“So? How was the date?” Luna asked with wide eyes and an even wider smile, perched on my bed as I found a place to store my scotch. Last night’s events were rather uneventful; a couple movies, pizza and eventually everyone fell asleep. Woke up the next day and half the girls had already left before I headed out myself.

“It was…” I gave the bottle a turn so the decal faced outwards. “Eventful.”

“Eventful how?” Weiss looked up from playing with Luna’s mane next to the princess.

“Turns out that someone who I thought was dead wasn’t which triggered an attack.” I explained, spinning on my heels to lean against the dresser and address my inhuman best friends. “Also turns out that the bar we went to has a policy of allowing a soldier suffering from PTSD to escape the building in silence and all attention off them.”

“Sounds like quite a night.” Weiss went back to raking her claws through the mane in her hands, swirling the galaxy-like highlights around into new formations.

“Did you kiss her?” Luna inquired with a starry look in her eyes.

“Uh, yeah? I always do?” I replied with a curious look. What was she getting at?

“Tell us about it?” Luna requested, rolling onto her side in a daze.

“Why?” I took a seat on my bed near to her, crossing my legs on the corner as I tempted fate to toss me off the edge.

“It’s a girl thing, we like to know these things.” Weiss explained as she rested against Luna’s belly.

“Right. I kissed her.” I announced, making Luna glare at me.

“Details! What was it like? Was it romantic? Was it a gentle peck or a full-on passionate burn? Was there gazing into the eyes or was it a quick, sudden and random event? Was there tongue?” Luna demanded, her head rising back up to request such details.

“Hey, you girls can talk about stuff like that all you want. Us guys don’t really converse about things like that. We don’t care.” I crossed my arms defiantly over my chest, turning away to add to my point.

“Must’ve been a quick peck or something.” Weiss mumbled to the Princess, both girls giggling at the thought. I shrugged and stood from the bedside to head into the workshop.

“Oh come on, we meant nothing by it!” Luna insisted, crawling off the bed to catch up to me with a grin. “We’re just curious about what happened!”

“Well, if you absolutely must know, the guy who was supposed to be dead but wasn’t knows my name.” I announced, earning the interest of both dragonling and Princess. “He was the first one to successfully call me by my name.” both jaws dropped to the floor at this news and it took them a second to pick them up once more.

“What is it?” Luna almost demanded of me, getting right up and close to me.

“Still can’t say it myself apparently…” I informed the mare, hesitating to put on my toolbelt given I had a history of immediately finding something else to do.

“Does anyone else know it or does just the guy?” Weiss asked, clamoring up onto Luna’s back via right wing.

“Sunset knows my full name but i’ve requested that she be sworn to secrecy for it.” I shrugged back with a bemused grin, turning to a kitchen table project with some tools in hand.

“I must find out!” Luna exclaimed, tearing out of the room to grab my book and try to write a letter to Sunny. “Dang-it, Tia! Why’d you have to enchant this to only be writable by him?” she cursed, the sound of my book hitting the desktop again.

“Generally speaking of Sunset, have you or your sister managed to find out the spell the mirror uses to turn humans into ponies when coming back here?” I asked, trying my best to get off the current subject of my name. Still, why can I not say the name Soren Mercer? It doesn’t make sense to me that I can’t…

“Actually…” Luna replied with a mischievous grin. “We have. We deciphered the spell late last night while you were over.” This had me raise an eyebrow and nearly, nearly chip a blade on my hand planer.

“So Sunset can come over and someone can turn her back to human?” I asked hopefully, setting down my tools to face Luna.

“Actually, it would affect the mirror itself. Anything going through wouldn’t be changed at all, coming or going.” Luna replied, sitting back against the wall. “It would also be a permanent change.”

“So? Let’s do it!” I exclaimed eagerly, standing to get myself ready to head back over with the good news.

