The learning curve

by Onyx1998

Rating: teen
Tags: Adventure, Human, Dark, Romance
Length: 37614

It only takes so much to crack the mind, shatter it with epic proportions. And when those cracks are filled by darkness itself, a tormented soul enters a new battle. A battle for the shadows, or the light.

Once a person is teetering on the verge of darkness, walking away from the light. It only takes one last push to topple over the edge. And when a tormented young adult finally cracks with the help of darkness itself, he is pulled into a new world to learn what side he is really on.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2014-06-11 19:27:18 UTC

Shattered Division (Revised chapter)

Two years later: August 24th, 2014

Gah, come on you little shit...

Ben inwardly screamed as the rifles sights didn't really align properly for the fourth time while trying to ignore the rounds of gunfire at the shooting blocks. He had been fiddling with the sights for at least 10 minutes, and it was taking up his shooting time. Everybody else had either got used to shooting a reasonably set up un-zeroed rifle or had the good luck to get an already well set up one. He however got a rifle that had obviously been last used by some sort of retard, and because of this he had to re-align the iron sights and was missing valuable time that he could be using to hit targets. So now he was here, trying to get the handle-sights  straightened out. He finished altering them in minute proportions and locked them in place. Picking himself up and heading towards a free block, he took up the sights for the fifth time. The ring on the handle-sights was lined up well enough with the trident recticle at the front of the weapon to fire accurately. This made him sigh in relief as he could now finally get a good shot on a target.

Focusing on the target, he realized why no-one was at this block. The circular target that had a multicoloured bulls-eye layout was sitting at a stupid 150 metres from the firing point. A distance that he had not yet even thought about firing at, he was only a Lance Corporal with two stars for gods-sake. Its not as is he had ever fired live rounds at this range before, no matter with a weapon that had sights aligned by him personally. He didn't even know if the sights were that well zeroed, all he knew was that they were better than before and before they were pretty wonky. So at least he could probably work with them this time.

He took another look at the target and sighed. Lowering the barrel, he looked back at his sergeant for clearance to fire and got a clear nod in return. So taking up his rifle again he leaned into the butt of the weapon a little and flicked the safety off. Lining the trident out in-front of him and steadying his hands. He never had the steadiest of grips and that was proving to be a liability now. His shaking hands were far from the tools of an artist or a surgeon, but that was just something he'd have to deal with. The world blurred around him and his eyes locked their focus on the target way ahead of him as he waited a bit to calm himself.

Letting his breath out slowly, he prepared for the recoil and squeezed the trigger. The rifle kicked into his shoulder and a lone .22 tore through the air, colliding with the outermost ring of the target and letting out an echoing metallic ping. After the sound was silenced, a collective 'ooh' was heard from the other cadets waiting with Sergeant Render and the Detachment staff. Ben flipped the safety back on and turned, bowing to his audience with a grin on his face. A small round of applause was given and somebody shouted in the background.

"Arsehole!" Shouted Watts from the center rank, earning a laugh from his friends. He turned back to them and muttered something in-audible. The sergeant turned to his parade and stamped in.

"Corporal Beal, fall in." His reply was swift. Leaning the weapon against the wall, he walked in and took appropriate position in the forward rank. Render nodded to him and stiffened up in preparation for addressing the cadets.

"PARADE, PARADE-SHUN!" Everyone stamped in and looked smart. Chinning up, staring forward and leaving their arms dangling nice and straight by their sides.

"Corporal Watts, take a lap round' the field." Render lined his shit-eating grin up with the thinnest member of the detachment and gestured him towards the gate that headed out into the field, beside the barracks.

" *Sigh* Sergeant." He replied and jogged off to the gate. When he went through and started running, the sergeant returned his attention to the 11 cadets that still stood in rank before him.

"Alright guys, FTX is over along with the day. Because this isn't our shooting range to pay for, we've gotta' leave it like we found it. Forward rank is going to perform a litter sweep, center rank is going to collect all the rifles and return them to the staff, and rear rank is-umm... rear rank is gonna' stay in line because i haven't got shit for them to do, got it?"

"Sergeant." The group droned in dis-harmony and continued their statue-like gaze. The sergeant nodded before turning to the staff to talk about something. Ben didn't know what however because something had already caught his eye. Something shiny was half buried underneath the dirt that covered the ground at the shooting range. He could see that the way it disturbed the ground around meant that it was probably a five pronged star-like shape. From what he could see of it, it appeared to be a pearl azure-black with a blue shine and stars white dots covering its surface. In his averted stare, he hadn't noticed Render end his conversation and return to the parade. So the sudden and gruff voice he made caught him of guard.

"Righty-ho!..." Ben jumped and caught his attention. "A bit jumpy today, are we?" Ben just chuckled and remained silent from then onward. " Okay cadets, now that's over we can all start. TO YOUR DUTIES, FALL OUT!"

After he was done stamping out, he joined the rest of the corporals in the front rank with the sweep. He positioned himself in the sweep so that he would be the one to come closest to the strange star he had located in the dirt. And once they were all lined up, they started.

The thing about litter sweeps is that you always go at the 'slowest man's pace'. Which meant that they usually covered 10 metres in about 30 seconds. This got to him, because there was practically nothing in-between him and the 'star' he was aiming to pick up, he had to just look down and gently sway his legs at a snails pace so that he didn't get ahead of the others.

As he came close to the object, he was surprised to find that the whitish dots twinkled like stars in the night. The object seemed to reflect a night-sky that wasn't there, kind of like the stars were contained underneath its surface. The world blurred around him once more, as he picked it up and noticed that it felt strangely ice cold, sending a shiver through his body. It was not a shiver from it's temperature, but more of a foreign shudder that tingled through his spine and into into his brain. like somebody had just reached into him, grabbed hold of his thoughts and crawled into his sub-conscious. He could feel the presence of something else inside his head, swirling around his brain, like the disturbing echo of a second mind planting its own foundations to root itself down.

It was a strange sensation, like his very being was becoming heavier with every second he held onto the rune that had just begun to sink into his hand. It dematerialised and its dust-like splinters blew away on an invisible wind, spiraling upwards into the evening sky. Then the icy feeling melted away into his thoughts and disappeared in the darkest shadows of his psyche.

His head came back to reality and he noticed that he had just been staring at his palm ever since he lost himself. He jerked his head up to the worried faces of the cadets that stared back at him. They traded blank expressions for a moment before he smiled at them and his arm darted down by his side.

"Umm, are you okay?" One of them asked him as he started walked over to join them.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Totally fine." His voice was un-usually shaky, breaking once or twice throughout the statement. Then the gate re-opened and a completely shattered Corporal Watts jogged in, shoulders sagging with his lack of energy. He came to a stop and noticed the group staring at Ben.

"Wha-what did- I miss?"

Ben waited in his chair for the sergeant to return to his office. After he had been seen staring at his hand for a while, everybody reported it to Render. After that, he had been requested to report to his office before he went back to his dorm'. Render had told him to wait in his seat until he returned because of something he had to take up with the rest of the cadets.

The door opened with a squeak and the sergeant re-entered. He sat himself down behind his desk and leaned forward to talk with him, obviously worried by something.

"Now then. I know about what happened to your father last week and from what the others have told me, you've been acting a little 'weirdly' since then. Now if there is something bothering you then don't be afraid to tell me because-"

"I'm fine." He interrupted Render's sentence, trying to end the conversation as quickly as possible so that he could get back to polishing his boots at the dorm'.

"Your not fine." Render re-introduced his point. "You can't be fine, a family member doesn't get hit by a truck, and their son is completely fine with it."

Ben gave him a frown and looked down at his feet under the desk. Render recoiled and sighed.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up."

"Don't be sorry. He probably deserved it anyways." His thoughts trailed back to his father getting so pissed that he would become abusive to his mum and anyone else who intervened. His dad would do this on a regular basis, sometimes every week. He'd lost count of how many times his mum had gotten injured from his dads blows.

They were both silent as they thought about their next moves, but Ben was the first to speak.

"Sergeant, i'm fine with dealing with it as it comes. I don't need any help at the moment, but if i want it, i'll ask"

Render nodded slowly and scratched his balding head. Ben stood up, pushing his chair out from underneath him.

"Permission to be excused." He droned, his deep voice filling the air.

"Granted." Render replied bluntly, allowing Ben to open the door and walk out. Once he had gone, he let his head fall into his hands. What was he going to do with this one?

With every footfall a flashback of the past flashed through his mind. Each time a buried memory floated back to the surface he began to question his very sanity even more. He had changed so much recently, he wasn't even sure that he was the same person he knew so well anymore.

He used to be deeper, a passionate amateur astronomer, a dedicated student and a protector of his friends. He used to perform his Martial arts with understanding and self-peace, but now it was a catalyst for him to take out his anger. He used to be laid back, he used to be calm. But now he was stubborn and trusted not even those he called his friends.

He remembered a quote from a song he liked; 'Steal a soul for a second chance, but you will never become a man.' To him this represented his situation now: His most twisted desires wanted to end the life of the 'man' he called his father. But he would never be able to let go of the pure hatred he held for him. Unable to forgive not only the man that ruined his life, but himself too for letting him. He hated him, he hated himself, he hated everything.

A feeling of cold slithered through his bones as the words seeped into his mind.

"End them..." It whispered into him, making a cracking echo throughout his body like a falling stone in the darkest caverns.

"End them all..." Its voice soothing his inner-pain, ice forming in his soul as it spoke. "Let go of your innocence. Take hold of your desires, make your dreams your reality..."

His mind fought this battle itself. One half of him wanted to obey these orders and let his anger and sorrow fill every cell of his brain. Another half of him pushed away the ice cold demon within, trying to reject the ideas of the newcomer. But those thoughts were being dragged down into the depths of the void, dissipating into nothingness.

"Let go..." It came again, cradling his tortured mind with its encouragement.

He could feel himself drifting towards the demon's arms, the thought of just forgetting about his humanity and becoming the very embodiment of the shadows lurking in the corners of his mind, to defy morals and rules. To become a monster. His blood flowed through him like the waters of the Arctic, freezing the plasma that filled his veins. It ran thick around his body as he stopped walking and closed his eyes, taking in the new feeling that filled his body as the voice make one last entrance.

"Embrace the night..."

...

"Erm, Ben? You ok?" A voice rang out in the silence, waking him up from his long slumber. It was a new voice to him, sounding concerned and touched with a hint of fright. He took a deep breath of the country air and pulled his face into a wide, toothy grin before formulating his reply.

"Yes subject, we are ok."

This strange thing...

POV FlutterShy

What is this thing?

This was not something Fluttershy thought regularly with animals. So far she had established that it was a Male, bipedal mammal. But... This strange thing is... strange. And as she examined it further, she'd found more things that far beyond her knowledge of animals. For instance, it had digits. Five on each of its... What are they? Paws? No, not paws. To large and flat to be paws. The fact it was wearing sock like clothes over them didn't help very much. Fluttershy attempted to remove the clothes attached to 'the things on the end of its arms'. But to no avail. Hooves just where not gonna cut it for removing his clothes. She decided to take a good look at the beings head as it was the only part of it not covered. Removing its hat that looked similar to AppleJacks, except this was less curvy, slightly more flimsy, and its brim was not as wide as AppleJacks. Not to mention the camouflage that was on it. It had a very short but tugged looking dark blonde mane on the top and back of its head. The colour was almost brown, but not quite. Running her hoof through it, she found its mane was surprisingly soft. And the hairs were incredibly fine. Touching its forehead, she noticed the temperature in its skull felt a bit hotter than it should be. But not enough to cause a fever. She gently pulled up its eyelids to reveal a pair of metallic blue irises surrounding deep black pupils. It's eyes where a little bloodshot but nothing to worry to much about, although it would be something to note, just in case. Running her hooves down its cheeks, she could feel every bone in its face. Nothing felt broken.

Thats good to know...[i/]

She noticed that she had attracted a reasonably sized crowd of woodland animals. Looking about she noticed it was every animal she had left in her cottage. They must have followed her out after they finished their food, and found her tending to... Whatever this was.

"Nutty, have you or any of your friends ever seen one of these before?"

She asked the brown squirrel before it conferred with its friend and gave a decisive 'no'.

"Hmm. I do wonder..."

She pulled back the creatures rosy lips, and what she saw brought an expression of worry and a hint of fear in her head. She took a step back and gasped. She took a second look at those small but so important objects in its mouth. She counted four Canine teeth in its gums.

A carnivore? Then what are these molars and incisors for? Maybe its Omnivorous, yes probably Omnivorous. [i/]

That soothed her a little. Knowing that there was less chance of him eating her if it awoke hungry if it was Omnivorous rather than Carnivorous. Breathing a sigh of relief, she tried to focus herself.

Ok, ignore it face for now.

She put her hoof on its chest to feel its Ribcage.

'Bu-dum, bu-dum. Bu-dum, bu-dum.'

It's heart beat in consecutive pairs of thumps, similar to a Ponies heart. She felt a flat piece of bone going from its collar to the bottom of its Ribcage, and each Rib curved outward around its heaving Lungs and connected to a vertebrae on its spine, again similar to a Pony.

Similar to pretty much every vertebrate aswell.

She stepped back from the creature and the tree it was propped up against. She thought hard about how it could have got here. And the blood on it. Blood but no wounds? Maybe it got into a fight and won? No, the woodland creatures would have informed here of such a powerful violent creature if it did. Where did it come from?

What are you?

Initial introductions

POV Lance.Corperal Ben Beal

Ben felt like shit. Ben felt worse than shit. He felt like he just got shot by ten guys with rifles.

Oh wait.

It was like one of those mornings when you had been absolutely knackered the day before, and you wake up the next morning feeling like you had been run over...twice...like, with a truck. He was so damn tired that he couldn't even be arsed to open his eyes yet. He remembered being shot by a bunch of guys after his 'adventure'.

Wait, am I dead?

He didn't feel dead by any standards. His whole body was still in one piece. At least, he thought he was. He felt whole. He tried to move his limbs and succeeded triumphantly. He instantly regretted it however as the feeling of ache spread through his body. Ben groaned and lifted his hands to his face.

If I'm not dead, then considering my situation before being gunned down, I soon will be.

He had been shot by about ten guys so he really was surprised that he was still alive at this point. His legs did take most of the bullets, so that probably helped. But he took like, 15 bullets. So how are his legs still movable and not just little shreds of flesh. Why did he get shot in the legs anyway? Out of all the places to shoot, they chose his legs. Right... Maybe they were trying to use non lethal force, but fired so many bullets that it killed him.

But then how am I still alive? Jesus.H.Christ. Maybe I really am dead and I'm in heaven! Or hell... Probably hell. I mean, when have i ever given the best of myself to anyone. But then again, has anyone ever deserved the best of me? No, they haven't.

"Urgh..."

Ben let his arms fall to his sides and slowly opened his eyes to take a look at where he was. The first thing he saw was a thatched roof.

At least its not a military jail.

Turning his head to the side he realised he was lying in a sofa in someone's living room. Confused, he sat up and looked around. The room was filled with bright but natural colours like yellow and green. A carpet was laid out across the floor at the foot of the sofa, and the place smelt a little bit like animals. On the subject of animals, there were what appeared to be pet food bowls scattered evenly about the place and there was a small white rabbit lying down in the corner. About as far away as it could possibly be without being out of sight. Ben took the time to note that he was still wearing all of his stuff except for his rifle. He was still wearing his MTP uniform and newly 'acquired' armour. Ben smiled. Oh yes, his little adventure. His new m9 was holstered at his right hip and his bayonet was sheathed at his left. All the heavy as fuck ammo was still attached to him, but where the hell was his l85 ? Looking to his right, he saw a small table with the rifle lying on it. Picking it up and inspecting it for damage, he could not fid any. Whoever took it of him had moved it carefully.

Where am I?

Ben hauled himself to his feet. He was NOT in the mood for getting up and walking around first thing in the morning but hey-ho. Can't be a lazy fatass in the cadets ! Exploring the room he was in, he found he was in a cottage. Not too unlike the really old thatched houses he had seen on a school trip once, but nicer. There were pretty looking flowers and plants every now any again, scattered about the room and they seemed to compliment its natural look.

"Hmm, nice place..."

Ben took a walk around. The air seemed unbelievably fresh and crisp. Like the the early Spring times. Heading over to the door, he tried on th-

Who the fuck makes a handle like that?

The top of the door handle was basically just a large indentation, like the user had to push down on the door handle, rather than twist it down. It was locked, anyways. It was at this point something shiny caught his eye. A silver photo frame stood on a small table at the side of the room. It was faxing away from him so he couldn't see it. Naturally, he went and picked it up. He then turned it round to see the photo.

"Bwa-hahahahaha! Awwww, how cute."

Ok, now this is getting interesting.

"Oh boy, this is bloody menta-oh, shit..."

In his laugh attack, Ben had almost dropped the very delicate frame. It would have broken if not for his pro skills.

"Hahahaa! This gets better by the minute!"

He lay the frame down on the table, but before he could turn to look out of a window. He froze solid as female voices came within audible range. Accompanied by the sound of...'trotting'? Ben looked back at the portrait photo in the frame and then back at the door.

Ok, I'm officially fucking insane...

"Are you sure this 'creature' isn't dangerous, Fluttershy? I mean, from the description it sound a little bit... Dodgy. And those strange contraptions you told me about make it seem a bit strange to me."

What the hell kind of a name is Fluttershy?

"We'll, um. I don't know. I decided to ask for your help because of you're skills in magic. And because you're a princess, maybe he'll listen to you if not to me."

Magic? Princess? Huh.

As the sound of a key unlocking the door was heard, Ben drew his bayonet. The hadle of the door turned and Ben prepared himself for some weird shit to happen.

...

One of the ponies stopped mid stride in the doorway. It must have noticed his absence from the sofa where she had left him.

" Umm, Twilight, I think it woke up. It's not on the sofa anymore. Can erm, can you go first? Please? "

Well I think I know why that one is called Flutter'shy'.

" Of course Fluttershy. "

As the cream yellow foreleg stepped back, a deep purple one stepped forward. It walked carefully through the door and into the room before turning to its right to look around the room. It didn't have to look for long, it found him standing alone in the middle of the room. His stare met hers and there was a long awkward

moment between them.

"Um... Hello?"

Ben could sense the nervousness in her voice.

"Hi."

His simple response seemed to calm the pony's anxiety. At this point the cream pony walked in. It's yellow coat harmonised perfectly with the surroundings while the long pink mane drooped well past the bottom jaw and hung rather nicely with a little curve at the end. It seemed timid and shy, connecting with the name. The purple pony's mane was a dark violet, almost blue. With a purple and pink stripe running down on a third of its width. It didn't hang but rather sat instead like a smart schoolgirl. Then he noticed the even stranger parts. The purple pony he now saw was a unicorn-pegasus, while the yellow one was a just a Pegasus. They both had tattoos on their hips. The purple 'pega-corn' had a bunch of small pink stars around a larger white one. Whil the Pegasus had the blue and also pink butterflies.

Whats with all the pink? This is gonna kill my eyes.

" Ok let's start with the obvious. Who are you? And where am I?"

His questions made the pega-corn smile for a brief second.

"I am princess Twilight Sparkle. My friend here is Fluttershy. And you are in the land of Equestria. Welcome."

Ha! Ponies living in a place called Equestria. This takes bad puns to whole new level.

"Now, stranger. Who might you be?"

"I am Ben Beal. Rank: Lance Corporal, British Army cadets. But you can just call me Ben. Pleased to meet you. "

"Interesting. Tell me, 'Ben'. What are you doing here?"

"To be honest, I know about as much as you do. Your guess is as good as mine. Although the last thing I remember before waking up here, is being killed."

Fluttershy seemed to look sad at this comment.

"H-h-how did you die? If you don't mind me asking."

"I was shot to death by soldiers. Fifteen times I think, somewhere around that mark."

"Why would they do that?"

Ben didn't think he would go into details about his personal adventure back home. It wouldn't be wise to cause panic at this point.

"I don't think they meant to kill me. I took pretty much every shot in my legs. They must have tried to take me down non lethally, but shot me so many times that I died by mistake."

"Makes sense. But that still doesn't answer my question."

"Listen, 'Princess'. I don't want to go into detail about what I was doing before I died. I don't think now is the time, nor' the place. I'll tell you later when I'm feeling a bit more socialised."

"Hmm, fair enough. Tell me, what are the metallic objects you have with you?"

"This is a knife..."

He said, raising the blade to show them.

"... Sharp, short bladed object. No need to explain what this does. This, slung around my torso, is an Assualt Rifle. It fires small metal projectiles at high velocity. This model is called the l85a2. It fires at around 775 rounds per minute and is accurate up to 600m. This weapon at my right hip is a pistol. It's semi automatic which means it fires as fast as you can pull the trigger. It fires a slightly wider but shorter round than the l85, and at slower velocity. This means it is less accurate and less powerful. It is usually used as a back-up weapon, or as a self defence weapon. This model is called the m9. These green balls with the levers on them are called grenades. The grenade is held so that the lever is held down in the hand, or by the fingers. The pin at the top is removed which primes a fuse. And when the grenade is thrown, the lever is released which starts burning the fuse. And after approximately 3-5 seconds the grenade explodes. Anyone or anything nearby gets filled full of small burning bits of metal from the grenades shell."

