Fight for survival (redone)

(Chapter 6)

My trip to the Captains office was short and sweet, leaving me with plenty of time to go out into the city and find a path to one of the meat selling restaurants Chrysus recommended in town. I exited the castle grounds without my full armor, though I did keep my sword, and my chest plate. The moment I walked into the city I could feel the curious gazes of the ponies on me, wondering who I was, and even what I was. I could hear some of the whispers as the ponies talked back and forth, trying to figure out my very existence. It didn't take long before I noticed a few ponies that reminded me a bit of prince Blueblood staring at me in disgust. The further I walked the less welcome I felt as more and more of the whispers I heard went from curiosity to distrust and hatred.

I hurried on and tried to ignore the surrounding ponies as I looked at the map that Chrysus had given me before I left, showing that I still had around a half a mile to go before I would be at the restaurant. With a sigh I continued on my way, keeping my eyes forward as I followed my path.

I looked upon a small restaurant with a sign on the front showing its name, 'Skyward'. According to Chrysus 'Skyward' is a good, but not very large meat-eaters establishment run by a Griffon couple. "Hello, how may I help you?" I was asked by a female Griffon as I walked through the door. The Griffon had light grey fur with light blue feathers and a river blue tail fluff.

"I was hoping to make a reservation for later today," I answered.

"Name and Time please," She requested as she opened up a small reservations book.

"My name is Jack Cresten and I was hoping for a table for two today between, um, around 8 o'clock, whatever's available," my response was full of hesitation and I was sure the Griffon noticed it.

"Well we usually have plenty of free tables and tonight is no exception," She said.

"Alright, then how about 8:15," I said. The Griffon nodded and wrote something the book before looking back up and smiling.

"Will that be all?" She asked. I responded with a short nod and turned to leave. With a short sigh I made my journey back to the castle, doing my best to ignore the looks I got.

"Hey Jack, what're you doing here?" Onyx asked as I made my way into the smithy.

"I was looking for Amber, is she here?" I answered as well as asked. With a nod Onyx pointed towards the room I had gotten the measurements for my armor in before going back to his work. I began to make my way to the room before stopping and looking at a small clock that was hung just above the main entrance of the smithy. '12:45, only 7 and a half hours until our date," I thought to myself as I finally entered the measuring room and the closed the door behind me, taking a moment to look around the room I found Amber sitting at a desk to the left of the door. "hi Amber, I got a reservation for our date," I said nervously, still unsure of this.

"When is the reservation?" She asked as she looked up from her work to me.

"8:15 PM, though I was thinking I could pick you up at around 6:15 so we can hang out a bit before we go to the restaurant," I answered and suggested as I leaned against the door, being reminded of my wings as I adjusted them so they weren't so uncomfortable.

"What do you plan on us doing?" She asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Just hang out, I was thinking we could talk a little and learn a bit more about each other," I explained.

"Okay, six it is," She said with a small smirk as I left with a nod, heading back to the barracks to prepare.

several hours had passed since I had talked to Amber and started preparing. Now all I had left to do was pick up Amber once the clock in the barracks read '6:00'. After a few minutes of travel I arrived at the smithy, and was out just as fast upon finding out that Amber was not there, but was in the public section of the castle gardens. After awhile of searching I found the garden and searched for Amber, finally finding her by a small oak tree. As I approached her I noticed that she was wearing a yellow long-sleeve shirt with a pair of jean like pants. I was slightly surprised to see her wearing clothes, as I had never seen her do so until now. "Hi," I called out nervously as I got closer.

"Oh, there you are," She replied as she watched me approach. Unlike her I was wearing a grey t-shirt with a pair of black cloth pants and the one item of clothing not destroyed by the creature from my world, my black and red tennis shoes. "so, what did you want to talk about?" she asked as we sat on a small bench nearby and enjoyed the shade given by the tree.

"I'm not sure, how about you choose what we talk about," I offered, taking a moment to stare into her captivating eyes as she smirked at me.

