In the Eyes of Death

With very specific instructions from Twilight about what angle to launch ourselves at, when to apply thrusting force and at what angle of force to apply it to and then eventually the precise measurements required to safely land outside the Castle gates, the unicorn and I managed to span the few hundred kilometers with the limited magical reserves I had.

“Halt! State your business!” a pair of guards armed with decorative spears demanded, pointing the weapons in our direction as we approached.

“Calm down! Princess Celestia asked for us! It’s Twilight Sparkle and Soren Mercer.” Twilight replied in fear, however the fear lasted only a minute as the spears were raised back up and out of harm’s way.

“Of course, we apologize. Miss Sparkle, please make sure that the human stays near to you.” the guard on the left requested while the unicorn on the right pulled the gates open with her magic. “The weapon that was found was extremely powerful and I’m not sure I want to know what the human could do with it.”

“I’ve been asked by the princesses to determine what the weapon is and how best to neutralize it.” I replied to the loose accusation with an accompanying glare while passing through the gates with Twilight.

“And we should really get going, come on!” Twilight urged with a tug on my hand with her magic, leading me up a large cobblestone path towards the front of the castle. The road was lined with what looked like a gold or bronze plated curb with a white stone tile sidewalk that no one seemed to actually use. Lining the stonework was vibrantly lush green grass meticulously cared for with various stone paths leading away from the main road and decorative bushes lining those paths.

The road Twilight and I strode on split at a large fountain surrounded by various flower beds and circled around it to meet at the large steps up to the main doors that had been placed almost half a storey up, though the doors themselves rose at least two.

The castle had seemed to have been carved from one single piece of stone, with absolutely minimal seams carefully placed where no one could see without either a precise eye or looking for the seams directly. Accents of gold or bronze along window sills or door frames and set as the decorative lines of the pillars holding everything up disappeared around the sides of the building, suggesting that the decor continued along the entire exterior of the castle.

Twilight lead me up the stone steps to the doors and nodded at the squad of guards posted along the banisters protecting the entrance from foreign invaders. I happened to have caught a glance at a guard as I passed by him, wondering if the luminescent green irises were normal for guards.

“Come on, Celestia should be either in court, or should be near the vault with the weapon.” Twilight instructed and took a right turn as soon as we stepped through a barrier which kept the interior pleasantly air conditioned compared to the outside which was growing colder as the days grew on.

The aesthetics of the exterior seemed to have been replicated on the interior as well, with gold and/or bronze capping off the snow white of the stone architecture and in the same way that the entire building seemed to have been cut from one stone block. Tapestries in bright colours hung from between the windows, breaking the semi-monotonous scenery of the windows with the monotony of the drapes. The drapes seemed to come in about four varieties: one being a pink and yellow combination of an iconic looking sun, one in dark and darker blue with a print of a silver moon, one that seemed to combine both sun and moon icons on silver and gold, and the fourth and final one of a white and blue banner with two winged unicorns circling each other with the blue one below the white one.

Set against the walls, nestled in between overbearing columns and windows, sat various potted plants with a pair of guards on either side of the greenery. I had to wonder if some of these guards were real or not, or how large the Equestrian military actually was to have hundreds of guards posted in just one hallway.

“Something about this is bothering me…” Twilight whispered to me as her eyes seemed to be making similar conclusions to mine. This didn’t look like protective detail… this looked like war… “Why are there so many guards out today?”

“We have received some very disturbing news, Miss Sparkle.” A young woman's voice explained from behind us and from the looks of the guards snapping to attention, held some kind of rank. Twilight and I stopped and turned in place to greet the lecturer properly.

Stood before us was a pony-like creature nearly as tall as I was. Her shoulder came up to my belt line and her head rose up to my chest; she was probably just a bit taller than Crescent Rose was. Furred in dark blue with both a horn and massive wings spread out regally, her mane and tail looked to have been torn from the night sky itself and taped to the top of her head and her ass. An obsidian tiara sat neatly behind her horn with a matching collar around her neck emblazoned with a softly glowing silver crescent moon. Encompassing her hooves were four silver shoes that rose up the hoof wall and ended in mock spires that looked semi-reminiscent of dulled claws. A quick glance back past her wings showed a butt print in a black splotch with a crescent moon set into it.

Apparently my inspections had not gone unnoticed as the winged unicorn cleared her throat to bring me out of my mind.

