we should start at Rarity's," Twilight stopped my train of thought. I shot my head back up.

"Huh?" Before she could say anything, a light blue pegasus swiftly flew up in front of us. She landed on the ground with a small thump, picking up some dust that quickly faded.

"Hey Twilight!"

"Rainbow Dash! What are you doing? Aren’t you supposed to be clearing the sky? You are captain of the weather team and all."

"Well,” she rubbed the back of her head, “the weather schedule for today is clear skies and there are already no clouds in the sky today.” She raises her hooves to direct our attention to the large blue sky above us without a single white puff drifting in the wind. She drops her hooves down after a few moments. “So while I was resting in that tree over there, I saw you walking around and came down to say hi. Also," Rainbow Dash looked at me, "who is she?"

"Um... That's Dragon."

"You mean the alien guy from yesterday? But wasn't she a he?"

"Yeah, Dragon was a stallion yesterday but now he is a mare."

Rainbow burst out into a fit of laughter.

"This isn't funny!" I shouted at her. I could feel a hint of irritation toward her.

"Even his voice changed!" She pointed with one hoof at me before falling onto the ground from laughing so hard.

"Rainbow Dash! Don't laugh at him... er, her." Twilight attempted to help.

After about a minute or two later, Rainbow Dash got back up on her hooves and let out one final chuckle, "That's just too funny!"

"Rainbow, be serious now. Dragon and I are looking around to see if anypony knows how he turned into a mare. Do you happen to know anything? Have you seen any mysterious or suspicious looking ponies around town?" Rainbow Dash put her hoof to her chin and thought about Twilight's question.

"Well now that I think about it, I think I saw Trixie when I was on my way back home after I left your house last night."

"Trixie? What was she doing out this late? And why is she back in Ponyville?"

"I'm not too sure Twi, but I have to go help Fluttershy." The pegasus flew off before anypony could say anything else. A few moments after the rainbow blur was out of site, I asked a question that had formed during Twilight and Rainbow’s exchange about this mysterious “Trixie” character.

“Hey Twilight, who’s Trixie and what did you mean by ‘back in Ponyville’?” Twilight turned back to me and sighed slightly.

“Around a year ago, a unicorn magic show traveler that called herself, The Great and Powerful Trixie, had come to Ponyville. She wore a purple hat and cape that were covered in many stars of quite a few different colors. She was ever so full of herself and thought she was better than anypony and even made up a lie that she had vanquished an Ursa Major,” I stared at her blankly as to show confusion. “An Ursa Major is a giant see through bear that is made of stars. Anyway, she challenged everypony in town to see if any of them could defeat her. She was able to beat everypony that challenged her, but when some school kids provoked an Ursa Minor,” She shot me a quick glance and continued.

“An Ursa Minor is like a much smaller, but still incredibly large version of an Ursa Major. But when the kids brought the Ursa Minor, Trixie told everypony that she hadn't defeated an Ursa Major before, that she had made the story up. I stepped in and used my knowledge that I have gathered over the years of magic to safely send the Ursa Minor back to its home. This had made Trixie look like a fool, so she ran from Ponyville and no pony has seen her since then.”
After Twilight’s little speech, we began our way to her friend Rarity’s house.

“Do you think she came back to get revenge on you?”

“If she wanted to get revenge on me, then why would she turn YOU into a mare instead of turning me into a stallion? Oh, we’re here, we can talk about why later.” I looked up at the building in front of me. The structure was quite colorful and fancy. Upon the top of it were what looked like iron ponies that were set up like they would be on a carousel. Twilight entered first and I followed behind her.

Over by a small table a white unicorn with a styled purple mane sat threading some kind of fabric together. When she heard us enter, her ears perked up and she hit the side of sewing machine turning it off. She got off of her chair and turned toward us, "Hello and welcome to, oh Twilight! What brings you here? And who's your friend?" she lifts a hoof in my direction.

"This is Dragon and-" Rarity cut Twilight off.

"Dragon? That's a peculiar name for a mare."

"Actually Rarity," Twilight started, "Just yesterday Dragon was a colt. His appearance had changed somehow overnight and we’re not sure why or how this happened. Up to this point, the only fact that has come to us that is within some sort of relevance is that Trixie was out late last night for reasons we don’t know of."

Rarity pondered for a few minutes before saying, "Well stallion or not, one must not go out looking like that." She was directing this to me.

"What do you mean?" I asked taking a tiny step back from this sudden surprise of a question.

"Oh Darling, have you seen your mane yet?"

"No, why?" Rarity quickly grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me over to one of her mirror on the small stage of hers. I haven't seen myself since I came to Equestria. I stared into the mirror to see a slight light orange pony staring right back at me with the same intensity. My mane was a darker shade of orange and was very messy and tangled. I could tell that my mane was longer than before mainly because I could see some of it lying lazily along my forehead out of the upper and side edges of my eyes unlike I had before.

"See what I mean? Your mane is all tangled and uneven!" she paused and took a quick whiff of my mane, "and darling, when was the last time you took a bath?"

Come to think of it, I hadn't bathed in a while, "um... I'm not all that sure the last time I-" Rarity cut me off,

"A lady shouldn't do that!"

"Uh, Rarity," Twilight who was quietly watching from afar walked over to her.

"Yes Twilight?"

"Dragon's still a male, even if his body isn't."

"I know that, but I was getting into the zone, dear. Like I said, stallion or not, one must not go out looking all messy." Rarity looked back at me, "so Dragon, how about I fix you up?"

"I'm sure it won't hurt to, so okay."

"Good, first we're going to need to wash you up." she walked me to a bathtub that was surprisingly already filled with soap and water. I took a quick glance at the fashion pony before crawling into it. Rarity took out a sponge-like object and started scrubbing off all the dirt that covered my coat and hair. An awkward silence was over our heads as I sat there with Rarity washing every part of my body. After about fifteen minutes, Rarity said she was done and that I could get out of the tub. I quickly got out of the bathtub, Rarity gave me a towel and I dried myself off.

"Now can you sit here for me?" Rarity placed her hoof on a chair in front of another mirror. I put the towel down and walked over. I sat down in the seat. Rarity used her magic to levitate a hairbrush and began to brush my mostly dried off mane. Since it was so tangled, the brush kept pulling at knots. After a few minutes, I could feel the brush lift off of my mane.

"Okay!" she put down the hairbrush on the table, "I'm done." I had been looking down the entire time, so when I looked back up, what I saw in the mirror shocked me. I’m a Spartan; I am barely ever shocked by anything.

"This is me?"

"Why darling it sure is!" I had stared straight at the mirror to see an almost different pony look back at me with the same dazed look. My coat was shiny and was a little lighter than it had first appeared. But the main thing that caught my attention was my mane. It was a cleaner dark orange that matched my coat; also it was much straighter than before making it look more natural. Something I'v never seen as a Spartan is myself this groomed, even though I am now a pony.

"So what do you think?" Rarity snapped me back to reality.

"Um... I..."

"Speechless! Just what I was looking for! Now for the dress!" Wait, what was that last part? She pulled me behind a curtain. I closed my eyes not wanting to know what was happening. Rarity pushed me back out,

"Ta Da!" I first opened one of my eyes to see Twilight try to hold back laughter. I opened my other eye and looked in the mirror to the right. I then saw myself in a frilly orange dress. I let out an unmanly squeak of surprise. I returned my gaze back to Twilight.

"Okay Rarity, heh, we had better get going," Twilight said trying not to laugh at me.
"Although I think Dragon doesn't want to keep the dress."

"That's fine dear; I just wanted to see her in a dress." Rarity replied. I gently took the dress off and gave it to her. I took a glance at Rarity and could see a hint of laughter in her eyes. Twilight trotted out of Rarity’s doorway. I followed behind and as I took one step out her door, I looked back to see Rarity placing the frilly dress I wore on a nearby table. I turned back around and gently and silently close the door behind me. I trotted up to Twilight and we walked away from Rarity’s house.

"Dragon, I think we should ask Applejack if she saw anything on her way home last night." I nodded and we headed toward Sweet Apple Acres. The walk there was relatively uninteresting. When we reached the fences surrounding the apple farm, I could see a faint figure near the barn.

We walked upon the dirt road leading up to the barn. When we reached the barn, we saw Applejack about to enter the big red building carrying apples on her back.

"Hey Applejack!" Twilight waved her hoof to get AJ's attention. Applejack stopped in front of the barn door and looked over to us.

“‘Ey Twilight! What's up? Also, Dragon, y'all look a bit different taday." we walked over to her. She turned to face us and she had a gentle smile as she waited for some kind of response.

"Applejack, the reason Dragon that looks different than yesterday, to put it bluntly, is because he turned into a mare… somehow," Applejack's eyes became wide and her jaw dropped into a look of confusion.

"Hold up right there, what yer sayin' is he became a she?" She moved her hoof around in a seemingly random pattern. Based on what she had just said, she probably was making the symbols for the male and female genders.