"Alright, how about we start with how old you are," She suggested. I looked at her for a moment, absolutely sure that my face was one of pure shock as she just raised an eyebrow. "well," She hinted for me to answer as she scooted slightly closer to me.

"um, well, you see..." I started but stopped as I thought about how to answer her question. As she continued to stare at me I finally relented and let out a quiet, "seventeen,". Amber's eyes had widened slightly as she scooted a bit away from me.

"What?" She asked as she stared at me in shock.

"I'm seventeen, though I'll be eighteen in a month," I answered, causing her to yet again scoot away from me in shock. With a sigh I looked away from her to the ground, starting my usual process of shutting down my feeling as I felt that I was about be rejected like every time before.

"Why didn't you say you were seventeen when you asked me on a date?" She asked.

Without looking up from the ground I answered her, "I didn't know how to say it, plus I didn't really want anyone to know my real age here, 'cause I knew that I probably wouldn't be able to stay in the guard, or be allowed to fight, or even be where I am now," I said, holding all emotion from my voice, something I had learned to do better and better with every stab into my heart a relationship would make.

"But why me, and why not wait until you were older?" She questioned as I heard her shuffle slightly.

"Because I told one of my teammates about a part of my past and they told me that I should ask you out and that I shouldn't be worried that you would reject me, so I told her that if I did, and was rejected, I would give up on relationships all together," I responded, feeling the beginnings of my emotional walls being built.

But before they could continue to grow I felt someone hug me from my side, catching me off-guard as I looked over and saw Amber giving me a concerned look as she asked, "Then why are you so sad right now?".

I took a moment to let my mind take in what she asked before responding with what I believed, "because you're about to reject me for my age, aren't you?".

"No," She said, surprising me with a small peck on the cheek as she pulled me closer to her, "I'm not just going to do that to someone because their slightly too young, though this would be if a different story if you were any younger," She continued as I just stayed still in shock. As I sat there in her hold I felt the walls I had built crumbling as I felt myself do something I hadn't done in years, I let out tears, silently letting them run down my face as I let myself stay in Amber's hold, enjoying the moment. "Are you crying?" she asked curiously.

"I guess I am," I replied as I brought up a hand to wipe away my tears. "not too cool huh," I muttered as I continued to wipe away the tears that continued to spill from my eyes.

"For now it's okay," Amber said as she pulled me closer to her, her chin resting on my head as she kept me just far enough away to not hurt my wings. As we sat there I felt something I had not thought I would truly experience again, happiness. Sitting there with Amber allowed me to feel more at peace than I ever had in my life, even before my life had gone to shit I had never felt this comfortable warmth in my body and heart, and I hoped it would last forever.

As we sat there, enjoying each others closeness, I started to hum a song as I closed my eyes and basked in the feeling of closeness.

"That was beautiful, what was it?" Amber asked as I finished. Upon hearing her question I felt myself blush slightly as I looked up and at her face as she looked down at me.

"I was humming a song from my world called 'And I Love You So' by Don McLean," I answered.

"Really, and why that song in particular?" She asked as she went back to resting her chin on my head.

"Well, the lyrics speak of knowing how lonely life can be and in it the singer seems to be brought out of this loneliness by someone they've fallen in love with, I just felt it was appropriate for the moment," I said, blushing slight more as I heard her giggling slightly to herself.

"So you mean to say you love me?" She asked, causing me to look back up at her and see her smiling back.

"I guess I do," I responded as I returned her smile, feeling the heat in my body grow as I realized that I really was falling for her, and for once, I didn't want to stop it, for once I didn't feel a paranoid self-hatred to make me doubt myself, I just felt happy. Taking a chance I decided to return her earlier kiss on the cheek with one of my own, catching her by surprise before she lightly smiled at me.

"Well then, I didn't expect that," She said in false shock, causing us to chuckle as we just continued to stay there, resting against each other. As time went by I noticed the sun was lower and decided that we should probably be heading to our date, so with a light groan of disappointment I got up.