The two ponies sat and stared. Mouths agape and eyes locked forward on him. He sheathed the bayonet and pushed the rifle around his back. He realised that these ponies must be much less technologically advanced, and much more peaceful than humans. They were probably scared shitless by all these weapons.

Well...shit. Change the subject.

"Let's change subject, shall we?"

The princess nodded slowly.

"Are you the soul leader of Equestria?"

"No. The rulers of Equestria are the sisters; princesses Celestia, and Luna. I am just sort of an important figure rather then a ruler. My Brother is married to princess Cadence, who rule over the Crystal Empire together."

" I guess the Crystal Empire is not nearby?"

"Definitely not."

"What do you do around here then?"

"I basically make sure all the minor royal events go to plan and stuff. That sorta thing."

"What about you Fluttershy? You haven't said anything yet."

Fluttershy was cowering behind the side of the sofa. She was acting like she want there at all. But she was making herself incredibly obvious in the process. Ben smiled and switched to his gentle voice.

"Fluttershy, come on. I have no plans on hurting anyone. I'd actually be glad to get all this stuff off. It's incredibly uncomfortable, wearing this for long periods of time."

"D-do you promise not to hurt me?"

"I promise. You trust me?"

Ben unslung his rifle and laid it up against the table. He also removed his blade and m9 before putting them out of reach. Fluttershy peeked out and crawled slowly toward him. He felt a little sorry for her. An armed, unknown creature in her house. He'd be scared too if some random guy popped up with weapons in his house.

"I take care of woodland animals around Ponyville."

"That's nice of you. Am I in Ponyville now?"

"This is my cottage, just outside of Ponyville."

"It's very nice here. So you make sure that animals who need it are fed and healthy?"

"Yes. I found you against a tree down the road. I had to get some friends to help get you here."

"Thanks for making sure I was safe Fluttershy. You know, I haven't talked to anyone this nicely for a long time. You're on my good side, you two. Can I meet your friends ?"

"Maybe. Most are probably busy but we may be able to catch a few."

When can we set off?"

The princess decided to take over Fluttershys role.

"Now, If you like. But I'm not having you bringing all that weaponry with you. I won't allow it."

"Sure thing. Should I just leave them here? Do you mind Fluttershy ?"

"Oh no, not at all. Just make sure my little Angel can't hurt himself on them, um... Please."

Fluttershy gestured over to the rabbit licking its paws in the corner.

Ben began to pull out the magazines of each gun and eject the chambered bullets.

"What are you doing?"

Twilight said cautiously.

"Unloading the rifle and the pistol. I'm leaving the knife sheathed so the rabbit can't cut himself on it."

When he had finished tidily laying everything out and covering the pins on his grenades, he stood back up.

"You not taking that off?"

"I'd rather keep my armour on. Never know what might happen."

"Fair enough. Lets go!"

They all walked out of the door and Fluttershy locked the door behind them.

And this begins the most interesting day of my life...

Pinkie Pie

POV Lance.Corporal Ben Beal

Ponyville seemed like a decent place. Every corner was a portal to a new environment. Ben loved this about new places. The excitement of discovering someplace new was a commodity that was rarely received by him. There were fruit stalls and shops on every street. Everything was brightly coloured however, which Ben was still getting used to. His problem with it specifically was that everywhere he looked, there was pink. What was this places obsession with pink? Even If it was just the slightest line or blob of it, it pained his optical nerves to look at it. Even some of the ponies were pink, and they moved. Which hurt him even more. Eventually, after following Twilight and Fluttershy for what seemed like an eternity, they arrived at their friends home.

"We'll here we are, Ben. Sugar Cube Corner. Pinke Pie's home and work place."

Pinkie Pie? I swear to god this place is actively trying to blind me...

Walking inside he noticed a solid blue mare. About a foot taller than the two mares he already knew, she stood at around 4foot 7inches at a good estimate. She frowned at me from over the counter.

"Hello you two, who is this you have brought into the shop?"

"This is Ben. He's... Not from around here. We're taking him to see our friends and we've decided to introduce him to Pinkie first."

Ben smiled at the blue mare and nodded.

"I'm still getting used to everything here. Nice town though."

"Oh trust me, you'll settle down quite quickly here. It's a brilliant place to get associated with new ponies."

"Thank you miss..."

"Mrs. Mrs Cake."

"Uh-huh. It's a pleasure to meet you."

Ben liked this new place. Peop-ponies were kind and everyone welcomed him in with open...Forelegs. All of a sudden, everything turned pink. And he was knocked to the floor, almost smashing his skull on the wall behind him.

"Hi I heard you're called Ben, I love meeting new ponies, even if they're not ponies, it doesn't make a difference, I give every new comer a warm welcome, and a party too, oh I forgot, I'm so sorry, I always forget to introduce myself, I'm so exited, I'm Pinkie Pie, I live here in Sugar Cube Corner, where do you live? I've always wanted to meet an alien!"

"Ok, calm down. It's nice to meet you too."

"This is sooo awesome!"

The pony was a similar size to Twi' and Flutters'. But completely pink.

Argh! Enough with the fucking pink already!

"Can you please get off me so I can stand?"

"Of course, mister!"

The absolutely mental quadruped practically leaved of his upper body and he pulled himself to his feet. She had a curly, puffy mane with an ass mark of three balloons. She quite literally bounced with excitement.

"I'm guessing you're Pinkie Pie?"

"That's me! Pleasure to meet you!"

She took his hand in her hoof and shaked it like there was no tomorrow.  Her eyes were a shiny blue and were filled with a constant joyful look as they stared back intently. She was not overweight, but it was possible to tell she was a little more 'plump' than the other mares.

They spent what seemed like hours eating cupcakes and discussing different cakes mixtures. He kinda liked Pinkie Pie. She was like that guy you know who is so happy and optimistic all the time that they almost refuse to see the cons of something. Exept Pinkie Pie was without the annoying bit. Happy and optimistic but also quite realistic and down to Earth at the same time, wierd combo.

When they had finished the small 'welcome to Equestria' party, we all sat down to talk about each other.

"So then, I know about twilight and Flutters' here. But I don't know much about you. Tell me about yourself."

"I work here, at Sugar Cube Corner. Making cakes and such. I also plan parties..."

I gathered that much.

"...I am also the bearer of one of the elements of harmony!"

"Elements of harmony?"

Twilight groaned in annoyance.

"Celestia, darn it! I forgot to tell you about the elements."

"Go ahead now, I'm all ears."

"The elements of harmony are a set of five aspects of a personality that makes a good friend, and one that represents the product of the others combined. Me and my friends posses these elements. They provide a source of incredible power when combined, so they are safely guarded."

"And I am the element of Laughter!" Pinkie abruptly shouted.

"Pinkie Pie is Laughter, Fluttershy is Kindness, Rainbow Dash is Loyalty, AppleJack is Honesty, Rarity is Generosity and I posses the sixth element of Magic."

Ben thought about this for a few seconds. Friendships could create bonds powerful enough to create magic and six mares keep them locked away for safety purposes. Seems legit.

"That's cool, I guess. Just how powerful are these 'elements?'"

"They are powerful enough to preserve a life form in stone or destroy it entirely."

"Ok that could be dangerous."

"And that is why they are kept under lock and key until their use is completely necessary."

"Good. So I've met you three, I've got three others to get acquainted with."

The mares nodded simultaneously.

"Let's go meet the others!"

A second chance

POV Lance.Corporal Ben Beal

Considering he was the only Human in Equestria right now, the day was going pretty well. He had made powerful allies and a few friends. The walk through ponyville's centre was somewhat of a nightmare. Again facing the unending questioning from the locals;

'What are you?' 'Who are you?', that sort of thing. They had also encountered a curtain Lime pony called Lyra, who seemed to have a somewhat disturbing finger fetish. She spent ten minutes fiddling with his hands and he could swear she almost had an orgasm when he removed his gloves to show her what hands really looked like. The situation was further worsened when twilight started making move my hands and fingers in different ways, with her studying bone and Tendon movement like some sort of over obsessed scholar who just found a new species of life...

Wait, that is what she was doing though.

Put it this way, he was more than happy to get moving out of town faster, and by the time they had reached their destination of Sweet Apple Acres, it was close to sundown. The sun was hanging low in the westerly sky like an amber jewel, casting its golden aura onto the land beautifully. In an hour or two it would be dark. And then he would be by himself with only the stars for company alongside his thoughts. As they reached the crest of a hill, four figures materialised in overpowering light. The silhouettes stood out against the orange toned surroundings that seemed to glimmer in the lowering sun. Three of them where ponies, probably the rest of the elements. While the fourth was lizard-like in stature and only about two foot tall. As they neared, his hunches about the figure were correct. He had gotten good at judging a ponies name by their appearance and natural tattoo which he now knew to be called a 'Cutie Mark'. The small lizard was in fact a baby dragon called Spike. Spike was apparently Twilights assistant, and had been spending the day out with Rarity when they found AppleJack and Rainbow Dash in conversation, and joined in. Everyone had been formally introduced to Ben by this point, and he had developed at rivalry with Rainbow Dash after he said he was a soldier in training. Just like Dash was training to be a Wonderbolt. The wonder bolts were apparently a sort of stunt squadron of Pegusi who were also a 'hoof-picked' selection of some of the best flyers in Equestria. He had also become a source of jokes for AppleJack as he had refused to make an attempt in Apple-tree bucking on the grounds of 'self esteem'. As he explained that Humans were meant to be quick thinkers and dexterous rather than being efficient at intense physical labour. Plus, he managed to get into a conversation about Human and Pony fashion with Rarity. Who seemed to think his hat was 'appalling', and whoever designed it should seriously reconsider their career as clothing designer. He tried to explain that his hat was created simply for comfortability purposes without being to heavy or inconspicuous, but she still thought it looked stupid. He also met Spike who seemed pretty down to earth for his age. He told me about how he served as a link between Celestia and Twilight by sending and recovering letters. Somehow, burning letters in dragon fire sends letters.

What?

He would have to research that one.

It had been a long day, and everyone was going home. Fluttershy had agreed to let me stay with her in her cottage for the night and Twilight said that he would be going to Equestria's capital city of Canterlot to meet Princess Celestia and Pricess Luna. As well as sort me out with a job, working for Twilight as a

personal guard. On the way back to the cottage, Ben and Fluttershy had started a friendly conversation about animals.

"What's your favourite animal?"

"Back on my world, we had a breed of dog called a German Shepard. They are basically just like wolves, except they are a little smaller, have black and brown coats on their sides and top with white fur on their underside and chest. They also don't attempt to eat you on sight, which is nice. We had one as a family pet called Jess. She was such a pretty lass. She died in her sleep two years ago...

Ben started to she'd tears as memories of the old girl came back.

"...I had known her my entire life. At least as long as I can remember. Eleven years and four months old is okay for a German Shepard. I just wish I could have been there for her when she... When she passed away."

"That sounds terrible. I- I'm so sorry."

"It's okay. She had a good life. She went peacefully. That's what any of us could ask for when our lives end."

He began to think of the soldiers he had killed back in the compound. The lives he cut short... He had not thought about this until now.

"I'm such a fucking selfish bastard..."

Ben broke down into hysterical crying. All his life he had been downtrodden and put second rate. His life had been crappy and he had taken it out on other people. They had not deserved to die, he had just killed them because it was what he had to do to survive in his adrenalised state at the time.

Im a psychopath...

Fluttershy calmed and comforted him as he sat down against a tree crying his eyes out. He had not cried in such a long time. He had learned to take what life have to him without thought of what it may mean for others around him. And as result of his selfishness, four human soldiers just doing their job had been killed for no greater purpose.it was all his fault, THIS was all his fault.

But maybe, just maybe, this new land, these new people. Maybe this is my second chance.

Ben managed to find a hole in his sobbing to fill with words.

"Fluttershy?"

"Yes?"

"If you had been bad in a previous life, and you had been given a chance to set things right, would you take it? Or would you just use it to your own selfish ends?"

"I-I don't know how to answer that question. I'm sorry."

"It's okay Fluttershy."

"Come on. We're close to the cottage."

Ben picked himself up and took a deep breath. He composed himself and rubbed his eyes. After five or so minutes, they arrived at the front door. Unlocking it and walking inside, Fluttershy immediately proceeded to check upon Angel, while Ben had his own things to check up on. His stuff was untouched and in the same condition in which he left them.

Sitting on the couch for a while, Ben watched the sun finally dissipate below the horizon and the moon rise up to take its place. Fluttershy came through to wish him goodnight when he stood up with all his equipment attached to him in military fashion.

"I'm going out for a few hours Fluttershy. I'll be back to get some sleep later. I have things on my mind which need thinking about."

Fluttershy smiled and nodded.

"I'll leave the front door key under the mat, outside."

"Thanks Fluttershy."

"Take care Ben, and goodnight."

"Goodnight."

Creature of the night Pt.2

POV Lance.Corporal Ben Beal

The first thing Ben noticed was that the day/night system here was unlike that of Earth. On Earth, the sun arced across the sky with a perfect curve and disappeared below the horizon like it had never been there at all. Then the moon faded into view from behind a blanket of cyan blue to light up the newly blackened sky. Here however, the sun and moon both travelled across the sky. Alternating in perfect timing, taking turns to stroll through the heavens like angels in their elements. The moon was huge. It stared down at him with its craters and 'seas' dotting the surface, highlighting its age and untouched purity. It cast a slight glow over the ground in its transparent natural beauty. Everything looked better at night. During the day, the buildings, trees, the people, they all looked so...industrial. The detail of an objects exterior shown to the world on a colourful banner that spoke lies to its surroundings. A being or object is not defined by how it looks, or how it feels. Nor is it reflection of those who created it. Everything is governed by its meaning, its purpose. Everything meant something to somebody or something else. Nothing was meaningless, everything has its own affect on everything around it. The universe was a product of the Big Bang, yes. But it would not mean anything without its contents. It's what is inside it that counts most. And here, in the cloak of darkness, the shell hiding the true purpose of everything is blocked out. Pushed away by the absence of light. In the darkness, Ben could now see. As he walked he stared constantly at the new set of stars that lined the infinite beyond. He could not locate the old constellation that once watched over his life. Instead he had these new, younger companions to guide him amongst the black shadows and the invisible objects that cast them. Shadows were not present at night, but the shadows covered any and all who dared to stride into the unknown corners of reality. Time slowed here in those shadows. It almost stopped entirely as Ben was left to only his thoughts and the true world. Without all that detail that the day provided, he could see past the blanket of the hollow lies and stare deeply into what there really was around him. Walking up a tall, rocky hillside. Ben thought back the the Ladybug crawling up his rifle. It had not needed to climb the mountain that lay before it, but it had wanted to. And it was that same desire to conquer your challenges that compelled life to go on, day and night. Most people knew it, but didn't realise it. Living was ironically like the only thing that kept a person alive. It was like breathing. When you live, the suck inward, all those lies and deceitful shells of the world around you, and you decipher them into something you can understand. Necessity. Daily need keeps a person alive. Eating, drinking, respiring and all that nonsense. But when you breathe out, you throw away all those lies into the surrounding area, only to take in a new set of codes of in-comprehension again for questioning. To once again devise a set of needs to keep you alive. But what is it really? You don't have to breathe. It keeps you alive but you could say it only prolongs our deaths. We all die someday, does it matter when or how? We are so isolated in our thoughts that no other being can sense our happiness, our sadness, our pain. We just sit here on our own little slice of atomic cake and 'live'. Our lives only sum up to mean what is made of them in the past. The present is constant. The present is harsh and kind. It too, just like us, is only a biproduct of reality and what has been. So what of now? Why is he hiking up this mountain side? Why is he staring into the starry night for what seems like an eternity? Why do the shadows slow down time? The best answer he could think of was that he was not meant to know. The future can not be predicted any more than life can be explained. We live for 'now', and die for later. That is what we do, every hour of every day. Our consciousness tries to make what it can out of the bread crumbs of the universes truths, and turns them into something that is really worth living for. The human will to live only exists because of the reason it works for. Every though of the conscious mind, every bash, bruise, cut, kiss, smile, frown and breath is only performed because of one reason.

Because we are alive.

This is what it is all for. Life. Life is so utterly complex that it can destroy itself in its own delicacy, or blossom in its success. It is so powerful that it can turn the lies of the light into dark truths.

So as Ben turned around to look at the rocks he had just scaled. He smiled. He was alive, and he was loving it. The night had been the catalyst for his comfort for so long. Every evening is the turning of a new age for Ben. Ben walked over the dry ground to a ledge, reaching out towards the fields, over 50 feet below. The moon had shifted significantly along its line of travel. Judging by how far it had moved in comparison to the horizon it had left, and the one it was bound for. Ben guessed that he had spent about an hour and a half scaling this cliff side. It must be 11O-clock by now. Ben sat down with his legs dangling over the edge of his perch as he stared out over the town that he now called his home, and the country side that hosted it. The moon was bright enough on this world to be able to make out the edges of objects on the rolling hills that spread out in front of him. Stretching into the distance like a beautiful grey, and black solid ocean. And on the mountain a few miles before him was the royal palace. It's dotted yellow lights made it a landmark for any travellers, making their way across this land. He sat and observed for a short while. Taking in the scenery of his new home and complimenting its natural beauty. He then laid back in the short grass to stare at the stars some more. See if he could spot some new star patterns to study in any further nights. Only to find a tall, navy blue mare with black fancy shoes and an icon of the crescent moon jewelled into an black necklace. Her mane waved in the breeze, comprised of a dark purple and a nightly blue with stars contained within its grasp. Almost like it was its own universe.

He stared for a few seconds. Her eyes were deep. Not like the surface concentrated orbs that the other ponies had, no. These were more like corridors into another place. A place of emotion and thought. He couldn't help but compare her to the night itself. She was so...

Beautiful.

POV Princess Luna

The bipeds gaze was almost infinite. It was harsh, yet forgiving. She wondered what thoughts lay behind those eyes. She had watched it for a while, watching it stare into space and study the stars. She could almost hear his thoughts in the deathly silence. They had been looking at each other for at least five minutes before the nothingness was filled.

"Greetings."

The creature smiled.

"Hello."

"What brings you out here at this time?"

"I'm just taking in the views and absorbing the beauty of night time."

Luna's curious expression broke into a light smile to match the creatures.

"I like it out here..." It continued.

"No sun to blind the senses, and all the time in the world to just think. And observe."

Luna knew exactly what that meant.

"I understand..." She said softly. Walking over to meet the creature.

"I am Luna, Princess of the night. Pleased to meet you..."

"Ben."

"...Ben."

There was quiet between them for a few seconds. Before the creature stared back into the sky. She moved over to the Bens side and joined his intent observations of the stars. They was silence for a good ten minutes this time.

"You know, princess. I have always been attracted toward the night. My entire life almost revolves around my nocturnal experiences. Have you ever felt this way?"

"I have felt that every night for over one thousand years."

"Over a millennia, eh? Got to say princess, you are looking good for a mare of your age."

Luna shy'd away for a moment and blushed at his comment. The creature took of his hat and rustled his hands through his dark blonde hair. Before inspecting it closely. Luna had been called many things in her lifetime, but never once had anypony other than her sister complimented her looks. There was another round of quiet.

"I'm travelling to the palace tomorrow to meet your sister, Celestia. And to get a job working as Twilights personal guard. It's a bit much for me."

"Why. Are things different here than where you come from? By the way, where does thou come from?"

"Yes, well, a little. For one, I'm on a whole different world here. I came here after I had been killed in my home world."

"Where you murdered?"

"No, not exactly. I was shot to death by soldiers of my own country. For reasons I have not been comfortable in sharing with the ponies here."

Luna grimaced.

Shot to death by the very ponies meant to protect you? I wonder...

"But for some reason I feel okay with it here. I want to get it off my chest but you need to keep it a secret unless I decide to tell the others myself, okay?"

"It's okay, Ben. You can trust me. I promise."

"You swear?"

"I swear that it will be a secret unless thou decides to give it up."

"Ok..."

Ben seemed to take a deep breath. Like he was preparing to tell her something life threatening.

"... I killed four innocent people."

Luna was not shocked. She had killed several in her time as Nightmare Moon. This creature was possibly experiencing the same depression she was, judging by its solum attitude toward its past. She sighed.

"It's okay, Ben. I understand."

Ben looked up.

"Huh?"

"A long time ago, I was possessed by a nightmare. I was turned into a monster. I...I... Wanted to make the night eternal. I was fully aware of what I was doing. But I did not want to do it, you see. I too, killed several innocent ponies trying to achieve my selfish goals. My sister banished me to the moon for one thousand years for my crimes. I more than paid my dues. It was only recently that I was brought back to my real self. So for the past two years I have regretted every evil action I have ever performed, wishing I could take them back. But time is a mean mare, and my depression is the punishment I bear with me every where I go, at every time."

The two stared into each others eyes for a bit as they realised they had both found each others equal. Ben wrapped his arms around Luna and she buried her head in his chest, listening to his heart beat. They hugged for a while. But as nothing good lasts forever, the embrace was finally broken by the creature. It stood up to its full height and pulled her to her hooves. He put his hand on her cheek and gently held her head in position.

