A Chessmaster and his Game

"Ugh, I wish I was gay, it would instantly make my life ten times easier," Jackson complained as he walked into the room, seeing Shining Armor laying in bed probably on a break and wanting to get some sleep.

Too bad, Jackson needed to complain about things.

It had been a few months since arriving in Equestria, and Jackson had been getting a lot of looks from the female staff, one of them finally spilled the metaphorical beans and explained it to him.

Apparently they had all been, rather discreetly, administered a list of 'facts'

1) Jackson was a very healthy man and had a large, very satisfying, and very enduring member (he had apparently lasted half an hour with the moon goddess, but was asleep for twenty nine and a half of those minutes)

2) As a human, the healthy male had no specified 'mating sequence', so he could be aroused at any time and doing so didn't even require pheromones

3) He was a loose man with loose morals and probably wouldn't mind having a one-night-stand

Luna had forgotten the 4) He didn't want sex at all, he just wanted to go home.

The past few months, he had done a lot of thinking, and he came to a few conclusions:

a) The last news report for America's political, justice, and economic state that he had seen was back in 2008, so things might have changed a lot while he was gone to Europe.

b) He wanted to go back, it was cruel fate, now that he couldn't go back, he wanted to more than anything, but back when he could return at any time, he didn't give a damn.

c) His family and friends knew him best for the words 'run away', those were the exact words he used, 'run away', they called him Jackson "Runaway" McCard, the day before he left, his cousin and sister had laughed outside of his apartment door, because they had found the house of Jackson "Runaway" McCard, and when the time came, he joined his fellow French sissies and put his name to good use.

d) Celestia probably had a really damn good reason to get fearful and prejudiced, after all, she had said that humans were on Equus before, but they had gone extinct.

The story was thus: Humans helped found civilization, and they protected others, but they were beings of Discord, back when Discord was only about 'change', rather than 'chaos', they had equal capacities for both kindness and cruelty, and were quite emotionally unstable.

Celestia had come to hate humans when one of them killed her father, her mother had fled certain death, and the two princesses got a lowly hug to try to make up for it. The solar diarch was the reason the humans ceased to be, when she took over the sun, she had used it's gross incandescence to immolate and incinerate all traces of human history and culture.

Nowadays, ponies thought that the three tribes were the pioneers of civilization, but the three tribes came afterwards.

Jackson didn't hate people, he didn't hate them at all, humans were capable of great things, his generation of family knew it, himself, his sister Jamie, and his cousin Evan, they all knew that the human race was a special people.

Ol' Terra AKA Earth was a wise mother. The humans may have been weak, but they were smart, and through their wisdom and intelligence they found strength, never given a handicap, never given a blessing, or an advantage, or anything to help them along the way, they had, as the rap kinda-sorta said:

Started from the bottom, never had a lot of anything, but they built themselves up, and now they were here.

Where had his mind gone? Oh yes, the mares in the castle.

They wanted to get inside his pants, and he kept said pants firmly on his body.

"I have to say, if homosexuality is really a choice, it's not a very fair one," he said, not looking at Shining but hearing a curious 'mm-hm' in response.

"I mean, okay, you have two choices, you can either spend the rest of your life pursuing women, in which case it's going to take between one week and six months trying to seduce, woo, and charm a woman into bed, through varying methods of lies, deceits, and untruths, it's going to cost you a lot of time, money, and sanity, but eventually she'll concede, and you'll make love together," he paused for a breath, and got a curious 'mm-hm' in response, "And it'll be beautiful, and you'll fall more in love, and you'll get to the state of love where you'll just hug all the time, and you can't be close enough to each other, and you'll smoosh your faces together because you're young, and you're pathetic, and you've fallen in love," he stopped for a moment, awaiting a response, and getting another 'mm-hmm' from Shining, who had started to blush, "But what you don't know is that while she's doing this, she's putting blinkers on the side of your face, so you can't see your life go past. I mean life, family, friends, job, it's gone, oh it's gone, oh it's all gone. Before you'll know it, you're forty five years old, married with two kids, and all your dreams are dead." the speed with which he had spouted that whole paragraph was astonishing.

"That, OOORRRRRR, you can hang out with your best friend all day and get blowjobs," the man's face became like he was confronted with two choices, and one of them was clearly better than the other by the way it was presented, but the one asking the question acted like it was hard to choose, "Hmmmm, WHAT A DIFFICULT CHOICE!" he said loud and sarcastic.

"Mm-hm" the white stallion was starting to get really red in the face.

"I mean THAT'S why they're called GAY people, they're happy all the fuckin' time. In order to get laid, they have to seduce men, do you know how easy that is?" he asked incredulously.

"I'm a straight man, I'd have to seduce women, THAT'S HARD, especially now. I don't know what lies to feed your species in order to make the mares want my penis," he had stopped telling the truth, not only did he not want any sex, the mares in the castle already did.