“Let me discuss this with Twilight Sparkle first, since she’d be unable to turn human if she were ever to try and go back over. This would mostly prevent her from being able to go back ever again if she doesn't want to run around Anestria with wings and a horn.” Luna explained with a slightly somber tone. So at it’s base it would be a choice between Sunset being able to come over here or for Twilight never able to see her friend again. Dammit.

“Sounds fair to me, but I’m still curious about why the spell couldn’t just be used on Sunset when she comes over instead of casting it on the mirror itself.” I asked, stopping to lean against the stone surface of a wall in the main foyer.

“Well, this is just what my sister tells me. Since we haven’t used the spell yet, we have no idea what’s possible and what isn’t but Tia is quite certain that it can only be used on the portal itself.” Luna explained, joining me as we exited the dungeons and ascended towards the surface.

“So if we had Sunset come back over as a unicorn and we tried the spell on her?” Weiss suggested as she finally caught up and latched onto the back of my coat.

“I suppose we could try that. Would you like to discuss this with Sunset before we get much further?” Luna stopped on a stair and turned back to me.

“She’ll be in class at the moment for another couple hours. We have time for other things. For now anyways.” I shrugged as I took an approximation of the time; middle of the morning, a couple hours before lunch.

Stepping out past the door, I was greeted face to frozen face with winter covering the gardens and castle beyond. Winter had arrived while I slept.

“Wow, that was quick.” I announced, already turning back inside to grab my coat and probably write Sunset a quick update while I was down there.

“Oh, right. Should have mentioned the pegasi were busy last night after you got home.” Weiss replied not-so-helpfully from my back.

“Yeah, thanks for the warning smart-ass.” I smirked and stepped into my bedroom to pull my coat on over me once Weiss had removed herself.

“You’re welcome!” Weiss grinned before climbing up into my hood to lounge. “I like this seating arrangement!” she announced, getting comfortable.

“So then what happens when I pull my hood up?” I asked, turning back towards the stairs out.

“Then I suppose you’ll have an adorable baby dragon sitting on your head.” Weiss shrugged back, I think. It’s kind of hard to tell since she’s directly behind me.

Now, what was it I was aiming to do outside?

With a shrug to myself I reascended the stairs up and out with Weiss riding in my hood and rejoined the princess. To our distant left marched a progression of griffons surrounded by their guards and other waiting staff.

“What’s goin’ on with that?” I asked as the two of us larger creatures entered into the castle, though I was aiming for the kitchen for some breakfast.

“Peace talks with the Griffon nations. You may not be aware but we’ve had some problem with them in the past and we’re aiming to resolve them before something bad happens.” Luna explained, watching the progression with me as we entered into a section of the castle not cordoned off by security.

“Ahh. Well then good luck to Celestia then.” I announced as we entered into the kitchen we’d often use for food acquisition. As soon as we crossed the hallway/kitchen threshold Weiss launched herself out of my hood and took to the fridge to find something to eat; staff had already cleaned up from when the Princesses had eaten. Since I myself wasn’t royalty, they felt that it wasn’t necessary to provide food for me and Weiss if we hadn’t joined Luna for the morning buffet.

“So, out of morbid curiosity, what would happen if talks between Celestia and the Griffon delegation were to break down? Just what kind of bad are we talking about?” I inquired as I pulled a couple eggs out to turn them into some kind of breakfast burger with a prime rib steak as a patty. The rest of the fixings i’d deal with when the egg and meat was nearly done.

“Worst case, war.” Luna replied simply, taking a seat at the table to lounge against it as Weiss resorted to a raw mutton steak.

“Ooh, yeah that’s pretty bad.” I replied, my mind traveling back to the alternate world i’d seen and died in. “Do they know about me and my military abilities?”

“No, Celestia has explicitly kept you a secret from the Griffons; just in case something does happen.” Luna shook her head as I dropped the steak in a hot pan to get cooking as I turned to dealing with the eggs. “We both would very much appreciate it if you would come to our aid, in the event of war breaking out.”

“Of course. I’ve already got some ideas for what you and I can do to fortify the Guard and i’ve got a few more plans for the three of us if we were to fight together.” I nodded back, looking over my shoulder at the princess of the night and my baby dragon.

