To Avert a War

Chapters

Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter 2
Chapter Three
Chapter 4
Chapter Five
Interlude: New Arrivals
Chapter 6: The First Battle
Chapter Seven: The siege
Chapter 8: The siege part two

Prologue

_____It was a few days after those strangers had left through their portal. Establishing peaceful relations with his country and hopefully his world. But the man, a trained a soldier and magic user, couldn’t help but feel... apprehensive of the future. He had no idea what it was that would make him so nervous and he desperately hoped it was just some fleeting feeling.

Those strangers had warned his empire about the dangers that the portals were starting to become and that they should only open a portal that was safely monitored by a specialized magic user. There had been reports of portals opening up randomly even before those six strangers had arrived. He couldn’t remember their names. Maybe he was starting to get too old now, even if he did have an elongated lifespan due to magic. He may have looked thirty years old but he was actually three times that old. The years of combat and missions might be starting to affect him and his mental health... maybe.

You’re already unstable aren’t you? Said the voice that his other personality. He chose to ignore the voice that was named Arldon. But another part of him knew that Arldon was right in some way. Arldon would take control if a situation became too violent. Thankfully, he had managed to keep Arldon hidden from everyone else.

“Korpwin.” A familiar voice said.

Korpwin wasn’t his real name, it was his nickname. More like an honorary name to be exact, though he didn’t entirely know what he had done to earn it, or what it actually stood for since he never bothered to ask. He just liked the name. Korpwin looked at the person to whom the voice belonged to. A man whom he had known for many years.

“Gerard, you know I don’t like being called that name when we’re not on a mission.” Korpwin responded with a smile.

“Sorry, I just like that name; you know?” Korpwin could’ve sworn that he saw Gerard’s mouth moving at the end of his sentence, his lips forming his name. But the sound that would normally be registering into his ears was suddenly drowned out by nothingness. There was no other way to describe the lack of sound that suddenly afflicted him.

Gerard continued to talk, this time his facial expression changed to one of confusion and worry, then to alarm. Whatever he was trying to tell Korpwin was useless as he blacked out. The thoughts that raced through his mind before he did, however, were about the strangers and their warnings, specifically from that strong magic user among them known as a Lord Commander. He couldn’t remember what the warning was about, he couldn’t remember much of anything in the split second that he still had. Korpwin didn’t have time to ponder what was happening as darkness descended upon him.

_____Gerard watched his friend disappear in a portal. He wasn’t sure if he should follow and attempt to help but he had specific orders to leave the portals alone until they could learn more about them. But this was his best friend and a valued soldier to the empire that was at stake. Gerard didn’t have time to make a decision as the portal decided for him and started to shrink. Gerard scrambled towards the portal, desperate to make it to the other side and help his friend but the portal vanished almost as soon as it had appeared. Gerard was now on his knees in the dirt, his hands trying to reach for something that was not there. Gerard slammed a fist on the ground, angered at his failure. But being a soldier he still had a duty to report the incident to his superiors. Gerard got up and started running towards his camp where the rest of his unit was stationed so that hopefully someone who was more qualified than he was could understand what the hell was going on.

_____The man slowly opened his eyes, still groggy from his experience, whatever it was that he had just experienced. He tried moving his limbs only to find that there was nothing around him but empty air. He tried looking around and saw that he was slowly being lowered to the ground. As soon as he did this, however, whatever had been keeping him aloft suddenly dissipated and he started falling like he should. The man flailed his arms to try to grab onto something, anything, to prevent him from hitting the ground too hard. This was useless as he realized that he was going to hit the ground no matter what. And realizing that he had lost his helmet didn’t help matters as he hit the ground hard and was knocked unconscious for the second time within the past few minutes.

_____The mysterious man opened his eyes slowly. He was in extreme pain and he had no idea why. He felt his head, where the pain seemed to be coming from, and felt a bump on his head. He had no idea where he was. He actually couldn’t remember much of anything, not even his name. Yet, his training that had been drilled into him harder than anything else was still something he was familiar with. He wasn’t entirely sure what his training had involved, even that was a blur, it was more like an instinct. What was the purpose of his training anyway? Was he some kind of soldier? He tried to remain calm and clear his head. Yes, that’s right, he was a soldier. Some of the memories were starting to return, just so long as he didn’t get hit on the head again he would be okay for a while.

The man started to become bored, clearly patience hadn’t been a thing he was known for back at... wherever he was from. He got up and tried to take account of the tools he had at his disposal. For one, he was wearing a cloak and some heavy-looking armor, which meant that he was well-protected against weapons, he just had no idea how effective it really was. Not far from where he had fallen were his weapons. A great sword, two smaller blades, two daggers, an ax, and a shield. No ranged weapons. He obviously didn’t specialize in ranged combat. He spotted a sack which he proceeded to rummage through to find anything of use. There was some food, he didn’t know how long it would last him, a map, which was useless, considering that he was quite possibly not even on his planet anymore. At the bottom of the sack was a crystal.

The man picked it up gingerly and held it aloft to get a better look at it. It glowed and he felt some kind of power rushing through him. He hurriedly put it back into the sack, he was still weary from the memory loss and he had no idea what the crystal was supposed to actually do. For all he knew it could be some kind of weapon, rigged to explode once something... well, once happened to it. This thought didn’t serve to calm down his nerves.

The man was well-built, he wasn’t entirely sure what kind of metal that his armor was made from but if it was heavy he didn’t notice the weight too much, maybe magic was letting it be as light as it was?

The man decided that the first thing he would try to remember would be his name... it was annoying not knowing your own name especially when you would need it to meet other people to try to get you back to your home planet... if they could even understand you. Hmm, that could be a problem. He thought to himself. The man surveyed his surroundings. He noted that he was in a forest with some odd-looking trees, like someone had taken a knife to them and painstakingly carved faces into them. At least the sun was shining bright. The man gathered his belongings and shouldered and sheathed his weapons and tried to conceal all but the great sword and shield as best as he could under his cloak. Whatever kind of inhabitants lived around here he wouldn’t want to appear too threatening to them or too weak. Though, he had no idea if he was entirely ready for a fight.

The man scratched his head, feeling that something was missing. He continued scratching a particularly annoying itch on his head until his hand came away with blood and a few strands of black hair. Blood... why was he bleeding? The man thought for a minute. Then the thought hit him. His helmet! He needed that to make sure his head was safe and to stop being hit on the head and losing more bits of his memory. He espied his helmet, which was laying on the ground completely out of place, and he went to pick it up.

The man put on the helmet. And it wasn’t as comfortable as it looked. In fact, it was kind of annoying, maybe it was because of the bump and wound on his head. He decided that he would only wear it if he might get into a fight and attached it to his belt. The man was about to ponder which way he should head first in search of civilization when he heard the sound of wood creaking. He turned to look at the source of the sound and saw that the tree behind him was in a different position than it used to be a few seconds ago. The man still didn’t know his name but he somehow still knew Arldon’s name. Listen, I know we don’t get along sometimes. But believe me when our partnership is normally mutually beneficial to the both of us, and I think it would be beneficial for both of us if you got us out of here... like now. Arldon said. Wait, why can I remember your name but not my own? The man replied to his alter-ego. Hell if I know. The man took one last look at the tree and automatically decided that he did not like this forest and knew which direction he would be heading... the opposite direction of that tree.

_____He didn’t know how long he had been walking, his memories didn’t start returning any faster, and Arldon had been getting extremely bored and with the constant talking on his part didn’t help at all to return his memories. Nor did his lack of cooperation to help him figure out his own damn name, to which Arldon’s excuse was that he didn’t possess any more information on his missing memories than his counterpart did. Which may or may not be true. The man’s training didn’t seem to cover the mysteries of the mind.

It wasn’t long until he heard a voice. It was soft, shy, like a nervous mother or some other variation of what he was hearing. Though he couldn’t make out the words. He decided to get closer to the voice, sentient beings meant people, and he needed help to get home.

He didn’t want to appear out of nowhere, so he climbed the closest tree to get a good look at whoever was talking, What he saw was something extremely strange. There were animals, livestock, but what didn’t make sense was that there was a bear in the midst. The bear should be eating those creatures shouldn’t it? And he couldn’t see any sign of the person speaking. Yet the voice, now much louder, at least to him due to his sensitive hearing, spoke once more.

By now the man was in complete shock and confusion because he saw a pale, light grayish gold creature with a pink mane and wings... and it was talking.

He had never been confronted by such a situation before. What was he supposed to do? Should he try to talk with it? Should he kill it? No, probably not a good idea with that bear down there. The man realized that he couldn’t even understand a word the creature was saying, which would obviously complicate communication and understanding. The man thought desperately to think of something, anything, to help him in this new problem, and new problems seemed to be popping up faster for him than anything else right now. Okay, think. What can help me? I think I must be able to use magic because of that stone in my bag. Wait, what about those strangers from that other world? How did they communicate with us when they didn’t know our language? I swear, they must’ve used some kind of spell and taught to me. How else would I have been able to understand them? The thought came quickly to him but the memory of was not pleasant in its return to its proper place inside his head. The man uttered a few silent words to avoid startling the creature and activated the spell, a translation spell. He must’ve done something wrong as the spell was having trouble deciphering new words and the words needed to be repeated in order for him to understand. But at least that problem was partially out of the way.

He continued to weigh his options when he accidentally had one of his weapons clang against the tree, due to him fidgeting uncomfortably, making a rather loud and unwanted sound. The creature, which seemed to be some kind of small horse, horses were a rarity on his world, looked up in alarm and said something the translation spell didn’t have time to translate into his mind quite yet as his concentration was now broken completely and he lost his balance and fell out of the tree.

Thoughts raced through his head as he started to fall. First, was that he was horrible at stealth and his training probably didn’t cover such tactics. Secondly, in hindsight it would’ve probably been wise to wear his helmet as he was absolutely sure he was about to hit his head again and lose consciousness a third time in the last twenty four hours. It turns out that he was right about the second thing and he blacked out... again.

_____Fluttershy ran towards the strange creature. Completely unsure what it was but she made sure not to get too close. Fluttershy went picked up a stick with her mouth and gently poked the creature with it and with a small squeal, retreated back behind the tree and hide. Nothing happened. Her animal friends clustered around her and the strange creature. Fluttershy nearly retreated away again when the creature made a sound until she realized it was groaning. She looked closer at it and saw that it was bleeding from its head.

“Oh, my.” Fluttershy said in a worried voice. She didn’t know what this creature was, or if it was friendly since it was spying on her, but she couldn’t just leave it here without helping it first. “Come on, we can’t just leave it here. Let’s get him to my cottage. Or is it a she? Oh dear.”

Chapter One

Fluttershy had no idea what the thing was that had fallen out of that tree, but she couldn't just leave it to die. The events that had been occurring within the past day had been hectic. First Twilight's crown is stolen and she has to go to an alternate world and her friends couldn't even come to help her. And now a new species of animal that wears armor and weapons like the royal guard shows up? Fluttershy just didn't know if she had made the right choice.

The rest of the girls had been waiting at the mirror for Twilight to come back but Rainbow Dash still had a job in Ponyville to tend to the weather, though some other pegasi had offered to fill in for her while she was gone. And Fluttershy still needed to make sure her animal friends were okay, especially Angel. Both Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy had promised to be back soon but with this new problem Fluttershy wasn't entirely sure what to do.

Maybe I should tell Rainbow Dash? That may or may not have been not have been a bad idea but Fluttershy was immediately distracted from making a decision when the creature groaned and muttered something unintelligible. Fluttershy made a little squeal of fear and ran out of the room and slowly looked back inside to make sure that everything was okay. It turns out the creature was just groaning, possibly while in a dream.

Fluttershy and her animal friends had brought the creature into her home about a few hours ago and had laid it onto her bed. She wasn't sure if it was male or female but she was sure that it must be female because it was so light, even Angel was able to pick up its foreleg without much trouble. At least, it looked like a leg, it had these... things on the end that certainly weren't hooves. Unfortunately, the creature was too big to fit in her bed but she had no where else that was comfortable to put it. So it just laid there on her bed with two of its legs just hanging off the edge of the bed.

Fluttershy went back to her previous problem. Should she tell Rainbow Dash and the others or not? Yet again, she did not have time to decide as the creature on her bed stirred once more. However, she seemed to be waking up. Fluttershy decided she would give her a name soon, she couldn't keep calling it 'creature' and 'thing.'

The creature moved slowly, putting one of its forelegs to its head and using the things on the end to rub her head and eyes. Fluttershy decided to approach her carefully so as not to startle the new animal.

"Um, excuse me." Fluttershy said. The creature suddenly stopped rubbing her eyes and looked at Fluttershy in shock and fear. "No, no. It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you." The creature looked at her surroundings and started touching things with the little digits on the end of its legs. It was obviously curious in its new environment.

"That's a blanket." Fluttershy said, trying to satisfy the creature's curiosity. The creature looked at the blanket it was holding and let go of it and then turned its attention towards the window. "That's a window." The creature looked back at Fluttershy and stood up... on two legs. She doesn't use those other legs to walk? How strange. Fluttershy thought. The armor the creature was wearing didn't seem entirely comfortable and looked heavy, Fluttershy wasn't entirely sure how she was able to move her even with that heavy armor on, but maybe she wasn't wearing it by choice? Maybe somepony had decided to play a mean trick on her and dressed up this poor creature in this armor and the weapons. (Fluttershy did discover that the weapons were too heavy for her to lift all at once and taken them off of her new animal friend and brought them inside separately.)

Suddenly and without warning, the creature bolted for the window with a surprising speed that belied its size. Fluttershy gasped in horror as she hoped it wasn't about to do what she thought it was going to do. "No wait! Don't jump out the window! You'll hurt yourself!" But Fluttershy was too late and the creature jumped. Fluttershy gasped in horror again and hurriedly flew to the window to make sure that her new animal was alright. As soon as Fluttershy reached the window the creature was just safely landing on the ground on both legs.

