With the throne room reduced to a glowing puddle of molten metal and stone, both the Lunar and Solar courts were delayed until the Royal Sisters could get a few architects to rebuild it. Just as well, The dining hall was much nicer for a conversation between royalty and their most trusted advisers about "The Enigma" as they referred to me. It was also much easier for me to eavesdrop on them, a fact made much easier since Celestia seemed to think that her translator spell had worn off.

"How is he mortal if he can't die, sister?"

"The Grey Mare may take him, but Harmony won't take him and Tartarus can't hold him."

"If he has done even a thousandth of what you said he has, Tartarus would be a kindness to him."

"Luna, please don't make me explain this again. He can't be held by any shackles or prison we have. If he turns against us, there's nothing that can stop him."

"If we can't execute him and we can't imprison him, what can we possibly do to protect our little ponies from him?"

"He might agree to fight for us. Starswirl is getting old; he can't lead The Eclipsed for much longer and The Enigma would be a good leader for them."

My head turned from staring at the portrait on the wall of a massive shining city that looked almost as though it was made of glass to staring at the royals. Celestia's smirk indicated to me that she was well aware I had been listening and that I had been played like a fiddle.

"Ah, so he can understand us. Then you heard my opinion. You are too dangerous to allow you to walk freely and there's no way for us to imprison you or execute you. I have no other option than to draft you into the Equestrian military. The Royal Guards are the peacekeepers of the nation and are trained to protect the citizens, obviously something you are... overqualified for. My sister's Shadow Bolts are exclusively pegasi, which you are obviously not. That only leaves The Eclipsed, the point of Equestria's blade. If you agree to join them, you will be placed underneath only three ponies: myself, Princess Luna and Archmage Starswirl."

The Princess's offer certainly caught me off guard. VEGA, what do you think about her offer?

"My power levels are insufficient for quantum level processing. Standard processing inefficient for temporal querying."

