A Sword with Purpose

Chapters

Prologue: The Beginning 1/3
Prologue: The Middle 2/3
Prologue: Ending 3/3
A New Beginning and a New World?
Learning and Questions
Canterlot
The Invasion of Ponyville
The Battle of Ponyville

Prologue: The Beginning 1/3

Hello everyone, my name is Aaron Blackgate. I'm 18 years old and a master swordsman. I know it might be hard to believe but it's true. I was born and raised in San Diego, California with my parents. I am about 6'2 and half feet tall, with deep black hair and ocean blue eyes. My father had brown hair with the same blue eyes as mine and my mom had black hair with greenish-yellow eyes. I grew up a normal kid, went to school and had fun with the occasional chore and loving parents. Until on my 7th birthday, my parents gave me a little bit of a history lesson (and not the boring kind).
---------------------------------------------------------------Aaron's 7th Birthday-----------------------------------------------------

My mom and dad brought me to a old kendo dojo downtown called the "Great Beam Shrine" and brought me inside. Inside, we were greeted by an old man with brown eyes and white hair with a goatee.

"Greetings Sensei." Said both of my parents as they bowed leaving me confused but I did it eventually.

"Greetings Jack and Kate, it's been so long." The old man said as all three of us looked up at him.

"Indeed it has Sensei, but I need you to meet my son, Aaron." He said as he moved to the side to let him see me.

"Um....hello sir, my name is Aaron Blackgate, nice to meet you." I said as I bowed like before.

"Hello young one, my name is Emanuel Keasher, and this is my dojo. I've been waiting for you to come for a long time now." Emanuel said. This left me in a more confused state than I was before, thinking about what this is all about.

"If you don't mind me asking sir, but what are talking about?" I ask, "How did you know I was going to come here?"

"That's because of me and your mom Aaron." My father says as he walks next to Emanuel. "Sensei here has been me and your mother's teacher for years, and when me and your mother were aware we were going to be having you, we told Sensei here so he may be prepared for this moment." He states as mom walks over next to him.

"Wait, wait, wait, you said 'teaching me and mom for years' but I have to ask, what did he teach you?" I ask even MORE CONFUSED!!!

"Well that should be obvious." Says my mom, "Emanuel-Sensei here taught me and your dad the way of the sword."

"Way of the sword?" I ask

"Yes." My father says "You see Aaron, our family comes from an ancient clan of master swordsmen from Japan, and by tradition, every member must learn how to use the sword. My father learned it and so did I, and now Aaron, it's your turn."

Okay, now this hit me out of left field. My father and mother are master swordsmen and I'm from a a family tree of master swordsmen. Ok...... WHAT!?!?!

"Wait a minute dad, you're saying you are an expert with a sword and that you want to teach me." I say with a shocked and surprised look plastered on my face.

"Don't forget your mother Aaron." My dad says with a smirk. My response was a deadpan expression as my mom and Emanuel chuckle.

"And yes, we do intend to train you the art of the sword with the help of Emanuel-Sensei here." My dad says with a serious look on his face.

Ok now this is starting to make a little sense, I guess.

"But how am I going to do that?" I ask with Emanuel coming forward. "Well young Aaron, you will undergo rigorous training to hone your skills as a warrior and train with a kendo sword before going off on a journey to find your purpose as a swordsman." Emanuel says.

"So I'm going to be trained to be a warrior?" I ask innocently. He nodded with a smile.

"YAY!!!!" I yell out in joy as I go to hug my mom and dad saying this is the best present ever.

"Tomorrow morning" I hear Emanuel say from behind me as I look back.

"We start your training tomorrow morning" He says as he opens the door and says, "Make sure you get some rest, young Aaron." He says.

I smile innocently and say, "Ok Sensei" and I see him smile. I know that when I am done training I will be a master swordsman. I will just need to train hard. And I will make you proud mom and dad. I know i will.

Author's Note

Thank you for reading my first chapter of my first story. I hope you like it. I will try to release a chapter whenever I can. Please comment anything you would to know and if you dislike please comment why.

Prologue: The Middle 2/3

And train I did. For the next 11 years, I trained with Emanuel-Sensei and my parents. They said I was a natural and by the age of thirteen, I won a tournament. I learned many different kenjustu's (sword techniques) including nitōjustu, which means 'twin sword style', which is pretty self explanatory. You use two swords, one in each hand. It's an extremely difficult style to master directly but I still tried and have become very good at it. Like 10% away from mastering it good. Nitōjustu has become my signature sword style and I've made several stances with it, including a very famous stance called the Hyoho Niten Ichi-ryu Technique which is where the user holds both his swords in his hands above his head, so you can also be on offense and defense. It's an amazing and brilliant technique that took me 3 years to fully learn and even then I still haven't mastered it, very close though. This technique, if you're curious look like this

Over the years, I have also discovered a great and powerful thing....ANIME! That's right and OH BOY do I love it. My personal favorites are fighting shows like Naruto, One Piece, Attack on Titan, Bleach, Fairy Tail, and Rurouni Kenshin. Especially the cool sword fights of the show like Kenshin and Zoro and Erza (Rurouni Kenshin, One Piece and Fairy Tail characters in that order). I loved Zoro so much actually, I tried to copy his three sword style and for those who don't know, it's when he has two swords in his hand and one IN HIS FUCKING MOUTH. BADASS!!!! Anyway, I tried making it myself yet I could never actually do so. Still badass though. I trained hard though out my life and am an expert swordsman, beating both my parents multiple times, even in a 2 on 1 duel. Never Emanuel-Sensei though as he easily dodges them before bopping me in the head. Crazy old bastard. Still love him though. He has sorta become the crazy grandfather in my life. *chuckles* Anyway, by the age of thirteen, my parents and Sensei also began to teach me martial arts and boy was I excited. When I first watched Naruto, I fell in love with a character named Rock Lee who was an expert martial artist. So yeah it was going to be fun.

Except NO! It was a HUGE PAIN IN THE ASS! My body hurt all the time and I never got a break. Yet I still say it was worth it because not only have I become an expert swordsman, but also an expert martial artist. I learned many martial arts like karate, kung fu, takewondo, a little bit of mma and kickboxing, and my personal favorite Muay Thai. I learned all of these techniques and some more. I even learned how to use things like skurikens and kunai knives. I learned about medical treatments such as how to make a bandage or splint, how to make medicine using herbs. I even learned how to track and hunt for my own food.

I was able to finish school in a breeze, ending with mostly straight A's. I learned how to draw and I am very good at it. Even getting third place in a school art competition. My parents even two ugh this me Japanese and I'm pretty fluent too. On my 16th birthday, my parents got me a compact bow with some arrows which I got pretty good with. My personal record for longest hit with it is about 45 feet and that's a perfect shot. The longest I have hit is about 80 feet but my accuracy goes down a bit. I also got my drivers license and got a job as a bouncer. My fighting skills made me a good hire according to my boss. Good pay too. For those curious, this is my bow.

Finally, my parents told me one night, that on my 18th birthday, they will give to me the great family sword for me to pass down to children and use in battle. Now this was amazing to me as this sword was used to kill a hundred men in an ancient Japanese battle. The sword itself is beautiful, with a black handle and a clear steel blade with a smooth black sheath.

And what happened after I was given it changed my life forever.

Author's Note

Next chapter will be the final prologue one.

Prologue: Ending 3/3

The big day has gone! Today is my 18th birthday and I wake up with a goddamn start. Sorry if I'm too over enthusiastic, but too bad, I'm fucking excited! Anyway, I wake up with a start and get dressed. I run downstairs while getting my shirt on to see my dad watching morning news on the TV while mom is making breakfast.

"Morning mom and dad!" I say with happiness in my voice and a jump in my step.

"Morning." They both say.

"So guys, guess what day it is?" I ask with a smirk.

My mom looks up at me confused and my dad looks up to me with a raised eyebrow and says, "I don't know, isn't it Monday dear?" He asks towards my mother.

"Yes, I think so." She says with confusion riddling her tone.

"Oh haha guys." I tell them with sarcasm in my voice yet still have a smirk on my face.

A long silence falls between us three to see who will crack first but eventually....*laughter*, we all break at the same time laughing up a small storm.

*chuckles* "So it's finally that day, huh dad." I say, more making a statement then a question.

"Yes so it seems, but let's not start that until later. Right now, your mother has made something for you." My father says, pointing in the direction of my mother who's still cooking in our little walk-in kitchen.

I turn towards my mother who's walking out of the kitchen with some pancakes on a few plates.

"Yep, and it's just now ready so eat up." She says as she pulls out a chair for me, dad, and herself.

"Sweet, thanks mom." I say as I hug her and then take a seat.

"It's my treat sweetie, besides it's your birthday today so I made it a very special treat for you today." She says as she gives me a plate with....MOTHERFUCKING CHOCOLATE CHIP PANCAKES!!!! YES!!

"OMG MOM YOUR THE BEST!!!" I scream as I stuff an entire pancake in my mouth.

............OMG MY MOUTH IS SO FULL OF BLISS!!!!!

".......um honey I think you broke him." My dad says as he pokes me in the side of the head.

".......uh oh." My mom says. Thankfully I wake up from my bliss like state and continue to eat my pancakes, making both my parents sigh.

"Aaron, after breakfast we're going to the dojo to prepare you for the sword trade-off." My dad says making me look over to him and nodding because my mouth is still full.

My mom, dad, and me eat in peace before heading off the the dojo.

THE DOJO

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY AARON!!!" Everyone says as blow out the candles on my cake.

"Thanks everyone." I say as I smile at my parents, teacher, and fellow dojo peers.

"Now my student, it's time to open your 'present'." Emanuel says to me, motioning to a long box in a corner of the room.

I can instantly tell it's a sword case with straps on it and it has my bow with a quiver of arrows next to it.

"Is it..." I ask but Emanuel already has me beat, cutting me off by saying,"Yes, Aaron, it's time."

My first instinct was to run over there and grab it but instead I calmed myself and walked over to it and picked it up. It felt so light yet my excitement made my body seem weak making it feel heavy.

I bring it over to the table and place it down. The bag making a clearly audible 'thump'. I slowly but surely start to open the bag, the silence in the room making the sound louder than what it should be. I know what some of you are thinking, 'Aaron, why are you taking your time? You've seen what the sword looks like already.' Well too bad! This is an important moment of my life and I want it to be dramatic.

Anyway, I finally open the bag and..........HUH?!!?!?

It's just full of money!

Where's my fucking sword?!?!?

"I know what you're thinking Aaron, but we needed to give you the money so you could be prepared for your journey." Emanuel informs me.

"But I have been saving money up for years now! Why did you give me more?" I ask. It's not that I don't appreciate the money. It's just I've been waiting for years and to be cock blocked like this is just a dick move and I'm not in a good mood.

"So that way you can actually live a better life. I know you only have about 700$ saved up so I gave you an extra 1300$ so you'll have about 2000$ on hand for your travel. And you could just earn more from tournaments in other cities." Emanuel says and his words actually make sense to me so I quickly respond with a bow.