"Alright, but I could EASILY get a gay stallion into bed, it'd be like..." he trailed off, trying to find the simplest words.

He found them, "Hey, do ya wanna?" a nod towards the bedroom door, "Yeah, okay," he stopped to laugh.

"Mm-hm." the blue maned stallion's face was on fire, but the burnt-brunette didn't notice at all.

"HA, *sigh* I wish I was gay, but I'm not. In fact, actually, I don't know if I am gay, c-ca-cause I can't really say that I'm not gay, because... I've never tried penis, so therefore I can't really say that I don't like it. Y'know it's like when I was younger and I said I didn't like vegetables, I'd never tried vegetables, but now that I'm twenty six and I've tried vegetables, turns out I quite like them, maybe it's the same with cock," he stopped, having to suppress the urge to start doing his fake Scottish accent, he had gotten this whole speech from Daniel Sloss, and his voice was actually really similar to the comedian's.

"Mm-hm." it didn't seem possible for one pony to be blushing as much as the soldier was at that moment, but it was possible, and he was proving it so.

"I mean, statistically I am gay. I mean, I've only ever played with one penis, mine, but I fuckin' loved it, oh damn I haven't stopped playing with it since. I've liked one hundred percent of penises I've ever played with, where as I've only half liked any of the vaginas I've ever been in," he paused to breathe, he was laughing in between his words, and ignoring the fact that he'd only ever been in one vagina in his whole life.

"I guess, I'm not ignorant enough to use the word 'gay' like everyone else in my generation, which is whenever something is really rubbish, or even just boring, they'll say 'Oh that's gay, that's gay, that's gay', it's wrong, and I'll be the first to admit that. It's not homophobic by the way, it's just ignorance. In order to be homophobic, you have to actually hate gay people, which if you've met one, is quite difficult." the human remembered meeting several full-time homosexuals in France, both men and women, and found it hard to have negative feelings towards any of them.

"I don't know how homophobics do it, it's like, 'I hate you', 'Hiya', 'No..... I hate you', 'What? Why?', 'I don't know, you seem really sassy, I just don't get it," the jade-eyed man laughed at his impersonation of the odd conversation.

"Ah hah, yeah," Shining was very strongly wishing that Jackson would leave the room for another... say... twenty minutes.

"*laughing sigh* Yeah, y'know, actually, I wonder, do ya wanna?" he nodded towards the lumpy sheets.

"I... what... no, just, no," the white pony declined, shaking his head for emphasis.

"Alright, well, if that's the case, I'll be on my way then, got some target practice and training to do," the tall man stood up from his chair and stretched his body out, running his hands down his chest and torso like he always did, he made it a goal to be comfortable in his own skin and love his body every day of his life.

The now-humming roomie walked out the door, closing it behind him.

Cadence popped up from under the covers, "Oh thank auntie he left, I wasn't sure how much longer I could have stayed trapped under there," the pink alicorn said as she shifted to be on top of her lover, "Now, where were we?" she idly asked as she began rubbing her lithe, soft body over Shining's strong, hard muscles.

"He'll be gone for hours, so I'd say we were at the part where you and I had finished our appetizers and were about to get to the main course," Shining dropped his worries as his fillyfriend trailed lower and lower.

Lower

Loooowwwweeeeeeeerrrrrrrr

Almost there.

ALMOST THERE!

"Hey I almost forgot my shield, and you two were about to make some sweet lovin', I'll be out then," Jackson grabbed his shield from its hanging pin on the wall and walked out, locking the door before he shut it.

*CLICK* went the mechanism, and the white and pink pair were alone again.

Blushing furiously, they decided to put off their loving session for a little while.

~Some time later~

Another forty-five went into the steel plate, leaving a decent dent and a splatter of copper and lead, "This thing is so unrealistic, but I guess video games need balancing features," the man theorized, firing another four or five rounds before switching to the FNs.

Several small holes went through the steel, making an outline of a guard standing somewhere off far behind it.

"Alright, next set," he said as he switched to his sword and shield, expertly slashing away at several dummies of various levels of difficulty, 'Difficulty Levels' meaning 'starting at cloth and straw, and hardening all the way up to tin and wood'

As the training dummies fell as quickly as they were replaced, Jackson let out a yell, "HOO-AH! YEAH!"

The other guards, inspired by their fellow's work, put more effort into their training, as if they hadn't been working hard before.

In just a few short months, the guards at the castle had tightened up into an elite fighting force. So much change had occured that the military administrators had actually upped everything in difficulty, keeping up with the standard since by this point, even the lowly privates knew half a dozen ways to neutralize a pony.

An MP officer approached the lone human in the training field, clearing his throat rather loudly to get the tall warrior's attention.