“Something the matter?” she asked with a raised eyebrow, looking quite unimpressed with me as she gave me the once over from head to toe and back.

“Nope, just never seen anything like you before.” I replied simply before realizing I was speaking to royalty. I snapped to attention and added, “Ma’am.”

“He see’s now? When did this happen?” The princess switched gaze from me to Twilight as Twilight rounded past me and stood near to the princess.

“A couple days ago, actually. He saved Rainbow Dash from drowning at the date lake and she thanked him by kissing him. Apparently that sparked the sight in him.” Twilight explained, joining in on the returned staring. The dark princess seemed to scoff internally before turning away from me to address the unicorn directly.

“We’ve received disturbing news that a changeling army may be approaching from the badlands. We don’t know why they’ve suddenly decided to move, but we know it can’t be good news.”

“Is there anything we can do?” Twilight looked up at the elder and returned to walking alongside me as I was lead towards wherever the Celestia character was waiting for us.

“We have your brother preparing for the next couple of days in anticipation for his big day. He’s been resting up and taking it easy in order to cast an alicorn-level shield spell which he’ll have to maintain all through the event.” the princess explained with a sigh and turned our group down another hallway to continued the walk.

“What about my future sister-in-law? Is Cadence okay?” Twilight looked quite worried; apparently whatever these changeling things were, they were dangerous for some reason or another. What made it worse was their name: Changeling. If they were anything like their name suggests, then they could be anyone.

“Cadence is fine, she’s just starting to feel the early onset wedding jitters.” The Princess gave a reassuring smile to the smaller pony and we turned left down another hallway to find a much larger pony waiting for us near to the middle of the corridor.

Early inspections showed that the alicorn was probably as tall as I was, her shoulders coming up to my chest and her head very probably rising to meet my own. Wings sat folded on her sides as she waited but I could hazard a guess that they’d be the largest and probably most magnificent wings in the country. Her fur was shocking white and given the angle at which she stood, an image of the iconic sun rested on her flanks. Her head, chest and hooves were adorned in bejeweled gold, giving me reason to believe she was the primary of the diarchy. Her mane flowed with an impossible breeze, constantly forward past her head while her tail doubled back and flowed along her body.

“Princess Celestia!” Twilight exclaimed happily and took off at a gallop towards the larger princess to be wrapped in a hug with white wings. “I’ve missed you!”

“I’ve missed you as well, my faithful student.” Celestia replied, leading me to assume that the blue princess was Luna. How I didn’t get that from the multiple celestial bodies on her was beyond me. “I thank you for coming with the human so quickly.”

“You said weapon, I like weapons. If it is actually a human weapon, then I might as well be here anyway.” I shrugged back once I’d given a solid salute to the government official. “Especially since I know human weapons so well.”

“Indeed.” Celestia looked up at me while Twilight retreated to mine and Luna’s sides. “I’ve been told that you can see now and I’m sure there will be time for explanations later,”

“Rainbow Dash kissed me after I saved her from drowning in a lake.” I briefly interrupted, earning an accepting nod from the distinctly motherly alicorn.

“I see. Regardless, we have a weapon that needs to be neutralized.” Celestia began again as though I hadn’t spoken out of turn. “This way, please.”

Both alicorn’s horns began to glow, as did various locks on the massive door between Celestia and I. Soon, thundering rumbles announced that the locks inside the door had given way and the door was pushed open by both princesses’ magical abilities.

Following the ponies inside, I gave a mild whistle at the in-numerous artifacts, shiny things and sinister looking weapons piled high or set into display cases. In the middle of the room sat an illuminated table with a very familiar weapon resting on it’s side.

“Well…” I mumbled to myself, inadvertently gaining the attention of the ponies. “We meet again…”

“So it is your weapon.” Luna remarked as she and her sister allowed me to approach the table. “What is it?”

“This, powerful bastard, is a Barrett .50 calibre anti-tank rifle. I vaguely remember using it in the war when I died.” I explained and picked up the massive weapon by it’s handle in order to take proper possession of the weapon and examine it for it’s working order.

Pulling the bolt carrier back, an empty round was ejected and landed on the floor for Twilight to pick up and examine with her magic. The next round attempted to feed into the chamber but by way of ejecting the magazine, the weapon remained unloaded and declared safe.

“I thought you said that there was an injury, not a death.” I began, turning towards the ponies assembled with my rifle held against my chest and the safety locked in place.

