> The Peaceful Warrior: Jedi in Training
>  by Valiant Knight
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Pros and Cons
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"A lightsaber is an interesting weapon. A blade unique in the history of warfare. A paradox, not unlike the Jedi who wield it: those peaceful warriors, who kill in the service of life. Have you ever noticed? The blade is round. It has no edge. But it is a lightsaber—which means it is nothing but edge. There is no part of this blade that does not cut. Curious, yes? Symbolic, one might say."
―Vergere (Jedi Knight)


<<<==>>>


"Woah! Cool costume!" Some guy in the convention crowd called to Paul as he walked past.

Paul cast a nod to the man, after all, his Jedi costume was pretty cool. He had spent months looking for the perfect cloak. He had found it on ThinkGeek for fifty seven bucks, and it was well worth it. He also had the same cloth pants and tunic as a Jedi, as well as the boot-like shoes. Right now, he had the hood down to show off his self-made Padawan braid. 

Sadly, there was no way to replicate a lightsaber in any realistic way beyond the models you could find online. So he had to settle for one of those. Other than that, the only thing throwing off his cosplay was a backpack that housed his laptop, water, snacks, and other essentials such as a copy of his favorite book series, The Chronicles of Narnia, just to pass the time during lulls in activity.

Right now, Paul was at Comic-Con International 2015 cosplaying as his OC Jedi, a human from Naboo named Palus, a Jedi Sentinel in training. He was there for the big reveal of the new teaser for Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

As he neared the center of the convention floor, he looked around to catch sight any other cool costumes around him. Instead, he noticed a small booth heavily laden with wares. The goods covered the tables, hung over all the walls, and even lay stacked on the ground.

As Paul moved closer, he could make out individual replica items ranging from Batman's tool belt, to Mjolnir, to... 

That can't be right... Paul thought. He saw a lightsaber handle, and it looked just liked he pictured Palus' to be.

There's no way. He insisted to himself. It has to be the biggest coincidence.

So he moved over to the little booth and picked it up from where it lay on the ground, cast aside.

"Excuse me sir?" He asked getting the attention of the man on the other side of the table. "How much for this?"

The man scoffed before answering. "That trinket? I would only ask five dollars at most for such a trivial item."

Paul, wondering how the man could dislike the beautiful lightsaber handle, pulled his wallet out of the hidden pocket with his personal items, including his phone, iPod, and Comic-Con pass.

He payed the man, then took off his backpack and opened it up. He placed his old lightsaber replica in there, then put the bag back on and looked to the new purchase.

It was exactly as he imagined it. It was a chrome colored double bladed lightsaber handle with many ridges running the two feet of length, but had a smooth, grippable, two handed handle. Too bad he couldn't figure out the blade color. Oh well, he could always use his imagination and say it was the same yellow as Palus' lightsaber.

As he began to walk off, he held the lightsaber handle and toyed with it, splitting into its two halves and putting them back again. After he put it back together one time, his thumb eventually found the activation switch.

He continued messing around a bit with it, when his thumb activated the switch, and a curious thing happened.

The twin-bladed yellow lightsaber hummed to life, sprouting three foot beams of superheated plasma from either end.

As Paul stared in shock, he saw a flash of light and he blacked out.


<<<==>>>


As Paul awoke, he sat up and looked around at his immediate surroundings. He was in a lightly wooded area, and there was a dirt path leading around a bend ahead of him.

As he stood, Paul felt like he was being watched, so he looked around through the trees to see if anyone was there. 

No, that's not quite right. He decided. 

He wasn't being watched, but he could tell that there was something nearby. A lot of somethings. 

He momentarily put it out of his mind as he remembered the lightsaber.

He quickly turned his eyes to the ground and scanned for the blade. He saw it and reached down to pick it up.

Once he did so, he turned it over in his hand, looking at it. He tentatively gripped it and activated the blades, being careful not to point either end at himself.

Once again, it hummed to life in front of him. The yellow blades were mesmerizing, causing him to lose focus for a second. He dropped the saber and it turned itself off as it left his hand.

Paul shook back to reality when the blades went dark, and he leaned down to pick it up. He decided to put in further study later, and find civilization now. After all, there was a path here, so people couldn't be too far away, right?

It suddenly dawned on him that he had been dumped in the middle of nowhere by some guy at Comic-Con after purchasing a functioning lightsaber from him that looked exactly the same as his Jedi OC's did. How crazy would this day get?

He remembered his phone and grabbed it out of the pocket to check cell reception, but found that that he had no signal, so he put it back and decided to get moving.

Paul shook his head and went to follow the path when he noticed his backpack on the ground, so he picked it up, dusted it off, and put it on before heading out.


<<<==>>>


An hour later, Paul was a ways down the path, and still had the same feeling that there was a crowd around. However, as he continued, he felt two larger presences nearby, and it unnerved him, as they seemed primal, feral even.

He was walking, wondering why he could sense so many things nearby, and what these two new ones might be, when he glanced into the treeline and saw a pair of glowing green eyes.

He stopped and looked at whatever it was, when he sensed sudden movement directly behind him. He instinctively turned and held up his hands in a defensive position while clamping his eyes shut, but when nothing happened, he risked a glance.

What he saw baffled him in two ways, firstly, what it was, secondly, what it was doing.

First was that he thought it was some sort of coyote or something, but made out of wood and held together by a green energy.

Second, it was just floating there, squirming and gnashing its jaws at him.

Paul dropped his hands to grab his lightsaber, and it fell to the ground. He almost missed the correlation. 

I was doing that! He thought. I was holding up the thing with my hands, just like a Jedi!

He noticed the coyote thing running at him again, and sensed the first one moving behind him. So he drew his lightsaber, split it in two, and held the two blades out, one at either threat. Paul knew he stood little chance against them, as he had no skill with a blade, but they didn't know that, and he used that to his advantage. He maintained an air of confidence, trying to appear unfazed.

The coyotes seemed to realize the danger of the weapons, and halted their attacks about five meters away. They began to circle around Paul, lunging occasionally, probing for weaknesses in his defense.

After long, tense minutes that felt likes days, the second one jumped at him, and he brought around both sabers, slashing into it by pure luck. The coyote's yelp was cut off as it was split down the middle and Paul was misted with a small amount of sap.

He quickly turned back to the first one as it growled and continued to circle him. However, when it got to its fallen brethren, it stopped. It completely turned away from Paul and sniffed the corpse of the dead tree coyote. After a couple seconds of sniffing, it lifted its head and howled a wail of agony into the sky.

When the howl died away, the beast turned back to Paul and growled. It lunged at him and he brought his lightsabers around. One of them struck the coyote thing in its left front leg, the other took off half of its muzzle.

However, the coyote landed on him and brought them both crashing to the ground. The beast tried to bite down on him with its jaws, but they were no longer there, so it used its undamaged front leg to gash Paul's left arm open.

"AAAAHHHHH!!!" He screamed as the claw ripped through his cloak, his tunic, and then his arm.

His lightsaber fell from his left hand, deactivating. His right, however, brought up its blade and slashed through the beast as if it were butter.

*Thump*

The head hit the ground...

*THUMP*

Followed by the rest of the body.

Paul deactivated his lightsaber and pushed to his feet using his good arm. 

"Stupid dog thing," he said as he kicked the body.

He leaned down and grabbed his saber off the ground, taking it to move his left arm too much as he put the halves together and clipped it to his belt.

Having done this, he carefully pulled his arm out of the torn sleeve, then ripped the fabric off at the shoulder to use as a tourniquet and slow the blood running from the six inch gash on his arm. The gash was deep enough to be pushing out blood at an alarming rate.

Dream or no, he thought after he had put it on. That hurt like a mother.

He continued walking down the path and began wondering what was actually going on in his head. He was now convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was dreaming due to the absurdity of such creatures as the ones that attacked him.


<<<==>>>


About forty five minutes later, Paul began to sense more presences nearby. He had done some thinking as he walked and figured that, as a Jedi, he could sense any living creature, plant, or animal. That sounded about right to him for dream logic. He figured that was why he felt like he was constantly in a crowd. He was surrounded by trees the whole time.

These new ones weren't like the wooden beasts had been. These were peaceful and tranquil. Well, for the most part. There was one that was so all over the place that he had no idea what to even think. He could tell, however, that there was something off about all them. 

I wonder what my dream is preparing for me here... He thought as he drew closer to civilization.

Five or so minutes later, he staggered round a bend and caught sight of civilization. Even with the tourniquet, he had lost so much blood that he could hardly see straight anymore. He stopped and stared. There were medieval looking buildings mixed in with somewhat modern buildings and technology.

That's not what he was staring at though. No, he was staring at the inhabitants, none of which had noticed him yet, thankfully. They were all small pastel colored horses. Some had horns, some had wings and flew, and some were just regular small pastel colored horses. Well, as "regular" as he thought that could be.

He stood flabbergasted at where in his brain this had come from. He had never even heard of this kind of thing before.

 I must be hallucinating from the blood loss, he thought.

He eventually stumbled forward towards the town full of small colorful horses, trying to get their attention. He only achieved his goal by falling on his face loud enough for one of the inhabitants to hear him and look over.

As Paul's vision started to fade, he saw the horse run towards him, yelling over its shoulder.

Wait, he thought. Why is it yelling over.. it's shoulder? His thoughts became cloudy. Silly horses... you can't... talk. Talking... is for people!

And with that final thought, he lost all semblance of consciousness.


<<<==>>>


Twilight Sparkle had been having a good day. Sure, she had to meet with the mayor and discuss the library's funding, but other than that, it was a fairly nice day. Certainly nicer than the previous day when Pinkie forgot her own birthday. Now that had been an interesting day, to say the least.

"So I think that about wraps it up," the mayor said.

"Thank you, I--" Twilight was cut off by Rainbow Dash crashing through the doors of the mayor's office. 

Twilight jumped up out of her chair and turned to Rainbow to ask what was wrong, but was cut off. Rainbow started talking faster than Twilight thought even Pinkie could, and Twilight couldn't understand a word she was saying. She seemed to be spewing random nonsense, and she was frantic.

"Rainbow!" Twilight yelled, cutting the pegasus off mid-sentence. "I need you to speak slowly. What happened?"

"Okay," she took a deep breath."I was taking a short break from bucking clouds when I heard a pony call for help. So I flew as fast as I could over to the pony and saw this weird thing lying on the ground, and one its forelegs was covered in blood. The pony said that he had heard the thing fall over, and it wasn't moving when I got there, so I came to get you, because you always know what to do when something weird happens in Ponyville."

She gasped for air after speaking so much in one breath.

"Where?!" Twilight called back as she ran for the door.

"The road to Whitetail woods! It's on the outskirts of town!" Rainbow called after her before collapsing in a heap from all the adrenaline wearing off.

Twilight, however, was just having it flood her system as she teleported towards where Rainbow had said it was.

Twilight got as close as she could with one teleport, then opted to run the rest of the way.

I hope I'm not too late! She thought. I'm not going to let an innocent creature die on my watch!

She rounded the last bend, where a crowd of ponies had gathered.

"Look out," she yelled as she approached. "I'm here to help save it!" 

The crowd began to part a little bit as she approached.

"Move! Get out of my way!" She yelled.

More of the crowd moved.

"I said, 'Get out of the way!'" She repeated.

Finally, the whole circle of ponies opened up to reveal Dr. Scalpel mending the creatures gash on its foreleg.

Twilight stopped in her tracks, her help wasn't needed here, somepony else had already taken care of it.

She felt odd, not being the hero for once. She had already saved Equestria and Ponyville from a few disasters since her arrival, and she felt... bad... No, it wasn't bad, it was just odd, yes odd. She felt odd because she wasn't the hero this time.

She turned to leave, but then she noticed the things on the end if the creatures forelegs.

They looked like Minotaur hands, but the face was wrong for a Minotaur, it had little to no muzzle to speak of, and it's ears were on the sides of its head. At least, she thought they were ears, they didn't look much like any ear she knew of.

Twilight was interested now.

She began to get closer. 

If it has hands like a Minotaur, then it probably stands like one too, she thought.

She kept moving closer.

If it stands like one, then that means it's bipedal and most likely--

"Excuse me, miss?" 

Twilight looked up at Dr. Scalpel.

"Yes, Doctor?" She asked.

"I'm going to have to ask you to back away while I wait for Nurse Redheart to arrive and help me take this creature to the hospital," he stated very matter-of-factly.

"Oh... um, right," Twilight acknowledged sheepishly. "I may have gotten a teensy bit to close there, haha."

"Any closer and you would have kissed it miss," the doctor replied curtly. "Ah, Nurse Redheart, yes, if you could help me carry this creature to the hospital. I want to keep it there for observation in case my healing magic didn't work quite right." The voice began to trail off as they left Twilight behind. "It was a very rushed job, this, I hope it isn't hostile when it wakes up, though. Oh, how dreadful that would be..."

Twilight stood there, staring at the small pool of blood collected on the ground, as well as the trail the led up to it from the direction the creature had come.

She pondered what to do. There were two choices before her. Go back into town, follow the doctor and observe the creature, or go back down the path it came from, learn what happened.

Both had pros and cons to them, and neither was the "correct" choice, but she had to choose one of them.

After a brief mental debate between two parts of her mind, they decided to follow the road back down where it came from and discover what had happened to it.

So, with a quick turn, Twilight started a short journey about an hour's walk down the road.


<<<==>>>


After a brisk trot for a few minutes, and a walk for the rest of the way, Twilight arrived on a grizzly scene.

There were two dismembered Timberwolves on the ground, as well as a large pool of blood from which the trail originated.

Twilight, ever the curious scientist, moved closer to the two corpses of the wooden wolves. She approached the one that looked less destroyed and looked to see what had happened. 

To her surprise, it looked as if whatever had dismembered it had done so with two clean cuts, perfectly cleaving from the front of wolf's right shoulder to the left midsection and from the right midsection to the back of the left hip.

There was charring around the edges of the cuts, almost as if the cutting device had been so hot as to instantly begin burning the wood. 

It almost looks like the laser-vision from that super pony in one of Spike's comic books, she thought. What was it, Supermare? That sounds right. The seems similar to the effects of Supermare's laser-vision, as silly as that sounds.

Twilight moved on to the next Timberwolf, which was lying almost in the pool of blood, and had blood on one of its claws. This one, however, had much more cut away from the main body mass than the other.

Twilight thought that one seemed to have been hit in either the left foreleg or the muzzle first, as the left leg from elbow down was with the muzzle, far from the rest of the body.

The main body of the Timberwolf lay unscathed, unlike the last one, but the head had been removed from the shoulders in the same manner as all of the other attacks. Twilight assumed that this must have been the work of a skilled warrior, taking on and defeating two Timberwolves at the same time, even if they did receive an injury.

But what sort of being would be able to commit such violent acts? She thought. How would they be able to live with themselves? I don't understand what that creature is, why it's here, or what its intentions are, but I know that I'm not going to let it hurt any of my friends! 

She turned and began to walk back home, knowing that she had plenty of time to get back, as the creature had passed out from blood loss, and that it would take a long time to regain consciousness afterwards, especially since there wasn't any blood to give to the creature.

She continued down the path when a thought struck.

Oh no! What if it's able to regenerate blood cells faster than ponies? She thought. What if it wakes up before I get back? What if it hurts somepony, because I wasn't fast enough to stop it?

I have to get to Ponyville!

And with these thoughts, Twilight blinked out of existence, trying to teleport as close as she could back to home.


<<<==>>>


Twilight arrived after only two long-range teleports. She ended up only feet from where the dangerous being had collapsed.

Seeing the blood on the ground only spurred her further to reach the hospital and warn the ponies there.

It wasn't a long distance to the hospital, and she had come close to the bottom of her mana pool, so she decided to run the rest of the way. Her drive have her stamina she didn't know she even had, and she made it to her destination within minutes.

She burst through the door and saw Nurse Tenderheart in the waiting room.

"Nurse!" She called frantically, getting Tenderheart's attention. "Where is the creature you brought in? It's very dangerous!"

Tenderheart, to her credit, did her best to remain calm in the light of Twilight's frantic accusation.

"Yes, ma'am, the creature is right this way, but I can assure you, he will be out for quite some time, a few days at the least," she said as she led him to a room guarded by two of Ponyville's sanctioned guards, Star Glow and Star Shine, twin brothers.

"Good afternoon, ma'am," they greeted in unison with their deep baritone voices.

Twilight was used to it though, as she often passed the two when she went to Sugarcube Corner every Friday for her "Thank-Celestia-It's-Friday" cake from Pinkie Pie, and they greeted her the same way every time.

Tenderheart, however, jumped a little bit when they spoke, causing the guards to almost break their stoic expressions.

When she recovered, she walked up and gave them each a soft punch in the shoulder. 

"I thought I told you two not to do that," she complained. "You know it scares me half to death!"

"Sorry, ma'am," Shine said.

"Sorry, ma'am," Glow said.

"Thank you. Now, Ms. Twilight here says that the creature in there is very dangerous, so I came here to let you know in case it wakes up and tries and to get out," she explained.

"Noted, ma'am," they said in unison again.

"What did I just say about that?" She asked.

"Sorry, ma'am," Glow apologized.

"Sorry, ma'am," Shine apologized.

Tenderheart hmphed indignantly as she walked away, leaving Twilight alone with the guards.

Twilight was about to follow suit, when one of the guards asked a question.

"If you don't mind my asking, ma'am, what makes you say he's dangerous?" Glow asked.

Twilight looked at them nervously. "Well, didn't you wonder what could have cut it like that?"

"'Him', ma'am, he's not an 'it'... But yes, I did wonder, and I can't place what it could have been," Shine answered.

"It was a Timberwolf," she answered. "It- I mean he- took on two Timberwolves and came out with only that scratch on his foreleg."

The two guards stared in shock.

"Two Timberwolves?" Shine asked. 

"And all he got was a gash? No bites or anything?" Glow asked.

Twilight shook her head. "Nope, not a single thing else from what Dr. Scalpel said when he found the creature. But that's not the worst part. 

"I followed the blood trail from his wound back down the road and found the two Timberwolves in pieces. But the cuts were clean. There wasn't even a ragged edge along the whole swipe. It was like they were cut in half with a laser or something. It was almost like something straight out of a comic book!"

The guards stood in silence.

"You two should be careful," Twilight said as she left to go home. She decided to make daily trips back until the creature woke up. 

But for now-- her thoughts were interrupted by her stomach growling. I'm hungry.
> Reality
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"It's hard to see the good in people, when you're only looking for the bad." -- Unknown Author


<<<==>>>


It was the next day and Twilight was back at the hospital for another visit. She had spent a lot of time thinking and had decided to ask if she could study the creature's belongings.

She had seen it wearing some form of clothes, and it had a saddlebag of sorts on its back. Being, Twilight, she wanted to know what was in there. She really wanted to know what was in there.

So here she was, at the hospital, looking for a certain somepony.

After a few minutes of searching, she found who she was looking for.

"Ah, Nurse Tenderheart," she called, getting her attention. "I've been looking for you."

"Oh, yes of course," she started. "Hello Ms. Twilight, nice to see you again, what was it you needed?"

"Well, I've been doing some thinking," Twilight began. "And I'd like to study the creature's belongings."

"Oh, I see.. I'm not sure I'm allowed to let you do that Ms. Twilight," Tenderheart explained sympathetically. "There's a strict policy about a patient's belongings if they have no confirmed next-of-kin visiting."

"Oh... Well, can you make an exception?" Twilight asked hopefully. "I might find something that could save his life, or stop him from going on a rampage when he wakes up."

Tenderheart thought on this for a moment, then she buckled. "Okay, I'll see if I can get them."

She walked off as Twilight hid her excitement.

Yes! I can learn more about this mysterious creature! She thought. Twilight loved the thrill of learning new information on anything.

Tenderheart shortly returned with the creature's things.

"I really shouldn't be doing this, but here you go," she said as she handed the items to Twilight.

"Thank you!" Twilight squealed as she teleported home.

As she appeared in her main room, she laid the items out on a table.

"Alright, Spike is spending today at Rarity's to help her with dresses and he's spending the night. So it's just me and this stuff. Well then, let's see here..." She began listing the stuff off on a piece of parchment.

"This looks like a cloak with a sleeve ripped off. This looks like a shirt, same sleeve ripped off. These look like pants. I think these are shoes. These look like short pants, but...plaid? Huh. This looks like a belt with a little loop on it. I think that's all of the clothes. Moving on."

She grabbed the lightsaber in her magic, trying to see what it did.

"Weird metal thing- unknown use."

She picked up the backpack and set it on the table as she put the clothes on the ground.

Twilight didn't see any clasp on the bag, but she did see a zipper like on dresses. She grabbed it and pulled it open, revealing a few plastic bottles full of water, and some plastic packages.

She pulled them out and set them aside, marking them down. 

Then she unzipped another part of the backpack and was met with a wonderful sight.

"A book!" She exclaimed.

She grabbed the book in her magic and turned it to see the cover.

"The Chronicles of Narnia," she read. "By C.S. Lewis. Hmm, never heard of them, and what an interesting name..."

She was about to open it and start reading when she remembered the backpack wasn't empty.

She pulled out the next item and looked at it.

It was a plastic brick about two inches thick, nine inches wide, and eleven inches long. She didn't know what to make of it, so she marked it down similarly to the last unknown item.

She checked all of the other pockets and found two more plastic bricks, both with glass on one side, but they were smaller. One was about three inches wide, six inches tall, and very thin. The other was about two inches wide, five inches tall, and even thinner. She had no idea what the purpose was, but she could find out later. 

She also found a piece of laminated paper on a lanyard. She didn't know what it was for, but it read "Comic-Con International Attendee Pass."

Twilight marked them all down on the parchment, her thoughts moving to the book.

"Now," she said as she turned to the large book. "It's just you and me."

She picked it up and turned to the table of contents.

Seven books in one? She thought. This is going to be so much fun!

She turned to the first page of the first book, The Magician's Nephew.

"This is a story about something that happened long ago..." She began.


<<<==>>>


"...in which every chapter is better than the one before," Twilight finished.

It was late. Or maybe early. Twilight had lost track of time reading the book.

As she put the book down, she didn't know how to feel about how the series ended. She couldn't think of a better ending herself, but she didn't know whether to feel happy or sad. It was the best ending anypony could hope for, but she had loved the books too much for them to end.

Also, in reading the book and looking at the scarce illustrations, she could tell that the characters had been the same as the creature in the hospital. They were called humans.

If all humans were like these ones, then Twilight didn't know what to think of the one in the hospital. Almost all of the ones in the book had been so kind, even some of the Telmarines had been friendly.

Could I have been wrong about him? She thought. Peter had killed his enemies, what if this human was just protecting himself?

Twilight's mind was so twisted that she didn't even know what to think about anything anymore, so she decided to sleep on it, and think more when she woke up.


<<<==>>>


Twilight awoke to the sun though the curtains of her bedroom window. She turned over and glanced at the clock.

It read 11:37 a.m.

Twilight jumped out of bed and rushed to get herself ready for the day. After all, she needed to make another visit to the hospital.

She quickly sped through her morning routine before teleporting to just outside the hospital while holding all of the human's belongings.

She began to move inside when of the guards, Star Shine if she was correct, ran out and nearly barreled over her.

"Oh, Ms. Twilight," he started. "Hurry, he's woken up!"

Twilight followed him inside quickly, dropping all of the items behind the nurse's desk.