"It didn't matter what you are going through, Luna. There is always someone around to help you. It's just a matter of finding the right person."

"Thank you Ben."

She held her hoof out for a hoof shake. The creature curled his appendages into a fist, before bumping her hoof carefully.

"Are we friends, Ben?"

She gazed hopefully into his eyes.

"Of course."

His smile told Luna that she had truly found a friend. Somepony to help her in her time of need.

"Until next time Luna."

"Goodbye Ben."

Luna stood and stared as her eyes followed him down the pathway. He suddenly stopped and turned around...

POV Lance.Corporal Ben Beal

Ben stopped to make sure his new friend remembered something. Turning around, he saw that Luna was still stood where he had left her, smiling.

"Don't forget about the secret."

"Do not fret. I will not forget."

Ben grinned as he turned to continue on his way. He had made a friend that was in his same predicament. He wondered of he would meet her again the following night. Maybe. As he walked on down the path, Ben thought to himself about Luna.

She is so beautiful. It's a shame she is a princess. If she was just a normal pony, I may have hinted my feelings for her at some point in that conversation. Wait! I love her? That's a bit weird, I've never felt love for another person in my life, but I spend one day in Equestria and find myself falling for a 'pony'?

Ben retraced his steps along the pathway toward Fluttershy's cottage. The path was lined with large trees either side. They loomed over him, threatening to swallow him in their grasp. They dared not however. And as he arrived at the cottage it was well past midnight. Around one O-clock at his best estimate. The key was under the mat just like Fluttershy had said. He unlocked the door, walked in, and locked it again. Searching around, he found the box containing the keys and hung the ring in the only vacant prong. He found the bed fluttershy had prepared for him last evening and sat down on the bedside. Removing his weapons, armour, jumper and boots, he slipped into the bed and got comfy. Closing his eyes, he felt sleep beginning to claim him quickly. And as he started to slip away, he said his personal goodbye to the stars.

"Goodnight, night."

New Day

POV Lance.Corporal Ben Beal

A boot slammed onto the ground. Kicking up dust around its base. Following up the camouflaged leg, he looked up to see Sgt.Render looking down angrily at him. The expression on his face was one of pure anger. His cheeks flushed red with blood as he bore his teeth. Ben stared back with a shit eating grin that had the ability to piss off anyone in the world without breaking a sweat. Render reached down and grabbed the Kevlar collar of Bens armour. Pulling him up required Render to use both hands as shifting an 80 pound cadet wearing all of his equipment without its help seemed hard work. Levelling him out and putting Ben violently back on his feet, before glaring evilly into his eyes. Obviously trying to scare him. Ben simply carried on grinning without even flinching.

"Kid...you're a fucking disgrace! 'You' are a shit gargling freak of nature! 'You' deserve NO passion, NO sympathy, you fucking insane HELL-SPAWN!"

Bens smile reached disturbing levels as it grew nearly around his entire face.

"Then at least that makes two of us."

Render recoiled his right arm, preparing to strike. But Ben quickly dodged his hook punch and laughed.

"Oh you're so funny Sergeant. Nice one."

Render was not amused. He looked like he was about to explode into pieces.

"Listen very closely Corporal. You said it yourself, no one is ever alone in this world, and after your little 'adventure', it is more viable than ever. I know you are still alive, and I will find you. Trust me my little rat, I will make your suffering legendary. You hear me? You died once but I will find whatever world you were whisped into, and I'll kill you slowly, painfully. You will wish you had never been born, kid."

"That's nothing new, Theodore."

Render growled under his breath. Ben thought about his m9 and it appeared in his hand. Ever since his life had become a complete misery around three years ago, lucid dreams had become increasingly more common in Bens sleeping mind. Stepping his left leg back into a Karate styled short stance, he raised the pistol up to the un fazed Theodore Render, he gave him one final thought.

"Asta la-vista, baby."

Pulling the trigger, Ben felt a jolt of force run through his arm as the m9 fired lead death into the targets skull. His arm was pushed upward slightly because the resultant force of the shot could not go back or down. Blood flew from the Sergeants head in the form of a purple mist, before his entire body dissolved into the background, and the mist dispersed outward before dissipating. Ben took a second to look around. He was in his cadet barracks back on Earth, and the place was empty. Walking over to the door and pushing it open, he walked outside. He took a breath of the fresh air. Lovely. There was no one around, just like in every other lucid dream he had. But only because he didn't want anyone there. He trekked over to the main gate and kicked it open, half expecting an alarm to ring out somewhere. Only to be met with the sound of chirping birds. Ben started singing GreenDay songs. First, 'Holiday', then 'Boulevard of broken Dreams'. He swore he could hear steps behind him though. Strange considering he had never put anyone else in this dream. He spun round to se Luna following him through the countryside.

"How are you in my lucid dream?"

"It is my royal duty to visit ponies in their dreams."

"Ah. And you where checking on me in my sleep, I guess?"

Luna nodded slowly, but Ben raised an eyebrow.

"You're a terrible liar, Luna. Why are you here?"

She blushed a little and started towed him.

"I came into you're dreams to talk to you some more."

As she came to a stop about half a metre from his face, Ben put on a friendly smile.

"I was hoping to ask you...Urgh!"

She looked frustrated and face hoofed.

"I came to thank you. And ask you if you would spend some time with me when you come to Canterlot later today."

Ben wondered if he should ask her out. Nope. Not a good idea at this stage. And what if she didn't love him like he secretly loved her? That would be awkward. He would save it for a later time.

"It's just that I've never met anypony that understands my feelings before and talking in a dream is nothing like a face to face conversation."

"I know what you mean. I'll come and see you when I'm done with the whole 'being Twilights bodyguard' thing."

"Ok. I will be around the palace someplace. I'll notify the guards of your position. Ask one if you can take a look around, don't worry I'll make sure they know what you mean. They will point you in my direction."

"You have guards in Equestria? I was beginning to think this place didn't have a fighting force at all. What do they look like?"

"The day guard are white coated mares and stallions. Pegusi and unicorns only. They wear gold armour and carry spears or crossbows. You know what a crossbow is, correct?"

Ben nodded.

"Good. I will see you then."

"Goodbye again, Luna."

"For now, Ben."

Luna disappeared into a blue fog and evaporated away. They world began to twist and contort in dimensions only possible in the mind. Everything was sucked into an imaginary event horizon as the dream world collapsed in the wake of the mornings coming. The last remaining blobs of light corroded into nothingness as it was replaced by an orange backing created by the light shining through his eyelids. He was once again, awake. Time for another batshits crazy day.

Ben sighed and opened his eyes. The blinding sunlight blared away through an inconveniently placed window and he forced his eyes shut. Ben growled under his breath and partially lifted his eyelids to let his irises expand and push his pupils closed. After his eyeballs had adjusted to the light he was able to begin getting up for the day. He looked at his left wrist to be met by a wrist. He giggled. He had left his watch in the barracks back home. Breathing in the crisp Equestrian air, he slid back the covers of his bed and pivoted on his ass so that he was sitting upright on the side of his bed. Putting his head in his hands, he thought about everything that had happened so far. He had met seven important figures already, one of which he was falling for. He had almost cracked his skull open once and been visited by a princess inside his own dreams. Some pretty cool and damn right stupid things had happened to him in one day, and he hoped today would be a bit calmer. Pushing himself of the bed, he put the covers back to a neat position. He had always had that weird obsession of having exceptionally neat bed covers, he had no idea why though. His mind took obscure pathways in abnormal directions sometimes, so he had learned not to question it. Making his way downstairs his normal way, and by that it means having no clue just how hard his feet were falling, Ben stood at the landing area to meet Fluttershy feeding a fuck tone of wild animals. He nodded in a friendly way and smiled.

"Gutenmorgen, habe ihr hat eine gut nacht?"

Fluttershys brain imploded for a second as she cocked her head and pricked her ears up in confusion.

"Um, I don't know what you..."

"It's, 'Good morning, have you had a good night' in another language."

"You can speak more than one language? That's wonderful."

"We'll, I'm not fluent in it but I know a little bit. It's called 'German'."

"Hmm?"

"The other language."

"Oh..."

Fluttershy paused for a moment then turned to her animals, who looked a bit cautious about him. She told them that he wasn't dangerous and although they were apprehensive, they returned to their feeding. Looking at them eating made him even hungrier than he had awoke as.

"Do you have cereals here?"

"Yes, the er, milk is in the cupboard."

The cupboard? If the milk is warm I think I'll go ape shit.

Checking through all the cupboards he found the cereals and the milk. There were two types of cereal available. One that was foreign to him, but another that looked awfully like Weetabix. It'd have to do, he hoped it tasted like Weetabix. Besides, there isn't much else for anything made of wheat to taste like. He had his cereal with milk and a sprinkling of sugar to get him started for the day. He decided to start getting a little more responsible around the house, as he had not done that much when he was at home. He washed the dish and spoon thoroughly before putting them back where he found them.

"Thank you for cleaning up after yourself."

"No probs' Fluttershy."

She went into the kitchen to make herself some breakfast and I went back upstairs to sort out my personal protection. His bayonet and m9 will do. No need to be carrying around my Rifle or frags. To clumsy and in concealable for personal protection. Going down stairs, he loaded the pistol and cocked it, holding it vertically. *Shick, click* *Shuck, shick* *squee...*

Turning around, Ben saw Fluttershy had noticed him loading the weapon and hid behind the wall from the open landing and the kitchen.

"W-why would you... N-need that?"

"Hopefully, I won't..." Ben replied as he slid the curvy black handgun into its holster.

"... Personal protection. As long as you're not planning on attacking me, then I shouldn't worry."

Fluttershy frowned and peeked out from behind her cover, her pupils looked minute. She was very uneasy.

"Y-y-you can't take weapons into the palace. T-twilight Sparkle will be very unhappy."

"She'll never know unless I need to defend myself. And I'd rather have one and not need it, than need one and not have it."

They stood there for a while before someone said something.

"When did Twilight say we were meeting her?"

"Half past Eleven I believe."

"Didn't she say to meet her at the train station?"

Fluttershy gave a confident nod. He was about to look at the watch he didn't have when he remembered that he didn't have it. He waited until around Eleven before he got himself of the sofa and petting some of the animals that she had. It's not everyday you get to see a deer up close and today he did, he was reasonably pleased about petting a deer.

Yes! I petted a deer! He'll yeah!

After that he was bored so he was glad to get going. The walk to Ponyville was as eventful as sleeping. They met a mare with offset eyes that's name was Ditzy Doo, but apparently everyone just called her Derpy. He only just realised the sheer size of the Male-Female ratio in this place. He estimated there was at least double the mares compared to stallions, so he had no idea how half the mares ever found a partner. Or maybe all the stallions were out doing physical labour work. Ben laughed at this, he had seen AppleJacks brother ploughing fields on his own steam and he found it interesting. The total irony of it was quite funny, actually. Self labouring.

When they arrived at Ponyville, he once again received a slightly smaller shitstorm of questions from the local public than yesterday. Which he was thankfully for, as it was nearly quarter past Eleven and he didn't really think he was in the mood for it.

"Where's the train station?"

Fluttershy turned to face a turnoff in the rough direction of Canterlot and pointed with her hoof.

"This way."

Walking down this this area of Ponyville, Ben worked out that this section was mostly residential due to the sudden lack of queues and shopping stalls. The place was so brightly coloured, he wondered if it could be seen from space. While he was pondering on the thought of how amusing Equestria would look like from the sky, he noticed Rarity talking with a group of richer looking ponies. He gestured to Fluttershy, and they walked over to see the obsessive fashion guru. When we got close, Rarity turned around and smiled at our approach.

"Aha! Just the creature I was looking for. Ladies, this is the creature I was talking about."

"I see what you mean about the hat..." One of the poshly dressed mares told her.

Ben face palmed, followed quickly with a sigh.

"Ben, since you are here you could at least take the liberty of getting a new hat. That...thing you are wearing is quite the 'interesting' piece."

"It's not a fashion item Rarity. Besides, who is your friend here?"

"This is Photo Finish..."

The blue mare flicked her mane back and straightened her neck slightly.

"...only the greatest fashion artist in Equestria!"

Great, another stuck up bitch.

"I see. Well as much as I'd like to just chat, I've got a princess to meet."

"Goodbye, Ben."

"C'ya."

Ben was going to hate Rarity. She was one of those people who, no matter what you do, will never take your opinion into account. He had seen plenty of her type in his 16years of existence. Most of the 'friends' he ever had were just like her. They were all fake, putting on an artificial personality just to be your friend. Most people who ever looked past Bens inane nature had found a loyal, trustworthy guy. But they all used him, played him like a game. He would try not to get too close to Rarity. He needed guys as friends anyway. It wasn't healthy for a male to spend lots of time around his female counterparts. They got into your head.

They kept walking until they reached the train station. The place wasn't at all grand, but its well designed platform and waiting areas made it feel like the ponies who made it, created it with the user in mind. The building behind the platform was pretty cool though. It had a giant clock on it that read 11:20. They were a little late getting tickets but it was only five minutes. Twilight was on the platform, signing autographs and talking to a group of students who seemed to have a fangasm every-time Twilight spoke to them. She saw him and Fluttershy walking up to her past the adoring fans, who she quickly but kindly sent off.

"Good morning you two. Have you got your train tickets?"

Ben flashed the tickets held inbetween his thumb and index finger.

"Exelent! How's your days been so far?"

"Oh, just fine. Ben and I ran into Rarity talking with Photo Finish on the way here."

"Yeah. And she still thinks my hat is ugly..."

Twilight laughed and took a deep sigh.

"...and how's your morning been Twilight?"

"Pretty good actually. Got to talk to a few admiring fans and enjoyed the glorious sunshine."

The train pulled beside the platform and stopped with a loud squeak. The doors were slid open by some stallions in fancy blue jackets and hats.

"All aboard!"

Ben gestured Twilight and Fluttershy to the doors.

"Ladies first."

"Thank you." They replied simultaneously.

They walked in and sat down, closely followed by Ben who quickly took a seat opposite the two mares. On the ride, they mostly talked about what Canterlot was like, and about the invasion that happened two years ago. Ben found it interesting to talk of military stuff but figured the others weren't into that sort of thing.

Arriving at Canterlot was even worse than he had expected. It was like arriving at Ponyville but with twice as many ponies around. This time he ignored the questions. Canterlot, (which is a rip off of Camelot FYI) was not as colourful as Ponyville. Which was fine by him because at least his eyes weren't under constant siege. His senses welcomed the sounds of the city. Being human, he was used to the gentle hum of countless vehicle engines backing the chitter chatter of everyday life. The abundance of voices seemed to make up for that. Following Twilight through the city, Ben glanced around in his usual curious manor. White replaced pink to make the houses look a bit more like the ones back home. He had drawn quite the crowd, and at one point a group of reporters had enclosed the three of them to ask questions for some newspaper called EquestriaDaily. Ben had pretty much reached the limit of his patience. He pushed them aside to allow space for the girls to get through. Probably the most manic day of his life.

So much for my calm day.

All this crowding and attention was killing Fluttershy. By the time they had got to the palace she was about in tears.

"Twilight, stop." He called out to her.

She halted up the steps and turned her head to look at him.

"Fluttershy, you ok?"

"Y-yes, I think. I'm j-just in a bit of-shock."

Twilight looked a little concerned and walked up to her.

"Fluttershy, are you sure you are ok?"

Fluttershy took a deep breath and composed herself.

"Yes."

Ben smiled and continued toward the door with Twilight and Flutters. The large gold door was guarded by two Pegasus stallions in gold armour. They stared blankly ahead, reminding him of the royal guard back home. More commonly known as 'beef eaters'. He had no idea how they got the name and he didn't care. It was funny and served merely as a joke to him. The guard ponies let them through the doors, their blank stare gazing out into nothing. He sometimes wondered if they were robots...

Walking Into the palace felt like entering a history museum. Stained glass windows depicting important events lined the walls and the long red carpet stretched from the door the throne. A throne which was currently occupied by a large, white mare. This one was bigger than Luna, and wore gold attire rather than Luna's black. Her hair flowed green, pink and yellow which complemented her bright coat. And her cutie mark was that of the sun. On top of her body size, her horn added at least 60cm on top of her head. So this was Princess Celestia then.

They walked half way down the hall when Twilight gestured gestured for them to hold. She continued forth to Celestia and sat down before her.

"Celestia, this is the creature I have written to you about."

She didn't need to point to him as Ben was taller than everyone else in the room except Celestia. And his camouflaged clothing along with the fact he was bipedal made him stand out among everything else.

"I see. Come forth."

Ben walked up to her and bowed respectfully.

"Twilight has told me quite a bit about you. Have you been treated well upon your arrival?"

"Certainly. Other than the press reporters, everything his gone well so far."

"I know the feeling. Reporters practically flock around me whenever I go further than my palace stairs. Quite the nuscience they are."

Ben chuckled.

"I couldn't agree more...."

The day after

POV Cadet. Luke Jennigan

The Police called the 'Murder of the Century'. Affected families called it disgraceful. The Army hadn't commented. Nobody knew how a sociopath had managed to get into the British military cadets. Luke knew. Ben may have been completely out of his mind, but he was good at hiding it. Everyone who knew him properly, also knew he was unstable. And it was only a matter of time until he cracked.

The news went crazy over the case, the BBC, ITV, and B-Sky-B were all telling the tale of a teenager who shot and killed four British Army personnel, before being gunned down by several riflemen. It was being investigated by the Metropolitan police and they had only found out what was already known; A kid who really should have been in care, had been pushed beyond his limit once too often.

Not that it made much difference to the community. People were talking about it, but it wasn't too much of a big deal. Which is probably why he did it. Ben knew that he wouldn't be missed by pretty much everyone, so he took a chance and broke free from his mental bonds. He had gone crazy and done some big shit before, but this was more than that. He killed people.

Luke had been questioned by detectives as leads indicated he was the closest non relative to Ben. That doesn't mean he was actually close though. Ben was more open minded and calm around his family so they really had no clue what could have caused him to snap so schoolmates were the next best thing. At school, Ben was not afraid to be his deranged self. The part if him hidden from his mother and father. He scared Luke. Constantly acting like he was about to cut your throat anytime your back was closed. He was surprised none of the teachers had noticed. But again, he was good at hiding it.

Everyone in the house was quiet. He had several mates hanging around at his place. They had been passing the time playing COD:Ghosts on the PS4 but that had quickly lost its charm, and they had resorted to watching TV instead.

"I still can't believe he did it..." Solomon put his head in his hands. "... I knew he was crazy but killing people?"

"Yeah dude. It's pretty deep."

"Wha'd'ya think, Luke? You knew him best."

Luke was silent for a few seconds before he opened his mouth, he had to think about what he was going to say this time.

"It was only a matter of time. It was gonna happen eventually."

"I hear ya dude. I mean, you were in the same base as him. You could have been caught up in that."

Luke shook his head.

"I doubt it. Ben may have been crazy but he wouldn't kill anyone he didn't need to."

"Then why did he?"

"He was very decisive. Someone must have gotten in the way and forced it out of him."

The quiet once again filled the living room. Everyone stared down at the floor and dared not break the ice. Suddenly a phone rang in a loud Samsung ringtone, scaring the shit out of Solomon and one of the other guys in the room. Luke smiled and took his phone out from his pocket. That's if you can even call the Samsung Galaxy series an actual phone. It looked like it was getting pretty close to small tablet to him.

"It's my mum."

"Ask her if she's up for it tonight."

Luke gave the guy an unamused look before placing his finger on the answer icon, and swiping his finger across to answer the call.

"Hi mum ... Yeah, I'm fine ... Yeah sure what do want doin'? ... Urgh, really? Do I have to? ... Fine ... Na, don't worry about it ... Ok, see ya! ... Bye!"

Luke ended the call and locked his phone, before sliding it back into his pocket.

"Yer' mum want a blowjob?"

"Fuck you, man. No she wants me to go and get my dad a newspaper before they get back."

"When they coming back?"

"Now, I think. You guys better go, I gotta haul ass."

There was a collective 'aww' from the group as they hesitantly picked up and left. One by one they left the house, each saying goodbye on their way out. When the door was finally slammed shut, Luke put his trainers on and left by the back door.

The street was semi busy, as usual. Props of living in a popular market town, the place looked good 24/7 with the exception of Friday nights. That was when all the drunkards were wandering about the streets, getting into scraps and wobbling around like jellies. The roads had a constant flow of traffic flowing through them as some were starting to come back from work. Crossing the road at the junction, he headed over to the BP feud station to buy a newspaper.

The green, yellow and white logo stood on a board that had the Unleaded, leaded and diesel prices on them. Fuel prices were skyrocketing at the moment. Good thing 'The Sun' sells their papers for 10p, they're about the only thing in Britain that's isn't really affected by inflammation. Pushing the door open, the familiar 'ding dong' of the door bell rang out and people momentarily looked his way. He picked up a paper from the rack and lined up at the counter. He waited for a good five minutes before the asshat at the front of the queue stopped flirting with the till lady and left with a packet of crisps and a Mars bar.

