> The behemoth > by Darkscout99 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > My Not So Grand Entrance > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I heard muttering in front of me. I tried to turn over, but I couldn’t. Perplexed, i opened my eyes and tried to sit up. Upon opening my eyes, I realized that I was in a perfectly human shaped hole, and 11 candy colored horses were looking down at me, scratch that, they’re too short to be horses, they must be ponies. I heard them muttering something, and not being able to move at all, I first looked around saw that three of them were normal, two of them were unicorns, three of them were pegasi, and three of them had wings and horns. Oh, and there was a dragon. It looked like it was a baby dragon. Bewildered, all I managed to say was, “Hello.” their reaction was priceless. the normal ponies shot about a foot into the air, one pegasi jumped into the clouds, and the others jumped into the nearby bushes. The unicorns screamed and hugged each other, and one of the princesses flashed out of sight. The other two just looked down at me, stoic. the dragon did the same. “Hello there, my name is Celestia, and you are?” the white one with a horn and wings said. “I’m James, nice to meet you Celestia. Is there any reason that i can’t seem to move?” I replied. I figured that I was unconscious somewhere, there was no way that I was talking to multicolored ponies with wings and horns, and a baby dragon. “The story is that when these three fillies over here found you; we of course came to get the unconscious creature that was sitting outside in the middle of nowhere. then when these six ponies came to get you they found out that you had sunk into the ground, and that you were really heavy, and I mean really heavy. So they called me and Luna, the other alicorn you see here, to help get you out of a ditch in the ground. We just arrived, and then you woke up." Celestia explained. "Huh. I thought I was asleep and this was a really weird dream. Also, why can't I move?" The purple pony, I guess it was an alicorn, popped back into existence. "That’s my fault. I cast an immobilization spell on you; we can't have a being that heavy just running around town." "I guess that makes sense. Any chance you could remove that spell?" "We are going to have to. It will be pretty hard to move you around if we have to rely on magic alone." the purple alicorn lowered her head, and her horn was surrounded in a purplish aura. She finished and moved her head away. "Ok you should be able to move now. Start small, the spell has been in effect for a while." I moved my fingers and quickly figured out everything was normal. I started to stand up and quickly encountered a problem. Big mass plus small area equals a foot going a foot into the ground. "Well that could be a problem." I said. "Do you have any way to reduce my weight a little bit?" I asked, looking at the three alicorns. The purple one replied. "I have two ways that we can reduce your weight. Give me one second please." she tilted her head and her horn started to glow. “You should be able to walk now. This is only temporary though. Let’s see if zecora has something she can do about this, potions tend to have a longer lasting effect. She might be able to mix up something." she started off in the direction of a forest. The other 10 ponies started following her, and I pulled my foot out of the ground and followed. The twelve of us made our way into said forest and began to walk far into the tree line. They had all told me their names on the trip. After a bit of walking, we reached a small hut. I had realized that the ponies were about 3ft. so I expected a door to be shorter than a human door too. It was about 4ft, so I had to crawl to get into Zecora's house. When I was inside, I was able to sit up, but to stand I would have had to cut a hole in the roof. The zebra, named Zecora, seemed to always speak in rhymes. "What is it that I see, but a human sitting before me? To have come here you, must have something that you want me to do." she seemed to ask me. "Yes, we have a problem. I don't come from this world as you can see, and I seem to weigh a ton here. More precisely, from what Twilight tells me, 10 tons." "You have a weight problem, I see. Let’s see what I can do for thee." she replied, in an almost mystical voice. I watched entranced as she took out the ingredients for the potion with ease. She quickly started making it, not even realizing twilight's spell was wearing off. It only took a few minutes and I left an indent in the floor by the time she was done. I quickly drank the potion to see if it would work. It did. "It seems that my potion works, and without any odd quirks. It should have left your odd strength in place, but you should not be too heavy for this place." she gave me the rest of the potion that she made, in bottles that were about the serving size. They would last for a week before I needed to drink another one. It was then Celestia turned to me with the thing that I needed at that time. "So James, I just realized that you