The animal looked back up and looked at Fluttershy and it still must've been scared as it started running towards the bridge. Fluttershy flew out the window to pursue her. The creature looked up at her pursuer and doubled her efforts, unfortunately it didn't take her eye off Fluttershy. Fluttershy, not wanting to have this new animal hurt herself, saw that she was about to trip on a rock. "Look out for that rock!" She called out, but her voice was entirely too soft to be heard and the creature didn't stop. Without the warning, the creature tripped on the rock and hit her head on another, larger rock. And she stopped moving.

Fluttershy nearly burst into tears as she flew to check on the animal to make sure it wasn't dead. "Oh please, please, please be okay." Fluttershy said to herself. Thankfully, her new charge was still breathing but it was unconscious again. Fluttershy picked up the creature again and carried her to her cottage once more.

Another few hours had passed again until the creature had begun to stir once again. This time, Fluttershy would make sure that the window would be locked and try not to scare the animal again so much. The creature opened her eyes and looked at the ceiling, and then around. It did the same movements as before until Fluttershy approached her again. "Hey there..." Fluttershy said, keeping her voice even more calm than it usually was. The creature stumbled out of the bed and backed away from her in fear. "Don't worry, I won't hurt you." This did little to assuage her fears, however. Fluttershy took out the bag that she had been hiding behind her back, opened it and took out one of the things that looked like food, though completely unlike any food that she had ever seen. "Here, I didn't know what to feed you but I found this and maybe it's food? You must be starving." Fluttershy held it out for the animal. The animal gingerly took it from Fluttershy's hoof. "Good girl." Fluttershy smiled.

"Meseas iges asisk? Tris asis E althora?" The creature said.

Fluttershy gasped. "You can talk?!" The creature looked at her and tilted her head in confusion. "Oh, you can't even understand me, can you?" And I can't understand her. The creature's words sounded very, very strange.

The creature looked at her with the same expression. If this creature could talk, Fluttershy could teach it some words and even get it to say her name... and maybe with enough practice get it to say its new name! (Once Fluttershy thought of one.)

Fluttershy pointed to herself. "My name is Fluttershy. Name. Fluttershy." The creature seemed to understand her to some extent because it looked slightly less confused and returned her head to its normal position.

"Flutter...shy? Flutter...shy...Fluttershy?" She struggled to say.

Fluttershy nodded her head, hoping that it was the universal sign for 'yes,' thankfully, it was. Fluttershy pointed at her new friend. "Name?" She said.

The creature looked down at the floor, not seeming to understand. Fluttershy thought for a moment and pointed to herself again. "Name?"

The creature looked up again and saw that Fluttershy was pointing at herself. "Fluttershy." It responded, seeming to know what Fluttershy wanted. Well, it seems to understand some things rather easily. Could it be possible that she doesn't even know her own name? Did she lose her memory after hitting her head so many times? Fluttershy looked at her new friend, pointed and said. "No name?" The creature shook her head. Apparently 'no' was in her language.

"I'll have to give you a name then." Fluttershy pondered for a minute. "Oh, maybe Angelica?" Her friend wrinkled, what looked like a nose, in disgust. "Okay... maybe... Virtue?" Her friend seemed to like that name and Fluttershy smiled, time to test out the new name. Fluttershy pointed at Virtue once again and said, "Name?"

"Virtue." Came the reply.

"I have a feeling we'll get along just fine." Virtue smiled, sensing Fluttershy's happiness.

The moment was interrupted by a knock on the front door. "Fluttershy! You in there? We need to get back to the Crystal Empire!" Came the familiar voice of Rainbow Dash.

Fluttershy almost forgot about Twilight and the mirror. She started walking towards to the door when she noticed that Virtue was following her. "No," She said and Virtue stopped, looking confused. "Stay." Fluttershy began walking again but Virtue followed her again. This was bad. Virtue couldn't be found out by Rainbow Dash and cause even more problems. "No, Virtue, stay here." Fluttershy said. Virtue stopped, and seemed to finally understand that she needed to remain hidden and nodded her consent and went back into Fluttershy's bedroom. Another knock on the door got Fluttershy to hurry to the door.

Rainbow Dash had been impatient, as was obvious on her expression as Fluttershy opened the door. "There you are," She said impatiently. "Come on, we need to go, Twilight could be back and we wouldn't even know it!"

"Um, okay Rainbow Dash. I just need to take care of Angel for a little bit and I'll be out in a minute, okay?"

"Fine, hurry up."

Fluttershy closed the door and hurried up to her bedroom where Virtue was waiting. "I have to go now for a while. Please stay here, okay? Nopony can see you outside so please try to stay hidden." Virtue nodded. Fluttershy gave a quick, nervous smile and ran towards the door. Fluttershy had a quick conversation with Rainbow Dash and they both took off and headed towards the Crystal Empire.

Once the man heard the door close he made sure to keep quiet and watch from the window of his new, temporary home. After a few minutes had passed and he was absolutely sure that Fluttershy and this new pony were gone he finally stood up and decided to explore the house. He had no idea how many times he had hit his head in the past day but it must've been a lot because he could barely remember anything apart from Arldon and parts of his instinctive training. He knew he now had a new name, Virtue. It may not be his real name, better than Angelica because it sounded feminine, but it was better than having no name, for the most part.

Virtue didn't trust the new pony that had appeared out of nowhere, it was someone he didn't know, or as Fluttershy had said, 'somepony' (by whatever deity or deities he may or may not have worshiped he hated not being able to understand Fluttershy) so he automatically didn't trust him or her. He also could barely understand Fluttershy, only understanding what seemed to be her name, the word 'no' and getting the gist of some other words. If it weren't for the, uh... hoof gestures and kind act of offering him food he might've attacked her in fear... and he was definitely scared right now.

Virtue looked at his situation. He was trapped in a strange world, without any way to communicate with the locals, he was living in a talking pony's house, (or was it a pegasus?) He had no idea what kind of foods he would be able to eat safely and he had no idea how long the rations in that bag would last. He had lost the vast majority of his memory and was now at the mercy of a stranger... but he was glad it was a kind stranger. So I guess that about sums it up? A voice inside his head said. Which was strange because it wasn't the voice of Arldon. Listen, I'm a new personality who just formed. I'm not entirely sure what my name is but I like the name Virtue so once we figure out your real name I want to be called Virtue. Got it? Oh and please don't ask what my purpose is because I'm not entirely sure what it is either. Virtue decided not to argue. His head hurt enough as it was. Right now it was time to explore.

Virtue went down into the living room where on the couch were his weapons. Virtue then went to the door, which was almost too small for him, and opened it. He was definitely living in a cottage and he had no idea how long he had been gone from his world. An idea came into his head. He decided to repay his rescuer. The cottage didn't look like it could stand an assault, and he remembered the moving tree and it seemed like he was close to that same forest. Virtue went back into the house to grabbed his ax and as he was walking out he spotted a bunny. The bunny gave him a strange look, he just hoped this animal wouldn't talk as well. Thankfully it didn't but the look seemed to be one that contained a hint of distrust. It probably only tolerated his presence because Fluttershy had brought him in. This bunny was probably an intelligent pet so he decided not to kill it as it continued its stare. Now that he thought about it, he was also pretty sure that Fluttershy thought he was a female... fantastic.

Virtue hefted the ax on his shoulder and went outside and closed the door. He scanned the area and decided how many trees he would need. Once he was satisfied with his calculations he decided to go deep into the forest to chop down some trees. Deep into the forest so that no one would see him, and he was pretty sure that the word 'stay' Fluttershy had used meant for him to not follow her and remain hidden. He hoped no one would notice his work around the cottage and come and try to discover who was behind it. He decided that his training must've included building fortifications. Alright, time to fortify this cottage and make it safe. Fluttershy will be so happy.

Chapter 2

Virtue was not entirely sure that the current situation was his fault. He would very much like to not take responsibility and say that it was someone (or somepony?) else's fault. But from how the forest was reacting to his recent chopping of trees and the fact that he remembered that a tree might've been moving earlier before he had run into Fluttershy, some of his memories were starting to return now, it might be entirely his fault.

Virtue chopped at another weed, he'd been at it for minutes now and he was having a very hard time keeping the growth of the forest away from Fluttershy's house. And something like this rendered what fortifications that he had already built completely useless. He obviously wasn't prepared to handle something like this, but he had to do what he could.

Fluttershy dropped in soon enough, however, to check on her animals. At least, that's what she might've normally done had she not looked so panicked at both the forest and his fortifications (building that might not have been the best decision... but he was only human.) Fluttershy didn't appear to have time to scold him on it though, or maybe she did. Whatever the case, he couldn't understand what she was saying to her animal companions anyway.

"I'm sorry!" Virtue said, but it was pointless when it sounded like 'Ini Vedi!' to Fluttershy's ears. "This isn't my fault! I think... at least I hope not. Okay, it probably is."

Fluttershy didn't pay any attention to what he was saying and instead pointed to the open door to her cottage. "Hurry! Get inside! It's not safe out here and I can't let my friends see you, not yet!"

Virtue took the hint... he was being punished for building the fortifications and not defending the house from the growth of the forest, or maybe the forest did this on a regular basis and he had just screwed something up. Virtue hefted his ax on his shoulder and walked up to the door of the cottage slowly and turned his head to take one final look at Fluttershy again only to see five other ponies rushing towards Fluttershy with Fluttershy waving to them. Virtue guessed that the other reason that Fluttershy wanted him inside might be to hide him from the others.

Virtue entered the cottage as quickly as he could but he forgot the door wasn't the size he was used to and that he had an ax hefted on his shoulders. As he entered, the edge of the ax hit the door frame and tore a chunk of it off. Virtue cursed himself and slammed the door, in retrospect this wasn't a very good idea either because he was trying to stay quiet.

Rainbow Dash heard the door slam and was immediately curious about the missing chunk of the door frame. "Hey, Fluttershy," She asked. "I didn't notice that you were missing a part of your door frame. And what's with all this... stuff?" Dash said, waving her hoof in the general direction of the fortifications, though she didn't know what they actually were or what their purpose was as she had never seen the design before.

"Oh, I um-" Fluttershy tried to say before Pinkie cut her off.

"And why are some of the trees of the Everfree forest cut down?" Pinkie asked, still remaining cheerful somehow.

Virtue stared at the ponies from the little peephole in the door, watching the conversations unfold. Fluttershy was trying hard to keep the others from going to her cottage but Virtue watched in horror as the pony that had freckles (was that even possible where he came from?) started walking towards the door. Virtue drew back and climbed to the ceiling as best as he could.

The pony, whose name was apparently Applejack from the way Fluttershy was saying the word, opened the door and looked inside but could see nothing, as Virtue was clinging to the ceiling as best he could.

Applejack gave Fluttershy a look that seemed to indicate a hint of distrust, but she let it slide for the sake of the bigger problem at hand/hoof and closed the door.

Virtue gave a silent sigh of relief. He was glad that Applejack hadn't caught on. At least something had gone his way today. However, just as he thought that he knew he must have jinxed it when he felt the most agonizing and mind-numbing pain he had felt in a long time. Virtue didn't scream or yell for fear of being discovered but he instinctively put his heads to his head to attempt to stop the pain but his body didn't seem to know that he needed those hands to stay clung to the ceiling, the result was him falling. Virtue was glad that he had had enough sense to keep his head covered when he hit the ground but unfortunately he made a very loud sound when he hit the ground.

Applejack hadn't even walked ten steps when she heard the loud crash behind her that came from inside the cottage. "What in tarnation was that?!" She exclaimed as she rushed towards the door, immediately suspicious that Fluttershy was hiding something now more than ever.

Virtue got up as quickly as he could, the pain was a result of a sudden rush of his memories returning all at once, not exactly all of his memories, he still had many more to go before he fully recovered but he now knew quite a bit in order to know what to do next. Virtue rushed towards the door, knowing that that meddlesome pony Applejack would try to open it.

What Virtue hadn't factored in, however, was how strong Applejack actually WAS. The first time she attempted to open it hadn't been too hard to keep the door from opening, but then she rammed it and Virtue had to struggle against her strength. Another attempt on her part nearly let her inside and Virtue was forced to use magic, another good thing his memories had revealed to him was some of his magic.

Applejack didn't know why this door was refusing to open, she had tried ramming it twice and now she was about buck it, with Fluttershy attempting to protest that this would break her door, but Applejack could pay for that later, whether by actual payment or building her a new one, it didn't matter. What mattered was that something was behind the door that didn't want her inside and she was going to find out what it was.

Virtue felt his magic draining when the massive thud came from the other side and the only pony that Virtue knew that could possibly possess that kind of strength, that he knew of so far that is, was Applejack but it was one of the strongest blows he had ever come close to and he hoped to never actually be hit by her. But the growl of frustration on the other side was a sign that she hadn't broken through his magic barriers that were reinforcing the door, which was some goods news at least. He just hoped he hadn't jinxed that as well.

It seemed as though Applejack was preparing to try again when Virtue heard arguing on the other side of the door. Whomever had just distracted Applejack, he was glad for their interference and he would have to thank them later if that chance was ever presented to him, he knew it certainly wasn't Fluttershy from the tone and assertiveness of her voice.

"Applejack! I'm just as curious as you are about what's behind that door but we have a much bigger problem and we can't afford to waste time right now." Twilight said, and she meant every word of her sentence.

Applejack looked back at the door one last time before relenting to her friend's judgement. Virtue waited, hoping that Applejack was finally leaving. Thankfully for him, she did and now he was able to breathe easy.

As the six pony friends were leaving, something malevolent was watching the cottage. It wasn't from this world, only being here due to the chaotic nature of the portals. This being, this... creature, was ancient and it knew what it was doing. It had been watching those six ponies, but it knew it couldn't try to fight them, the mysterious power and magic that was within them was simply too strong for it to overcome alone.