<<<==>>>


Paul came to and tried to bring a hand to his eyes and shield them from the harsh light, but as soon as he started moving it, a sharp pain ran from his upper arm all the way up through his shoulders and to his neck.

"Gah!" He yelped in pain. He lifted his head to look at his arm and saw a bit of blood seeping through the bandages.

"Ouch," he said in defeat as his head fell back to the pillow. His head hitting the pillow didn't really hurt him, it was more of a knee jerk reaction.

As he lay there, he finally noticed the room. It was a sterile and fairly colorless room, with a door opposite him and a window behind. There was no furniture besides his bed, which was strangely three beds put together, and a weird looking chair next to it. The only decor was a single oil painting of a vase of flowers on the wall.

I must have woken up from that dream now, but why am I in a hospital? He thought. Wait, how did I get this cut here? I thought that happened in the dream?

Before Paul could think much more on it, the door opened, and he expected a nurse to come in. Instead, a scared looking small pastel horse walked in, it was wearing what appeared to be a nurse's outfit, and it was accompanied by two more that were taller, wore armor, and had spears at their sides.

Paul groaned. "Ugh, I'm still in this dream... Why won't it just end?"

The guard-like ones looked at each other, seeming to have a nonverbal conversation before one of them quickly went back out.

The nurse still stood there, gaping at Paul. He noticed this and asked some snarky and rhetorical questions.

"You know it's impolite to stare, right? Are you gonna give me a check-up, or what?" 

She nodded her head slightly, then spoke back timidly. "Oh, it's just that I didn't know you could talk... I was startled when you did speak, I'm sorry."

She suddenly had an air of strict professionalism, and she walked over to Paul before beginning her extensive tests by pulling the blanket off of him, exposing his naked body.

Paul didn't notice any of that, though. He was still shocked that the nurse had spoken back to him.

By the time he had recovered, the nurse and the guard were gone.

"What?" He asked to the empty room, then he passed out from the shock.


<<<==>>>


"No, ma'am, he seemed perfectly complacent," Star Glow answered Twilight.

"So, he talked, the nurse talked, then he sat there and let her do whatever she wanted to him?" She asked incredulously. She didn't understand. 

She mumbled to herself, but Glow overheard. "I saw what that man did to those two Timberwolves, they were sliced to pieces like nothing I'd ever seen..."

"I understand, ma'am, but I'm just telling you what happened inside that room," he said.

"Thank you, Star Glow, I understand," she conceded. "You should probably go and find Star Shine."

"Ma'am," he said as he excused himself.

Twilight was left alone with her thoughts.

It's only been three days since he was admitted, she thought. There is no way any pony could recover that fast. I don't think any creature could recover that fast.

She turned to think more about what he could be waiting for inside that room. If he wanted to, he could have been gone already, having fought his way out.

"So why didn't he?" She quietly asked herself. "Was I really too quick to judge him?"


<<<==>>>


When Paul woke up again, he was in the same room as before. He groaned and cursed this dream that his brain had created, and that it wouldn't let him leave.

He had just finished a rather long string of colorful expletives when the door opened and the nurse walked in again, accompanied by the same two guards as well as a purple unicorn.

Please don't talk, please don't talk, please don't talk, Paul repeated in his head, as if it would work.

"Oh, you're finally awake. It's been a day or so since my last visit, four days since you were admitted, are you feeling well?"

"Why?! Why am I still in this dream? Why can't I leave? I just want to wake up and continue with my life please! Why do there have to be talking animals in my dream? Just let me wake up!" He roared at the walls, as if they would hear his plight and set him free.

"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to calm down, please don't strain yourself," she started. "We have no idea how that blood loss affected you. For all we know, that could be normal, or it may have caused brain damage. I need you to remain calm."

"Calm?!" He yelled. "I'll be calm just as soon as I get out of my own head, thank you! And since you're all just part of me anyways, you should listen when I tell you to shut up! Animals aren't supposed to talk!"

His head fell back to the pillow, and he saw that the purple one held a pained expression.

"What's wrong with you?" He asked.

"Me?" The purple one asked.

"Yeah, you, Purple!" 

"My name is Twilight Sparkle, thank you very much," she stated flatly.

He began to laugh, because he thought her name to be ridiculous, but she cut him off.

"Fine, have fun in your state of illusion, living as if the world is nothing but a figment of your imagination," she said as she turned to leave.

He just stared after her, confused.

The nurse came up and started to pull back the blanket to begin her tests when Paul stopped her.

"Woah! That's a big negatory there, chief!" he exclaimed as he pulled the blanket back over himself. 

She looked confused. "Why?"

"I'm not wearing clothes, so you can't uncover me," he answered slowly like was speaking to a child.

"You were fine with it yesterday," she said, confused.

"What?!" He yelled. "You did that yesterday while I was awake?!"

Nurse Tenderheart stepped back, shaking a little bit and the guards stepped forward, raising their spears a little bit. "Um, y-you didn't seem t-to m-mind, so I assumed it was alright."

Paul anger calmed a little bit as he thought on it. "Well, you can test on me as soon as you get me some clothes to cover my groin area. In fact, where are the clothes I was wearing?" He asked.

"I have them in storage, I can retrieve them if you want," she answered shakily.

"Just the pants for now," he answered before muttering to himself. "No use wearing a bloody shirt with only one sleeve anyway."

"Okay," Tenderheart answered as she crept out of the room, followed by the guards.

She returned not long later, gave him his boxers and his pants, as well as some time to put them on, then proceeded with her tests.

Not long after, she left the room, and Paul was alone with his thoughts.

This dream feels off, he thought. I can't place it, but something feels wrong.


<<<==>>>


Twilight paced in her library. 

"Why would he think it's a dream?" She asked aloud. "He has to have read the book, or at least known the general idea, or he wouldn't have it!"

She sighed and plopped herself onto a couch. "How do I convince him he's not in a dream? He clearly thinks that we know everything he knows, but how do I convince him that I don't? How do I convince him he's not dreaming?"

She turned and saw a book on the shelf that seemed to catch her eye.

Princess Luna: Nightmare Moon, Maiden of the Night, Dream Warden

"That's it! Princess Luna is the Dream Warden! She would know how to convince somepony!"

She turned to the kitchen and called to Spike, who was still making lunch.

"Spike! I need you to take a letter!"

Spike appeared at the door to the kitchen, parchment and quill in hand. "Ready!"

"Dear Princess Luna..." Twilight began.


<<<==>>>


Princess Luna was enjoying her mid-afternoon nap when she was awoken by the ring of magic.

She sat up and noticed a rolled up parchment floating in front of her.

She looked at the letter before grabbing it in her magic and unrolling it, silently reading. Her expression did not change throughout the letter, but when she was done, she vanished in a flash.


<<<==>>>


Twilight waited nervously in her library for the arrival of Princess Luna. She didn't have very much experience with the Lunar Diarch, and didn't really know what to expect. She also wondered how she would convince the human the he wasn't actually dreaming.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a flash, signifying Luna's arrival. Twilight turned to greet her, but stopped when she saw Celestia standing in the library with Luna.

"Oh, hello Princesses," Twilight greeted as she bowed. "I wasn't expecting both of you to be here."

"Twilight, you know that you don't have to be so formal with us," Celestia said gently. 

"Sorry," she replied sheepishly as she stood back up. 

"Enough pleasantries," Luna stated loudly. "If you could take us to the human."

"Of course, Princess," Twilight responded with a little bit of hesitation.

As Twilight walked out of the library into the bright early evening sun, Celestia turned to Luna.

"Remember to tone it down a little bit Lulu, you're being rather loud," she said as she followed Twilight, leaving Luna to grumble as she followed suit as well.


<<<==>>>


After a short walk through the town, passing bowing ponies at every turn, the Princesses and Twilight arrived at the hospital.

When they walked inside, Nurse Tenderheart bowed. "Y-your Majesties, we weren't expecting a visit. What can I help you with?"

"Please rise, Nurse Tenderheart," Celestia said. "Would you take us to the human's room please?"

"O-of course Princess, right this way," she responded as she made her way down one of the hallways, stopping at the room with the two guards outside of it.

When they saw the Princesses, the guards bowed, then the nurse turned to the visitors.

"I have to warn you," she began hesitantly. "He's very different, not just in physiology, but he tends to act out and can be a little bit rude at times. I only mean to tell you that he may not know any better, and he is still recovering from blood loss, so please be... gentle with him."

"Thank you, Nurse," Luna said as she opened the door. "We will take the utmost care."

The other two visitors followed her inside, assuring Tenderheart that he would be fine.


<<<==>>>


Paul couldn't sleep. He just couldn't close his eyes and lay down. He also wasn't able to get up and move yet, he still felt too light headed. His only reprieve from the bed was when that nurse came in to take him to the bathroom or bring him his meals.

So he had fallen to counting the stitches in his blanket. He was doing so for the fourth time when he felt two powerful presences approach, along with two more, one more powerful, and the other more familiar.

He was pondering who or what they could be when the door opened and a large dark blue horse with a starry blue flowing mane, wings, and a horn walked in. 

"We will take the utmost care," she said to someone outside.

Paul looked at her quizzically when another large horse walked in. It was the same as the first but larger and white with a multi-color flowing mane. This one was followed by the purple one from earlier that day, Twiddle Sparkler or something, who shut the door behind her.

"Greetings human," the dark one said. "We are Princess Luna, Maiden of the Night, Dream Warden, The Moon's Vengeance."

The white one spoke up. "I am Princess Celestia, Ruler of the Day, The Sun's Fury."

"Hello again," the purple one said. 

Paul was unimpressed. "Oh, hello your highness, my name is Paul and I'm so very honored by your presence," he commented sarcastically.

"Mind your tongue, knave. We are no apparition of your mind. We assure you that this room is as real anything you ever known," 'Princess Luna' said firmly. 

"Yeah, yeah, sure. And my name is Mark Hamill. No, try again, she tried to convince me of that one already," he said, pointing to Twilight.

"However false you believe this reality to be, Paul, you will respect my sister, myself, and my student," 'Princess Celestia' said.

"Okay, then," Paul said, dropping some of his sarcastic tone to have a serious debate with what he believed to be his subconscious mind. "It seems we are at an impasse. I think that I'm right, and you think that you're right, but neither side has any sure way to prove that they are. Though, if I'm correct, then you're just a part of my subconscious and knew that anyway. Make sense so far?"

Paul looked around the room at the three visitors. He got three nods.

"Might I suggest we do a one-for-one trade, a question for a question?" Celestia asked. "You may start.

"Okay," he agreed. "How did you know what I was?"

The two Princesses looked hesitant to answer, but the purple one spoke up.

"You're a human, more specifically, a human male. Also known as 'Sons of Adam' or 'Daughters of Eve,' which I know because I..." Twilight stopped and seemed hesitant for a second. "...I looked through your things and I found a book, so I couldn't help but read it."

Paul didn't know what to think. On one hand, this dream horse had rifled through his stuff and of all the things he had in there, his laptop, his phone, his iPod, she read the book? On the other hand, she had gone through his personal belongings. Those were his, she had no right. Though, it could be his brain making an excuse for her having that knowledge.

"Right then, a deal's a deal," he said. "Ask away."

"We have a question, Paul," Luna stated. "What explanation do you have for your senses such as sight, smell, hearing, taste, touch? You say you are in a dream, how do you think you are interpreting them?"

Paul had to think on that one for just a second. "Well, that's a very good question, so I would have to try and give a very good answer, not that you wouldn't know the answer already. 

"I would think that any physical interaction with the world would have to be based on past experience. I can't see, smell, hear, taste, or feel anything that wasn't something, or a combination of somethings, I haven't before."

"We see," she responded. "Well said."

"Thank you," Paul said. "Now another question for me. Hmm... Oh, why do you have wings and a horn, instead of one or the other?"

"I'll answer this one," Celestia said to Luna and Twilight before turning back to Paul. "We are alicorns. We are a combination of all three pony tribes. Earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns. Thus we get the magic of each, mana-based magic, weather magic, and crop magic."

This only raised further questions for Paul, like what magic was, but he abided by the agreement that was made. He nodded and motioned for the next question.

"How do you think the world will behave in regards to logic, reasoning, and physics?" Luna asked.

"Oh, another good one," he said. "Let's see, so based on my twenty seven years of experience in the real world, I would say that a lucid dream would behave the same way. If it would cause pain, I would feel pain. If I splashed water on a bird, it wouldn't lecture me on how that was rude, it would fly away because it's a bird. And if I dropped two objects of differing weights from the same height, they would hit the ground at the same time, as long as they don't reach terminal velocity.

"In short, my dream world works based on how I know the real world to work."

He was going to finish at that, but he thought about it for a second. 

"Well, plus a few quirks, such as talking animals and magic," he added.

"We see," Luna said. "We are to understand that your world has no magic then?"

"That's correct," Paul answered. "Also, I'll let that question slide."

"So then you've never experienced--" Luna suddenly flashed her horn.

Paul felt a sensation that can't quite be put into words, he just knew that it didn't hurt, but it certainly wasn't comfortable. He was suddenly standing on a mountain top next to Luna. His eyes went wide and he was vaguely aware of her horn flashing again before he lost all sense of everything as the sensation happened again.

As quick as it started, it ended, but he felt some of the after effects. Things like the world ringing in his eyes, his heartbeat pounding in his nostrils, and the taste of ozone on his ears.

"--teleportation," Luna finished, a small smirk evident on her face.

"What was that?" Paul asked, dazed. "It was like my senses were all jumbled up."

"Oh, you must have had you eyes open during the teleport," Twilight explained. "You saw the raw space-time energy in transit. That will really mess with you, but it only lasts a few seconds."

"I hope so," Paul said. "That was unlike anything I've ever experienced and I don't want to..."

Paul stopped, frozen.

"Paul, are you alright?" Twilight asked.

"I've never experienced anything like that before... Which means that..." Paul faltered. "That this, all of this, is real. I'm actually stuck in a land of magical horses. God help me. I've got to get out of here."

Paul tried to get out of the bed and leave only to get halfway off the bed and almost collapse to the floor. However, he was caught in Celestia's magic and placed back on the bed gently.

"Get some rest Paul, you've worn yourself out already from that attempt alone," she said as they left the room.

Paul lay there, struggling to move much at all, but only managed to tire himself out more, and sending him into a deep sleep.
> Sound of Body and of Mind
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Paul awoke and lifted his hands to rub his eyes and keep himself from falling back asleep. As he lifted his head to look around, he saw the same hospital room as the previous days. This time though, he saw it for what it was, rather than what he had believed it was.

He looked around saw his hospital room, rather than a dreamscape keeping him trapped in his mind.

He saw it, and he thought about his home. He thought about his house, his dog, his job, his friends, and his family. He thought about his… everything. 

His everything that he had been forced to leave behind. He thought about all of the experiences he would never get to have, like making a family, like visiting New York City, like retiring to a country home in his later years. He had just lost out on over half a life of experiences, and now he was stuck in some ponyland!

He thought about it, and he got mad. He just lost it, he started screaming and yelling at the walls, asking, begging, and ordering them. Anything for them to take him back. He just wanted to go home. 

At some point he looked up and noticed the nurse was in the room, accompanied by the guards, and he saw their expressions of pity.

“Get out!” He yelled at them, tears in his eyes. “Get out! I don't want you in here! I just want to go home!”

His anger dissolved into sobs as he continued to try and be angry at them.

“I just want to go home…” He muttered weakly.

The ponies looked at him and backed out of the room, not wanting to disturb him any more. When Paul finally got control over his emotions, he buried his anger and started thinking about his situation.

“How can I get home?” He thought, this one prevailing above the others. “Can I ask the ponies? Would they help me after the way I treated them?”

Paul got more and more thoughts questioning what to do and how to do it. He sat there thinking, getting overwhelmed by the questions his brain was throwing at him.

He suddenly wished that he could walk so that he could go and clear his head. Any physical activity could focus his mind, and hone his suppressed anger, toward getting himself home.

Sadly though, he was still bedridden. He hadn't left the bed for the past five days according to the nurse. He also hadn't had any sentient contact with anyone other than the visitors the day before and Nurse Tenderheart who came and brought him food or took him to the bathroom.

Paul rubbed his face with his hand, trying to keep his focus. It didn't work however as his mind quickly relapsed into wondering when he would get out of the hospital.

“Well if it wasn't for that wooden dog that ripped my arm to shreds, I'd be fine,” he thought.

He looked down at his arms where the bandages had been.

After a second of staring and wondering what was different, he finally realized.

The bandages were off. And not only that. But there wasn't even a mark to signify that it was ever there. No scar.

This baffled Paul. His wound had been healed so entirely as to even mend the scar tissue.

This made him wonder not only how advanced the medical system was, but also if it had healed him enough to let him walk. He decided to try and stand, then go from there. 

Paul slowly sat up, then turned himself to hang his legs over the edge of the bed. He put his feet on the ground, slowly putting weight onto each, trying to see if they could actually support him before trusting them entirely.

He was finally up, standing on his own two feet for the first time in almost a week. He stood tall and started to look around, but then all of the blood rushed from his head to his legs, making him lightheaded and blacking out his vision for a few seconds.

He almost fell over, but took a step to steady himself and was able to keep his balance. Once it passed, he took another tentative step forward, reacclimating to walking after being immobile. He started to gain more confidence and took increasingly larger and faster steps. He was soon walking around the room with normal his stride and gait.

Feeling confident in himself now, he strode to the door and opened it, stooping to go through. However, when he opened the door, the guards turned and pointed their weapons at him.

After they got over their shock at seeing him up and moving, they put down their weapons and one spoke to him.

“I'm sorry sir, but I have to ask you to remain in your room until the nurse can come and clear you for release.”

Paul wasn't in the mood for an argument, so he listened to his guards. “Alright, but getting her here now would make this easier on all of us.”

The guards nodded to him, and as he closed the door, Star Glow went to go get the nurse. He returned with her in tow a few minutes later, walking in to find Paul laying on the bed.

“Hello, nurse,” Paul greeted, sounding as if he'd rather have already left.

“Hello, sir,” she greeted in return. “I'm going to get right into the check up, if you don't mind.”

“Alright,” Paul said, getting out of bed and standing up. “Go ahead.”

The nurse looked both pleased and slightly astonished.

“I did not expect you to heal quite that quickly, I expected another day or two at least,” she said as she approached him and began her inspection.

She was quickly finished and she was surprised by just how healthy he had suddenly become. She knew part of it was from the healing spells, but they shouldn't have finished quite so quickly.

“You seem to be fine,” she said. “I don't see a scratch on you anywhere. I just can't explain how fast it happened.”

“That’s odd, I thought I healed so fast because of your treatments,” Paul said. “I can tell you that humans normally would take weeks for that to heal, and it would still leave a scar.”

“Well, if neither of us can explain it, then I say that we should just leave it be,” she said. “You seem to be healthy and I think you can leave the hospital today if you want. I will go retrieve your things, follow me.”

Paul and his guards followed Nurse Tenderheart through the hallways of the hospital and to the storage room. The nurse went in, grabbed his bag and clothes, and came back out. She handed the human his stuff and continued on.

When they arrived at the front desk, Paul paused to put on his shoes, and when he stood up, Tenderheart gave Paul a clip board with a form on it. 

“I don't expect you to pay anytime too soon, but I want you to be aware that you have a standing balance with this hospital,” she explained.

“I see,” Paul said, taking the clipboard. “And how much money is it?”

“184 bits,” the nurse answered.

“And is that especially expensive?” He asked.

“No, not especially, but it is a considerable amount, more than a week’s wages,” she answered again.

“Ah, thank you,” he said, giving it back. “I think that you should keep it, because I will lose it or destroy it by accident. Thank you for understanding though.”

“Anytime, goodbye for now,” she said.

“And to you,” Paul returned as he departed, guards in tow.

Paul left the hospital and observed his surroundings. He turned to the guards. 

“Where does the purple one from yesterday live?” Paul asked them.

“Ms. Twilight? She lives in the library, over that way,” Star Glow answered as he pointed towards a massive tree in another part of town.

“I see, then let's go that way,” Paul said, taking his large strides towards the tree.

As he walked through the town, lost in his own thoughts, Paul didn't notice any of the frightened stares he, a half-clothed biped, was receiving from the locals as he walked through the town, the guards following close behind. He didn even notice the pink pony gasp when she saw him, then disappear off to go do something.

After a few minutes of walking, they arrived at a large hollow tree with windows and a door built into the side. A sign outside read “Golden Oaks Library.” Impressively, the tree was still very much alive. 

Paul stopped and stared for a moment. “Well that just gives a whole new meaning to ‘tree house,’” he said. He chuckled a bit at his own pun.

Star Shine walked up to the door and knocked. Paul watched as the door was answered by a small purple reptile. The lizard thing looked surprised to see the guard.

“Oh, hello Star Glow,” he said. “What brings you here today?”

“Wrong again Spike, I'm Shine,” Star Shine said, eliciting a sigh from ‘Spike.’ “But it's alright. Anyways, I'm here to bring him to see Twilight.” Shine gestured over his shoulder to Paul.

Spike peaked around Star Shine to see who it was, but when he caught sight of the six foot human he froze, terrified of the unknown creature.

“He's alright Spike,” Shine reassured. “He just has some questions.”

“O-okay, if you s-say so,” Spike answered, opening the door to let them in.

As soon as Shine and Paul had entered, Spike quickly closed the door and ran to go get Twilight. He wanted nothing to do with the intimidating creature.

Paul and Star Shine sat down on the couch in the living room, waiting for the owner of the house to enter. They didn't have to wait long, as Twilight soon entered.

She took one look at Paul and her face lit up. “Wow! Spike said that ‘a big scary thing on two legs’ was at the door, but I wasn't sure if it'd be you or not! I just didn't expect you to be up so soon, I mean not that you're sca--”

“Ma'am, you're rambling,” Star Shine cut in respectfully.

“Sorry,” she said sheepishly. “What do you need?”

“I want to find a way home,” Paul answered. “Simple as that. I was taken from my world and dumped into a new one, full of talking animals no less. Sorry, no offense, it's just that humans are the only ones that talk where I'm from.”

“Oh, it's alright,” Twilight answered. “You're just experiencing very intense culture shock. It's to be expected that you slip up. Though, regarding getting home, I don't know if that's going to be possible. If it is, then it will be extremely improbable. 

“Star Swirl the Bearded theorized that there are an infinite number of universes, each similar to the last, but not quite the same. So essentially, even if breaking the walls of our universe is possible, then finding the one where you came from would be statistically impossible.”

“Never tell me the odds,” Paul quoted, feeling no less determined to make it home. “Though that does sound to me like the Multiverse Theory.”

“Ooh, I like that,” Twilight said. She pulled out a piece of parchment and a quill. “‘Multiverse Theory.’”

“So, do you have anybody well versed in the manipulation of space-time?” Paul asked. “Because it sounds like we’d need an expert.”

“Well, there are the Princesses,” Twilight said. “They are the most powerful beings on the planet. If they couldn't help you, then I don't know who could. We could go visit them in Canterlot.”

“Well then, we’re off to see the wizard,” Paul said.

He got up and went to open the door, only to be met with a pink pony running in past him, pushing him outside the door, and closing it behind him.

Once Paul recovered, he turned and went to open the door. However, when he opened it, he saw that the lights had been turned off. He opened the door all the way and stepped inside. Suddenly an explosion of light and sound hit him.

“SURPRISE!” 

“Gah! What?!” Paul asked bewildered. 

The room, in the seconds between leaving and coming back, had been decked out for a party. Streamers, balloons, snacks, cake, everything. It wasn't there, and then it was.