“You wish to for to fight alongside you?” Luna looked at me in astonishment, followed by a look of great appreciation. “I would be honoured!”

“What exactly would you do with having me fight with you?” Weiss asked once she’d cleared her mouth of raw meat and blood.

“I’ve got some ideas, don’t worry.” I replied with a smirk.

“Better not turn me into some kind of pack mule to carry everything.” Weiss grumbled before ripping off another mouthful.

“Nah, we’ll all be carrying all our own equipment. No one’s pack muling anything.” I replied assuringly as I flipped the steak over and peppered the first side in spices. “Besides; Luna would refuse to, Weiss wouldn’t be strong enough to carry everything and I’d-”

“Shh!” Luna suddenly cut me off, her ears flicking in different directions. “I hear something!” She quickly moved from her seat and grabbed Weiss and I in her magic, dragging us away from the doorway and towards a walk-in fridge.

Standing just inside the ajar door, I watched the kitchen for anything out of the ordinary, listening intently to focus out the humming of the magical cooling stones behind us.

“I don’t-” Weiss began in a whisper, however both Luna and I shushed her with a finger to my lips and a hoof over her face altogether.

The faint sound of clicking claws on the stone surface suggested something with claws approaching quickly. Considering that Weiss was the only thing to be running around with claws, this was abnormal.

Pulling a stone from my pouch, I handed it to Weiss who looked at it a moment before her eyes went wide in understanding. She quickly climbed up Luna’s wing and onto her back, placing her hand against the back of Luna’s head as I took her claw with the stone in it.

Luna shut her eyes as her horn began to glow faintly, making me need to close the door as much as I could without locking us in as I too closed my eyes and began to imagine a Benelli M4 shotgun in black with a shotgun shell pouch strapped to my arm and the butt of the gun with the extra red shells loaded into the gun tube and both pouches.

“I don’t really like the look of this one!” Luna whispered over the effort of turning it into a tangible item.

“Sorry, but it may be necessary.” I replied in an equal whisper as I felt magic swirling around above my open, outstretched hand. A minute later of magic and the new shotgun dropped into my hand, the feel of the foregrip preventing it from sliding out of my hand again as I released Weiss’s hand and pulled an extra shell from my arm pouch and loaded it into the gun’s firing chamber.

“In here!” a harsh male voice ordered as a trio of rather large, armoured griffons entered into the kitchen with melee weapons drawn. “Look, there’s gotta be someone in here, someone who eats meat!” on invader noted as he caught a whiff of my steak.

“This can’t be good for peace talks, can it?” I not to much as whispered as I did simply mouth it to Luna who shook her head once she’d understood me.

“Find her and bring her to me alive! We need Princess Luna alive if we’re to have any hopes of gaining the upper hand!” the leader ordered, making everyone in the fridge raise an eyebrow. Luna stepped back a bit and let me take up a defending position before her with Weiss right behind me.

“Sir, looks like their refrigerator is open, maybe she’s in there!” one of the griffons announced, having taken notice of the cool steam wafting out through the tiny crack in the door.

Well, this’ll be fun! I thought as I stepped back and took aim at the door.

“Anyone who’s in there, step out now with your weapons on the floor behind you!” the leader griffon ordered, pulling a rather large blade reminiscent of a scimitar from it’s scabbard and aimed it at the door; at me. “Open it!” he ordered the nearest bird-thing.

As soon as the creature was within range, I gave a heavy thrust-kick at the door and sent it flying outwards and into the beak of the griffon unfortunate enough to be caught by surprise.

Taking immediate aim at the second griffon, not the leader but the one who was foolish enough to rush me with his blade, I pulled the trigger and sent about nine pellets of buckshot into the chest of the beast, easily piercing his armour to cause his chest to nearly explode from the surprise impact.

Griffons, apparently, are very hefty beasts.