So it waited.

'Patience is a virtue,' they say on some worlds that the creature had visited. And patience was indeed a trait exhibited by this Virtue person hiding in the cottage. The wraith, as it was known back on its original world, had arrived around the same time that this man had before it and the wraith had been stalking him up till this point. It was about to make its move when three more ponies arrived on the scene, fleeing from something. The wraith personally took this as an affront, for who or what was more terrifying than itself? But it could also be because of the sudden growth of the forest that it was inhabiting, the forest it had now attached itself to in order to exert more control over its new territory... its new feeding ground.

However, these ponies did not seem to carry the power that had been radiating from the previous six and the wraith came to the conclusion that the energy simply wasn't a part of these creatures. But their life force indicated to the wraith that they were still young. Still good enough for consumption. If the wraith had an actual mouth or facial features attached to a permanent physical body it would be smiling, but the shadows that made up its form did the job for it.

Tendrils of darkness extended from underground, unseen until it was too late for the unfortunate victims. If it wasn't for magic, their screams would've been heard for miles instead of the area surrounding the cottage.

Virtue heard the screams immediately and when he looked out of the hole that his ax had made he could see a horrifying sight. A creature was attacking three helpless ponies, it was a creature of darkness in the literal sense. But what it was doing to the ponies was horrible to describe to Virtue's human mind, but his mind processed the images before him whether he liked it or not.

One pony was having its very essence drained from its body. Another was being poked by the tendrils of darkness, experimenting on the body to find out how it operated, the blood dripping from the holes a bright red that stained the ground. But the third pony was the most horrifying one of all. It was simply being torn apart, the vital organs and blood being sprayed everywhere on purpose.

Virtue for some reason, was able to stand the sight. And he decided that he couldn't possibly be human if something like this didn't immediately make him recoil in disgust or try to help the dying ponies in some way shape or form. What kind of soldier was he? What was it that he actually did back on his world?

Somewhere in his mind, Arldon was laughing maniacally. He was enjoying the spectacle and the other personality, who insisted being called Virtue as well once Virtue found out his real name, had simply shut himself off, away from the rest of the world... away from the sight.

Virtue didn't want to handle the situation, and Arldon was more than happy to take control of his body, which was for the best because as soon as the creature was done with the three ponies it had extended some kind of darkness over the cottage. It was attempting to get inside, and while Arldon was a cruel, homicidal maniac, he did have a sense of honor, and it was on his honor to defend Fluttershy's home and her animals.

Arldon readied his magic and he started to repel the creature, but it was powerful and he didn't know how long he could fend it off. For once in his life, from what he could remember that is, he hoped that help would come soon. Outside the creature let out a sound that sounded eerily like laughter. It was having fun.

Chapter Three

This really wasn't how Arldon had imagined how he would die. Even with the knowledge that his returning memories were bringing him wasn't enough and he was starting to tire from the battle with the creature. Please... someone hurry up and help me. Wait, what am I talking about? I'm in a world filled with ponies, quite possibly peaceful, what good can they do for me? Arldon thought bitterly. Another spasm of pain answered his rhetorical mental question as more memories tried to force their way back into his head. If only he could just remember everything at once...

The sight that Rainbow Dash and her friends found at Fluttershy's cottage was disturbing at best. Whatever was attacking the cottage was trying to force its way in but was somehow being stopped and the creature looked like some kind of plant monster wreathed in shadows. But that couldn't be right, Discord's plunderseeds should've stopped attacking Equestria by now.

"What in the name of Equestria is that?!" Rarity exclaimed.

"My cottage! My animals!" Fluttershy cried out.

"Don't worry Fluttershy, I'm on it!" Rainbow Dash said. And she rushed towards the monster, delivering a powerful kick to its shadowy mass. This only appeared to amuse the beast as it reared what substituted for a head and looked directly at Rainbow Dash. Rainbow then noticed the remains of previous ponies and it took all of her effort to avoid vomiting the contents of her stomach. Whatever the beast was, it was sentient because it allowed her to see the gory remains. Rainbow looked back at the beast as it 'smiled' and roared as it started its attack on the six friends.

Discord could sense something not entirely right with Equestria. Now Discord obviously enjoyed a little chaos every now and then, but only if he was the one who was the cause of it, and something powerful was definitely at work right now that was not the result of his work. Of course, Discord decided he wasn't going to sit around and do nothing so he decided the first two ponies he should talk to would be the Princesses Celestia and Luna.

"What do you mean, 'A mysterious force at work?'" Celestia said, not in the mood for any of Discord's games.

"Oh, come now, don't you trust me? Aren't we friends?"

"No on both accounts." Luna stated flatly.

"I'm being serious here." For once. Discord thought. "Something is not right. At first I thought it was some kind of mutation with my seeds, and I was right to some extent, but when it didn't disappear I knew something wasn't right. Right now your former student and her friends appear to be in trouble. Now, I don't know about you but we should probably get going on that. Don't you agree?" Discord said with a grin, idly filing his nails.

Celestia's eyes narrowed. "Fine, but this better not be some game of yours."

"Oh don't worry it's not." Discord said with a smile.

The beast roared in frustration as Rainbow Dash moved too fast for one of its attacks to hit her while it was being attacked from multiple sides by Rainbow's friends. Pinkie Pie using her party cannon to provide well-timed and useful distractions, Applejack getting in a potent kick once an opening presented itself, Fluttershy dropping items, some which happened to be rather explosive, from above, while Rarity and Twilight worked together to project a shield and fired magic attacks at the creature.

Applejack delivered another kick into the shadowy mass and the beast roared in anger. Her kicks actually seemed to have the most effect compared to the magic being thrown at it, which it would either swallow up or let it pass through harmlessly.

The wraith was not pleased with this distraction from its main prey. However, in the heat of battle, it hadn't realized who it had been dealing with and was just now beginning to see it the six previous ponies from before. But something was... different. Whatever they had been carrying with them before wasn't there.... The wraith looked at the ponies hungrily before it felt something else... something far more powerful than it had previously seen.

Princess Celestia and Luna were not happy with the sight before them. They saw the remains of the three unfortunate ponies from earlier and sorrow filled their hearts, quickly followed by anger. The two princesses looked at each other and nodded, knowing what they had to do.

Twilight noticed her former teacher along with her sister and was about to tell her about everything that had transpired but decided that it wasn't necessary since both the princesses were here for obvious reasons.

"Princess Celestia! Luna!" Twilight exclaimed. "You're both here! But, how did you find out about this... thing? And what is-"

Celestia cut off Twilight. "Hold on Twilight, I'll answer your questions later but for now we have a dangerous shadow beast to deal with."

"Agreed." Luna said, her presence of authority making it feel more safe to be around her.

Celestia and Luna both unleashed their magic upon, what Twilight assumed was now being called a shadow beast. The beast roared in both pain and anger this time as it seemed to lose its hold on Fluttershy's cottage. Celestia and Luna fired another blast of combined magic but this time a third source of power added its strength to the attack. Discord had decided to join in on the battle.

The shadow beast roared in pain. It seemed to decide that it had finally had enough of the punishment it was taking and, for lack of better wording, with a burst of shadows, quite the opposite of a flash of light, it disappeared.

"Discord! What are you doing here?" Twilight asked, confused.

"Don't worry, my little pony. I came here to help." Discord said in his usual manner of speaking, which included a smile. Then he was gone in a flash of light.

Twilight looked at Celestia in confusion. "What was that about? Why is Discord here?" She asked.

"Discord is the reason-" Celestia started.

"So this is Discord's fault! I should have known." Twilight cut her off.

"No, Twilight. Discord is the reason we found out about this beast. Had he not alerted us we might not have arrived in time."

While the conversation was happening outside, inside the cottage was a different story entirely. Arldon had retreated deep inside the recesses of his mind and Virtue was just recovering from the amount of energy that had been drained from his body. Suddenly, some kind of creature appeared in the room that resembled a mix of different animals. Virtue was too weak to resist, whatever this demon wanted from him, it was going to get it without much of a fight.

"Hello there." It said. "My name is Discord."

Now Virtue was even more dazed and confused than he was before. Was this... Discord... trying to be... friendly to him? "How am I able to understand you?" He asked.

Discord smiled and Virtue immediately decided he didn't like that smile. Arldon, being Arldon, for some odd reason trusted it completely. "Oh don't worry, a friend of Fluttershy is a friend of mine. The reason I can understand you is because you don't belong in this world, and since I am a being of chaos, and you don't belong, I can understand you and you can understand me."

"Yeah, I deduced the fact that I don't belong in this world. Now, I don't know if you can help me, but I need to get back to my world."

"In a rush now are we? See, the thing is I don't know how to send you back, and even if I did, why should I?"

"That's a fair question, you have no reason to other than the fact that Fluttershy has taken care of me, and if she was aware of my plight she might ask you to help me."

"As I said before, I have no idea how to help you get back home. But..." Discord said, putting his arms on Virtue's shoulders. "I can help you with your little... speech and memory problem."

Virtue looked at him distrustfully. "What's the catch." It was a statement, not a question.

"Oh you'll see!" Discord laughed and before Virtue had a chance to react, Discord touched his forehead with his finger and Virtue could suddenly remember much of the things that had been going on in his life along with a number of spells and techniques. There was considerable pain from all the inrush of information that clearly didn't want to resurface but it was worth it.

"Ah!" Virtue cried out, although not too loudly as to not attract unwanted attention. "That... feels... better...." Virtue looked at his surroundings, and he felt more... alive. "Wait," He said. "I can't remember everything, is that the catch?"

"Actually no." Discord said, disappointment in his voice. "I tried unlocking the rest of your memories buried inside that head of yours but it's like some kind of magic lock is placed around them. If I dig any further it might hurt you, and we don't want Fluttershy to have to take care of a braindead... what are you anyway?" Discord asked, messing around with Virtue's limbs. "I've never seen a creature that resembles me body-wise. Sure you don't have my complexion but what are you called?"

"I'm a human."

"Human... doesn't roll off the tongue so well. Oh well. Anyways, the catch was that handy dandy speech spell you were attempting to use. See, it works perfectly fine for one minute per day. Otherwise, it'll only work to half its potential. Today, you can understand everypony else. While tomorrow, you won't be able to understand them but they can understand you." Discord moved away. "Now, I really must be going, got important things to do. Oh, and one more thing, that one minute you get per day? You can use it whenever you want, if you don't use it all in one day it rolls over to the next day. Ergo, you can use two minutes in one day. Now then, Fluttershy is coming and it'll look awkward with me here talking to you and the time just isn't right, so... bye!" With that said, Discord disappeared in a bright flash of light.

Virtue didn't have time to protest as the door to the cottage started to open and Virtue immediately put his new-found skills to use by hiding. It turns out he didn't have to do this because it was just Fluttershy. Virtue breathed a sigh of relief, which was short-lived as Fluttershy made a shooing motion to indicate that he needed to hide once again. Virtue was almost too late when he escaped into the bedroom when he heard the sound of voices, voices that he could understand.

"Fluttershy! Do you have any idea why that... thing was trying to get inside your cottage?" Demanded Rainbow Dash.

Fluttershy shook her head. "No, I have no idea why except that it wanted to hurt these innocent creatures." Fluttershy said, cuddling with Angel as she did so.

"Whatever the case, darling, I think we should stay here, just in case it comes back." Rarity said.

I really wish you wouldn't. Thought Virtue. The rest of the conversation between the six friends proceeded to turn into a disagreement, with Fluttershy gently trying to refuse the offer for the rest to stay. Stating that she was perfectly safe.

Rainbow Dash must've tired of the conversation since she decided to fly into Fluttershy's bedroom unnoticed.

And that was when the crap hit the fan. Rainbow Dash screamed in terror at the creature, which was understandable since it appeared threatening at first and it was rushing towards her. The only thing that she could do was be surprised by the event and prepare for a fight and waited for the blows to come. However, nothing happened at all like she expected except only for the creature to avoid her completely and apparently attempt to escape from her.

Rainbow's other friends were alerted to the situation immediately once they heard Rainbow Dash's yell of surprise and they rushed to her aid. However, they were just as surprised as Rainbow Dash when the creature known as Virtue ran past them, completely ignoring Fluttershy as well, only stopping one time once he jumped out the window to give her a sorrowful glance.

The others were about to chase after 'it' until Twilight stood in their way. "Wait!" She exclaimed. "Don't go after him!"

"Him? How do you know that thing is a him?" Applejack asked.

"Yeah!" Rainbow Dash said. "What was that thing?!"

"Hey, just calm down." Twilight said in a stern voice. "You remember when I got back from that other world? I didn't exactly tell you everything about it, aside from the mention of hands."

"What are hands again?" Rainbow Dash never did get an answer to that question.

"He can explain them to you because I don't want to do it. What I want to find out is how he even got here." Twilight suddenly realized something. "Fluttershy, did you-" She started to say slowly but stopped once she realized Fluttershy was no longer in the cottage. "Fluttershy? Fluttershy?" Twilight called out continuously while looking for her, getting progressively louder and louder. "Fluttershy where are you?!" She exclaimed one last time, annoyed at the events that were unfolding today.

Fluttershy didn't stop running after Virtue, even if he did leave a trail of destruction to slow her down with the trees showing signs of scorch marks and being toppled to make it harder for her to pursue him. This did make it easier for her to track him down though.

Virtue wasn't much farther ahead of his former friend, he didn't know why he thought he could outrun her considering that she had wings and four legs to use to catch up to him, even if he did have a head start. But he did have greater control over his magic now and he was able to launch himself forward in a sudden burst of speed to escape. This was a great idea at first but in hindsight it was a terrible plan since Virtue was now stuck in a tree. The amount of force he had propelled himself with had made his head emerge on the other side of the tree with his legs sticking out on the other side. Hey, at least you were wearing your helmet this time. Arldon said in his head. Virtue couldn't disagree with this fact, at least he wouldn't lose his memories all over again.