"We should probably start heading to the restaurant if we want to make our reservation," I suggested, receiving a nod in return as she got up I started to lead her to the place. Making our way to the front gates we left the castle grounds and entered Canterlot proper, immediately getting stares from the passing ponies as we walked. At first it was just the curious ones, then as we went the stares turned into the ones of disgust I remembered from before.

"Want to hurry up," Amber suggested, having noticed my discomfort. With a nod I started to pick up the pace a little, and within ten minutes we made it to the restaurant. "A meat eaters restaurant, you eat meat?" Amber asked in mild surprise. To answer her question I pulled my upper lip back with one hand and pointed to my canines with the other.

"Humans are omnivores, so we can eat both plants and animals," I answered in words, getting a light nod out of her. Making our way into the place I noticed the same griffon from before at the front as she looked up from something to see who had entered the building.

"Ah, Jack, here for your reservation?" She asked as I nodded. "good because you're just on time," She said pointing over to a clock next the door that read 8:10 on it.

"Good thing we left when we did," I muttered to myself feeling lucky that we hadn't been late.

"Anyway, I'll show you to your table, follow me," She said as she started leading us over to an empty table, and to my surprise, it was one of many in the restaurant that were empty.

"Slow day huh?" I asked as I looked around, taking in the lack of other patrons.

"*sigh* Sadly everyday is a slow day, most of the population of Canterlot is made up ponies, so there aren't many predators here to serve," She explained as I pulled out the chair for Amber, getting a slight smirk from her as she sat down and I went to sit in my own seat.

"I didn't even know this place existed, I might have to tell the other dragons about this place, we've been looking for a better place to get our meat from," Amber said as the griffon gave each of us a menu. With a nod the griffon left us to choose what we wanted to eat. "So what are you going get?" Amber asked after 4 minutes of silence as she set her menu down.

"I'm going to get the steak with a side order of mash potatoes with water and some mead," I answered.

"Mead, but you're..." She started before I held a finger to her lips to quickly silence her.

"I know that, but with coming here my metabolism has increased to the point where the alcohol barely affects me," I explained, getting a hesitant nod from Amber.

"Well I'm going to get the grilled salmon with a side order of hay fries with water and wine," She said. I nodded with a smile, though I knew from the sound of it my paycheck was about to be gone by the end of the night. Amber and I made small talk as we waited for the griffon to get back, and when she did we placed out orders and continued to talk until we got our food.

"Here your go," the griffon said as she handed us our meals. After both Amber and I thanked her she headed back to the front of the restaurant and watched the door.

"You know I never got to ask, but are the rumors about you true?" Amber asked as she picked up a fry to eat.

"What rumor?" I inquired as I took a sip of my mead, enjoying the swat flavor of it.

"That you managed to take down Chrysalis and her army without armor or weapons," She responded. I looked at her for a moment as I chewed on a piece of my steak, enjoying the flavor and texture of the beef.

"I didn't fight alone, but it's true that I fought without any armor or weapons," I answered as I cut off another slice of steak and popped it into my mouth.

"Wow, and here I thought only a dragon would be able to do something like that," She said as I just shrugged. We continued to eat and talk, learning a lot more about each other as the night went on before we finally finished and I asked for the check. Looking at the bill I was surprised to see that it was only 60 bits (and in reference I had made around 500 bits for my 'act of valor' fighting the changelings with so little equipment). Looking at the bill and thinking of what the griffon had said earlier I pulled out 300 bits and set them on the table.

"Um sir, that is a bit more than what you owe," The griffon said.

"You know I'm curious, what's you're name, you know mine, but I don't know yours," I questioned without responding to her previous statement.

"Oh, my name is Water Wing, but about the money..."

"Keep it," I said, cutting her off as I stood up and walked around the table to pull out Amber's seat for her.

"But that's largely over the amount," She stated as gestured to the bill with a talon.