"Yeah, we came here to ask you if you saw anything last night. Like anything that would be out of place, or somepony that is mysterious or suspicious in appearance. For example, when we asked Rainbow Dash earlier, she had said that she saw Trixie on her way home."

Applejack pondered Twilight's question obviously rethinking last night; trying to remember if she saw anything noticeably strange.

"Well now that ah think about it, ah did see somepony," AJ exclaimed.

"Was that pony Trixie?" Twilight asked.

"Nah, ah had never seen this guy before, ah don't think that pony's from 'round here."

"What did the pony look like?"

"Well, 'e had a mighty bright white coat and a dark blue mane. And, 'e had a very strange cutie mark. It looked like some kinda green and yello' spiky circle." Wait, if his cutie mark is what I think it is...

"Where did you see him?" I asked without thinking; catching AJ off guard. She turned her head slightly to look at me. She took a quick moment to think about my question.

"Ah remember seein' 'im somewhere in Ponyville just walkin’ in, what seemed ta me, all sortsa random directions. Although, ah also heard 'im say somethin' to 'imself."

"What did he say?" Twilight asked. Turning back to Twilight, Applejack thought for a second.

"Ah think 'e said somethin' 'bout some kinda transformation thing or was it ‘bout turning somethin’? He also talked about Dragon 'ere. Ah’m not really sure what those two relate to each otha though."

"Hm... how would he know Dragon? Dragon’s only been here for a day." Twilight thought out-loud while staring at the ground. She flicked her gaze over to AJ. "Applejack, could you make out the general idea of his self conversation? do you know any of his exact words?"

"Well 'e said somethin' like 'once Trixie is done wit'… uh... somethin'… 'Dragon will be turned into a... well... that's all ah remember 'im sayin'."

"That's strange; we better keep an eye out for him. Applejack did you see anything else?"

"Nah, not really, although, ah think 'e was a unicorn."

"Thanks Applejack, we're going to ask other ponies if they know anything."

"Yer welcome Twilight, see ya later!" Twilight and turned back around. Applejack went back to the apple trees. We silently walked out of the apple orchard and headed back toward town. The canter back was uneventful but once we entered the outskirts of Ponyville, Twilight broke our silence that we had kept for the last fifteen minutes or so.

"We should ask Fluttershy next." Twilight said. I nodded and by this time we had passed two buildings as we headed to, well, where ever Twilight decided we should go. Before Twilight or I could say anything else, I heard somepony's voice in the distance.

"Let's ask her!" said a voice from behind us.

"Excuse me," I looked to my right to see three small ponies staring back at me. The one in the middle was closest to me and had a yellow coat with a red mane. She didn't have a mark like I’ve noticed the other ponies have, and had a huge pink bow in her hair. The one to the right of her was white with a curly pink and lavender mane. I could tell she was a unicorn for she had a small horn at the center of her forehead. The final one of the group of fillies was a pegasus with pretty tiny looking wings and her coat was orange with a messy purple mane.

"Hello girls! How are you three?" Twilight asked the group.

The yellow pony talked first, "Hi Twilight, we were just wonderin' how yer friend got her cutie mark," they looked back at me with big pleading eyes.

"Um... I...Uh," I can't just tell them that I came from space and was magically turned into a pony from being a human.

Twilight began one of her attempts to cover my true identity, "Well Dragon here has lost some of her memory..." As Twilight stated her excuse, I looked into the larger crowd of ponies and right across the street from us, I saw a unicorn that looked very familiar. Without thinking I galloped straight at him and before he could react, I tackled him to the ground.

The mysterious pony lay under me with my hooves forcing into his shoulders, pinning him down into the dirt road. For some odd reason, I could feel a strange sense of anger and betrayal rise up inside the longer I looked at the stallion below my grasp. He had shut his eyes as to protect them from injury.

"Hey what was that fo...?” he opened his eyes and stared straight into mine, “Oh, hello Dragon," the mysterious pony smiled at me. Twilight and the group of fillies were surprised by my sudden action. They walked over to me.

"How do you know my name?" I asked.

"That is a secret, but I'm sure you know me. Don't you remember? I'm Eric," he said while continuing to keep his slightly creepy smile on, which only added to my irritation. All that anger I felt made sense now that I know who he is.

"You’re a traitor!" I shouted.

"Now now miss, you shouldn't yell, you're attracting a lot of attention." I looked up from him and glanced around to see the many ponies staring at me. Before I could look back down at Eric, he lifted me off of him with levitation. This brought more rage to my usually emotionless self.

"Put me down!" I began flailing my legs uselessly. He waited until I got tired and stopped flailing around before putting me back down. He dusted himself off, "you should try adjusting to the public better; you attract a whole lot of unnecessary attention. You don't want to let your secret out, do you?"

Twilight stepped up, "Who are you?"

"I am just a simple bystander who was attacked by this here pegasus I've never seen before," he lied.

"Then why did Dragon call you a traitor? Did you betray hi... her?" Twilight seemed determined to know.

"I'm not sure, maybe she meant someone else," he began to get nervous and I could see his eyes shift around.

"No I didn't, I meant you," I added.

"Alright I'll tell you," he whispered the next part, "but meet me at the entrance of the Everfree forest." He then trotted away. Everyone that saw me tackle Eric was now looking straight at me. And apparently others heard our conversation because a pretty large crowd had formed.

"Um...eh...hehe...oh," I tried to come up with an explanation for what just happened. Thankfully, most of the ponies went back to what they were doing before.

"So who was that Dragon?" Twilight asked me.

"That was an old ally of mine who had gone against my squad."

"Hey!" A voice came from behind me, "we're still here you know!" I turned around to see the three fillies standing in front of me.

"Why did ya attack him?"

"Well, um... I'm not really sure."

"Anyways, you said yer name was Dragon right?"

"Yeah."

"That's kind-of a strange name fer a mare, ma’am. Mah name's Applebloom and these are my best friends Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle," She explained.

The orange one spoke up, "That was pretty cool how you took him down before he knew what hit him!" She punched a hoof in the air.

"Scootaloo! You should know that she shouldn't have done that," Twilight told her off. Scootaloo pouted but didn’t say anything else. Instead, Applebloom decided to change the subject.

"Okay, well now we would like ta ask ya somethin'."

"What do you want to ask me?" I asked.

"How did ya get yer cutie mark?" Applebloom asked me.

"My what?" Twilight pulled me over and whispered, "A cutie mark is the mark on your flank. Yours is two blue lightning bolts, I'm going to guess that you pretty agile, right?"

"Yeah," I whispered back.

"Well every pony gets their cutie mark after finding out what they're best at," Twilight explained. Well that explains why everyone has a mark on their flanks. I just thought that they were some sort of tattoos.

"They asked about how I got my cutie mark, what do I tell them?"

"Hmm... We should say that you got lost in the Everfree forest and you avoided the creatures in it and when you got out, it appeared." I turn back to the pleading trio and told them Twilight's story that she made up.

"Why were you in the Everfree forest?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Um... Well I was young and I wanted to see what it’s like there," I made this up.

"What did ya see?" Applebloom asked me.

"Oh well I saw uh... Some trees and plants and a lot of monsters and a lion... thing. I had to dodge them all." I stuttered. I am a bad liar; the UNSC should have taught us how to tell lies like this. Then I wouldn’t look like such a fool in front of children.

"Ya mean a Manticore?" Applebloom corrected me.

"Um... Yeah."

Scootaloo flapped her small wings furiously and jumped in front of Applebloom right up to my face. I backed up slightly because her nose was almost touching mine.

"Did the Manticore attack you!?" Scootaloo smiled waiting for my answer.

"Y-yeah, it did," I tried looking away from her.

"Did you fight back at it with some kinda sweet ninja-like karate moves or something?!" She hopped back some to kick her hooves around pretending to do karate.

"A soldier's got to fight back when attacked," after saying this, I realized I might have said a real stupid thing, and had given my real identity away. I just hope they didn't notice my slip up. Unfortunately, they did and Scootaloo looked back at me in awe.

"You’re a royal guard?!" Her face lit up with excitement, "Whoa! So mares can become guards! I thought only stallions could; now you prove me wrong! Yay!" She hopped around in a circle. I decided to go along with her story and be a "royal guard". Applebloom looked up at me,

"Wait, if yer a royal guard, where's yer armor?"

"I'm on break, so my armor's stored someplace safe." Sweetie belle asked the next question,

"Can we see your armor sometime?"

"Maybe in the future, it's pretty far from here-" Twilight cut me off, and put on a fake smile,

"And we need to leave now, so see you later girls!" we turned around to leave when Sweetie Belle spoke up,

"Wait! Why are you with Twilight?"

"I'm... protecting her because I am a 'royal guard'."

"What are you protecting her from?"

Twilight spoke first in a slightly rushed manner, "She's guarding me from monsters when I go to Zecora's and from other ponies that might what to hurt me. Bye now!"