"Sorry sensei, I jumped to angry conclusions and directed them at you. Please forgive me." I say quickly yet surely so he could understand.

"Of course I forgive you my student. You're actions were understandable and it's ok." Emanuel tells as he puts a hand on my shoulder which makes me straighten up.

"And for your information your sword is right behind you." He says with a smirk.

I instantly go wide-eyed and spin around quickly to see both my parents next to each other, bowing their heads to me and offering me the sword with the upper have held by mom and the lower part by dad.

"Here you go our child." They both say simultaneously as if they rehearsed it.

It mattered very little to me and I quickly take the sword from their hands and I start bouncing in glee. Unsheathing it was SSOO fucking satisfying as the blade practically shines in and I could see my dark blue eyes in the reflection and to my surprise, I'm actually crying a little.

My parents see this and start tearing up as well and comes over to hug me which I happily return. We only stop hugging when I feel Emanuel tap me on the shoulder and when I turn around, I'm greeted with another surprise of my own sensei bowing to me.

"Um, sensei, what are you doing?" I ask awkwardly. He looks up at me with a kind, warm smile.

"You have matured so much throughout the years and have become a great warrior.." I smile at that part "...and for this, I truly believe that you are no longer in need of teaching my stu... Aaron." He says as he hugs me which brings me out of my shocked state from hearing that.

"Thank you sen... Emanuel." I say as I get water in my eyes again. When we let go of each other, I ask the question on presumably everyone's mind.

"So what now?"

"Now, my son, it's time for you to go out into the world and do great things." My dad says as he puts a hand on my shoulder and giving me hug, whispering 'I'm so proud of you Aaron' into my ear.

I pat him on the back as my answer and my mother hugs me as well saying, "My baby boy has now grown up" in a very sad voice.

"It's ok mom, I will be fine." I say as I wipe a tear off her cheek.

"I know you will my boy." She says as she kisses my cheek which makes me blush and her chuckle.

I go grab the sword case and take the money out and put it into a duffle bag which has my own money in it, while putting my sword in the case. Putting the sword case over my shoulder and grabbing my bow and arrows as well an my money. I walk out of the dojo before looking back at my parents and Emanuel before giving them a thumbs up.

'Well, lets see what you can throw at me world' I think before walking off into the countryside and into a new beginning.

Author's Note

Next chapter, Aaron will be meeting our friends in Equestria.

A New Beginning and a New World?

It took about 2 hours to walk out of the city and into the roads. As I'm walking I think about all the time I spent with my parents and (now former) teacher. These memories do give me some tears but I just wipe those off and keep walking. Luckily my parents got me an IPod and I've been listening to music on it since I left.

Walking for 2 hours straight gets a guy tired and I left at about 7 pm so I walk for another minute until I spot a nice and shady tree near a stream and wash off my face and get a drink before laying down next to the tree and letting my eyelids fall over to cover my vision and sleep. Before I drift to sleep, the one thought I remember having was,'Goodnight mom and dad', hoping that they feel the same way for their own son.

When I woke up, the sun is shining ever so brightly amongst the bleak blue sky. I lift myself off the tree and sketch before realizing that something's slightly off. All my stuff is there but my duffle bag looks slightly bigger and bulkier and the stream next to me is gone. Like it just never existed in this part of the forest.

Confused, I reached for my duffle bag and check inside it so see that all of money IS GONE! Well more like replaced? All 2000$ I had in the bag was now replaced with small gold coins with with a sun on them and some woman.

(Celestia is anthro in this story so it's not pony)

"What the fuck is going on here?" I ask out loud.

"AAAAHHHHH!!"

"Huh?" I look over in the direction I heard the scream and instinctively grab my sword case and pull of my sword and run over in that direction, leaving my stuff behind.

As I'm running over to the scream I hear a slight struggle and eventually go over to see a giant FUCKING CAT SCORPION!?!? WHAT?!? Not only that but it's moving menacingly towards a girl about my age who has yellow skin, long light pink hair (though slightly messy because of the dirt), and FUCKING WINGS?!?!??!? WHERE THE FUCK AM I?!?

Shaking these thoughts away in my head, I quickly decide to do something.

POV FLUTTERSHY

"AAAAHHHH!!!" I scream out

As I'm running from that viscous manticore, my vision starts to get blurry because of the wound on my arm.

'Oh no, the poison is kicking in' I say in my mind while I am try to run, 'I won't be able to continue much longer' I say sadly in my head.

I continue to run as fast I can but I trip on a stray branch and roll a little before stopping. I try to get up but I wince in pain as my arm can't even move. As I'm sitting there I start to cry as the manticore starts to approach and I wait for my inevitable doom.

"HEY!!!"

I snap my head over to see a pony? It has a flat muzzle and black hair but only at the top of its head? It also has deep blue eyes that are piercing at the manticore as I see it get agitated that this this thing had interrupted its feeding time.

"Get out of here!" I yell at him trying to make him save itself but it simply looks over at me with calming eyes that tell me 'it's ok'.

"Don't worry miss." He says as he jumps down in front of me and at this point I notice he has some sort of sword. "I'll be fine."

POV AARON

I stand in front of the the young yellow lady with wings (never thought I'd say that in my life) in a protecting motion with my left hand holding the sheath and my right on the handle. I stare down the large beast with a emotionless expression on my face. Little trick Emanuel taught me to hide my emotions. Great help in a fight. It slowly starts walking in a back and forth motion and watches me. Seeking a perfect time to strike. The only thing I do is watch the monster with my eyes for any sudden movement.

Then it happens. It moves its right front paw and lunges at me.

I respond immediately by thrusting my sword at it while it's still in its sheath and hits the beast on the nose. I then spin on my right foot and kick it with my left foot in the face, a move called the spinning back kick. The kick staggers it away for a second leaving its side open. So I run to it and dropkick it right in the side before landing with a roll back to my original position and stance. The dropkick was enough to push it back against a tree and it shakes its head before glaring angrily at me. Deciding to run at me again.

'Dumb animal' was my first thought as I try to do the same maneuver again but it dodged and went for the girl behind me. But this left it open for me to grab its scorpion tail which I do, holding it back. The beast looks back at me in annoyance and tries to lift me up with its tail but I'm able to hold my ground. The next thing it tries to do is physically try to swap at me with its class but it can't hit me as I am to far away and it can't hit with its tail as I'm holding it firmly.

"GET OUT OF HERE!!" I yell towards the girl in the ground. She looks at me with wonder before shaking her head.

"I can't, it poisoned me and I can't run because of it." She tells me only making me angry at this fucking cat thing I'm holding.

"Oh really?" I say in a menacing way and a glare towards the cat and it seems to be frightened which makes me smirk.

I hold tighter on its tail and start pulling it making it jerk and try to flee but it can't escape my grasp. Pulling hard enough and surprising both the girl and me, I literally threw the giant cat at a tree making the tree itself almost break. Drawing my sword as I glare at the beast. It looked like it wanted to piss itself. All it literally took was one step towards it to make it run in away in fear.

This made me laugh hard as I put my sword back in its sheath and I walk over to the young girl with a concerned look on my face.

"Are you okay miss?" I ask in concern.

"Um, oh my, my uh leg hurts and I'm very lightheaded." She says in a small, meek voice. Luckily I was able to hear.

"Ok. I can get you to a hospital but I have ask, are you bleeding anywhere?" I ask her, making sure there isn't something that needing to be taken care of now.

"Um yes I am. My arm." She says as she turns her body to show me and indeed, there's a small puncture wound with some blood coming out. "That's where it stung me." She adds.

"Ok, I can cover the wound but if it is poison, not much blonde will come out so I think we don't need something drastic." I tell her as she seems really scared by the fact that she is bleeding just a little. So I calmed her down to make sure she doesn't panic.

"Oh, um..... ok." She says as I take out my sword and cut a piece of cloth of my jackets sleeve and tie it around her arm so to stop any bleeding she may have.

"Do you need help to walk?" I ask her. The only reply I got was a nod and a small blush which I just brushed off. I helped her up and had her lean against a tree so she may stand. I went to another tree and pulled off a branch from it which I have to her so she may use it as a crutch.

"Will that do?" I ask as she uses it to move a little to get the feel for it.

"Oh! Um, yes this will do. Thank you." She tells me with a nod.

"Ok then can you wait her for just a sec so I can grab my stuff?" I don't want to leave her, but I don't want anyone to steal my things too.

"Um, ok." She says with yet another nod which tells me to run to my stuff which thankfully not so far away.

I grab my bow and quiver along with my duffle bag but I keep my sword out in case more things show up to harm that girl.

"Ok I'm back" I say as I see her standing there with her makeshift crutch.

We start walking through the forest with her guiding me and me watching out for predators.

"So miss, can I ask for your name?" I had to ask as it will be awkward otherwise.

"Oh! Sorry, my name is Fluttershy." She tells. Strange name but it suits her. "What about you?" She asks this time.

"My name, Fluttershy, is Aaron Blackgate and sorry to ask, but what exactly are you? I've never met anyone like you before." I ask her.

"I'm a pegasus pony. But what are you?"

"I'm what's known as a human." I tell.

"Really?! I thought humans were pony tales." She whispered to herself.

"Well I'm very much real Fluttershy." I said with a smirk that both made us chuckle.

"So Fluttershy, what country are we? And also, what planet?" I ask just to make sure if I'm not on some....

"This country is Equestria on the planet of Equis."......alien planet.

Well, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore. Ironic since I'm from California. Also hope people get that reference and if you don't, shame. Just shame.

"Ok? So can you tell me more about 'pony' kind?" I ask.

"Well the pegasus kind have wings and can fly." She says gesturing to the wings on her back. "We help with controlling the weather. The unicorn ponies have horn on their heads and can use magic." Ok well that was a surprise. "And the earth ponies have neither of these things but they are really strong and are good with plants and farming." She finished.

Ok so I'm in absolute shock. But that is pushed away when...

"FLUTTERSHY" a whole much of people or, "pony" I should say, yelled.

I look over to see that we were out of the forest and at the entrance it seems to be greeted by 5 'ponies'.

They looked like a unique little group. Two of them seemed to be "unicorns", one was purple with straight hair and a dark purple and a pink stripe going through it and pink eyes. The other had pure white skin with purple, curly hair. She had blue eyes and light blue mascara on. There was two earth ponies as well, one was Orange with green eyes, white freckles, and long blonde hair with a red knot at the end, and was wearing a cowboy hat. The other earth pony was pink with darker pink hair and light blue eyes. Her hair was big and pooch and looked liked cotton candy. There was only one pegasus and she had rainbow colored hair, light blue skin, and pink eyes.

(These are the clothes they wear as well and Twilight isn't an alicorn yet)

"Girls!" Fluttershy yells out but she lets go of her crutch but she falls over.

I being the quick thinker I am, I quickly reach out and grab onto her and hold like I those fancy dances when they dip. Noticing the new position we were in made not only me blush, but also Fluttershy and the other girls as well.

"Um, hi." I say awkwardly.

