Justice

I again wake up to a mass of suffocating pink hair.

Again, I brush it aside and I promptly hit my head on the low shelter as I sit up.

I don’t actually hit my head, as my helmet appears right before impact. This appearing armor thing is going to take some getting used to. I recall the helmet back into the Element, and I smile as I remember the walk back from the ruins. Fluttershy being amazed at how I could make the armor appear at will, and the shield also. It had been an uneventful trip back. We ate dinner and we crashed in the same lean-to as the last few nights. We’d been out here about a week now.

But last night was truly the last night.

We are going to pack up and move out.

The Hydra was on the other side of town, so it is a good day’s journey from where we are camped. I smile again at the thought of finally moving.

I gently wake Fluttershy up, and together we crawl out from the shelter. I stretch in the rising sun, as does Fluttershy.

“Spike should be sending breakfast soon, lets start packing up while we wait, okay?” I casually say to Fluttershy.

She nods groggily, and we begin tearing down camp. I walk over to the lean-to, summon a sword out of the blue aura around the element, and I destroy it. No matter how many times I try, the sword I summon always has a straight blade. I preferred my kilij due to it’s curved blade, but the energy sword was nice. More powerful too.  I walk back over to the fire pit to see Fluttershy gently packing up the extra stuff such as Spike’s letters and the extra cooking utensils.

“Hey Fluttershy, I’ll start the fire up, then I’m going to train for a bit. Can you keep the fire going and wait for Spike to send the food?” I ask her.

She softly replies, “Of course, anything for you…”

I shiver inwardly, still uncomfortable with her devotion.

“I really am going to have to address that sooner or later… So why do I keep putting it off?” I think.

I shake my head and light the fire inside the fire pit. With that done, and Fluttershy waiting for the food to arrive, I walk through the woods surrounding camp.

After a few minutes of walking, I come to a small clearing.

“The perfect spot to practice.” I say.

I unsheathe my kilij, and slowly fall into my most familiar stance.

“Your weight is a little too centered over the right foot.”

I promptly fall on my butt in shock.

I look wildly around, but nobody- or pony - is there.

“I talked to you before, why is it such a surprise now?”

I quickly look down at the Element of Justice that is still clamped onto my left forearm. Sure enough, it was talking to me.

“Yes, it is me talking. Stupid.”

I frown at it. “Um… Element thingy?”

“Yes?”

“Why are you talking to me, and why did you lose all the thous and thys?”

The faint blue aura around the Element pulsed brighter, and it replied,

“Since I read your mind, I can see how people talk in your world. I am trying to mimic your speech patterns.”

“Ahh….”

I am still unnerved at the sight of a piece of jewelry talking to me.

It speaks again. “Not only do you get armor and an aura weapon and shield, but you also get my advice. Anything I can help you with?”

Recovering from my shock, I stand back up again.

“Well, yeah actually, there is something. I killed three bandit ponies on the road to Ponyville from Canterlot. When I was about to kill their leader, I saw his life flash before my eyes, and I saw everything bad he had ever done. What was that?”

The Element is silent for so long I begin to wonder if it fell asleep. But after several minutes, it finally speaks.

“That is rare indeed. It is not often the bearer of me is able to do that. It is called Soul Search. It allows the bearer to search the soul of somepony in order to determine if they deserve death or not. It only happens rarely though, so don’t rely on it to make decisions for you.”

I nod, “Okay, it didn’t really help me because I was going to kill that pony anyway for what he was going to do. But its nice that it is there if I need it.”

The Element seems to hum happily. “Is there anything else you wish to ask?”

My mind immediately turns to my relationship with Fluttershy.

Do I dare ask the Element of Justice about something like that?

The short answer is no.

“Nope, nothing else on my mind. Can you just give me pointers as I practice with the armor? The sword and shield too?”

“Sure thing.”

Twilight’s POV

“Twilight dear! I am so happy you made it safely. Tell me, how was your trip?”

I’m scared.

More scared than I have ever been in my life.

Celestia is acting nice. That alone is cause enough for concern. I failed, and I lied to her. I am pretty sure she still thinks I came from Appleoosa, but I can’t tell.