“How…?” He asked.

“This is your Welcome-to-Ponyville/Welcome-to-Equestria party!” The pink one called as she bounced around. “My name’s Pinkie Pie, what's yours?”

“Um, hi,” Paul started. “My name is--”

“Pinkie! You can't just do that without warning!” Twilight scolded. “I'm fine with you doing it, just not without at least a few minutes to prepare.”

“Sorry Twilight. I just got so excited!”

Twilight seemed satisfied with the apology.

“Wait,” Paul cut in. “You set all of this up in the dark in under ten seconds, with other ponies in the room?”

“Yepperooni!” She exclaimed.

Paul sat down and held his head in his hands. “How… How does that even--? What?”

He felt contact on his shoulder, it was Shine's hoof. "There’s no explanation for it, she just does impossible stuff. You just learn not to question it.”

Paul looked at him. “Yeah, that's gonna take awhile, because that just breaks my brain. It takes everything I ever knew, smashes it with a sledgehammer, then throws it out the window into a woodchipper and burns the pieces before burying the ashes in the deepest hole it can find.”

Shine just stared at him, confused. “Uh, okay, if you say so.”

Paul stood up and looked at the party decor. “You know what? Whatever. Let's have a quick party, but then it's off to see the wizard.”


<<<==>>>


Three hours later, Paul, Twilight, Pinkie, and the Stars were on their way to the train station. The guards were going to see the group to the station then return to their posts, and Pinkie would do the same, returning to her job at the bakery.

Paul was lost in his thoughts again.

“As much as I want to get home, this place isn't so bad to be stuck in,” he thought at one point. “The ponies are friendly and seem to really want to help me home.”

As they walked, they had to pass through the market. When they did though, it went silent. All of the ponies in the market stopped whatever they were doing and stared at the strange creature in their midst. Soon though, many of them shrugged and went back to whatever they had been doing before.

But an orange mare accompanied by a sky-blue pegasus walked up to the group. 

“Well howdy there Twilight,” the orange one said in a southern accent. Then she turned to Paul. “An’ you must be the one Rainbow here said she saw. Howdy, I'm Applejack.”

“Hello Applejack,” Paul replied. “It's nice to meet you.”

“Hi,” the pegasus said. “I'm Rainbow Dash. I, uh… I went to get Twilight when you collapsed at the edge of the town.”

“Oh, yeah that. Those wolf things were really tough. The second one didn't go down in the first hit,” Paul responded. “That's what gave me that cut.”

“Hold it! You took on not just one, but two Timberwolves? An’ you only got a scratch? You must be one mighty warrior. I reckon I don't know anypony who’s taken on two Timberwolves at once.”

“Actually,” Paul started, running his hands through his hair. “It was really just luck. I blindly swung and happened to hit them. I'm lucky to even be alive.”

“Wait wait wait,” Twilight cut in. “You killed them by accident? I followed your blood trail back to the two Timberwolves, and when I saw them, I thought you must be some bloodthirsty beast or dangerous warrior! But it was all just luck?”

“Yeah, sorry to disappoint, but it was my weapon that saved me,” Paul responded.

“Oh, can we see it?” Rainbow asked. When Paul looked hesitant, she gave him the puppy eyes. “Please?”

Paul thought about it, leaning towards saying no, but then he saw Pinkie's puppy eyes.

"Now that's just cheating," he thought. "Nothing should be able to be that cute."

“Fine,” Paul relented, not able to stand the cuteness. “Follow me, we need to get away from the crowd.”

The group walked for ten minutes, passing the train station, and making it to a small wooded area outside of town.

Paul walked up to a random tree. “Will anyone care if this tree goes away?” He asked.

“I don't think anypony will miss this one tree,” Twilight answered. “Especially not if it goes down in the name of science!”

“Are you sure? There's no Lorax or anything to be aware of?” He reiterated.

“A what now?” Applejack asked.

“Don't worry about it,” Paul said. “Just watch this.”

He reached his right hand down to his waist pulled out his lightsaber, splitting it into its halves and activating the right hand.

“This is a lightsaber,” Paul said. “The blade is made of superheated plasma. Have you heard of the phrase, ‘like a hot knife through butter?’” The ponies nodded. “Well, it really should be ‘like a lightsaber through’--”

At this point, Paul made a downward strike on the tree so that it would fall away from the group.

“--‘just about anything,’” he finished. The top half of the tree slid downward along the slice and tipped over, leaving the assembled ponies in shock.

Paul made a quick level cut across the base of the tree to make it seem like a normal stump.

“And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I defeated two Timberwolves by accident,” he stated as he began to walk back to the train station.


<<<==>>>


After they had recovered from their collective shock, the ponies caught up with Paul as he arrived at the train station.

“Wait just a minute!” Applejack called. When she caught up, she turned to him. “Just how does that thing work?”

“Well I’m not able to get too far into the specifics,” Paul started, the others arriving. “But as far as I know, some kind of super-mega battery runs absolutely massive amounts of electrical power through a special crystal in the handle, which either turns the energy into plasma, which is then superheated, or somehow produces superheated plasma.”

Paul paused here and though for a second. Then he shook his head.

“No, I’m least sure of that part really, but I do know that the output is an unlimited beam of pure superheated plasma that loops back into the handle. The final product is a blade that can cut through all known materials. Well, except one really weird creature’s hide, but that doesn't matter. It can cut through any material it might face here.”

Applejack looked like she was still stuck at battery, as did everypony else except Twilight and, surprisingly, Star Glow.

“Wow! That's incredible! You have forms of electricity?” Twilight asked.

“Yes, humans have conquered the earth through use of technology, innovation, and, sadly, no small amount of violence. But let’s save that conversation for a later time. We’re about ready to board the train I think,” Paul said.

“But if the Princesses are able to send you home, then we won't have another time to have this conversation,” Pinkie pointed out.

“Do you really think that if they can send me home, that they will be able to do it immediately, with no preparation?” Paul asked. “I would guess days of preparation in looking for spells, setting up rune circles, and other various magic-y things. Though, all I know about magic is from fantasy games.”

“You do have a point,” Twilight conceded. “Some forms of magic, depending on how powerful or complex, can require a week or more of preparation. If it takes longer than a few days for them to prepare, then we should come back here to Ponyville."

“Alright, I like that idea. Let's get on the train and go see some Princesses!” Paul said before turning to the group. “I bid you all farewell until next we meet!”

“Goodbye!” The group called as Paul and Twilight walked away to buy their tickets and board the train.

As Paul was about to step onto the train, he looked back and saw the group leaving.

“May the Force be with you!” He called to them. He boarded the train without listening or looking for a response. He sat down next to Twilight and waited for the train to depart.

“Well, anything I should know about the Princesses before we get to the castle?” Paul asked, just looking for something to pass the time.

Twilight squeed. It was a rather quiet one, but still a squee nonetheless. "Yay! I get to give you a full comprehensive history of Equestria and the Princesses!"

It was then, that Paul knew he had messed up.
> Off to see the Wiza-- Er, the Princesses
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“And that’s how Equestria became the country it did today,” Twilight finished. She was both excited at the chance to give, and proud that she had completely remembered this lesson. She looked out the window of the train and saw the city gate rapidly approaching. “Any questions?”

“Uh… Yeah, so, I basically got that the tribes were at war, then they made up,” Paul started. “And after that, they moved to Equestria and Celestia and Luna took over. Discord happened, Nightmare Moon happened, Luna's back, no big events since then, now we’re here.”

“But you missed all of the details!” Twilight exclaimed. “For instance, did you remember that in Celestia’s Bedchambers 18 years before the Nightmare Moon Incident, her wall decorations included--”

“Twilight,” Paul cut off. “I'm not a history buff. I don't mean to disappoint or anything, but I do not have the ability to simply retain information like that. I can't just remember any information you throw at me, to recall later at a moment’s notice.”

“Oh, ok,” she responded, a little dejected. 

“Hey now, chin up! We’re almost there!” Paul said, trying to cheer her back up. He pointed out through the window. “Look, there’s the train station.”

Twilight looked up and saw the platform. “Yep, now let's go see the Princesses,” she said, slowly gaining back her enthusiasm.

As they exited the train, Paul drew some stares from many ponies, all of which gave him and Twilight a wide berth. He soon forgot them though as his eye and his thoughts were drawn to the buildings of the city.

“It's almost like Ancient Rome or Greece,” he thought. “Everything is made of marble.”

The pair continued walking through the streets towards the large castle. At one point, Paul turned to ask Twilight a question. This time he chose one with a presumably shorter answer.

“So how do you know the Princesses?” He asked.

Twilight looked at him and smiled, as if at a happy memory. “Oh, I was Princess Celestia’s personal student before I moved to Ponyville.”

Paul was pleased about guessing right in that he didn't get another lecture as an answer to a simple question.

“That's nice,” he commented as they passed the entrance guards and entered the main gates. “I'm sure that you had a great time with that.”

“Oh, yes,” she answered. “I couldn't tell you I much I always looked forward to lessons with the Princess. I was always eager to learn.”

“I've noticed,” Paul stated bluntly.

Twilight didn't seem to catch the intent of the statement and continued walking through the hallways and towards the throne room. The two walked the rest of the way in silence, keeping their thoughts to themselves. 

They soon arrived at the doors to the throne room. One of the guards acknowledged them. 

“Ms. Twilight,” he said as he nodded to her. “It's nice to see you again.”

Twilight looked at him, her brow creased, trying to remember the identity of this guard. She suddenly sighed. 

“Hello, Golden Lance,” she acknowledged, sounding exasperated. “How have you been?”

“Oh, Twilight, I'm hurt!” He said over dramatically. “I thought that I was your favorite guard?”

“Please stop, we’re here to see the Princesses, Lance. If you want to talk, you'll have to wait,” she said as she walked past him and into the throne room. Paul followed suit quickly, not sure what to think of the eccentric guard.

When Paul entered, he looked past Twilight to the room he had entered. The throne room was beautiful. There were a dozen or more stained glass windows running the length of the room on either side. At the end was a set of stairs leading up to where two thrones sat. 

The one on the left was made of the brightest gold, studded with rubies the border, a magnificent amethyst crowning it. The one on the right was more simplistic. It was made of ornate silver and had decently sized opals at each corner, a large sapphire at the head.

Occupying the thrones were the two beings that had visited him in the hospital just a day before. 

“Hello Princesses,” Twilight greeted across the empty hall. 

“Greetings, Twilight,” Celestia returned, as did Luna. “What is the reason for your visit? And I see that you have brought our friend along with you.”

“Yes, he seems to have a… problem, so I brought him to see you.” 

“And what might that problem be?” Luna asked. 

“I want to go home,” Paul interjected.

“Don't get me wrong, this place seems great. From what I've seen, I think I'd love it here. But it's not home.” He admitted, trying not to seem ungrateful.

“My life on Earth may not have been perfect-- hah, I wouldn't even have called it great, nice maybe, but not great,” Paul looked up at both rulers, straight into their eyes.  “But it was mine. I didn't love it, and it sure as heck did not love me. But still, it's all I've known, so if there’s any way for you to send me home, I would appreciate it.”

“I see your issue,” Celestia said. “We will do what we can to search for a spell to get you home, but it may take some time. Before my sister and I begin however, let us have dinner. It's already nearing time to set the sun.”

“Of course, thank you for your kindness,” Paul said, trying not to seem too hopeful at this chance to get home.

Despite his hope, Paul couldn't help but thinking. “But what are my chances of actually making it home?” 

“It is our pleasure,” answered Luna.

The group of four exited the throne room, making their way to the dining room. 


<<<==>>>


When they arrived, they found long wooden table which filled the hall, ornate seats lined up around it. 

“Please, sit,” Celestia invited. Paul and Twilight both sat down at the table opposite Luna and Celestia, so as to easily conversate during the meal.

A group of waiters came to take orders from the ponies and the human.

Celestia and Twilight ordered salads with hay fries, while Luna ordered pasta with a vegetable medley. 

“And for you, sir?” His waiter asked.

Paul had been thinking about the most convenient way to break the whole, ‘I need meat’ thing to the ponies. 

“Do you have any,” Paul paused, then cleared his throat before continuing. “Fish?”

“Of course, sir. We have sea bass, salmon, and trout. Which would you prefer?”

“I'll take he salmon please,” Paul answered.

“An excellent choice, sir. I must ask, do you prefer it cooked or raw?” The waiter asked.

“Cooked, please,” Paul answered gratefully.

“Of course, sir. Your meals will be right out,” the waiter said before he left.

“Fish is an interesting choice,” Luna stated. “Not eaten very often here in Equestria.”

“Oh, yeah. About that,” Paul said. “Yeah, I kinda… eat meat.”

“Wait, really?” Twilight asked, not as scared as Paul had thought she'd be. In fact, she seemed more concerned for him than anything. “Why didn't you say sooner? You must be very protein-deficient. The hospital had only been giving you salads hadn't they?”

“Yeah, I didn't say anything because I was kind of uncaring at that point,” Paul answered. “I was not at my most logical then, but it's too late for that.”

“Yes, let us move on to other topics,” Celestia said. “Such as how you arrived in Equestria, or what your former place of residence was like.”

“Oh, well then let's start with a general overview of human history,” Paul said. “Alright, so people started out as nomads, a group of them settled down, more and more settled down, they formed civilizations, then more civilizations rose up, some more rose, others fell. That went on for awhile, one group of people started a bloody war with another group, rinse and repeat, oh… I'd say a thousand times? Five thousand times? It wouldn't surprise me if it was more. Anyways, like I said, rinse and repeat. Arrive at modern day. The end.”

“What, that's it?” Twilight asked, looking at him like he was crazy. “That's all you're going to give us? No details? No specifics?”

“Yeah,” Paul answered. “That's about as specific as I can get for most of it up until about two hundred-fifty years before modern day on earth. And you probably wouldn't want specifics anyway. Though out of curiosity, Twilight, how many years of history did you cover on the train ride?”

“One thousand, three hundred thirty seven years,” she answered automatically.

Paul laughed, and when he caught his breath he spoke. “Alright, so, that very specific number of years aside, you covered thirteen hundred years of history in, what five hours? Six hours? Yeah, it took me under thirty seconds to cover three-to-five thousand years of human history.”

Twilight’s mouth gaped and she just stared at him, unresponsive.

“Your home seems to be rather… violent,” Luna commented.

“Yeah, it really was. Hence the whole, ‘rinse and repeat bloody wars thousands of times’ thing,” Paul responded. “If you want, I could go into more detail about what I know.”

“I am hesitant to say yes, but I do not want to say no,” Celestia said.

“I will tell you then,” Paul confirmed. “I will start with World War I then. It started when a political leader from a small country with powerful allies visited another small country with powerful allies. The political leader was assassinated by someone from the second small country. 

“This pit the two countries, and therefore each side’s allies, against each other. One side held Germany, Italy, and a few others, while the other held Great Britain, France, and some others. They basically went at each other’s throats and Germany lost after they accidentally got America, the big superpower of the world, involved against them. I'm not sure how many died in this war.

“Foolishly, humans named this ‘The War to End All Wars.’ As stated by the new name, World War I," Paul said, stressing the word ‘one,’ “it wasn't. World War II happened twenty years later or so. It started when a new guy took over Germany and started killing anybody that was handicapped in any physical or mental way, homosexual, fell into a specific religious group, or one of various other things. 

“This, along with him taking over nearby countries, got the others involved to take him down. Once again, America was sucked into the war. This time they were attacked even though they chose to remain neutral. And once again, Germany was subsequently beaten. Somewhere between fifty and seventy million died in this war. About eleven million were civilians."

Paul looked at the ponies. They were all shocked and tears ran down their faces.

“Thus, human kind is summed up. War and tragedy,” Paul finished.

“How are you so passive?” Twilight asked. “How can you do that?! You just talked about so many lives being extinguished, and you didn't even change your expression! Do you know how big that number is?! The entire population of Equestria is not even twenty million!"

Paul replied calmly. “Twilight, it's just human nature. It’s how human society teaches us to react. Everyone else I know has this reaction, so this is what I learned to be acceptable. Like I said. Human nature.”

Everypony was at a loss for words. They slowly composed themselves, wiping the tears from their faces. 

Dinner arrived soon after, and everyone began to eat. 

After a few tense minutes of the silence only broken by utensils hitting the plates, Luna decided to speak up.

“Excuse me,” she asked between bites of her pasta. “But if you don't mind my asking, how did you come to be in our world?”

“Now that has a less violent answer,” Paul stated, setting down his fork.

“So, on earth there’s a work of fiction entitled ‘Star Wars.’ And in this, the main conflict is between the light and dark sides of The Force. The light side consists of the Jedi and the dark side of the Sith. 

“Now this isn't really all that important except that I loved the series enough to create a fan fiction story set in the Star Wars Universe with a character I created. I also decided to dress up as that character and attend a preview of the next installment to the series.

“When I got there, some guy was selling a bunch of props, and one of them was this,” Paul pulled out his lightsaber. “It’s just like the mental image I had of my OC’s lightsaber. I bought it from the guy, activated by accident, then wound up here.”

“That is most interesting,” Luna said. “Do you expect that he was a powerful sorcerer to be able to achieve such a feat?”

“I don't know how he did it, but I don't think it was magic,” Paul said. “There’s no magic on earth. The only magic there is in myths and works of fiction.”

At this, Twilight jumped up and almost choked on her food. After some coughing, she finally spoke. “No magic?! How could any civilization not have magic?”

“Humans are technologically gifted instead. In a secondary level engineering class, a group of students can build a robot more technologically advanced than anything seen on this planet,” Paul said. “It will be made of scavenged plywood and held together by copious amounts of duct tape, but still, it will be more advanced.”

Twilight’s jaw hit the floor.

“Oh, but on the topic of the Jedi and Sith,” Paul continued. “They were unique in that they wielded weapons known as ‘lightsabers,’ such as this one,” he held his up once again. “They were also able to harness what is only known as ‘The Force.’ Through this, they were able to use telekinetic powers, mind tricks on weaker-minded beings, and in the case of the Sith, throw lightning.”

“What is so interesting about a ‘lightsaber?’” Celestia asked. “It does not seem to be much more than a tube of metal.”

“Alright,” Paul started, thinking of a way to demonstrate without destroying something valuable. 

“So, is there anything here that you wouldn't mind getting ‘accidentally’ destroyed?” He made air quotes on the word ‘accidentally.’

“It is fine, anything you may break can be easily fixed with a repair spell,” Luna said.

“Oh, well then here,” Paul said as he pulled a larger plate from under the one with his meal. “Let's use this.”

Paul held the plate in front of him with one hand, grabbing one of the halves of his lightsaber from his belt and activating it. 

“Watch this neat party trick,” Paul said. He slowly cut through the opposite side of the plate, letting pieces fall to the floor and shatter.

The Princesses were amazed by how the blade seemed to melt the glass plate before it even made contact, then left the edges of the slices molten and bubbling.

When Paul was done, he deactivated the blade and put it away. Twilight cast the repair spell and the plate reformed out of the shards on the ground before she replaced it under his other plate. 

“And trust me,” Paul said, sitting back down in his chair. “It cuts through a lot more than that.”

He received a nod from Twilight. “He cut through a full grown tree with a single strike!” 

“Most impressive,” Luna commented. “I can see how these Jedi and Sith might be seen as powerful warriors. And by extension, you yourself must be. Correct?”

Paul shook his head and laughed. “Me? Oh, no. I had these powers thrust upon me. I'm not naturally a Jedi. No, I've only used this blade in combat once, and barely survived by pure chance. I'm certainly no skilled warrior.”

“A shame,” Luna sighed under her breath.

“Pardon, I didn't catch that Princess. What did you say?” Paul asked.

“Hmm? Oh, nothing. Just thinking aloud,” she answered.

“Well, it has gotten rather late, hasn't it,” Celestia said, gesturing towards one of the windows. “Perhaps it would be best if the two of you stayed the night and took an early train to Ponyville tomorrow?”

“I could certainly use a shower,” Paul said. “So I think that I'll be fine as long as I get that and a nice, soft bed.”

“Ah, yes,” Luna said, a small smile forming on her face. “We didn't want to say anything of your odor.”

“Oh, ha ha,” Paul said sarcastically. “Make jokes at the expense of the new guy. I see how it is.”

“Yes, We could smell you from here,” Luna continued. At this point she was struggling to control her laughter.

“Yeah, yeah. I get the point,” Paul said, smiling. Then he continued in a mock-snobbish voice. “If I could be shown to my room now, I think that I shall retire for the evening.”

As a castle servant escorted him from the room, Paul bowed to the Princesses and left with a flourish.


<<<==>>>


Paul followed the servant through the hallways and corridors towards his room for the night. 

The whole way, all he could think about was his family and his home. 

His dad, who always told Paul how much he loved him, but couldn't seem to find the right way to show it.

His mom, who was always there when he needed her. Be it for homework help, a place to crash for the night, or a pick-me-up.

His brother Elijah, the science geek. Always running some sort of janky experiment or another, but still the little brother he loved.

His sister Susan, the successful business woman. First in the family to complete college. She was always happy to help him out of a tight spot or two involving money issues.

His grandfather, a cooky, funny, old man with random nuggets of wisdom he would impart on people’s lives.

And finally, his girlfriend Angela. They had been dating for a year and a half now, and they had been considering renting an apartment together. What Paul loved about her was that she saw him for who he was, and she still loved him, despite his flaws.

Paul had actually been wanting to ask her parents if he could ask her to marry him, but he hadn't found a good time yet.

Paul was broken from his musings when he heard the servant clear his throat. Paul looked up and noticed that he had passed the pony when he stopped at one of the doors.

“I'm sorry, I was lost in thought,” Paul said. 

“Not a problem, sir,” the pony answered with an English accent.

Paul thanked the pony and entered the room.

He immediately made for the bathroom where he turned on the shower before locking the door and stripping his clothes off. 

He stepped under the hot water and let it pour down his back, soothing his muscles, still stiff from a week of not moving.

He stood there for an hour or so, just letting the water cascade down his back. 

Once he was done, he got out and found the towels on a rack. He grabbed one and began drying himself off. After he finished, he only put his boxers back on.

Paul took his pants and laid them over the foot board to put on in the morning, then he got into the bed and laid down under the covers and began to drift off into sleep.
> The Griffon Ambassador
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Paul gently awoke in a large, soft bed. He rolled over to look at his surroundings, finding himself in the guest room he had been given for the night.

As he came into his waking mind, he pushed off the covers and got out of bed. He slowly and stiffly walked to the end of the bed and just put on his pants, as he still had no shirt to wear.

On his way out, he retrieved his lightsabers from the bedside table, then grabbed his bag from the chair next to the door. He put on his backpack and opened the door to try and find his way back to the dining room for a quick breakfast before he went back to Ponyville with Twilight.

As he stepped out, however, he almost ran into the earth pony guard posted there. 

“Oh, excuse me,” Paul started. “Didn't see you there. Sorry I almost knocked you over.”

“You're fine, sir. There is no need for an apology,” he responded. “Now, if you would follow me, I've been instructed to take you to breakfast.”

“Ah, well then, lead the way,” Paul said.

After about a minute of walking, Paul was rather uncomfortable with the silence.

“So what’s your name,” he asked, looking to make friendly conversation.

“Corporal Iron Shield,” the guard answered. “Pleased to meet you.”

“And I, you. Do you have any family?” Paul asked.

“Yes, my parents live in Hoofington with my younger siblings,” he answered.