"Um, hi?" She says as well.

I slowly let her up and gave her the crutch. That motion snapped the others out of their states and they went to hug Fluttershy which made me smile.

I decided that I should go but before I could....

"Hey!" I heard someone say.

I turned around to see the rainbow haired one was glaring at me which made me confused.

"Um, yes?" I answer.

"Why is Fluttershy hurt?" She says as she tries to size me up and look menacing but didn't exactly work since I'm a foot and a half taller than her.

"She was being attacked by a creature called a manticore, so I jumped in and made it run away." I simply explain.

"LIKELY STORY NOW EXPLAIN OR YOU'RE GONNA BE IN A WORLD OF HURT PAL!" She yells at me as she flies over me while grabbing the collar of my shirt.

My instincts took over and I was about to flip her over yet, a certain someone saved her.

"RAINBOW DASH WAIT!!!" Fluttershy yells out as she tries to get her off of me.

"Why should I Flutters? This creep probably brain washed you to think you got attacked by a manticore. Besides do you think this thing could be a manticore?" 'Rainbow Dash' says.

"He did Rainbow and his name is Aaron." She says as she tries to get in between me and Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow opened her mouth to retaliate but was interrupted by the orange earth pony.

"They are both telling the truth Rainbow, now stop being a jerk!" She says as she walks over next to me and Fluttershy.

"Sorry about that partner, she jumps to conclusion pretty fast." She says as she glares at Rainbow.

"Ma names Appjack Aaron, nice to meet ya." Appjack tells me as she sticks her hand out to shake it.

"Nice to meet you too." I say as I shake her hand.

I was about to ask something but was interrupted by a mass of pink.

"HiI'mPinkiePiemisterAarondoyoulikepartieswhatsyourfavoriteflavorofcakeohanddooyoulikemmfmfmfm."
She says in rapid succession but was interrupted as Applejack covered her mouth and gets her off me.

"Pinkie, you're gonna scare the poor man." Appjack scolds her.

"Sorry bout that." She says as she looks back at me making me wave my hand as if 'it's ok'.

"Well let's try to do proper introductions. Hello, my name is Twilight Sparkle, this is Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and you've met Fluttershy." The purple one says as she gestures to each pony.

"Hi everyone, my name is Aaron Blackgate." I say as I wave a hand. "Nice to meet you all."

"Such a gentlemen." I hear the white one named Rarity say.

"Come on, let's get Fluttershy to the doctor and you to Ponyville." Twilight says as she gestures everyone to follow her.

'Ponyville? What have you gotten yourself into Aaron' I think as we start walking down the path to the nearby town.

Author's Note

This is the height chart to compare to Aaron. Also, all pictures belong to their respected Devian Art creators.

Learning and Questions

As we start to head towards, I decide to ask the age of the girls just so I know. The girls thankfully take no offense to it and tell me. Applejack is 18, Rainbow Dash is 17, Pinkie Pie is 17, Twilight is 18, Fluttershy is 18, and Rarity is 17. As we are talking, they also tell me there professions. Applejack is an apple farmer at a place called 'Sweet Apple Acres'. Rarity is a seamstress, which is useful as I asked her if she could fix my jacket which she accepts. Fluttershy is an animal care taker, Rainbow Dash helps control the weather in Ponyville, Pinkie Pie works at a bakery, and Twilight takes care of a library.

I was about to ask one more question but it seemed we arrived at the town.

It's a nice simple town with nice clean building and to honest. I like it.

"So this is Ponyville?" I ask to any of the girls in particular.

Twilight seemed to answer this time. "Yep, this is out little town." She says with happiness in her voice which made me smile. Nice to see people or ponies happy.

"Ok, lead the way to the hospital." I say while looking back at Fluttershy who's begin helped by Rainbow.

We walked into Ponyville with Twilight leading the way as we headed toward what I assumed was the hospital. I slowed down a little so I can check on Fluttershy to make sure her leg and wound were ok.

"Hey Fluttershy, how are holding up?" I ask in concern while made her smile and blush a bit.

"I'm doing ok Aaron, I'm not as lightheaded and my leg feels a bit better." She says gesturing to said leg.

"What about your arm?" I ask. But before she can answer, a certain ranbowed haired individual interrupted.

"What about her arm?" Rainbow asks in interest and a little suspicion.

"She was stung by the manticore that was chasing her, this made her bleed slightly so I covered it with a part of my jacket." I say as I point the band of cloth around her arm.

"Wait she was stung?! Fluttershy are you okay?!" She yells right in Fluttershy's face which made her recoil and whimper which in turn pissed me off. So I walked over there and pushed Rainbow off of Fluttershy.

"Rainbow! You're gonna scare the girl to death like that!" I scold at her which made her flinch and look to see that she actually did scare Fluttershy. Realizing her mistake she dashed (ha, funny joke) to Fluttershy and hugged while apologizing repeatedly.

"Rainbow, it's ok, I forgive you. And to answer your question Aaron, I don't think it's bleeding any more." She states looking at the piece of cloth.

"Well let's keep it there just in case till we get to the doctor ok?" I ask as if in clarification to which she nodded at.

We finally make to the hospital and it's at that moment, I notice everyone else looking at me with some wonderment, awe, and confusion. And I'm pretty sure a couple of ponies over there fainted. Anyway, we head inside and Twilight asks for medical assistance immediately telling them it's an emergency. The nurses bring out a stretcher and a doctor comes out asking about what happened which Twilight just points....... at me. Thanks I guess. Thought it does make sense seeing as I was the one who knew about it the most. I tell the doctor what happened and he seems shocked that I was able to manhandle a manticore like that. Huh, I honestly thought they weren't that strong. The doctor tells everyone or should it be everypony? I don't even know anymore. The doctor tells everypony that they can easily fix this as they have medicine that will deal with the poison.

We wait a few hours before Fluttershy comes back looking fine with a small bandage around her arm, covering the wound.

"FLUTTERSHY!!" All the girls yell out as they hug. I walked towards her and put a hand on her shoulder.

"Fluttershy, are you feeling better now?" I ask.

"Yes Aaron, I'm feeling much better thanks to you." She says as she gives me a hug which I return a few seconds later.

"So now what?" I ask, curious to see what the next event might hold.

"Well," Twilight answered "I would like for you to come to the library with us so we may ask you some questions and so I can report to the princesses." She says.

"Princesses?" I ask looking for clarification.

"Yes, Equestria is ruled by two princesses, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. They both rule over the land and control both the sun and moon respectively." She tells me as she makes gestures with her hands to emphasize her point.

Now this was a bomb shell on me as I didn't expect there to be princesses in this world or that they FUCKING CONTROLLED THE SUN AND MOON!

"Wait a minute. They control the sun and moon?" I ask getting a round a nods in return. What the fuck have I gotten myself into?

"Ok well let's just head on over to the library and answer these questions." I say tired.

THE LIBRARY

"Ok. Here we are." Twilight says as she opens the door to the literal tree house. And by that I mean it's actually a tree. You know what. I don't even care anymore. She leads us inside and I'm immediately greeted by a DRAGON?!?!? WTF?!?! Whatever. Anyway he's about a foot smaller than me and looking up at me with shock and amazement.

"Woah! You're tall. Anyway, nice to meet ya, my names Spike, what's yours?" He says, putting his fist out for a fist bump which I return with a smile.

"Hi Spike, my name is Aaron and yes I am tall." I say getting a chuckle from him and the girls.

"You can place your stuff here and take a seat." Twilight says pointing to a chair to which I nod to.

When we all get comfortable, I sit there with a curious expression on my and everyone is looking at me waiting for me to start.

"Ok, so lets do this by hand raising and I will try to answer to the best of my ability, okay?" I tell them before looking to see if their ok with the idea. They nod, seeing as that is ok. I make a gesture to begin and all their hands shoot up.

"Twilight, you can go first." I say as I point to her.

"My question is what species are you?"

"I'm a human." I answer simply which shocks them all. Twilight looks to Applejack for clarification to which she nods.

"But humans aren't real!"

"Well I'm very much real Twilight." I tell her with a smirk. After a few minutes she finally accepts it and raises her hand again as does everyone else.

"Pinkie Pie and slowly this time." I say as she looked like she was going to take a big breath. After a few seconds to compose herself she asks.

"What's your favorite flavor of cake?" She asks slowly but with giddiness.

"Red velvet." I say, thinking back to the birthday party yesterday and the delicious red velvet cake I had. Everyone raises their hands again and I point to Rainbow Dash.

"Do you really know how to use that sword?" She asks looking at my weapon to which I nod and say...

"Yes I do, I've been training with swords since I was seven. And I'm 18 now just so you know." I explain, giving everyone a shocked expression.

"Wow! That's so awesome!! Can you show me?" She says with big puppy eyes which almost gives me a heart attack of cuteness.

"Later, right now lets just continue with the questions." I say as I look at her eyes. This response made her pout but she reluctantly agrees and raises her hand again.

"Spike." I say, wondering what he might have to ask.

"Are a soilder or guard?" He asks innocently.

Shaking my head I respond,"No I am not, I'm simply a wandering swordsman." I say with a smirk, thinking about Kenshin's infamous quote. The next person I picked was Applejack.

"What do ya hav in that bag of yours?" She asks, pointing towards my duffle bag.

"Money, I believe. Can you tell if this is your currency?" I ask to anyone.

Twilight decides to respond. "Yes that's our currency, called bits. They are worth whatever number they say they are on the bit." She explains to me. Ok, this is useful, I will just need to go not how much I have in total. At that point, I decide to end the questions with one last pony, Fluttershy.

"Oh! Um.....well I have to ask." She starts. "Why did you save me?" She asks while looking at me nervously.

This question truly shocked me and I even actually have an answer because I truly didn't know, so I took my time to think about it.

"Well, I was raised by my parents to always protect others. I was taught how to fight so I may protect. This is the way of the warrior I was taught. The sword I was given was originally used to protect and I will do the same as I want to make my heritage proud." I say with a soft expression looking at the floor. Looking up, I see the girls along with Spike with tears in their eyes. 'I guess I went a little overboard', I thought. My thoughts were interrupted when my visionwas blurred with yellow. I hug Fluttershy back as I comfort as she cries into my chest.

"Thank you." She says as she wipes off her remaining tears and hugs me one more time.

"Well, I think this will be enough." Twilight says as she hands a scroll to Spike who burns it with dragon breath? Nevermind. A few minutes later, Spike looks slightly troubled and is holding his stomach. When I was about to ask, he suddenly burped loudly and a scroll appeared? What the shit? Twilight goes out and reads it.

"Aaron, we need you to be your best tomorrow." Twilight says she she finishes reading.

"What do you mean Twilight?" I ask. Although she ignored me.

"Aaron, you can sleep here tonight" I was gonna ask about that anyway. "because tomorrow, you're meeting the princesses."
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What?

Canterlot

Twilight let me borrow the spare room in the library which was nice of her and before everyone left, I asked Rarity if she could fix my jacket, which she generously accepted for free, (which I argued about for a while before giving up), and I got to know Spike a little better since we hanged out for a bit.