have unnatural strength, and seem to be able to keep a calm head in extremely stressful situations. I also realized that you need a job, and one of my guards just left. Do you want to work as one of my royal guards?" "Sure, I hope this doesn't offend you, but I was an ancient wars teacher in my world, so I know good battle strategies. This would be a great opportunity to learn how well they work in practice. not that I want to fight, but the whole prospect of seeing the things I’ve been teaching for years put into practice is just... strange." I replied. Celestia giggled, "Well you won't be put in the commander position right away, but you might work your way up there." so when we reached the edge of the forest, we said our goodbyes and I headed off with the princesses. They had taken the royal sky chariot thing, and we quickly realized that it would be pretty hard for me to get in with her, but we managed to do it somehow. Celestia told me it would take a few hours to get to canterlot, and I settled in for the long ride. > The First Threat > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It had been five years since I had arrived in equestria. Those first days were of Course the hardest. Physical training for the guard was a breeze. I could contain more energy in my body, meaning i could stay awake longer, and I was stronger than most. The only thing the rest of the guard was better at was running, but only over short spans. The only problem was that both Celestia and Luna wanted me in their personal guards. It was decided I would rotate, one month Luna’s, the next Celestia’s. These jobs came with their own set of unique perks. The potions I had to buy from zecora were covered, which was nice. No threat I was going to go crashing through the floor. Her potions worked perfectly for a week, and then they failed horridly. I learned this when I was showing off to the rest of Luna’s guard, moonwalking, and I suddenly fell over backwards, with my legs buried a few feet underground. The other one was that I could read the princesses almost perfectly. Most people believed that they showed no emotion whatsoever. That wasn't true; they switched it up and minimized how they showed emotions as much as possible. If Celestia got mad, she slightly drooped her ears like she was sad. It was really hard for a pony to tell, because they knew how to read other ponies, me? I had no idea how to read others, and being around the princesses a lot made me learn how to read them, not normal ponies. it also turns out that the personal guard is really small, for the sole reason that to be in it, you have to be the princesses friend. Also it turns out that alicorn can warp space and time. I found that out when Luna introduced me to her gaming setup, she wanted someone to play with. The only other ponies she got to play her games with were an innocent gray mare, and her sister. She wanted someone to play against who actually knew how to play. She had tried twilight but she was more fascinated that something like a TV could exist. "Jeez, how did you get all of this stuff?" I asked, for once showing some amazement. "I’m an alicorn, we can do these things. Now less talking, more playing. My favorite is Mortal Kombat X, have you ever played it?" "I’ve played a few of the Mortal Kombat games, but never X." I responded. She looked at me in disbelief. She then proceeded to beat me into submission, in the game of course. That took a few hours. She always made me play her, and I slowly got better. I played frequently with scorpion, and was able to challenge Luna by the second month of playing the game. My favorite part of being a royal guard though, was the combat training. It was intense, and I usually won. I used a Warhammer for training, and it was enchanted to leave blotches of red paint instead of hit my opponents with a large amount of force. The hammer was made out of what I called pony iron, it was just as strong as normal iron, but it was much lighter. There was also something strange that happened with my skin. Even when I had been drinking my potions, my skin was just as hard as iron armor. When I wasn't using my potion, you had just as much luck trying to cut it as you would have if you tried to dig through solid bedrock with a cheap plastic spoon. Zecora had invented a potion specifically to counteract her other potion, turning me back into my 10 ton counterpart. As a byproduct of my skin being armor in itself, and in the interest of freaking the enemy out, I only wore iron pants below the legs. I didn't really want to test if my privates were just as indestructible. I also always wore a belt stocked with a few of each potion. This was my standard outfit, as I had an impressive set of abs now through my intense training. That was when Celestia and Luna called me into the castle to talk to me. "Hey girls, what's the matter," I said, holding the massive Warhammer over my shoulder, "Usually both of you aren't up at the same time." "James, this is of great importance. Follow us." said Celestia. She was dead serious, which was strange. Equestria