“Ah, I see. How about a girlfriend?” He asked.

Iron Shield turned and gave him an odd look. “A what?”

“You know, a special lady friend?” Paul tried again.

Iron Shield gained a brief look of realization, hesitating for a moment before he gave a slight glare and answered. “It's complicated.”

Paul chuckled. “Ha, ain't that the truth.”

The guard fell silent, choosing to simply look straight ahead and lead Paul to his destination.

This left Paul with a chance to reflect on his last few days on Earth.

It had started with him bidding farewell to friends and family for a quick weekend trip to San Diego. The next day was spent situating his hotel and then wandering around the convention center to look for merch. And then that fateful day. He was just going to watch the new teaser, but instead--.

“Here you are, sir,” Iron Shield said, breaking him away from his thoughts. Paul looked up and saw the door in front of him, so he gave his thanks to the guard and went inside.

As Paul entered, he saw that both Celestia and Luna were already starting their meals, each seemed to have a stack of pancakes with syrup.

Both turned and looked at him as he entered the room. 

“Oh, good morning,” Celestia started. “I trust you slept well?”

“Like a rock,” Paul answered, nodding. “Which is surprising considering that I was asleep for the majority of the last week.”

“Physical healing can be quite taxing in the body,” Luna pointed out.

Paul nodded as he walked across the room to sit in a chair. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

As he sat, he gave the waiter his order of pancakes with syrup.

“So what's on the agenda for today?” He asked, curious as to the tasks of the day ahead. 

“Well, I believe that you and Twilight were going to return to Ponyville today, yes?” Celestia asked. “In the meanwhile, my sister and I begin our search for a suitable spell to send you home.” 

“That sound good,” Paul replied. “Anything special going on otherwise?”

“There is the matter of the impending visit from Lord Sod of the Griffon Kingdoms,” Luna stated, practically spitting the name.

“I take it that we don't like the griffons?” Paul asked.

“No, the griffons as a whole can be rather pleasant, but Lord Sod is quite an arrogant and condescending jerk, even to myself and my sister at times,” Celestia answered.

“Oh, he's one of those,” Paul said in realization. “You see, where I come from, those are kinds of people that either get decked in the face, or rise to power and take advantage of others. Sadly, it seems that we have a case of the second.”

Paul sat back and thought for a minute, his musings interrupted by his breakfast arriving.

He thanked the waiter and began eating.

“You know,” he started. “Would it be alright with the two of you if I sat in on this meeting?”


<<<==>>>


Paul stood in the throne room, directly behind the twin thrones of the solar and lunar diarchs. He was all the way back against the wall, hidden in the shadows.

He stood there waiting for the griffon ambassador, Lord Sod, brother of King Risan, to arrive.

His wait was not long however, as the doors to the throne room soon opened, a griffon herald announcing the arrival.

“And now entering, his excellency, Brother of the King, Head of the Royal Military, etcetera, Lord Sod the Fearsome.”

As the griffons entered, it was clear which one was Sod. He was the one in the garish robes surrounded by five armed guards. That wasn't including the little procession before or after him, which added up to another twenty guards.

When Paul first caught sight of Sod, his heart leapt straight into his throat. He felt something wrong with the being before him. There was some hidden danger there behind the guise of a snob.

As he passed by the herald, he harshly smacked the poor griffon on the back of the head.

“Fool, next time announce the full list of titles.”

Make that the guise of a snob and a jerk.

As he continued, his guards made way for him to approach the thrones.

He stopped at the foot of the stairs and merely dipped his head in acknowledgement, rather than bowing in respect.

“Lord Sod, it is a pleasure to meet with you again,” Celestia said, hiding her true feelings behind a magnificent poker face.

“And for myself as well,” he replied. His attempt to hide his spite did not quite go as well, and Paul caught it immediately. A brief silence followed.

Luna broke this silence by beckoning to the griffon. “Come, let us be seated to discuss the matters before us.”

As she spoke, a large table with many chairs was floated out into the main expanse of the hall by the unicorn guards stationed around the room.

“Of course,” Sod responded. 

The Princesses sat together at one head of the table, with the griffon ambassador sitting at the other end.

Paul remained in the shadows, as the guards remained at their posts along the walls. However, this didn't stop him from gripping his lightsabers tightly in anxiety.

He stood in wait, cautious of the griffons. Right now, the representatives of these two nations were discussing some trade policy and whether or not to keep it in place.

“Good, now that we have come to a conclusion on the trade laws, allow me to present the next order of business,” Lord Sod began, pulling out a glowing blue gem.

“It seems that this gem has made its way into my collection, and while it is beautiful indeed, I decided that I simply must give it to you as a gift. A token of the everlasting peace between our nations, if you will.”

Sod held the gem out in his claw for the Princesses, and Paul felt a terrible feeling of dread wash over him.

He was about to cry out in warning when Celestia’s magic encompassed the gem, bringing it close for inspection. However, it quickly crumbled into dust.

Before anyone could react to this curious event, a tremendous peal of thunder sounded, made doubly impactful by the bolt of white lightning that crashed through the roof of the hall and struck where the remains of the gem were sitting.

While Paul was rubbing his eyes to clear the effects of the flashbang-like lightning strike, he could hear the guards trying to engage the griffons.

“Hit the griffons with stuns!” One called.

“My magic isn't working!” Another yelled. His call was met with similar ones.

“Use hoof-to-claw combat!” A final voice rang out.

The rest was lost in the cacophony that ensued.

As Paul finally regained his bearings, he looked out into the hall and saw two large griffons attacking Celestia and Luna, attempting to kill them. Thankfully though, they still kept their heads well enough to avoid any real imminent danger from their attackers.

Paul grabbed his lightsabers from his belt, one in each hand, and activated them as he stepped out from the shadows.

“WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?!” Paul yelled at the top of his lungs, causing the whole room to comically stop in whatever position they were in and look at him. He tried to look menacing, but that yell had really put a lot of strain on his throat and he began coughing.

When he was done, he looked back up. “Now, as I was saying, Sod, did you really think that you could just waltz in here and kill the Princesses?”

Unabashed, Sod approached Paul confidently while everyone else in the room remained frozen. “And just what are you, creature?”

One thought instantly came to Paul’s mind and he couldn't resist.

“Me?” He asked exaggeratedly, gesturing to himself. “Well, I’m what most people would probably call a hero.”

“Oh, and how are you going to save the Princesses with a pair of light-sticks and a bunch of useless guards, when we've disabled all forms of magic in this room?!”

“Pretty easily, since I don't, you know, use magic,” he replied as he used the Force to lift the ambassador through the air and grab him. 

He turned to the other griffons, holding their leader captive. 

“Observe,” he said simply. He saw a piece of the roof on the ground and threw it up into the air with the Force, then made a clean swipe at it with his free blade as it fell, splitting the rock down the center.

They all stared wide-eyed at the feat.

“Now that I have your attention, you will surrender, or Lord Sod will die. It is quite that simple.”

Some immediately moved away from any ponies that they were standing near and dropped their weapons, while others seemed more reluctant.

“You might want to motivate them to move, or I might have to motivate you with my blade," Paul said.

“Do as he says!” The captive griffon squeaked out. “Just do it!”

The ones who had hesitated now moved, the ones who had moved first now moved with fervor.

“Now get against the wall there,” Paul ordered them, gesturing towards one of the walls with his free blade. “And then put your claws behind your heads so we can see them.”

The griffons did as they were told and lined up against the wall.

“Now, I will give you this one mercy. Half of you that are lined up against the wall will get to be escorted home by the Equestrian guard. The other half will be treated to a luxury stay in the five star Canterlot dungeons.”

“And what of me?” Sod asked carefully.

Paul looked down at him. “You? Oh, no there's no choice for you. You're getting the five star treatment.”

“But I'm- What? No, you can't-”

Paul looked up at the Princesses while Sod continued to stumble over his words. “Princesses, could you gather the guards necessary to escort them home and give me a few to help me take the rest to the dungeons?”

“Of course, Paul,” Celestia replied shakily. “We will need a few moments though.”

“Take all the time you need, Princesses, I will remain here with these guards to watch the prisoners.”

Before anyone could say anything else, Sod spoke a few words that sent chills down the spines of everyone that heard him.

“My Lord, Darth Diathor, will not be pleased.”

“What did you say?!” Paul asked as he turned the griffon around and stepped back, keeping his lightsabers pointed at the ‘ambassador.’

“Darth Diathor will not be pleased that you have foiled his plot,” Sod responded angrily.

“Tell me about this Darth Diathor,” Paul ordered, his voice went slightly erratic.

“I will not compromise my Lord,” Sod responded.

‘Alright, I guess that this is as good a time as any to try this,’ Paul thought as he put away his right hand blade.

He stuck his hand out and did a sweeping motion over Sod as he spoke. “You will tell me everything you know about Darth Diathor.”

Sod just stared back at him. “I will not. I already said that I will not tell you anything, foolish creature.”

Paul didn't seem too miffed though. “Well, it was a long shot anyway. Now come back here.”

Paul lifted Sod into the air again and grabbed him, leading him over to where his guards where.

He placed Sod against the wall with his guards, then stepped back to think for a minute.


<<<==>>>


While Paul was thinking, Luna approached him. 

“Paul, what significance does the name ‘Darth Diathor’ hold to you?” She asked.

“He's a Sith. Remember how I said that the Jedi and the Sith were opposite sides of the Force, always battling with each other? Well, as I told you, Jedi represent the light side and Sith represent the dark side.”

“We remember,” Luna answered as Celestia walked up as well.

“Well, you know how I said that I became the Jedi from my fan fiction story? Well, the main antagonist was a Sith by the name of Darth Diathor. So imagine my surprise and fear when I find his name being thrown around here.”

He looked at Sod pointedly before continuing.

“I don't know know how he's here, or if it's another person like me, but if it's actually him, then we should be very cautious. He's a magnificent strategist, and likes to play his games through smoke and mirrors, using people as puppets, always hiding his true agenda. It's what made him a great villain. But we have one plus side, I created him, so I know how he thinks.

“Then again, if it's just another person like me, then all of that goes out the window, and the best way out that could think of would be to try and convince him to find a way home with me. That's the only nonviolent way I can think of ending this. Any other end would be all out war.”

Paul looked to the prisoners, then the Princesses.

“Let's hope it doesn't come to that.”
> Assembling the Team
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

After finding out that his own creation was out to get him, Paul decided that it would probably be best to wait before sending any griffons back to where Diathor was waiting. So instead he sent all of the griffons to the dungeons. 

But now he was having a meeting with the Princesses about further action, military action actually. 

“We cannot allow this attempt on our lives to go unanswered!” Luna said animatedly.

“I understand that, and I agree completely, but I don’t think it’s wise to just send an army straight into the Griffon Kingdoms with no idea of what’s waiting for us there,” Paul countered.

“So we will send scouts,” Celestia said with finality. “Paul, I know that you’re against this, but trust us when it comes to world politics. Any less of a reaction, and every other country on the planet would attempt to take us over.”

Paul looked at both of them, running through potential counterarguments in his head. Ultimately, he couldn’t think of anything.

“Fine,” he said. “Okay, so we will muster an army. Well, how many do we have already?”

Celestia thought about it for a second before answering. “Last I checked, there were almost 7,000 soldiers in the Equestrian Armed Forces, so it should be just over 8,000 by now.”

Paul’s jaw actually dropped. “You’re kidding, right? And do we have any plans to draft more?”

Both Princesses’ eyes widened. “No,” Luna answered. “That number is actually considered massive. We have the largest standing army on Equus.”

“What!?” Paul yelled. “And how many do the griffons have?”

“About 5,000 if I remember correctly,” Celestia answered.

“I just want to get some perspective here, but what is the population of Equus?”

“The whole planet?” Celestia asked. “Oh, it must be close to fifty million.”

Paul did some quick number crunching in his head, before shaking it.

“So then your planet hasn’t seen the after effects of suddenly losing two percent of the population to war in under a decade. Good, let’s keep it that way.” He thought.

Paul looked up at the Princesses. 

“You can stop your search to find me a way home, because I’m not leaving until Diathor is no longer a threat,” Paul said. “I’m going to join the army as a foot soldier. I don’t want special treatment, I just want to get this over with.”

“Absolutely not,” Luna stated. “You are too valuable a tactical asset to be put in danger of front-line combat.”  

“Then what do you want me to do, Luna?” Paul asked. “If I can’t join the fight, then what do you want me to do?”

Luna gained a mischievous look. “I did not say that you can’t join the military, only that you cannot join the front lines.”

“Where else would I go?” Paul asked. “I’m pretty sure that’s how it works, you get drafted into a front lines position, or you go through officer school, and I already completed all the schooling I’ll ever do.”

“That’s usually how it goes, yes,” Luna answered. “But usually there isn’t a Princess involved.”

Paul looked at Luna quizzically.

“I name you, Jedi General Paul of the Equestrian Armed Forces.”

Paul’s eyes widened at her words. 

“I’m actually a Jedi General… Are you kidding me?”

“I assure you, it is no jest,” Luna replied.

“I have no idea how to lead an army!” Paul exclaimed.

“Then it’s a good thing you don’t have to do it alone,” Celestia assured him. “We will be with you the whole way. However, I believe that you would do well to find a few guards and soldiers to trust in. Some friends, if you will.”

Paul looked at her like she was crazy.

“It may also help that the both of us millenia-old and have led through a few large scale conflicts,” Celestia added.

“You know what? Fine. I’ll do it,” Paul answered. He pointed at Luna. “I’ll accept the job, but I lead from the front lines.” He pointed at Celestia. “And I’ll make some friends, but they’ll be promoted to be directly under me. There, happy?”

Both Princesses nodded, pleased with the results.


<<<==>>>


The next day, Paul was sitting in his new office in the palace, sorting through all of the files that Celestia had sent him.

She had sent these applications to him without telling the ponies they belonged to. These ponies had no idea that they were hoof-picked by Celestia to have a chance at this opportunity.

That, however, didn't make it any easier for Paul to read through the three hundred seventeen soldier profiles.

So far he had three stacks: unread, good candidate, and bad candidate.

Thankfully, the smallest stack was the unread, which meant that he was almost done with the first round.

Paul sighed as he finished the unread files, then counted the sizable stack of accepted ones.

“Well, at least I’ve trimmed it down from three hundred to about eighty,” Paul thought with a sigh.

He just shook his head and sat the files into a new stack, before repeating the process all over again.


<<<==>>>


An hour later, Paul was finally down to about ten possible ponies for the position.

By now, he knew the names, ages, ranks, and much more of each one by memory.

“So,” he started, voicing his thoughts. “I think that I’ll go ahead and say that these three are definitely in.”

Paul moved three of the files over to the side, then looked at the last six files again.

“Ugh, I just don’t know enough about them!” He suddenly exclaimed. He buried his face in his hands, taking a moment to think about a solution to his problem. Thoughts which were interrupted by a sudden twinge of pain from his stomach.

“Oh, I didn’t notice how hungry I was,” he thought, glancing at the clock. “Or that I’d been in there for four hours.”

Paul got up and went to the door, stepping out, and making his way to the dining hall. With any luck, he’d catch Celestia or Luna there and be able ask them what they knew of the remaining candidates.


<<<==>>>


Paul arrived at the dining hall and entered to see that Celestia had just taken her order.

She turned her head and saw him. 

“Ah, Paul, how is your search for some friends going?” She asked.

“Well, I’ve got it down to about seven candidates left, and there are two spots still open for one of them to fill,” Paul answered before pausing to take his order. “I was wondering if you could tell me more about these last individuals.”

“Of course,” Celestia said. “What are their names? I have a spell that lets me recall anything they have ever done while wearing the armor issued to them.”

“Wow. That’s impressive,” Paul said before listing the candidates. “Alright, so we have Private First Class Golden Lance, Corporal Opal Comet, Staff Sergeant Crimson Ace, Master Sergeant Bronze Mace, Sergeant Major Onyx Bolt, First Lieutenant Silver Shine, and Captain Shining Armor.”

“Hmm, I see that you have a taste for the more highly skilled warriors,” Celestia said. “All  of them have proven talented in physical combat, as I am sure you already know.”

Paul merely nodded and motioned for her to continue.

“Very well, I suppose that we shall start with the private and go up from there,” Celestia said. “Golden Lance is a very… interesting guard, to say the least. He is kind and helpful, but takes his job very seriously despite his eccentricities. Overall, he is a very reliable stallion and breaks up the monotony.”

“Alright,” Paul said. “He sounds like a fun guy to hang around with. Next?”

“Corporal Opal Comet is a fine soldier,” Celestia started. “He has proven himself very capable on covert stealth missions in foreign nations. He has a special talent that allows him to cast a spell used to stun enemies both visually and audibly. He also can get along with others fairly well, which would suit your purposes rather admirably.”

“Okay, he seems like he might have a place on the team,” Paul stated, a thousand thoughts running through his head. “Next?”

“Staff Sergeant Crimson Ace. This earth pony is practically an army by himself. He has far surpassed the previous records in strength, endurance, and skill. Despite these traits that make him a great soldier, he has little to no social skills. He actively pushes others away from him and keeps to himself.”

“Hmm, as much as I would like to say yes, I don’t think that he would enjoy being forced to work with other,” Paul went to continue, but the food arrived, and the two of them began eating. “Next?”

“Master Sergeant Bronze Mace is a very friendly stallion,” Celestia began with a smile. “And despite being an average age for a guard, he is somewhat seen as a fatherly figure to many. He is an ‘old soul,’ as some might say, wise beyond his years both in battle, leadership, and life advice. Bronze Mace is perhaps one of the most skilled guards in our military. He is very proficient with his Ming blades. In the castle’s training grounds, he has faced many opponents, and almost always comes out on top.”

“I like him already. He sounds like a good candidate,” Paul said. “Next?”

“Sergeant Major Onyx Bolt is one of our finest long range spellcasters. He can hit a target the size of my hoof at a distance of a thousand feet. He is known by some of the other guards to be very neat and tidy, making sure that everypony under him follows the guidelines he sets. The corporal is very intelligent, and can read battle situations with ease. However, this has only ever been tested in simulations, because we have had no wars within the last few hundred years.”

“Oh, as nice as that skill sounds, I don’t think that I’d be able to get along with him. I’m rather messy,” Paul said with a sigh. “Next?”

“First Lieutenant Silver Shine is quite a stickler for the rules. Every officer has to memorize the guidebook before completion, and most forget all of it within a month, but Silver Shine expects everypony to follow every rule with precision. He may be able to use his flight speed, agility, and skill to fight like almost nopony ever seen before, but he wouldn’t be very well suited for your team.”

“Well that’s too bad. I feel like he could’ve been a valuable asset to the team,” Paul said as he shook his head. “Next?”

“Ah, saving the best for last. Captain Shining Armor is a very admirable stallion. Despite his position as captain, the highest ranking in the guard, he has actually been out on more covert missions than anypony else in our forces. Shining Armor is most certainly the most skilled pony we have, without a doubt. He has more than earned his current ranking and is quite a nice stallion to be around. Not to mention that you are friends with his sister.”

“Wait, what?” Paul asked. “Who’s his sister?”

Celestia smirked. “Well, what if I told you that she was on the train with you?”

“On the trai--” Paul stopped. “No way, Twilight’s brother is Captain of the Royal Guard? She never said anything about it!”

“As far as she knows right now, he’s still at the rank of Sergeant Major and is always training guards. That’s our cover for why he has to ‘disappear’ when he goes on missions.”

Paul nodded. “I see. Well, you’ve given me a lot to think about, Princess. Thank you for this enlightening meeting.”

Paul set down his silverware on the empty plate, stood up, and walked out of the dining hall to head for his office. He had a big decision ahead of him. 


<<<==>>>


“Do you know why you’re here?” Paul asked the small group of ponies assembled in the small secretary’s office outside his own. Not that he had an actual secretary yet.

They all shook their heads. Some were still staring at him, silently wondering what he was.

“Then allow me to enlighten you,” Paul continued. “As you should know, yesterday there was an attempt on the Princesses’ lives by the griffons. Most likely, you had also deduced that there will be retaliation. Gentlecolts, we are at war.”

There seemed to be a split reaction, half of them looked surprised, while the other half seemed as if they saw it coming.

“Now, I know what some of you are thinking. ‘What does this have to do with me? Why am I here in front of this odd creature?’ You may ask yourself. Well, you see, this odd creature here,” Paul gestured to himself, “was just made general of this army. And you five have been hand chosen by me out of more than three hundred candidates based upon skill, talent, and personality. If you accept, you are to be directly under me. You will be my eyes and ears on the battlefield, my advisors when speaking to the crowds, and my brothers-in-arms.”

The six ponies were astonished by his words.

“So, I have but one question to ask. ‘Will you accept?’ I will give you stallions a few minutes to think it over. Whenever you’re ready, or if you have any questions, just step into my office.”

With these words, Paul left them to their thoughts. He sat down at his desk and pulled out a book, getting ready to start reading. However, as he got settled, there was a knock on his door.

“Come in,” he called, surprised that one had decided so quickly.

The pony on the other side did as he was told and entered the room, he was a white unicorn with a dark blue mane. He walked forward and saluted.

“Uh, at ease?” Paul asked, hoping that he had used the right terminology. The stallion in front of him relaxed. “Um, so I’m not super big on the whole, ‘formal’ thing, so just take a seat and speak your mind.”

The stallion blinked and sat down in one of the chairs before speaking. “Oh, well, it’s an honor to meet you, sir. I just wanted to say that I very much appreciate your offer and I wholeheartedly accept. I find this to be a very good opportunity to help the betterment of our nation.”

“Thank you, Shining Armor,” Paul said, reaching out with a fist. “Welcome to the team. You can call me Paul.”

Shining reached over as well, giving a hoof bump. “Yes, sir. Am I dismissed?”

“Yeah, go ahead and go do your job, I still have to do a whole stack of paperwork before you’re officially on the team.”

“Yes, sir,” Shining said as he saluted, before turning and leaving.

The next few ponies were ones that Paul had met before and actually liked, a big part of why they had been chosen. All three of them, Star Glow, Star Shine, and Iron Shield, had all accepted.

Only one pony had yet to make a decision. And that was--

A knock sounded at the door. 

“Opal Comet, I see that you have finally come to a decision,” Paul said as the smoky black unicorn walked in.

“Yes, sir,” the stallion replied, seeming a little nervous. 

“Good, and what do you think?” Paul asked.

The unicorn seemed hesitant to answer. “Well, uh, don’t get me wrong, sir, I appreciate the offer, but… I have to respectfully decline the position.”

Paul leaned back in his chair, gazing over the stallion. “Hmm, a shame, I think I would’ve liked you. Oh well, I suppose that I was shooting a little high by expecting all of you to accept... “

Paul lost himself in thought for a second before he gave his head a shake, returning him to reality.

“Sorry,” he apologized to the unicorn. “Well, thanks for considering this offer, Corporal. You’re dismissed.”

The pony saluted before turning and walking out the door.

Paul stared at the door after the pony had left. Despite what he had said, he was actually a little bit upset over the loss of this opportunity.

However, he decided to put it behind him and checked the other files that he still had. He leafed through them for a bit before finally finding the one he wanted.

“Alright then, Private Lance, let’s see what you’ve got.”


<<<==>>>


There was a knock at the door to Paul’s office.

“Come in,” the response came.

The door opened and in walked a young-looking golden unicorn with a stark black mane.

“Good afternoon, sir. You wanted to see me?” He asked.