Fluttershy was soon at his side, looking worried, though this was probably understating it somewhat. "Oh dear! Virtue are you okay?" She asked in a frantic tone.

Virtue would've shrugged but his arms were stuck at his sides so he settled for nodding his head.

"Don't worry, I'll get you out of there."

"Not before we have some answers." A voice said from above. Rainbow Dash touched down near the tree with the other ponies joining her and the purple pony, for some reason Virtue couldn't remember her name, teleporting herself to the site.

"I agree with Rainbow." She said, approaching him with the confidence of a noble. "My name is Twilight Sparkle and I'm going to ask you a few questions. First, how did you get here from Earth?"

Virtue looked at her and raised an eyebrow in confusion. What in the world was Earth?

"Well? Are you going to answer me?" Twilight asked impatiently.

"Um, Twilight." Fluttershy asked meekly.

Twilight turned around. She normally wasn't angry with her friends, this time was no exception but she was annoyed and disappointed in Fluttershy's actions. "Fluttershy, whatever it is, you better say it quickly, I can't believe you were hiding this guy in your cottage for Celestia-knows-how-long."

"Well, you see... he can't understand what you're saying."

"What?" Twilight asked.

"Hold on a minute." Applejack cut in. "If he can't understand what we're saying, why hasn't he attacked us with those weapons he's carrying when Rainbow Dash found him, and when we chased him through the Everfree Forest?"

"That's because when I found him he was hurt and unconscious and I couldn't just abandon a poor defenseless creature."

Twilight cut back in, Pinkie Pie had taken to amusing herself by poking Virtue. "Fluttershy, he's called a human. When I went through that portal to that other world I ran into creatures called humans on a place called Earth. But while I was there I could understand them perfectly, I don't know why a human from Earth can't understand me now."

Virtue was growing tired of Pinkie Pie poking and just as she was about to poke him in the face again with her hoof he decided it was time to break his silence. "Hey stop poking me!" He shouted. All the ponies except Fluttershy looked at him in confusion because he wasn't speaking their language. But at least Pinkie Pie got the message since she stopped poking him.

"Goodness, what did he just say?" Rarity asked.

"I... don't know." Twilight responded.

"Foona quapsi nowl." Twilight was confused once again and she turned to Fluttershy again. "Fluttershy, do you have any idea what he just said?"

"No, he can barely understand what I say to him most of the time."

"Did he at least try to give you his name?"

"Fluttershy caln wi Virtue."

"I called him Virtue."

"Wait a minute, you gave him a name?"

"Yeah, he doesn't remember anything."

"This could be a problem, I had Spike send a message to Princess Luna and Celestia about this, they should be here any second now. If Virtue can't even speak our language, understand us, or even remember how he got here then... I don't know what to do."

"Ino cancas ipsalo yoldo."

Twilight looked at Virtue again, wondering why he was saying different things that seemed to match their conversation to a certain extent. She decided to test out a little theory. "Hey," She said to Virtue. "Virtue, can you understand us? Nod your head if you can."

Virtue did as he was told, glad that there was some form of communication that he could relay to them, even if it was 'yes' or 'no.'

"If you can understand us then why aren't you speaking our language? That doesn't make much sense."

"Maybe he was just reacting to what you said, Twilight." Rarity suggested. Virtue shook his head at Rarity.

"He seemed to understand what you said perfectly, sugarcube." Applejack said.

"This isn't good at all." Twilight said, deep in thought at the same time. "I hope the princesses can keep whatever questions they have for him limited to 'yes' and 'no'."

"I'm afraid that will not be possible Twilight Sparkle." A familiar voice said that belonged to Princess Luna. Virtue saw the two half-unicorn half-pegasus descend from the sky gracefully and regally. He assumed that these two must be the princesses. The white princess moved towards him with the power of nobility easily recognizable from her posture. She leaned in and inspected Virtue. After a while, with Virtue not attempting to meet her eyes once, she drew back, apparently having made a decision. "I've decided that we should bring him to the castle. The Everfree Forest is not the best place to have a discussion on how this human got here."

Virtue sighed, he already didn't like where this was going, literally.

Chapter 4

Korpwin was glad that the vast majority of his memories had returned, and less painfully as well. However, his skills with magic seemed to be locked.

Korpwin managed to count the days that he had spent in the prison of the castle, which had amounted to a week, and counting the day he met Discord, that meant he had eight minutes saved up to understand and talk with the princesses perfectly. Right now they should be able to understand him, and considering that they had been 'encouraging' him to start talking to them he decided it was a good idea to talk and let them know his predicament, but not use up the eight minutes. He didn't even know if they could still be saved up after he started using them. Discord hadn't said anything about how to use his time sparingly.

Still, he had to try something other than simply waiting around. The guards posted to keep watch over him were ready to fetch the princesses for him once he decided to 'cooperate' instead of stubbornly remaining silent. "Hey!" Korpwin shouted, getting one of the guard's attention. "I'm ready to start talking now... so... you know... get the princesses or something." One of the guards looked at another and nodded and then departed, for what reason Korpwin could only guess at and hope.

Korpwin was starting to grow impatient when the guard finally came back after thirty minutes... at least it felt that long. The guards led him out of his prison cell and guided him through the rest of the castle.

The darn thing was a maze at best, Korpwin was absolutely sure that he would've gotten lost countless times just trying to find the bathroom... or the kitchen... or anything else that required finding. For once he was glad for the presence of the guards.

It wasn't long until they managed to come to a room that was obviously some kind of throne room where he was left there. The guards said something to him which he could not understand except for the word 'princess' (he had learned to listen for that word carefully) and Luna. He remembered Luna was a princess, would that mean he would be meeting her and the other princess? That question was answered for him quickly enough when he saw Princess Luna herself emerge and sit on the single throne and beckon at him, saying a few words he could not understand. Korpwin took the hint though and walked towards the princess, a pony who seemed to be the embodiment of night itself.

Luna began to speak words that he unfortunately could not understand. But he knew he had to start talking in order to get her to understand his situation.

"Princess Luna. I'm sorry if I'm interrupting, and I probably am, but I needed to talk to you urgently. I can't understand a word you're saying but you can understand me. By the next day the situation will be reversed and I will be able to understand you perfectly and you can't understand me at all. I don't know why this has happened to me exactly but let me explain my situation as best I can." Korpwin then began his long talk about the things that transpired from the moment he had arrived in this strange new world.

Princess Luna listened as best as she could, at first looking at this strange creature, she believed that he called himself a human, and did not attempt to hide her confusion. The longer he kept talking she changed facial expressions, from confusion, surprise, understanding, and even boredom. This all changed right until he mentioned Discord. This seemed to excite her considerably considering the fact that she shouted, "Discord?!" Out loud.

"Yes, I just said that." Korpwin deadpanned.

"But what does he have to do with you being here? I wonder if he's responsible for bringing you here-"

"I can't understand you, princess, sorry. But as I was saying, Discord helped me out. Though to be honest I'm not sure if he helped me or cursed me since he's the one responsible for me being unable to understand you every other day. But he did make sure that at the start of every day I would have exactly one minute to speak to you and understand the language of everyone," Everypony. Luna mentally corrected. "Else. I have the choice to not use this minute and instead save it for later. The bad thing about that is that I don't know if I'm forced to use up all of the eight minutes I've saved up once I start using them. So I think it would be a good idea for us to work together and try to solve this problem."

Luna pondered the man's story for a good long while. Her train of thought was disrupted, however, when a guard entered the throne room.

"Princess Luna," He said. "There's been a development. Strange creatures have been appearing around the country, particularly Ponyville. There are also reports near Canterlot of two more creatures that resemble the prisoner lurking around Ponyville. However, they approached peacefully and requested an audience with whomever our leader is. How would you like to deal with this?"

Luna was quick to act. "Very good, soldier. I will depart at once to deal with this, contact the other princesses and let them know of the developments as soon as you can." She got up and prepared to leave the dumbfounded Korpwin to ponder what was going on around him.

"Um, excuse me? What's he talking about? Are- are we done here? What am I supposed to be doing? I'm confused." He said quickly. Luna stopped to reassure him, though he probably wouldn't be able to understand her anyway, that everything was alright. "Korpwin, everything is fine. I just need you to stay here, okay?"

"Okay, I partially understood that. I know that you want me to stay put. Fluttershy told me that plenty of times for me to get the message." Luna smiled and nodded and then left. Korpwin stood there and decided that he shouldn't just keep standing there since he was going to get bored soon. So he decided to sit down and meditate on the events that were unfolding in this world. When, or if, I ever get home I'll have quite the story to tell... someone. Ugh, this is not fun not being able to remember the most important things I need to remember! He thought angrily.

Princess Luna stopped by the guards and whispered into one of their ears. "I want guards posted with Korpwin, keep him safe."

The guard nodded.

Chapter Five

Conner dodged another swipe from the wooden construct. So far this rescue mission wasn't going according to plan. First the portal generator given to them by their newfound allies malfunctions, then lands them in the middle of nowhere in some stupid forest filled with dangerous hungry animals. Conner didn't know why this planet was so strong in magic, it could possibly be the reason why the portal was inaccurate and why the rest of the squad was scattered now. But at least the two decoys, who had gone through the portal first, reported that they were in their correct place, so at least that was going well.

Conner could pay better attention to his surroundings, but he was used to having his entire squad to back him up and there were too many of these wooden constructs for him to take on alone. One moment he was standing and the next his face was in the dirt with a claw keeping his head pinned down.

The creatures known as timberwolves (though Conner was not aware of their names) proceeded to attempt to eat him but since his armor was made of metal, their wooden teeth had no effect for the most part, until they started to rip and tear at him to get his armor off.

Conner saw the mouth of a construct inching closer to his head, saliva somehow drooling out of its mouth. Which shouldn't be possible considering that it was made out of wood and that theoretically meant it had no saliva glands... right?

Just as he was sure that Conner had finally met his end, the creature exploded into splinters revealing a large man in battle armor wielding a war hammer. The remaining wolves didn't have time to contemplate attacking the newcomer since he quickly made the decision for them. Swinging his hammer once more he felled another two constructs with a single mighty blow that would have killed a man like Conner if he were on the receiving end of that attack without any defensive shield spells.

The remaining timberwolves decided that these mysterious creatures were obviously not prey and decided to make a hasty retreat. For some reason the last two wolves started to repair themselves with magic. The newcomer prepared to defend Conner but the wolves began to run away as soon as their legs started to reform. Conner stood up gingerly, relishing his freedom from certain death and also dizzy from the effects of the portal.

"Ugh." Conner managed to groan, touching the side of his head with his hand. "I've decided I hate using that portal machine," He groaned again. "I don't feel so good, not to mention my powers don't feel quite up to speed." He looked his rescuer in the eye. "How have you recovered so quickly?"

"Nice to see you too, Conner." The massive man replied. "Don't thank me. 'Oh, thanks for rescuing me Bruce!'" He said in an overly dramatic tone.

"Shut up, Bruce."

"Sorry, boss." Bruce responded.

Bruce was the team's heavy-hitter in every sense of meaning. He was heavily built with muscles building up his already bulky figure, and his even heavier magically enchanted armor gave him an even more intimidating look due to the dark color scheme of the armor which matched Conner's.

Conner's armor was colored dark for the future rescue attempt during the night, if it was actually required to bust out their teammate... wherever he was located on this world. But for now Conner's scattered squad needed to regroup before doing anything else. Conner turned back to Bruce, who was busy doing... whatever it was he normally did while idle. Conner looked at the splinters that had made up the wolf, unlike the others it had not started to reform. "Bruce, do you know why this wolf construct isn't reforming like the other two?"

"I had my hammer charged up with some magic so I'm sure that it must've done something to it to kill it permanently."

"I see." Conner said, pondering the situation. "Bruce, since you've recovered faster than I did from the effects of the portal can you tell me the current situation on the rest of our squad?"

Bruce's eyes glowed blue as he did what was asked of him. Though Conner was Bruce's leader, and Bruce was one of those altered humans, known as a meta-human, that went through additional intensive training to make sure he followed orders to the letter and wouldn't go rogue, Conner still liked to ASK Bruce to do things, not order him around as a drone as other commanders and squad leaders would.

"I've managed to establish mental contact with all our squad members except for Korpwin." Bruce responded; his eyes still glowing.

"You know he doesn't like being called that unless we're on a mission."

Bruce paused a moment before responding. "...But... we are on a mission." He said confusedly.

"When we're on a mission with him, not when we're rescuing him." Conner snapped. Though he appeared to be angry with Bruce, he was actually not. Conner's tendency to lose his temper or appear annoyed with his squadmates (particularly Bruce) was actually just his way of loosening the tension or to bring in what little humor he was capable of.

Bruce feigned being hurt emotionally, though Conner always suspected that Bruce was incapable of crying among other things. "Before this gets confusing, what should I tell the rest of the squad since you seem to be unable to contact them yourself?"

"Tell them to meet us here. Well," Conner said; looking around the forest. "Wherever 'here' is. Leave a tracking beacon for them to find us."

"Yes sir." Bruce said, immediately getting to work, and his eyes ceased glowing. "Permission to speak, sir?" He said; unpacking one of the tracking beacons he was carrying with him.

"Granted. You know you never have to ask me for permission to speak right, Bruce?"

"Sorry sir, I sometimes forget. The training they put me through kind of drilled it into me.... Don't think I'll ever get out of the habit of it." Bruce was always glad that he had a squad leader like Conner, mainly because he was so lenient with his subordinates and laidback with the rules. Some squad leaders only went by the rules, which could cause losses back on their planet. Maybe that was why Conner's squad was selected for this mission not just because Korpwin was a fellow teammate but also because Conner's squad was... adaptable.