Jesus Christ, some people..,

Eventually, he came to the counter and put the paper on it along with the ten pence piece. The till lady smiled at him and spoke up.

"Hi Luke. How are you?"

"Fine thanks, how are you?"

"Same here. Glorious day, isn't it?"

Looking outside, the sun glared in through the window and made him squint. There wasn't a cloud in sight.

"Aye, it is."

The lady scanned the paper and put the coin in the till before handing the paper back to him.

"Have a nice day, Luke." She winked at him, and he winked back.

He walked out of the door and the first thing he noticed was the smell. Methane... Lots of Methane. He began to jog off, not wanting to be around much longer with flammable gas in the air. As he got to the opening into the road, a red Honda pulled in and knocked him of' his feet. His head smacked the bonnet and the driver stopped.

The force flung him from the car about five foot back toward the fuel station and he rolled a little. His chest and face hurt like shit. He felt very achy, but he slowly picked himself up, clutching a section of his ribs. The driver of the car ran toward him and put his hand on Luke's shoulder rather hard. Luke gasped and staggered backward.

"Shit man, are you ok?"

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine. Don't worry about it."

The driver sniffed the air and a frown appeared across his face.

"Is that... gas?"

Luke nodded and picked up the paper. Footsteps rang out behind them and the till lady ran to their sides.

"Oh my god, Luke are you ok? You need to go, there's been a gas leak."

Luke looked at her concerned face and nodded. He hobbled away as fast as his battered body would let him. The red Honda reversed past and the driver shouted an apology through his window. He simply responded by raising his hand as he began to recover from being run over. Limping down the street, several police cars drove past, sirens blaring. He could see them parking up about twenty metres from the station to be safe. He was about five times further so that put him at least one hundred metres away.

He stopped and spectators the police doing their job. They appeared to be running around and getting into positions around the area, quarantining it to stop anyone inhaling dangerous amounts of gas. The white cars with high visibility blue and lime stripes lined the street as one of them started to call other emergency services. Suddenly one them was greeted by another who appeared to be panicking. He made rushed hand signals and spoke to the caller. He then ran off again, and the police began to widen the quarantine zone.

Luke took this as a bad sign, and began to walk away once more. He couldn't have been walking for more than ten seconds before the rumble of a flash fire escaped into the town, coating the houses with an orange under glow that made everything look like it would on a good sunset. He turned to se a fireball enveloping the police and rising outwards, into the air. He turned to run and made about fifty metres before the ground shook and he was stopped by an ear splitting pressure wave.

An earth shattering boom bellowed out, shattering windows and knocking onlookers to the ground. Luke jumped back to his feet and ran. He want running for long. Luke could hear a gentle 'whizzing' that indicated small parts of debris flying away from the fiery explosion. He glanced back and saw a giant cloud of smoke rising up toward the sky, and mushrooming out at the top.

The screams of pedestrians running for their lives filled the air, and their moving bodies filled the pathways ahead of him. They were watching the event with cameras. Luke gestured for them to move out of the way and as they started to budge for him, a high pitched whistling caught his attention. He rotated to face the direction of the sounds origin.

His eyes reduced to pin pricks as they focused on a fast moving object, coming in at a sharp angle. Coming in towards him. The object slammed into him, pinning his body to the floor. The crowd was silent for a moment and then erupted into screams. When Luke tried to get up, he found he couldn't. He looked at his chest and gasped.

A metal rod had impaled him and locked him onto the ground. The pain built up slowly and he grabbed the rod. He didn't dare pull it out though, he didn't want the pain to increase. But it it did. It increased slowly but it didn't stop. It grew to horrifying levels as he panted furiously. Blood poured from the wound and some spurted out of the rod.

His vision began to fade as did his breathing. His desperate movements were starting to relax. Tension was releasing from his body as his brain started to shut down. His darting, tiny pupils dilated and he stared into the spotless, blue sky. He dropped his arms as he lost the strength to hold them up and he felt his heart stop.

Every muscle in his body released their will to move as the darkness began to fade in. The world blurred, and everything went black.

Conversations with a Sun goddess

POV L.Cpl Ben Beal

When Ben had come to see Princess Celestia, he had thought she would be adorned with gold, considering the way that everything ever created that was to do with the the Sun was made of, or included gold.

But no. Celestia was similarly adorned to Luna. Except surprise, surprise... She was wearing gold. He was beginning to wonder, as the conversation had gone on, if anyone ever got damaged eyesight from all the intense reflections that bounced of gold objects, everywhere you look.

As the conversation had started, they had mostly talked about names, lives and other bits of small talk. He was beginning to like her. Normally he had a grudge against politicians, but Equestria's leaders seemed ok. Not like the fancy boy idiots that ran Britain.

When he explained this to her, she mostly just nodded and smiled. So far she seemed very reasonable. Taking in everything you say, and adjusting herself to create a sort of temporary personality to speak to you with. Rather than being a stuck up bitch like Rarity. God, he was going to hate Rarity.

After they had finished all the small talk, Celestia showed them over to a boardroom. It had tall windows running up its side, much like the rest of the palace. Except these weren't stained glass ones. The central table ran all the way down the room and looked like it could host at least forty people. Maybe fifty with a stretch.

The wood was finely cut and finished. He wouldn't have been surprised if it had been years in the making, it was an exceptional piece. Almost artwork within itself. They walked over to the far end and pulled out some chairs.

"This is a nice boardroom you have, Celestia." He said with a curious look.

"It is. It took the designers months to finalise the drawing work. And another just to finish the building. That's not including the furnishings."

Looking around, he saw several plaques and expensive looking artwork dotting the walls. Most were paintings of democratic events. One ore two were perspectives of the room.

There were red and gold drapes, hanging down from the huge ten-foot windows on the left side. And Similar drapes on the other side that were coloured blue and black, with small amounts of white. He guessed these were representative of the regal sisters being the whole day/night goddesses.

Ben decide to bring this point up.

"What's with the whole day/night cycle here? It's very different from my home world."

"Me and my sister Luna raise the sun and moon at dusk and dawn using magic."

Ben smiled. It grew into a grin and he could barely contain his laughter. He let out a few smirks.

"Is something funny Mr.Beal?"

"Not funny but just very unbelievable."

"And why is that?"

"I can understand how you could move the moon, but the sun? No way, that's not possible."

Celestia cocked her head and smiled curiously.

"Is that so? What makes you believe this?"

Ben prepared for a scientific lecture. He enjoyed these.

"The moon(if it is similar to my homes moon), is comprised of mainly rock, iron and nickel. It is geographically 'dead', meaning its basically just a big piece of floating rock and metal in space. The sun however is much more complicated. The sun gets its energy from a process called 'Nuclear Fusion'. Which is the binding of atomic nuclei using high amounts of energy. Nuclear Fusion creates incredibly high amounts of energy in return, in the form of a Nuclear explosion which releases stupendous amounts of heat and other forms of radiation. Imagine this happening thousands upon thousands of times per second, and you have a star. The sun is billions of times more massive than the moon, and even more so in size. It would take trillions of times more energy to move the sun compared to the moon. It would be impossible to move it artificially.

Ben finished his 'short' lecture to a round of silence from the ponies. They looked at him dumbfounded, with their jaws almost touching the table they sat at. Celestia however just continued smiling.

"Tell me, Mr.Beal. How much scientific knowledge has your civilisation obtained?"

"Dangerous amounts."

"And how much of it applies on this world?"

Ben thought about that question for a while. And when he put his mind to it, science seemed a little strange here. For example, the moon was either absolutely huge, or it was incredibly close to the world. If either of these were true, the tidal forces between the two objects would tear them apart. Life would never have evolved in Equestria.

And the way the sun and moon 'helixed' around the same path would imply that they moved in a funnel shape. The world being at the bottom of the funnel, the sun being at the widest point and furthest away from the world, and the moon being in between. But that would also imply them living on 'Terry Pratchetts: Disk World'.

This made absolutely no sense whatsoever to him. There was however another way of explaining it. Maybe the world is the largest object in the system. And sun and moon were orbiting the planet instead.

This seemed a bit more plausible than the other theory, but there were still some things left unanswered. How would a star so small be able to sustain itself?

After a large amount of pondering, Ben gave in.

"I- I guess you're right. Not much from my old world still applies here. Your majesty, I'm sorry for questioning you. Please forgive me."

Celestia smiled and laughed.

"Oh it's fine. It was more of an inquiry than a challenge anyway. Lets change the subject. Twilight here, tells me you have... 'Means' of causing injury to creatures. Am I correct?"

Ben shuffled on his seat, anxiously.

"Yes, I do."

Celestia raised an eyebrow to this.

"May I ask how you came into possession of such items?"

"I am a cadet, your majesty. A soldier in training. When I... Died, my weapons and armour were taken with me."

"You died? How so?"

"I was shot by soldiers of my own country. I- I'm sorry princess but... I don't feel comfortable with sharing the reasons for this with you at the moment."

Celestia looked at him with suspicious eyes that tried to look further into him. Almost as if they were reaching into his brain, trying to pry the answer from his mind by herself.

"I see. And I'm guessing you keep something on you for personal protection, hmm?"

Ben remained silent. He returned her stare with his own. The tension lasted only for a few seconds before he broke the gaze and nodded. He looked over at Twilight, who did not look happy at all. She looked like she was going to make a move on him herself and take his weapons of him. He was so busy deflecting Twilights angry eyes, that he didn't notice Fluttershy slip out of the room. He glanced over to where she had been sitting only to see an empty chair. Poor thing probably got close to a heart attack.

Celestia then made the least expected comment she could have made at that point.

"Good."

Twilight almost exploded.

"WHAT!"

Celestia gestured for her too calm down, and she struck a devilish glare at him.

"Show me the weapons."

Ben unzipped his jacket and unclipped the bayonet from its sheath. Laying out on the table, he returned to his belt to remove the pistol from its holster. As he lifted it up, he noticed Celestia was examining the blade.

"Celestia, he brought weapons into the Royal palace! What if he had attacked you? How is that 'good'?"

Celestia smiled at her former student.

"He brought self protection with him. If I had been placed in an unknown world on my own, I would want some form of protection. Mr.Beal thought forward and prepared himself for the worst. It may not be an optimistic descision, but it was a smart one. I can assure you though, that you will come under no harm from me, my little ponies, or my guard. In the future you can leave the weapons at home."

"Thank you for understanding, princess."

"No worries. Bringing self protection out and about is up to you. But if you do, please be sure it is concealed. The don't want anypony getting the wrong idea now, do we."

"Cirtainly not, your majesty."

She gave him back the large knife and he put everything away again.

"Anyway, I believe Twilight wanted to make you her bodyguard for special occasions. Am I correct?"

Twilight took the reigns for me in the conversation.

"Yes, I did."

"Well I approve. But you must have a royal security badge before we can call you officially a guard. If you would come with me, and we will see to it that we can get you a guard badge for your attire."

Following them out, she led the two of them into the main chamber. Ben had to squint to allow his eyes to readjust to the blinding light. Fluttershy was hiding behind the wall, shivering slightly. Realising that no one had been hurt, she took a deep breath and joined the little convoy as the headed out the overly large doors that seperated the palace from Canterlot. Two Royal guards walked with us, one either side.

They were lead down the steps, and into a high class section of the city. This part of the city had all its residents wearing fine clothing, even though they had natural coats anyway. The residents talked in a proper accent and used posh standard English.

Oh, joy. An entire section of Canterlot full of Rarity's.

Most of them shouted greetings at the two princesses and waved at them. They also seemed pretty intrigued about what Ben was. Every now and again, he'd receive the same two questions;

What are you?

Where are you from?

As if he didn't dislike socialising already without the questioning. He was glad to get them over with and get moving again.

Eventually, they arrived at an expensive embroiderers shop. They walked inside, the bell ringing to tell the owner to pay attention to the door, and sure enough a pony came running.

"Yes, yes I'm on may way!"

As the mare turned the corner, she gasped and gave her mane a quick check over.

"Oh! Good morning Princesses! What may I do for for you?"

"Good morning to you too, Sapphire. I would like a specialised badge created from a design I have."

She nodded at Twilight, and a paper design was presented. It looked much like the gold emblem the Royal Guard wore, except this design had Twilight Sparkles Cutie mark on a shield, and it said 'Bodyguard' underneath it.

The embroider took one look at it and her eyes jumped back to Celestia.

"Of course, your majesty. When do you want it completed by?"

Twilight stepped forward.

"By Monday, next week. Think you can do that?"

"Of course! Thank you for giving me the honour! I'll get to it right away! Goodbye!"

The sudden quiet as the mare jogged back around the corner of her shop was deafening.

"Well she was eager to take the task."

Celestia nodded.

"That was Sapphire Needle. She is our new private embroidery artist. She only got given the place a week ago. She can get a little excited when I give her jobs in pony."

"Aye, I hear you."

Walking back to the palace without being interrupted was not going to happen. Ben made it clear to a few ponies that he would be grateful if they tell their friends to stop asking questions. They obliged, but probably only because the princesses were there. Over wise, he would have bet that they would have told their friends to pester him, for fun.

When they arrived back at the palace, Twilight, Fluttershy and Ben gave their farewells to Celestia and talked amongst themselves. Twilight offered to show Ben around bit he declined. He had a meeting to attend to and he would walk back to Ponyville.

Twilight went back to the train station with Fluttershy and he stayed behind. He walked up to a pair of guards and asked if they could let him take a look around.

"At the end of the corridor, up the tower stairs, five storeys."

Ben smiled as the guards lifted their spears and let him through. The corridor was a bit better than the main chamber for being blinding. An emaculate red and blue carpet spread all the way down the corridor. Several doors were placed on the right hand side, heading of to unknown places every ten metres or so. The doors were made from the same spectacular wood that the boardroom table was. He didn't know what wood it was, but he liked it.

He could hear muffled voices through the doors. None were audible but he was curious about what lay behind them. Probably storerooms or art showcases. Coming up to a door in the middle of the corridor that had 'Library' written on a plaque embedded into its surface backed up that theory.

At the end of the corridor, a spiral staircase rose up before him. As he climbed he pondered the phrase 'spiral staircase'. It wasn't even a spiral. A spiral is when the twist starts of at a wide point, and tightens as it moves. This shape however, was 'Helixical'. A twist that has a constant diameter wherever it moves.

The 'Helixical Staircase' rose around a central column, that had a ribbon lining its surface. The decorators here seem to have gone out of their way to make every single part of this place look amazing. And they had done their job beautifully.

At the top of the staircase was a small opening that had another, larger staircase leading back to the main building. And a set of decorated doors that had Luna's cutie mark expertly painted on one side.

Walking up to the door felt a little dramatic. With no one around it was also a little eire. He stopped in front of the doors and paused. Do they knock here? Only one way to find out.

He clenched his hand into a fist, tapped the door with reasonable strength and waited.

He heard hoof steps increasing in proximity on the other side. A clunk was heard and one of the doors rotated open.

On the other side was Luna. She was just as beautiful in the daylight as she was in the gentle moonlight. Her flowing starry mane drooped to the floor, and those infinite eyes stared back at him. Just looking at her made Ben feel calm and relaxed.

"Thou may come in."

Discoveries

POV L.Cpl Ben Beal

Ben was apprehensive about walking into the personal quarters of a royal unicorn that he's known for barely two hours. But he walked in anyways.

The room had a dark theme, and the wallpaper was a navy blue. Light illuminated the cool coloured room to give it a sort of moonlight look. The carpet was perfectly textured. It was soft but not squishy, and was a greyish tone. There was a large bed at the far end, which he guessed was Luna's. turning his head away from the bed to look for less awkward things, he noticed a blue mat with Luna's cutie mark on it in the centre of the room.

He walked onto the central mat and looked at the wall art. There were two landscape pieces of Equestria at night. The moon was depicted in one of them as having the 'seas' make up the neck and head of a unicorn. It looked a bit ominous to say the least. The last piece, was a portrait of her and Celestia. It (like everything else in the palace) was expertly crafted. Each brush stroke was clearly visible, but managed to blend in with the others.

As he was busy gazing at the magnificent art covering the walls, Luna approached him slowly. Joined his viewing and began talking about the paintings.

"The portrait was painted over a thousand years ago."

"Really?"

"Yes. Celestia and thyself had two created. The other lies with my sister. The artist was a fool, hehe. Oh, but he was an amusing fool."

"How so?"

"He reminded me of our father, stubborn and selfish. He had his snout so high in the clouds, he could not see what was at his hooves."

"Plenty of those around."

"Quite. And that landscape piece over yonder..."

Luna pointed to the picture of a wide, night time valley. With Canterlot on the side of the valley, at the base of its host mountain.

"... Was created by an artist that I admired at the time. I believe his name was... Hoovonado Da' Vinci."

Ben frowned and looked at the floor in thought.

"Hmm, interesting."

Luna raised an eyebrow.

"It is?"

"Yes. Back on my world in the renaissance era, in the country of Italy. We had an artist called Leonardo Da' Vinci. Coincidence, maybe?"

"It seems so. Did your 'Leonardo' paint any portraits by the name of 'Canter Lisa' ?"

"No, but he did paint a portrait called the 'Mona Lisa'. Luna, this doesn't sound like a coincidence to me."

"They may be linked somehow. But the reason is unknown to me. Though it would be interesting to look for other similarities between our worlds, sometime."

"It could be a little project of ours."

They caught each others eyes and they smiled.

"And what is that last painting? The one of the moon."

Luna sighed and walked up the painting. Running her hoof along the pictures frame and looked down.

"This is a painting of the moon during the time of my banishment. After my nightmare form returned, she was defeated, and my sister welcomed me back in with open forelegs. I bought this soon afterwards as a reminder of those lonely times."

"You referred to your 'nightmare form' as 'she'. Implying it was not actually you?"

"Yes. Nightmare Moon was... Me, but not me. She possessed my mind and turned me against my sister and my ponies..."

Luna closed her eyes and her breaths became shaky.

"Luna, are you ok?"

She to gently sob. She collapsed onto her haunches and bowed her head.

Ben immediately took a place at her side and crouched down to get on her level. Placing one hand on her soft neck, he stroked her. His attempts to comfort her seemed to be going nowhere, as she didn't stop.

"... The things I did... I was powerless to stop thyself..."

"Luna? Luna, listen to me."

She picked up her head and tilted it sideways to look at him. Her eyes said it all. Pain, regret, self torture. It was an experience that he knew.

"Luna... After I had met the Elements of Harmony, I started thinking. I killed four members of my race. None had deserved it. They all had families, personalities and lives beyond that of which I knew. I thought about how I had just ended them so suddenly, without good reason..."

He could feel the same ache returning to his heart that he had felt after meeting the girls.

It was beyond saddening. It ran him through the chest with an emotional rapier, making him feel the reality of his actions that his young mind couldn't take, and he began to break down.

"... I knew that I was a psychopath... I hadn't thought about *sob* other people. All I *sob* wanted was to be free..."

It was now Luna's turn to be the Samaritan. She wrapped her forelegs around him, and pulled him close. They hugged, as their tearful eyes closed and buried their sorrow in the embrace.

They remained like this for several minutes as they allowed themselves to calm down. They broke the hug and rested their arms and forelegs on each others shoulders.

"... See Luna? You're not alone, just like I said. We're equals, you and I. We should look out for each other, right.?"

Luna smiled and nodded.

"Let us change subject, shall we? We probably look ridiculous, sat here in tears."

"Hehe, lets."the both stood up in unison. Luna walked towards her balcony and opened the glass doors. Heading through onto the balcony, she was followed by Ben. They watched over Canterlot in silence, before Ben found something to talk about.

"So... Since you're mostly nocturnal, what do you do during the day?"

"Oh, I'm not completely nocturnal. Although I do have hold court at night, I manage to leave in some time for sleep. Night court lasts four hours from sundown, so I barely get any rest in the summer, as you could imagine. During my sleep, I visit troubled ponies in their dreams to guide them in the right direction. I took a particular interest in you, because of what you said back at the viewpoint."

"I see. What do you do during the day?"

"Indefinite. Sometimes I rest. Other times I visit the children's orphanage in Canterlot, or go to events."

"An orphanage, huh? Where is it? Just out of interest."

Luna pointed toward downtown, at a large building that had an overpass tunnel joining two sections of the building.

"Over yonder, at the terraces."

Ben thought about other things to try and make conversation, and then he realised...

"Oh, bloody hell! I can't believe I haven't told you my name yet!"

"Ah yes. What is thou's name?"

"A bit late for greetings now, but... Whatever. My name is Ben Beal."

Luna frowned.

"I have never heard a name like that before."

"We'll back home, we didn't usually get people named Luna, either. My rank as a military cadet is 'Lance Corporal'."

"I have not heard of this position."

"Unsurprisingly. It's a pretty low rank, only the second rank upwards in the cadets. The first simply being 'Cadet'."

"Did thou have any seniors?"

"Of course! Our senior was Sergeant Theodore Render. I didn't know really what to think of the guy. He was alright, I guess. But he could be a proper pain when he wanted to be."

"Sergeant, you say?"

"Uh-huh."

"We have that ranking. It is just below Captain, correct?"

"Yes. I'm guessing we both have captains as well."