I placed my things on the wall next to the bed and laid down on it, admiring how nice and comfortable it was. However, it was a little difficult to get sleep since I was extremely nervous. Tomorrow I'm meeting the princesses of the sun and moon which, thinking about it now, makes them seem more like goddesses which is even more terrifying than before!

I start to calm down once I realize I'm hyperventilating. 'It's going to be ok Aaron, just get some sleep and be nice and courteous when you see them tomorrow.' I think to myself as I start to control my breathing and rest my head back qgqinist my pillow and let sleep take a hold of me.

MORNING

The sun shines brightly through the window wakes me up and getting up out of bed may have been the hardest thing ever for me, probably because I has tired and beat. That manticore fight I had and the all the walking I did must have tired me out more than what I expected.

I went downstairs wearing the same clothes as I was as I was so tried I didn't even care. The sweet smell of breakfast bringing me to the kitchen to see Twilight reading a book on the sofa and Spike cooking in the kitchen.

"Oh!" Twilight says in surprise when she hears the thudding from the stairs and looking to see me. "Good morning Aaron." She adds with a smile and wave.

"Good morning Twilight." I say with a smile and wave back. Looking over to Spike in the kitchen, I ask, "Hey Twilight, what's Spike making?"

"I'm making pancakes with apple slices!" I hear Spike yell as he flips a pancakes.

"Well I guess there's your answer." She says with a smirk and a laugh and I do the same.

"So what're reading?" I ask while leaning over her.

"It's a book on advanced magical theorems and rune spells." She says. Well that explains everything.

"Anyway when do are we planning to leave?" I ask, wanting to know so I'm prepared.

"In a few hours. We're planning on getting there and the princesses said in their letter that they would treat us to lunch when we get there." She explains to me and I smile at the generosity of these princesses.

"Heya guys, breakfasts ready." Spike yells from the kitchen. We both go to the kitchen to see a stack of pancakes and syrup with a plate of some apple slices.

"This looks delicious Spike!" I say with giddiness and approvement.

"Thanks." He says with a blush which I chuckle at.

"Well, lets dig in." Twilight says as she pulls out a chair for herself. I do the same and put some pancakes and apple slices on my plate. I see Twilight and Spike do the same and start eating so I start doing the same and HOLY SHIT THESE ARE AWESOME!!! They taste so sweet and full, practically melting sweetness into my mouth. Twilight and Spike look at me with a little concern but with in relief when I start scarfing down the pancakes, but not without some terror in their eyes at the monster speed at which I'm eating.

Slowing down my chewing and swallowing the piece of food in my mouth, I look towards Twilight. "Hey Twilight, you said that the currency here are named 'bits' right?" I ask to which she nods before swallowing.

"Yes they are, why do you ask?" She says while tilting her head in cute way. Woah where did that come from? Whatever.

"Well you see. Before I arrived in this world, I had about 2000$ of my currency from my world in my duffle bag. But, when I arrived here somehow, all the money in my bag was changed into bits." I explain to her and Spike which makes them both surprised. "What I'm asking here is if you can help me count how much money I have in bits since you have more knowledge than I do." I ask her while looking to her.

"Um.......ok. I can help you. Can you go get the duffle bag?" She tells me after some hesitation and then asking. I nod to her and go upstairs and grab the bag full of bits.

"Here we go." I say as I get downstairs and place it down in the living room area.

"Ok, let's get this started." She says before looking towards Spike, "Do you wanna help too Spike?" She asks, looking back towards him as he stands over in the kitchen room doorway with his hands in his pockets. He just shrugs his shoulders and comes over before sitting down while I open the bag.

AFTER SOME TIME
(decided not to include this as it would just be boring)

I'm waiting on the coach with Spike while Twilight does some math with a calculator. Spike told me that it would be best to leave her be at this point to which I agreed as she looked very concentrated.

"AHAH! I've got it Aaron." She says after some time. Looking back at me, she stands up and presents it.
"After some time, I've found out the exact amount of bits you have from the 2000$ you had. The exact amount of bits you have is........2000 bits." She says anticlimactically. The only thing I can think is how much that sucks. I was hoping I'd kinda be rich and it would be like a million bits or something.

"Well, thanks Twilight. It helped me a little and that's what counts." I say with a smile as I stand up and pick up the money and put it back in my bag.

"No problem Aaron. Besides, it helped passed the time and speaking of which, we should head to the train station so go get your things. Both of you." She says as she looks at a clock and points to both me and Spike.

TRAIN STATION

We arrive at the train station with our stuff and I see everyone else get here too. Rarity is holding my jacket and when she spots me, she runs up and hands it to me.

"Here you go darling, all better." She says with a happy smile. It's true too. It looks like nothing ever even happened to it.

"Thank you Rarity." I say with a smile as well as I put it on. "Looks perfect, you really are a miracle worker." I say with a warm smile and a slight bow which makes her blush. Muttering something about a gentleman.

"ALL ABOARD!!!" A conductor yells as a train stops in front of us.

"Well this is our train. Let's go." Twilight says with some light enthusiasm as she boards along with everyone else including me. We took our seats and put away it luggage as the train starts up again. After some time, Twilight looks out the window and gasps.

"Aaron, look!" She says as she point outside the window. Looking over her I see a mountain with WHAT THE HELL?!?!?

THATS CANTERLOT?!?!? ITS HUGE, AND BEAUTIFUL, AND NO THESE ARENT INNUENDOS!!!!!

"Wow." Was the only response I had really. The train arrived at the station and I was actually surprised at how quickly we arrived, only about an hour. Twilight was leading us to what I assumed was the castle. The city was truly beautiful but I wish I could say the same for the citizens here. The girls told me warned me that the 'nobles' of the city were extremely arrogant, greedy, and by there own words, rude. This annoyed to the extreme as nobles are meant to be wise and kind, not arrogant and greedy. The 'nobles' are looked by at me with disgust and horror, probably thinking I'm some kind of monster.

"What is that disgusting creature? It has no reason to be in our beautiful city." One noble said.

"I agree. Only those of noble birth belong in Canterlot. Anypony else should be kicked out and banished!" Another said, getting the rest to nod their heads in agreement.

This started to piss me off so I decided to glare harshly at them which when they finally looked at me, since their noses were up in the air. When they saw me, they wided-eyed and ran from me screaming about how they were being attacked. This happened to get the attention of the guards and girls. Before I knew it, about twenty guards with swords, shields, and spears were surrounding me. One earth pony guard steps toward with a sword and glaring at me though his helemet.

"Halt you monster! You're under arrest for terrorizing the nobles of Canterlot! You will be coming with us to the dungeon." He says with authority and points his sword at me making me reach for mine.

"I didn't do anything. I simply glared at them for insulting me, and besides, I'm here to see the princesses." I state, trying to be as non threatening as possible. The asshole guard only find this amusing, as do the rest of the guards.

"Ha! Why would we believe what some ugly monster says? And besides, why would our glorious princess want to see an east like you?" He says in mocking tone that only pissed me off.

"So this is how the 'great royal guards' of Canterlot act? This is an insult to your princess. And it's princesses idiot. There's more than one." I say to all the guards in a mocking tone as well to mock his tone he used on me, which only seemed to make them extremely pissed at me.

"So now your insulting us and the princesses?!?! That's it! You aren't going to the dungeon! You're going to die!!!" He yells as he runs towards me and tries to cleave my head off which ducked since I can react faster than most. This makes him even madder as he tried again and again. Soon he was unleashing a flurry of swings and stabs which I simply dodged.

He kept attacking me, or at least attempt to, I mean seriously, he was just swinging his sword at me without sense. The girls, Spike, the rest of the guards, and even the nobles. I decide I wanted to end this one-sided fight. After he swings his sword at me, I duck under it and then get behind him before putting him in a full nelson hold which makes him drop his sword.

This shocks everyone around me me and pits the guards on edge. My little hostage I'm holding is only enraged my this action.

"Let me go you damn hairless ape!" He screams at me as he tries to struggle but clearly has no idea how to escape this hold.

"Not until you tell your friends that to stand down." I order to him as I gesture to the surrounding guards. This order made him angrier as he try's to escape the hold but can't. After about a minute of struggling he finally gives up.

"Fine. Everypony stand down." He orders as his pride is clearly hurt. Not that I care. It could really help him.

I let him go and throws him his sword which he grabs out of the air with a glare.

"Now can I go? I don't want me to be late for the princesses." I say wit boredom laced in my voice. This makes him mad as I see his face turn red compared to his white fur but he reluctantly agrees with it. Not that he had a choice.

Me and the rest of group go to the castle so we may meet the princesses but as we are walking, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie decide to start praising me.

"Aaron! That was awesome! How did you dodge that so easily?" Rainbow asks.

"Yeah! He was like 'swing, swang, swash!' And you were like 'nope, nope, nope, nope!' And it was so awesome!" She says as she pretends to reenact the fight and jumps into the air in an explosion of confetti.
Still have no idea how she does that.

"Yeah I know. And to answer your question Rainbow, I was trained how in several martial arts and pushed my body to the it's limit and beyond." I state with a tone of superiority that surprised the girls and made Rainbow look at me in awe. She was about to say something but we arrived and went inside the castle with Twilight escorting us to the throne room. Now at this point, I look composed on the outside, but on the inside I'm freaking out and am terrified. After a minute or two of walking, we arrive at the door to the throne room.

"Ok everypony, lets make sure we're on our best behavior." Twilight says as she looks at us for clarification, which she got in simultaneous nodding. Opening the door to the throne room, I was blinded for a second by a bright light which dimmed to reveal two of the most elegant and beautiful woman I've ever seen. One of them was a tall, Amazonian like woman, probaly 6'5, with white fur like Rarity's and flowing hair of a light blue, green, and pink. She had pink eyes as well. She also had large white wings and a long white horn on her head, which Twilight told are referred to as alicorns. This was probably Princess Celestia.

(remember she's anthro, so she has fur and a horn. couldn't actually find a good anthro pic, sorry)

The other princess was slighted shorter, about 6'2 which is my height. She had extremely dark blue fur and wings, with flowing hair like Celestia expect hers were light blue with a dark blue outline and looked like stars. She also had light, teal blue eyes. Her wings were a slight smaller than Celestia's but they were still bigger than the average pegasus. This must be Princess Luna.

When we enter, the first thing the rest of the group does is bow which I follow but in a different way. The rest of the group bows by getting on there knees, while I bowed the traditional Japanese way, with me beans my body foward. This confused everyone including the princesses and the guards in the room looked disgusted.

"Hey, what do you think you're doing?" A guard asks as he approaches me with a look of anger on his face. This confused me as it didn't make sense since I didn't offend anyone, I simply bowed.

"I'm bowing to the princesses as a sign of respect, what did I do wrong?" Jeez, all these guards are just getting mad at me for no reason.