Paul nodded. “Yes, I did, and I’ll get straight to the point. As you may know I have been made General by the princesses, and I have decided to put a few guards  under my direct command. You are one of them. Private, I am offering you a chance to become the sixth-highest ranking soldier in the Equestrian Armed Forces. I will give you a few minutes to think it over.”

“Thank you, sir” Lance responded immediately. “But I won’t need that time. I graciously accept.”

Paul smiled at the unicorn, extending an arm. “Well then, welcome to the team, Commander.” 

The pony smiled and returned the fist bump. “Thank you, sir,” he said as he left.

Just as Lance was closing the door, Paul spoke. “Oh, and Lance, please, call me Paul.”

The unicorn just nodded and closed the door behind him, leaving Paul alone in his office.

“Alright, easy part’s done. Now for the hard part,” Paul said, looking at several stacks of paper on his desk. “The paperwork.”

> The Giant Stirs
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Paul had worked well into the night, perhaps even the wee hours of the morning, but he eventually finished all of the transfer orders. He had set the stack of paperwork on his desk neatly and stumbled off to bed. 

It was now morning and he was headed to see Celestia. Paul figured that all of the military’s forces should be notified of his position, but he didn’t know the best way to do so. As he made his way through the grand halls of the palace, he wondered what would be the best way to disclose the information.

Paul entered the dining room and saw Celestia there, mid-meal. He smiled as he saw her, and she smiled back upon seeing him.

“Good morning Princess, I figured I’d find you here,” he said. “Where’s Princess Luna?”

“She’s sleeping,” Celestia answered. “She has to stay up from sunset to sunrise, guarding the night and ponies’ dreams. She is usually only up during the day when there is some form of special event.”

“Ah, I see,” Paul responded as he ordered just a bowl of oatmeal from the waiter. “I’ve been thinking about an issue for a bit now. I’ve been put into command of the Equestrian Armed Forces, but how do we inform the armed forces themselves, you know, the ponies that make up our military?”

Celestia took a bite of her breakfast, pondering the question, before she formed a smile. “Yes, that could work…” she said to herself before answering Paul. “There is a powerful spell I could use to achieve this purpose. I would be able to project an image of you to the unicorn mages stationed at each outpost. This would allow you to speak to each and every guard in our forces and update them on our predicament.”

Paul thought on it for a second. “Yeah, that sounds like a good plan. They would be aware of the situation, my presence, my command, and my species. It covers everything we need it to. Thank you, Princess.”

“It is my pleasure, Paul. This briefing will be tomorrow at noon,” she said with a smile. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must begin the Day Court.”

“Goodbye for now, then,” answered Paul.


<<<==>>>


After breakfast, Paul returned to his office to begin working up a speech. If he was to bolster these troops, he would need to know what he was going to say before hand, instead of winging it.

He sat down and pulled out a piece of parchment, an inkwell, and a quill. He was about to start writing when he remembered something. 

“What am I doing?” He asked himself, putting down the quill. “I have a laptop sitting in my room!”

He stood up and left his office, heading towards his room. Once he arrived, he opened the door and found his backpack in the chair in the corner. He grabbed it and put it on, wincing when the rough straps rubbed against his skin. 

“Oh yeah,” he thought. “I still don’t have a shirt. I guess I just forgot about it. Eh, whatever, I’m fine without it for now.”

Paul shrugged and made his way back to his office, setting up his laptop and noticing that it seemed to be perpetually charging itself somehow. He decided to look into it later and began to type his speech. 


<<<==>>>


About three hours later, Paul finally finished his speech. It certainly wasn’t a masterpiece, but it would effectively convey everything he needed it to. 

Satisfied with his efforts, Paul left his office and went to the dining hall to grab a quick lunch. He wanted to spend the rest of the day training with his lightsaber and possibly honing his Force powers.

When he arrived at the hall, neither of the Princesses were present, so he simply sat down, ordered his food, and waited for it to arrive. Once it did, he quickly ate it and departed. 


<<<==>>>


After wandering around the castle for a little while due to mistaking one of the maid’s direction to the guard gym and weight room, Paul found himself in an unfamiliar part of the castle. He began looking around, trying to find anything he recognized, when he suddenly heard a door open behind him.

He quickly turned around to see who it was, he tensed and his hand went to his lightsaber just in case. However, he relaxed when he saw that it was only Shining Armor. The stallion noticed him as well, gaining a puzzled look, wondering what Paul was doing there.

“Ah, Shining Armor,” Paul started. “I’m glad to have run into you. I was looking for the gym, but then I realized, I have no idea where I am in the castle, or where the gym is. Do you know how I could get there from here?”

“Yes, sir. Just follow me, I was actually headed there myself,” Shining answered.

“Please, just Paul. We’re both off duty,” Paul answered as he fell in step next to the pony.

The pair set off towards the gym, making their way through various twists and turns of the castle’s passageways. After about five minutes, they arrived at the double doors to the gymnasium.

“Here we are, sir,” Shining said, opening the door for Paul.

“Thanks,” Paul said as he entered.

“No problem. Hey, uh, I was just wondering, what are you here for?” Shining asked, unsure why the human would need to visit a gym.

“What reason does anypony come here? I need to develop, train, and hone my skills in combat. Because I have none. Though, a little hard work never killed anyone.” 

Paul turned and opened the door, and they were both hit with the stench of sweaty males. After they overcame the sudden smell, the pair entered. 

Paul looked around and noted that none of the equipment seemed suitable for a biped, so weightlifting was probably the only thing he could do besides potentially working on swordplay. 

He looked around again, this time noting the occupants. They were mostly ponies, but he did see one biped in the room. A very large minotaur was lifting some very big weights with only a slight strain. Paul had seen his file pass over his desk. This was Steel Forge, a beast on the battlefield, but surprisingly well-mannered outside of it. 

Paul thought for a moment, considering whether or not it would be beneficial to work on swordplay with him. On one hand, he was the only biped here with combat experience, in fact the only one here at all as far as Paul knew. But on the other hand, the only weapon that could effectively simulate a lightsaber would be a rapier, and Steel Forge’s mighty two-handed broadsword was a far cry from a rapier.

Shaking his head, Paul decided he would figure it out another time. For now, he wanted to get physically stronger first, and that meant lifting weights. Fun. 


<<<==>>>


Several hours later, Paul had eaten dinner and just gotten out of the shower. He sat on his bed with his phone sitting at the foot. Paul sat cross-legged near his pillow, concentrating on the phone. He pictured it floating up and hovering a few inches above the covers it sat on.

Paul repeatedly pictured this mental image, after a while he opened his eyes, not sure what to expect. He was disappointed to see that the phone hadn’t moved itself in the slightest from where he had placed it.

While he was disappointed, he was not discouraged. He closed his eyes and kept trying, giving it several more attempts before he finally did become discouraged and just decided to lay down and go to sleep.


<<<==>>>


The next morning, Paul awoke, feeling surprisingly good after spending half the previous day training. He got out of bed and ran his hands through his hair, noting that his bangs touched his eyebrows. He also put a hand to his face and felt the stubble that had grown out. 

I need to shave and get a haircut, he thought. This is getting a little long and scraggly for my liking.

He made a mental note and went to the dining hall to eat breakfast. He ate his food quickly and went back to his office to rehearse his speech before he had to give it. After an hour or so of going over the speech, he had to leave to deliver it. 

Paul left his office, laptop in tow, and made his way to the throne room, where Celestia would be projecting his speech from. He arrived at the entrance to the throne room and nodded to the guards as they saluted him and opened the large double doors for him.

He entered and saw the large crowd of fancy looking ponies lined up on either side of the carpet that stretched to the throne. Before he advanced, he spared a glance up at the roof, which had been completely repaired in just a few days, and saw two pegasus guards hidden in the shadows above the chandelier.

Paul shook his head and began to walk down the center of the room, almost smirking as everypony silenced when he passed. Many had heard the rumors of his actions, but few, if any, had actually seen him in person, and they were awed by his stature and his calm but firm presence.

As he approached Celestia and Luna, he stopped just before the dias and kneeled before them. 

“Rise, General,” came the firm voice of Luna. 

Paul obeyed and turned to face Celestia and opened his computer to the speech. He nodded to her and her horn lit up with the spell to transmit his message to every unicorn in the Equestrian military. 

The sound of a bell tower chiming the hour prompted Celestia to finish the cast, and as the light washed over Paul, he waited several seconds and began speaking.

“Good afternoon,” Paul started, his face neutral. “My name is Paul and I am currently the highest ranking officer in the Equestrian Armed Forces. As such, I am uniquely qualified to inform you of the atrocious acts that occurred only two days ago.

“During a meeting to discuss peace and good relations between our nations,” Paul continued, his face growing stern. “The griffons attempted to assassinate our fair leaders. The Princesses themselves were attacked in their own castle during a meeting of will.”

This was apparently news to some of the nobles in the room, as there were several gasps in the audience, though most only wore looks of anger and contempt.

“This act was meant to throw our nation into chaos and make it easy for the griffons to conquer us, but due to the efforts of our skilled Royal Guards, the would-be-assassins were apprehended and the Princesses were saved,” here Paul’s face grew softer and he gained a small smile. “And because of their mistake, the griffons have awoken the sleeping giant that is Equestria. A great force is now moved to protect a great country.”

Paul’s smiled faded and was replaced by a fire in his eyes.

“And let it be noted by all: this act of war will not go unanswered. If we need to march all the way to Griffonstone itself before they surrender, then so be it. But we will not back down from the challenge placed before us. On this day, all Equestrians, from all walks of life, will unite in our resolve for justice and peace. Equestria has stood down enemies before, and we will do so this time.

Paul’s smile slowly reappeared.

“So we now go forward to defend freedom, equality, and all that is good and just in our world.”

“And to Diathor, who is the puppetmaster manipulating the griffons, and may or may not be viewing this message: Know that I will stop at nothing until I see you defeated. I would advise you not to cross, but it is too late for that now, isn't it?

“Armies of Equestria: May the Force be with you.”

With these final words, the transmission was cut off, and the ponies in the throne room began to applauds Paul, clearly moved by his rallying cry. After acknowledging the crowd, Paul turned back to Celestia and Luna.

“Am I free to leave now, Your Majesties?” He asked quietly. To his dismay, Celestia gave a slight shake of her head.

“Not quite yet. Several nobles will want to meet this stunning new figure they have been hearing about second- and third-hoof for the past few days. Very nice speech, by the way. Very touching, very moving, very impactful. It will be hard for the ponies not to rally behind you.”

“Thank you,” Paul said. “I had a little bit of inspiration for it from my world.”

“Hmm, well I’m afraid we must be off to socialize with the nobles now,” Luna inserted. “Let us go.”

With Luna’s words, the group of three turned and descended from the dias into the crowd.


<<<==>>>


After an exhausting hour of playing nice with the nobles, Paul finally excused himself. He left the hall and walked quickly to his bedroom, wishing not to be interrupted. When he arrived, he entered and quickly locked the door behind himself.

He collapsed on his bed as the severity of his situation hit him in full.

“I'm leading an army to war…” He said to the empty room. “What did I get myself into?”

As he sat and began to think about the series of events that lead him to this point, he couldn’t get past one in particular. His last date with Angela, the love of his life. They had just gone out to a local restaurant and had dinner together. It wasn’t anything special, but it was the last time they saw each other. It had been the night before he left for ComicCon, and all he had left of her were the pictures on his phone and his memories. 

As he broke from his memories, he subconsciously reached for his phone in his pocket, even as tears blurred his vision.

He pulled his phone from his pocket and opened up to his photos. He scrolled through them and found several with his girlfriend in them. As he stared at her picture, he heard a knock at the door, causing him to set his phone down on the bed and stand up to get the door. He walked over and wiped his eyes before opening the door, revealing Twilight Sparkle behind it.

“Hello, Paul,” she started, looking up at him. When she saw his face however, her own became concerned. “What’s wrong? Was it your speech? I thought it was wonderful! Very eloquent and to the point.”

Paul smiled despite himself. “No, Twilight, it wasn’t that. Thank you, though. No… what has me feeling so awful is just the culmination of my situation, I guess. I think that it’s really hitting me that I’m going to be leading an army to war, but that I’m also just another guy from Suburbia, America. I’m not anybody special, and I’m without anybody special that I’ve come to know and love.”

Twilight’s eyes widened in understanding. “You had to leave your friends behind, didn’t you?” She asked softly. “You had them ripped away when you were sent here… I’m so sorry, Paul.”

Paul closed his eyes as they began to water again, but when he felt the hooves wrap around his waist, he opened them in surprise. He looked down to see Twilight hugging him. 

“Thanks, Twilight,” he said.

“Anytime, Paul.”

They stood there for another minute or so before Twilight had to leave. She had only come to Canterlot for his speech, and she needed to return to Ponyville. They said their goodbyes and she left, leaving Paul to take a shower and fall into a peaceful sleep. 
> Prepare for Assault
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next three weeks flew by for Paul. He had sent out scouting parties to patrol the sea between the griffon land and Equestria. There were occasional reports, but they only ever told of a lack of an enemy. The griffons did not seem to be attacking anytime soon.

So with the possibility of war heavy on his mind, Paul began to train. He trained excessively, almost never seen anywhere but the gym. He did push ups, sit ups, bench presses, dead lifts, squats, lunges, and anything else he could think of to improve physical strength. He went for long morning runs up and down the mountain to increase his stamina and lung capacity.

He didn’t socialize or interact with anypony else beyond the bare minimum required in a day. He didn’t speak with Celestia or Luna at meals, he didn’t talk with any of his new squad he had assembled for the purpose of being his new best friends, he didn’t even spend much time outside of his room and the gym at all.

When he wasn’t in the gym, he would grab a meal and head to his room, leaving food as incentive to train himself in the ways of The Force. On his second night of training, he found his first step of progress. He was able to lift his cell phone up off the bed, but he couldn’t tell how far. He had closed his eyes in concentration and opened them to find the phone had rotated. 

With his success now tangible, he began to throw himself even further into his intense regime than before. Now he wasn’t just doing his because he had to for others, but because he wanted to for himself. He wanted to feel that intense rush of euphoria he had gotten when he first realized he had moved the phone with his mind.

For three weeks he trained, waiting for the news he both longed and dreaded to hear. He was anxious to know that the birds were on the offensive, anxious for the suspenseful wait to be over.

Then one day, about three weeks after the scouts had been sent out, the wait was finally over. 

But it was not the way Paul wanted to find out. He had been asleep in bed when he felt a pinprick of fear on his spine. It jolted him awake and he felt the pinprick spread up and down his spine, then across his back, and finally throughout his whole body. Mixed in with the fear was a whole host of other emotions. There was sorrow, pain, anger, hatred, rage, and grief mixed in, permeating the overwhelming sense of fear. 

It went on for many minutes, perhaps an hour. When it ended, Paul stood shakily and made his way to the bathroom on unsteady legs, where he proceeded to throw up into the toilet. Paul couldn’t pinpoint exactly what had happened, but one thing he knew for sure was that something terrible had occurred. He could only assume it was the griffons.

After he had finished retching, he made his way to the throne room as quickly as he could. He passed a few guards in the halls, all of which acknowledged him as his station required, but he didn’t seem to notice them. He was intensely focused on making it to the throne room to see if the Princesses knew anything. 

He made it to the throne room doors and the guards quickly opened them, allowing him access. He noticed Princess Luna upon her throne and made to speak with her.

“Paul, you are hardly seen in three weeks’ time, then you appear in our court? What brings you here at this hour of the night?” She asked, growing more worried as she noticed how pale he appeared.

“Princess,” Paul addressed as he swiftly bowed. “I believe that something terrible has happened to disrupt the balance of The Force. I do not know what the cause of the disturbance is, but I can only hope it had nothing to do with the griffons.”

“We understand, our sister shall be informed as soon as possible,” Luna informed. “We, too, are hopeful that this catastrophe was not of the griffons. If so, then we will retaliate with all necessary speed.” 

Relieved and now tired from throwing up so much, Paul bowed again and began to return to his room to finish his night of sleep. “Princess, I bid you a good night, I need to finish my sleep.”

“Good night.” 

Paul slipped out of the doors and trudged back down to his room, where he lay down and return to a sleep plagued with discomfort and wakefulness.


<<<==>>>


Sometime early, before the sun had risen, Paul awoke again, this time to a frantic knocking on his door.

Throwing off the covers, he ran to the door and opened it, finding a very pale guard outside. As soon as the door opened, he addressed Paul.

“Sir, the Princesses are requesting your presence in the War Room,” he said as he gave a salute.

Paul’s eyes widened and he muttered a quick dismissal of the guard as he ran back into his room and put on his pants. While he did, he decided to grab his lightsaber as well. He hadn’t made much progress with it, but he felt that he could take on anything he griffons could throw at him, short of Diathor himself.

He ran swiftly through the halls of the palace, making turns left and right down seemingly identical passageways until he reached one door in particular. He could feel the presence of both Princesses behind the door, almost eclipsing the fact that there were several other ponies in the room as well.

He entered the room and found that his feeling had been correct, the Princesses were being briefed by a team of Military Intelligence ponies. The elite and clandestine group known as the Eyes and Ears of Equestria, or EEE. They specialized in reconnaissance and espionage, typically on foreign soil.

“General.” Somepony acknowledged Paul’s presence and saluted, causing others to follow suit.

“At ease,” he said, walking over to take a seat next to the Princesses. “What’s the situation?”

The pony didn’t even hesitate to start from the beginning again. “At approximately 0345 hours, the griffon force was sighted, but it wasn’t by a scouting patrol. It was the citizens of Baltimare that saw them, but not until it was too late. We don’t know how long it took, but we assume that the griffons have taken over the city. 

“As you know, we expected them to hit more major cities, so we stationed more troops in Manehatten, Fillydelphia, and other large port towns. Unfortunately, this left the mid-size cities more vulnerable and the griffons now have a clawhold on our land. That is the situation as of two hours ago. We are now calling the troops to Hoofington so that we may launch a counter-assault.”

Paul mulled over the words for a moment. This was bad, war had come and Equestria had been caught off guard. The griffons had slipped past scout patrols over the sea, and were now in Baltimare with unknown numbers.

“How many hostiles are in the city?” Paul asked. “And for that matter, how many civilians?” 

“We do not know the answer to either, sir.”

Paul thought deeply to try and come up with a viable strategy to take back the city. Number of hostiles: unknown. Number of civilians: unknown. Number of hostages: unknown. He simply didn’t have enough information. In fact he had almost none. He just needed more...

“...information," he whispered. 

"That’s it!” He exclaimed quietly, causing many to look questioningly at him. “We need more information, so we send in a recon team to scout out the griffon encampment. They can report back their findings on both size of the enemy force, and hopefully the number of hostages they have.”

“I believe this is a wise move, General,” Celestia agreed. “Captain, I want it done.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The pony in front of them saluted, then turned to make the appropriate arrangements to carry out the order.

Paul stood and saluted to the Princesses as well. “Your Majesties, I’d say that I’ll be returning to bed, but I don’t know if I’d be able to fall back asleep knowing what’s happening. Would you care to join me for breakfast?”

“We think it is a magnificent idea,” Luna said. “Let us go and dine together.”


<<<==>>>


The group was now seated at the table, waiting for their food to arrive. They sat in amiable silence, but none were discontented when Celestia broke it.

“So, Paul, what have you been doing for the past few weeks that has kept you so unsocial?”

Paul gave a slight chuckle, as he thought it was quite clear that he had been working out, his newfound six pack and growing biceps showed that, especially since he had grown comfortable to going shirtless every day. Though he did have a few more pair of pants and boxers made so that he didn’t reek of body odor all the time.

Still, he played along. “Oh, you know. I’ve been hitting the gym pretty hard recently,” he answered, showing off his arms. “This took a while to learn, though.”

He held up his hand toward the fork and knife next to his plate. He closed his eyes and concentrated. It was like he could feel an ethereal hand grabbing them. He opened his eyes and saw them hovering inches above the table. A huge smile broke across his face and he almost laughed with how awesome this was.

Celestia and Luna seemed amused by his child-like amazement at his own abilities. 

“Impressive,” Luna commented. “You have begun to hone your abilities as a Jedi, correct?”

Paul nodded as he let the utensils fall back into place on the table. “Yes, I am just beginning to understand the use of The Force. It is a strange and powerful thing that is said to flow through every living being. The ability to manipulate it is rare, only granted to a chosen few Force sensitive children. I am not a natural-born Jedi, as I have said before, and I am unsure as to whether or not any on this planet may be born as one.”

“We are uncertain whether to abhor the thought, or to welcome it,” said Luna. “Any others with abilities to manipulate The Force would certainly cause great change among our world.”

“I can only hope that a way to recreate lightsabers is not found. It could spell disaster for us all,” Celestia put in. “But enough doom and gloom, the food’s arrived, let us eat.”

So they all ate in a comfortable silence and bid each other a good day as they each finished and left.


<<<==>>>


Paul left the dining hall and went to find his group of “friends.” He didn’t really know what else to call them… The squad? His right-hand men- err stallions?

“Ooh, I can work with that,” he thought. “Right-hand Stallions… How can I work with that. Right Hand of Justice? Maybe. Protectors of Justice? Closer… Ah, whatever, I’ll think more on it later.” 

So Paul went to go and inform them of the impending counter-attack on Baltimare. By now, the whole country knew something had happened, but none were sure of just what, not even the Princesses would know until the scouting mission returned.

He made a mental note to have the group included in future meetings if at all possible. Though, this did give him a good reason to see them. He actually hadn’t seen much of any of them in the previous few weeks.

He knew that they obviously wouldn’t be in the same place, so he went to his office, where he had a magical device installed. It was a small device with a very simple purpose, it sent a message to his group, alerting them of whatever Paul needed them to know. It was activated when he said a code word.

He sat down and smiled as he said the code word.

“Midichlorians.”

The device hummed and a small microphone came up to record his message. 

“Hello, I need you all to meet me for a very important meeting, I prefer not to say anything specific over recording, come to my office soon,” his voice was calm and level, so as not to make them feel too worried. It wasn’t important for them to be told as soon as possible, just soon.

Paul sat back in his chair as the microphone beeped and descended back into his desk. He waited perhaps five minutes before the first two showed up. 

“Star Glow, Star Shine, prompt as expected,” Paul greeted as the two walked into his office. They each responded with a wave or a nod. Right behind them was Shining Armor. “Captain, good to see you, as always.”

“And you as well, sir,” came the reply. All three stood in front of his desk awaiting the rest of their team members.

They didn’t have to wait too long before Golden Lance, Iron Shield, and Bronze Mace all walked in together.

“Welcome,” Paul greeted as they entered. “Why don’t you all take a seat, this will take a minute or two.”

The six of them sat and waited patiently for his explanation, and were not disappointed as he told them everything he had been told earlier that morning in the meeting. From the griffon attack to the pending counter-assault; he told them everything he knew about the situation. Then he gave them a little bit more.

“So in light of this pending advancement into Baltimare, I have decided that we, the seven of us, will leading the charge, present at the very least. I intend to use my station to inspire, not as an excuse to hide behind those of lower rank,” he stated. “If we have the power to make a difference, then why wouldn’t we? When we go out there and put our lives at risk, we can use that chance to save thousands. So we will.”

“Suffice it to say, we are going to be leaving Canterlot in the next few days. Get your affairs in order and be prepared to leave any day now. I trust you to keep this quiet for now, just until it becomes public knowledge. Thank you, you're free to go now, if you wish.”