They watched a group of guards patrolling around Canterlot. They zigzagged through the city streets, covering as much ground as possible on one sweep.

"I have a question to ask, Luna."

She turned her head to him.

"Why gold?"

"Hmm?"

"For the guards armour."

"Because it is aesthetically pleasing, and very intimidating. Why does thou ask?"

"Because Gold is one of the worst possible armour materials in history. It has a low melting point for a metal, and it is one of the weakest metals."

"That is a similar argument I raised with my sister a long time ago. I thought it would be better to make the main armour from steel plate, and coat it in gold. It is cheaper, and has a higher protection value. Apparently, Equestria does not have very violent crimes and we would not need better armour."

"That is a point. But then there's the whole expense argument."

"Exactly. Does thou have armour with you in Equestria?"

"Yes I do. It is at Fluttershy's cottage, where I am staying."

"What is your armour constructed from?"

"A material called Kevlar. I'm not sure exactly how Kevlar is constructed, but its one durable material. There is a prototype armour my species are designing called, 'Dragonscale'. I'd love to wear some of that stuff but unfortunately, I'm not a rich guy. I could never afford a set of Dragonscale body armour."

"Interesting. Do you have weapons?"

Ben grinned and once again unzipped his jacket to reveal his knife and pistol.

Luna grabbed them in her magic, and removed them from their holdings to inspect them.

"Be carefully with the pistol. That's the black thing with a barrel and handle. Make sure the safety switch is on, and you don't pull the trigger."

He showed her the safety switch, and made sure it was off, before letting her handle the weapons by herself. Keeping a constant eye on the m9. If she were to shoot something, who knows what would happen.

"What does the 'pistol' do?"

She asked, walking back inside her room. Ben followed her back in and closed the doors to the balcony.

"It fires a bullet, a small piece of lead, at high velocity. The pistol is not too powerful. It would kill you if it hit you in the head at close range, but anywhere else and they'll just fall down in pain."

"Then what is its purpose?"

"It is a backup weapon. Used to cover yourself and provide time to find a safe place or time to prepare your primary weapon. It can also be used as a self defence weapon for a civilian, due to its lower power."

"Hmm. Do you have an example of a. 'Primary weapon' at Fluttershy's cottage?"

"Yes. It fires a thinner, but longer round at higher velocity than the m9. Thus, having higher range, accuracy and surface penetration. Although its damage is questionable."

"In what way?"

"The m9 fires a 9mm round. My l85a2 fires a 5.56mm round. It makes a considerably smaller hole . The only thing to back this up, is that it fires rounds in rapid succession. Nearly eight hundred per minute actually."

"Are there any of your species weapons with higher caliber?"

"Hehe. Oh yeah! The other main primary round is the 7.62mm. Heavy anti personel weapons fire the large 308., or 338. round. There is also the less common 408. round. Or the ultimate killing round, the infamous 50.BMG. Which is guaranteed to kill nearly anything that crosses its path. If it doesn't die due to the shot, its gonna bleed to death. And after that we have explosive rounds which are just stupid, and are used for anti vehicular purposes."

"We'll then, it seems your armies are well prepared for wars. How many military personnel do you have?"

"My home country has around about sixty thousand in total. Other countries have more or less. But most have more, my home country is pretty small."

Just then, a knock on the door stopped their conversation. Luna sighed and proceeded to the door. Opening it, there was Celestia standing there. She took a look at him and smiled.

"Making new friends are we, Mr.Beal?"

"You could say that, your majesty."

Celestia walked in and sat down. She turned to Luna and began to speak with her.

"Sister, we have some troubling news."

Luna looked intrigued.

"What is it ?"

"Guards captured a Changeling sneaking around in the lower class district. We have it in the dungeon, waiting to be questioned."

Luna cursed under her breath and turned to Ben.

"Apologies, but we will have to continue this conversation later. I have important matters to attend. Come with me if you wish. Lead in, sister."

Celestia nodded at Ben as he followed them out of the door. The two goddesses moved with a quickened pace, so he had to jog in order to keep up with them.

After they descended the staircase, they followed a new route into a large room that must've been central as doors were on every side of the room, and it had even parameters.

The guards opened a large set of double doors for them, as they headed down into what must be the basement. The walls were now flattened stone blocks, and the atmosphere suddenly became dark and murky.

Several guards stood by at the opening into the dungeon. Their spears represented the protection they gave to everyone outside the place.

They moved into a new corridor, that headed off into circular downstairs sections, contains multiple cells in each one. Sometimes he could hear pleas of release from some of the prisoners. Equestria's dark side.

"What's a 'Changeling'?"

"A Changeling is a creature that disguises itself as a pony in order to get close to other ponies unseen. So that it can feed of their positive emotions, like a parasite. If it were four years ago, I'd have sent it back to its hive. But because they launched a full scale attack on us not long ago, I need to know we're not in danger. I must learn everything I can from it."

Celestia seemed determined to get her way here. A guard opened a door to one of the chambers, and Celestis looked inside. She walked in.

If looks could kill, this was a 50.cal bullet of a facial expression. A mixture of determination and seriousness. Bringing the 'serious face' to a whole new level.

As he headed inside, something was strewn out on its belly on a metal table. It looked oddly equine, although it had uneven holes at the bottom of its legs. It's eyes were a solid light blue and a pair of fangs protruded from its upper jaw. It's body was matte black and he could see how it could blend into the shadows to escape an enemy. It had translucent wings that buzzed helplessly as it writhed around on the table, unable to break its bindings. It's horn was glowing from a spell cast on it by a pony, but below the discolouration of the spell, he could tell its horn was sharpened at the front and tip like a knife.

It glanced up at the royals in horror and panicked. It tried desperately to break away from its prison but failed. Truth be told, Ben felt a bit sorry for the poor thing.

Luna pointed at a unicorn guard in the corner of the room.

"You, cast a calming spell. We cannot get anything with it so scared."

The guard lit up his horn and the changeling shivered with an aura of coloured light, shaking its body. It's breathing became more regular afterwards but it still looked terrified.

Celestia and Luna took up positions at its head and it looked up worriedly at them.

"Now then, changeling. Let us begin."

Wasteland wake up call

POV Cdt. Luke Jennigan

When Luke woke up, the first thing he noticed was the splitting pain in his chest. He put his hand to his heart, remembering he had been empaled by a metal rod, but there was no hole.

Okay...

He noticed the pain begin to die away, and he lay still on the spot for a while. The sky was a little cloudier than he remembered. The ground was also damp, but he remembered the day being perfectly dry.

He looked to his side and low and behold, a desolate forest stretched out before him.

Frowning, he sat up and looked around. He was in some sort of dead forest. The floor was covered with little chips of dead bark, like wood chippings. And the trees wavered a deathly colour scheme of grey and brown.

There were barely any leaves to be seen or recognised on the branches. Just leaving countless skeletal arms that seemingly grabbed out at nothing . Vines sometimes crawled up the dead tree trunks that rose up everyfive metres in any direction.

...What the hell? Is this Purgatory?"

Luke forced himself to his feet, grunting as he straightened out his spine. He inspected himself closely. Still wearing his jeans and green jacket, no cuts or bruises, some blood on the breast of his jacket though.

So the blood is still there, but how is the wound gone?

He stared forward in confusion for a moment, thinking about the questions that his mind currently imposed. Hoping he could come up with some answers to them, but no.

He swivelled around, the forest was the same in every direction. No landmarks, no settlements, at least not within visual range. And the sound... There was none. This place was dead in every way possible.

He looked around for a hillside or a cliff, but could not see one. So he had nothing to walk towards. No destination, just a starting point.

Taking a deep breath, he began to slowly walk into the unknown. The air was thick with... something. He didn't know what it was thick with, but it certainly wasn't very crisp or clean.

Weaving through the trees, he found a whole lotta nothing. Nothing appeared to live here. Where was 'here', anyway? That was the next question on the list. Probably the most important, too.

Then he noticed that there was something in the air. It looked like dust, was it dust? Whatever it was, it seemed to be floating around in the air in large quantities. He ran his hand down a tree trunk, and looked at his hand. His hand now had a grey coating over it. Pinching some in-between his fingers, he noticed it was much less fine than dust.

He continued on, hoping for the forest to end or find someone to help him. He was worried that it wasn't dust that coated the trees, but ash. If it were to be ash, he didn't want to spend too long hanging around, less he develop lung problems.

The ground developed into a steady declination as he walked on. And eventually it grew into a slope. He navigated his way down, carefully avoiding large open spaces and loose patches of ground, so that he didn't 'stumble and rumble'.

He traveled from tree to tree down the slope, picking the closest trunk to act as a speed break every time he descended a little.

This method was effective, but slow. Slow enough to take him ten minutes to descend all the way to the bottom. At the base of the slope, he found himself to be in a small valley with a stream running down.

Luke kneeled down beside the stream and cupped his hands to drink from the water. It tasted metallic, almost dirty. He tilted his head to look down the valley. It continued on for a good few miles before curving round a hillside, out of view.

His best bet was to follow the water and hope it lead to a settlement of some kind.

Following the stream lead to a clearing that bordered on a cliff edge. Looking over it, he found no way down.

"Huh, typical."

He looked to his side and his eyes widened along with his jaw hanging open.

Just appearing over the crest of a distant hillside, was a volcano that was currently spewing out an ash cloud into the sky.

"We'll that explains the weather."

Everything in the distance was blurred out by a light covering of ash as well as some of it hanging about in the air. There was no way of spotting anything, even from his vantage point.

He could go rock climbing down the cliff, but that would almost certainly kill him. He would have to find a way around, it. But that would mean further walking in the direction of the volcano. The ash would be thicker over there, no way he was going any further in that direction.

So he turned around and began the backtrack. Instead of following the stream down, he would follow it up.

Going upstream was proving just as fruitless as going downstream. It was also boring. Incredibly boring. He was starting to get confused and frustrated, he had no clue as to his whereabouts, and he couldn't find anyone or anything to give him any clue to his location.

He followed the valley uphill for at least half an hour with no luck, and fear was beginning to sink in. He was on his own, lost in a dead forest near an active volcano with ash flowing in and out of his lungs.

The going began to get rocky, and there was no way he was going any further upwards, as the hill had started to turn steep. Climbing any further would just tire him and make the situation worse.

So, I can't go down, I can't go up. That direction has a volcano, so I can only go back toward where I awoke. Shits getting real...

30 minutes later...

Luke was running out of sanity. He felt like and Amnesia custom story. He couldn't even tell where he had left of. Everything looked the same! And no matter what he tried, he could find nothing.

So he sat down on a resting log. He fiddled with the bits of bark that dotted the floor, and thought. He didn't really think about anything in particular, he just thought.

If he was in fact, in Purgatory. His parents would currently be mourning over his dead body. He wondered if he had been cremated or buried. He hoped he had been cremated, he didn't like the idea of slowly decomposing underground.

These thoughts depressed him. Because no matter how he tried to twist things to mean he wasn't dead, the evidence always said otherwise. Maybe he was in a lucid dream? No, he tasted the water before. You can't taste in a dream!

That kicked him back into reasonable thoughts.

No! These aren't healthy thoughts, Luke. Get a grip on yourself!

He stood back up and sighed. This was going to be a long day.

He took a step forward and a cracking was heard.

His heel paused mid walk, before continuing down and resting on the ground.

He slowly spun around. Examining every tree and fallen log at every angle.

*Crrrrrk-k-k-k*

He flung himself one hundred and eighty degrees to face the cracklings direction.

A black figure disappeared behind a mound. He could've sworn it had eyes.

He reached into his left pocket and pulled out his pen knife. Flicking the blade out, he did his best to create an intimidating stance.

Shit, shoulda took up martial arts with Ben...

That made him think. He had seen him use Karate once or twice. And he could remember a stance he normally used.

He put his left foot back and twisted his hips forty five degrees to the left. He then rose his arms to a central ready position.

He slowly stepped forward. Edging ever closer to the hiding spot.

He swerved round the other side and raised the pen knife. Bracing himself to see something weird.

Nothing...

He lowered the knife and frowned. He saw something hide behind the mound.

"What in the name of chr-"

He turned around and froze solid. A deep black equine looking creature stood there. They just stared at each other, not one of them making a move.

He estimated twenty metres between them both. That was all he needed.

He slowly began to back up, but slipped backwards onto his ass, as he bumped into the mound of damp dirt.

Whatever that thing was, it started to walk towards him. He picked himself up and panicked. Running away, only to be stopped by more of the things that came out of the trees in front of him.

He turned back around, but saw he was boxed in. Raising his knife, he tried to look threatening to scare the things off, but to no avail.

"Back off!" He shouted.

"I'm warning you, I'm not afraid to hurt you!"

The creatures stopped and turned to each other. They 'communicated' by clicking and crackling. Sounding a little similar to what he heard earlier.

Eventually one steeped forward ahead of the others and stopped in front of Luke. It's large blue eyes looked up at him cautiously.

And then it spoke...

"You are lost. We have been ordered to help you."

Luke narrowed his eyes at it.

"Where am I?" He said sternly.

"You are in a the 'Bleakwood plains'. Our homeland."

"Who-no. What are you?"

"We are Changelings."

"Never heard of them."

The creature looked to be trying to be helpful, so Luke lowered his pen knife again.

"That is not uncommon. Changelings live better in secrecy. Our queen has ordered us to bring you back to the hive"

Luke summed up these things so far:

Insect-like, friendly but a little suspicious, terrifying... Yep. Perfectly trustworthy. But what else can I go on? Crap, looks like ill just have to go along with them.

Luke took a deep breath before replying.

"Okay. I'm trusting you, but if you try anything..."

The thing nodded.

"I understand. We will lead you to our queen. She has requested to speak to you personally."

"*Sigh* Lead on, Changeling."

Hive Mind

POV Luke Jennigan

The things had lead him across miles of terrain. Most of it was more dead woodland, but sometimes they would take him through a cave. They seemed to know where they were going.

They had been practically silent though. They hadnt talked much, if at all. And it was really creepy. The whole situation was creepy. Waking up in a forest covered in ash from a volcanic eruption that the news somehow managed to miss still baffled him to no end. And that's not to mention that somehow, the two inch wide hole in his chest had just dissapeared for no reason.

He was mindfucked to say the least. He was also equally confused about the creatures that were leading him off to their hive.

How the hell does a thing like this exist without being discovered? We would have noticed big colonies of deadly looking horse-insects hanging around. It's just not something that you would miss. In fact...

He turned to the 'changeling' walking at his left, if he could remember rightly, this one spoke English. At least he thought it was that one. They were all the same, and he had forgotten which one it was. So he turned back to the front to avoid awkwardness.

"You guys aren't much for talking, are you?"

"There was never any need to talk." Said the bug on his right.

"So...you don't talk unless it is required?"

"We are drones. We perform actions out of necessity. If there is no need to do anything, we won't do anything."

"I see. So what do you do if there are no tasks to do in your hive?"

"Most of the time an idle drone would patrol the hive and make sure everything is as it should be."

"Do you have social lives?"

"Changelings share information between themselves through the 'hive mind'. But nothing more than that, unless other communication is required."

The hive mind? Other than being a Dead Space boss, he really didn't know what that meant. He figured now was a good time to find out.

"What's the 'hive mind'?"

"A bond between all changelings. We can share information with individual changelings, or the whole hive mind."

"What sort of information?"

The creature was silent for a second. Luke glanced over to it to see if it was otherwise occupied. It looked at the ground, appearing to be thinking about its answer.

"Mostly simple information. Numbers, objects, events, locations, that sort of thing."

They arrived at a cave opening at the foot of a mountain. Inside it was pitch black. It was a little concerning, as there was no way that he would be able to see inside.

"Er, my species can't see in the dark. Is there any way of producing light...at all?"

The talking changeling nodded, and its horn lit up a deep green. As the group headed on inside, the darkness slowly enveloped them. Creeping as close to the small area of light that the creature was producing.

As they ventured deeper into the cave, small luminous blue mushrooms sprouted from the ground. They gave off just enough light to be easily visible, but not enough to light up their surroundings, which gave a strange atmosphere to the place.

The twisting tunnel eventually gave way into a large opening, that was lined with the glowing blue eyes of changelings. A chill ran down Luke's spine, as he glanced around from place to place. The blue orbs tracked him as he walked further into the hive, accompanied by his escort. This place stirred up a primal fear inside of him. And it burned away at his brain, yelling at him to turn back and run.

But he would never be able to see where he was going, no matter escape. Besides, he had played into the... Hooves of these changelings for too long to turn back now. So he kept walking.

The path led along the side of the large opening. The sound of a gentle buzzing with the occasional crackle or whine resonated of the walls, producing a deathly orchestra of echoes.

As the lead changelings light only lit up about three metres ahead of him, Luke had no clue what lay ahead. At last they came to another tunnel. This one was wider. And sets of blue orbs buzzed by, commuting from one end to another.

This place was making him really paranoid. Sometimes there was just silence, and others the sounds were ominous. He could feel his heart rate slowly climbing and his breathing becoming irregular. So he calmed himself down and tried to think positively.

The tunnel went on for at least two hundred metres. It had a gentle descent to it, leading them further down into the creatures home. Ahead the confines opened up into another chamber. This one had a similar vibe, but with a slightly different tone to it.

Again, the path they followed skirted around the side of the chamber. To the right there was a source of gentle light. It was enough for Luke to see what was in the chamber. It wasn't quite as large as the one before, but it was at least as large as a football stadium. The source of light was a strange mist, that glowed. There were pillars that dotted the chamber, covered in condensation.

In the bottom of the chamber, Luke could see small objects about the size of laptop sitting in the pool of glowing mist. Some of them writhed about and chirped. It was a sound similar to that of a bird, except it was more prolonged and defined. He saw one of the object open its eyes and yawn. It made a chirping sound and a changeling tended to it.

Are those... Larvae? No, they're more like nymphs. They are nymphs, this chamber is a hatchery.

He turned back to his light emitting guide.

"I bet these take some tending to." He said in a quiet and soft tone.

"There where seven hundred and fifty two nymphs in the hatching pools this spring. We have more than enough drones to cater for them."

Luke thought about that for a second.

Seven hundred and fifty two. Geez...

"Is that a high or low figure?"

"It is low. The hive is overpopulated, and not all breeding pairs have the energy to raise offspring at the moment."

"How many changelings are there in the hive?"

"Eleven thousand, two hundred and eighty six. Not including the nymphs."

Luke's eyes widened and he spluttered out a surprised response.

"What!?"

The group stopped and gave him an intimidating stare.

"Please keep your voice down, the nymphs are not accustomed to foreign noises and might panic."

Luke shifted on one leg and scratched the back of his head in embarrassment.

"Oh, erm... Sorry. I was just surprised by the statistic." He moved back to his gentle voice.

"Very well then. We shall continue."

They walked through the hatcheries in silence. Time continued to stroll by slowly, and although they had walked out of the hatcheries in mere seconds, Luke felt like it had been at least a minute.

They entered a new tunnel. This one, just like the tunnel connecting the two chambers before, was wider that the cave that led them in. More of the luminescent blue shrooms dotted the walls. This tunnel had less traveling changelings in it, and those that were walking or flying through we're larger than the ones making up his escort.

He noticed one changeling that walked by had some sort of strange green tattoo that snaked around its entire. It looked similar to the tribal tattoos that were available back in human civilisation. Why would a hive creature have a tattoo? Maybe it wasn't a drone, and was a kind of changeling that was born with markings, God knows.

At the end of the corridor, they arrived at an entrance to a smaller chamber that seemed devoid of changelings. His group stopped at the entrance and he frowned at them.

"We have nymphs to tend to. Our queen is waiting for you inside her chamber ahead of you."

Luke looked confused as his escort began to head away, back into the darkness.

"Wait!" He called to them but they didn't respond.

He was left by himself, in the dark. He looked down at the hard rocky ground. His shadow was barely visible on the ground, it spiked up around the dark grey floor that he stood on.

Wait, his shadow?

He turned around to see a changeling casting a strong light around its chamber. Enough to be compared with that of a dim streetlight. He could now make out features on the walls and see some details in his surroundings.

The changeling looked nothing like the drones. It was tall, very tall. He estimated it stood at about six and a half feet from hoof to the tip of its horn. A section of its abdomen glowed green and it had four wings, each of which were a translucent blue. It's head stood atop a long but reasonably thick neck, and contained two large eyes sat above its fanged nozzle. It had catlike diamond pupils that lay within green irises, and the whites of its eyes were tinted turquoise. It had long draping blue hair that  embodied small holes, similar to its hooves. And its tail was the same.

Luke observed the changeling observing him. They stood in silence for a few moments before the changeling finally spoke up.

"Greetings. You may enter."

He walked inside the dimly lit chamber and looked around. Not much different from the rest of the place. Blackish grey walls, dull feature, the only thing that was different was that this chamber seemed to be artificially symmetrical. Somebody had taken care to ensure that both sides were identical.

Some parts of the walls had thin trickles of water flowing down them into a stream, which travelled behind a wall to an unknown location. A bed of soft fungi was built up in one corner which he presumed was a literal taking of the word, 'bed'.

"I am Chrysalis, Queen of this hive. What is your name, creature?"

"My name is Luke Jennigan. My species is know as 'Human'."