"That's not bowing you idiot!" He yells at me as he throws a punch which just makes me sigh and I put up my hand and catch it with no effort. This action shocked everyone, the punch, not me blocking. He gets mad and reaches for his sword but is stopped by a golden and blue aura that pulls him off me and I look over to see both Luna's and Celestia's horns glowing, golden for Celestia and blue for Luna and they both seemed pissed.

"Guard, you will refrain from attacking our guest just because he bowed differently. That could easily be be how they bow in his world. Now you will leave and guard the door." Celestia says with anger in her voice. The guard nodding his head, looking like he was about to shit himself which amused me.

"Both me and my sister apologize for the actions of the guard." Luna says after said guard left the room. Celestia nods in repsponse to Luna.

"It's ok princesses. Besides, it's his fault for it so you don't need to apologize." I say with a wave of my hand which made the princesses smile at my kindness. Though they both made serious expressions and looked at me.

"But we did hear that before you arrived here, you fought against a guard who told us you were terrorizing some nobles." She said with a serious tone. To which I simply rolled my eyes which they both noticed.

"Now that's a flat out lie if I've ever heard one!" Applejack said as she came up to my side which the rest of the group did as well, nodding their heads with *hmph*.

"Would you care to explain, young human?" Luna says as she points to me, both of their faces switched to confused faces rather than serious.

"You may call me Aaron princesses, and what happened was when we were entering the city from the train station, I overheard a group of nobles mocking me and saying they were going to try to kick me out of the city. I was annoyed by this so I glared at them which they noticed and overreacted to it by running away in terror, screaming about how I was a monster. Newrby guards noticed and surrounded me, with one coming up to arrest which I tried to explain the situation. They didn't believe me, saying that you two wouldn't ant me to come near you or more specifically, one of one." The more I continued, the more they got shocked and angry, but when they heard the last bit, Luna looked sad and Celestia furious. Will have to ask about that later. I continued on, saying,"I then proceeded to correct him and tell him off about his behavior and that it is disgusting, which got him angry and then he proceeded to attqck me with his sword." This pieces of news shocked both of them, hearing that one of their guards attacked a innocent must never happen I guess. "I dodged all his attacks before make my him give up by putting him in a hold he couldn't escape. After that, we left and came here." I finished my story and the princesses did not look happy, in the slightest. Celestia looked at me with sympathetic eyes.

"I'm terribly sorry Aaron, I will make sure that the guard who did this is punished." She said to which I agreed with.

"I have to ask though. How were you able to dodge all of his attacks?" Luna asked "All our guards are welled trained to hold their own in any fight." She states to which I gave an understanding gesture.

"Aaaahhhh!" I say in a realizing type of tone. "Well you see Princess Luna, in my world, I was trained in the ways of martial arts and swordsmanship, along with training with a bow, since I was seven." I explain in a matter of fact voice. This bit of information surprised both the princesses who looked at each other in shock.

"So is this how you were able to beat a manticore by yourself?" Luna asks to which I nod which suprises them yet again. They were about to ask something else but was interrupted by a loud rumbling sound coming from Pinkie's belly. This made the girls giggle and me chuckle.

"Well, I think it's time for lunch." Celestia says while giggling which everyone nodded to. We were escorted to the dining room by the princesses. We arrive to the dining room which is simply a room with a long table and chairs. We all sit down with Pinkie to my right and Luna to my left. A waiter comes out and asks for everyone's orders which are daisy sandwiches, Spike got hay fries, a few salads but when he got to me, my order freaked everyone out.

"I'll have some cooked fish with a fruit salad and water please." I tell the waiter who looks at me surprised before going off into the kitchen to give our orders to the chefs. I look around at everyone to see them looking at me in shock and horror. "What?" Was my only response.

Rarity decided to speak up with a little bit a green on her face. "Darling, you eat meat?" She asks appalled.

Sighing at myself for not bringing this up sooner, I respond with, "Yes I do, but only live stock and to a certain degree. No sentient creatures if you're wondering." This made everyone visually relaxed but a little discomforted. After a few minutes the food arrives along, being carried individually to everyone. When mine arrives to me, I look at the meal in satisfaction as I haven't eaten much meat in a while and it looks delicious. I cut off a piece with my knife and take a bite of the fish to find it crispy and chewy with a nice hint of spiciness. It also seemed to be extremely juicy as it seems to melt in my mouth in flavor which makes it so blissful~. I continue to eat, despite of the discomfort of everyone else, until I'm finished as I lay my stomach a few times before sighing in satisfaction. Looking around, I saw that everyone else was also finished with their meals. The waiters came back to take the dishes back to the kitchen.

"Thank you princesses. That was very good." I say to Celestia and Luna with a satisfied smile on my face as well as everyone else's.

"Well it was our treat." Celestia said in kind, motherly tone as she gestured to both her and her sister.

"Hey Aaron? I was wondering...how good are you with that sword?" Luna asks me with a tilt of her head and look of intrigue on her face as well as everyone else's after she asked the question.

"Well lets see. I've won about 13 sword tournaments before, as well as 8 martial arts tournaments, and three archery contests too." I state as I put up fingers on my hands to represent the numbers and looking up to remember. Looking back down to see everyone else in shock again was really amusing to me. Snapping out of their shocked states, everyone looks at me in awe.

"Aaron, that means you've won at least 24 tournaments throughout your life!" Twilight says to me.

"Well technically since I was thirteen but no ones keeping track so who knows." I say nonchalantly with a wave of my hand.

"Wow! That's so awesome!!! You've got to show me some of those sword skills you promised." Rainbow says as she flys up next to me.

"Yes indeed. I think we all would like to see." Celestia says as she gestures to everyone else which they all nod at. But before I could say anything, a guard broke into the room looking exhausted.

"Guard, what's the meaning of this?" Celestia asks as she stands up.

"Princesses! There are invaders in Ponyville! The masked bandit group Arcadia!"

Author's Note

Next chapter will be the first real fighting chapter in the story so I hope you enjoy.

The Invasion of Ponyville

Author's Note

Sorry that this chapter took a while to come out. I was about halfway through it but I didn't like it so I decided to redo it. There was also school and home that prevented me to work on it as much as I wanted too. Hope you enjoy this chapter and if you see any errors, please point them out and I will fix them as soon as I can. Anyway, enjoy!

The Invasion of Ponyville

The news from the guards shcked everyone in the room. Except me as I'm just confused.

"Um princesses. Who are these 'Arcadia' guys?" I ask with concern in my voice. My question snapped the rest out of their shock and they look at me. The princesses seem to be concerned and reluctant to tell me. Celestia then steps toward me.

"You see Aaron, Arcadia are a savage group of bandits. They have terrorized ponies for years and have stolen thousands of bits and their numbers have made them incredibly strong. They've only attacked small towns and travelers before, never something of this scale." Celestia explains with fear in her voice of what they might be doing Ponyville. This concerns me greatly as I live in Ponyville now so I'm getting angry of what they're doing to my town.

"Then let's go now! Ponyville is in trouble and we need to stop them." I say with a stomp of my foot, making the others agree. Celestia and Luna nods and look at me with serious expressions.

"Aaron, we both need to ask. Can you join the battle and help our guards?" Celestia asks causing me to nod instantly. No ones gonna mess with my town. "Then I need you to go to the carriages and head to Ponyville with our guards and help with the fight." She tells me as she looks to the guard and motions for him to escort me which he salutes to. I walk to him and he walks down the hallway towards what I assumed was the carriages. We arrive and motions me to enter which I do. He enters as well and we start to fly down to Ponyville. It takes about ten minutes to arrive and we stop and land on the outskirts of the town. I leave the carriage and see a small battalion of guards, about 20, and hear fighting coming from the town square. Buildings are burning and there's blood on the street.

"What happened?" I ask to an injured guard who's being healed by a unicorn.

"We were ambushed. Some of them hid in the crowd and jumped the guards. Unicorns then teleported in with earth ponies and pegasi flew in with bows and shot us down. We fought back as hard as we could but we were forced out. A few reinforcements arrived and are fighting them in the town center." He says before coughing, making me thank him and leave for the center of town.

"Sir, where are you going?!" The guard that escorted me said. I looked at him with an emotionless expression.

"I'm going to help." I said before running off, much to the displeasure of the guard. The streets are barren with bits of blood scattered across the street. It takes me two minutes to reach the center where I see about 25 guards fighting ponies dressed in black, make shift armor mainly covering their chests, legs, and arms. The guards are losing ground against the Arcadia members. I decide to run towards the nearest guard and Arcadian (what ill be calling them) and help him with the member as he's getting barraged with a sword. I run up to the Arcadian and punch him right in the cheek which sends him flying away from the guard. He gets up from the floor while holding his cheek in pain as he glares at me.

"What do you think you're doing you freak?!" He yells out at me which gets the attention of other members who are looking on with confusion. I don't respond, instead taking out my sword which puts the injured Arcadian in his guard. He growls at this challenge and runs at me while dragging his sword on the floor. I wait for him to arrive while glaring at him. When he finally arrives, he swings his sword out at me which I easily avoid by tiliting my body. I grab his arm which holds his sword and squeeze hard enough to make him drop his sword from the pain. I then drive my knee into his stomach causing him to bend over it in pain. Letting go of his arm, I grab the back of his mane and pull his face in front of mine and head butt him make my him real back and grab his forehead in pain. I use this to my advantage and run at him swinging my sword which cuts into his stomach and out the back, making a large gash in the side of his stomach his he clutches, desperately trying to stop the blood gushing out of his wound but fails miserably as he falls over and dies from the shock and blood loss. This shocks the guard I saved and the rest of the Arcadians who are all seething in rage at the loss of their comrade.

"You bastard! Who do you think you are coming here and killing one of us?!? I will take your head off those shoulders of yours!" An Arcadian yells out in rage as he runs at me with an axe. When he reaches me, he swings his axe towards my head in an attempt to decapitate me. I see the axe coming for my neck and I simply crouch down to dodge it before lunging at him, piercing his heart with my sword killing him instantly. I push his body off the sword as it falls to the earth with a thud. This makes the Arcadians even angrier as two more ran at me with spears. They had a small gap in between them so they don't trip each other up but this was perfect for me as I used it to slide right through it before turning around and slashing the napes of their necks, killing them both. I hear a battle cry coming from behind me and I turn to see a pegasus holding a short sword running at me trying to back stab me. This fails as I spin around when he arrives and grab his shoulder before shoving my sword through him. I pull my sword out and turn around, glaring at the Arcadian members who are looking at me in anger but there were some that were frozen with fear.

"So who's next?" I ask menacingly which made some flinch but held their composure. One of them seems to be stupid as he runs at me with a sword.

"I'm not scared of you!" He screams as he tries to cleave me in half but fails to do so I block it with my sword. He tries to push down but is failing as I'm stronger than he is. I push against him and make him stagger back. I then slash at his neck, slitting his throat. He stares at me in shock as blood spurts out of his neck and onto me. This act makes the others stare at me in horror as I simply stand there without any emotion as the body falls to ground, dead. I stare blankly at the rest of the members as they back up in fear. One Arcadian decides to look towards the archers of the group.