Paul sat back down behind his desk and watched as several members left. He took note that one group that left talking together consisted of Star Glow, Star Shine, and Iron Shield. Another pair that left together was strangely Golden Lance and Bronze Mace.

Unsurprisingly, the only one that stayed behind was Shining Armor. After everyone else had left, his calm facade broke and his true feeling of concern became apparent. He walked up to Paul’s desk and looked him in the eyes.

“Paul,” he began, which immediately caused the general to straighten up. The stallion had only ever addressed him as ‘General’ before. “I am not coming to you as a soldier, or a subordinate, but as a friend. I am concerned about you. I don’t think any of the others noticed it, but I think that behind your passion you are hiding your fear.”

Paul’s head fell and he fixed his eyes on his desk as he nodded. “Yeah… I just, ugh. I just can’t help but feel that I could have done something to prevent the invasion in the first place. You know? I feel like there’s something I missed that could have saved all the innocent lives in Baltimare.”

“Listen to me,” Shining said quietly. “You can’t go down this road, Paul. The ‘what ifs’ never got anypony anywhere. There was nothing you could have done. And even if there was, there’s no use in thinking like that.”

“Yeah, I know that,” Paul replied. “But, I mean--”

“No!” Shining yelled. “No.  I don’t know how much you value my opinion on this, but I will not let you fall into this pit of despair! Paul… I don’t know what you think of me, but let me tell you what. From one male to another, you need to buck up. Quit moping and pick yourself back up, dust yourself off and keep moving forward.” 

Paul sat still with his eyes still wide from Shining’s initial outburst. When he realized that the pony had stopped talking, Paul began to smile. “You know what, you’re right, Shining. There’s nothing to be done about it except what we’re already on track to do. I realize that I would have only spiralled further and further into the depths of the hypotheticals. Thank you for pulling me out before I went too far in.”

Shining smiled back and began to turn to the door. “No problem, sir.”

However, before he could leave Paul stopped him. “Shining.” 

The pony paused, then turned back to the general. “Yes, General?”

“Who’d you lose?”

Shining looked confused. “Pardon?”

“To the pit of despair you mentioned. Who’d you lose?” 

Shining’s face fell, he turned and made his way back towards the door. “Believe it or not, sir, myself. Have a good day.”

Before Paul could get in another word, the stallion was gone. The Jedi leaned back heavily in his chair.

“Well now I feel like a jerk…”


<<<==>>>


The next day came and went as many others. Paul woke, ate, went for a run, went to the gym, ate, practiced some with his lightsaber, showered, attempted to hone his Force abilities, ate, read a book, and went to sleep. All with minimal contact with others. The next day, however, proved more eventful.

Paul was woken up before dawn for the second time in three days. He made his way to the War Room for another debriefing. He walked groggily through the halls and wasn’t entirely aware of the excess movement in the halls for the early time. Wandering the halls were many more royal guards than to be expected before dawn. These were all the ponies ranked Sergeant or higher, any pony with command over at least a few troops.

When he arrived, he was not surprised to see the princesses already there. He saluted them and sat down in the vacant seat. They all looked to the Captain of the EEE for her new information regarding the situation. From her expression, it did not seem like it would be good news.

“You may begin, Captain,” Celestia intoned.

“Of course. As you see here,” She began, indicating to an excessively marked map of Baltimare. “The outer residential district on the western edge of the city is heavily fortified, with forward barracks set up here, here, and here. Moving further back, we have the commercial district, which was entirely looted and holds all of the hostage civilians.”

Her expression darkened for a moment.

“The ones that haven’t already been killed, anyways…  Next is the industrial section of the city, left almost untouched by the griffons, with only occasional patrols. We have no idea why this is, but we can look into it further at a later date if the need arises. Lastly, we have the ports. This is the second most populated by enemy troops. We believe that their higher ups are camped out here so they can attempt a hasty retreat if we take back the city. In total, we estimated the size of the hostile force to near three thousand.”

The captain turned her attention back to them. “That’s the general information, more specifics will be given to infiltration squads as necessary. That’s all I have for you Princesses, General.”

“You are dismissed, Captain,” Luna ordered. The captain saluted and left. 

Paul stood up and turned to the Princesses. “I have been doing some thinking since we first heard of the griffon assault on Baltimare, and I cannot help but feel that going to Baltimare is playing into Diathor’s hands. It was such a bold statement to take a whole city, almost like he is taunting us. If he wanted to get troops on our shores, he could have easily landed in a less populated area and we would likely be none the wiser. I don’t know what his play is, but I have a feeling that Baltimare is a diversion.”

Paul shook his head. “Whatever happens, just be prepared for anything that may happen. In fact, is there any way to quickly recall myself and my team from Baltimare if something does occur while we are gone?”

Celestia nodded slowly. “In fact, there is. There is one pony in particular that would be extremely useful in this case. I will look into the matter personally.”

Paul smiled and nodded. “Thank you Princess. Now, if you don’t mind, my team and I need to prepare to leave later today. ” 

“Very well, General,” Celestia stated. “That is the agreement we made, after all.” 

Paul saluted and thanked the Princesses, then turned around and left to go get his team ready for action. He left the room and walked briskly through the halls of the castle to his office. He entered and sat down behind his desk.

“Midichlorians.”

The device whirled and Paul began speaking. “Alright, well, I don’t actually know what time it is, but you need to get up and come to my office, because we need to prepare to leave. Later today, a good portion of the forces stationed in Canterlot will be sent out to take back Baltimare. We will not only join them, but lead them in this counterassault.”

After Paul ended, the device lowered back into his desk and he began to think. 

“What’s his play? What could he gain from drawing troops from Canterlot to Baltimare? Canterlot is too far inland for him to try anything, isn’t it? He could never get his forces there without us knowing too far in advance.”

Paul’s thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of several ponies. He looked up and saw Star Shine, Star Glow, Iron Shield, all looking very tired, but nonetheless alert. 

“Good morning, you three,” Paul greeted. “I hope you slept well. Actually, what time is it, anyways?” 

“Nearing five o’clock, in the morning, sir,” answered Star Shine. 

“Oh, wow, I’m surprised they were even able to wake me up,” came Paul’s reply with a light laugh. He sighed. “And we still have a very long day ahead of us. Man, this is not going to be fun.”

Paul leaned back in his chair and motioned to the couches as the next two ponies, Bronze Mace and Golden Lance, entered. They did not appear quite as tired as the first three, but the bags under their eyes were present. “Go ahead and take a seat.”

The ponies and the Jedi waited for perhaps another minute before a soft groan alerted them to the presence of Captain Shining Armor entering the room. Paul actually had to suppress a laugh at the sight of the stallion. It was almost like he was asleep on his hooves, sleepwalking into the office.

He only opened his eyes once every few seconds, and was mumbling incoherently to himself as he walked. When he saw Paul behind the desk, his front hoof came up about halfway to his face as he attempted to salute. 

“Well, at least he tried,” Lance joked. 

That was all it took to break the barrier, and everypony, and the Jedi, began to laugh hysterically at the expense of the pony before them. However, the volume of their laughter was enough to break him out of his sleepwalking state, leaving him clueless as to the situation.

“What’s going on?” He asked groggily, staring at the ponies on the couches. “Why am I in…?”

Shining Armor turned around and saw Paul laughing just as hard as the rest. “Sir,” he said. “What’s going on?”

Paul calmed himself down and addressed Shining. “Whew, sorry. So, now that you’re all here, we can go and get ready. Captain, since you weren’t entirely awake, I assume you don’t know yet, but we are leaving Canterlot later today to take back Baltimare from the griffons. 

“So, we need to go and prepare ourselves and our equipment for what lies ahead. We need to go to the armory, follow me.” With that, he stood and left the room, heading to another part of the castle he had only visited once before.

They made a few turns down various hallways, and they were soon in front of a door that was larger than most others in the castle. Paul approached the guards stationed outside the door and nodded to them. They turned in sync and pushed open the doors, revealing a large room within. 

It was a fairly plain room, but against one wall were several mannequins (ponyquins?) with ornate armor, each with a weapon on display above it.

The armor was nearly identical between each display, they were mostly mottled brown, grey, and beige, a sort of camouflage. The only difference was the color of the accents on each set. However, each of the weapons hanging above them were unique.

The leftmost armor set was highlighted with a dark green, the color of Iron Shield, and above was a large iron kite shield. The shield was dark blue, the same color as Iron Shield’s mane and tail. The shield was big enough to hide himself behind as well as another pony if he needed to. Emblazoned upon the front was Iron Shield’s Cutiemark, a kite shield itself.

The next set was highlighted in yellow, and above was a spear perhaps six feet in length with a wide head that narrowed to a point as sharp as a sewing needle, adding another foot to the weapon’s length. The polearm glittered in the light, as if made of gold, much like its wielder.

Two others had accents of light blue, both with nearly identical war axes above. The axes were massive, each with a head about a foot and a half wide, and razor sharp. Though, they had one dissimilarity in the slightly different marks upon their heads, they each had a five point star, but one had equal lines of line radiating out, Star Glow’s mark, while the other had longer lines radiating from the back, as if it was a shooting star, this was Star Shine’s mark. 

Another suit of armor was accented by red and above was a long-hafted mace, with a head nearly half the size of a large watermelon, and covered in spikes. The haft of the devastating weapon was two feet long and covered in a binding of cords which wove the symbol of Equestria onto it, the two sisters forever chasing each other through the skies. 

Finally was a set with highlights of a deep blue, accompanied by a beautiful sword above. The blade itself was almost four feet in length and gleamed a bright silver with intricate swirled patterns etched into the blade. The guard was wide and crafted to appear as if there were twin alicorns springing forth from the center of the blade. The handle was merely a metal rod ribbed with black cording, as it would only ever be used if the wielder was unable to use magic. The blade was capped by a pommel that had a simple elegance about it, it was the symbol of Equestria, the alicorns in the heavenly dance of the sun and moon.

Paul turned from the wonders before him to see his team marvel at them. They all stood at the door and watched, as if afraid to go in. Paul laughed. “Well, go on in, they’re all yours! Get acquainted with them, we’ll likely be in Baltimare late tonight when we launch the assault.”

The group slowly made their way into the room, eyes still wide with awe. Bronze Mace was the first to respond. “Sir, you had all of this done… for us?”

Paul smiled wide and nodded. “Of course, Bronze! That’s what friends do, they get each other gifts, so I had the weaponsmiths forge new weapons to match the specifications of your old ones. Though, I did have them take some creative license with the cosmetic appeal.”

“Wow. Just, wow. Thank you, Sir,” Lance breathed as he stared up at his new lance.

“Thank you, Sir. We are honored,” the Stars said in perfect unison. 

“Looks nice. Thanks, General,” came Iron Shield’s short reply.

“It’s unbelievable, Sir. Thank you for doing this,” Shining thanked.

“Really, guys. It was no problem at all. I just wanted to do something nice for all of you, so I figured you deserved an upgrade.” Paul insisted. “Now as I said, since I made sure it was nearly identical to your previous weapons, you should feel no difference when using them. Well, aside from the enchantments that were added. Each of you has a set of base enchantments on your weapon to enhance strength, speed, and endurance, so you might feel like you’re a bit more fit than usual when holding them.

“Anyways, enough of my constant babbling, I will leave you all to get acquainted with your weapons, you all know where the training yard is. Just make sure that you meet me in the barracks at noon, we’ll need to be prepping to leave then.”

And with that, the Jedi left the five to their new weapons. 


<<<==>>>


Several hours later, it was 11:55 and Paul was making his way to the guard barracks to meet with his team. They were going to do last minute triple checks of all their equipment before boarding airships to take to Baltimare.

Paul walked into the barracks and watched as all motion momentarily stopped as everypony inside saluted him.

“At ease,” he ordered, walking forward and waiting there for the rest of his team.

“Still not used to that,” he thought to himself.

Not long after, a few of his team entered. He was about to address them when another roomy ran up to him.

“Sir,” he saluted, giving Paul a piece of paper. “Princess Celestia requests the presence of you and your team.”

Paul read it and smiled. He thanked the courier and dismissed him. He turned back to his team to find that the others had arrived.

“Oh, good. Follow me, the Princess needs to see us,” he winked. He started off, the others following behind confusedly.

They followed him all the way to the throne room, where they entered to see the Princesses conversing with a unicorn. She was bright purple with a stark black mane and a Cutiemark depicting a swirling vortex. When they heard the doors open, they turned to see the group enter. 

“Welcome, General,” Luna greeted. 

“Yes, welcome,” Celestia added. She gestured to the pony beside her. “This is Phase Shift, she is somewhat of an expert in long range teleportation. She will be the one to recall you, should anything happen while you are away.” 

“Hello, it’s nice to meet you,” Phase Shift greeted Paul. She lit her horn and several gemstones on cord necklaces came floating out towards the Jedi. “These will help me to hone in on your locations, they have a specific magical signature which I am naturally attuned to.”

Paul accepted them with an open hand and passed them out. “Thank you, Ms. Phase Shift, it is much appreciated.” 

“Of course, sir. It is my pleasure to be able to help you with this,” she replied with a smile. She began to make her way out of the room. “Be safe, I must return to the school.”

She left the room, leaving the Princesses with the group of soldiers. “So she’s a student at your school of magic, ma’am?” Shining asked. 

Celestia gave a small chuckle. “Oh, far from it, she teaches the advanced quantum arcanotheory course.”

“Oh. Wow.” 

“Indeed. Quite a remarkable mare, “ Luna stated.

“I can only assume that she is very knowledgeable in magic,” Paul said. “Will that be all, Princesses?”

Luna nodded. “Yes, that is all, General. Hopefully I will see all of you in a few days’ time. Safe travels, and may you remain safe in the midst of battle.”

“Thank you, Princess, but rest assured, we will all return. I am going to make sure of that,” Paul answered as he saluted. The Princesses dismissed him and he made his way back to the barracks to collect his gear and board the airship, his team following behind him.

They collected their things and walked to the air docks on the back side of the castle. The entire military force would all be dropped off about twenty miles from the city to avoid immediate detection by the griffons, then make a stealthy approach and take the birds by surprise. 

Paul had another idea, though, and he would do everything in his power to pull it off. 

But first he would need to do some testing first with Shining…


<<<==>>>


Everything went smoothly. The forces boarded the ships, the ships took off, the flew for a few hours, and they landed a few miles outside Baltimare as night was falling. Where things deviated was when Paul had one of the pilots take a smaller craft further ahead with just himself and his team on board. 

They flew above the stealthily advancing armies until they got within two miles of the griffon encampment, then flew ahead as fast as they could go with the ship. Within minutes, they were at the docks. Well, not too far above the docks, anyways.

So with the land thousands of feet below him, Paul walked up to the railing of the ship, flanked by his teammates. He looked over either shoulder at his comrades, then locked his eyes dead front. 

In one deft move, he took one leap forward and vaulted over the edge of the ship towards the ground far below.
> Rescue Op
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

As Paul fell through the sky, quickly approaching terminal velocity, he tried to adjust the armor strap holding his chest plate on but found that he couldn’t move at all, his entire body locked in place by the force of the wind. As such, he couldn’t check behind him for his team either; he could only hope that the stallions were getting into formation around him as the ground grew closer and closer.

His hope was answered when a small barrier formed a few feet in front of him, moving at almost the same speed he was. The entire landing strategy hinged on this magenta shield provided by Shining Armor.

Paul slowly approached the shield as he fell, eventually landing on it, if a little roughly. When he landed, he was able to look up and see Bronze Mace holding Shining Armor, and Golden Lance, Iron Shield, and both Stars approaching the shield which he was currently laying on.

He watched as they landed, much the same way he did, and signaled to Shining. He had been waiting for it and began to close the shield around them all, keeping them in place as Bronze Mace carried him down towards the commercial district.

The plan was to get in, free the civilians, and get them out as quickly as possible. No more, no less. The group was descending into the city with all of the subtlety they could manage from inside the giant magenta ball that was literally falling from the sky, but Paul was sure that they were about to be noticed.

“Speak of the devil,” Paul thought as a crossbow bolt bounced off the shield and several alarmed squawks sounded off below them.

Paul looked down and noted several guards on top of buildings and taking off to warn other guards of the group approaching.

“Bronze,” Paul began, pointing to a group of griffons as they flew off. “Follow those birds, they are going to be headed for the others, and they are probably guarding the civilians in this district.”

“Yes, sir,” the pegasus responded, following as quickly as he could.

As they floated through the streets of Baltimare taking crossbow bolts, Paul began to cover their plan one more time.

“Alright, remember guys, we don’t know exact numbers on hostages or hostiles, but we have rough estimates putting the former at five thousand, and the latter at 500 or so. Okay, remember your pairings. Stars, you two will be escorting groups of ten to twenty civilians to the designated safe area of the Southeastern Industrial district along with Iron Shield and Golden Lance. Shining, Mace, and I will be on overwatch. We’ll take out anything you see as a threat gunning for you that y’all don’t see coming.”

He was met with a series of affirmations, and a shocked statement from Bronze.

“I think we’re here, sir.”

Paul looked up to see that, indeed, they had arrived. He saw the large warehouse on the left side of the street, he could see that it took up an entire block by itself. He saw all of the shops on the opposite side of the street like a bar, a restaurant, and a clothing store. That much he saw. But what he noticed was well over a hundred griffons waiting in the street with crossbows aimed directly their bubble, which notified him about as well as Siri saying, “You have arrived at your destination.”

It also didn’t hurt to see another couple hundred forcing hostages out into the street with their sharpened claws at the necks of the poor frightened ponies.

Paul simply froze as he saw the possibilities play out in his head. There were so many ways for it to go wrong, and so little to go right.

He wasn’t sure what to do, but he didn’t have much of a chance to even decide, anyway. No, the enemy was much too quick for that.

“Draw!”

And in one swift motion, not only did every single crossbow fire at the giant bubble shield protecting the group, but every other griffon went into action as well.

Indeed they drew. They drew their claws swiftly across the throats of every single innocent pony in that street, slitting their throats wide open. At first, the blood began to spurt forth onto the surrounding griffons, but as the pressure swiftly decreased, the gushing became a trickle. The blood gurgled directly into the windpipes of the ponies, causing them all to drown in their own blood as their lungs slowly filled.

Paul was shocked speechless, but thanks to Bronze Mace’s quick thinking, he was able to dive down, causing most of the crossbow bolts to only strike glancing blows on the shield.

“Sir, what do we do?” Lance asked, his voice shaky.

“I-I don’t know, I need a few seconds to think!” Paul responded, trying to run scenarios in his head.

“Sir, we don’t have that time,” Iron Shield cut in. “We need a decision now! Do we stay, or do we go?”

Despite trying to make a quick choice, the only thing that came into Paul’s head was that song! He pushed it out as fast as he could and his thoughts went into overdrive.

He knew that no plan survives first contact, but that’s why he had made it somewhat vague and therefore adaptable. If the griffons were trying to kill hostages now, that meant that someone needed to protect them, and they either needed bigger groups getting escorted, or a closer goal to hide them away.

“Alright! Plan’s changed. Bronze, we’re going to stay, but get us into that building so we can protect those ponies!”

Before Paul even finished his sentence, Bronze was on the move. Paul spoke quickly, knowing he wouldn’t have much time.

“Okay, priority has changed, we are going to have to defend the ponies inside this building. We may be outnumbered, but that won’t matter in close quarters. If you make them come at you in smaller groups, then you can outfight these chickens! I know you can!”

Everypony gave affirmation as they landed back in front of the building where the ponies still hadn’t quite finished suffocating on the blood filling their lungs.

“Let’s get in there!” Paul commanded.

Before the griffons could regain their wits, the ponies and Jedi had descended upon them. Despite all of them wanting to rip every one of the griffons out there to shreds, they pushed inside; they had a far more important task.

Once they got inside, they spread out and began their advance towards what they could clearly see to be the hostage quarters on the side of the warehouse. As most of them pushed forward to secure the civilians, Shining Armor stayed back to shield the door for a few moments, giving the others a few moments to get ahead. When he felt that they were far enough ahead, he smiled and dropped the shield, watching several griffons burst through, stumbling to the ground.

“Alright chickens, who’s first?”

He could instantly see every feather ruffle in all of them. He only smiled wider, causing them to lunge forward.

Of course, they didn’t get very far. Shining’s sword made sure of that, swiping and slashing back and forth like a blender, leaving rent griffon, blood, and entrails on every side.

While Shining held the front door, Bronze Mace watched his back, making sure none of the griffons inside could get the drop on him.

He flew straight up into the catwalks of the giant warehouse, watching silently for any attackers. He didn’t have to wait long as a small group of griffons quietly made their way up behind Shining Armor. Carefully positioning himself, Mace hung his weapon over the edge and let go.

He waited a split second before leaping after it in a dive. He looked down and watched as he approached his mace, then it suddenly stopped as it caused a griffon’s face to explode in gore and embedded part way into the floor.

Bronze Mace wasn’t far behind his bronze mace as he swooped in and grabbed his weapon by the handle in time to swing it up into the face of another griffin with a sickening crack, shattering its beak and splitting its head like an overripe melon. He dropped his weapon again as he turned on a dime and shot his back hooves out past the claws of another attacker and into its face, with another crack almost as loud as the first.

While those two held the door, the rest moved further into the enormous warehouse. There were two areas where the hostages were being held: one for the stallions, and the other for mares and foals.

When Paul saw just how many civilians there were, he started to worry about keeping them all safe. He knew that there was no easy way to make the problem disappear like that. But that got him thinking.

“What if we did just disappear? I may not know magic, but there has to be some way of teleporting en masse… The portal pony, Phase Shift! That’s her whole talent, portals. That might just work.”

“Stars, guard the mares and foals, don’t open the doors yet. Shield, take the stallions. Lance, stay here, I have an idea.”

The soldiers did as ordered, and calmed the civilians in the large pens. Golden Lance just glanced questioningly at Paul.

“Lance, Plan B, but only on me.”

“If you say so, sir,” Lance responded, conjuring a bolt of magic. The bolt flew at Paul and struck the pendant that he had been given by Phase Shift.

“I’ll be back,” Paul said in a particular accent. With a final salute, he sank into a portal that opened up below him.


<<<==>>>


Paul was dumped back into existence a far ways away, back in Canterlot Castle. As he stood up, he looked around and saw Celestia and Phase Shift watching nervously with a host of other mages and scientists.

“General, what happened?” Celestia asked. “Why did your pendant trigger?”

“The situation got way worse than we expected,” the Jedi replied. “I only have one idea that could get everypony out safely, but I need you to tell me if it will work.”

“What is it?” Celestia asked steadily.

“Professor Phase Shift, I need to know if you can make one or more portals that can move near five thousand ponies, whether all at once or in sequence.”

The young mare looked skeptically at Paul. “Theoretically? Yes. Practically? No. I do not have near the magical power to keep the spell up that long, and even if I did, if I hold it for too long, I’d start to melt my horn from channeling too much magic through it.”

“I will link with you to provide power,” Celestia answered. “And we can get water to cool your horn. I will do whatever I must for my subjects.”

One of the guards nodded and galloped off to relay the orders.

Phase Shift nodded. “Now all I need is an anchor, which I have in the pendants. I can begin when you’re ready. There will be one portal on your location, which will fit ponies three to four across.”

“Good, send me back so I can inform my men what’s going to happen. Start thirty seconds after I leave.”

“Of course.”

Phase Shift lit her horn, causing a portal to appear underneath Paul’s feet. This time, he fell a little faster.