The changeling queen frowned.

"Your people have a strange way of naming their kin."

"To be honest, I could say the same thing to you, Queen Chrysalis."

"I suppose you could. Now then, Luke. I have brought you here to speak with you because I believe you can help me."

Luke raised an eyebrow.

"Okay. What is it?"

"Nearly three years ago, I invaded a country known as Equestria to allow my hive to expand, and so that my people could feed from its inhabitants..."

Luke looked a little worried.

"I don't like where this is going."

"... You may not like it, but I need your help. My hive is outgrowing our feeding sources, and I need help before my people begin to starve."

"Fine, continue."

"Anyway, I have had infiltrators and recon units in place watching Equestria for a while now. Recently, a certain character from your species has shown up. So far, he has become a personal security guard for a princess that personally, I want my hooves on."

"Okay. So what do you want me to do about it?"

"I want you to be my new infiltrator. In two days, this princess called 'Twilight Sparkle' will be travelling to to a place known as the 'Crystal Empire' to meet her brother and sister in law, her new security guard will be with her. I believe that you can obtain as much information as possible about her new bodyguard as possible before that time."

"Okay, that doesn't sound too bad. What exactly do you need to know about him?"

"I need to know his name, where he lives, what sort of weaponry he's packing, and other personal details."

"And you need as much as I can get in two days?"

"Yes. I have a correspondent in the town of Ponyville who runs by the alias of 'Lyra Heartstrings'. She will come to see you when you make yourself known. The code word is 'home'. She will reply 'sweet home' if she can contact you without being noticed. She will brief you on the situation."

"I can do that, I think..."

"You 'think'? I need confidence!"

"Yes! I'll get it done."

The queen smiled.

"Welcome to the hive, Luke. I'll teleport you close to Ponyville. Oh, and the injuries are just to make you look helpless, it'll help. Trust me."

Luke's eyes widened.

"Wait, what!? Wha'd'ya mean about-"

Her horn flashed green and Luke felt like he had been struck by lightning. His muscles tensed up, trying to refuse the weird shit that Queen Chrysalis had done. The world flashed white and his ears were deafened by a wave of pressure flooding over them. This continued for a few seconds before the white flash subsided, and he appeared in a meadow, suspended in the air. He dropped to the ground, letting his ears stop ringing.

But as he did so, he began to feel a splitting pain running up his left calf. It slowly intensified until suddenly, it multiplied and he fell to the ground, screaming in agony.

The injuries are to make you look helpless. It'll help, trust me...

Unexpected twist

POV Luke Jennigan

As Luke hobbled down the dusty path, he cursed under his breath. How the hell could he have gotten into this, already?

He had barely been in Equestria for two hours, and he had already become a spy for some fucked up species. He felt like he was a character in some messed up piece of fiction, written by a student with nothing else better to do. Maybe he was, he didn't know for certain.

His calf ached like a bastard. Everytime his left foot fell, pain jolted up his muscles like he had spikes in his heels. And it was all his new queens fault, so whenever he sends a letter to her via this 'Lyra Heartstrings' person, he was gonna give her a piece of his mind.

He decided to look around his surroundings more, take his mind off the pain. The path was lined with trees at both sides. They were all the same species, so he guessed that they had been planted there by these 'ponies'.

By looking at the trees, he decided they must be Ash trees. He knew this because Ash were plentiful back in Britain. That, and his nature loving mother unintentionally drilled half the worlds trees into his brain before he was ten years old.

The grass that filled the meadows was kind of long. It looked untouched, yet it lacked the untamed look that wild grass had. And fields seemed go on forever, past the gentle rolling hills that stretched out behind him.

About a mile and a half to both his sides, the hills spiked up into steep mountains that looked like a young child's drawing. With grayish rock rising up, towering above everything else around them, with white snow capped peaks that pointed up into the atmosphere like giant, rocky cones.

And in front of him was more tree stricken pathway. He kept walking down the path until he reached a crossroads. The left pathway broke into a cobblestone road. While the right turn continued down the dirt pathway, to what looked like a farm.

One of those wooden signposts with arrows and names on them was standing at the side of the road. Towards the left, it said;

West- Ponyville 3

And towards the right it said;

North- Sweet Apple Acres farm 1

"Huh..." He thought aloud. He generally didn't go to long without speaking to someone. Whether it be Minecraft, or over the phone, he was usually talking to somebody online when he wasn't face to face. So he liked to think aloud when he had been alone for a while.

"... I could go straight to Ponyville and get started immediately, or I could go to the farm first and get something to eat before I make a public entrance. Hmm, choices."

He thought for a few seconds and then pulled out his wallet. He opened the zip at the back and pulled out a two pound coin. He zipped up his wallet and put it back in his Nike jackets inside pocket.

He inspected the coin closely for a few seconds. On one side, queen. Elizabeth's head stared proudly forward toward the gold outer rim of the coin. Flipping it over, he looked at the Lion that had served as a symbol of England's royal family for centuries. Although some historians claim it to be a Leopard, as Lions had not been discovered at the time of the animals symbolic adoption.

"Heads, Ponyville. Tails, Sweet Apple Acres..."

He sat the coin on his index finger and thumb. He flicked the coin into the air and caught it. He slapped it down on his opposite wrist and lifted his hand.

"To the farm it is, then." He slipped the coin into his jeans pocket, and started off down the pathway North. While he was limping down the dirt road, he noticed it begin to get a little rockier than before.

Which was just exactly what he needed with a sprained calf. And it got progressively worse. By the time he was within one hundred metres of the farm, his leg felt like it had been taken out by a sledge hammer. But he digressed.

So when he got to the door of the farms household, he could barely contain himself at the chance to have a proper rest and something to eat, hopefully.

He knocked on the unpainted but varnished wooden door, and waited. After a while, the door was pushed open by an orange pony with large green eyes and a very country western styled theme to it.

The expression on its face was one of confusion. It looked at him for a few seconds before talking.

"Another one? Ya gotta be kiddin' me."

"What?" Was Luke's reply.

"One of yer' kind turned up ere' only yesterday! Wait, are you ok? Ya got blood on yer' jacket there." She said, pointing at the large bloodstain were his heart would be.

"Well, its a long story."

"Ya died, didn't ya?"

Luke looked up, confused.

"Huh? How did you know?"

"The other fella' said he died before he got here. He had blood all over him! Ah, were are ma' manners? Come on in. My name's Apple Jack by the way."

The mare fully opened the door and gestured him in. As he walked in, the pony noticed his limp.

"What happened to yer' leg?"

Luke thought quickly to come up with something.

"Sprained it after a fall."

"Did ya die because of the fall?"

"No, I died when I was empaled by a metal rod through the heart."

Apple Jack cringed a bit.

"Ah bet that was nasty."

He thought back to the shock of being empaled. It didn't last very long though, rod turned his heart into a kebab. You generally don't last very long without a functioning heart.

"Yeah. Anyway, whose this other guy that came here? Did he say what his name was?"

AJ headed off into the kitchen and came back with a glass of apple juice.

"Uhuh. Said his name was Ben an-"

"Woah, woah, woah, hold on there. He said he was called Ben?"

"-Yes he did. An' why is it worth interuptin' me for?"

Luke took a swig of his apple juice.

"Was he strange in any way at all?"

"Well, it did seem like he were hidin' somethin'. Now I come to think about it. Wouldn't tell us exactly how he died."

"Was he wearing camouflage with a hat and scarf?"

She nodded with yet again, a confused look on her face.

"Yeah, you know em'?"

Now it was Luke's turn to nod.

"Yes I know him. And there's a reason why he wouldn't tell you exactly how he died."

"Why's that"

"He's a traitor. A complete nuthead, the guy murdered four guards at our encampment before he was shot and killed."

She looked shocked.

"He seemed alright to me, ah' had no idea that's what he were hidin'."

"Where is he now?"

"Ah think he's in Canterlot, the capital. With the princesses..."

"Shit..." He whispered to himself. If Ben was this princesses new guard, she needed to know about what Ben did.

"Can you get me to this 'Canterlot' place? We need to speak to the royals about him."

"Aye, ah can. But its a long walk, unless you're gonna take the train?"

Luke hated trains, and all other public transport. He would normally avoid them all together, but he might have to endure it on this one.

"Ok. I think we're gonna take the train."

Suddenly, a head poked out from the wall behind Apple Jack. It had a similarly coloured mane, except not tied up. And it had the same green eyes as well.

"Uh sister, who's that?"

Luke almost laughed at the voice. Unquestionably a stallion, and possibly the lowest voice he'd ever heard in his life.

"Me? I'm called Luke. A guy like me came here yesterday."

The stallion walked around the corner to reveal its whole body. The thing must weigh at least twice his weight. Put it this way, its forelegs were about the size of Luke's. He probably had enough muscle to uproot a good sized tree.

"Mac' you got any free time on yer hooves?" Apple Jack took over.

"Eeyup."

"Good. Cuz' we're gonna need your help with somethin'."

The stallion looked confused.

"What for? There's no work scheduled until tomorrow."

She sighed.

"I just learned that Ben fella' is dangerous. We're gonna go pay him a visit, but we need yer strength just in case. Ya good with that, brother?"

Mac thought for a moment.

"Eeyup."

As the ponies began to rush to the door, Luke stopped them.

"Wait! When I came here, I still had all the objects I had on me when I died." Luke presented his pocket knife and wallet.

"Yeah? So what?" Said AJ.

"So, Ben was armed with military grade equipment when he died. He might be armed, we can't just charge in without knowing what will happen."

The ponies retreated back into the lounge and sat down on the sofa opposite to his chair.

"So... What are we gonna do, sister?" Mac said in his monotone voice.

"Hmm. We can go see if Twilights back from her visit to Canterlot. If she isn't, then we can get Spike to send Celestia a message regarding the details."

"Spike? Who's that? Sounds like a pet name."

"It is. Spike is a dragon. A youngn', but he can write and send messages to princess Celestia."

"Cool!" Shouted Luke. "Sounds like a good idea to me. Lets get going!"

He got up and walked towards the door. His limp had calmed down a bit but it was still niggling at him. It felt like a headache that wasn't painful enough to stop you from doing anything, but just painful enough to slow you down.

He turned to strangely designed door handle, and held the door open for the two ponies.

As AJ walked to the door, he held his arm out and stopped her. She frowned at him and cocked her head.

"Nuh uh uh. Ladies first." He said, nodding to Mac.

AJ giggled a little and looked back at her brother. He just sighed and pushed through them, not arguing to stir up more jokes.

Then the mares smile wore away, realising what it implied to her as well. She looked at Luke with a bored expression and shook her head.

"Such a joker, you are."

Luke grinned.

"I try my best."

Walking past the farm, Luke was in awe at just how many apple trees there were on the farm.

He wondered how long it must take to harvest all the apples. Hours? Days? Weeks? He couldn't estimate accurately, but he dust need to. He knew it would take a long time.

The trees appeared to be arranged into sections. Each section looked to have about one hundred trees in it, and the farm had four of them.

So that's about four hundred trees... Jesus. Maybe I should ask AJ how long it takes to farm all this.

"Hey Apple Jack!"

"What is it Luke?"

"Just thinking about how long it must take to harvest all these apples. I thought maybe you could tell me."

"It takes about a week when me n' Mac buck em all together."

"Buck?"

"Oh, sorry. It's when a pony leans their weight on their forelegs, and uses their hinds to kick the tree and knock all the apples from it."

"Cool. You said a week when there's two of you. How long if you did it alone? Two weeks?"

AJ looked out over the farm as they walked and blushed a little.

"Heh heh. A few years ago, not long after I became friends with Twilight, I tried to prove that I could buck all the trees before the bucking season ended on my own."

"And?"

"I couldn't do it. Eventually, ah was so tired that I struggled to hit the tree, no matter knock the apples out. Eventually I had to get help."

"So you don't know how long it'd take you alone?"

"No, and I wish I never have to find out. It's exhausting."

Thats what she said...

As they walked further down the road, they got back to the junction with the arrow signs again, and headed of to Ponyville.

It was a nice town. It looked nice, anyways. Apart from the over abundance of pink. Someone went crazy with the colour pallet there. The ponies were nice too. They told him about how they saw Ben yesterday, and how much he apparently seemed to hate questions. He told them that it wasn't surprising and Ben hardly liked anything social.

Luke followed AJ all the way through to the other side of town, where they arrived at a large tree that had been hollowed out and had windows installed. It looked quite nice from the outside.

AJ knocked on the door and waited. There was no answer, so she knocked on the door for a second time with again, no answer. She looked back at Luke and Mac. Luke just shrugged.

As she was about to knock a third time, the door was opened by a purple pony with wings AND a horn.

"This is a public library, AJ. Y'know you can just walk in, right?"

She looked pat the orange mare and saw Luke standing with Mac behind AJ. She frowned and raised her hoof to her chin.

"Another one. Interesting... Come in, all of you."

They all walked in and sat at a table in the middle of the room.

"So, what's your name?" Twilight asked.

"Luke Jennigan."

"So, Luke. I'm guessing you got her by dying, correct?"

"Uhuh. I was empaled through the heart by a metal rod."

"Ouch. Bad way to go, huh?"

Luke smiled, but stayed silent.

"You know, another one of your kind came here. And he was-"

"Shot to death, yeah I know. I wasn't even a mile away when it happened."

"So... You know Ben?"

"Yeah, but I wish I didn't. Actually, we came to talk to you about him."

She frowned once again.

"Go on..."

"You know he was shot to death right. But do you know why?"

"No, he wouldn't tell us. I guess you're gonna tell me why."

"Correct. You see, Ben was shot to death in self defence, not murder. Ben killed four guards beforehand and stole military equipment from an armoury."

Twilights jaw hit the table. She gawped for a few seconds and then looked downwards.

"So you're saying he's dangerous?"

"He's mentally unstable, and he could snap at any moment. I don't know if we can trust him."

Twilight jumped out of her seat and called for Spike. The patting of paws was heard, and suddenly, a purple dragon head popped out from the open plan buildings upstairs section. The first thing Luke thought was;

Hey, it's Spyro the dragon!

"What's the matter Twilight?"

Spike had a cool voice. It sounded very young, but awesome.

"Spike, I need to write a letter to Princess Celestia immediately!"

"Hang on a minute!" Spike dashed of to somewhere out of view for a second. He seemingly teleported back, he was moving so fast. He had a sheet of paper and a quill in his claws.

"Hit me!"

Prisoner of emotion

POV L.Cpl Ben Beal

He couldn't say the questioning of the changeling had gone well, but it was certainly interesting.

Apparently, the changeling was simply feeding from Equestria's inhabitants because it was hungry. But no one was buying it.

Something told Ben that this was the start of something much bigger than a feeding trip. It just didn't add up, for instance;

If it was just a feeding trip, then surely the changeling would have stayed clear of the larger population centres, right?

And it had been reported as following them to Saphires embroidery store. So something was definitely 'off' about it.

Explaining this to the two princesses made them anxious about the real reasons behind this changeling stalking them as they moved around Canterlot.

Celestia and Luna stood with Ben outside of the interrogation room, discussing what would happen next.

"Sister, you can't just torture the thing for information. That's wrong!"

"Why not? For what greater means this changelings appearance could imply, it may save pain if we cause pain."

"She's right, Luna. Torture is cruel, and dam right wrong."

Luna huffed and turned away from the conversation.

"Well, I would like to know how thou plan'sth to extract this creatures knowledge."

Celestia turned to him for ideas. Obviously she was clueless as to how they would go about it.

"Mr.Beal, would you like to make a suggestion?"

"Please, just call me Ben. And I'm thinking about it, these things can take time."

There was silence as he stared off into the abyss, trying to formulate a way of finding what really lay behind it.

"The only methods I could think of would include a large scale investigation. This changeling is obviously not going to give us this info'. So we would have to find it out for ourselves."

Celestia sighed in frustration.

"Surely there must be a quicker way. I don't know if its safe to spend long periods of time snooping about in the changelings affairs."

Silence once again ruptured the conversation.

"I'm sorry princess, I can't think of a quicker way."

"Unless thou performs torture on th-"

"NO!" Shouted Celestia and Ben simultaneously.

Luna recoiled, almost offended by their outburst.

"I'm sorry Luna, but we just can't torture the changeling. Besides, changelings have a hive mind. If we torture out captured drone, Chrysalis would surely attack us for being so cruel. She is very protective over her hives rights."

Luna looked down at the floor, like she was ashamed of herself.

"I'm sorry sister. I should have thought more about it."

Celestia placed a hoof under Luna's chin and raised her head.

"It's ok, Luna. Every suggestion counts. Torture is my final resort, but it is an option."

They smiled at each other, and as Celestia drooped her hoof back to the floor, her horn flashed gold and a scroll materialised out of thin air.

"Woah..." Said Ben under his breath, staring in awe at what just happened.

Celestia took a look at the seal on the scroll and turned back to him and Luna.

"Excuse me for a moment." And then she walked off.

He was left with Luna for the time being.

"Ben?"

"Yes?"

"Why does't thou feel so strongly about torture?"

"It's against the Geneva code. It is considered a governmental crime to torture captured enemies. And under conditions of war, it is a war crime. Even presidents and ministers can be trialled for torturing prisoners back where I come from."

"Oh. I do not know if any such laws have been passed since my improsonment. But considering how long I have been gone, it is likely."

"Well personally, I'm against torture. I think its fine to execute a foreign prisoner, as long as you have the home country's permission. And also if it is just, you can't just execute somebody because you think it is ok. Punishment is equal to crime."

Luna nodded gently.

"Fair enough."

Celestia came back. But instead of rejoining the conversation, she stopped at the corner of the entrance corridor to that part of the dungeon.

"Ben, may I talk with you for a moment?"

"Yeah sure."

He broke off from the remainder of the group and left Luna outside the changelings cell. Before he went round the corner, he stopped to make a suggestion.

"Don't torture the prisoner while I'm gone!"

Luna laughed and replied;

"I will try my hardest!"

Following Celestia to a cell, she walked around the other side of the table made for holding down a pony. While he remained at the entrance side.

"So... What's the matter?"

She kept a straight face as she pushed the scroll across to his side of the table.

"What do you make of this?"

Ben glanced worriedly at her for a second. He hadn't done anything wrong, had he?

He opened out the scroll and read through it in his head.

Dear Princess Celestia,

Today another one of the same species as Ben showed up in Ponyville today, and from him I have learned of some interesting and vital knowledge.

The new Human has informed me that the reason Ben was shot to death by soldiers, was that Ben had already shot and killed four innocent guards before he was taken down.

I have also been told that he is mentally unstable, and may not be trustworthy to be my personal guard. Please take caution when you are near him.

This is a private message, as it may not be wise to let everypony know. I don't want to cause panic.

From,

Twilight Sparkle.

As Ben let the scroll down, Celestia read his face like a book.

"You did kill innocent people, didn't you?"

Ben had no answer. He only stood in silence, staring down at the table.

"I know you did. I cannot have a sociopath with weapons endangering my little ponies, you understand?"

He just nodded, solemnly.

"You deserve to be punished for your murders. You know that, don't you? I will not allow you to walk free, while others of your species are in sorrow for what you've done."

Ben finally looked up. His eyes were teary, with the reality of his actions flooding his mind again. Tugging on his emotions like someone was pulling his heart out with their bare hands.

"You think I walk free, hmm?"

Celestia cocked her head.

"When I killed those men, I felt no fear or remorse. It felt strangely right at the time. And that's what scares me the most, Celestia. Not that I killed them, or that I caused so much pain. But because it revealed a part of me I have never seen or felt before. It is a part of my mind, my soul, that haunts me every waking moment of day. Fear dwells in my brain. A fear that this monster may one day rise to the surface again, and I'll kill another innocent. And that fear is what binds me down, bars me inside my own mind. A prisoner of my own emotion, can you imagine that? Well 'that' is my punishment, Celestia. And I'll tell you now while I can. No one is free. Remember that, and you might see things in your 'little ponies' that you've never seen before. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going back to Ponyville. I've gotta meet this new human."

Ben walked out, and left Celestia in the room to think about what he had said.

POV Princess Celestia

She stood there in silence, in deep thought about what had just been said to her.

She couldn't quite understand it. 'A prisoner of his own emotion' ? What could that mean?

He did not regret what he did, but he lived in fear of himself. That, she did understand.

To live like that is a horrible experience. After she banished Nightmare Moon to the moon, she fell into a depression. She was constantly scared that her state of mind would leave Equestria vulnerable, and ponies might get hurt.

She bottled herself up inside her head. She tried to force herself back onto her hooves, but that only withheld her from recovering from the harsh reality of just how much pain she would cause Luna.

Maybe that's what it meant. Being a prisoner of your own emotion. Being locked inside your own feelings, unable to haul yourself out of a hole that you made.

She was so busy thinking about this, she didn't notice Luna standing at the cell door.

"Sister? He told you about it, didn't he?"

Celestia snapped out of her train of thought.

"Huh? Oh, yes he did. Wait, how did you know? You weren't listening."

"I didn't need to listen, I already knew."

"Y-you already knew? How?"

"On the first night of his staying, I met him at the travellers viewpoint in the mountains just west of Ponyville. There he told me everything. What he did, how he felt..."