"Lieutenant McCard, a filing from Captain Armor tells us that you have been selected to be relocated to Ponyville for the duration of your stay in Equestria, no arguments can change this decision," the officer debriefed.

"Nigga when was I in 'dis military?" Jackson snapped at the MP, putting away his machete and Force Edge.

"You're not, but your position in relativity to Captain Armor would dictate that your title, were you actually part of the Guard, would be the rank of Lieutenant, now then, come with me, you will be moved to Ponyville immediately, do you have everything packed?" the gruff stallion asked.

"Um... hold on, let me check, ring, necklace, coat, hoodie, shirt, pants, boxers, socks and shoes, watch, shield, and machete, yeah I'm all packed up," the svelte man answered.

"Don't you have anything else in your shared quarters with the Captain?" the MP queried, unsure of Jackson's answer.

"Nope, everything to my name is on my body right now, I noticed that my clothes never get dirty unless actually stained or something, my body doesn't need cleaning unless I get something foreign on it, like mud or food, neither of which have met my skin in the one hundred days that I've been here, so I'm good, wait," Jackson paused to sniff his armpit, smelling nothing but a bit of salt from his training, "Yep, I'm good," he reassured.

The MP led the man away, off to the airfield to get shipped off to Ponyville.

~Some time later.

He found a guitar inside the chariot.

*dah-nah-nah-NAH~*

You got: The Soul Stringer

this guitar is a red fender Stratocaster, elegant and capable of playing a wide assortment of tunes, not much use other than being the bard you always wanted to be.

The man of many talents found it easy to play a tune with the guitar, and decided to entertain the guards with a tune.

It was a nice trip, the countryside going by as he strummed and sang, his voice had seemed to have lost any sense of defaulting, like simply wanting to sound different made him do just that.

Ponyville came into view soon enough, he had been told that it was a five mile fly, which going at their current speed of twenty-five-MPH, it would take twelve minutes to reach this 'Ponyville' place from the castle.

With plenty of time to spare, he decided to change the setting on the guitar and just show off.

By the time he finished the song, the chariot was about to touch down.

Dismissing the instrument into his hammerspace, he side-vaulted the side of the chariot and saluted the guards, who gave their own salutes and began to fly off.

Like a theatrical miracle of cinematography, when the chariot cleared the rooftops, he heard a voice calling out to him.

"You must be the human the princess wrote to me about, Jackson McCard was it?" Twilight Sparkle greeted, her eyes going wide at the sight of the fascinating creature.

"Yes, you must be the student that Celly raves on about, always telling me how clever you are, how faithful and friendly you are, how smart and scholarly you are, that you're the best mind and best mage in whole of both her school for Gifted Unicorns and the Wizard's College, she's placed you upon quite a magnificent pedestal, I must say," Jackson recalled the many things he had heard of the lavender mare.

"Oh my, I didn't know that she thought so highly of me," Twilight blushed at the tremendous praise.

"Oh you're practically all she talks to me, I have to ask Luna about anything else, and of course she doesn't know because she's been gone for a millennium, so I'm pretty much lost anywhere but Canterlot Castle," he said, checking his body again, looking at his necklaces.

He had found another necklace called the Castle Crasher laying on the dining table one evening, and he still didn't really know how to control it, simply willing fire, lightning, poison, or ice to appear or do something didn't work.

The charm on the leather string was a four piece circle, red in top left, green in bottom left, blue in top right, yellow bottom right, outlined with a thick ring of silver, a black line running between the right and left halves.

"Yeah, and I got sent here, so I guess you'll be my tour guide or something?" he guessed, dropping the charm and running a hand through his hair.

"Correct, please follow me, Mister McCard," Twilight directed, turning to lead the way through Ponyville.

"Just call me Jackson for now, that's what Cap called me," the tall man insisted, following the lavender mare through the streets, garnering many looks from all of the ponies they passed by, some were fearful, others curious, one looked crazy.

"Cap? Who's Cap? I don't remember there being anypony at the castle named Cap," Twilight hummed in thought.

"Oh sorry, I meant Captain, Captain Armor," he saw Twilight's face light up at the name, "What gives, you know the cracka or somethin'?"

"Know him? He's my BBBFF," Twilight smiled as she reminisced the good times she had spent with the older unicorn.

"Wat?" was all that the burnt-brunette could manage at hearing such an odd acronym.

"Oh sorry, he's my Big Brother Best Friend Forever," Twilight clarified, "Okay, tour, so here's Sugarcube Corner, best place for sweets that you'll find here in Ponyville, my friend Pinkie Pie lives here," she said as she approached the kitchen door.

"Twalight!" Apple Bloom called out to the older pony from inside the kitchen.

"Human!" Lyra called out as she tackled Jackson to the ground.

Or, well.... she would have tackled him to the ground, but since he was so damn tall, he ended up with his head slamming into the bakery's gingerbread-looking wall.

Jackson was knocked out cold in an instant.