"Oh ok, bye!" Twilight and I walked away from the trio as they waved at us with huge grins on their faces. Once we went rounded the corner, Twilight spoke, "Ok, what just happened was weird, who was that guy?"

I looked around to see is anypony was nearby, "That was a teammate of mine when we were in training to become Spartans-" Twilight cut me off,

"Hold on, what's a spartan?"

"A spartan is a genetically enhanced human soldier with many years of training. They were originally created to remove rebel alliances, but became essential when an alien force, the Covenant, arrived. In my case, I was a prototype Spartan so I had gone... You could say, mad. The scientists didn't know what happened, but I was destroying almost anything in my way. I don't remember much, but there were reports that when I spoke… it was different, it didn't sound like me," I paused to gather some more thoughts.

"When I spoke, there was a different voice, almost as if spoken by the devil as some of the scientists had said. After I had fallen unconscious a few hours later, the medical scientists, whatever their official names were, found out that what had happened was that the augmentations to enhance me had created a demon version of me out of the emotions of anger, sadness, loneliness, depression, pain, loss, and believe it or not, joy. I can be happy, just that he creates much of our joy when he destroys and kills things. The scientists did some sort of heavy neural surgery in my brain to trap my emotions and memories deep into the back of my mind."

Twilight stared at me with a look of horror, "I had no idea that is what your life was like! I'm so sorry that I brought up this subject..." her face changed from horror to remorse.

"Don't worry Twilight, it was I who started talking about my past, my fault, you just asked what a Spartan is." Twilight looked up at me and wiped away a tear from her cheek.

"Despite that, every once in a while, a negative emotion sparks, and the demon appears. For some reason, instead of using my name, he goes by the name, the Black Star."

"Why Black Star? That's a very odd name for somepo- I mean someone to have."

"I'm not sure; I can never ask him because whenever he appears, I go unconscious while he is in control of my body. And no one else has asked him because he attacks anything that annoys him. Anyways, back to your first question, that pony I tackled earlier, his name is Eric. Years ago he left mysteriously and wasn't heard from for many months. Then a marine reported that he joined the Covenant to fight against us. That is also why I yelled at him quite loudly calling him a traitor." I waited for her reply.

"So, he was like your friend?"

"Not really, Spartans never had friends because if that friend disappeared, the Spartan would most likely grieve over them and their skills would drop and make them more vulnerable." Twilight seemed surprised by my answer.

"I'm so sorry, that must be hard not having any friends, before I came to Ponyville, I thought that I wouldn't need any friends, but now I have a few."

"It’s fine; I've been a soldier ever since I was very young. I never had time for friends, just allies and teammates."

"Oh, well I could be your friend if you want."

"Wait, huh?"

"Well I just wanted to know if you wanted to be friends with me..."

"Oh, um, ok I never had a friend before."

"You don't have to worry about me, I know how to defend myself, and don't forget I can use magic." Twilight's horn glowed as she levitated me as a demonstration.

"Ok, now we should ask Fluttershy if she knows anything, follow me." Twilight must have forgotten that she was levitating me. I wasn't able to move as I was pulled along with her. On our way to where I believe Fluttershy lives, there were quite a few ponies staring at me. Eric was right; I do attract a lot of attention. Although this time it is Twilight's fault.

Twilight stopped, "We're here! Ok Dragon... Hey, where are you?" She looked around.

"I'm above you, you never put me down."

She looked up at me, "Oh sorry," she lowered me to the ground.
She turned back and knocked on the door.

"Coming!" said a sweet soft voice. The door opened to reveal a yellow pegasus with long light pink hair.

"Oh! Hello Twilight, what do you need?" She smiled slightly.

"Hi Fluttershy, we came by to ask you something."

"We? I-is there somepony else with you?" I walked forward into her view. When she saw me, she gave a small squeak and tried hiding behind her long hair. Twilight noticed her shyness, "Fluttershy, this is Dragon, she is, uh, new to Ponyville. May we come inside?"

"U-um... s-sure," she said meekly. She walked back into her house and stood facing us. Twilight and I followed close behind into Fluttershy's hut. Upon entering, I could see many small animals all over. There were birds resting on a variety of objects. There were also some four-legged creatures every which way. One snow white bunny in particular was staring at me in an irritated way, had a frown, and was standing right next to Fluttershy.

"S-so Twilight, w-w-what do you w-want to ask m-m-me?" Fluttershy really stands up for her name. Her mane is still blocking half of her face as she avoids eye contact with me. She was mostly looking at Twilight but she would glance over at me occasionally. Although the white bunny that’s standing next to her, wouldn't stop staring at me and seemed to not even blink.

“Dragon and I have had, you could say, a very interesting day yesterday and this morning. We came to ask you if you happened to have seen anypony in town that seemed suspicious or somepony doing anything out of the ordinary.”

“U-um… well, I did see somepony I hadn’t seen before. He looked a lot like Dragon, same color coat, mane, eyes, and even the same cutie mark.” Fluttershy looks at Twilight with a small nervous smile.

“So Fluttershy, you’re saying that this pony looked exactly like Dragon?” Twilight raises an eyebrow at her pegasus friend.

“Y-yes, only this pony was a stallion, and Dragon’s a mare.” Fluttershy looks at me when she says this as if to confirm she was correct.

“That’s exactly why we’re here. The stallion that you saw yesterday was actually Dragon.” Fluttershy looks back and forth between Twilight and I with a confused look on her face. “Last night, Dragon somehow swapped genders, which is impossible unless you get surgery or use magic. And I doubt Dragon can do either especially since he doesn't have a horn.” Twilight jokingly waves a hoof over my forehead where a horn would be if I had one. She drops her hoof back down to the ground and looks over at Fluttershy.

“That’s why we’re here, now besides Dragon; did you see anything else strange?”

“Um… no, I don’t think I saw anything all that out of the ordinary. But, um, Twilight, can I, um, ask you a question?”

“Sure Fluttershy, what is it?”

“Uh, do you know how Dragon turned into a mare? Because I think I might know who could have done that.” Fluttershy continues to look at the ground with her mane still covering half of her face over one of her eyes.

“We don’t really know how it happened but we think the Trixie might have been the one who committed this trick.” Fluttershy surprisingly looks up at Twilight and her hair is whipped away from her face showing me both of her eyes.

“Oh! That’s exactly who I was thinking! I had seen Trixie last night when I was feeding my chickens.” Wait, did she say she was feeding her chickens at night? I looked at her with a confused look.

“I feed my chickens twice a day. One’s at noon, and one’s at night around ten.” Well that explains it, I guess? Twilight asked the next question.

“Did you see where Trixie was?” Turning her head back to Twilight, Fluttershy continued.

“I remember that Trixie was walking into the E-Everfree F-F-Forest. S-She had a pretty scary evil grin that scared me so I hid behind a bush until she was gone.” She had begun to shake a little. I think that she must be easily scared if just by remembering something like that has got her to begin to shutter.

“Thank you Fluttershy now did you…” Twilight was cut off by a wooden cuckoo going off on the wall showing that it was 9 o’clock.

“Oh wow, it’s already nine? We should get going; we need to meet that “friend” of yours Dragon. Goodbye Fluttershy! I’ll see you when we have tea on Friday okay?”

“Okay Twilight, I’ll see you later. Oh and, um, bye to you too Dragon.” We were at the door, Twilight and I waved to Fluttershy before closing her cottage door closed behind us.

Pretty Clever Name, Right?

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WARNING: This chapter contains a bit of blood and violence, you have been warned. (Although this is a fan fic about Halo, of course it would have some kind of violence)

Twilight and I made our way to where Eric specified we would meet, right outside the Everfree Forest. As we walked up, I could see Eric waiting with a smile on his face.

"Good evening ladies." Eric said with a hint of laughter in his voice. I ignored it; there are more important matters to discuss. Although I had a feeling in my stomach that something wasn't right.

Twilight spoke up, "Alright, who are you and how does Dragon know you?" Eric turned his head to face Twilight.

"My dear, as you may know, Dragon isn't from Equestria. I am as well not from here, I am from the same planet as he, or now she is from. We were both genetically advanced homo sapiens, or humans as we’re more often called, from the massive military force called the UNSC. We fought against a large group of aliens called the Covenant. They are under the power of a species that us humans dub as the Prophets. Do you follow me so far?"

"Hmm... Yeah, although it's pretty strange, and kinda exciting, that there are all these different alien species, most of my books do say there's too much space in our universe for there not to be any inter terrestrial beings."

Eric smile grew wider, he's up to something. I look beyond him as he continues explaining to Twilight about him. As I focused on one of bushes behind my former ally, which were right along the side of the path through the dark forest, I could see some sort of movement within the leaves. Before I could look any longer at the dancing bush, I was interrupted.

"Dragon, what's in the bags?" Eric was staring at me, obviously concerned on the contents I hold.

"What? Why would I tell you? You went against your own kind to help some religious freaks!" I stated. Eric seemed taken aback by my answer. Despite this, his face shifted into an evil smirk causing Twilight some confusion.