"Archers! Fire at will!" He yells as he points directly at me. Several pegasi got airborne with bows, knotting their arrows as they take aim and fire. Multiple arrows fire at me, the archers not caring for simultaneous timing. I tilt my body and the first arrow misses. I continue to move and dodge the incoming arrows, spinning and jumping out of the way. I jump up and spin in the air as the last arrow hit the ground. I landed and looked up with a neutral expression on my face as I reach for the closest arrow and break it in two, grabbing the half with the arrowhead so I may use it as weapon later. I then run at the Arcadians which surprises them as I was not injured but was then terrified. I run at a member who has a shield and thinks that I'm going to hit him with my sword so he put up his shield but he was dead wrong as I instead shoulder bash him which makes him stumble and fall. I then spin kicked the side of his head, knocking him out. I run to next member who tries to skewer me with a spear but I side step and elbow his face before cutting right through his skull.

A random Arcadian runs at me from with a sword and shield and attempts to stab me but I jump back slightly, which he responds by trying to bash me with his shield. He hits and I stagger for a second but recover in time for me to roll out of the way of a strike from his sword. I turn around after rolling and block his incoming sword strikes, looking for an opening. As I am waiting for the right time, an archer starts to fire arrows at me, making me dodge those. I try to use the incoming arrows to hit the one with the sword but he is blocking them with his shield. Finding myself in a predicament, I try to find a way to stop this but I can't since if I try to get the swordsman, the archer will get me and vise versa. We continue this song and dance until I finally find the opportunity I was waiting for. The swordsman tried to stab me which I dodged to the side with an arrow hitting his shield. I then jump onto his shield and stab him in the eye with my arrowhead! This caused him to scream in pain clutch his face with his hand, his sword on the ground because he dropped it. The archer was about to shoot but didn't when he saw his fellow member get stabbed in the eye, putting him a temporary shocked state. I decide to take care of the archer as the swordsman will be out of commission for a while. I still kick his sword away from him as a safety concern. The archer does notice me running at him and tries to shoot me but misses as he was panicking. His panicking also made him mess up knotting his arrow. This mess up allowed me to get close enough to stab him in the head. I yanked out my sword and see that other Arcadians had surrounded me with spears.

"HA! Now we've got you! Let's take him out boys." One member says in excitement. Looking around, there's no visible way out. There aren't any gaps in the circle I'm in and I can't jump over them as there are more Arcadians waiting outside the circle who could take me out. I'm legitimately trapped and it honestly pissed me off. I can't believe I just let them do this to me and I never even thought to take it into consideration or prepare for it. And now because of it, I'm trapped. The guards outside the circle can't help me as they are fighting their own fights. They are slowly moving in with their spears pointing directly at me.

'Damn it! I need to think of something!' I think in anger while tightly gripping my sword. I can't even use it since if I try to attack any of them, they can just attack me. FUCK!!! I can't think of anything to do that won't end badly for me. I decide to do the next best thing that will greatly hurt my pride but fuck it!

"SOMEONE HELP!!!" I scream out as loud as I possibly can. This shocks the surrounding spear men who start moving faster and thrust their spears at me. Time seems to slow down as the spears seem to be coming at me with a snails pace. My life flashes before my eyes as I see my parents bringing me to dojo during my seventh birthday to meet Emanuel. But before the rest of my life can be shown to me, I suddenly feel myself being pulled away from reality? It hard to explain but that the best explanation I have since that's what it felt like for me. Anyway, I feel myself come back into reality and I'm in the air but before I fall on my face, I feel my entire body being grabbed and I look to see myself glowing a blue aura. I try to turn my body to see who doing this but can't do so. Must be some sort of magic and it's restricting my body. Thankfully whoever picked me up put me on the ground. I turn around to see Luna, Celestia, and the girls all wearing battle armor and holding weapons. I see faint blue aura around Luna's horn and she comes up to me and puts her hand on my shoulder in concern.

"Sir Aaron, are you alright?!" She asks me in concern. This made me smile. Glad to know they care about my well being.

I nod in response. "Yes Princess Luna, I'm okay. And no 'sir'. I don't like my friends calling me by titles." I say knowing I fucked up a little by calling her my friend. I was actually half expecting her to get angry at me but instead she blushes and smile.

"I would happily be your friend Aaron." She says with a hug, "As long as you do the way with titles." She giggles at the end and pokes my nose. The rest of the girls giggle at this as well as Celestia.

"Thanks for saving me guys. I was kinda in a pickle." I say with a nervous chuckle while rubbing the back of head. I look over at the rest of the girls and I am very shocked to see there were about a hundred guards with them. About 30 Pegasi with bows and arrows are in the air, wearing standard gold armor with a few wearing dark blue and gray armor with lighting designs on them. They must be the leader of the pegasus guard. There were also about 40 earth ponies, most of them were wearing the gold armor. It seems the leader of the earth pony force was wearing white and gold armor with while wielding a giant spear. The last leader was the leader of the unicorn force. He seems to be wearing a purple armor and is holding a shield with a pink star with six points and a sword. All of them are prepared to fight the Arcadians. Speaking of them, the circle of members I was in a minute ago are now very surprised that I escaped, but also that reinforcements arrived. The others there also were worried but they still got over it as they all got together and formed a wall. Shields were in the front with spear men following behind to try skewer any guards facing the blockade. Swordsmen were in the third and fourth row, to deal with any who break through the first two. Archers were in the very back, preparing to fire the volley of arrows. Unicorns were also in the back but they instead were at the side of the archers, getting spells ready. It was a very strong formation, perfect for almost any situation. Celestia sees this and frowns before looking towards all the of her guards.

"ALL GUARDS!!" She starts off, projecting her voice loudly, catching the attention of all her guards, "GET INTO ESCARIOT FORMATION!!!" All the guards salute and get into their own formation. This one seems to be divided among the three pony races but this seems to be a perfect counter to the Arcadians own formation. The pegasi are in the air with shields actually under them to block attacks from the ground. They have their archers positioned to where the ones in the middle may shoot through small gaps in the shields and the ones along the edge of the archers can just shoot over the edge. We also have the unicorns at the center of a semi square, in front and to the sides of them are earth ponies who have their shields and spears the same as the Arcadians. It seems the unicorn are to provide magical strength to break the blockade and the archers will take out the unicorns and archers of the Arcadians.

"This is a very powerful formation that is used to counter formations like the one over there." Celestia states while gesturing to the Arcadian formation. I nod in response with a big smile clearly visible on my face.

"We shall all be in our own respective groups." Luna says looking over to the girls. "Applejack and Pinkie Pie will help with the earth pony defense. Rarity and Twilight will support the unicorns. And Rainbkw Dash and Fluttershy will help our pegasi." She informs them while pointing the each of them. The only problem was where I was going to be.

"But where will I be in this battle?" I ask while gesturing to myself. They all look over to me in surprise that I was still willing to fight. Luna steps toward with a calming smile and look in her eyes.

"Aaron, you don't need to continue. You have fought hard and without you, more death would have occurred." Ironic since I literally killed like 12 of them. "But let us take care of the rest." She finishes. I shake my head immediately in discomfort and disagreement.

"No. Ponyville is now my home too. And I will see that it is protected." I say with a stomp of my foot to reinforce my argument. All of them seem to be shocked I was still willing to go on but replaced it with a smile from all of them. Luna then nods.

"We understand Aaron. You can fight in this battle. And as for your question, you will be with me and Celestia in the front lines." Now it was my turn to be surprised. I was both honored and shocked. To let me fight in the front lines just like that was what shocked me and to fight with them would honestly be an honor. I was about to ask why but Luna beat me to the punch. "We all saw how you performed in battle and, needless to say, we were very impressed. You are an extremely talented and gifted fighter and we want you to fight with us." This surprised me yet again and I was actually a little embarrassed to be praised like this, always have been, but on the other hand I felt honored to be called a talented fighter by princesses.

"Well then let's go." I say with a serious expression. The rest get a similar expression on their faces as well and nod in agreement. The princesses horns begins to glow and engulf everyone. Before I know it, that strange feeling from before reappears and I'm in front of the earth pony and unicorn formation. I turn my head to see Applejack and Pinke among the guards, holding spears and ready for action. In the back I also see Rarity's and Twilight's hair in the unicorn guards. I look up and see the pegasi in the sky but I can't see Rainbow or Fluttershy because of the shields but I assume they're there. The princesses are next to me with Luna holding a large black and blue spear with a shield with a moon crescent on it. Celestia is holding her own shield with a sun in it and appears to be holding a golden yellow great sword. I look over in front of me and see the Arcadians looking toward us and we start to march in unison towards them. After a few seconds, the march turns into a full on run with all of us battle crying. I'm much faster than the rest though so I'm able to get ahead and run straigh at the enemy's who are holding their ground. They prepare for my approach and point their spears at me. Anticipating this, I instead run to the left and away from the line of shields. Now when I was observing the formation they had, I noticed that they didn't have any shields covering the sides like we did. So, I took advantage of this and ran outwards from them before running right back but at the rows of swords, not the shields. They saw this and were shocked to see me exploit this but got over it quickly as I was approaching. About five of them ran at me, each of them with a sword in hand and only two with small shields to protect themselves. The others seemed to be shocked about my decision but can't do anything about it since the rest of the Arcadians have reached them and are struggling for control. I don't mind since I would prefer to fight alone on this instance.

The first move was done by an Arcadian with only a sword. He attempts to cleave my head off but I easily duck under it and grab his face, shoving his face down into the ground, knocking him out immediately. I quickly move to the next before they could react, this one holding a shield. I grab his shield and pull it before slamming my head against his, knocking him back and causing him to slip his arm off the shield and letting me take hold of it. With him being stunned, I turn and body and throw the shield at the first member I see like a frisbee. The shields bangs against his helmet as he falls to the floor unconscious. The guard I headbutted had regain composure and was close to imposing me but instead missed as I side stepped and straight punched him in the nose.

"AH! BLOODY TARTARUS! WHAT THE SHITE!" He yells as he holds his muzzle in pain. I was surprised to see he had an Australian accent but whatever. He uncovers his muzzle and glares at me. "Why you no good piece of traAH!!" He yells as I punch him in the muzzle again. "CELESTIA DAMN IT MATE!" He screams out in pain as he looks to his teammates. "Support please!" The others look at each other before looking back at the two of us and moves up. "HA! Let's see you handle all three of AH! DAMN IT!!" Yes, I punched him in the muzzle......again. It's not an asshole move, it's just he was annoying me. The other two finally reach us as the injured member, who I'm sure has a broken muzzle now, is on the floor in pain. One of them tries to stab me but I just tilt my body and rush to knee him in the gut. This takes the wind out of him as his teammate swings at me multiple times but is failing as I just move out of the way at the last second. Eventually I move behind him and grab the back of his head, before slamming it down into the dirt, knocking him out. The member I just knee'd tries to chop my head off, but fails as I roll backwards before running to him and dropkicking him to the ground. I walk over to him to see he's out of commission, leaving only the one with a broken muzzle. He eventually got up and grabbed his sword before looking at me and prepares to run at me..........only for him to call to the ground unconscious. Well that was anticlimactic.