"Well I happen to like this place, and I want to make to make sure that there aren't any problems for the next time I'm here, because I intend to come back," I said as I gestured for Amber to follow me. As Amber and I left we left Waiter in a state of shock from my words.

"That was really generous of you," Amber said as we exited the building. I shrugged with a small smile on my face as we started to walk back to the castle. "hey Jack, do you know how to fly?" Amber asked as we walked. I looked at her for a moment with a raised eyebrow before shaking my head no. "Maybe I could help teach you," She offered as she stopped for a moment, causing me to stop too.

"I'd like that," I said with a smile as I looked into her eyes, captivated by the way they shined in the moonlight.

"You know Jack, for someone who was so nervous before, you sure seem less so now," Amber said as we started walking again.

"I guess being around you makes me feel more confident," I responded as I gave her a quick kiss on her cheek.

"So it seems," She said as she looked at me with a sly smirk. "well then how about a little race to the castle," Amber suggested. Thinking that that sounded fun I nodded as Amber gave a '3, 2, 1, GO!' and started flying ahead of me. I smirked a little at her cheating but started running full sprint towards her, catching up and keeping pace with her as I ran. Amber seemed slightly surprised by my speed but as we went I felt something slam into me and send me flying into an alleyway I was about to pass. My short flight was interrupted as I felt myself impact a brick wall with enough force to crack it.

"I knew that momentum reversal spell would come in handy," I heard a gruff voice say as I shakily got to my feet.

"Oh, does the wittle monkey wanna pway hehehehahahahah," I heard another stallion say in a mocking childish voice before laughing his ass off.

Looking up I saw five stallions, two unicorns, two pegasi, and one earth pony. But before I could make a move something landed in front of me with a heavy thud, causing some dust to scatter and forcing me to shut my eyes and look away for a moment. But when I looked back I saw Amber standing there, and she, was, PISSED.

"*huff* And now some stupid dragon's in the way, how about you get the buck out of our way or we're going to have to hurt you too," a unicorn stallion said as he took a step forward. As the stallions advanced I heard Amber growl before letting out a breath of fire that one of the unicorns blocked with a quick force field. Angry that her attack was blocked Amber lunged forward, but was then launched back at me. Hoping to help her I grabbed her out of the air and just barely managed not to be slammed into the wall again. But as I held Amber I heard a small whimper and looked down at her, and what I saw made me gasp. Jammed into Amber's stomach was what looked like a dagger, with blood heavily leaving the wound.

"Amber! Are you okay!?" I shouted in worry as I set her down and held her head off of the ground.

"My stomach hurts, but other than that, I'm fine," Amber answered with a small smirk, though I could tell she was holding back her pain as she spoke. Knowing that she was in pain made something snap in me. I felt my blood start to boil as I started to see red and the only thing I could think about was making those stallions suffer.

"Oh, did we hurt the poor monkeys bitch?" I heard one of the stallions say before they all laughed. I took off my shirt and folded it before placing it under Amber's head and standing up to my full height.

"You hurt her, so I'm going to make you SUFFER," I said as I felt my blood lust rising.

"Oh, so now the dumb monkey thinks that it's scary, huh boys, what do ya think, is the dumb monkey scary?" The same unicorn stallion that hurt Amber taunted as all the others laughed.

I felt my anger growing, and growing, and growing until I felt like I was about to explode with the rage I felt. "AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" I roared in rage as I rushed forward to strike. But before I could reach them I felt something puncture my abdomen as something else started forcing me backwards. Using my feet I stopped myself from being pushed back, and looking down I saw a knife in my stomach (what an original place to target). With my pain dulled by my rage I pulled the knife out, which luckily wasn't serrated, and got and idea. Looking at the unicorn stallion that could reverse momentum I started to throw the knife at him, but as soon as I saw his horn start to glow I tossed the knife the opposite direction, causing the stallion to make the knife go towards him as it changed course and stabbed him in the throat before he could stop it. The stallion fell to the ground as he chocked on his own blood and finally died.