<<<==>>>


Paul landed in a heap atop Golden Lance, who groaned in pain. They helped each other up and Paul relayed the information to Lance, then sent him to Iron Shield.

Paul went to the Stars, who were guarding the mares and foals, and told them what would happen, then took off his pendant and set it in the middle if the floor nearby.

Soon after, a large swirling portal, much like Phase Shift’s Cutie Mark, appeared floating about six inches off the ground and wide enough to fit three ponies across. They immediately sent the civilians going through the portal towards safety, and Paul left Star Light and Star Glow to guard them.

Before Paul left to find Iron Shield, he had taken a rough estimate of how fast ponies were making it through the portal. As close as he could figure, ponies were crossing through the portal at somewhere between four and six ponies a second. The intel from the briefing had put the civilians at about five thousand.

Some quick mental math put the total time between 830 and 1,250 seconds, or… About fifteen to twenty minutes.

“That’s going to be stretching our luck,” Paul thought.

“Iron Shield!” Paul called. “Get over here! Lance, when the mares and foals are through, lead the stallions out, until then, just keep them calm.”

Iron Shield rushed over to Paul. “Yes, sir? What do you need?”

“I need you to exchange roles with the Stars. I’m trusting you to guard the mares and foals if anything gets to them, do you hear me?”

“Yes, sir! I will guard them with my life.”

“Good. Stars, come with me. We’re gonna go support Shining and Mace at the front. Let’s move!”

The twins and the Jedi took off towards the front of the warehouse to assist their teammates. As they approached, they could hear the sounds of combat and the screech of dying griffons. The scene they came upon was very gruesome.

Bronze Mace lanced back and forth across the open space, leaving behind him a trail of faceless griffons as they tried to attack him. Blood, gore, and grey matter covered the ground and the pegasus equally, but it did not seem to hinder him.

Shining Armor was using his shields to direct his enemies into attacking each other, blocking each other’s strikes as they swung at him, and leaving themselves open for his own attacks. As consequence, he was surrounded by griffon bodies that constantly hindered his movement. However, his concentration was so great that he was able to telekinetically remove the dead from his path and use them to hinder his attackers instead. It was truly aweing to see how easily he flowed through the battlefield, without a drop of blood on him.

Even still, the sheer numbers the griffons held over the two ponies was enough to steadily push them back. Over the course of a few minutes, the duo had been pushed back twenty feet from the warehouse entrance already. Though, with the surprise reinforcements of the two unicorns and a Jedi, the group stood a chance of holding off the mass of griffons for much longer.

“Captain! Make room for three more!” Paul shouted as he arrived. Shining nodded shortly, bringing his shields closer towards him and allowing space for the others to join in.

The Stars set off together, working in perfect sync to take out the griffons. Both axes flashed in opposite directions, taking out enemies with every swing, while their horns cast spells to create openings for the swings to hit, or even took down griffons themselves.

Paul was in a slightly more problematic situation. His swordplay had certainly improved from “hack-and-slash,” but he was no master swordsman. His only real saving grace was that his enemies could not parry his strikes, leaving him free to strike whenever he pleased.

As the first griffons ran towards him, he drew his lightsabers from his belt and activated them both. He was scared out of his mind, but it was one fact he knew that kept him from running for his life.

“Those ponies are counting on me to protect them.”

And so, with no reservations, Paul lunged forward to meet them. He sliced once, twice, three times, and ten griffons dropped before him, weapons in halves. Even though they saw the devastating effects of the weapons Paul wielded, and they heard the cries of their brothers, the remaining griffons pushed forwards to attack. It was to no avail.

Paul was on autopilot, reacting purely on instinct. With only a vague resemblance of technique, he slashed through the griffons like nothing. Then he felt pain.

As he stifled a scream, he swept his right hand blade down, severing the offending claw that slashed his thigh. As Paul continued to fend off the griffons, he began to focus more on his technique and striking effectively, rather than just slashing, as his instinct had been forcing him to.

Over the squawks of the dying griffons, Paul heard another sound that drew his attention. It was a cry of pain followed quickly by a cry of anguish. Paul spared a glance to see one of the Stars on the ground, blood pooling around him while the other went ballistic on the griffons. His mane and tail turned ethereal and he became translucent. He floated forward through the griffons, and they simply fell dead around them.

Their screams were deafening as they fell to his axe, magical burns from his mane and tail, or the random spells he launched at them. Paul disengaged from his group and ran from the Star on the ground.

“Shining take over for me!” He shouted as he ran. Immediately, Shining’s shield expanded to cover twice the lateral space they had been covering seconds before. Paul dropped to his knees and slid to a stop in front of the wounded Star.

Paul glanced him over and was not pleased with what he found. Star Shine had a crossbow bolt planted firmly in his right shoulder, most likely penetrating a lung. Star Shine was gurgling as he tried to breath, but choked on his blood, much the same way that the helpless ponies had outside.

“Hey, Shine,” Paul spoke quietly. “It’s okay, I’m gonna get you out of here. Okay, listen to my voice, and don’t close your eyes.”

As he spoke, Paul slowly lifted Star Shine up, keeping him level on his side. Paul had no idea what the proper way to handle him was, but he did know that if Shine stayed there, he would die.

“Alright, focus on nothing but my voice, okay Shine?” Paul continued as he began to head steadily back to the portal. As he walked, he saw Star Glow begin to flicker, as if his rage state was fading. “Captain! Get him to safety!”

A magical glow appeared around Star Glow as Shining carried the unconscious unicorn back behind him.

Paul continued to carry Star Shine back to the portal, constantly speaking and making him respond to questions to make sure he was still conscious. When Paul finally made it to the portal, he saw that all of the mares and foals had made it through and the stallions were well underway.

“I need somepony to carry this wounded soldier to the other side for medical treatment!”

Several stallions hid their eyes or looked away from the Jedi, but a few were willing to help.

“We’ll do it!” A stallion called, motioning to the stallion next to him. “Lay him on our backs.”

Paul did and they thanked him for protecting them.

“Thank you for saving my teammate,” he responded. “I need to go.”

Now that Star Shine was safe, he needed to return to help defend the entrance. With both Stars down, it would be more difficult to hold the griffons off for long enough to save everypony, but by God, he was going to try.

“Captain, make some room for me,” he called as he entered.

With a controlled fury, Paul stepped into his opening and began to decimate the griffons before him. He felt no remorse as he sliced the griffons to pieces, cauterizing every wound and melting weapons to slag. With brutal efficiency, he reduced enemies to piles of body parts without a second thought.

Of course, a body can only be pushed so far before it starts to shut down. Paul had pushed his body for months to build his strength and stamina, but days in the gym couldn’t compare to the combination of the physical and mental energy expended on the battlefield. As such, Paul’s body began to grow more sluggish while the opponents he faced were always fresh because there were just so many more of them.

Paul could tell that Shining Armor and Bronze Mace were slowly tiring as well. It was clear by the sweat covering Shining’s body and the much slower speed at which Bronze was flying.

Reluctantly, Paul had to make a judgement call. “Retreat! Shining, one last shield, Bronze grab him, I’ve got Star Glow!”

Even though he was running on fumes, Paul was able to reach down and pick up Star Glow to heft him over his shoulder. While Shining covered them with one last defensive shield, the group made their way back to the portal as quickly as possible.

As they ran, Shining passed out from magical exhaustion, much the same as Star Glow had. Paul continued to stumble along with the pony over his shoulder as he made his way to the portal.

When they arrived, Paul turned and looked back at the entrance to the room they were in. That was their best bet. Covering that choke point would mean that fewer ponies could cover against the griffons for longer.

“Iron Shield! Golden Lance! Do. Not. Let a single chicken through that doorway, understood?”

“Yes, sir!”

The two ponies in question galloped to the door and set up. The door was an out swing, so Iron Shield could set up as close to the door as he wanted. He planted his shield down inches from the doorway and let Lance stand on his back.

It was a technique the two had thought up that worked well. Iron Shield provided a stellar defense, blocking all incoming strikes without buckling under even the strongest attacks. Meanwhile, Golden Lance stood on the incredibly stable surface and jabbed at any opening he saw in an enemy’s defense, whether with his lance or with a spell.

With the door locked down, Paul once again called out to the citizens for help. “I need somepony to carry these two, they’ve passed out from magical exhaustion. They need attention on the other side!”

“I will do it,” a deep voice spoke. A large earth pony stepped out of the line. He was one of the largest ponies Paul had ever seen, practically a horse. “Lay them on my back.”

Bronze and Paul draped their charges over the large pony’s back and thanked him. He nodded and returned to the line.

Paul looked at the line, estimated the remaining time. There were still hundreds of rows, if he had to guess he’d say about three hundred. Moving at about two rows a second.

“Only a few more minutes and everypony should be through. We just might make it.”

THUMP

Something impacted the door loudly, causing Paul to jump. He turned and saw as the door was thrown open from the outside and a griffon appeared. However, his appearance was short-lived as a lance lashed out and stuck him in the throat, causing him to fall to the ground clutching at it.

Instantly, that griffon was replaced by another, and a similar fate befell him. This continued a few times until a griffon dodged the strike that sought his eyes. The one was able to get a strike against the shield before him, but it did not even quiver. Before he could strike again, a golden bolt of magic struck the griffon and cut a hole straight through his chest.

Paul looked away from the door as another griffon tried his luck, trusting that it would be held for at least a few more minutes. As he turned, he almost fell over because his legs were so exhausted. He caught himself and stood still for a second to catch his breath. After a moment, he straightened back up and walked slowly to the nearest wall to lean against.

As he leaned back to rest, Paul realized that the adrenaline had worn off, so he took stock of himself. He had a splitting headache, his arms felt like lead weights, his legs even heavier, the gash on his right leg oozed blood, he was out of breath, and he couldn’t get the smell of blood out of his nose. All around, definitely the worst he’d ever felt. In fact, it surprised him that he even had the strength to stand, let alone walk at all.

He glanced over at the line of ponies to the portal again, noting that the line had just about halved. Fighting through his headache, Paul got a rough estimate.

“Only about a minute left…” Paul heaved, trying to catch his breath. He glanced over at the door that Lance and Shield held. As he watched them defend the door, a tired smile formed on his face. From his position on the floor, all he could see was Iron Shield’s firm glare and Lance’s spear jabbing in and out of the opening relentlessly.

Paul’s eyelids fluttered, trying to close, but a grunt of pain from Lance caused them to fly back open. With a sudden burst of energy, Paul flew to his feet. He saw a crossbow bolt embedded in the wall beside where he was sitting, and a line of blood ran down Lance’s leg from where the bolt grazed his shoulder.

Energized by a new rush of adrenaline, Paul moved over to the portal and began to urge the last ponies through faster. Only fifty ponies remained, mostly the elderly.

“As quickly as you can,” Paul urged, trying to get the ponies through the portal. Behind him, Paul heard Iron Shield call out into the open room.

“They’re breaking through!”

Paul looked back at the door and saw Lance galloping towards him while Shield took a step back from the door, setting his hooves to take off at a second’s notice. Paul spared another glance at the line of ponies. About twenty left, all elderly.

“Lance, grab as many as you can and get through that portal!” Paul ordered as the unicorn approached.

“Yes, sir!” Lance lifted up three ponies from the back of the line with his magic and pushed to the front, also using his magic to push the ponies in line a little faster. He stepped through the portal with his three passengers, leaving about ten more ponies to get through.

“Iron Shield, move your hooves! We are leaving!”

Paul watched Iron Shield lunge into the griffons, pushing them back, then launch himself backwards, towards the portal. While the griffons fell over each other, Shield galloped towards the portal. Hoping that it would take the griffons too long to get up and attack them, Paul turned around to the line of ponies.

There were only five left, all shuffling along as fast as they could. Paul didn’t take any chances, so he dove on the ground under the last pony in line, then stood up with the pony draped over his shoulders. He looked back and saw the griffons just getting to their feet as Iron Shield finally made it to the portal. He turned and planted his shield as before, protecting the ponies from the crossbow bolts the griffons were aiming.

Paul began to move to the portal as the last few ponies made it through and crossbow bolts impacted the shield. As Paul approached the portal, he felt a sharp pain in his left calf. With a cry of pain, collapsed through the portal.

The last thing Paul heard before losing consciousness was Iron Shield falling through the portal and shouting.

“Close the portal!”
> Grief
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Paul woke up, he was in a room that seemed eerily familiar. It was a sterile and fairly colorless room, with a door opposite him and a window behind. There was no furniture besides his bed, which was strangely three beds put together, and a weird looking chair next to it. The only decor was a single oil painting of a bowl of fruit on the wall.

It took him a second, but he finally figured it out. He was in a hospital room again. It was very similar to the one in Ponyville, back when he still thought that it was all a dream. Looking around, he noticed that he wasn’t hooked up to any monitoring equipment like he had been before, so he figured he wasn’t critically injured.

He sat up in his bed and threw the covers off, revealing his lack of pants. He was only wearing his boxers. However, he ignored that for a moment when he saw the medical tape wound tightly around his left calf and the large bandage on his right thigh. Paul lifted each of his legs, noting the slight pain from each wound, then decided to get up and look for his pants.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed, then stopped to let the blood settle as it rushed from his head to the rest of his body. Once he stopped feeling light-headed, he slid off the bed and onto his feet. The floor was cold on his bare feet. He hissed as pain shot up his left leg and his right thigh began to throb lightly.

He ignored the pain in his right leg but favored his left as he walked out of his room into the hallway. Immediately, a nurse caught sight of him and began to scold him.

“You shouldn’t be up and about! Especially not on that leg!” She chided. “You need rest!”

“What I need is my pants,” he responded, ignoring the command to return to bed.

The nurse nodded. “Go to your room and I’ll bring you your pants.”

Paul nodded and complied, heading to his room and laying back down. After a few minutes, the nurse brought his pants, and Paul thanked her. Once she left, he put them on and got up, planning to find his teammates.

However, as he started to walk to the door, it opened, revealing three stallions.

“Iron Shield, Golden Lance, Bronze Mace!” Paul greeted with a smile. He noted that Golden Lance had a bandage on his left shoulder while all three looked very tired as if they hadn’t gotten much sleep since they returned. “How are you three holding up?”

The response was less than stellar. All of the stallions were somber and took a few seconds to respond. Paul’s smile fell.

“General… Paul,” Lance started, voice breaking. “I’m so sorry. Nothing’s okay.”

Iron Shield took over. “The Captain is still bedridden with magical exhaustion, as is Star Glow.”

“Where is Star Shine?” Paul asked. “Those crossbow bolts hit hard.”

Bronze Mace shuffled on his hooves before answering. “Paul… Star Shine is dead. I’m told he passed not long after he arrived at the hospital here. There was nothing we could have done for him.”

Paul staggered back as if he had taken a punch to the gut. He reached out a hand to steady himself on his bed, but he missed and fell to the floor. He didn’t even bother getting up, just lying on the floor in shock.

“He’s gone,” Paul thought. “I couldn’t save him, and now he’s gone.”

“I killed him…” Paul mumbled. “I wasn’t fast enough…”

Iron Shield took a step forward and stomped his hoof loudly on the floor, causing an echo in the room.

“Stop,” he ordered. “There was nothing you could have done. The nurses told me that bolt pierced his lung. Even if he had been shot inside the hospital, they couldn’t have saved him. He immediately began to drown in his own blood. Nothing can change the fact that you did everything you could to save him.”

“Think of all the ponies we did save!” Lance insisted. “Final count is 4,738 that came through the portal. The rest of the army drove out the griffons and rescued the rest of the ponies. We won!”

“Then why does it feel like we lost?” Paul asked from the ground.

“I don’t know,” Bronze Mace responded.

“Because we did,” Paul said, answering his own question. “When we arrived at the warehouse, how many ponies did they kill? And right in front of us, too. We were powerless to stop them. How many soldiers did we lose in retaking Baltimare? In reality, every win has a loss hidden inside it.”

“Even I’ll admit that that’s a pessimistic view on the world,” Iron Shield replied.

“First thing’s first, I’m a realist,” Paul responded idly.

“Now I know that you’ve lost it,” Lance said. “You’re one of the most idealistic people I’ve ever met! This whole pity party proves that. The fact that you believe you could have prevented those deaths is unrealistic.”

Paul remained silent on the ground. “Whatever… Just leave me alone. I’ll be here.”

Iron Shield snorted and turned around to leave. Bronze Mace shook his head sadly and followed. Golden Lance stayed for a second longer and stared at Paul. Then his horn lit up and he lifted Paul into his bed and covered him with his blankets.

Once he settled Paul in, Lance turned around and followed his teammates out of the room.


<<<==>>>


For the next few hours, nopony visited Paul, and for all of that time, Paul lay awake staring at the ceiling, wondering what he could have done better, where he went wrong, how he could have saved everypony. For hours, he ran scenarios in his head, and for hours, the logical parts of his mind caused his scenarios to end the same way every time: in failure.

After a few hours, Paul was still staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out how he could have saved them when the door opened. Paul was so deep within his own mind that he didn’t even notice. He continued to stare at the ceiling until a voice spoke.

“I was told you were not doing well, but I did not expect it to be this bad.”

Paul blinked several times, noting that his eyes were especially dry. He turned his head and saw who had come to visit him.

“Why do you torture yourself like this?” Luna asked.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Paul croaked, trying to hide his brokenness.

“Your tears tell me a different story,” Luna responded softly.

Paul lifted a hand to his face and noted the tear stains down his cheeks. “Is a man not allowed to cry over losing a friend?”

“Of course you are. I would be much more distraught if you did not. I am speaking of how you have been lying here for hours, pretending that you had some way of saving him. Of saving all of them. I think we all know that it’s impossible, so why do you still act as if it was your fault in some way?”

“It was my fault,” Paul whispered, then his voice rose. “Diving behind enemy lines was entirely my idea in the first place. If we hadn’t tried to face half an army with five ponies and a half-baked Jedi, then Star Shine would still be here, and so would another few hundred innocent ponies! It’s entirely my fault!”

“You and I both know that your line of thinking is flawed,” Luna countered “We both know that you were not the one to draw your claws across the throats of those ponies, nor the one to fire that bolt. You cannot lay the blame where it does not rightfully belong, even when you try to lay it on yourself.”


“So then who does the blame fall on? The one that directly took the action? What if they were only forced into taking that action by the actions others took preceding it? The blame falls on the one who made the preceding action.”

“By that logic, blame steps back from you to me and my sister, then to the griffon king for invading us. Before him, some other event likely occurred that forced his decision. The blame never ends. In the end, we must forget where the blame falls, accept the finality of the past, and remember those we’ve lost. That is all we can do.”

Paul smiled for a second. “I didn’t realize you were so philosophical.”

“A thousand years is a long time to think,” Luna replied.

“I’d think so,” Paul responded. For a moment, there was silence between the two. “Thank you.”

Luna looked at Paul. “Hmm?”

“Thanks for visiting me and, well, pulling me from my self-deprecation. I appreciate it.”

Luna nodded. “Of course. You are my friend. I would not leave you to suffer in a time of mourning. Celestia also wishes to visit, but she is currently bound by her duties, and cannot stop by until later.”

Luna looked away for a second, then sighed and looked back to Paul.

“Paul, if you need anything else, either Celestia or I will try to be available. We may have busy schedules, but we can make time for you. Do not hesitate to call on us, even if only for someone to talk to. As old as we are, we know quite a lot about loss and how to cope. We are always ready to lend a listening ear or a word of advice.”

Having said her piece, Luna turned and began to exit the room, but stopped when Paul spoke.

“Luna.”

She looked back around at him to see a grateful smile on his face. “Thanks.”

“You are welcome, Paul,” she responded with a smile.

After Luna left, Paul began to stare at the ceiling again, but this time he was not thinking about failed plans to save everyone, but of his friends. As far as he knew, Shining Armor and Star Glow were still bedridden, while the other three hadn’t gotten any sleep since the attack.

Mind made up, Paul sat up and swung his legs over the side of his bed. He stood and made his way to the door, opening it. He leaned out and glanced around, noting no nurses in sight. He stepped out into the hallway and began to walk to the nearest room, favoring his left leg.

Paul glanced into the room, hoping it would have Shining Armor or Star Glow inside, but it was vacant. He continued to limp down the hallway, checking rooms. After Paul found several vacant rooms, a nurse stepped out of one of the rooms down the hallway. She immediately saw him and began to stalk towards him, knowing that he was out of place.

“Just what are you doing up? Are you trying to reopen that wound?” She asked, pointing at his calf. “You should be resting!”

Paul held firm. “I’m looking for Shining Armor and/or Star Glow. I… I need somepony to talk to.”

The nurse’s glare softened. “Oh… I understand. I’m sorry for your loss. Captain Armor is in that room there.”

Paul followed her outstretched hoof and saw that it was pointed at the room she had just exited.

“Thank you.”

Again, Paul limped forward, this time passing several rooms and coming up on the one that had Shining Armor inside. Standing at the door, Paul glanced in and saw Shining Armor on the bed, reading a book.

*knock knock*

Paul knocked on the door then opened it when he heard Shining respond. When he entered, he saw Shining sit up and salute as best he could from his position in the bed. Paul saluted back, then caught sight of a pony sitting in a chair he couldn’t see from the window.

The pony was pink with a three-tone mane. At first glance, Paul thought she was a unicorn, but when he caught sight of the wings his mind put two and two together and he saluted to her as well.

“I-I’m sorry ma’am, I didn’t see you there,” he sputtered.

“It’s quite alright,” she responded kindly. “You’re not on duty right now, and I’m not here as a princess. Please, call me Cadance.”

“It is nice to meet you, Cadance,” Paul greeted. His tone became somber. “I was hoping to… speak with Shining Armor.”

“I understand,” Cadance responded softly, standing up and moving to the door. “Take all the time you need.”

Once the door clicked shut, Paul turned slowly back to Shining Armor. “How are you feeling?”

Shining groaned. “Like I got hit by a train, but the doctor says I should be feeling better tomorrow. How are you holding up?”

Paul sat down on the edge of the bed. “My left leg won’t really take my weight. I guess a crossbow bolt through the muscle will do that.”

“Ouch,” Shining nodded. “That must’ve stung.”

Paul chuckled. “Yeah. Made me buckle and collapse through the portal. Probably got a concussion when I landed. Knocked me out cold.”

“I’d say it was all worth it if we saved all those ponies.”

Paul’s head drooped and he took a shaky breath. “Was it?”

Shining’s ears perked up in confusion. “What do you mean? Of course it was. Imagine what those griffons would have done to them!”

Paul nodded as he tried to hold back tears. “Yeah. I’d do it all again if I had to, I wouldn’t care if I had died. I just wish we could have saved Star Shine. And all those other ponies that got killed right in front of us.”

The tears began to slip past. “If I could go back, I would trade myself for all of them in a heartbeat. They had so much life ahead of them. I don’t even belong here! This isn’t my home. I don’t have a future to look forward to, not like you do. I don’t have anyone else like me. I have no purpose here.”

Shining shook his head sadly. “Paul, we’ve been down this road. You questioned yourself the exact same way when we found out Baltimare had been taken. You caught yourself up in the what ifs and let it consume you. I had to drag you out last time, and Celestia help me, I’ll do it again.

“There is nothing you could have done to save any of them.” Shining continued. “Even if there was, there’s absolutely zero use in worrying about it now. No amount of worrying will change the past, no matter how hard you try.”

Paul nodded solemnly. “I know. Rationally, I know that. But my emotions tell me that there must be something I could have done. I’m drowning in grief. I just don’t know what to do anymore.”

“You blame yourself.” It wasn’t a question.