"I know.... What were you going to ask me again?" Adaptable, and sometimes forgetful.

"Oh, right. I was going to ask why you couldn't leave a tracking beacon yourself."

Conner shrugged. "I went through the portal with all my equipment but I seemed to have lost all of it when the generator malfunctioned, aside from the sword I always keep with me. For the all the good it did me with those constructs anyway." Conner said, thinking back to how he had been so easily overwhelmed. It left a bitter taste in his mouth.

"Well then you're lucky I found your stuff then!" A familiar voice said. Conner turned towards the sound, knowing instantly who the voice belonged to.

"Gerard!" He exclaimed. "Good to see you so soon!" Gerard emerged from the foliage carrying a backpack filled with items. Gerard was average in height, without all his armor on, he had selected light armor for this mission, one could see that he had dark hair with tanned skin from all the deployments he had been in.

"Yeah, and all of your stuff is heavier than Bruce."

"Hey!" Bruce responded.

"I'm not calling you fat Bruce, but you are heavy. I mean look at you." Gerard said, gesturing at Bruce's entire body. "You're like a walking mountain of muscle. I know you're a meta-human and all but sometimes I think they overdid it with you."

Bruce might've been incapable of feeling certain emotions, but insults and the ability to respond in anger to them was certainly not blocked out. Gerard tossed Conner's backpack to Conner, which he managed to catch. Conner was their squad leader but he preferred to let his teammates work out their problems with each other themselves. Plus, he knew how this particular situation was going to play out anyway.

Bruce calmly walked up to Gerard. Now, Gerard was certainly no weakling, he had the muscles to prove it, but he was simply a regular human. And when put next to someone like Bruce, a man who was literally twice his height and four times his size in total body mass and looked like he could take Gerard in one hand and squeeze him to death, Gerard looked utterly... puny... in comparison.

Bruce leaned in closer to Gerard until he was eye level with him and they both stared at each other for a moment until Bruce broke the silence. "Apologize. Now." Gerard moved in closer to Bruce's face and stared back at him right in the eye, fire glinting in his own eyes, a fire that could tell anyone that he was determined to see anything through to the end. Gerard opened his mouth, "Make me." He responded. Bruce's eyes narrowed in on his target. Then he moved faster than it looked possible for a man of his size to do, well any unmodified human that is, picked up Gerard and... burst out laughing.

Gerard started laughing as soon as Bruce did. He was set down on the earth shortly afterwards and Bruce patted his friend on the back. "It's good to see you again." Bruce said after he was done laughing.

"Likewise." Gerard responded. He walked over to Conner and sat next to him, who was looking out into the distance in no particular direction that seemed to be advantageous, in fact, Conner just seemed to be collecting his own thoughts. "So... how are your powers doing?" Gerard finally said to break the silence.

"I would say bad or good but I can't really tell since they seem to be... inactive. I'm not sure how to explain it since I came through the portal."

"Sucks." Both men had worked with each other for a long time, and they hardly needed to be straightforward with asking the other how the other was feeling or to continue with their thoughts on a current situation. Conner took Gerard's hint to continue his explanation of his dilemma.

"And it seems as though I was the only one affected like this instead of everyone else. Is that some kind of coincidence? I'm not sure. But I can oddly feel my powers starting to slowly return. Like a... memory from a long time ago that you really want to remember for whatever reason but the harder you try to remember the further away it gets. The kind of memory you just need to give time, you know what I mean?"

"Yeah... I do."

The two men just sat there in silence, neither feeling like bothering the other and reveling in the peace and quiet, something that was rare in their lives. That was, until another member of their squad joined them. Ailith... she was definitely no slouch in combat and a reliable companion, but she almost never kept quiet and didn't seem to understand the concept of keeping quiet unless in the middle of a mission. Something both Gerard and Conner could go into excruciating detail about all day about her mannerisms and how she was just... too full of energy.

Soon enough she was talking Bruce's ear off, giving Conner some time to ask Gerard something. "Gerard, do you know what the current status is on our two decoys?"

"They're doing surprisingly well. And yeah, they're decoys to keep attention off of us but in truth we're just here as backup to grab Korpwin if things don't go peacefully."

"That was unnecessary and useless information since I already knew that. I mean what's their current status as in what are they doing right this very second? Can you tell?"

"They haven't killed anyone yet," Very funny Gerard. Conner thought to himself. "But they seem to be starting diplomatic actions right now actually."

'It's a pony.'

'I know.'

'I don't think I can work with a pony.'

'We've been surrounded by them for the entirety of our time here and we talked with them without violence, I say we can work with them in negotiating peace.'

'You did all the talking. And those were regular ponies. The thing approaching us right now looks like a pegasus and a unicorn got together for-'

'Don't go there.'

'But-'

'Don't.'

The two humans, a male and a female, were sitting in a gazebo in the town called Ponyville. It was certainly peaceful, nothing like back on their home planet, where many people had to be on the watch or risk bodily harm. Many ponies had started to crowd around them, some pointing, others reporting and writing down about the event that surely must've been history in the making. Or that last part might've been wishful thinking on Mkrin's part. He had always wanted to be recorded in history and have some important role to play society. And if not for his own country, maybe for another, and maybe two at the same time, which he personally thought of as 'awesome' something that his sister disapproved of, viewing his views as fantasy and distracting to the situation at hand. This was odd considering that his sister was much more averse to working with ponies than he was.

Kilara was certainly not too pleased with her brother's fantasy coming true. But at least she was here with him to make sure he didn't let all that attention go to his head as she was sure that was probably happening right now. But she was still a little uncomfortable trying to talk with ponies, particularly the one approaching them right now. She simply wasn't prepared for something like this and was silently having a panic attack, along with constantly talking to herself mentally about different situations gone bad or good situations.

The pony that looked completely alien from the rest of the other ponies calmed walked up to the two siblings, flanked by guards, and sat down on the opposite side of the table that had been set there. "Greetings." The pony said. "I would like to introduce myself. My name is Princess Luna, Princess of the Night." Which explains why she looks like the night itself. Kilara thought. "I understand you sought an audience with us. I will admit that while I am the co-ruler of Equestria, I am waiting for my sister and both Princess Cadance and Twilight to arrive so that we may begin negotiations in earnest. However, in order to pass the time, I am willing to answer any questions until then and I also have some for you, as well."

Mkrin and Kilara both nodded at the same time. Luna responded with a smile. "Excellent! Now, I believe I have not learned your names yet so I would like to know them." Kilara reached out to her brother with her mind. 'You talk first.' Not revealing that she was scared of screwing up the meeting by talking first like she had with the last one trying to find Korpwin. It had resulted in accidentally starting a war between two countries.

Mkrin was not in the mood to argue with his sister, not even mentally, so he quickly obeyed her command, though he was pretty sure it was a request if he recalled the last time she had spoken first. But still, he wouldn't keep Princess Luna waiting for them to respond. "My name is Mkrin, and this is my sister, Kilara." Kilara bowed her head in respect to the princess. Mkrin continued. "I would like to get something out of the way first," He said, taking out a piece of paper and a writing utensil. "It's the spelling of our names, though I'm sure you'll have the most questions concerning mine." He said as he wrote down both of their names. He was quickly finished and slid the piece of paper towards the princess, who then proceeded to lift it off the table with magic. "Now, I'm not entirely sure if you can read it but I am using a spell that-" He didn't have time to finish his sentence when Luna interrupted him.

"What's with your name?" She said, completely confused with the spelling of Mkrin's name.

No one's reacted to my name that fast. He thought to himself. He decided to humor her by acting like he was confused to some extent. "What are you talking about?" He asked, having been through this before.

"Your name, it's spelled wrong."

That's new. "Wait, what? No it's not."

"Yes it is. You spelled it with an 'm.' There should be no 'm' in your name otherwise you would pronounce the 'm' along with the rest of your name."

"That's how it's pronounced. The 'm' is silent."

"But you said your name without the 'm' and said Krin instead."

"Yeah, that's how it's supposed to be pronounced, it's actually a common name and a common thing for males where I come from."

"This is common?"

"Yeah, I've been getting this problem when I first had to spell out my name to other foreign powers and whatnot when I first meet them, it's becoming a bit of a hassle-"

"Then why don't you just change your name if it's a hassle?"

Mkrin was almost slightly offended at this. It was unorthodox to change one's first birth name where he came from, almost a taboo, really. "We... don't really do that where I come from. It's pretty uncommon to do so. Don't you ever run into anyone," Anypony. Luna mentally corrected. "With names that have silent letters in them? Or anything like that or something? Or is that just not a thing on this world?"

Luna thought for a moment. "Not really." She responded. "At least, I've never met anypony," Anyone. Mkrin unintentionally mentally corrected. "With a name of that description. But I suppose there is a reason for that."

"And may I know what it is?"

"Well, I was trapped in the moon for a thousand years."

Mkrin paused a moment and looked at the pony, some part of his brain trying its absolute best to refuse to believe the sentence he just heard. "Excuse me, what?" He said quickly. "How did that happen?"

"It's a long story actually." Luna said. "I shall tell you the story until my fellow princesses arrive." She began the tale to the two humans.

"It's going pretty well in my opinion so far." Gerard said. Conner was indeed glad that no blood had been shed like the last time. By the gods that had been a failure of epic proportions. But he was also glad that the rest of his squad had managed to regroup while they had been waiting and that the vast majority of his powers had returned as well. The only thing he couldn't do at the moment was shapeshift but he was pretty sure he wouldn't need to if he could just use a camouflage spell to sneak by.

Conner took a quick assessment of his squad, there was himself, Bruce, Ailith, Gerard, the last three to arrive had been Nadri, Niarda, (both women, similar names, no relation) and Vjaren (also a woman.) Conner could tell that there would be problems with Vjaren's name since the first letter in her name was also silent like Mkrin's. The only one missing from the group was Korpwin. Conner walked up Vjaren and sat down next to her. "Any luck finding him?" He asked her. Vjaren was using a spell that would allow someone to detect someone on a planet or within a large radius by sensing their mental presence, life force, or any other kind of connection, special or otherwise, that the person might share with the person casting the spell. It was extremely difficult to keep using it for long but Vjaren seemed to have developed a strong tolerance to its effects making her one of the very best people to go to if someone needed tracking down.

"No, unfortunately not." She responded. Conner let out a sigh, he wasn't surprised anymore with how many planets they had checked looking for Korpwin.

Conner finally let out a growl of frustration. "Damn it! That's how many planets we've searched now? I lost count at eighty!"

"We've searched exactly six hundred sixty nine planets." Bruce said, having listened in on the conversation while still standing at attention.

"Shut up Bruce, you're not helping with this." Conner said, getting up quickly to face Bruce.

"Sorry boss."

Vjaren giggled a little, a little bit of humor was just what she needed now more than anything. Not finding Korpwin was starting to have a depressing effect on her mental state. I suppose it'll be time to head back home soon. Vjaren thought. "It might be time to head home soon, I'm afraid this planet is like all the-" She stopped talking suddenly when she sensed something, something she hadn't sensed in a long time.

"Huh? What is it?" Conner said, not taking his eyes off Bruce. "Vjaren, did you say something?" He looked down at her and noticed her eyes were wide open in shock and her mouth hung open a little. Conner knelt back down to look her in the eyes, suddenly worried for her. "Vjaren? Vjaren what is it?" He put a hand on her shoulder and shook her gently, trying to snap her out of her trance. Fortunately this worked and she focused her attention back on Conner. "Vjaren, did you sense something?" Conner asked now more relaxed.

Vjaren's eyes started to well up with tears, tears of joy. "Vjaren, what's wrong?" He couldn't tell that the tears were tears of joy.

"Nothing." She said, shaking her head and wiping away the tears. "But... I found him."

"Found him? Found who- wait... you don't mean...?"

Vjaren nodded, a smile on her face. "I'm sure of it. In fact, I've never been more sure of anything in my life." The rest of the squad had clustered around them by this point.

"Can you tell us where he is then!?" Ailith asked/shouted, eager to see Korpwin again.

"Yes, I can guide us to him right now."

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go already!"

"Agreed," Conner said. "Come on then, we're moving out right now!"

While Conner's squad was moving out, Kilara and Mkrin were busy talking with the princesses, the other three having arrived very quickly. Well, Mkrin was doing all the talking, Kilara was just watching.

Until Conner started talking to her in her head. 'Kilara,' His voice mentally said. 'What are you and your brother doing?'

'Hey you got your powers back.'

'Focus.'

'Yeah, sorry, Mkrin is just talking with the princesses. Did something change? Is the mission a no-go?'

'Quite the opposite for once, Vjaren is certain that she found Korpwin.'

'Wait seriously?!'

'Yeah, we're heading in his direction now, turns out we're not that far from his location. In fact, we should be within his range of sight right about now- wait... uh oh.'

'What is it?'

'We might have a problem.'

'What is it?' She repeated.

'It looks like he's inside a castle. It's possible he's being held hostage, but we can't rule out the possibility that he's taking shelter there. Try to bring up the subject about Korpwin carefully if you can. And tell your brother to do it!'

'Fine, fine.' Kilara reestablished her mental connection with her brother and told him about the situation. He listened carefully while trying to keep his conversation with Princess Celestia going, trying to look like he was paying attention, which he wasn't or at least was having a hard time of it, and not make it look too obvious that he was talking with his sister. When Mkrin's sister finished the story, which thankfully didn't take long since Mkrin did not attempt to ask many questions, he took action quickly.

Kilara opened her mind to Conner again, telling him that Mkrin was doing what was asked of him.

'Excellent,' Conner responded. 'What's happening now?'

'Well, it appears that three of the princesses have met Korpwin before and they can confirm that he is being held at the castle for "his own safety." Typical political response. No confirmation on if he's a prisoner or not. I- wait what the...?'