Firing three more rounds into the beast finally fell the attacker as the one with the crushed beak backtracked away from me with a squawk before it figured I could hit it. Frankly, I was still in range.

“Retreat! It’s using some sort of offensive magic!” the leader ordered as I took aim at him and fired into his front leg, crippling him with the second round. “Gah! Get away from here! Do not be taken down! Report back to the Lieutenant!” he ordered as I fired my final round into the back leg of the fleeing griffon before being forced to reload.

“Now,” I began, racking up a round and loaded in the seventh and final. “Shall we have a chat?”

“Screw you, ape!” he hissed back before spitting on my torso. I shrugged an eyebrow and fired three rounds into his other front leg, putting him on the floor in a pool of his own slowly leaking blood. “Fuck!” he cursed as Luna took off with Weiss after the injured griffon trying to make it’s escape with a handful of guards who’d come to our aid upon hearing the first gunshot.

“Not what I asked.” I replied, crouching down to look the griffon in the eye. “Shall we have a chat? Why’re you here and what do you want with Luna?”

“I’ll never talk!” his hissed back, glaring at me with his best “mean look.”

“Uh huh. We’ll see.” I replied with a sadistic grin. “By the way, i’m not an ape.” I added before cracking the butt of the gun over his head, knocking him unconscious. Turning to a quad of guards who’d stayed behind, “Take this piece of shit down to the sub-dungeons and string him up by his injured claws. Don’t let his feet touch the ground.” I instructed, racking in another round just in case.

“Yes sir!” the guards replied sternly before working together to lift the large griffon from the ground and carry him down past my home.

“If he wakes up, do whatever you have to to knock him back out again. Keep him alive!” I instructed, tearing out of the kitchen after the trail of blood.

~*~*~*~

“Ambassador, I’m sorry but I fail to see how we’ve neglected the treaties!” Celestia sighed, rubbing her eyes with her hoof. These talks were going nowhere. “We’ve done everything outlined, by you, without question!”

“Bah! I know you’ve been holding out on us! We’ve gotten reports that you’ve been harbouring advanced technology from us!” the griffon ambassador replied adamantly, slamming his fisted claw on the table.

A swirl of mist floated in from outside the doors to the throne room and approached Celestia before anti-burning a scroll.

“Please excuse me, this may be important.” Celestia requested, taking hold of the scroll in her bright yellow magical aura and unrolled it. Her eyes traced over the words in silence, her face firm and unwavering. “I see.”

“What?” the ambassador sat back and crossed his claws over his chest in disinterest.

“Guards, please detain every griffon in this room and make sure to grab the one coming through the door in a minute!” Celestia announced, the guard following their orders quickly and fluidly; the unicorns applied motion restrictive spells on the bird long enough for the pegasi and earth ponies to shackle them all in wrought iron chains.

“What is the meaning of this! Release me at once!” the ambassador demanded as the Guards fought to detain his significantly larger build than the other staff members behind him.

“My sister tells me that she had just been assaulted by three of your staff in our kitchen. She has defended herself and is now in chase with a survivor. They should be reaching the throne room-” Celestia’s calm voice was interrupted by the doors being flung open by a griffon favouring one of it’s back legs. “Now.”

“Sir, mission failed! They’ve got some kind of ape thing with an unknown weapon! Diven is dead and I don’t know what’s happened to Jafar!” he spilled as Luna skidding into the room with a flaring horn and wings spread wide in fury. “Help me!” he squawked as the Guards suddenly appeared on him, pressing him to the ground with their bodies to restrain him before shackles appeared on his claws and paws.

“So, I see you’ve had an eventful morning sister.” Celestia completely ignored the griffon prisoners as she stood from her seat and approached her younger. “Are you injured?”

“No sister, I was saved by a mutual friend.” Luna replied, calming down and returning to propriety. “Weiss and I heard them coming down the hallway and hid in the kitchen walk-in. We caught them surprised and defended ourself. Regrettably this one is the only survivor.” Luna announced, glaring at the injured creature next to her. “How was your chat?”