"Wait, what's going on?" Twilight looked around as unicorns and earth ponies quickly emerged from the bushes. Pegasi flew out from deeper in the forest landing behind us. A few of the ponies had an energy sword similar to me, while the others had wooden sticks they most-likely found on the forest floor. I quickly formed a sort of plan. I know a fight is going to break out, and I have more than one disadvantage.

"Run Twilight, you need to get out of here!" I told her. I whipped out my own energy sword from my side bags. I snapped it on and it whirred to life.

"Wha-what's going on!? Who are these ponies!?"

"Jwus wrun!" I said with the heated blade in my mouth. Twilight got the message, turned around, and started galloping away.

"Oh no you don't!" Eric shouted as his horn started to glow. He was only able to grasp Twilight's tail causing her to yelp. She tripped and fell to the ground. She turned her head and focused on her tail apparently trying to break Eric's magical hold on her. While she was undergoing her escapes, four pegasi began closing in on her. I quickly unfurled my wings and shot toward the nearest pegasus. As I neared the equine, I struck my back hooves out and bucked him in the face. I could hear the smack as he was rocketed into the ground. He slid leaving a big mark in the ground.

The three other pegasi redirected their path about Twilight and flew at me. The one slightly larger than the other two flew ahead them toward me. I dodged him as his energy sword whisked past my face. It got so close that I could feel the heat radiate off of it. As he passed by, I slammed my right back hoof into his back. This sudden attack surprised him causing him to lose concentration and crash into the ground. The other two must have decided to attack me from both sides. One of them went on my left, with the other on my right. They charged at me; moments before they hit me, I brought my wings tight to my body and dropped below them. They crashed into each other, and thankfully for them, they only had sticks and ended up scraping each other's face. They snarled at each other before turning toward me.

The closest one flew toward me. I swung my head in a parallel motion at him. He tried backing off but the sword sliced across his chest. He dropped like a rock to the ground with the red liquid of the wounded drizzling out of his charred slash. The final pegasus flew at me from behind; I did a back flip and landed on his back. Before he could render my movement, I kicked him hard in the back of his head. He drifted into a coma causing his limp body to plummet into the dirt. On the other side of the playing field, Twilight managed to break free of Eric's grip. She was still confused and had become a quite scared. The enemy ponies surrounded her on all sides.

"What do you ponies want?!" she shouted with fear in her voice.
One of the unicorns spoke; he had a surprisingly low voice for a pony,

"Much like Eric or your friend Dragon, we are not the same species. Most of us are a race called the Sangheili, or as the humans call us, the elite." While the elite pony talked to Twilight, I had been fighting the winged enemy. There are seven remaining of the original twelve. One of the smaller ones flies straight at me. I shift to my left and snap his makeshift weapon out of his mouth disarming him. I kick him in the ribs causing him to stagger and hover away into the forest. One of the pegasi rose above me; He threw himself down. I hadn't noticed him so he hit me dead center between my wings. My wings stiffened outward from the shock. I plummeted to the ground dropping my sword on impact. The blade retracted as it skidded away from me. I shook the pegasus off of me and bucked him in the torso, sending his beaten form into one of his unicorn companions. This distracted the circle surrounding Twilight enough for them to look away. I saw my chance. I stared Twilight in her eyes and shouted for her to run. She acknowledged and barged through two earth ponies.

They reached out to grab her. After missing, they began chasing her while the others were focused on me. An earth pony runs toward me. When he is near enough, I wrap my hooves around his neck and twist myself onto his back. The confused pony tries to stop but rams into a unicorn as I jump off his back and extend my wings. A pegasus tries to attack me from the back, but I could feel the heat radiate off his blade. I evaded, hovering over him, and then whacking the back of his head, forcing the sword out of his mouth. I placed my hooves on his back and forced him into one of his earth bound allies. I jumped off them and tackled the nearest pony. We tumbled a few feet until we stopped with me on top. I stood there restraining him with my fore hooves. He struggled to move under my hold. I lifted a hoof and smashed it into his face repetitively. One of his teammates ran at me; I spun around lifting the pony to use as a human, I mean pony shield. His comrade crashed into him. I brutally dropped the pony causing him to land in a pony pile with his ally. I kicked at the dirt with my hind leg and spread my wings as far as they could.

As I flew back up, one of the pegasi with an energy sword manages to skim across my right wing leaving burn marks and cutting the feathers, destabilizing me and causing me to come crashing to the ground. I landed on my four hooves and folded the injured wing close to my side to lower risk of further damage to it.
One of the smaller ponies slashed his sharp weapon against my left foreleg creating a large scar across the leg. I don't want to say it but I yelped very much like a girl. It was due to surprise, not pain just so you know. The wound slowly spread, soaking the surrounding fur in red. I moved quickly; I punched the colt that cut me in my foreleg. He staggered back into another unicorn. Using my left wing, I opened the straps of my saddle bag. These wings are almost like fingers! I peered into the bag and spotted white strips of cloth.

It's a good thing I put some extra supplies in here yesterday. I whipped it out and lifted up my injured leg. With the help of my wings, I wrapped the bandage around my wound before my enemies could do much. I looked around at all of my opponents. I snarl at them as one of the unicorns runs head first at me. I shifted out of his path, but this guy was clever. He knew I was going to dodge at the last second. He jerked his head to the left and released his grip of his blade. It flies toward me; the tip of it aiming straight for my heart. I saw it just in time to back off enough for it to just barely cut the side of my chest. I decide to take a risky move and attack the source of this madness. As I run to tackle the unicorn, his horn glows pulling at my back right leg tripping me. Soon after, I am surrounded by my enemies. The rest are either momentarily knocked out or dead. A few hold me down as others damage my wings temporarily taking away my ability to fly. The ones not restricting me back off and form a semi circle as Eric walks up to me.

"Not so strong now are you?" Eric says with the smirk still on his face.

"You wouldn't hurt a girl, would you?" I smile back at him. His smirk drops into a frown.

"Well, aren’t you clever, anyways, I would like you to meet someone." he turns to the entrance of the Everfree forest, "You may come out now sir!" Out from the shadows, a unicorn appears. To be more specific, the unicorn that Applejack saw the night before. He had a coat as white as a cloud, and a mane as deep blue as the darkest depths of the sea. Wait, what is this? Poetry? Eh, doesn’t matter. His cutie mark was just like how Applejack had explained it. There was a perfect yellow circle with two curved red spikes and a green dull saw shape around it. I swear I know that symbol, I've defiantly seen it before. He walked over to me with a smile on his face.

"Hello Dragon, how are you doing?"

"What do you think? I'm being held down by ponies I believe to be elites, and I can feel my own blood soaking my fur like rain! To add to that, my wings are damaged, and don't forget me being a mare now." I stared coldly back at him.

"Hmm, that seems like a bad choice of words. Let's try again. How has your visit to Ponyville been?"

"Do you mean the entire time or just today? Because today has been extremely peculiar." I rested my chin on the ground, not taking my eyes off of him.

"Anyways, I bet you’re wondering why and how you changed gender." He steps to his right a bit, "I'd like you to meet a new acquaintance of mine, Trixie." Out of the shaded forest, a light blue mare appears. Her mane is an almost white blue color. She's the first pony I've seen wearing clothes other than Applejack with her hat. She has a pointed purple hat with multi-color stars decorating it, and a matching purple cape that obscures her cutie mark. She walks toward me and stops next to the other unicorn. She turns her head to him.

"I told you to call me the Great and Powerful Trixie!" She glares at him.

"Yes, I know, now would you mind explaining to Dragon your actions?" the unicorn said with slight irritation in his voice. He kept a straight face on as they both looked back at me.

"Alright, the Great and Powerful Trixie had turned you into a mare, so as to distract you so that you attempt to figure out how, wasting your day." She stared at me with a sinister grin on her face. "All part of the plan!"

The white unicorn spoke up, "Now, why did you help that pony Twilight escape? You could have easily run away without her. If it was for her to get help, well, you’re flat out of luck. She won't even be able to know where we are."

"I’m a Spartan, I make sure that civilians are safe, as that is my primary precaution. No matter what species they are, they shall be unharmed," I calmly reply.

He brought his left hoof to his chin, "hmm…, it seems you still know your Spartan training quite well despite being transformed into a pony," He put his hoof back down, "So, any last questions?"

"Yeah, who are you?"