'What's happening?'

'Princess Luna seems to be casting a spell. I don't know what for but-' Her voice cut off for a few moments. 'Conner? You still there? I lost-' Conner was suspicious and worried instantly. Something was interrupting their mental connection.

In the Everfree Forest there was a manticore, just like any other creature it was just living its life. But when a bright flash of light blinded it temporarily and a portal was now set in place no more than ten feet away from the manticore. The manticore was unaware of what the portal actually was and its brain turned its gears trying to provide as logical a explanation that its primitive brain could conjure up. Seconds after appearing, small creatures came through the portal. The manticore was immediately ready to defend its territory, but another creature larger than all the rest came through and soon the manticore was being attacked. It wasn't long until it was overwhelmed by the beasts and more and more poured through the portal and into Equestria.

'Luna-' The connection was cutting off randomly. 'Worry- can't- spell is-' The connection was cut off completely.

'Kilara? Kilara come in. Kilara!' No response, he couldn't sense either of the two siblings. Conner turned to his squad, who all seemed to sense his distress. "Everyone, I've lost contact with Kilara and her brother. Can any of you reach them?" Everyone shook their heads.

Nadri stepped forward. "Sir, do you know what's happening?" She asked.

"No, I have no idea what's going... on...." Conner stopped his sentence, slowly realizing that the sky was getting darker and that the moon was rising with unnatural speed. It wasn't long until it was high in the night sky, which had been daylight moments before. The rest of Conner's squad was stunned at the sudden change of atmosphere.

"What," Niarda started, "is with this planet...?" It was more of a rhetorical question or statement than anything else. But Conner felt the need to answer it anyway.

"I have no idea... but from the way that Kilara was trying to get in a few last words with me, I think that whoever this Princess Luna is... she's not on our side. Along with the other princesses." Conner, under other circumstances, would mount a rescue mission for the two siblings, but Korpwin was on this planet, and the entire reason that they were here in the first place searching for him. But right now, he had at least three problems. One was now freeing Korpwin since Conner was absolutely sure he was being held hostage against his will. The other was then finding out if Kilara and Mkrin were still alive, and get them off the planet, and recover their bodies if they were dead. And the last one....

Conner stood at his full height, seriousness in his voice to address his squad. "Alright you lot, our priority is free Korpwin, then see if we can recover Kilara and Mkrin dead or alive."

Vjaren interrupted his speech, killing the seriousness of the mood. "Can we stop calling Korpwin by that name? He doesn't like it and neither do I."

"Damn it Vjaren!" Conner burst out in actual anger, being extremely short on patience. "Don't interrupt me when I'm telling speeches like that! It kills the image and the mood I'm trying to build so you can all pay attention! But fine! We won't call him that anymore!" Conner straightened himself. "But anyways. That's pretty much the plan, we get everyone back home. Now let's go find John." Conner's squad saluted, they would've cheered but they knew that they now had to keep the element of surprise. "And one last thing." Conner said, trying to build up the mood again. "Due to the current situation, I have deemed Luna's actions as hostile and so...." Conner looked over his squad one last time. "I hereby declare her actions to be a declaration of war.... So... let's make this a quick war."

Interlude: New Arrivals

Noah stared at the portal generator. He had been requested by the Lord Commander to watch over this particular operation in the search for John, though Noah felt that he would've probably come of his own free will even if he hadn't been asked by the locals or the commander. There was a very particular reason why he was there; the portals were starting to get worse since John had disappeared when he was sucked up by a portal. The High Council had concluded that the reason why this was the case was because John had become something of a paradox that needed to be resolved. And the only way to resolve it would be to locate him and return him back to where he belonged unharmed. The portals, that the locals referred to them as, were not actual portals. They were anomalies that tended to suck up anything sentient and spew the sentient creature on some distant planet if they were lucky. It was easy to track them down and return them home, which was Noah's primary job nowadays as a grand master, it was starting to feel a lot more like a responsibility to do his part to fix this problem with the anomalies.

But for some reason the anomalies suddenly got much worse and harder to control about eight years ago. And they were only continuing to grow stronger with John becoming a paradox himself. Now the timeline was starting to become seriously screwed up and now the anomalies were opening portals to new universes, something they had managed to contain until eight years ago.

Being a grand master meant that Noah had a seat on the High Council, so he had been there for the decision to locate John. Though Noah had brought up points that John may or may not have been the reason the portals and anomalies were getting worse. One grand master had said that the time of his disappearance simply didn't match up with the time that the anomalies started to get worse. Noah had countered this by saying that since the timeline was also starting to be affected by the time they had found out from their allies that John was missing it was more than possible that it could've happened before news had reached them and John's disappearance was a direct cause. This was because the anomalies always seemed to make time slow down for those affected, but the others (the planet that the anomaly had occurred on) were either completely unaffected or time sped up for them. No anomalies had been reported doing anything more than that, so far at least.

Still, Noah was very sure that John was a vital clue in this new puzzle of the anomalies. It couldn't be a coincidence that normal portals to and from his planet simply weren't cutting it and they had to design a completely new type of machine to generate portals that were, mostly, unaffected by the disturbance of the anomalies. But this particular planet (or rather universe) was causing... glitches in the generator at random times. The first problem was Conner's squad being separated after the twins were sent in. Next was the problem with establishing a mental connection with Noah's stealth team he had sent through for reconnaissance purposes, just in case, (at least they had arrived unseparated.) Noah didn't know why this universe was so different but the Lord Commander had said he had a strong, uneasy feeling about this particular world and had told Noah to be extra careful. Noah always hoped that every planet they checked was the one where John was on it, even if this one did look promising Noah was still skeptical about the outcome-

His thoughts were interrupted when the squad leader established a mental connection and began telling him some very important news. If he wasn't trying to stay professional, Noah would've jumped in the air in celebration from the news but he remained calm.

But it seemed as though the universe or some kind of godly being he was unaware of had it out for him; because at that moment Noah's connection suddenly started getting interference before being cut off completely. At the same time, the portal generator suddenly shut down.

Noah, alarmed, began to shout orders. "Hurry and get those coordinates locked back in! I want a portal to that world reestablished immediately!" Noah turned towards the soldiers he had brought with him, glad that he had come prepared like the Lord Commander had advised. "Okay, I have no idea what just happened, but I do know that John was on that planet since I received word from my stealth team that confirmed it. Who... also received their information from Kilara." Noah paused, forgetting what he was about to say before remembering again. "Oh yeah, and once we get that portal reopened we're going through to make sure that the mission is completed, but we will only intervene if Conner requires our help." Noah walked towards the local commander, since this was a joint operation Noah had to let him know why he was going through the portal personally. "Commander, I am leaving you in charge while I am gone through the portal with my personal guard. We don't know what has happened to your men but if something has happened to them I will not sit idly by while they might require assistance."

The commander nodded. "Yes, master Noah, I will keep things under control on my end, make sure my men get back here safely."

"I will." Noah said just as the portal reopened. Noah rushed through the portal with his personal guards, completely unaware what they were walking into.

Chapter 6: The First Battle

"I can tell you that I met your friend Korpwin." The princess known as Twilight Sparkle said.

"You did, did you? Can you tell us what happened to him exactly and how you both met?" Mkrin asked. He was eager to find out John's whereabouts. Though he was confused as to why they referred to John as Korpwin. His sister sat in her seat, listening to the conversation.

"I didn't know him very long, my friend Fluttershy knew him the most and took care of him from what she told me. She said she found him near her cottage and nursed him back to health but had some complications with understanding him."

"I see.... Is there anything else any of you can tell me?"

"I'm afraid that's all I know. Luna might be able to tell you more, however."

"Indeed I can. I spoke with Korpwin earlier this morning. Unfortunately it seemed as though he could not understand me but it appeared as though he only came to me to talk to me instead. What he had to say was interesting. He stated that he was cursed to speak our language perfectly every other day, while the next would allow him to understand us. I suppose this is the reason why he was able to suddenly speak to the guards perfectly in requesting his release." Luna stated.

"You imprisoned him?" Mkrin asked, but he did not allow the anger in his voice to show, and he was sure that the princess was about to explain herself very soon.

"Yes, but please understand that we knew absolutely nothing about him and we took his silence when we tried to talk to him as refusal to cooperate with us. So for the safety of ourselves and himself we made sure that he was comfortable but imprisoned since it seemed that he did not wish to harm us and came with us peacefully. But as I said before, it was confusing when we met him at first since he seemed perfectly able to understand us, but spoke in a different language entirely, thus adding some distrust."

"You mentioned a curse earlier?" Mkrin asked.

"Yes, he informed us that his current condition was the result of the machinations of a draconequus known as Discord. However, he was barely able to understand or speak anything in our language before he met Discord. But I find it odd that you can speak our language fluently."

"I see, I think I know why he was not able to speak your language. The reason for this is because we use a translation spell to speak the language of others fluently. My sister and I are using the spell at this very moment. It appears that Korpwin's, whose real name is John just so you know, translation spell has malfunctioned somehow. We'll need to take a look at him in order to help him. He's our friend so we want to help him and we've been looking for him for some time now."

"I understand," Celestia said. "The plight of your friend must have caused you some considerable distress. I will make the necessary arrangements as soon as possible so that our two races can have peace."

"That's odd." Kilara stated out loud.

"What is?" Asked Princess Cadance and Celestia at the same time.

Kilara hadn't meant to talk out loud, but she was so surprised at what had just happened she hadn't noticed. Cadance had managed to snap her back to reality and made her realize that she had indeed talked out loud without meaning too.

"Oh, nothing, it's just that I thought I sensed something." Kilara said. It was partially true, Kilara had indeed indeed sensed something but her connection was cut off with the men under Noah's command and she had no idea what was going on. She assumed that the squad was simply getting interference just like Conner's squad.

"Well, then I assume it's nothing to worry about?" Cadance asked.

"Yes, it was probably just my imagination playing tricks on-" Kilara stopped mid-sentence. This time she did indeed sense something but these had to be new creatures of some kind... and there were so many of them.... "Or perhaps not. I think I do feel something out there around this town. Do any of you sense it as well?"

Luna was the first to respond. "I believe that I do, but these are presences I have not felt before in all my years."

"Do you think they're dangerous?" Asked Celestia.

It was at that moment when a scream, a scream of pure terror, was heard that caused all to turn to it's source. Many ponies were scattering away from the beast that was attacking a resident. It was dark, had four legs, and was barely the size of a pony, but it was obviously very vicious, probably attacking everything in sight judging from the two corpses behind it.

Celestia was filled with rage. Rage at whatever this thing was that decided to attack her little ponies. She and her sister wasted no time in taking to the air and blasted away the beast and landed to defend one of the many ponies they were sworn to protect. The other two princesses and the two human diplomats rushed to aid them. Twilight landed behind the princesses and began a healing spell to mend the wounds of the assaulted pony.

The beast was back on its feet soon and growled at the challengers.

Celestia turned towards the humans. "Do you know what this thing is? I've never seen it before in my life."

"Neither have we." Kilara replied.

"You don't, but I know of this creature." Mkrin responded. "It was the denizen of a hostile land we explored once in our quest to find John, the scouts reported back their findings along with the news that John was indeed not on that world. We lost many good men and women to these things but they managed to come up with a name for them, calling them shadow hounds in their report. We haven't had any specimens to study but they don't seem to act like any canines that we've ever seen. They seemed to just attack everything in sight before. A squad leader told us they didn't even stop when there was only one of them left in a pack. That's about the only similarity we've seen from the hounds, they work in packs."

"That means there's probably more than just this one. But how did they get here then?" Asked Twilight.

"We've been meaning to explain to you that there are anomalies, which is the reason we lost John in the first place. Opening portals to new worlds that we weren't aware of." Mkrin stated. He didn't have any time to continue since the hound let out a bloodcurdling howl. The howl made the blood run chill and sent tremors of terror down the spines of those who heard it. The cry was answered by others, adding to the terrifying effect.

"Luna, together now!" Celestia said. Her sister knew what to do as they both rose into the air and made ready to shout in the royal Canterlot voice. "EVERYPONY," Everyone. Mkrin mentally corrected. "RUN TO SHELTER AND PLEASE REMAIN INSIDE, IT IS NOT SAFE TO BE OUTSIDE!" They both shouted in unison, adding power to their thundering voices so that all could hear. The shadow hound was crouched, like it was backed into a corner and was ready to strike at whatever was threatening it. Both princesses lowered themselves to the ground as shadow hounds seemed to start coming out from nowhere to menace the town. It was an intimidating sight to see this many shadow hounds, there had to be hundreds of them.

Twilight was soon done healing the wounded pony and the mare quickly ran to the closest house to find shelter just as the hounds charged. Celestia and Luna were the first to send beams of magic into the mass of dark fur and could hear satisfying yelps of pain but this didn't even seem to slow down, let alone deter, the horde in the slightest.

I hope Conner is doing alright. Thought Kilara.

"It's like the universe hates us!" Shouted Conner as he cut down a shadow hound. Thankfully, the wooden constructs did not seem to enjoy the shadow hounds in their territory and appeared to be particularly effective in fighting them. Sounds of hounds battling the wooden constructs could be heard almost throughout the forest. "That's it! We're not wasting our time here! We're heading to the castle!"

The pony guard of Canterlot could barely believe what he was seeing. Some kind of horde of dark beasts known as shadow hounds, (information of the names and some helpful instructions was courtesy of an anonymous sender shooting an arrow with a note attached to it) were heading towards Canterlot. The rest of the guards had closed the gate to the city quickly and were frantically scrambling to rush to their defensive posts, with more guards on the way to reinforce them.

Shining Armor, captain of the guard, would've been a welcome sight if he were there to cast the barrier to help protect the city, but alas he was at the Crystal Empire.