"I didn't see this in him when I first saw him. I looked into his eyes and I saw intelligence, independence, thought. I never saw this... other side to him. If I had then... maybe I could have helped him. But now I've forced him to strain his already cracked psyche. Please talk to him tonight, Luna. Tell him I'm sorry."

"Do not fret, sister. I will make sure to it that he gets your apology."

"Thank you Luna."

"Come, let us move our prisoner to a free cell and thou can head back to day court."

Celestia managed to make a weak smile.

"Yes, let's."

POV L.Cpl Ben Beal

The walk back from Canterlot was uneventfull but far from empty.

Ben just couldn't stop thinking about what he did back home. The demons residing in his head were once again discussing filosophy.

There were two sides in this mental conversation. Part of him was debating whether he would have been better off just never having done what he did.

The other part of him was exploring his mind. It raked through the leaves of memories and ideals to try and pick out something that may actually be meaningfull to him.

He realised that at no point in his life had he been more individually independent than in the last two and a half days. He had accomplished more pshycologically in two days than he had in the past two years.

This was the turning point, the part of his life were he had to change. He couldn't just be a self serving maniac anymore. He had just started to feel like he meant something, and he was willing to do anything in order to keep it that way.

And then there's the question of who this 'new human' is. Considering whoever it was clearly knew that he was here, and could tell this by working on the small amount of info that the ponies had, this person had to be somebody he knew.

One of his aquaintances had died recently, now the problem he had to solve was 'who?'

Was it Ewan? Solomon? Mathew?

Oh god, please don't let it be Matty. His verbal grammar is abysmal...

He thought about others that it could be;

Charlie, Jack, Luke, 'Fat Charlie'...

Truth be told, he had no clue whatsoever. But then he remembered his dream...

'Ill find you, wherever you've been whisped of to.'

Oh no, don't let it be Theodore. If the sarge was her then it was a guaranteed game over for him. Render never falls for the same trick twice, there was no way that he could do anything against him, he would have wised up.

But hopefully, it wouldn't be him. Of all the people who it could be, its unlikely to be him. But then is it? Whoever it is, they're already here so there's a one hundred percent chance of it being a certain person. He just didn't know who this one hundred percent applied to.

As he stepped across the small bridge that arced over a river that came down from the mountains. Walking into the town, he noticed the distinct absence of ponies around. Maybe everyone was just tired from a busy day out.

He found Lyra 'sitting' on a bench. She actually sits like a human, and considering ponies don't wear clothes he was surprised she didn't get into awkward situations more often.

She said she had been waiting for someone for a while, but they had never shown up. So he wished her good luck for whatever she was meeting up with someone for, and left her to it.

Eventually he got on the same street as the Golden Oak library. He walked up to the place, its natural beauty radiating in the glorious afternoon sunshine. He walked up to its door and was about to open it when he stopped.

He reviewed his descision to meet this person immediately. He thought that maybe it wasn't such a good idea for his current position. With that he turned and walked away. He only got twenty metres from the library when the door opened and voices were heard as two people walked out.

The door was slammed shut and there was a silent moment. Before a shout violated the peace, a voice he recognised as that of one, Luke Jennigan.

"Hey Ben!" He screamed at the top of his lungs.

He stopped in his walking. He sighed and turned to face him. He was wearing his jeans and green Nike jacket. His sleek hair style contrasted with the mane of the pony next to him, Apple Jack.

He remained quiet as the duo slowly advanced on him. Eventually they were within metres of him.

"Why are you still here Ben? I hope you didn't kill anyone to get back here..." He smiled, mocking him.

"Y'know Luke, I hope you're having fun mocking me."

He leaned his weight on one leg and folded his arms.

"And why's that?"

"Because I've changed now. I'm no longer who you used to know. Though I was hoping that I could leave all that behind me, start anew. But obviously as long as you're here to talk about it, that's never gonna happen."

Luke cocked his head.

"Oh really?"

"You know Luke, I'm letting go of my past. And if you can't handle the new me, then just don't get involved with my life because I have no more patience for teases."

Luke's shit eating grin evaporated and he sighed.

"I don't know if I can trust you Ben, that's the thing. I don't think I'll ever fully trust you again."

It was Bens turn to smile.

"You never did anyways."

"True, true. Anyways, since you've had some sort of apithamy, maybe we could hang out more often. That's as long as you don't shank me whenever I turn away."

He was never just gonna let it drop.

"If you stop referencing to me killing stuff then yeah, maybe."

"Whatever you say... Ben?"

"Mm?"

"Just out of curiosity, where are you actually living at the moment?"

"Oh, I live with Fluttershy in her cottage."

Luke giggled, there was no way of avoiding this one...

"Yeah, I bet she likes that!"

There was silence as no one laughed or even smiled. Ben and AJ just stared at him.

"Thanks for that, mate. I'm never have a normal dream ever again."

Apple Jack nodded in agreement.

"Ah' agree, that was pretty bad."

Luke shrugged.

"I know, my humour fails."

"Hey, 'just out of curiosity'..."

Ben made the air quote gesture.

"Where are you staying for the time being?"

"I'm living with Apple Jack. We've fleshed out a work deal."

"Nice, but nothing like the job I've picked up for myself."

Luke narrowed his eyes in suspicion.

"And what would that be? Sewage treatment?"

Ben rested his muscles and made a sarcastically bored expression.

"Oh 'ha ha ha', fucking comedy genius over here. No, my job is being Twilights personal body guard."

"Not bad. Try not to shoot anyone though."

Once again receiving a very threatening look, Luke rustled his hand through his hair and scratched his scalp.

"Yeah, ok, I'll stop now."

"Oh Luke?"

"Mmhmm?"

"How'd you die?"

"I got empaled through the heart. From what I remember it was pretty brutal, but quite quick."

"As being empaled through the heart would be I suppose."

Apple Jack walked out between them to make a social announcement.

"Anyway if ya'll done yappin', we can get of and you can get that jacket o'yer's cleaned. Bloods not the greatest of lookers. Come on Luke'y boy' we got stuff to do!"

Luke chuckled and held out his hand. It took a second for Ben to catch on, but he finally shook his hand.

"It's good to know that you've learned from your mistakes, Ben."

"Hey man, its all part of the learning curve."

They released each others hands and Ben looked down at AJ.

"Apple Jack, I need to know if you still trust me."

She smiled and put her hoof to her chest.

"You've admitted to yer wrong doin's n' you've learned from them. Ya still have my honest trust, friend."

"Thanks AJ, its always good to have an honest person watching my back for me. Once again, thank you."

Ben looked past the duo to see the rest of the elements smiling at him. Pinkie Pie was eating popcorn and taking photos with a Lumix camera.

Wait...what in the... How...how does she...

He decided he was too tired to care anyways and just waved to the elements, getting a wave back from each of them, even Fluttershy.

He turned back around and his eyes were greeted by an explosion of pink. The party pony jumped in his face and grabbed onto him. The force behind her leap knocked him to the floor... again.

His head smashed the floor and he was pretty sure that was gonna come out in a bruise the next morning.

"OHMYGOSH, that was sooooo dramatic! It was like all tense at the beginning and then it just all dissipeared like *that* when you shook hands and then Apple Jack backed you up afterwards! I mean it was like y-mmmph-"

Twilight had walked up to them and shoved her hoof in Pinkies mouth to quieter her.

"I'm sorry that we brought back your troubled past.I just didn't want to take any risks."

Ben picked himself up and dusted himself down. He picked up the camera and turned it off before giving Twilight his full attention.

"Yeah, it's fine. Shit happens y'know? And you've just got to deal with it. And I'm making some changes to deal with my past."

"That's always good to hear. Anyway, you must be hungry from the walk back. Come inside! I'll make something for you."

"Alrighty then, we'll leave ya'll to it." Exclaimed AJ.

"See you later Ben!" Luke waved him goodbye.

Ben just waved before walking inside the library. Inside, there was a package that was labeled 'Saphire Ebroidery' sitting on the table.

"I'm guessing this is my badge, then?"

He picked up the sealed package and swivelled it around, trying to find an opening. Finding that it was completely airtight, he drew his bayonet and cut it open.

Inside was a set of a further two sealed boxes.

"Allow me." Said Twilight as she quickly opened the two boxes and lifted out their contents with levitation.

"Two badges?" Ben asked in confusion.

"Yes, I had Saphire make a duplicate for your Armour."

"My armour? How the hell is anyone gonna sow through my armour?"

"We found a way..."

Twilight presented his armour with a rectangular patch ready to host an emblem, exactly the same colour as the armour, expertly sown into the chest plate.

"Magically enchanted needles. They work a treat!" Exclaimed Rarity, who was sipping on a glass of wine at the table.

"So they do. Rarity, I'm guessing you'll be wanting my jacket to sow the first emblem onto?"

"Sure darling, which shoulder?"

"Right shoulder, please." He removed and passed his jacket to her.

"I'll get straight to it!"

Rarity pulled out a small box and opened it. Removing some pins and matching colour thread, she started sowing the badge onto the right shoulder.

He looked in the mirror. Twisting from side to side in order to see how the badges looked. And quite frankly they looked kinda awesome.

"When's my first assignment?"

"Day after tomorrow." Twilight replied

"I'll be visiting The Crystal Empire to see my brother and sister in law. As your job implies, you follow my orders only and protect me if it is required."

"Should I refer to you as 'ma'am', or princess?"

Twilight laughed.

"Ma'am. I like the sound of that. You should refer to me as princess on all occasions. Got that?"

"Yes princess!"

She continued laughing for a few seconds before calming down.

"Actually darling, I think you look rather strapping in uniform. Minus the hat of course."

"Yes Rarity, minus the hat." He had stopped trying to convince her that it was never made to look good. He just sarcastically whent along with her.

"You um... look very smart in your uniform."

"Thanks Flutters'. But I'd rather have a Ghille suit than this uniform."

"Darling, you must tell us what you mean. Our worlds are very different. What is a 'Ghille suit'?"

"A Ghille suit is a battle dress that has lots of shapes and features sown into it. It basically makes the wearer look like a hedge for camouflage. You'd hate it Rarity."

"Yes, sounds like I would. These Ghille suits are only worn in combat I guess."

"Yeah. They do look very cool, but they can be uncomfortable after a while, and the things look completely out of place when away from the battlefield."

"Oh yeah?" Rainbow butted in. "I bet the Wonderbolts outfits look better. In fact, you don't even need to ask what they look like. Give me few more months, and I'll be wearing one myself!"

"Well good luck Rainbow. But don't be too cocky, it only hits you harder if you're not prepared for the worst."

"I don't need to prepare for the worst if its never gonna happen!""

Ben smirked at her undying ambition mixed with a chronic lack of forethought.

"If the bigger they are, the harder they fall, then you'll hit terminal velocity in no time."

"You just watch me, ape!"

"Oh I will be, I can assure you that. In fact... Twilight, how much does my job get paid?"

"200 bits per week. Plus an extra 200 every time you perform adequately on an assignment."

Ben started counting how much he would have in 3 months. More than enough for what he had in mind.

"I'll give you 450 bits if you can become a Wonderbolt in 3 months. But if you fail, you owe me 450 bits. Deal?"

"Ha! You may as well start handing over the money now!"

"Even if I had to I couldn't because I have no money. 'Ha!' To you too!"

Fluttershy suddenly hovered through with half of the plates of food for them. After placing them on the table she went to get the other half.

Ben removed his armour and sat down at the table. Eggs, Lettuce, carrots and mashed potatoes. Overall not a bad mod meal...

Shit! I forgot to tell them. Better late than never.

"Uh... Girls? I need to tell you something I forgot about."

"Yes? What is it darling?"

He let out a deep sigh.

"I can't live in what you're giving me. I have to eat some meat, or I'll get malnutrition and I could die."

There was total quiet. They just stared at him with almost shock horror... Apart from Fluttershy, who nodded in compliance.

"That quite alright Ben. I found out you were an Omnivore when I found you. I've spoken with a supplier of meats for pets who said he could get some high quality products to me. But please when you do eats meat, don't waste anything, I... I don't like seeing meat wasted like that."

"That's very kind of you Flutters'. I was beginning to worry about it then. And I won't waste any meat, I promise."

She blushed a little and nodded.

"Um... Thank you."

"No probs'."

He continued to eat with the girls until he had eaten everything. After he had finished, he stood up and took his plate over to the kitchen, where he washed it and rooted around for the plate cupboard.

He tried up, down, centre...

"Bottom left cupboard, at the back."

He paused and looked a bit stupid for a second.

"Thanks Twilight."

Opening the cupboard door and sliding the plate onto the stack, he began to wonder what the time was.

He looked at the kitchen clock:

6pm! Had no idea it was that late in the afternoon! I thought it would probably be about 3.

"Girls, I'm off back home for a nap. I'll see you all later!"

After a round of goodbyes, he put on his armour so he didn't have to carry it, and opened the door to head back home.

Sub-conscious

Turning the door-handle was probably one of the most tense moments of his life, and that probably has to be the first time anyone in the history of mankind has ever said that opening a door was a tense situation. It twisted with a high pitched squealing that reminded him of sneaking around his house at night an trying not to wake his parents and he could hear the nervous, ragged breaths of the mare behind him. His right arm was outstretched and his hand held a semi-automatic pistol in its grasp, ready for anything that may be on the other side. The handle was now pointing directly downward at the floor and the door was free to open. He let out a deep breath and swung the door open. As it turned on its hinges he dropped down to a crouch and his left hand joined the right to provide back-up for taking the recoil if he had to fire.

Stood at the door was a cream coated mare with a rosy-coloured mane and tail that had a suspiciously fake smile on its face. It's amber eyes shifted to the barrel of the pistol that was aimed at its head and it glanced at it for a second before it returned it's attention to him. There was a moment of silence as the pony at the door stared at him and he considered putting the gun down, he remembered this pony as one of the ones that was part of the relentless questioning he had been exposed to ever since he arrive. It was taking a while for him to think about it as he tried to come to a conclusion about why there was a pony stood at the door in the middle of the night. Back in Canterlot, he learned about the changelings that could disguise itself as a pony in order to get close to other ponies and feed of their love, maybe this was a changeling in disguise in order to feed from Fluttershy or something. However he had just been woken up after only being asleep for twenty minutes, so he was not in the best of moods for thinking. Eventually he decided to talk to her, see if she was legitimately a pony here for help or something.

"Who are you?" He snapped quickly at the mare standing in-front of him.

"My name's Rose Luck. I haven't seen you before, are you new here?" The expression on it's face was obviously one of confusion, but there was something of about it. If an alien organism shows up in your town then that generally wouldn't be something you would just forget. Especially when you have had direct contact with it at least once.

"Why are you here?" He said bluntly, still pointing the pistol at the mares head.

"I'm here to see Fluttershy, is she in?" The pony tried to peer around him to try and look for Fluttershy but he blocked the entire door-way. The mare hadn't told him exactly why she was here which rang bells in his mind, she was hiding something.

"You didn't answer my question so i'll ask again, why are you here?" The mare seemed to grow a little aggravated and she looked to her side and her eyes focused on something else. And last time he checked, there was nothing at that side of the door-way other than walls and windows. He lined up his sights on the mare and half squeezed the trigger in preparation for a shot.

The pony seemed to nod and then turned it's eyes back to him, but if he wasn't mistaken there was a look in it's eyes that was less than friendly and patient like he could remember the questioner being. It carried a monotonous note of evil and deception that struck a chord of realization into his mind.

The pony leaped at him and the resulting jump it gave him caused his finger to twitch and pull the trigger.  A 9mm bullet was blasted fourth from the barrel and borrowed into the front of it's skull and it fell limp onto the ground. The body was suddenly enveloped in a sort of green flame that covered it's entire body, burning away the illusion of Rose Luck and replacing it with the Jet black husk of a changeling. He stared at the corpse for a second until another pony rushed into view, it was quite clearly a very angry and un-unusually battle ready Fluttershy. He turned around and saw the real Fluttershy still cowering in the corner of the room for confirmation, but this was a mistake as he returned to the impostor knocking the pistol out of his hands. It went flying onto the couch and lay to rest, waiting to be picked up again.

The bug threw a hook-punch at him, but the move's slow speed allowed him to intercept and parry it. Throwing the momentum to the side left the changeling open for a counter-attack, so he launched himself out of his crouch and front-kicked it in the face. Then from above the door another attacker flew through and pushed out with it's forelegs while travelling, throwing him onto the couch with a loud 'thud'.

He remembered the pistol landing right were he was resting and could feel it underneath his ribs. Recovering it by fumbling under his torso, he raised it. Aiming with one hand, he managed to get a shot on the approaching enemy before it could ready a move and blew a hole through it's over-sized glowing eye ball and into it's brain. It toppled over, revealing it's true form in a green blaze just like the first one.

Another bug rushed into the building on a careless frontal assault, not expect to meet its demise as it's a bullet was fired into its chest, making it keel over in pain. He stood up from the couch and executed it by firing another round into the top of its head, killing it quickly and swiftly.

There was silence for a second as he steadied his breathing and struck glances at the dead creatures strew about the floor. Why wasn't he ashamed of killing these creatures? It was a similar feeling to killing the soldiers back home, except this felt more justified as he was attacked first. But the main guilt of ending several lives lingered at the back of these emotions.The quiet was broken by the sudden out-burst of hysterical crying from nearby, and he picked up his head. Fluttershy was curled up in the corner and the first thing that came to mind was just how terrified she looked. Her eyes were clouded over and she shivered violently shaking the drawers that sat next to her, creating the noise of object rattling around in top of them.

He rushed over to her and sat down, reducing his size to look less intimidating. He placed a hand on top of her head and she responded by looking up at him with misty eyes. Her sobs and whimpers continued to fill the air as their eyes met, but then she looked away at the dead bodies and grimaced, closing her eyelids and lowering her ears. He stroked her mane and shushed her crying while attempting to calm her down. However she continued to cry so he decided to speak to her.

"Fluttershy its okay, I'm here." He spoke softly and gave her pink mane a few more strokes of motion before shuffling up close to her and resting her head on his lap. They stayed like that for a moment before she re-opened her eyes and slowly lifted her head. Her eyes looked past him though, staring worriedly at something back towards the door.

He followed her gaze to find the changeling he kicked getting back up from its concussion. He rested the crying mares head back on the ground and stood up to his full height once again to meet the recovering attacker. They locked eyes for a second as the two fighters stood in a Mexican stand-off.

He then walked towards the bug and it returned his speed, matching his posture and approaching him in the same way, creating a twisted quadrupedal mirror image of the biped. They circled each other, waiting for their opponent to attack, and they completed a full 360 while thinking about his move and a counter attack if it failed. Once he had one, he launched himself at his foe by stabbing at it with his bayonet. It made a skillful dodge and jabbed at his ribs, but he blocked it and punched it in the same spot where his kick landed earlier. It screamed in pain and he grabbed it's foreleg, swinging it into the wall where he lodged the outside of his foot under it's head and pinned it against the wall.

It struggled under the pressure of a boot pushing at it's throat, wheezing to get air into it's lungs. It writhed and twisted to free itself, but when a pistol was pointed at it's head it stopped and stared into the barrel, accepting it's fate. A flash of light and a bullet later, a spraying of blood was left on the wall behind where it's head was pinned, and he let the lifeless body fall to the floor.

He turned to the doorway again to find the Princess Twilight Sparkle staring at him with pupils the size of pin-pricks and her jaw wide open in shock...

Turning the door-handle was probably one of the most tense moments of his life, and that probably has to be the first time anyone in the history of mankind has ever said that opening a door was a tense situation. It twisted with a high pitched squealing that reminded him of sneaking around his house at night an trying not to wake his parents and he could hear the nervous, ragged breaths of the mare behind him. His right arm was outstretched and his hand held a semi-automatic pistol in its grasp, ready for anything that may be on the other side.

He stopped for a second and examined the situation. Something seemed awfully familiar about it and it struck a disturbing sense of 'De ja vu' into his mind. He thought about what was happening. What was happening? When did it happen? Why? Wait...

He *thought*...

The room began to collapse into itself as the fabric of the dream shifted into a new shape. Ominous yellows and greens broke down into a colourless abyss and sank away before being replaced by grays and blacks. Indoor turned outdoor, and he found himself standing atop a cut-away in the cliff-side with the cool nigh-time surroundings painting a dark picture across the landscape. Looking around, he sighed and leaned backwards and cracking his spine as he did so.

The dream world inside his scrambled psyche had been re-playing those moments from the previous night on a loop, torturing his brain with the deaths of those he had killed. Every bullet felt like a tidal wave in his emotions, bombarding his subconscious with the harsh reality of taking a life. So many people affected by one life, by killing those three changelings he may have caused distress and depression to countless others.

Ben sat down at the cliff edge and dangled his legs over the huge space below. He rested his face in his palms and started to sob quietly. What had he been thinking back home? How could he let his crappy life drive him to murder? These were the questions he pondered in his mind, exploring the deep depths of his own twisted insanity. Nothing in the past made sense, none of it. And because of this, there was nothing to use for the future.