was really peaceful right now, and the nobles hadn't seemed to be causing any more trouble than normal. We walked until we reached a blank wall, nothing special behind with it. That was until Celestia opened a door to a secret armory. I followed them in and looked around, wondering why it was so well hidden. "This room holds a special kind of weapon James; they are all made of meteoric iron. Meteoric iron is very heavy, and almost indestructible. Almost no pony can lift any of these weapons for long periods of time. The only ponies that can lift these are alicorn," she smiled, "but you aren't a pony are you." her face dropped grimly. "The Minotaur nation wants to invade equestria, and we need a strong leader. You have the relationship with the rest of the guards that neither Luna nor I can have with anyone. You also have strategies that the whole planet of Equis hasn't seen. We were hoping that would help us lead our armies if it comes to war. We hope that it won't come to that, but it never hurts to be prepared." she seemed to perk up a little bit. "Feel free to pick any of the weapons here, there are many styles of the same item, the Warhammers are over there. She pointed to the end of the armory. i walked down to the hammers, occasionally stopping to check out another weapon. After looking at the hammers, i picked up a large one that was unusually plain. Most of the other ones had colors on them, but this one was pure grey. The handle was made out of a silvery wood, and was wrapped in dark leather. The second my hand wrapped around it, I whispered, "Star Crusher." There was a flash of light as it was started dissolving. I panicked for a second before Celestia put her hoof on my shoulder. I let it dissolve, and then felt a burning pain in my left hand. A red circle with a hexagon and lines crossing over it appeared in my hand. I collapsed grabbing my hand. It took me a few minutes but I eventually stood up. "What was that?!" I nearly screamed at Celestia, "Why do I have an alchemist's circle burned into my hand now." "That was the weapon bonding to you James. It happens when a worthy wielder takes the weapon and recognizes its true name." She pulled off her right hoof guard. She had a similar mark, except that it had two triangles overlapping on it. Luna repeated the action and showed me hers. It was different in the fact that hers had a spiral that seemed to flow into oblivion. They summoned their weapons, Luna had a recurve bow, and Celestia had a cleaver. I was more expecting the other way around. They both looked a little strained holding them, so they let them dissipate. I tried, and after a minute, I managed to call upon my weapon. I grabbed it in my left hand and let in fall into my right hand. It wasn't as heavy as a Warhammer of its size would have been on earth, but it was way heavier than a regular iron one was in this world. I let it dissolve, and we left the room. The first hint that something was wrong was that the guards were rushing around, trying to find the princesses. One of the guards ran up to the princesses and said in an urgent tone of voice, "The Minotaurs have declared war, your majesty. What should we do?" the princesses looked at me. "Bring out all of the reserves that we have, and get them prepared for war. Assume that we have at maximum a month before they attack. Setup guards and patrols around the edge of canterlot. See if we can get more ponies to join the army. Get the Wonder bolts here pronto." I started out, turning to the princesses I said, "I need more information before I can do anything else. What allies do we have? I know that we have about 10,000 troops with the reserves right now, but I need to know many Minotaurs that there are before I can see what chance we have at winning." the princesses smiled at me. Celestia started, "Good job James," she turned to the guard, "He passed, end the simulation." The guard nodded and pulled out a whistle. He blew it and it produced a loud wailing noise, and everyone stopped rushing around, and started back to their stations. "That was a test wasn't it, for the commander position?" I asked, almost dreading the answer. Luna answered to my surprise, "Yes James that was a test for the position of commander. The threat of the Minotaur nation attacking is real though. We have chosen you to be the commander of our armies, for the reason that Tia stated earlier. Also, it's terrifying that you can withstand most bladed weapon hits with almost no damage." She shuddered. "Well, this is interesting. What does being commander mean?" "We will refer to you for strategic advice, and you will directly lead the troops into battle. Also, you are only second to us on the command chain. Also, you can appoint your second in commands. They will lead the other sections of the army. We have seven of them, as you know: medical, scouting, ambushers, the pure army, the navy, and the resource management for them all. Do you have any ideas of who you want to appoint for the positions?" I smiled, realizing i knew the perfect six ponies. “I may have an idea."