It seems to battle going on is getting worse as the noises of weapons clanging increased. I turn around to see that everyone is now out of formation and are now just fighting their own individual battles. The pegasi in the sky are now scattered and are taking pot shots into the enemy. I look to see Celestia and Luna in the middle of the battlefield fighting multiple Arcadians at the same time and seems to be holding their own, but me being experienced, I can tell that their being overwhelmed slowly. Deciding to help, I pull out my sword and run straight to them, cutting down those who get in my way and to help the guards a little. Reaching the princesses, I impale the first member I see who's currently having a struggle with Celestia. She seems to be surprised that I suddenly appeared and killed the Arcadian but brushed it off as I pushed her out of the way of a spear attempting to stab her. Instead the spear hits his currently dead teammate as I pull out the sword and slash at his throat, killing him. I look over to Celestia and nod to her to which she does the same and goes back into the battle. Looking over to Luna, she seems to be holding out and I decide to move on to help others. For the past 7 minutes, I ran throughout the battle and killed Arcadians and supporting the guards and my friends. Speaking of the girls, Fluttershy stayed out of the battle with Rainbow Dash protecting her, Applejack and Pinkie weren't having many problems but I still helped them since they were having a few troubles. The worst of them were Twilight and Rarity, as Twilight only made a shield which was almost broken by the time I got to them. Taking care of the Arcadians made both of them throw up since I killed them.

'Damn it. They weren't ready for battle. I need to get them out of here.' Was my first thought since they couldn't stay under the shield the whole time, let alone fight. So I decide to break the shield by hitting it with my sword, scaring the two girls out of their shock. They look over in fear as they most likely thought it was an Arcadian but visibly calm down when they see it's me. The first action the did was but me which I returned but let go quickly so I could address the real problem.

"Twilight, I need you to teleport out of here to safety. Can you do that?" I ask in concern while checking back to see that no one has tried to break through yet. Looking back, I see that Twilight is shaking her head with a sad look in her eyes.

"No I can't. I used what was left of my magic to make and hold that shield." Well shit. But it only got worst. "And Rarity can't do it because she doesn't know the spell." Rarity nods in sad agreement. Then there's only one way to actually deal with this situation. Grabbing both of their hands, I drag them out of the shield and gesture them to follow me. The plan was to bring them to where Fluttershy and Rainbow was so they could be protected, problem was a certain asshole I stabbed was in the way. It was the Arcadian I stabbed in the eye with an arrowhead and he looked furious.

"There you are you bastard. I've been looking for you so we can end what we started." He says as he gets into a battle stance. Now I would've accepted but I can't as I'm in the middle of a something and can't be bothered. So I silently shake my head. This angered him more than he already was. "DON'T YOU SAY NO TO ME YOU PIECE OF SHIT! I WILL TAKE OFF YOUR HEAD!" He screams out as he runs to me with the intent to kill. My instincts take over and I meet him in the middle. My quick movement shocks him and I use this to my advantage as I grab his head and pull it right into my knee, breaking his muzzle. Before he can react to his pain, I jump back and sweep under his legs which causes him to fall on his back. At this point, I pull out my sword and, before he can beg for mercy, I sink the blade into his skull, killing him. Pulling the sword out, I watch as the blood begins to pool below his head. I turn my head to see both the girls terrified of me but get over it when I start to drag them back to where we were going. Luckily there was nothing else in our way and all three of us were able to get into the house Fluttershy was in. They all hugged when we arrived but I couldn't stay since there was still work to be done which they understood. Running back into the battlefield, it took all of the guards plus the princesses about 10 more minutes to defeat their forces. In the end, about half of them were dead and the other half were incapacitated. As for our forces, about 15 out of the hundred we had died while about 30 more were injured. We were getting ready to leave but before we could, a member of the Arcadians that was still conscious lifted his head off the ground with a grunting noise.

Looking our direction with a smirk, he spoke in a raspy and tired voice, "Don't get cocky. Arcadia isn't done yet. The boss still hasn't gotten here yet. And when he does, you're all dead." He spat out the last word for emphasis. One guard who heard started laughing as a response.

"Oh yeah?" He starts mockingly. "What is gonna do against all of us?" He asks threateningly as he gestured to all the other guards. The Arcadian on the ground starting laughing at this.

"You will see very soon. In fact, you will see what he's capable of right now." He says before falling unconscious. As if on que, Arcadians start dropping from the sky on ropes and start attacking the unsuspecting guards. The guards start retaliating almost immediately and another battle has ensued. Looking up, I see a giant AIRSHIP!! I didn't even knew they had those things here!? I can see ropes coming out of the sides and members are sliding down them. But before I know it, a giant fireball flys to the airship blowing a portion of it to pieces. Turning around, I see Celestia standing their with an enraged look on her face and her horn glowing. A noise comes from in front of us and, looking down, I see a group of ponies, one is an earth, the other a pegasi, and the last is a unicorn. The earth pony has a red mane with yellow tips and an orange coat and has deep red eyes. He's wearing an orange colored chestplate as well as leg and arm guards with an orange helmet. He's also holding a large orange halberd on his back. Under his helmet, I could see a large vertical scar going through his right eye. On his right, there is a pegasus mare, who has a blue mane, a green coat and purple eyes. She's wearing leather or cloth armor instead of metal. The armor seems to be more for agile movement instead of protection. She seems to be wielding twin shortswords, the right one is blue, the left green. Then there is the unicorn who is completely covered in armor from head to toe (or hoof I guess) with the exception being eyeholes showing white glowing eyes. The armor itself is mostly black with a couple spikes coming out of his helmet, his knees, and his elbows. He is holding no weapon it seems so I assume he either uses his fists or magic.

The orange stallion looks over the battlefield before looking straight at Celestia and Luna and creepily smiles. "Ah if it isn't Princess Celestia and Luna! It's been a little while hasn't it?" He says with a menacing smile and mocking tone which makes the pegasus laugh loudly but the unicorn just stares.

The princesses don't seem to be that amused though. "Flaming Ash! How dare you come here and cause chaos?! Now you will feel my wrath!!" Celestia screams out as she spreads her wings out and takes to the air, her horn glowing brightly. "TAKE THIS!!!!" A giant fireball, even bigger than the one that hit the airship, is launched towards Flaming Ash who only smirks. As the fireball gets closer, the unicorn jumps in the way and sticks his hand out as a large shield that looks crystal in nature appears out of his hand and the fireball it blocked. After the smoke clears, the shield doesn't even seem to have a scratch on it. This shocks everyone including Celestia and Luna. Flaming Ash only laughed.

*laughs* "Now," He changed to a menacing tone so quickly it suprised me, "it's out turn." The other two nod and dash at us extremely quickly. I could barely even track then but I still did. Rushing out with my sword in the hand, my target is the pegasus mare who I see has her swords out. She sees me heading her way and decides to attack. Her entire body goes into the air and she spins in a circle motion, striking with both of her blades. Bringing up my sword, I was able to block the hit but it had so much kinetic force behind it, she almost broke through the block. Luckily, I held out and pushed her away to which she started to spin and twirl in the air gracefully before landing just as gracefully. Standing up straight, I see that her eyes where closed and she had a smile clearly plastered on her face, as if she was satisfied with me. She then, with her eyes still closed, got into a battle stance, holding both her swords in front of her, with the right one in front of her face, covering everything except her eyes, and her left sword below her body, touching the ground with the tip of the sword.

Opening her eyes finally, the purple glow of her eyes reflecting off her blue sword, she asks the all important question.

"So......shall we dance?"

The Battle of Ponyville

"So shall we dance?"

Silence follows while we stare each other down. The air feels tense and heavy, and times seem to slow down as we wait for the first move to be made. Out eyes are locked together, purple versus blue. Who will win?

After a whole 30 seconds of our little staring contest, I make a rush towards her, the air becoming light and thin, and she's waiting for my strike. I swing out my sword towards her stomach, but she easily deflects it with her green blade, the sound of metal of metal ringing in my ears. She brings up her blue on and swings downward at my head but I'm able to roll out of the way and turn my body around while swinging my sword. She easily dodges by backflipping through the air before landing gracefully once more. Instead of doing a staring contest again, we both run at each other, trading strikes and blows. The problem is because she has two swords, I have to block from two different angles and let me tell you it's not easy! Even for me.

She's hitting me with incredible speed and the fact she has two swords makes it all the more difficult to handle. If I had two swords, this would be a different fight entirely. But since I don't, I will need to think of a new strategy. She won't let up and I don't think I can stay like this for too long, so I can't just wait for an opening. Even if I did, with her speed, she won't give me one. No, I will need to find another way to counter her and get on the offensive. I could try to flee and counter attack when she gives chase but I don't think she'll fall for that trick and all it will give me is some time to regain myself. But seeing as how I don't know any other way out of this, it's the best option I've got.

She strikes at me with both her swords but I'm able to hold my own and push her away. Needing more, I spin kick her straight to the chest and push her a little farther away, giving me enough time to seperate from her, about 25 feet to be precise. She looks at me in annoyance and lets out an angry sigh before getting into her original stance.

'Must be expecting me to try again huh.' Was my first thought, 'Not gonna happen.' I put my sword in front of me while holding it in one hand and pointing it at her. And to top it off, I smirked at her. She takes this as a sign that I'm not falling for it and gets more annoyed before deciding it's her turn to run at me. This was actually perfect for me as I could easily tell how fast she was. She was, as I thought, very fast on her hooves as she reached me before I could even start counting. She was in front of my sword before I knew it and I quickly decided to take an easy shot. I step toward and thrust my sword out to stab her but before I could, she suddenly disappeared from my vision in a blur. My instinct told me to move but before I could, I was slammed in the side and went flying about 5 feet through the air. The pain wasn't that bad since I've felt worse but still stung a little. Getting up, I look over to see the mare holding her leg out in my direction. Then it clicked. She was able to move so fast, she appeared to the side of me and kicked me before I could even respond. Her speed must be on an entirely different than what I had originally thought. She starts laughing at me since I probably have a shocked expression plastered on my face.

"So have you realized you've picked a fight you can't win?!" She says while laughing loudly, calming down she looks at me with a sadistic smile, "Let me show you how Swift Flash does it." She says referring to herself in the third person. She disappears in front of me and before I could try to react, she's in front of me and sends an uppercut into my jaw, causing me to stagger back. She follows this up by a kick straight into my chest, making me fall to the ground. She then attempts to impale me with both her swords, but I'm able to respond fast enough to roll out of the way and get up on my feet. Swift sees this and pulls her swords out of the ground and dashes to me as she unleashes a torrent of stabs and swings. Her speed is so monstrous that I can barely even keep up. The quick blur of strikes are pushing me back, bit by bit, and a couple of her strikes get past me and cut into me. After about 5 straight minutes of this onslaught, she finally lets up and back away from my injured body. My jacket has been cut to ribbons and there are multiple cuts across my entire body. On top of that, all the defending I've done has exhausted me and the injuries aren't helping as I fall to my knee and start breathing heavily. Swift Flash notices this and starts laughing mockingly at me before kicking away my sword.