He laughs softly, "Well, I am someone that you might just remember, but for now you will call me by my newly formed pony name Frost. If that is all," He motions to one of the ponies behind me, "have a nice sleep." Upon hearing that, I felt a sharp object prick my flank. Again, shamefully yelping like a girl. I turn my head to see a pony with a small needle-like object in his hooves. He has a black eye, and despite the swollen tissue, I could see the revenge he feels in those dark eyes of his.
"If you’re wondering what that is, to sum it up, it's a needle filled with knock out fluid." Oh no, not again. I began feeling lightheaded. I look up one last time to see Frost’s blurry smile. Then everything went black.
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Twilight ran as fast as she could. She had too in order to keep ahead of the two earth ponies that followed her.
I need to find Applejack she thought to herself. When she came in reach of Ponyville, she turned directions and headed toward Sweet Apple Acres. As she ran through town, some townsfolk saw the two ponies chasing her. Some thought they were Twilight's fans that wanted an autograph, while others thought Twilight must’ve had something they wanted like when she had tickets to the Grand Galloping Gala, again. They only watched for a few minutes before returning to their previous activity. Twilight kept running until she ran straight into Sweet Apple Acres barn. She head on crashed into a barrel that was nearby Applejack.

"Howdy Twilight! Are y’all Ok?" she looked at her friend.

Twilight rubbed her head, "Applejack! Help me! Those ponies are after me!" she pointed to the ponies that chased her. Twilight hid behind the barrel as Applejack walked over to them.

"You! Farm girl!" the pony on the right shouted at her, "Did you see a purple pony run in here?"

"What do y'all want wit mah friend?"

"Oh, if you’re her friend, then," the other pony started, "that means you two will be coming with us, GET HER!" The two ponies pounced at AJ. She leaped to her left causing them to skid across the dirt. As Applejack grabbed her rope off the hangers on the wall, the two stood back up. AJ spun the rope above her head and one of the earth ponies jumped at her. She tossed the end of the rope at him which wrapped around his legs. She pulled the rope, tightening it, and causing him to fall. He struggled at his bonds. He tried biting the rope but AJ used the rest of the rope to bind his muzzle shut. The other one stood there in shock at how fast she constrained his partner. He tried running but tripped and was bound in a similar manner. Twilight got up and walked over to Applejack.

"Wow AJ, you work fast."

"It's all in the practice Twi. Now to figure out why them ponies were after ya." she removed the binds off one of the ponies faces. Twilight questions him, "I know I escaped from that fight, but who are you ponies and why did you chase me!?"

"I'm not telling you anything!"

Twilight got real close to his face, "If you know what's good for you, you'll tell us all you know." Little fires lit up in her eyes, but did little to phase the alien ponies.

"Ha! You think you can threaten us into talking!? We're not like you simple ponies; we are both Sangheilis, a proud and powerful species. Everyone you saw at the entrance was a Sangheili except Eric and your friend Dragon, so don't expect to get anything out of them either! We chased after you because we were instructed to capture any witnesses, and I plan to do just that!" Twilight backed off, the elite pony attempting and failing to free himself of his bonds.

"You told me exactly what I needed to hear." A snide smile spread across her face.

He stops struggling with his bonds as he comes to a realization of what he just told them. "By the rings, Frost'll surely kill us for this slip-up of mine."

"Who's this 'Frost' character? Is he the boss of you're group?"

"There's no way I'd tell you who our leader is! He's a Sangheili as well, so no way am I giving up any more information than you already know!"

"Now I know your group commander's name and species, thank you very much! Anything else you want to, 'not tell me'?"

The Sangheili freezes up, his right eye twitching. Twilight turned toward Applejack, "Hey Applejack, could you watch over our prisoners? I have some research to do."

"Can do Twilight. Ah'll watch over our special guests." Twilight nodded then ran toward her library house. Once Twilight left the barn, Applejack stared down at the two, an idea formed in her head; a twisted smile creped onto her face. One of the Sangheili ponies gulped, knowing there was no escape from whatever the farm girl had in mind.

“Oh Granny Smith! There are some ponies here who would like to meet you!”

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Dragon's POV

I slowly regained conscience. After blinking a few times, I fully opened my eyes to see a cold stone floor. I moved my arms to get up. As I stared at them, I was quickly reminded that I was no longer a human for instead of hands they were orange hooves.

"So you’re finally awake."

Looking up, I saw the same blue mare from last time stare at me through aged iron bars. I looked around to find myself inside some kind of jail cell. There were stone brick walls on three sides, a stone floor and ceiling, a bale of hay in the corner, and iron bars with a metal gate before me.

I looked back at Trixie, "Where am I?"

"Trixie will not specify, but in short you are in a prison created by griffins."
Griffins? Aren't griffins those half bird, half lion creatures from old Greek stories? On the other hand, I mean hoof, this is a magical land with talking ponies. It's best to just go with it.

I had been lying on my side. I shuffled around and pushed myself up into a sitting position.

"Alright Trixie, I have one question for you."

"And what might that be?" she narrowed her eyes very slightly.

"Why are you helping these guys? They aren't you’re ordinary group of thugs. Did they even tell you that they aren't ponies?"

She tilted her head up slightly.

"Fine, Trixie will tell you want to know. The Great and Powerful Trixie is with these ponies because they promised me they would help me get revenge on Twilight." She closed her eyes as she frowned.

"Revenge on Twilight? What did she do?"

Trixie snapped her eyes open and stared at me. Her eyes sharpened as her anger built up.

"That purple witch humiliated me in front of the whole town! I can't even get near Ponyville without getting laughed at or insulted!" I sat there waiting for Trixie to calm down as she began to ramble on about, I believe, an Ursa major or something of the like. After about three minutes or so, she calmed down and looked at me.

"Now then, onto your next question. Yes, the leader of these ponies, Frost, did tell Trixie that they are an alien race called the... Um... The Sankheals? The Shankhalls? The Sanghelas? Maybe the Sharkhulls? Well, whatever they are, it's hard to say. Trixie thinks they have mental problems and Trixie has seen them fight though. They are good fighters and those glowing swords of theirs are almost as cool as the Great and Powerful Trixie." I rolled my eyes on her complement to herself.

"Anyways, Frost wants to talk to you so he'll be here sometime. You enjoy your stay here OK?" She smirked then turned away. As she walked around the corner, it appeared that she had some kind of clear border surrounding her. It must have been some kind of fresh air spell for it was musty in here. I estimate that he won't be here for a while. Much like a cat, I circled around before resting down in a laying position and seating my head on my hooves. I looked around the cell one last time before closing my eyes. I drift into an uneasy sleep.

Author's Notes:

Wow, it's been a while hasn't it? Well to those who are uninformed of my extreme lateness of release, I suggest you go on my profile, it should help explain.
Also, Samaru163, buddy, pal, friend, amigo, the only person to actually have cared about my story long enough for me to remember that I even had a story. I'd like to thank you for some encouraging words that helped me actually post something (although you didn't say much in fact, you still did help me.)
Now we have some progress, we have R63'd Dragon in captivity, the Great and Powerful Trixie (Think about how she was before season Three, that's the Trixie that this is), a new boss-like enemy guy, Twilight researching, and Applejack doing some sort of torture to the caught Elite Ponies.(She got Granny Smith so it's not going to be physical torture, just mental torture.)
I hope you enjoyed, also reading through what I wrote months ago makes me realize how many mistakes are in the first 2 chapters (There are so many!) and I will probably fix them eventually.

Once a Soldier, Always a Soldier

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I feel a rock smack into my forehead. I snap my eyes open. In front of me through the rusty iron bars, is a pure white unicorn who is roughly twice my current size. I recognize him as the deep voiced pony from earlier. I got a better look at him to see that he has a mangled dark red mane with his sharp horn pointing out.

He frowns down at me, a crude grey scar etched into the side of his face stands out. I notice his eyes squint, and his mouth forms a scowl.

"Time to get moving, the boss is ready for you." The bulky pony attempts to use that magic horn of his to take out the key, but it's obvious that he still doesn't know how as he keeps dropping the key. He growls at himself and I can hear him mutter under his breath "I'll never understand this blasted magic, don't know how the boss can do it so easily."

I move my hooves around to stand up and feel a tug just above the fetlocks. I look down at them to see blatantly obvious metal cuffs hindering my movements. How I didn't notice them earlier is a mystery to me, but I can see that these aren't as loose as human made cuffs. The cuffs are moderately tight and have a strong blue plasma string going between the two metal rings.

I shoot my head up at the sound of metal on stone. I see that the Elite pony has opened the heavy rusted gate. He stares at me and motions for me to exit the cell. I stand up and trot out the gate and see two other ponies to my left, both have red coats and have makeshift belts holding the shaft of an energy sword.

I'm assuming that these fine gentlecolts are going to be my escorts for the evening. How wonderful.

The large unicorn closes the gate and walks up in front of my face.

"Alright Demon, you're going to follow me this way, the boss won't like it if you're late." Apparently, this elite has been informed that I'm a Spartan, for that's what they call us, Demons. I am in very little shape to fight, but now isn't a good time to meet with their boss, Frost. I just know that we aren't going to have a friendly chat while drinking tea. I most likely won't be able to stand up against whatever Frost decides to do with me, and I don't want to see Eric's smug face as I'm dragged through the tests Frost has planned for me. So I will have to come up with a plan of escape fast.

I look down at my cuffs and then look over at the guard to my left. I notice that the guard's energy sword glows the same color as the energy string connecting the cuffs. Maybe the energy sword can destroy the energy on the cuffs... Well I don't have many options, and they probably want me alive, for now, so it's worth a shot.