The guard didn't even notice the seven strangers resembling their guest sneak inside the castle. Then the hounds started jumping in or over the river to get across. They didn't seem to able to break the massive gate, but then a creature that didn't resemble the hounds at all crossed the distance the moat created easily and started to bash the gate. Crossbow bolts and magic blasts hit the dark mass of creatures but the large one ignored the pain of the magic and the crossbow bolts seemed to bounce off its thick hide half the time.

The guards rushing through the castle to help with the defense of the city stopped when they encountered six mysterious strangers that resembled their guest that some of the other guards had been tasked with defending. They were wearing dark armor and seemed to almost blend in with the night and if it weren't for the torches providing illumination, they might have been able to sneak past them. However, the guard known as Moon Gem didn't have time to give orders as he was knocked unconscious by a blast of magic behind him and the other guards.

It didn't take long for Conner's squad to finally find John, and after incapacitating another two more guards, entered what appeared to be a throne room, filled with more guards... who then proceeded to take up defensive positions around John. This confused Conner since their way of keeping John from being rescued was peculiar to him. And John seemed to have grabbed a weapon and appeared to be helping the guards.

"John, what the hell are you doing?!" Conner asked in his own language, fears of John being brainwashed starting to surface in his mind.

John nearly dropped his weapon. Not that he recognized his name, which he did not, but he was surprised and finally glad to understand something in his own language. John's reaction made Conner dash away his theory of brainwashing quickly and he gestured for his squad to lower their weapons.

"Okay, for one, I think you're talking to me, but my name isn't John, it's Korpwin. Secondly, how can you speak my language?" John asked.

Conner sighed in realization of what had happened John. But he had to be sure. He turned to Vjaren and indicated with his head to talk to John. Vjaren nodded and stepped forward alone, getting as close as possible to John but staying out of reach of the weapons of the guards. Vjaren faced John, with her hands in the air to indicate she was no threat. "Korpwin... do you... know who I am?" She asked slowly, almost fearing his response.

"No, I don't, who are you?" He responded.

"You... don't recognize me." She stated sorrowfully.

"No, of course not why would I? Now answer my question, why can you speak my language?"

"Your real name is John, please let me explain."

"Yeah, you better, you've got some nerve attacking these guards, a few of those guys were my friends... kind of. I think."

"John, we're old friends of yours. We've all known each other for years but the current situation is a grave misunderstanding on all our part. We thought you were being held prisoner. Your other name is Korpwin and we call you that when we're on a mission with you. We're on the same squad and we've served for years and you've saved my life quite a few times."

"And you expect me to believe that?"

"There's more. We're sent on dangerous missions all the time, but in the event that any of us are captured or suffer extreme trauma while away from the squad there is a spell that affects our minds so we forget everything related to the mission so we do not give away valuable information. Only our squad leader can remove the spell and its effects at this moment. From what I can sense, the spell has gone into a serious stage but appears to be malfunctioning to some extent. If I tried to deactivate it, it could kill you or destroy your mind. It's like someone already tried tampering with the spell."

"Maybe that's what Discord was referring to when he tried to restore all of my memories." John said under his breath. "So, are you saying you can help me?"

"Yes."

John thought for a long moment, a part of him said he should trust these people, these other humans who seemed so familiar to him. "Okay," He said. "Do what you have to do."

Vjaren nodded and let Conner step forward. John stepped forward, and since he could still talk in the pony language, he let the guards know that these people could help him and were not their foes. The guards nodded and backed away, but still kept their hooves on their weapons. Conner put his hands on John's head... what happened next relieved John of some mental pains he had been experiencing, while also introducing some new ones. The entire process took nearly two minutes to complete and when Conner finished and stepped back to see if he performed the removal spell correctly (which he was entirely sure that he did) John was standing still, his face calm and reserved.

Vjaren stepped forward again, wanting to confirm that John had really come back to them. "John... do you... remember me now?" She asked slowly.

John looked at her. "I do... I remember everything. I'm part of your squad. My real name is John," He said looking at the others, his head scanning them as he spoke until he finally looked back at Vjaren. Tears welled up in his eyes. "And I know who you are... your name is Vjaren, you and I have had two children together, and you are my wife."

Vjaren normally didn't cry often, but today was the second time she had done so, up to a grand total of three times this whole year. With tears in her eyes, she embraced John and kissed him, finally glad to be reunited with him after so long. She broke the kiss and settled for hugging him tightly.

The moment was ruined when Gerard cried out and was knocked down to the floor. The pony guards they had run into earlier had caught up to them and had fired a blast of magic at one of John's teammates.

Conner was quick to react. "Get Gerard to safety and take cover!" He shouted. Bruce picked up Gerard and rushed out of the line of fire as Gerard started to groggily recover.

"I can stop them!" Shouted John, running towards the guards as he did so. "Hey! Stop!" He shouted, waving his arms." The guards stopped with the other bodyguards assigned to John coming up behind him. John made sure his translation spell was fully active. "They're my friends, this was just a misunderstanding and they thought I was being held prisoner. And I kind of was but that's not the point."

Moon Gem didn't believe him at first. But another guard stepped forward. "I can vouch for that, I have seen it." He said. Moon Gem turned these thoughts over in his head slowly. He eventually stood down. "Alright, I'll believe you for now. But only because there are more important things I have concern with like helping defend the city." Moon Gem added before turning away.

"What's happening?"

Moon Gem turned abruptly, startled that the human could now understand him as well as speak his language. "I was informed that you can only speak our language fluently every other day."

"My friends helped me with that. What's happening though?"

"We have a horde of things called shadow hounds at the gate."

"Then allow me to help."

Moon Gem paused. Under normal circumstances he would have outright denied his request but tonight was not a normal night. "Why not, we'll need all the help we can get right now. But try to keep up." With that, Moon Gem was off.

John turned towards his bodyguards. "Guys, you go follow that guy, I'll follow in a bit."

"His name is Moon Gem."

"Go follow Moon Gem then."

The guards looked at each other. Their orders had been clear, guard Korpwin (or rather, John) until he didn't need guarding anymore. It looked like their mission was complete. A few moments later the guards were dashing off. John walked back to his squad, determined to convince them to aid him.

Conner was the first to speak when he reached them however. "Good work getting rid of them John, now let's get out of here."

"What? No, I was serious about helping them. And I want you to help me."

"John, we've been looking for you for a while now. Our orders are very clear, we were to recover you and bring you home. We're not here to help these ponies."

"They helped me."

"And I don't doubt that. But I'll reiterate. Our orders are very clear. And that shadow hound horde was simply a distraction for us to reach you."

"You did what?!"

"And it is very unfortunate that we have to leave them to fight the hounds alone and that they might die in the process. But you're coming with us. Right Bruce?"

"Right boss."

"Bruce agrees with everything you tell him to do, he doesn't count. Now I don't know about you but I owe these ponies a debt and I'll be damned if I can't pay it back. Whether you decide to help me or not is your choice." John didn't give time for Conner to retaliate because he already took off running.

"Korpwin, wait come back!" Conner called after him.

"And stop calling me that! I want to be called John from now on for the rest of my life!" John called back as he ran.

"Son of a bitch.... Fine. Be like that." Conner said and turned around to face the remainder of his squad. Minus John... again. "I know you guys won't disobey orders like that, you're going to stay right here with me while I decide what to do... and think of appropriate punishment when John gets back. Nope, you're not going to abandon me at a-" He was cut off when Vjaren took off running. She was determined not to lose John. Not again. "Oh, of course she's the first one to go after him! Yeah, anyone else?" Gerard seemed to take this as a challenge, for he too took off running. "God damn it come back here Gerard!"

"Sorry, Conner! You'll have to punish me for this later!" Gerard called back.

"I've had to deal with more bullshit in the last four hours than I have in the past year. I can't believe I missed him." Growling with intense frustration, Conner decided he wasn't going to put up with it. "That's it! I'm not standing idly by and dealing with the bullshit that follows later if he gets himself killed! Come on we're helping him out!"

John was able to navigate the castle now that he had magic to help him find out where he was going. He could hear Vjaren and Gerard right behind him as they managed to catch up to him. He grinned at his best friend and his wife as they raced towards the gate.

Magic is very useful in making sure that one does not run out of breath while running. Because it took a while for John and his friends to reach the gate where he could hear howls of rage on the other side of the gate that made his blood run chill. It wasn't long until the rest of his squad also managed to reach him. John looked at Conner, who did not seem amused, and shrugged in apology.

"John, I'm not going to stand by and watch yourself get killed, if you die then we'll die with you. I haven't run this squad for years without a single casualty just to see one of my men die without me being there to die alongside him."

"Thanks, Conner. That's very motivational of you." Conner grunted in response and the entire squad, along with an army of ponies readied their weapons.

Nadri had her bow drawn and was charging an arrow with magic. Whatever was on the other side was huge, and it wasn't long until it burst through. Nadri loosed her arrow and it struck the beast between the eyes, bringing it down as it nearly crashed into the front line of ponies. Then the hounds poured through, and the real battle began.

Chapter Seven: The siege

Was it our fault we were cursed to live this life? One particularly large shadow hound thought. No, it was just our nature. Everything was going fine too! It was those humans! Especially that damned dragon and that little sociopathic human friend of his! They're responsible for our suffering! And now we have a chance to hurt them, it's nowhere close to fully exacting our revenge but every little bit counts when it comes to killing what little humans we come across. At least we get to pretend we're living out our old days of conquering back when we still had our empire. I miss it. I miss being a captain, having the deck of a starship beneath my boots, commanding ships in glorious conquests. But that's gone now. Well, this is as close as I'm going to get. The former captain known as Shis'shola let out a howl and directed more shadow hounds into the breach of the castle. They would not tolerate anything that worked with humans, and these ponies presented a long needed feast for them.

Twilight blasted another shadow hound. They were certainly persistent she granted them that but they weren't very durable, at least against her magic. However, they were beginning to thin and while Twilight didn't want to have to kill any of them, nopony wanted to kill anything as far as she knew, it was just that the problem with stunning them was that they absolutely refused to stay down for any period of time.

Just as she started wondering if they would ever give up a howl was heard in the distance which seemed to get the horde's attention. Twilight deduced that they were more than just a simple pack of mindless beasts since that howl must have served as some kind of retreat signal since the hounds were now withdrawing and howling in response.

"That's odd." Mkrin said.

"What is?" Cadance asked.

"I don't like the fact that they're retreating, it makes me uneasy."

"How is that a bad thing if they're retreating?"

"Cadance, he's right." Twilight said. "Remember what he said about the reports they had on those things? In the short time that they documented the creatures there was not a single recorded instance where they retreated, they fought to the death."

Mkrin looked at Twilight. "You're right about that. Those weren't my exact words but you're right."

"Well you were talking about how they seemed to attack everything in sight so I deduced that they would continue to attack us so I find it odd as well that they're retreating. From what you were told in your reports this is abnormal behavior. I have a theory, and never before in my life have I ever hoped to be more wrong about something but I think it's possible that they may have intelligence like you and I."

"That's an impressive theory. From what you've seen I can see why you came to that conclusion. Given time I or somebody else might have come to the same conclusion."Mkrin rubbed his chin in thought. Somepony. Luna thought, she couldn't help but involuntarily keep correcting that word. "I think that we should consider your theory as a grim but very real possibility."

"Thank you Mkrin. What about everypony else?" I'm honestly not even going to try to keep correcting that in my head anymore. Mkrin thought as the rest of the Alicorns nodded their heads. Everyone/pony except his sister seemed unconvinced. Kilara was looking away, trying not to meet the gaze lest she be discovered in his disapproval. Mkrin, however, decided that today he would be a jerk.

"Kilara, since the rest of us seem to be in agreement and you obviously agree I want you to see if you can track the movements of the hounds." He said knowing what kind of response he would eventually get.

"Yeah, I'll get right on that." She turned away. "If Twilight's theory is even remotely correct in the first place." She grumbled.

"What was that? Didn't quite catch that."

"Oh, nothing, nothing at all." Kilara said, trying to catch herself before she said something stupid.

"She doesn't think my theory is correct." Twilight deadpanned.

Kilara's breath caught in her throat for a second and she turned to Twilight. "How did you know that?" She asked. Twilight simply flicked her ears in response. "Oh... that makes sense."

"Okay, but in all seriousness I need you to track the shadow hounds. Do you know where they're heading next?" Mkrin asked.

Kilara closed her eyes and after three seconds she opened them again. "They're heading Northeast."

"Where, exactly?" Celestia asked.

Kilara pointed in the exact direction and all four of the Alicorns froze, their eyes wide with shock. "I'm assuming that whatever is in that direction is not where we want them to be, is it?"

"Canterlot might be in danger!" Celestia exclaimed and turned to Twilight. "Gather your friends, we might need their help."

"Whoa whoa, hold up. What's going on?"

"I'll explain on the way there but we need to hurry up!"

The shadow hounds were more persistent than John could have ever imagined and he was starting to tire along with most of the other defenders being almost just as tired aside from Bruce and a few other squad-mates.

"I keep shooting but they keep coming!" Nadri shouted over the sounds of battle. She had been firing nonstop and was being regularly supplied with more arrows from the others. How many have we lost in just the last few minutes? John thought, looking at the bodies of the ponies and shadow hounds alike. Vjaren had told about their encounter with the shadow hounds in one of their missions to find John and they were certainly living up to their reputation of having suicidal overconfidence.

The first massive beast that Nadri had killed turned out to not be quite dead as everyone/pony had thought and it slowly got up and roared its displeasure. Oh well that's just great! I'm just going to say this now because it'll happen eventually! "How could this get any worse?!"

"Why did you just say that?!" Gerard yelled.