“I… I’m doing fine your majesty…” I manage to stutter out.

“Well that is good… why don’t you follow me this way?” She says in a silky smooth voice.

She gets off her throne and starts slowly cantering out of the massive doors.

I follow.

We slowly trot down the hallway towards the dungeons.

My fear turns into full-blown panic.

“Princess! Where are you taking me?!?” I desperately ask.

I’m not bound or anything, but it would be suicide to try and escape.

She turns to face me, and smiles.

Ty’s POV

I breathe out heavily as I trek back to camp. I am super tired and it is only about ten in the morning. I come in sight of the camp just in time to see a flash of green light. Our food has arrived. Fluttershy starts cracking the eggs into a frying pan as usual, and I plop down beside the fire. I help Fluttershy fix up breakfast, and while were doing that I give her a brief summary of my training session with the Element. Once that is done, we chow down on the scrambled eggs. For some odd reason, Spike didn’t send a letter today.

“So… um… the next time you train with the Element… could I… um… maybe… join you?” Fluttershy asks me very timidly.

“Uh, sure. But why?” Is my puzzled response.

She hasn’t been this shy around me since she was brought back to her old self.

“Well… I want to be strong like you…”

I look at her completely bewildered. “Fluttershy, we have already gone over this. Me getting hurt wasn’t your fault, and I see it as my job to protect you. You don’t have to become stronger.”

“I know… but… wouldn’t it be you protecting me if you taught me how to take care of myself? If you were ever hurt and couldn’t help me, you wouldn’t want something bad to happen to me because you didn’t teach me, right?” She gives me a cute, small, smile.

“….Boy, shes good.” I think to myself.

I sigh. “Alright, next time I go training with the Element, you can tag along…”

She wiggles her rear in excitement and breathes in deeply.

At full inhale, she suddenly gives a minuscule, “yay…”

Between laughing and having a cuteness-induced heart attack, I almost die. Once I finally stop laughing, I look up at a deeply blushing and very embarrassed Fluttershy.

Still chuckling lightly to myself, I say, “Don’t be embarrassed, you just look so cute sometimes I cant help it.”

She smiles at that and snuggles up against me.

My mirth instantly stops.

Fluttershy notices the change and asks, “Um… are you okay? Did I… do something wrong?”

She looks up at me very concerned. I quickly reply, “Oh no, its nothing, we should just finish eating so we can be on our way.” I smile to cover up the partial lie.

Fluttershy glances suspiciously at me for a moment, and then seems satisfied and smiles back.

I breathe an inaudible sigh of relief.

“I really need to figure out when I should talk to her…” I think.

But again, I put it off in favor of finishing up breakfast. Once we are done with breakfast, I pack everything up into our bags and I sling them over my shoulder.

I give our campsite a quick glance, and I call out to Fluttershy, “Hey Fluttershy, are you ready?” S

he trots up to me and says, “Yep, I was just making sure we didn’t leave anything behind.”

“Alright, well lets be going.”

I look up at the sun. “Its almost noon, we should move quickly if we want to get to the swamp before nightfall.”

With that, we walk out of the campsite and back towards Ponyville. Before leaving the clearing, I give it one last look. This place had been my home for the last week, and a lot has changed. I look at my right arm and I see my scar. I look at my left and I see the Element of Justice.

“How did I even get into this mess…” I think.

“Are you coming?” Fluttershy calls back to me. I quickly snap out of my trance and I call back, “Yeah! Coming!”

Twilight’s POV

I wake up.

Pain rules.

I told her everything.

How I lied, how the human was in Ponyville, everything.

But it wasn’t enough…

“You disobeyed my orders and lied to me. Its only natural you should be punished.” She had told me. Looking through the haze of pain, I see the dungeon that Celestia had thrown me into. It was the same one the human was kept in, so I’m told. The burns all along my body throbbed intensely. I let my head fall back onto the bed of hay, hoping, praying, that she wouldn’t come back.

Ty’s POV

I let my gaze wander over Ponyville, searching for any signs of the royal guards.

The ponies were looking oddly distressed, and I soon saw why.

A large red pony is towing a cart with a large bundle that has a white cloth over it.