In one quick movement, I jump the guard to my left and attempt to take the sword out using my mouth. The other guard quickly pulls out and activates his weapon. The deep voiced pony in front spins around and growls at me.

"You're not getting away that easily you Demon!" He roughly grabs my waist and pulls me off of his companion, but I pull free the first guard's energy sword. Although he throws me into the wall, causing both a crack in the wall and a rib or two. The sword flies out of my mouth and lands out of my reach. The deep voiced unicorn kicks the weapon far off before I could scramble over to it. I quickly slam my head into the side of his face, causing him to stumble and fall on his side. The guard who had been watching decides that now is a good time to strike. He charges and I barely manage to dodge his sword, but his blade grazes across my face directly under my left eye, causing a large cut to form. He attempts to slice me again and I drop below his swing and slam my cuffed hooves into his chest.

As he stumbles back, the large red unicorn comes into my view, he raised his left hoof and slams it heavily into the right side of my face. He then presses it against the wall in attempt to restrain me. I bring both of my front hooves over and to the back of his head and using the plasma wire, I pull down with his head smacking straight into the concrete floor. His hoof leaves my face and I jump over him toward the two other guards. I take a quick glace back to see the red pony lie unconscious on the floor. I turn back to the others and take a restrained fighting pose. The unarmed pony jumped at me first, swinging his hoof at my head. I swiftly ducked under it and brought both of my hooves into his face. He backed off as his friend took his place. He attempted stab me straight in the chest with his energy sword. I brought my hooves up just as the hot blade neared me. The sword melted through the metal cuffs and absorbed the energy connected the two cuffs together. The melted metal constraints fell onto the floor, freeing my hooves from their imprisonment.

Before he could realize what he had just done, I spun around and bucked him square in the chest, sending him barreling into his partner. I quickly ran off down the corridor and took a turn right. I could hear foot, er hoofsteps not too far behind me. I take a left and then I notice a door to my right. I quickly push it open and close it behind me. I can hear the hoofsteps of the two guards as they run past the door in search.

After I can no longer hear their hoof falls, I look around the room. There will most likely be other ponies in the place, so I will need some way to sneak past them all. hmm.... Hey, is that the royal guard armor I've been seeing occasionally? Why would the elites have this? Looking around the room a bit more, I notice that the armor is the only thing that has any use to me. I walk over to the royal guard armor and begin putting it on.

After placing on the Golden Greek Spartan look alike helmet, I examined myself and was quickly reminded of all of the damage I've endured, and how much blood I've lost. Remembering the still bleeding cut on my cheek, I look around and find a white cloth sitting on top of pile of crates. It's a bit dirty, but it'll have to do for now. I pick up the cloth and press it against my cut, slowing down the blood flowing out. After a minute or two, I remove the cloth from my face and glanced at the blood soaked rag before hiding it behind the crates.

Leaning my head against the door, I listen for any noise that is out of the ordinary. I hear nothing strange on the other side. I push open the door slowly and then walk on down the corridor taking turns around different corners, following the crudely drawn signs pointing toward the entrance. Surprisingly enough, I didn't run into anyone else along the-

"HEY! You get back here!" Glancing behind me, I see the two ponies from earlier running toward me. Turning my head back around, I dash forward down the hallways in the direction of the entrance. I can hear them getting steadily closer, I need to escape soon, because my damaged stature can't handle running for much longer.

At last I can see the entrance to this cave/lair, escape is in my sights.

Running out to the daylight, or rather limited daylight due to the large mass of trees surrounding me. I can lose my followers in this forest for sure. I just have to weave around these trees. I can still hear the hoofsteps of the ponies on my tail, but they seem to be having trouble going around the trees. After a while I hear a thud and taking a quick look, I see that one of the ponies got tripped by a root from one of the trees. The other completely ignores the other and continues his pursuit.

Ahead of me shows that the trees go on for quite a long time, but the farther I go in, the thicker the treetops are and the darker the forest is. I take a sharp left and hide behind a large tree in one of the darkest spots I saw. Falling for my trick, the elite runs past me, most likely thinking I kept on running.

I wait until I couldn't see nor hear him before getting out of my hiding spot. I look around and search for any indication of which way leads out of the dark forest. A bit far off in the distance to my right, I see a light coming from out of the treetops. It seems as good idea as any, so I start my walk toward the strange light.

As I near it, I notice that it is a small clearing, and one of the only areas I've seen in this forest that has so much light coming in. Walking into the clearing, I can see a small pond almost directly in the center of the area. I walk up to it and I see that there appears to be an impression in the grass next to the pond. The impression seems to belong to a pony, who ever was here, was here for quite a while. Anyway, deciding I should take a drink I walk up to the edge of the pool and peer in. For a split second I can see the reflection of a brown furred pony with jet black hair, how odd.

I bend down and go to put my hands in the pool to cup water in my palms, but I was quickly reminded that I don't have hands or palms to do that. Well, I guess I'm going to have to have to be a bit of an animal for this. Dipping my head down into the pond, I drink up some of the water and, for some reason, I can taste sadness. Can water even hold emotions? I'm probably just imagining things, I mean I can barely feel emotions myself, so I doubt water can.

Taking my head out of the pool, I search around for any indication on how the pony that left the indentation had gotten here or if there was anything pointing toward civilization. Looking over at a nearby tree, I notice that there is something etched into it. I trot over to it and see that there is an arrow pointing forward and it read "Ponyville" underneath. Seeing as I don't have anything else to work with, I hope that this sign reigns true. I walk into the dark in the indicated direction.

After about an hour of uneventful walking, I see the edge of the forest, finally. Looking around, I notice a surprising amount of royal guards everywhere. Odd. Hmm... I'm not sure how long I've been in that cave/lair, but I'm sure that Twilight made it back to Ponyville. If I ask around, I should find her, she'd be too predictable if she went to her house. There were some of the Elites following her. Maybe I can knock on peo-I mean- ponies doors to see if they know anything. Although if I go to that bakery I heard about, there's a larger chance that Twilight could be there, or at least someone who knows where she is. I mean it is said to be a very popular place. Now where could it be.... oh wait, it's probably the gingerbread house looking building right over there.

I walk up to the door and push it open. Upon entering, I can see sweets of all kinds, cookies, cake, candy, and cupcakes. I walk up to the front counter. There doesn't seem to be anyone around. Almost as if by magic, the pink puffy haired mare from yesterday appeared.

"Hi! I'm Pinkie Pie! What do you need? Do you want a cake? Because I'm making a cake for somepony who's new to Ponyville and I want to throw a super duper party for him! I was going to have it yesterday, but Mrs. Cake said that we couldn't because we were getting more batter for more cakes..." She sure talks nonstop, if I want to get any information, I need her to stop talking.

"*Ahem* ma'am," she stops mid-sentence.

"Yes officer?"

"I actually came here to ask you some questions." Her smile disappears from her face.

"But why? I didn't do anything wrong." She puts her hoof to her mouth, "Although I accidental made Spike fall down the stairs that one time..." she narrows her eyes to ponder.

"Don't worry ma'am, you're not in any trouble, I just need to ask you a few things, that's all" She opens her eyes and puts her hooves back down.

"Oh, sorry, so what do you want to ask?" her perky smile returns.

"Have you seen a purple mare recently?"

"I have, but which on are you looking for? Cause I know Cheerilee, Berry Punch, her daughter Ruby, although she's more pink than purple..."

"The mare is also a unicorn."

"Then you must mean Twilight! She normally secludes herself in the library. But yesterday she was with somepony new!" Behind me I can hear the door swing open. I turn to see a royal guard standing at the entrance.

"Soldier! What are you doing here? I saw you come out of the Everfree Forest!" Oh, I really should have thought this before hand, I need to come up with a believable story, and fast.

"Sir, I was on patrol in the Forest," I started.

"Alright, but the Princess is having a meeting with all the royal guards, follow me." He motioned with his hoof.

"Sir yes sir!" I reply with a salute, slightly out of habit, even though I should really go find Twilight, and I'm not actually a royal guard.

"Now soldier, what's your name?"

"Sergeant Cloud sir."

"Ok, what were you doing here?" The guard asks me. Pinkie starts hopping up and down,

"Oh oh! I know this one! She came here for cake! Wait," she stops bouncing, "I asked her if she wanted a cake, she asked if I know Twilight!"

"Why were you looking for Miss Sparkle?" his eyes narrowed slightly.

"Well, that isn't easy to explain, I-"

"Come with me. I think I know enough about you." He turned and I followed behind.

"Bye! I hope to see you again miss officer!" Pinkie Pie waved at us.
------------------------------------------

The Royal guards stood lined up in many rows in the Canterlot Courtroom, filling in all but one area leading from the giant doors to the thrones. At the front of it was the co-rulers of Equestria, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna.

Luna seemed worried, "Sister, is this really necessary? We don't know much about this alien, and the reported attacks could have been by monsters."