Creature of the night (Prolouge)

Ben smiled at the night sky. Although no one was there to receive his gesture. It was ironic, that he felt so alone around other people but here, by himself, the star lit blackness above along with his favourite patio chair, he felt complete. It was something he could never understand this feeling of awe and happiness in the night time. He could spot the constellations in the seemingly random splatterings of lights among the dark abyss. There was Orion, Sagittarius, the Plough, Hydra, Leo and countless more. He imagined travelling between them in his antimatter drive powered space ship. Pummelling through space like a bat out of Hell, just waiting to find out what lay ahead of him at his next destination. He longed to escape his current life as a 13 year old British kid living a boring life in Gods own county, North Yorkshire. He frowned at the thought of God having his own county. Half the religions in the world seemed to think God created the entire world. What makes this place so special? Sure it's beautiful, but there are plenty of equally perfect places in the world that could easily outclass it. The Lake District in the county of Cumbria for example, was the prettiest place he had ever been. But he knew of one place that blew them all away, blasted them out of the water with a Nuclear bomb. The night sky.

"Anyway!" He shouted aloud to himself in the void silence around him.

"It's 11:30, I should be getting some kip now".

And with that he disappeared into the council house he called his home. Only to reopen the back door again to whisper,

"Goodnight, night"

Little did he know then, what was to be of his life. The kind of purpose he longed for would come, but he would have to wait. Just like he always did. Whatch, and wait.

Out of the frying pan

POV Fluttershy

Fluttershy hummed to herself as she tended to the last of nocturnal animal's needs. She gave the unusually small amount of nightly creatures a sufficient amount of food to last until the next evening, and sent them all away into the night, back to their homes. Letting out a satisfied smile, she sighed and took a rest on the soft green couch.

She lay there for a few minutes to let a bit of stress roll off her shoulders and calm her down from the days work. Feeling a tugging on her hoof, she looked down to Angel who was staring back up at her with a worried expression.

"Hello Angel. You look uneasy, is there something wrong?"

The white rabbit bounced up and down, pointing toward the door frantically. Fluttershy frowned, thinking of what his obscure body language could mean.

"You want to go outside? At night?" She suggested, getting a quick shaking of the head from Angel.

He then bore his teeth and raised his claws in imitation of a predator while pointing to the door again.

"Is there something outside?" The rabbit gave a worried nod and hopped up onto the couch, before jumping up onto Fluttrershy's back.

Fluttershy froze, as the bunny's reaction implied that it could be something dangerous. She turned to him and looked stern.

"I'm going to get Ben. He might be able to help us, and you need to find somewhere to hide in case something comes inside while i'm upstairs, okay?" The rabbit hurried over to a set of drawers in the corner of the room, before pulling one out and hiding in the back.

Okay, lets go and get Ben.

She slid off' the couch and walked to the stairs. Her body locked up again, as the cracking of twigs could be heard coming from the front of the house, outside the door. But she contained her sudden fear of the unknown and turned back to the stairwell.

Moving to the second floor, she remained silent. pushing open the door to the Human's room, her muscles locked up as the hinges squeaked in their stressed movement. But she could breathe easy again when she saw that he remained in slumber. Tip-hoofing over to his bedside, she slowly got closer to his ears and took a deep breath.

"B-Ben..."

She blushed and bit her bottom lip at her feeble attempt to get his attention. A vibration ran through her spine and she took another breath.

"Ben, please wake up..."

Trembling, she sighed and prepared herself to raise her voice. Relaxing her shoulder's, she inhaled deeply.

"Ben, wake up."

She 'squeed' when he shuffled to face her and opened his eyes, a fire burning across her cheeks. He squinted to see her in the darkness with tired eyes.

*Yawn* "Fluttershy? Whats going on?" He gave her a confused look and rubbed his eyes.

"T-There's s-something outs-side. T-The front door." She stumbled back onto her haunches and raised a foreleg to nibble at a hoof.

Ben sighed and looked around for a second, thinking about whether it was worth getting up for. He cracked his neck and twisted to sit on the opposite side of the bed, and Fluttershy looked away in embarrassment.

She could hear the shuffling of him putting on clothes, and the tinkling of a belt buckle behind her before the sounds paused for a brief moment. Only to be broken by the distinct metal-on-metal of loading the 'pistol' she had grown accustomed to seeing.

He walked passed her and out of the room. Following him down the stairs and onto the landing, she pointed at the door and shook nervously.

"There, it's c-coming from out t-there." She trembled and dragged her scared body over to the set of drawers that Angel was hiding in.

She watched him flick of the safety of his small, black handheld weapon and raise it up, ready to use it if it was needed. Then he slowly walked step by step towards the front door and stopped within his arms reach. Keeping his pistol in his right arm, and reaching out for the handle with his left, they connected. She could barely watch as his arm began to twist...

POV Twilight Sparkle

Twilight had been doing some late night studying when she felt like reading a few unread advertisements that she had been mailed recently. Opening them up, she read one that said something about the decline in certain animal species. She instantly thought of Fluttershy, and decided that having nothing else useful to do that evening was a good enough cause as any to go see her about it.

Now of course, if she was asleep then she would just head home and talk with her in the morning. But considering the fact that Fluttershy is kept up until almost eleven every night, that was unlikely.

The path to her cottage was beautiful at night. It was incredibly serene, and it allowed the brain to explore the world in a way that you didn't really see in the day.

The trees loomed overhead, creating a dramatic biological tunnel. And the moon gave everything a lightish blue sheen that made the surroundings look like a dark, uneven ocean of night-life. The odd owl hooting and the wind rustling through the trees echoed surprisingly loudly throughout the cool and crisp air.

She contemplated nature at it's most peaceful time, walking with her eyes closed in thought whenever the path would allow it. She continued like this until a faint yellow flash faded in through her eyelids, followed by an unfamiliar *BANG*, causing her to stand still and open her eyes.

She could see the cottage no more than two hundred feet away, and in the dark there was no way she could make out details at that distance. But what she could see was more flashes of light that were quickly followed by the same sound, not so different from a large firecracker. Then a blood curdling scream was let out into the air, and Twilight's ears fell back against her head.

She immediately broke into a canter, running as fast as her legs could carry her across the meadow that hosted the humble little cottage. As she neared the cottage she could begin to make out the sound of a struggle coming from inside the cottage, like things were being thrown around and crashed into. This only caused her to prepare her magic for a fight, just in case.

And to make things worse, she could now see the body of a creature lying in front of the open door. It had a large portion of its back colored a pearly dark blue, and its scraggy translucent cyan wings were splayed out across the ground. Its head featured a horn that sported a gentle backward curve and was sharpened to a blade at the point and down the front edge. A hole was placed on its face, leaking out blood from in between its eyes.  Lying in front of Fluttershy's cottage was the corpse of a Changeling.

Twilight's horn lit up a bright lavender as her face hardened into an angry frown and she widened her stance into a combat pose. She leaped into the doorway valiantly and raised her head, ready to blast whatever made a move on her friend.

"Flutter..." She was cut off at the start of the word when she saw a changeling pinned up against the wall, suspended in the air with a booted foot jammed in its neck, underneath its chin.

The expression on its face was one of sheer terror as it writhed around to break free. But that look dissipated and turned sad as it accepted its fate. It could only watch when a familiar black 'L' shaped object was raised up, pointing at its head. Suddenly, the room was lit up with a bright flash and an ear splitting *BANG* filled the air once again. An explosion of yellow-green liquid burst from the back of its head, spreading out all over the wall, and it dropped to the floor.

Before her was a scene taken straight from a crime novel. Three dead changelings were strewn about the place, all with the same fatal wounds in their body's. In-front of her stood the five foot, eight inch tall biped gripping a pistol in its right hand, and it stared back at her shocked form with worry.

"Come on Twilight! We need your help!" Ben said, rushing over to a butter colored pegasus cowering in a corner near some drawers at the back of the room.

"Fluttershy..." She whispered under her breath, still in a daze from the scene that just un-folded before her eyes. She shook her head bringing herself back to sense, and rushed over to her side.

Fluttershy looked traumatized. Her usual caring gaze had been replaced by an almost empty stare, and her body was shaking like crazy as she curled up into a ball. Fluttershy whimpered and cried when they came close, but looking up to find the purple alicorn looking back at her made her gasp and then latch onto Twilight like her life depended on it.

Fluttershy buried her face into her shoulder and cried hysterically. Her screams faltered as the tears flowed down her face and she held Twilight in a surprisingly strong hug.

"I'm gonna go and get suited up. We need to get Fluttershy somewhere safe and i don't know if the roads are safe or not." The deep voice stated beside her. She just nodded and got back to comforting her friend.

POV L.Cpl Beal

Ben rushed up the stairs and stormed into his room. He took a glance around and located the rest of his equipment in the wardrobe at the back of the room. Putting on his jacket and armour, he shuffled his shoulders to get everything comfortable. He then grabbed his rifle and checked the safety was on... It wasn't.

I left the safety off? Shit, i thought i checked that this morning... He thought, clicking it on.

"And I thought I might just be able to get some peace." Ben mumbled to himself.

Grabbing his bayonet and strapping it around his waist, he breathed in to collect his thoughts on everything that had just happened.

He let out his breath in a loud sigh and went back downstairs again. Fluttershy was still crying into Twilight's shoulder, but more softly now. Poor mare must have been terrified. Gripping his rifle in his hands, he waited for the princess to get up.

"Did you have to kill them?" Her soft voice asked. Truth be told, he hadn't thought about mercy at that time. All he knew was he was being attacked by deadly insects and both his and Fluttershy's lives were in danger.

"Its was either us or them, Princess. I couldn't let Fluttershy come to harm." Twilight looked back at him with a sad expression and sighed, looking down at the floorboards.

"Very well then..." She took the crying mare's face in her fore-hooves and looked into her eyes. Telling her that she needed to be strong before she lifted her up onto her hooves with magic.

They made their way over to the open door and peered outside. The night-time silence washed over them, impairing their speech for a moment until Twilight started walking outside. Ben blocked her path and turned to face her with Twilight looking up at him with confused eyes.

"Whats the matter? Is there more of them out there?" She questioned with a frown.

"I don't know. Do you know if you were followed?" She shuffled uncomfortably and shook her head.

"Great..."He lifted a hand to his chin and thought. If they were to be following then their pursuers would need a suitable place to hide, which wasn't too hard with being in the dark and all. Taking another look outside, he searched for hiding spots the well camouflaged chitinous bodies of the changelings could be lurking in.

The path fell away into a ridge-line on the left side with the Everfree tree-line only 20 feet or so behind it, the tree's shadows and the bushes would make excellent cover for an ambush. The right side fell away just as quickly but it was open past that point, allowing for a small number of people to travel the length of the ridge without being spotted by anyone hiding at the other side.

Problem was that the right ridge-line only continued for 10 feet or so, at which point the next bit of cover would be the line of Ash trees that were on the outside of the pathway. But then again, they could just use the ridge as cover by moving straight backwards into the trees without revealing themselves at all.

Pulling back from the doorway and quietly shutting the door, he crouched down to the ponies' height and pushed his hat back to prevent it from falling.

"Right, i have a plan. It involves stealth so try not to make any noise." The duo nodded their heads and sat down to listen. "Fluttershy, is there anyway out the back of the cottage?"

She nodded again while rubbing her tired and red eyelids, un-able to move her eyes from the corpses on floor. "T-there is a balcony that leads out the back, w-why?"

"Because that's our escape route. We're gonna go out the balcony and use the ridge to the right of the path leading up to the cottage for cover. Then we can move up to the dirt road without being seen by anything that may or may not be hiding in the Everfree's tree-line and make our way to Ponyville for help, got it?" Getting a round of bobbing heads settled his mind.

His plans were quite good, but he usually overlooked or missed something major that screwed him over one way or another. He just hoped this went well. He might have lives on him this time.

Making their way over to the balcony, he slowly opened the double glass doors and rested them against the walls of the cottage. Looking left and right, he couldn't see anything that immediately stood out as hostile. So he signaled the girls over. Fluttershy apprehensively went first, tentatively placing her hooves on the stone railings and then gliding down to the floor, where she began to shake with anxiety.

Then twilight glided down to sit beside her. Placing her foreleg around Fluttershy's neck and looking back up to Ben. He rubbed his gloved hands together and exhaled, trying to stop his nerves getting the better of him. He clambered over the stone and let his legs hang down, slowly climbing as far down as he could go before dropping.

He landed on the floor in a crouch with an uncomfortably loud thud, causing him to cringe and freeze in place along with the two mares. They waited in the cottage's shadow for something to happen... but nothing.

Ben smiled as he straightened back out and grabbed his rifle. Fluttershy was still shaking and her walking was no different. She couldn't seem to go in a straight line properly, almost as if she was tipsy. So Twilight had to stay beside her as they traveled round the side of the cottage to the ridge-line.

Ben peered over the ridge and exhaled to quell his nerves again. He looked back and signaled for the two ponies to make their way in a line to the line of trees at the side of the path for cover.

*Twang* Ben tensed up at the sound of tension being released on a wire. Then a large force slammed into his upper back, sending him onto his hands and knees. He could feel something sharp poking through his armour, and the first thought that came to mind was...

"Archer!" He shouted to the girls. "Get close to the walls, NOW!" The mares darted toward the cottage walls and pressed themselves against them. Ben turned to do the same, but he was hit in the chest with another arrow, causing him to stumble back. However this time he wasted no time and quickly joined the girls.

"We got an archer on the roof of the cottage." He informed them while fumbling with his rifle, flicking the safety off and cocking it to be sure it was loaded. "Twilight, can you cast a light onto the roof so I can see?" She nodded and her horn lit up. "On my mark..." He said before skirting round the back of the cottage to find a new shooting position.

"Mark!" A ball of light shot into the air, casting an ominous violet light over the area. Ben lined up his iron sights and began pacing backwards until he could see the whole roof on his side.

The light showed a silhouette with large blue eyes hovering a little above the roof. The silhouette already had its forelegs raised with a crossbow aimed right at him. Ben lined his sights on the figure and tapped the trigger, sending a short burst of rounds at the archer.

Instead of killing the archer, the bullets hit an invisible shield and created large glowing green cracks that seemed to float in the air. The way the cracks curved around suggested the shield to be curved, which would deflect projectiles fired at it.

*Twang* The crossbow fired again, hitting Ben in the chest for a second time. He flinched and paced back due to the bolts speed, before letting off another loud burst of gunfire which shattered the archers shield. The archer dived behind the lip of the roof to avoid more bullets that were sent its way.

The cadet stepped back to the wall for cover and removed the mag for an ammo check. The magazine had three rounds left, meaning that he could give the enemy one more good burst of fire before a reload. He pushed the mag back into the rifle and silently crept back around the other side of the cottage to get another shot on the archer.

Employing the same tactic, he lined his sights up and backpedaled to aim for his target. The shady figure was nowhere to be seen, which elevated his breathing. Where the fuck could it have gone?

He dropped into a crouching position and swiveled to look for it, it couldn't have gone far. Behind him was the Everfree, and his sides were both clear.

"Shit!" He shouted in a mixture of frustration and fear. He broke into a sprint and ran round the back of the cottage to meet the girls, who were cuddling each other in terror.

"Twilight, can you cast shields?" He asked quickly and desperately.

"Y-yes..." She stuttered her words while glancing around.

"Good, i need you to cast a shield around you and Fluttershy so that you can make a run for it. Can you do that?" He put his left hand on her shoulder and stared into her eyes. She nodded and tapped on Fluttershy's back.

"C'mon 'Shy, follow me." She cast a purple dome around the both of them and they ran down the footpath toward Ponyville. Once they had disappeared from sight, Ben used the time to reload his rifle. If he was going to take on this archer again, he'd need the advantage of not having to reload.

Turning around, he raised his rifle and started creeping to the back of the cottage again. Taking cover on the corner, he stopped before peering round to see if the archer was hiding there. It wasn't.

"Okay, its hide and seek motherfucker. Lets see what you got." He whispered to nobody in-particular as he made his stance as low as he could go while still walking. Checking every corner, he tried to breath methodically when searching for his foe.

Okay. If I was out-gunned, what would I do? He thought to himself before turning to the roof for a second. No, not enough cover and I've already forced it out from there.

Now he was starting to panic. How could something just vanish? The only other place it could have gone was...

He faced the balcony. The curtains blew in the night-time breeze, beckoning him inside the house. He sighed and made his way over to the the wall at the base of the cottage. He leaped onto the wall and rebounded to the balcony, grasping it and wedging his toes into the stonework to haul himself up.

Landing on the balcony with the occupied cottage open in-front of him felt so fictional it was untrue. But shoving these thoughts aside, he stepped beyond the doors with his rifle raised. With the dead bodies strewn about, the main room looked very un-inviting, almost like the scene in some messed up science fiction movie.

Ben checked everything and anything that could be hidden behind, and seeing nothing that could hide an over-sized insect shifted his attention to the next room. The kitchen was plainly rectangular and had nothing that could hide his enemy, so he would give that a tactical miss. Now he would have to go to the unlit second floor, so he grabbed a lantern hanging on the wall.

Now its Amnesia style, bitches!

So he turned his attention to the stairs. Stairs felt risky, as they were great for setting up ambushes against lone soldiers such as himself. If he had flash-bangs, this would be a great place to use one. Taking a deep breath, he slowly stepped up the stairs, the boards creaked and broke the silence with a sledgehammer, if there was someone up there they would know he was coming up.

He was certain that no-one could come in-front of him now so he turned around to walk up the stairs backwards. This meant he could see anyone camping at the top as he came up. As he reached the blind spot, he jumped up the next 2 steps. Again he aimed at every cover he could see, nothing was hiding at the top of the stairs.

"Ready or not, here I come!" He called out to the shadows beyond the reach of the lanterns glow. The darkness seemed to wrap around the small sphere of light that his boxed candle gave out like a present at a birthday. It hid what lay beyond with perfect efficiency, making the foe that waited for him invisible to the naked eye.

He steadied his breaths and ventured across the second floor. Coming to the first door, he sighed. He had never been in Fluttershy's room, so he didn't quite know what to expect. He kicked the door open and rolled the lantern across the floor of the room to illuminate it.

He jumped into the room and repeated his sloppy room clearing tactic, making sure that he missed nothing. Still the shady changeling eluded him, this one knew how to make a guy nervous. Picking up the lantern, he now had only one hand controlling the rifle.

So he stepped out of the room un-prepared for a black hoof to punch him in the face making a sickly crack as his nose broke. Ben screamed and brought a hand to clutch the smashed cartilage. A foreleg wrapped around his arm and threw him out of the room and into the banister rails surrounding the stairs.

He barely had time to collect himself before he was kicked over the rail and sent tumbling down the stairs. Each step felt like a completely separate blow, leaving him dazed and in pain by the time he came to a stop at the bottom. He rolled his battered body onto his hands and knees and wobbled to his feet, un-able to properly make out the blurry figure approaching him.

The changeling slammed him into a set of drawers and lined up another punch. Its strike landed on his stomach, causing his body to convulse and making him wretch violently. A hoof raised his head and allowed him to get a proper look at the changeling.

It had tattoos covering its body, making pictures in places. The other sections of the markings looked tribal, even curling round into spirals at some parts. The most intimidating bit was the claw marks on its face. Whatever had made them, they were pretty big scars, like a Lion had slashed your face and you barely escaped with your life.

The next thing he knew was that his face was battered against the wall with such force that his vision was distorted, leaving a ringing in his ears. A migraine washed over him and he slid down the wall completely disoriented. The world seemed to bend in an almost drunken haze as he forced himself to stay awake. Blood ran down his face and dripped onto his lap, making a mess of his trousers.

He just about managed to pick his head up from hanging by his chest to see the changeling in-front of him.

"You are even weaker than i expected you to be." It told him in a cold voice. Something about its icy tone made him feel so inferior in comparison, and it scared him. "But when we next meet again, remind me to stay clear of your weapons. Good riddance, creature." It drew its crossbow and rested it against Ben's bloodied forehead.

But just before it could pull the firing lever, a white flash jumped out from the drawers and latched onto the changelings scarred face, causing it to shriek in surprise. Angel sunk his teeth into the changeling and then withdrew, grimacing in disgust.

"Gah! What is this,'Xenacunatra'?" Ben didn't recognize that last word, but it probably meant something ironic. The black insect threw the rabbit into the corner of the room and snarled menacingly.

This is my chance... He thought, pulling his bayonet from its sheath and stumbling to his feet. The changeling turned around, expecting to be faced by a defeated foe, but Ben quickly lunged for its head. It wasn't able to fully move out of the way, and the bayonet buried itself deep into the insects side.

It screamed in pain and threw him aside. Taking into the air, it hovered for a moment to give him a deathly stare.

"You may have been lucky this time, but next time, I.WILL. kill you!" With that being said, it sped out of the open double doors and away into the night. Ben fell onto his ass and shuffled back into the wall to rest after the battle, and Angel limped over to rest with him.

"Thanks bud'." He scratched behind the bruised rabbits ears and smiled. Being able to relax at that moment felt heavenly, but his broken nose and cut up face seemed to prevent him from fully enjoying the peace. He kicked his legs out, crossing them over and slouching against the drawers. Closing his eyes, he felt sleep begin to creep into the corners of his mind...