“You know, I had a feeling that they were stalling. They kept beating around the brush and wouldn’t stay on topic; unless it was about Equestria not keeping our end of the treaties.” Celestia replied with a smirk, looking back over her shoulder at the enraged ambassador.

“What will you do with them now? We cannot hold them lest we anger the Griffon King.” Luna inquired, sitting back on her haunches; as did her older sister.

“We will release them back to the Griffon nation of course. We cannot hold a group of emissaries if they themselves have done nothing wrong. The injured one, we will keep here and tend to his leg before we speak to the Griffon King about his trial.” Celestia decided sternly, her gaze shifting to each party as she spoke.

“This is an outrage! How dare she even suggest that we’d attack her! She has no proof! How do we know she didn’t just injure one of my guards on her own?” the ambassador shouted as he fought with his chains.

“I was there, I saw it all!” Weiss exclaimed, hopping down from her mostly hidden position on Luna’s back. “Everything the Princess said is true!”

“Preposterous! That dragonling has been coerced to make such claims! I will have her head for such blasphemy! The King will hear about this!” he threatened, looking back at Celestia now.

“Oh most certainly he will.” Celestia replied in a casual calm while a steward pony brought forth a rolling desk made by Captain as a thank-you with proper stationary utop it’s Northern Equestrian red-wood. “I intend to send a letter explaining the situation immediately.” she added, dipping a dry quill into an inkpot before scratching out a letter.

“Wha- There is no way the King would take your word, the word of a Pony Princess over the word of his most trusted ambassador!” the griffon announced with a cheeky grin, adding extra spite to the title.

“Probably, which is why this letter is going to the Equestrian Emissaries in your own kingdom.” Celestia looked up from rolling the parchment and applied her royal seal in wax to seal it shut before letting it burn and float off out a nearby window. “Now, I’d like for the guard to take the injured to the infirmary and get them patched up while the rest escorts the healthy from the country to be released.” Celestia ordered, earning salutes from everypony in armour.

“Shall I have our mutual friend join us once everyone is gone?” Luna asked of her sister, to which Celestia nodded.

“This isn’t the end of this!” The ambassador shouted as he was escorted from the room in chains.

“No, I suspect it won’t be.” Celestia agreed solemnly.

***

“Well, that was interesting.” I noted as I stepped up to the sisters from behind my hiding place at the doors to the throne room, shotgun resting against my chest with the safety on.

“I wish for the body to be disposed of quickly. The prisoner i’ll leave up to you.” Celestia requested, turning to greet me. Her letter had been given a bit of extra information opposed to Luna’s explanation when i’d finally caught up to them and suggested we write Celestia a letter before the events that had transpired was misconstrued by the fleeing bird.

“Excellent, thank you. I’ll get everything I can out of him.” I nodded back with a grin, already mentally going through everything I would try on the Griffon, see what would make him break.

“I would appreciate a quick delivery of the information, but please, leave out the details how you got them.” Celestia looked at me bemusedly before walking off alone.

“So, what are you going to do to him?” Luna asked in whispers.

“It would be best if you didn’t know.” I replied calmly. “Let’s just say i’m going to get to know Griffon biology quite well while he’s alive.”

“Right.” Luna shot up and all but avoided the conversation. “I’m going to go deal with your burning breakfast!”

“Oh shit that’s right!” I groaned, only now remembering the steak and eggs that would almost certainly have been set on fire by now. “Dammit I was so busy with all of this that I forgot all about breakfast!”

“Well, then why don’t you go start over?” Weiss suggested, climbing up onto my back and into my hood, the front of the coat having been left open.

“I’m going to have too. Don’t really wanna get exploratory with a griffon on an empty stomach.” I replied, scratching my grumbling belly.