Celestia looked at her, "We do know that this alien at least has an appearance of a pegasus, and that my apprentice has been with the alien throughout these two days. Also, we know what his appearance is," she turned back to the guards,

"Good evening soldiers, you have heard that a large metal object has fallen from the sky. One of your comrades saw a pony under it and a few hours later, we found this."
She pulled out a plasma gun and levitated it in front of her.

"We're not sure what it exactly is, but we know it is a weapon of some kind. Also, somepony must have been attacked near Everfree Forest, for there are evidence such as skid marks in the ground and burns in the dirt and trees. We also found some kind of small metal handle," she levitated Dragon's energy sword, "we're not sure what this is ether, but it was found next to an imprint in the grass with dried blood stuck to some of the blades of grass and dirt below it." She put the weapons down. "if anypony finds any more evidence of this alien, send it straight to me."

Dragon's POV

The royal guard and I walk out of Sugarcube Corner. He glares at me, "alright Sergeant Cloud, who are you really?" I stand my ground.

"That's classified, if you want to get anything out of me, you're going to need to try harder."

He snorts, "Fine, I'll take you to the princess, she'll get it out of you."

"How are we going to get to the princess? Doesn't she live in a castle far away from here?" I saw a demonic grin appear on his face. I quickly spun around and ran for it, knowing full well that the following events will not end in a good manner.
I was stopped by some kind of magical barrier that restricts my movements. I push on the barrier to no prevail. The guard walks up in front of me with his grin still on his face. I hadn't noticed before but he has a shining horn sticking out of his helmet. He signals over a pegasus guard and whispers something in his ear. The guard nods and walks away, behind one of the buildings. He returns with another pegasus guard and a gold plated white carriage. The unicorn guard roughly throws me with his magic into the carriage. No matter how much I struggle, I can't break his magical grip. He gets in next to me as the pegasi harness up. When they are done, they take off toward the far-off castle.

The trip was uneventful except for my attempts at escape ending in failure. We land in front of a large section of the castle with oversized double doors. The unicorn steps out of the carriage and drags me to the door. The magic border around me fades away.

I think about my options of escape. 1. Jump off the edge to the ground hundreds of feet down with damaged wings 2. Running down the walkway into the larger section of the castle most likely getting caught by other guards. Neither of these options seem reasonable, especially the first one. I decide that the best option is to not attempt escape and meet this world's ruler. I've meet the royalty of other species before... Although, they have been quite ugly.

"Ok, move it, into the building," the guard interrupts my thoughts. He pushes me through the doors into a huge room. Within the room are rows of royal guards and a red carpet leading up to large white pony. She has a light multicolor mane that seems to sparkle and glow and somehow it dramatically wavers in some nonexistent wind. Much like other ponies, she has a cutie mark resembling the sun, although hers appears to be larger and almost luminous. On top of her head is a large golden tiara with a jewel embedded within it.

Unlike other ponies, she has both giant wings and a long horn. She's both a pegasus and a unicorn... a pegacorn? or a unisus? Whatever. Sitting next to her is another pegacorn, or whatever they are. She has a dark blue coat color and her hair is a lighter shade. Her cutie mark is hard to determine but it appears to be a crescent moon in the night sky. She also has a tiara but this one wasn't golden. In fact, it is completely black with a thin blue border. They're obviously royalty, though I'm not sure if they are queens or princesses. Either way, everypony in the room turn their attention onto me. The guard behind me pushs me along the carpet. I stop before the royal pair.

The guard speaks up, "Princesses," he starts solving my inner question, "this mare here has been impersonating a royal guard."

"Do you have evidence?" the white pegacorn speaks in a majestic regal tone.

"Yes, I do your highness, I saw her walk out of the Everfree Forest after we sent the restriction of entering to all the guards after that earlier report. Also, she went into Sugarcube Corner and asked Miss Pie where your student, Miss Sparkle, was without giving us a reason."

"Hmmm..." the princess stands up from her throne and walks over to me. I wait with my usual frown donned upon my face. She stares at me looking from the top of my helmet to the bottom of my hooves. She seems to be looking for something. I open my mouth to speak, but stop when I begin to feel a warm liquid slide down my right wing. It continues down, then drips off onto the tiled floor. It makes a tiny 'plop' noise that echos throughout all corners of the silent room. I close my mouth and look at where the unknown fluid is. There is a thin red streak coming from the base of my wing leading to a small red puddle on the tiled floor.

The princess's horn glows as I feel my armor be tugged at. The straps loosen and fall free. Both my helmet and body armor is lifted up off of my body. My mane falls freely from underneath the golden helmet. The princess makes a small gasp as she stares at my battered form. I have known of my destroyed state, for I can still feel the intense pain radiating from every point of my body. What keeps me going is the reminder from my coach in physical training say, 'the injured who complain will be killed on the battlefield, the injured who push through will live and continue until an honorable death or aid to their health.' More warm liquid slides down my legs and wings. Despite this, the princess seems to be more focused on my cutie mark and color scheme. She broke the silence,

"You're the alien, aren't you?" Wait, what did she just ask?

"What? What makes you say that?"

"Our records on an alien that had appeared yesterday tells of a male pegasus with an orange coat and dark orange mane color. This extraterrestrial's cutie mark is two blue lightning bolts much like yours." A few of the royal guards start talking among one another.

"Wait a minute, you said male pegasus, not mare." More of the guards start their own little side conversations.

"Well it appears that the writer of our observations of you had written one letter wrong. Instead of male, he must have meant mare." The guards side conversations grew in size. I shift my eyes around to see the guards.

"Then I demand to see these papers of yours right now!" I finish by slamming my bandaged hoof on the ground. That was a stupid mistake. A shock of extreme electric pain was sent through my foreleg. I try to ignore the pain, but it was too great and I collapse onto the floor in my puddles of red. For the first time in years, I feel weak and defenseless. The princess lightly places her hoof on my head. I look up to see her face with a look of half fear, half sorrow. She is probably afraid of me because I am not from this planet and I had arrived with weapons and a disguise. She probably holds sorrow for me because of the quite obvious pain that I am showing.

"I have many questions for you," she speaks, "But you need medical attention so that can wait until later."
I look around one last time to see royal guards running up to me, but I become light headed... Hey, I can see bubbles! Hah ha, Bubbles. My eye lids close slowly as I lose consciousness.

...Aren't bubbles, like, so pretty?...

Author's Notes:

Yay, a new chapter! Also, if you were wondering why I have taken some time in between this chapter and the last one, I often don't have any time to work on it, especially with school going on and the fact that I have so many stories planned in my head. I may have a new story up this week, so that'll be fun. Oh, and Silent Scout brought up the idea of having a proofreader. Well I was going to have my friend Corsoosroc be my proofreader because I was his, until he abruptly stopped writing. So at the current moment, it's just me and my thoughts making this along with whatever criticism I get from the comments on here.

EDIT: Some of you may notice that I changed a large portion of this chapter (and added to it quite a bit). I did this because I decided to change the story from Dragon being saved by fillies (What was I thinking) to saving himself. I mean he is a Spartan, he should know how to save himself from those situations. Also I put a major reference to Corsoosroc's story, Owner of a Lonely Heart, when Dragon is in the forest. If you get that reference then a big Brohoof to you.

If Only He Could Respawn

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"How is she nurse?" a familiar voice said.

"She's fine for now, her heart rate is starting to return to normal."

"What is wrong with her?"

"There are multiple conditions," the rustling of paper could be heard, "both of her wings are broken. Her right wing has severe burns on the tip and some feathers. Most of the feathers on the right are damaged or missing. The left wing is missing a few feathers but nothing too major there. Her right forearm is broken and there are many cracks in the bones. She has three broken ribs and multiple cracked ones. She has other minor cuts, scrapes and bruises. She also had major blood loss mostly caused by a large cut along her left hoof, a long cut under her left eye, and large cuts and bruises at the base of her wings." The sound of soft wood hitting a marble table echoed in my ear.

"Your friend is very lucky the Princess was able to help her in time, she had reached Class 3 Hemorrhage. We've stopped all the cuts from bleeding, but until we determine her blood type, we can't help her there, although we should know what it is within a few hours. Also, she is going to need to drink lots of fluids when she wakes up."

"When will she wake up?"

"The anesthesia we gave her won't wear off for a few more hours, but depending on her metabolism of drugs, it could wear off sooner than that." The voices faded leaving silence in my head.

As the voices disappeared, something else arrived in its place. Something much darker and much quieter. In the dark I could see the figure of a dark blue pegacorn, or unisus, whatever they're called. It's face is blurry but seemed familiar. The pegacorn starts walking toward me. As it nears, it's face begins to clear up, and now I can see that it's... the blue princess from earlier?

"Why hello, so sorry for intruding on your dream." she raises a hoof to her chest, "I am Princess Luna, ruler of the night." She smiles at me, waiting for a response.