“There was an injury, a pony found the weapon and apparently fired it. A pony nearby was struck down seemingly by an apparition and is left with a deep gash in the left side of his body.” Luna explained, glancing at the weapon to me then back again warily. “Just what kind of weapon is this?”

“Do you have crossbows?” I asked for clarification and received nods. “Then it’s like that, only extremely more powerful.”

“How much more powerful?” Celestia inquired this time, taking the empty casing from Twilight to examine it before lifting the magazine to check out the bullets themselves.

“Well, with a crossbow with a feet per second rating of about three hundred, you’ll get about fifty or sixty yards out of it with enough power to bring down medium or large game. This rifle…” I smirked and held the rifle closer to my chest when Luna and Twilight drew nearer. “Has a muzzle velocity of twenty-eight hundred feet per second,” all three jaws dropped to the floor and eyes went narrow. “Giving me an effective firing range of at average, two thousand yards.”

“I didn’t think it was even possible to hit something that far, let alone be able to accurately aim something like that.” Twilight whispered. I grinned again and removed the scope with a bit of difficulty to hold it out to the smaller of the three. “This is a four point five to fourteen by fifty, mark four scope. This allows me to accurately find and fire upon enemy targets almost two kilometers away from my present location.”

Twilight took the scope and peered through the smaller side to look around before I adjusted it to it’s 4.5 setting in order to not disorient the small pony.

“I at one point had an eight to eighty by fifty-six millimeter scope attached to it for one operation however had to give it up when I was done the mission.” I announced as the scope was passed to Luna, then to Celestia who passed it back to me for reattachment.

“Most importantly, can you neutralize the weapon easily?” Celestia gave a sigh as she watched me reattach the scope on the table before holding it against my chest again.

“Uhm… Actually…” Luna began, sounding nervous as she glanced at her sister. “I’d very much like to see the firepower of this particular weapon before it’s rendered inert.”

“I have to agree with Princess Luna. I’m curious about just how precise Soren can be with that rifle of his.” Twilight agreed cautiously, unsure whether she’d incur the wrath of her elder or not.

After a minute of considerations denoted by the shifting of her face, “Fine, but under careful watch by myself and the guard.”

“Yes!” Twilight cheered before settling down to direct her next inquiry at me. “What do you need for this?”

“Targets, a firing position and intelligence about this world’s physics.” I responded almost immediately but confidently. “I will also need to forge up new bullets for the weapon since I only seem to have this one magazine available to me.”

“Technically we can just create magical copies of the ammunition to your specifications, so there shouldn’t be any need for worry.” Twilight replied just as quickly as I did but continued, “what kind of physics information do you need?”

“Rotation of the planet, average strength of the wind, topographical layout of the firing field,” I began listing off but was cut off when Twilight held my lips shut with her magic.

“The planet doesn’t rotate, wind is controlled by the pegasi and we don’t really know how to create topographical maps.” she explained calmly and with that tone of voice suggesting I was crazy for making such claims.

“Then I’m good. I’ll need to zero in my scope in case anyone messed with it or something happened to it, then i’ll need to try a few test shots to get a sense of the planet’s gravity before I make the longest ranged shots.” I continued my explanation, not having been put off by the silencing.

“We’ll provide targets from our guard armoury and select a firing range dedicated to the range you’ve specified. What do you require for, ‘zeroing in’ your telescope?” Luna announced, giving me reason to shrug an eyebrow at the complacency I was getting.

“A target set at exactly one hundred yards from the firing position, then another target set at five hundred yards. I’ll also need some equipment made.” I opened the bipod on the rifle and set the entire assembly down on the table to turn back towards the princesses and Twilight. “Have to take care of my rifle, make sure it doesn’t blow anyone up if it misfires.”

“Can that actually happen?” Celestia raised an eyebrow in my direction as she lead our group from the vault for the time being.

“Probably not but who wants to take the chance?” I shrugged back and stepped out of the room with Twilight in company. “Do you still want me to disable the rifle for the time being?”

“It will be safe in the vaults, especially if it’s unloaded. I am confident that you’re the only one who knows how to operate that weapon.” the eldest princess was the last out and the first to help swing the massive heavy door shut and locked it with her sister’s help once more. “Come now, we still have much to discuss.”

“Ma’am.” I nodded back and trailed after the princesses away from the vault.

There were those glowing eyes again...