Paul nodded again. “It was my idea, they were my orders, Diathor is my creation. All of it leads back to me. No matter where you try to cast the blame, it all points back to me. I feel like–” Paul’s voice broke. “–I feel like the universe is out to get me; like everything is being rigged against me to break me.”

“Paul, that’s ridiculous. Whatever’s up there, I doubt it’s targeting you. I don’t know what brought you here, but I’m glad it did. I’ve never connected with anypony as quickly as I did with you. As soon as I met you, there was something about your demeanor and the way you hold yourself that seemed so… genuine. It’s not really something you see in Canterlot.”

Paul slumped a little bit. “When is his funeral?” He asked, changing the topic.

“Tomorrow,” Shining answered. “They were waiting for you to wake up. They consider him a hero, you know. They’re calling us all heroes, actually.”

“If only we all agreed on that,” Paul responded sullenly. He stood up and went to leave. “I will see you tomorrow at Star Shine’s funeral.”

As Paul closed the door, he heard Shining mutter quietly.

“Yeah, if only…”


<<<==>>>


The next day, Paul was woken up in the mid-morning to try on his dress uniform for the funeral service later that day.  He put it on with some assistance from one of his nurses, and the tailor was satisfied that the uniform fit him well enough.

Even though the funeral wasn’t until the afternoon, Paul chose to remain in full dress, not wanting to bother taking it off to put it back on again later. He had a small breakfast in his hospital bed, then informed his nurse that he needed to take a walk to clear his head.

He stood from his bed with some effort and began to roam the hospital. Not that he cared, but he noticed his nurse trailing several meters behind him at all times. He wandered up and down the hallways for about an hour before he shook his head and snorted. His pacing wasn’t solving anything.

He turned to the nurse that had been following him. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”

Without waiting for a response, he turned on his good heel and strode for the main entrance of the hospital. He didn’t bother heeding any protests he received along the way as his long and purposeful strides carried him quickly past all of the ponies between him and the door.

He exited the building without so much as a passing glance at all the ponies telling him to stop. Once he was on the street, it didn’t take a second to orient himself and make his way to his destination. He strode through the crowds of ponies without sparing a single thought to them.

Eventually, he noticed that the cries of his nurses ended. He continued through the streets of Canterlot, the city on the mountain, until he reached his destination. He needed somewhere he could think clearly, without the noise crowding out his thoughts, and without the weight of the lifeforce of each pony around him bearing down on his mind.

He found a secluded place, at the edge of the city, where no ponies lived. The solitude it provided allowed him to breathe easily again, and he felt his heart rate slow to a steadier tempo. He slowly moved forward to the edge of the precipice, looking down over the edge at a drop of at least several hundred feet.

Without any apparent concern for the dangers it could represent to him, Paul sat down on the edge of the city, hanging his legs over the side and swinging them like he was a kid again. The view he had was astounding, he could see where the mountainous stone turned to rolling foothills, then to forests. He could see all the towns and villages sheltered within those forests. He saw where the forests turned to grasslands, and eventually to deserts at the furthest edge of the horizon.

It was beautiful, but that wasn’t why Paul was there.

Paul made his way to the edge of the city to get space — to think. And so, Paul sat on the edge of the city on the mountain, and he thought. He thought about life, death, why he felt so terrible, how easy it would be to solve it all right there, and many other things. He sat there for hours, just thinking.

Eventually, the sun peaked out from behind the mountain at Paul’s back, which made him realize the time. With a less somber attitude and a bit more purpose than before, Paul got up and made his way back to the hospital.

The moved through the crowds superfluously, as if he hadn’t even noticed them, quickly arriving back at the hospital. The moment he stepped inside, he was surrounded by nurses and doctors, chastising him for running off as he did. He ignored them and continued walking straight past them, heading for Shining Armor’s room.

Once he arrived, he knocked twice on the door.

“Come in,” came the reply.

Paul opened the door and entered the room, seeing Shining Armor already in his dress uniform as well.

“Shining,” Paul greeted.

The unicorn nodded in return. “Paul. You seem… better than last night when you left.”

“Yeah, I… took a walk, found somewhere quiet, spent a few hours thinking things over. In the end, I came out better than before, but… well, I just say that the cliff looked pretty appealing at one point.” Paul paused for a moment. “But like I said, I’m in a better place now than I was then. I’m glad I didn’t entertain it for long; I couldn’t imagine what that would do to you guys.”

Shining stood in silence for a moment, then silently walked up to Paul and reared back on his hind legs, wrapping his forelegs around Paul’s shoulders. Neither male said a word as Paul returned the embrace, they just stood there in silence, glad to have each other’s company. After a few moments, they parted.

“Come on,” Shining said. “We need to get going.”

Paul nodded. “Yeah, let’s give our friend his proper respects.”


<<<==>>>


The service was smaller than Paul expected. His little unit, the Stars’ parents, a couple ponies Paul didn’t recognize, and the Princesses.

Star Glow, Iron Shield, Golden Lance, and Bronze Mace carried the casket to the grave, while Paul and Shining Armor stood to the side saluting next to the unicorn officers that took the casket in their magic and lowered it into the grave.

One of the ponies Paul didn’t recognize walked up next to the grave and began to speak.

“Hi, most of us don’t know each other, but if you’re here, then it’s clear you were impacted by Star Shine in some way,” the green unicorn started. “I didn’t really know him that long, but for the few years I did know him, he was a constant pillar of strength. No matter what craziness he faced every day in Ponyville, he would take it on without batting an eye.

“I remember once when he and Star Glow were patrolling the town and suddenly Spike the Dragon suddenly appears out of nowhere and he’s half the size of a mountain. Star Shine just glanced at Star Glow and they casually began to guide ponies inside their houses like it was no big deal.”

The pony blinked a few times and rubbed the tears from her eyes. “I’m sorry, that’s all I have to say. I just hope you all remember to keep his memory in your thoughts and your hearts, so that he is never forgotten.”

With that, the pony trotted away, leaving the service entirely. Almost as soon as she was gone, Star Glow stepped up to take her place, but he didn’t address the crowd. He faced the grave the entire time as if he was going to have a conversation with his brother.

“Star Shine…” he began. “I don’t even know where to start… just… why? Why did you have to leave us? Why did you leave me? Every time I try to do anything, I turn to ask you something then the realization hits me, and it’s like you’ve died all over again.

“Your death is… it’s like the air, it’s everywhere, it’s with me, no matter what I do. I’m constantly breathing it in and out, always reminded of you; of what happened. I can’t do anything without thinking about you. It’s almost like I’ve lost a leg, or my horn… I’ve just felt so… incomplete since you’ve been gone.” Star Glow fell to his knees. “I don’t know what to do anymore, I’m so lost. We’ve always done everything together, and now that you’re gone, I feel aimless. It feels like half of me died with you, and the rest of me is trying to compensate, but…”

Star Glow trailed off into silence, and Paul walked up to comfort him. He placed a reassuring hand on Glow’s withers and patted him. Glow gave an appreciative look and stood to his hooves, moving off to the side to stand with the rest of the unit.

“I didn’t know Star Shine for very long,” Paul began, “but he made a profound impact on my life in that short amount of time. I’ll be the first to admit that being up here right now is hard... This intense feeling of grief is just awful, and a wise man from my home once said something so very profound about it. He said, ‘no one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.’

“It’s not an easy correlation to make, but just think about it. Grief gives you the same fluttering in your gut, the same restlessness, you’re always on edge, like something might be about to happen—but it never does. I never really understood what he meant, I didn’t get the correlation. But now, I’m sad to say that I misunderstand a little less than before. This whole experience of losing Star Shine… Star Glow said it well: it’s like a part of us is missing, like an amputation.

“I’ll be honest; this sucks, it just sucks. This stallion, we all cared about him in some form or fashion, and now he’s gone. This grief we feel is the cousin of fear, more closely related than I had realized. So it would be remiss of me not to to say this: the next time we see those griffons, we will not have this same feeling within us; we will hold no semblance of fear or grief, but instead a cold rage for our friend, and they won’t even know what hit them.”

Paul didn’t stick around long enough to see if anypony went up to speak after him; he left the service, his long strides carrying him quickly out of the cemetery and towards the castle. Paul’s last statement was not a threat, it was a promise, and he intended to make good on that promise.

That meant procuring a few items first.
> Thief in the NIght
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A few hours later, it was the dead of night, and Paul was making his way quietly through the streets towards the train station. He was fairly certain nopony had seen him leave, and he hadn’t even seen a single pony on the streets at this time.

When he made it to the train station, however, it was a different story. Even in the wee hours of the morning, the train station still had a decent amount of activity.

Trying his best to avoid drawing undue attention (and failing due to his stature), Paul approached the ticket booth and bought himself a ticket to Manehatten. From there, he could purchase a ticket to his final destination.

With a nod to the pony inside the booth, Paul made his way over to the train and ducked his head as he boarded. With so few ponies on board, it wasn’t hard to find a cabin to himself. As he sat alone he thought about the gravity of what he was doing. He was leaving everypony behind. And if he had his way, it would be far too late before there was any notice of his absence. 

For four hours, Paul sat alone, accompanied only by his thoughts. He wondered what would happen to everypony he left behind. Would they find his note? Would they send somepony after him? Would they presume him dead when he inevitably didn’t return? 

These thoughts and many others rattled around, almost audible amid the silent solitude of his cabin.

Only when he finally made it to Manehatten did his thoughts stop pestering him. The presence of other ponies pulled his focus back to the outside world rather than into his thoughts. As he looked around he remembered that he only had a short window to find a ride. News of the travel ban would officially make it to railroad and airship services within a few hours. 

So with a slight sense of urgency, Paul made his way to the ticket booths again, this time seeking out a much longer journey. 

“Hello,” Paul greeted the teller.

With a yawn, the old stallion looked up and through the glass. His eyes widened when he saw Paul. “You’re the one that was on the projection!” he exclaimed quietly. “You’re—”

“Jedi General Paul, yes,” Paul answered. “Listen, I need to buy a ticket.”

The pony nodded. “A-alright, what’s the destination?”

“I need you to get me as close to the Griffon Kingdoms as possible.”

The pony’s jaw nearly impacted his desk. “Are you sure, sir?”

Paul nodded.

The pony shook his head, but he complied nonetheless. “One ticket from Manehatten to Grifville.”

“You’d better make that six,” said a familiar voice from behind Paul. He’d been too focused to notice the familiar auras approaching. He turned around and saw who was standing there. 

“…”

Paul was speechless.

“What?” Golden Lance asked with more than a hint of humor in his voice. “Did you really think nopony would notice you leave?”

“Honestly you weren’t even all that sneaky,” Bronze Mace said with a smirk.

Paul shook his head. “You guys shouldn’t be here. You need to go back.”

“Respectfully, sir,” Iron Shield started, “buck you, I do what I want.” 

Star Glow just looked at Paul and spoke plainly. “You’re not the only one that’s got a bone to pick with those birds.”

And leading the gang was Shining Armor himself. “Sorry, sir, but… well, we couldn’t let you have all the fun. Besides, somepony’s gotta keep you alive out there.”

“Guys… you can’t come with me. I’m doing this alone.”

“Six tickets to Grifville, sir,” said the teller pony, dropping six tickets onto the counter for Paul to grab. “On me. Give ‘em Tartarus, boys.”

Looking back and forth between his friends and the knowing smile of the old teller, Paul finally spoke. “You aren’t going to give this up.”

“Nope,” came the cocky response from Golden Lance.

Paul gave a long–suffering sigh and hung his head. “Fine. I don’t like it, but let’s go.” 

Bronze Wing gave a small cheer while Shining Armor gave a little bit of a huff, handing over a small bag of bits. “Come on, Paul, you couldn’t have held out a few more minutes against us? I was sure it’d take more than five minutes to break you.”

Paul gave a small smile at his words but remained silent as they made their way to the platform.
The track was not unlike most others in the station. Though, one major difference was the train itself. Most trains were at least ten cars long with a very large engine at the front, but this one was much smaller. This one only had three cars and an engine that looked like it might not even make it out of the station under its own power, let alone pulling the rest of the cars.

But that was the only train going anywhere near the Griffon Kingdoms anytime within the next week, so that’s the train they would have to take.

Paul gave it a long look, shaking his head and sighing. Resigned, he turned back to the group. “Alright guys, I’m gonna give it one last go. I’m asking that you all go back to Canterlot, forget you saw me here, and let me do this myself. Please, I don’t want to put any more lives on the line here.”

“Other than your own of course,” Lance pointed out snarkily.

“Sir, chances of us turning back are slim to none,” said Shining Armor.

“And I don’t know about you, sir,” Bronze started with a grin, glancing from side to side, “but I don’t see slim around here anywhere.”

Paul nodded. “I’d figured as much,” he sighed. “Well, let’s get going then.”

The inside of the train didn’t look nearly so bad as the outside had suggested. It was actually a very well furnished and had plenty of room for all six to be comfortable, a necessity for a two–day train ride.

“Alright, guys, get some rest,” Paul said. “The sun’s just about to come up and I know I didn’t sleep last night. The rest of the journey won’t be easy.”

Without any further explanation of what they would actually be doing in the Griffon Kingdoms, Paul sat back against the wall, legs taking up a whole bench of seats, and fell asleep.

After several minutes of silence, Lance turned to Shining, whispering so as not to wake the others that had fallen asleep.

“Captain, what exactly will we be doing when we get there?”

Shining just looked the young stallion in the eyes and spoke plainly. “Lance, knowing Paul, I’d say we’re ending the war ourselves before it really starts.”


<<<==>>>


Paul awoke with the afternoon sun in his eyes and sat up with a groan. Humans were not made to sleep in such uncomfortable positions. 

Looking out the windows he could see that they were passing through an unfamiliar mountain range. The peaks were capped with snow while the valleys between were full of greenery, and if he looked hard enough he could faintly make out the glimmer of running water; a stream flowing along the base of the valley.

Paul stood up, shaking his limbs and popping his joints, and began to walk up and down the aisle of the car. He noticed that the rest of the guys were all up, talking amongst themselves in a few small groups. 

“What’s next, sir?” Lance asked, looking up at him.

“Well, I thought about this for awhile,” Paul started, “and I don’t think there’s any easy way to get where we’re going. In fact, this train ride is enough risk that I would’ve discounted this plan for any viable alternative. But as you can see, this is the best way for us to get to the Griffon Kingdoms with both haste and anonymity. 

“Once we get there, we’re going to have to travel by night and sleep by day to avoid any trouble, so I suggest acclimating yourself as soon as possible. We’ll be walking from Grifville to the Griffon Capital of Griffonstone. I’ve only been able to make rough estimates, but it looks like we’ll be able to make the trek in three days’ time.”

“Sir, what are we doing in Griffonstone, anyway?” Bronze Mace asked.

“We’re putting an end to this,” Paul stated firmly. He missed the meaningful glance Shining Armor gave to Golden Lance. “Diathor wants power. That was always his motivation when I wrote him. But there was always one thing in his way: Palus, the good guy. When he senses me, Diathor will make himself known, and then we can kill him. Otherwise, there’s going to be so much needless bloodshed, all for the sake of Diathor’s play at power.”

He had been pacing up and down the aisle fervently, his cloak fluttering behind him as he stalked back and forth. He turned one last time towards his friends. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m not about to stand by and let that happen.”

There was a fierce look of determination on Paul’s face that quickly spread to the others.

“You can count us in, Paul,” Shining Armor agreed with a salute. The other five followed suit, giving firm salutes to Paul. 

Paul saluted in return. “Thank you. I’d intended to make this trip alone, but now that the five of you are here with me I feel more at ease about this all. You can all relax until we get to the station late tonight. We’ll be covering as much ground as possible between arrival and sunrise, so make sure you’re well rested.”

Leaving them to keep talking among themselves, Paul went back and sat on his bench. He hadn’t been entirely truthful with his friends. Having them with him was not putting him at ease whatsoever. In fact, it made his gut churn at the thought of it. There was a reason, a very good reason, he had tried to sneak away and do this by himself.

This mission did not have a very high chance of success. Paul was only doing this on the off chance he could avoid all–out war between the two nations, because while their armies might have been small, conscriptions were bound to happen sooner or later. 

And besides, assuming this mission was successful, as unlikely as that was, the chance of surviving was so much lower. 

He would be literally walking on foot through the enemy’s country for days, then marching straight through their capital to demand an audience with a man most of the population didn’t even know existed. Assuming he wasn’t murdered in his sleep by some bandit, there was a good chance he would either be killed in the city or taken as a hostage and tortured for information.

Now add on the fact that the group was six times larger and contained not only a very distinctive figure (himself) with the rank of General, but also a famous pony who had previously held the rank of Captain of the Guard. This whole operation had gone from a one in a million shot in the dark to needing nothing short of a God–given miracle to work out in the end.

But there was no use in admitting that to the group. They would all need every bit of false confidence they could muster if they were going to get anywhere close to pulling it off.

But until the train made it to Grifville it was just a waiting game. So with a tired sigh, Paul leaned his head back against the wall of the train. And he waited.


<<<==>>>


Far after the sun had set that night, the train pulled into the station and the group departed quickly and quietly while the town slept. They needed to make it very far out into the middle of nowhere by daybreak. Otherwise, they risked being found while they slept during the day.

They made it out of the town without issue, unseen by so much as a single griffon. By sunrise, they were already twenty miles or more away from the town and hunkering down in a small grove about a hundred yards off the main path. Any closer would risk being seen by passers-by; any further would risk losing the road in such thick woods.

Paul was surprised that he didn’t hear even a single complaint among the group. With the pace he’d pushed them he’d expected at least a little whining about sore hooves and legs, but not a single one of them made so much as a whisper of complaint.

Iron Shield volunteered for first watch when they bedded down for the day, allowing the rest of the group to sleep after such a long hike.

Overall, his watch was uneventful. He didn’t hear anything pass by on the road. No caravans, no wagons, not even a single griffon. After two hours of sitting in silence, Iron Shield got up from his spot he moved to Bronze and leaned down to wake him up. 

As he did this, his ear flicked. Going on as if nothing had happened, he continued leaning down, placing a hoof on Bronze’s side. There was nothing in his expression that betrayed the thoughts he was having as his ears swiveled around, trying to pinpoint the distinct sound he had heard.

He began to shake Bronze gently, causing said pegasus to sit up slowly.

“Come on,” Iron Shield said to him at a normal voice level. “It’s your turn for watch.”

Bronze got to his hooves and nodded, doing some brief stretches.

“Don’t react to what I’m about to say,” Iron Shield said quietly. “I think we have company. I don’t know who, but they’re good. Very good. I didn’t notice them arrive, but I heard something right as my watch finished. What should we do?”

As Bronze Mace got up from his stretches, he turned to Iron Shield, looking puzzled. “Wait, it’s not my turn for watch,” he said, slightly loud. “I think you need to wake up Shining. I’m gonna lay back down. Wake me when you really need me.”

Shield caught the hidden message and went over to Shining Armor while Bronze laid down and pretended to go back to sleep. 

Iron Shield reached down as before, gently shaking awake the unicorn. “Sir, it’s your watch.” 

Shining Armor sat up slowly and began to do many of the same stretches as Bronze Mace had just done. If not for the situation, Shield might have found that humorous, but as it was he kept his composure and spoke once more in a low voice.

“Don’t react, sir, but I think we’re being watched. Directly on my five o’clock. I’ve already woken Bronze, he’s pretending to sleep. Orders?”

I took a moment for Shining to collect his thoughts and process the information he’d been given, but he quickly formulated a plan. 

“How far out?” he asked in a hushed voice. 

“Thirty to forty yards.”

“On my mark get Bronze to go after whatever it is, I want your shield pointed at it in case any projectiles come at us,” Shining ordered.

“Understood. Waiting for your mark.”

Shining nodded and before Shield even noticed the unicorn’s horn glow there was a bright flash as a bolt of magic flew out and struck something. There were two squawks and a faint thump.

“Bronze!” Iron Shield called as he heard the rustling of wings from the direction of the squawks.

Within a second the pegasus was already ten yards out and quickly closing on his prey. For a second or to Iron Shield held up his namesake, anticipating incoming crossbow bolts, but it was soon clear that no such thing was coming, so he ran forward to the enemy’s position.

Clearing brush out of the way, he found an unconscious griffon on the ground. Within moments he heard something falling through the tree branches not far off, followed by another thump. There, just a few yards away was another griffon, and alighting beside the somewhat conscious griffon was Bronze Mace.

“Just these two,” Bronze said. “I didn’t see any others around here.”

“Scouts, then?” Iron Shield asked.

Bronze shook his head. “No, look here, the only weapon among them is hardly anything more than a stick with twine. It’s barely a weapon. These two aren’t military.”

Iron Shield snorted. “Unlucky civilians,” he said. “We’re at least a day’s travel from any towns. These two must be on a hunting trip.”

Bronze hummed. “Probably. Though the question remains of what’s to be done about them.”

“Leaving witnesses that can outpace us isn’t a wise decision,” Shield pointed out. The eyes of the griffon under Bronze started to widen.

“And killing civilians isn’t something we do.”

Both Bronze and Shield turned to see Shining Armor approaching.

“These two will live. And I believe that in return, we would be justified in requesting your silence, correct?” he asked the griffon.

“Yes, of course!” the griffon exclaimed, nodding fervently. “None will know that we have seen you.”

“Good,” Shining Armor said, lifting the unconscious griffon in his magic. “Now, can you stand?”

The griffon made his way to his feet.

“Take your companion and go. We will be gone by the time you return, so don’t bother to come back and find us.”

With that, both griffons disappeared into the thick underbrush of the woods.

“Sir, was that the wisest course of action?” Shield asked.

“No. It most certainly was not,” Shining answered. “But I believe it was the best one I could make.”

Satisfied with the response, Shining Armor and Bronze Mace began to make their way back to camp.

Confused, Iron Shield stared for several moments in the direction the two griffons had gone, then turned back and followed Shining and Bronze.


<<<==>>>


“Paul, get up,” Golden Lance’s voice prodded alongside his hoof. “It’s your watch.”

Paul stirred, slowly sitting up. After rubbing his eyes a few times, he nodded to Lance. “Go lay down, Lance. I’ve got watch now.”

Satisfied, Lance, laid back down while Paul got to his feet and popped a few of his joints.

With a contented sigh, he sat down on a nearby rock and pulled his panic knife from his boot to idly whittle a stick he had pulled off a tree.

The previous night of travel went well. If Bronze had read the stars correctly, the group made it another thirty five miles since their previous camp where they’d been discovered by a pair of hunting griffons.

They hadn’t hit another town that night, and when they’d settled down for the day, there was no noise to signify a nearby town, so they kept their camp just outside sightline of the road, only about fifty yards into the treeline, rather than the hundred of the day before.

Lance had taken first watch, and now Paul was on second.

With no idea what he was doing.

Obviously, he knew what he was doing in regards to being on watch. But in regards to actually completing this mission? Not hardly.

Even now, only another night two away from Griffonstone, Paul didn’t really know what the plan was. Of course, he had his vague idea of “out Diathor and end the war,” but that plan wasn’t exactly heavy on details.

But then again, Paul was a Jedi, and the Force was guiding him, wasn’t it? The idea of going in blind seemed rather stupid on the surface, but just going with his gut would get him places far better than coming up with a plan that wouldn’t survive first contact anyway.

Either way, he had nothing but time right now, sitting out in the middle of some forest on watch, so with nothing better to do, he started thinking through how this encounter would go.