“If you don’t mind, i’ve got to assist my sister with recovering from this attack.” Luna requested before turning and walking off after her sister.

~~~

“So, Jafar,” I began, sitting down on a stool in the depths of the prison where actual prisoners were kept. I had a doctor pony bring me a set of medical tools, everything from scalpels to bone saws and cleavers. Next to those sat a variety of liquids and other various objects I could use. “Would you like to save yourself some invasive probing?”

“Fuck you!” Jaraf hissed as he hung from the wall by his crippled forelegs, his wings restrained and physically bolted to the wall between the bone and tendon. “You’ve got nothing you can do to me that’ll make me talk!”

“Alright, then it’s time to get experimental!” I exclaimed with a grin, taking hold of a cork screw. “I wanna know, is a griffon’s claws tougher than a dragon’s?”

“I guess you’ll never find out!” the griffon retorted before I stood and approached his left claw, the plumage and skin having been peeled back while he hung.

“That’s where you’re wrong.” I replied, jabbing the screw into the palm of his talons and dig it in, making the beast hiss out in response. Fortunately for me a wooden beam sat directly behind both hands, which meant that the corkscrew was able to dig all the way through and into the wood to hold the claw still before I reached for my next tool, a cigar cutter. “Still got nothing to say?” I asked, pushing the blades back and slipped it over the first talon, just too where it met with flesh.

“Nope! Fucking do it!” he dared with a sure grin. I shrugged and expanded my fingers, the blades slicing through the meat easily to let the claw drop into my waiting hand. Of course, the Griffon howled out in pain.

“One down, nine more to go?” I asked, looking back at the griffon for any sign of change.

“Best- “he paused to suck in a laboured breath. “Get to it then!”

“By all means, that was the idea!” I grinned back and proceeded to chop off the next two talons with meat still barely attached. “Let me ask something benign, does your country have oranges, lemons or anything like that?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” my prisoner remarked, still breathing heavily.

“I would, yes. If you have, have you ever cut yourself before handling such a fruit? Ever felt that burn of the acids on open flesh?” I stepped back to my tray of equipment and selected a large bowie knife-like instrument.

“Sure, what about it?” the griffon eyed me over cautiously as I doused the blade in a clear liquid over the stone. As the drips hit the stone surface, an intense smoke began to rise from the splashes as the surface began to hiss.

“This’ll be so much more worse than that.” I explained as I ran the sharp edge over the forearm of the bird, making it hiss and sizzle like the stone as the Griffon cried out. “See, this is something called hydrochloric acid. It’s essentially stomach acid that your body uses to breakdown food and anything else you may ingest. Means it works wonders on meat if the piece is small enough.” I explained as the wound immediately began to cauterize from the acid before I wiped it off with a cloth doused in a base.

“So? Just means you can’t do anything severe to me with it!” he groaned from the burn.

“No, it means that I can douse your injured fingers in it, just enough that it only affects the damage.” I replied with a grin, holding a smaller bottle of the acid upside down to let a single drop his the bare flesh i’d cut only moments later.

More smoke and hissing had the Griffon screaming out in pain before I stepped back and set everything down.

“So tell me Jafar, what did you want with Princess Luna?” I asked as I sat back down on the stool and crossed my leg.

“None of your fucking business! The Griffon King will have your head when he hears about this!” he cursed spitefully.

“That’ll be impressive, since all of your griffon friends think you’re dead. The King thinks you’re dead, the Ambassador thinks you're dead. You’ve got nothing to rely on now, you're nothing but a sack of meat for me and Weiss to chew on for breakfast!” I grinned sadistically, making the bottom lip of the bird quiver for a second. Finally, progress!

“Impossible! They’ll know i’m alive! I am their best combatant and they know it! They’ll mount a rescue for me!” Jafar insisted as I selected a simple tiny scalpel.

“If anything, they’ll mount a rescue for your body. Like I said, they were told you had been killed when Luna fought back against all three of you.” I explained again as I approached the bird’s face with the sharp blade. “Now hold still, I wanna see what the difference is between the skin under your feathers and the skin under your fur.”

Author's Note

Hehehe, this may turn dark for many viewers, just sayin'.

If enough people, or the right people, start telling me I need to upgrade the rating to mature for a certain scene, then fine.

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