"Gerard, look at the current situation, it was bound to happen eventually I'm just speeding up the process." Things did get worse as another identical beast showed up behind the first one and was waiting for the first one to move so it could get inside. See? I was right. Wait am I just doing that to prove I was right to myself? I'm probably going to get more ponies killed. Shit, I definitely did not think this through. The weary defenders were in desperate need of reinforcements and quick if they were to survive the night.

Chapter 8: The siege part two

Celestia would have teleported all of them to Canterlot, but she was unsure if she had the capability to do so with eleven beings. Two of which were of not equine anatomy. Who knew what a teleportation spell designed for ponies would do to humans.

So she flew. She flew as hard as she could, the others aside from Luna doing their best to keep up. Twilight still wasn’t the best flier around, so she had resorted to teleporting around in order to keep up. Somehow, Kilara and Mkrin were able to keep up, whether by following Twilight’s teleportation by teleporting alongside her, or by some other magical means. Canterlot wasn’t too far off. It couldn’t be. She was going to be on time. She had to be.

Celestia had had the foresight to bring along the rest of Twilight’s friends, they were more than capable of helping out. Everything was going to be alright. At least, that’s what she kept telling herself.

They had been forced to retreat. The main gate was lost and the first district was in flames. What few guards they had been able to spare had been ordered to fall back and get any of the citizens to safety. If Conner’s squad had not alerted the Canterlot guard things would be much worse and the royal guard might’ve not had any time to prepare. As it was, the shadow hounds were close to running completely amok. Any guards that had fallen to the beasts met a grisly fate. Their bodies were dragged off and the sounds of flesh being torn apart was more than enough to let people know that they were being eaten.

The hounds obviously had some kind of intelligence. No matter what kind of formation the defenders used, no matter how effective it was, the creatures would still get through and run throughout the city. Thankfully, they were few in number, and hopefully any guards still coming to the fight would dispatch them quickly.

The particularly two large specimens had decimated their lines. The weakened one from before had died from focused attacks, courtesy of Conner’s squad. However, not until it had smashed straight through a formation, while the other just started squishing and eating everything, then lumbered off to eat a whole group of ponies somewhere else in the city.

They’re going to eat everyone in the whole city if we don’t get help soon, somehow. John thought. He was covered in blood. His armor, which he had somehow not taken off in the entirety of his stay in Equestria, was slick with the gore of shadow hound and pony alike.

‘It’s been a while. You know… with this much confusion going on, no one would really notice the difference if I took control for a while and… indulged myself.’ Arldon said in his head.

‘Shut up, Arldon.’

‘Oh come on, just let me out and no one would have to know.’

‘I would.’

‘Yes, but you’re getting tired. In fact, I could wrest control from you right now. Give it a few more minutes and I’d have no trouble at all. But I’m giving you a choice. The freedom to let me do what it is that I do best. If you don’t let me take control of your own free will, I swear, I can and will make this a lot harder on everyone involved.’

John sliced another shadow hound cleanly in half. ‘The answer is no.’

There was a sigh. ‘So be it. I gave you a choice but you just had to choose the hard way.’

John froze up and collapsed backwards on the ground. He started twitching, the war for his own body being waged.

“John?!” Vjaren exclaimed, rushing to his side. “Sweetie, what’s wrong?” She got no answer as John simply stared off into the distance. Vjaren refused to leave him in this area but she also knew that she couldn’t watch over him at the moment. Looking around she spotted and motioned over one of the combat apothecary ponies that were scattered around, trying to tend to the wounded as best they could. “Get him somewhere safe!”

The apothecary, a unicorn, nodded, grabbed John, hoisted him on his back, wanting to save up any magic in case he needed to heal the man, and ran off. It wasn’t long until the two came to a small makeshift tent, this one currently unoccupied. The unicorn set his charge down for a few brief moments, checking to make sure that he was unwounded. It was at this moment that the unicorn realized, that even if the man was injured, he wasn’t entirely sure how to help him since he knew nothing about his anatomy. If he directed the healing magic incorrectly… well, that would cause a whole different set of problems. And seeing as John was currently in a seemingly catatonic state, it’s not like the unicorn could just ask for help for a quick lesson on alien anatomy.

Thankfully, he didn’t have to, as John stopped his twitching. He blinked, and looked around, taking in his surroundings. The unicorn put a hoof on John’s head. “Hey,” he said, “don’t move too much. You just collapsed in the middle of the battle.”

“I’m fine.” John quickly replied, sitting up.

Of course he would say that, they always say that. Doesn’t matter what species you are, apparently, but of course you’re going to say that you’re fine so you can get back into the fight. The unicorn put a hoof on the man’s chest and forced him back down. “Listen to me for a bit. I need to know if you’re injured and okay to travel. Then we can get you some proper medical attention. Or, whatever passes as proper medical attention for your kind, anyway.”

“I said I’m fine. My magic is already healing me right now. Besides, we — look out behind you!” John shouted, pointing at something behind the unicorn. The stallion turned around as quickly as he could, his horn lit up and ready for action…. Only to find nothing there behind him.

“What-” Was all he had time to say when John grabbed him by the side of the head.

“Name’s Arldon, by the way.” With that, his hand lit up and he started draining the unicorn of strength. Not necessarily magic but pure life force. “Listen, I’m just a little tired right now. Can’t say you’re going to be getting this back but I’m in far more need of it than you are.” Oh, Arldon would’ve gladly drained the unicorn of every last bit of energy he possessed, but the infernal voices that were John and Virtue kept constantly screaming in his head to not kill the poor unicorn.

So he left him with just enough strength that, if he tried, he could pull himself together to get something to eat, because now he only had about an hour left to live.

Making sure his weapons were secure, Arldon strolled out and jumped on top of a building to find the best action. Not surprisingly, it wasn’t too far off from where he had collapsed in the first place. Pumping magic into his next jump, he soared through the air and into the thickest part of the fighting.

While everyone else was fighting a battle in the name of survival or to protect others, Arldon started having the time of his life.

The first district was what Celestia and Luna first noticed. It was burning. Their precious city was starting to burn. So they did the only thing that they could do in a situation like this; defend the ponies they were sworn to protect.

With the others falling behind slightly, but still able to easily catch up within the next few minutes, Celestia and Luna quickly coordinated with each other on where to fly into the city. There were two major points where the fighting was not only the thickest, but also the only ways to get further into the city. Celestia couldn’t help but feel a mixture of pride for her ponies holding the line against the tide of attackers.

Luna flew towards the second major point, where a massive beast was assaulting their lines. In the meantime, Celestia descended right behind the battle lines where the largest pouring of shadow hounds was happening, hoping to give some aid to the weary defenders.

When the royal guards saw their princesses descend from the sky like holy saviors, they couldn’t help but cheer, even if but for a few brief moments.

Noah watched from his perch high above the battlefield. It hadn’t taken him long to find Conner’s squad. But the current situation was beyond his control. Even with the two massively powerful beings that entered the battle, along with those that soon made their way into the city as well, Noah knew that the portals opening up were just spewing forth a seemingly endless amount of enemies. His personal guard were highly skilled in their own right, but if they tried to aid their allies, they would surely be overwhelmed in the end as well.

So that was why he had sent a message to his master as soon as he was aware of the situation many hours ago. Any second now he would be getting a response and receive further orders on what to do. Behind him, a portal opened. Noah and his guards prepared their weapons, in case that this portal would pour forth more shadow hounds. However, it quickly closed when only one figure stepped through.

Noah bowed. “Master William.”

“I got your message. Looks like a shitstorm here.” William replied.

“It is. We did as much scouting from up here as possible and we believe that we managed to find something akin to a leader.” Magicking some binoculars into existence, Noah pointed at a lone figure amidst the mass of shadow hounds. “There.” He said.

The shadow hound looked different from the rest, and could definitely be seen giving out directions. It was sitting back from the action, watching the battle unfold.

“Looks like we found something to help end this fiasco. Attune yourselves to me so I can teleport us around.”

“Yes sir.” Was the response.

As soon as William felt the magic from all of his subordinates latch onto him, he teleported down next to the leader, grabbed it, and quickly teleported into the city before it had time to react.

It was hours that he’d been fighting, but Arldon wasn’t tiring. No, with so many enemies around, he had plenty of energy to steal from. Yes, he was supposedly ‘surrounded’ but that meant that he could attack in any direction he felt like now. In fact, he fought like a man possessed, which probably wasn’t too far from the truth, striking with complete abandon. Everywhere he struck, he felt a blade connect with something, every blast of magic annihilated a group of hounds.

In fact, he was attacking so relentlessly that he didn’t notice when a shockwave pushed all the shadow hounds back, leaving him flailing around like a madman. When he finally calmed down from his bloodlust he could see the shadow hounds growling but not daring to move, instead looking at a different group of humans. One of them had his foot planted on the head of a larger hound, his boot glowing with power and making it perfectly clear that resisting would result in a crushed head. Well, looks like my fun is over. Arldon thought. He retreated back into the depths of John’s mind, allowing John to come back to the forefront. That was fun, we should do this again sometime.

Shis’shola struggled in the grip of the human. She couldn’t see his face but for some reason his presence felt… familiar. When she was lifted into the air she got a good look at him. Then she recognized him instantly. “YOU!” She shouted.

So they speak. William thought. “You obviously know me. But I don’t recall ever meeting you at any point in time.” He calmly replied.

“What are you talking about?! You’re the one who cursed us into this form years ago!”

“I don’t anywhere near the power to do anything on the scale you’re describing, at least for all of you. A few thousand, MAYBE, that’s a stretch but not for how many of you there are. Besides, even if I could do so, I think I’d remember doing something like that.”

“You lie!” By this point, a large crowd had gathered, filled with mostly ponies but with the occasional human added into. Everyone was tired, even the princesses looked exhausted. “I know what happened, I saw it with my own eyes! Those two monstrous ships tore our fleets apart like they were nothing more than wet tissue paper. And then when we were reduced to our final world, when we had nothing in the way of resistance against you, you transformed us into… this!”

Shis’shola suddenly felt a spike of pain intruding on her mind. She could feel her memories being examined, sifted through like a child looks through a box of playthings to find his favorite toy. And then she felt the memories of the demon standing before her being implanted into her mind. She started to see everything he had seen in the last hundred or so years…. It was painful, to say the least.

When it finally stopped she could only look on at William in an utterly confused light. “Let me tell you something.” William stated. “Our empire doesn’t have anywhere near the technology to pull something like that off at the moment. Let alone building a spaceship the size of ten thousand kilometers, which is just an extra three thousand kilometers shy of being bigger in diameter of my fucking home planet. I mean, Jesus Christ, I can only dream of possessing that kind of firepower in the future, but we don’t have it right now.” He amplified his voice to be heard by all. “The timeline has been disrupted! Across universes things cross over and the past mixes with the future and vice versa. Back where I come from, I and my friends, and yes I know I should say ‘my friends and I’ but I know what I said, are working on a solution to correct this. As soon as it’s completed, none of what you see before you will have happened. Everything that happened after the portals first came into existence will no longer a part of the timeline. All things shall go back to how they were supposed to.” He placed the former captain back down on the ground and spoke in a softer tone. “Meaning that you and your kind will be back to normal in no time, and we’ll have never met. Trust me, you’ll be back to conquering worlds in no time. Literally, depending on how you want to look at it.”

“But….” Shis’shola began. “Won’t we eventually encounter you in the future again and the cycle will repeat itself?”

“History isn’t set in stone, especially with the timeline as screwed up as it is. Our civilizations may never go to war, we could establish peace, anything could happen. Hell, they might not even run into each other in the first place, a universe is a big place, after all. Now, I know what you’re thinking right now. How long are we going to be stuck like this? Have no fear, as I said before, we’re working on a solution to fix all this. As soon as I head back to the universe where I’m working on said solution, everything will go back to normal. Yes, it might take me a few days since we’re so close, but with the timeline screwed up just about everywhere, as soon as I leave don’t be surprised if something immediately happens. Or you all start to fade away. Not sure how the spell is going to work in the end. However, I’ve spent enough time here as it is and I have work to do. See you aro-wait- I just realized I probably won’t see you guys again. So I won’t finish that sentence.” With that said, William opened a portal and all the humans under his command started filing through. Before William stepped through he turned around. “Not like it means anything at this point, but I’m sorry for what my future self did to you guys.” And then he stepped through, the portal closing behind him.

For what felt like the longest time, no one said anything until Pinkie Pie, unsurprisingly, broke the silence. “Did that just… happen?” What was surprising was what she said next. “That was just… a little anticlimactic.” As soon as she stopped speaking, a ball of white energy formed above their heads, then expanded with such speed there was nothing in the entirety of existence, not even the speed of light, could hope to outrun it.

And then… there was nothing.

Fluttershy tended to her animals like she always did, humming a little tune to herself as she did so. It was at this point she felt… something akin to déjà vu. However, she shrugged it off and continued on with her life.

Because technically nothing had happened. Everything was as it should be. And it would remain as such.

Author's Note

I'm done with this story. I don't like it. I had planned for it to become something better but when I read through it again, it just wasn't the thing I held to my standards of writing. I can do better which is why I'm now focusing on writing other stories aside from this one, namely Wrath of the Harbinger, (released, incomplete) The Chess Masters, (unreleased) A Series of Magical Mishaps (also unreleased, I may or may not accept prereaders) Fluttershy the Trophy Wife (released, complete) (you know what, all of these at the time of this writing are unreleased so let's just let that be known) What's With The Cat? Reality Needs a Patch, Aerwin; the Mon-Keigh and Pony Expert and finally, for now, Beware of Human. None of these stories have cover art except for The Chess Masters.

....

Wow, I've got a lot of stuff to work on. And I can't promise that any or all of it will be done and whatnot.

See any mistakes, let me know. Also, I tried not to butcher Applejack's accent, and I'm not very confident in attempting to write her accent.

Again, I can't express how much I dislike this story. Maybe I'll submit it to Rage Reviews, or something.