“It must be a dead pony.” I thought.

I asked Fluttershy, and she confirmed my suspicions.

“Discord has killed again. The fact that there is only one body and not two means that he must have made that pony kill itself.”

She started tearing up, but right before she starts to cry, she shakes the tears away.

“She is trying to be stronger.” I think to myself.

I say to her, “C’mon, lets go around, we still have a long walk ahead of us.

Twilight’s POV

I awoke from my pain-induced stupor to the sound of grating metal.

My cell door is being opened. “Not again… I can’t handle being burned again…”

Half conscious, I look up and see a unicorn guard standing over me.

He has a pair of bolt cutters in his mouth.

I faint.

Ty’s POV

I sigh in relief at the sight of Ponyville disappearing in the distance behind us.

Fluttershy and I start running/galloping to put even more distance behind us. After a few solid minutes of running/galloping, we finish crossing the plain between Ponyville and the Swamp. As we walk/trot up to the edge of the swamp, I see a sign that says, “Froggy Bottom Bog”

“What a weird name…” I mutter to myself.

To Fluttershy, I say, “If there is a hydra in the Swamp, wouldn’t it eat all the frogs?”

Fluttershy replies, “It did.” She didn’t even begin to tear up when thinking about all the frogs being eaten. “I’m impressed, you didn’t cry when talking about frogs being eaten, do you just not like frogs?”

“I do like frogs, but I’m just trying to be strong. I was once given assertiveness lessons from a minotaur named Iron Will, so I am remembering those to help me be strong.”

“A minotaur??” I ask in shock.

“Yep.”

“Hmmm… its weird how so many legends from my world are reality in yours.”

Fluttershy looks up at me and asks, “You have minotaurs and hydras in your world?”

“Well… not really. People just made them up. They were nothing more than stories.”

“That is strange…” She says quietly.

We start moving to the heart of the Swamp, while dodging bubbling pools and roots. A few hours later, it is dark and we finally come to a spot open enough to set up camp on. I tiredly sling the pack on the ground, and we begin setting up camp.

Twilight’s POV

“I’m terribly sorry dear, but I had to show you how serious a crime disobeying me is.” Celestia says to me in a silky smooth voice.

“No your not.” I think to myself in a daze.

My whole body feels numb.

“How could she do this to me…?”

“Anyway, your orders are this: You are to find the human and kill him, just like before. A carriage with two pegasi guards will carry you to Ponyville. They are fast, so you should arrive in a little over an hour. Your two friends will meet you there. I already talked to them and since they had nothing to do with your disobedience, I let them go. Don’t disappoint me this time.”

With two guards flanking me, I numbly trot out of the throne room.

The horrible reality of what happened begins to weigh on me, and I giggle in madness. The guards trot a little farther away from me as my giggle turns into a hysterical laugh.

Ty’s POV

I set the last branch onto the roof of Fluttershy’s and mine lean-to. It took about an hour, but camp was set up. I walk over to our bags, and I retrieve an apple to tide myself over until Spike sends dinner. Fluttershy trots over, grabs an apple, and joins me. After a few minutes of waiting, we see a flash of green and our dinner is sitting in front of us.

Our dinner consists of more apples.

I sigh in annoyance.

By now, I hate apples.

I look through the bag of apples, and am disappointed to find there isn’t a letter.

Fluttershy and I quickly finish eating.

Seeing as it was pretty late, and we were very tired, we crawl under the shelter to go to bed. Fluttershy snuggles up to me as usual, and I mentally berate myself for not having the courage to talk to her just yet. She falls asleep quickly, and I drift of into an uneasy sleep moments later.

Spike’s POV

I stretch my arms and sigh in contentment. With dinner sent for Fluttershy and Ty, there is nothing stopping me from going to bed.

As I walk up the stairs, the doorbell rings.

“Who would want to check out a book this late?” I wonder aloud.

I wearily walk back down the stairs and I open the door.

“Yes, what do you wa-…”

I look up, and I see who is standing in the doorway.

I faint.

A/N And that ends my massive updating spree. I am all caught up in my chapters, so now you will have to wait a week between updates, sorry.