"GAH! YOU STUPID MONKEY! DIE!" One of the pegaus stallion yelled as he flew towards me, bring a hoof back to punch me in the face, but I leaned back to avoid it and grabbed onto one of his wings as he passed by, pulling him to a halt. "GAH! LET GO!," he shouted as I grabbed his other wing with my free hand and held him up by them before placing a foot in between his wing joints and pulling. I heard the stallion start screaming as I continued to pull, only stopping when I heard a loud 'SNAP!' signifying that his wings were dislocated as he screamed in pain. I dropped the stallion as I felt something impact my back, causing me to stumble forward slightly before turning around and seeing the earth pony stallion standing behind where I just was with a look of surprise on his face.

With a growl I Rushed him, grabbing the back of his head and slamming his face into my knee with enough force to fracture his jaw and send him screaming onto the ground. Looking up I saw that the last two stallions were looking at me in fear as well as shaking in fright. Letting out another roar I rushed at them, startling them into action. The pegasus pulled out a throwing knife with his wing while the unicorn readied a spell with his horn. Seeing the unicorn as a larger threat I ran to him first and grabbed him by the base of his horn, cutting off the flow of his magic. I then kicked the pegaus in the face, knocking him over before I started to twist the unicorns horn backward, causing him to scream in agony and struggle until I finally snapped off his horn and he passed out in pain. Turing to look at the last stallion I got a throwing knife jammed into my left shoulder, and without even looking at it I took it out and threw it into the stallions right foreleg before walking over and stomping on his head just hard enough to knock him out.

I walked back into the back of the alley and picked Amber up bridal style, being mindful of her wound as I carried her back to the castle.

"What happened?" I heard one of the guards at the front gate ask as he saw the state Amber was in.

"We were attacked by five stallions, Amber need medical attention, NOW!" I yelled, getting the two guards to jump slightly as they both nodded and led me in as I took Amber to the medical wing.

"Jack," I heard Amber say as we neared the wing.

"It's okay Amber, we're here, and you're going to be alright," I said as I felt tears make their way out of my eyes.

"You're crying Jack," I heard her say again, her voice nothing more than a whisper. Looking down I could see her eyes were closing, making me afraid.

"Amber. AMBER! Don't fall asleep," I spoke in worry, feeling the gaze of the two guards on us as we walked but I didn't care. I didn't get a response as she closed her eyes and stopped talking. I felt my heart drop as I started running, passing the two guards and getting to the medical wing as fast as possible. "I NEED HELP!" I screamed as I kicked the door open, startling doctors and nurses before they saw the bleeding dragoness in my arms. Everything was a blur to me as the doctors got her onto a stretcher and wheeled her away, not allowing me to go with her and forcing me to go back to my previous room to get my stab wound looked at. I sat down on the bed as I cried, tears making a steady stream down my face as I buried my head into my hands.

"You okay Jack?" I heard Straight ask in worry. I didn't answer as I continued to cry, my worry overtaking me and not allowing me to stop. I couldn't help but think that Amber was dead, but as time went on a single voice in my head went off, 'she's not dead, I know she isn't, I refuse to believe that she is,' I thought. My crying died down and turned into sniffles as I looked up from my hands to see that my teammate had moved from their beds and were all sitting in front of me, looking at me with worried faces.

"Jack, what's wrong?" River Breeze asked. I took a moment to control my breathing before answering.

"Amber was stabbed," I answered, feeling more tears threatening to spill over. As I tried to control myself I felt the three ponies hug me at once, trying to comfort me as best they could. "Thanks guys," I said, feeling my voice weaken as my blood loss finally started to take effect. I felt my vision go blurry as my body went numb and fell backwards onto the bed, I heard muffled voiced but I couldn't understand them as my eyes involuntarily closed. And after they closed, my world was soon overtaken by unconsciousness, my last thoughts being of Amber.