"I have a question for you, how did you get inside my dream? Isn't the huma- I mean, pony mind an individual's privacy? Plus entering someone's mind isn't an easy thing to do, an old ally of mine had tried once before with no such luck."

"Being the ruler of the night, I am also the watcher of dreams, I can enter the dream of anypony I wish. Although I mainly only enter nightmares to aid the dreamer overcome their fears. Now, follow me, because I can see you have an issue, one you've told no one before." I'm not quite sure if this is the real princess, or if she is even actually saying the truth, but I follow her none the less.

As we walk through the darkness on an invisible floor, I notice that off in the distance, there appears to be a white screen of sorts. Once we get close enough, I can see that the white screen is actually a movie screen. I stop and stare at the screen for a moment before looking back at Luna. She laughs lightly at my confused look.

"With the movie screen before you, I will show you your deepest fears that you try to hide. Please, sit down, this will take a while before it's over." The princess wasn't kidding, since I don't have an obvious and simple fear like Arachnophobia, the movie goes on for roughly what would be an hour in real life. In a short summary of the film's contents, my deepest darkest fears are related to human, or rather, pony emotions and my other self. While my emotions were restrained years ago after the incident, the things I remember my other self saying and doing spark into my head from time to time, despite the fact that I had my amnesia after it happened. Even though they are restricted within my mind, my emotions are still there, and they could flare up in certain conditions. And I fear that they will take control of me, which can only lead to Him.

"Do you see now what you have been hiding from yourself, and from others? The other you, the darker more chaotic you may be there, but trying to bottle your emotions up and avoid confliction will only harm you later on. You must learn to control yourself and not be in constant fear of the other you. When the time comes, you must be able to help yourself. Do you see this now?" I turn my head away from the princess, "You can't keep hiding forever Dragon, because if you do, you will end up hurting those around you."

Before things progressed, the dream world began to fizzle and swirl. I regained conscience in the real world.

I slowly open my eyes to see a puffy pink haired mare happily stare back at me. She notices my awakening and opens her mouth.

"Twilight! Twilight! She's waking up! Your friend that I didn't know until today when she asked me if I know you, is awake! Twilight! Twilight!" she hops out of view as the voice from earlier shushes her. I sit up with my back laying on a fluffy pillow. I look around the room I am in. A few of the ponies I had meet over the past few days are within the room. In the corner is Rainbow Dash who is sitting on the floor. Pinkie Pie is being scolded by a white pony with pink hair, a red cross cutie mark, and a head band with her cutie mark on it. Fluttershy sits nervously in one of the chairs to my right. Seated next to her is Rarity. She has a simple but elegant smile seemingly waiting for me. The grey coated mare, I believe her name to be Derpy, who had crashed into me, sits with Nova Rain, the filly which I met on the same day. In the chairs to my left, Twilight sits patiently with two objects in the chair next to her.

I quickly examine myself to find that I can't move my right forearm, my left has a slightly red bandage, I am wearing a hospital gown, and I have a nasal cannula allowing more oxygen into my system. Twilight sits up and walks over to my bed. The two objects floating next to her.

"Hello Dragon! How are you feeling?" I rub my right foreleg with my left, feeling the presence of a cast.

"I could be better," I reply. Twilight levitates the two objects onto the bed into my view. I look at the objects. One of them is a vial filled near to the brim with a pink liquid. The other is a book.

"What's the bottle for?" I ask.

"This is for you! It's to turn you back to a stallion! Or at least that's what it should do."

"Why is it pink?"

"It ended up like that when I mixed in the Reversal Rose. I could add food coloring if you want."

"Nah, it's fine," I wrap my left hoof around the potion, "now, uh, this is safe, right?" I stare through the glass at the pink fluid inside.

"Well I only had one day to work on it, so it might be."

"It might be?"

"I didn't have anything to go off of! I've never run into a problem such as this before!" Still holding onto the bottle, I continue staring into it until a white hoof quickly wraps around the top and pulls it from my grasp. I look up to see the nurse from before that scolded Pinkie Pie.

"I will hold onto this potion until after you heal. We don't know what it will do to you in your crippled state." She speaks gently but firmly clarifying her point. She turns and places the vial on the side table next to the bed. She looks back at me.

"Now Miss Cloud, we can't find your medical records for Ponyville. Do you know where you have your records at? Maybe in your house?"

I have medical records, for my HUMAN form. If I give her my records, she'll notice that I'm not a pony or that I'm even the same gender. I need to come up with something fast. It would probably be cliché if I said that it flew out a window. Just as a bead of sweat starts to drip down my temple, Twilight speaks up for me,

"Nurse, my friend here is new to Ponyville and her medical records were destroyed by my carelessness when I was practicing a spell before I could get them to you. I will take full blame." The nurse glares at Twilight for a moment, "alright Miss Sparkle, since you are the apprentice of the Princess, I will let it slide. I hope that your studies go well and that you don't destroy anything else. We now need to create a new medical record for Miss Cloud."

She turns back to me, "Miss Cloud, I will come later today to ask you a few questions and when you are well enough, I will do some test. Now remember that you need to drink lots of fluids if you want to get better and try to move as little as possible, Your ribs are quite damaged." she turns around and walks to the door.

"Oh, and Miss Sparkle, visiting hours end soon, so you and the others will need to leave in about half an hour."

"Ok, thank you," the nurse leaves the room. I continue staring at the door for a few moments.

"So dear," I shift my head to the right toward Rarity, "how did you get injured this badly? It hasn't even been a day since the first time we met!" I rub the back of my head before opening my mouth,

"Well you see, that's quite a long story, let's just say I met up with someone I didn't really want to see and things didn't end well." Twilight's really the only one who has any clue as to what has happened, but she doesn't know all of it.

"Dragon, what happened after I left? I've never seen somepony with this many injuries before!" Twilight got up in my face, obviously concerned about my well being. I push her back a bit with my left hoof.

"To quickly sum it up, I ran into someone I apparently know but don't remember, he decided to call himself Frost for right now, and then I met that brash light blue pony, uh, Trixie I think."

Twilight interrupts, "Trixie? So that's why she's in Ponyville, but why would she side with your enemies?"

"Well she told me it was because they could help her get revenge on you, Twilight. She seemed to be really angry at you because you apparently showed her up last year."

"I wasn't trying to show her up, I was protecting Ponyville from an Ursa Minor that Snips and Snails led here."

"An Ursa Minor? Isn't that a constellation? How would that cause problems for Ponyville?"

"Well I don't know how it is where you're from, but an Ursa Minor is a physical bear that is a clear blue, it's quite large and there are stars dotted all over its body."

"So it's a giant see through bear... well okay then." I respond.

"Precisely," Twilight replies, "now Dragon, do you think you can handle being in the hospital for a few days? It seems that it'll be a while before they'll let you leave, you took quite a beating."

"I think I'll be fine, but Frost and Eric are still out there, plotting something."

"Don't worry, I'm sure we can help you if they come for you." Twilight says, partially reassuring. "Alright girls, we should give Dragon some time to rest, I'll visit you again later Dragon." Everyone in the room wave and say their goodbyes before exiting the room, Rarity is the last to leave.

"Try not to stress yourself too much darling," she says before leaving through the doorway. I lie back on the pillow of the hospital bed. I won't be able to do much of anything, but what if Eric or one of Frost's army go after Twilight or her friends? I wouldn't be there to help them. And if they decided to come after me, I'm in such a vulnerable state that they could easily finish me off or kidnap me again. Before I could really get into my thoughts, I heard a knocking at the door. I sit up and see the last person-er-pony I'd want to see. Standing at the doorway was Eric dressed up in a doctor outfit.

"The Doctor is in," He says, an obvious smirk on his face.

"Eric? What the hell are you here for?" I attempt to get up to confront him.

"Now now Dragon, you shouldn't move too much, you don't want to hurt yourself more than you already have." He walks up next to the bed, I glare at him as I try to not lunge at him and damage myself further.

"Why are you here?" I say through gritted teeth.

"Well Miss Cloud, oh do you mind if I call you that?" he chuckles lightly, "I am here to tell you how well things are going for us now that our biggest threat will be resting broken in a hospital. Also because I wanted to see my favorite person or should I say pony and see you in such a weak state. Doesn't it feel so weird being so defenseless?" He grins as he mocks my damaged pony form. He isn't wrong, this is the first time in many years that I've been as defenseless as I am now.

"We always have such fun conversations, don't we Dragon? Well it's time for me to go and you know, makes plans with Frost. As a friend, I recommend getting plenty of sleep, but as your enemy, it doesn't matter if you do because you can't stop us either way." He laughs at his own joke as he walks over to the door. "Oh, and Dragon, say hi to your purple friend for me she seemed like such a nice girl." he adds before walking out and closing the door behind him.

The Fire of a Spartan

by FIREDRA6ON

The Arrival (Fixed/Extended)

A Sudden Change (Again)

Pretty Clever Name, Right?

Once a Soldier, Always a Soldier

If Only He Could Respawn