With no way to answer anything other than yes or no, I had to carefully weigh my options, which essentially boiled down to I could either agree to their offer and have friends in high places or turn them down and always have to watch my back. Definitely one of the hardest choices I had ever made.

~~~

The princesses lead me to a small chamber hidden in the dungeons of the castle. The route to it was impossible to follow and wasn't helped in the slightest that the doors which at one point opened onto either a chamberpot room or a small kitchen depending on whether I pulled the doorknob with my left or right hand, and the time I had pulled a door open with one of my boots, it opened up to reveal my backside standing there. I picked up a small piece of stone on the floor then loosed the projectile at the me standing behind me. I slammed the door shut when I felt a rock hit me square in the back of the head and decided that I wasn't leading anymore.

Princess Luna lead us down a series of hallways that passed over each other, and at one point ran backwards along the same corridor even though the walls were smooth stone with no offshoots. She stopped before a massive stone door that looked to be carved from a mountain before knocking on the door three times and uttering "Starswirl, Starswirl, Starswirl." On her third utterance, the stone literally folded into itself into a cube and continued folding itself into a cube again and again.

Standing underneath the door was the strangest looking pony I had ever seen. His grey fur seemed to blend right into the stones of the dungeon while his night blue cloak and hat, both decorated with stars, stood out so vividly from the stone that it would be easy to assume that he was nothing more than a rack holding clothes. His eyes shifted between all the colors of the rainbow before settling on a snow white, the same as the magnificent beard that was currently combing the dust from itself.

"My Highnesses, a pleasure to meet your company yet again." He swept his hat along the ground in what I assumed was supposed to be a respectful bow until I realized that the ground where his hat had swept past had decayed instantly to dust which his beard somehow produced a small dustpan and brush and began sweeping.

"My sister and I have brought a new recruit for you. We would like you to examine him and see if he is acceptable to you."

The old stallion's head rose until he was staring me straight in the eyes, a feat more impressive since he was only half my height and his hooves stayed planted firmly on the ground. "Let's see what we got here young whippersnapper," the stallion cackled like a madman as his horn glowed and shifted through several shades of grey.

After nearly a minute of the stallion staring, he turned to address the princesses, every hint of humor gone from his voice. "You two do realize that this creature is followed by a miasma of destruction and trailed by the spirits of countless damned souls reaching out to him from the blackest graves and tombs in this or any world and that his mere presence invites ruin upon all in his wake, correct?"

"Ummm, no?"

An absolutely massive crack of lightning flashed, bathing the world in light as Starswirl spoke "His presence signals the coming of an ancient beast and the dawn of true power. After this great beast rises, the world will be left twisted and broken and all who breathe will know the meaning of eternal slumber." His head fell back onto his body, "But enough about my day, how has your days been going my princesses?"

The princesses argued back and forth for several minutes, during which I distinctly heard it uttered several times to "Banish him to Tartarus and hope for the best." Starswirl motioned for me to follow him as he walked back into his lab. As soon as my feet passed the threshold of his door, the massive stone sprung apart and blocked the door.

The lab was strange to say the least. wires hung from the ceiling connected to nothing, glass tubes dripped liquid back into the beakers they connected to, several tesla coils sat around arching electricity into other things and in one spot sat a floating cauldron with a small fire burning underneath it, the fire seemed to be freely burning on stone with no fuel.

"I'm sorry child, you have been thrust into a world you don't understand. Only an idiot would fight a war on two fronts, and only the heir to the throne of the kingdom of idiots would fight a war on six fronts, but unfortunately that's exactly what the princesses have done. You are our only hope in the coming months. You are the most powerful piece and unpredictable piece on our side of the board: the knight. Unfortunately you are not the most powerful piece on the board." His horn glowed and a massive sequence of chessboards appeared. Nine boards floated in the air over a tenth board. each board had easily a hundred rows and columns and the pieces on the board moved back and forth on their own.

"The future is as clear as glass to me, young one. The princesses want me to train you as one of my Eclipsed, but I cannot do that. I don't need to test you to see if you are loyal to the throne, any half-blind old fool can see that you live only to defend the weak and protect the innocent. I need you to defend the citizens of Equestria from the war that lies upon our borders. Six kings will lie broken at your feet and the seventh shall stand and the world will quake before him. As such, I have three things to give you before you sail. The first is an old friend of yours."

Starswirl stepped to the side and sitting behind him on the pillar I swear wasn't there ten seconds ago was my pistol, it's micro nuclear reactor glowed and buzzed. My hand closed upon the handle like two lovers reunited. I drew a bead on the first object that I saw, the cauldron. The bolt of pure energy ripped through the cauldron as a pool of viscous purple ooze fell to the floor.

"Oh Celestia, damn him to Tartarus" Starswirl swore as the purple ooze pulled itself together into a small slime with slightly darker eyes and then no eyes as my pistol bolted out a fully charged shot and splattered the slime everywhere. Starswirl ran over and tried to grab something out of the middle of the goo, but wasn't fast enough and all the goo dissolved before he could reach it.

He gave a huff before turning back to me, "The second gift I have for you is your choice of Celestia's or Luna's honor."

A pair of swords sprung from the ground in front of him. One of them was a thin golden blade, barely more than a rapier. As it's handguard, it had a series of rotating metal rings carved with glyphs set with what looked like a small sun in the middle of them. The rings would stop moving briefly before rotating with enough force that I'm positive it would rip someone's hands apart if they grabbed it.

The second blade appeared to be completely opposite to the first. where the first looked to be almost ceremonial in nature, the second looked like it had been created for war. Shadows danced across the blade as it seemed to absorb the light around it, the air around it must have been freezing cold judging by the steady stream of frost that crept out from it. The blade itself was a massive slab of purple metal adorned with what looked to be a bat for a hilt and a ridge along the back that looked perfect to snap another blade if the wielder managed to catch it.

My hand hesitated between the two conflicting blades before I grasped both of them. "The lighter one is called Dawnbreaker and the darker one is called Night's Edge. Judging by how you are holding them, I assume that you want both." My nodding head must have made my desire clear to him as he pulled a pair of manequines to us. Dawnbreaker speared one of the manequines through the head as Night's Edge slashed the other from head to hip. The speared manequine burst into flames as the slashed one froze and shattered. Both of the swords disappeared from my hands. "When you have need of either of the blades, you have but to call their names and they will aid you with their might. Onto the third gift now."

Another hooded pony fell down from the roof and landed on her hoofs. Her expression reminded me of the mare from the guard squad, an impression matched by the instant stream of speech. "Princess Luna and Princess Celestia said that I had been offered a position in the secret guards because she needs someone to keep an eye on you and neither could think of anypony else that would work and because I had lost my squad, I would have been stripped of command even if I was just following orders and you were suspicious, but they say I can't go back to Fillydelphia because I am listed as-"

My hand clamped her mouth shut to cease the tide of endless noise. I was reminded of an old proverb Silence might be golden but duct tape is silver.

"Anyways, your first mission is to go to the far east and assassinate the leader of the griffins. Good luck and have fun" His horn glowed and then we were standing in the throne room amidst dozens of petitioners to the throne, several royal guards and two surprised alicorns.

The female took this time to speak. "My name's Lilac Blossom but my friends call me Lilly and I'm supposed to go by the codename Stalker while we are partners."

Author's Note

yes, i realize it should be luna, starswirl and i, but it's spoken and that's how i imagine celestia would speak in that circumstance.

Now you're thinking with portals!

the door is a tesseract

I'm so sorry for the description of starswirl and his lab and essentially every piece of dialogue he has, but see if you can find all of the references.

Next chapter i promise will be a lot less talk and plot setup for later. Hopefully everyone likes it, or at least doesnt hate it.

EDIT: error pointed out by Shadow of Doubt. correction appreciated.