"So this is the 'dreaful' warrior that was able to kill our men single handedly?" She says with emphasis on dreadful before shaking her head in a disappointing way, "Pitiful." She then lifts her sword up while holding it upside down before pushing the blade down towards my head.

Time seems to slow down once more as death slowly approaches me. But unlike the time I was surrounded, this is different, it's..... actually slower! Time has legit slowed down. I look around and see all the other soilders fighting but in an almost frozen position. My brain tries to make sense of this but the pain makes it difficult. So my next best option is to take advantage of the situation. Since my sword is gone, I stand up and uppercut her hard on the jaw, the force sent her head back but the moment it happened, time returned back to normal and she was sent flying.

Forcing my body to comply, I turn and leap for my sword. I pick it up and turn immediately to Swift who's getting up while rubbing her jaw. Shaking her head, she looks around before spotting me and scowling.

"I don't know how you were able to do that, but I will make sure it doesn't happen again!" Giving a powerful flap of her wings, she jets right at me with her sword pointing directly at my face.

Just like before, time slowed down but this time, I didn't hesitate. I immediately rush her direction and move to her side before kicking her, time once again resuming and she's sent flying away. She got up and coughed a few times before wiping her mouth and glaring at me.

Smirking, I ask, "What's wrong? I thought Swift Flash was gonna teach me how to do it," I emphasize, making her visibly more pissed off, "What a loud horse shit." I rushed towards her and we began to trade blows.

But while we were, I started to think about the time thing. 'I don't know how exactly it starts but what I can tell is that whenever I make physical contact of someone, it stops. The benefit it seems is the contact is a lot more powerful than normal since I'm probably moving at super high speeds to an outside eye.' I thought, 'But how I can make it start, I have no clue. Maybe I could will it.....' As if on cue, time slowed again.

Smirking at this success, I back away from her before deciding to sweep her legs. I turn quickly while jutting my leg out and crouching down, my calf striking her ankles and when time started after the contact, her body flipped at least 3 times before she landed right on her arm with a hard thud. I immediately lifted my sword and attempted to stab her. Attempted being the key word as she rolled right before it connected with her chest, but it was able to cut into her arm. She cries out in pain before flapping her wings and taking to the sky but leaves one of her swords in the process. Swift stops at about 50 feet above me before stopping.

She seems very tired and her ankle looks broken from me sweeping her leg. On top of that, her arm is bleeding very heavily. She thinks she's safe, but I have a plan. I slow time again and crouch down, prepping my legs. I look up and smirk at her in the air and thrust my legs out as hard as I can, the force jetting me up towards her. Time resumes and I can clearly see her shocked and frozen in both awe and fear at me. In less than a second I'm right in front her and I immediately attack. First I grab her head and drag her down right on my knee, likely breaking her nose (or snout, whatever ponies have) then I punch her in the stomach, making her keel over in pain and she stops flapping her wings, causing her to start falling. I grab onto her and position her below me as we start plummeting faster from the extra weight. The last thing I saw before we impacted was her eyes widening even more than they were but that was all as our impact on the dirt ground created a large cloud of dust that made it hard to see.
CELESTIA POV

Swift Wind and Aaron have gone away to do their battle, I'm hoping he will be safe and careful. You can't underestimate these Arcadians.

Flaming Ash is looking over to me and my sister with a sinister smile on his face as he stands next to his second-in-command, Violet Thorn. From what I've heard, he is a very dangerous unicorn. There's a myth that he was considered a 'defective' unicorn since he couldn't use magic. Because of this, his parents rejected him and Violet was forced to fend for himself. Eventually, the recently formed group known as Arcadia found him when they attacked the town he lived in, and decided to take him in and trained him. It's said he quickly rose through the ranks and became an elite warrior. This is all rumor though, but what I do I know is he's never been seen using magic and that his armor is nearly indestructible. There is also the fact that he is apparently a 'mute', meaning he can't talk. Despite his flaws, there is no doubt his strength is immense. He once blew through an entire squad of 20 guards with only 4 punches. It is unknown whether or not his strength is natural, magical, or something else. But to be frank, the fact of the matter is, Violet Thorn is incredibly powerful, and incredibly dangerous.

Flaming Ash's small talk knocks me off my train of thought. Looking over, I see him looking over in the direction of where Aaron and Swift left. "So now that Swift and the monkey boy have gone to have their own fun." He then turns towards me with a murderous look in his eyes, sending a chill down both me and my sister's spines. "We can have our own fun." He says with what seems like actual bloodlust lacing his tone, ending it with a snap of his fingers which makes Violet run straight towards us with unimaginable speed. Luna immediately flys up while grabbing my arm, carrying me along with her. As soon as we got up, Violet slams his fist into the ground where we just were, making a small crater in the ground and sending a shockwave that was strong enough to almost make Luna lose her balance. She regains it though and sets us both down 10 feet away from Violet as he makes his way out of the crater and towards us. Preparing our weapons, I rush at Violet first, causing him to stop to stand. Waiting for me. Knowing he must be up to something, I prepare my magic for a teleportation spell. I jump into the air and swing my sword down on his head. He looks up at me and his eyes seem to glow brighter, and before I know it, I'm on the ground next to Luna. Luna picks me up with a worried expression plastered all over her face.

"Sister! Are you ok?" She asks in concern. My head is throbbing and my vision is a little blurry. Looking up at what I assumed was Luna since I only see a blob of blue.

"Uhh. My head hurts and i can barely see. What happened?" I ask as I sit up and try to survey the battlefield. My vision has cleared up but only a little. I am able to make out Violet standing in the same spot and an orange mass behind him seems to be laughing.

Luna helps me fully to my feet and catches me when I almost fell back down. Regaining my balance, I look to Luna for the answer to my question.

"I honestly don't know exactly. You were about to kit him and then his eyes glowed brightly. After that, you were on the ground next to me." She tells me with a confused tone, leaving me the same. How could he have done that? Was it magic? I thought he couldn't use magic. What's going on?

Flaming decides to snap me and Luna out of confused stupors. "Now do you understand?! Violet here is special. His eyes are capable of casting illusions that can bend and injure the body greatly." This bit of news shocks both of us. I look back at Violet in shock with a little bit of amazement and see him nod his head as if confirming this. I shake my head to defie this.

"It doesn't matter what he can do! All that matters is he will fall by our hands." I yell out to him as I take flight. Soaring above them, I gather magic once more and begin to give it the form of a large ball of fire. "No matter what you do! You will fall to the might of Equestria!!" I yell out in the Royal Canterlot Voice before sending the giant fireball straight at Violet who still only stands in the same spot. Violet then crouches down before leaping into the air, about the same height as I am. The fireball explodes on the ground, creating an even bigger crater. Violet then does the impossible. He turns his body in the air and crouches again before pushing AGAINST THE AIR and rockets to me. My shock won't let me move and even if I could, his speed wouldn't let me. He reaches me and slams right into me, grabbing hold of my body and throwing it straight down. Luna sees this and flys over to me, grabbing me from the air and landing a little roughly on the ground. I open my eyes to see Violet crashing down into the earth, making another crater from the force at which he fell. I try to move my body to attack him but Luna holds me down.

"Don't sister. Let us take care of this." She says in the old, traditional speaking pattern while glaring at Violet who only looks at me. I want to retort but she's already off. She uses her wings to propel herself foward, giving her a speed boost. She also thrusts her spear out in front of her and attacks Violet who simply brushes of the attack like it was nothing. Luna then unleashes a barrage of strikes and hits on him but they all do nothing. On one thrust, he actually dodges to the side and pulls on her spear before slamming the back of his fist into her face, sending her flying.

"LUNA!!! I scream out in horror but she turns her body in the air and lands before glaring at Biolet once more, her nose bleeding. Violet throws her spear back at her to which she just grabbed it with her magic before flipping it in the air and pointing it right back at him. He seems to be uneffected by this as he starts making his way towards her. Luna's horn starts to glow, making her spear do the same. Before I know it, her spear separates into several other ones. Violet is still unaffected by this as he's still making his way. Instead, he actually lifts both his arms and I see his armor start to grow from the arm. A few seconds later, there are two blades that just grew from the arms of his armor. Me and Luna are shocked by this and apparently Violet noticed as he started to run at us, snapping me and Luna out of it. I lift my sword and engulf it with my magic, causing it look like fire in nature. Hearing a battle cry, I look over to see Luna running at Violet while sending magic spears his way. The spears deflect off his armor as he slashes at Luna who blocks with her shield while attacking with her own spear. It is clear though that she is being overwhelmed so I run over to them with my flaming sword and shield in hand. Raising my sword to the side of me, I gather the magic to the front of tip of the blade for a powerful stab. Once I gathered the perfect amount, I point it behind me before flipping it foward and thrusting it outwards right into the side of his body. The magic caused a giant flash of explosion. The force and explosion sent him flying away about 20 feet before landing on his back. After a few seconds though, he gets back up without as much as a scratch, shocking me and Luna.

"What?!? How?!? I poured at least a tenth of my magic into that!! That's enough to destroy our strongest armor in a single hit!!! How are you alive?!?" I yell out in desperation but don't get a response since Violet's a mute. Instead, Flaming answers.

"You see Celestia," He states, getting my attention, "That armor Violet is wearing is stronger than any other armor in Equestria." He states in a matter of fact tone. "We've tested it with just about all the force we can dish out. And you of all ponies, should know that's a lot. Not even the Bruiser's cannons could scratch it," He says while pointing at the ship still floating above the battlefield, "And those are capeabpe of destroying a house with ease. Taking that into consideration, what could you do?" He rhetorically ask with a smirk and smug tone.

The sad part is, he's right. One cannon shot from that ship decimated a battalion of 30 guards without fail. So if that armor could come out unscathed after an entire barrage of cannons, we have no hope of breaking it. But that doesn't mean we're not gonna try.

Putting on a brave face, I face Flaming. "That doesn't matter Flaming, what matters is the safety of Equestria! And with Arcadia on the loose, we will do whatever we must to protect our ponies!" I yell out as I spread my wings and take flight once more, adrenaline overcoming my sense of dread. Once more gathering magic into my sword, I put a third of my magic into the blade. Lifting it above my head, I glare down at Violet.

"Violet Thorn!! You and Arcadia's reigned terror and fear will end today!! For my ponies, and for Equestria!!!" I yell in the RCV (Royal Canterlot Voice) as I rocket myself straight to Violet, my magic spiking from my rage, making a yellow, flame-like, coat form around me. The light from my magic was blinding it seems, as Violet out his arm over his eyes and couldn't see, meaning he couldn't use his illusions. That's it! Using this to my advantage, I propel myself even faster which Violet doesn't notice, or does he? He stands completely still and I swing my sword straight to his neck. But when I swing, Violet lifts his other hand up and catches the blade in his hand! There was a blinding explosion which even blinded me for a few seconds. I hear Luna scream out my name but I can't see her. Once my vision returns, I'm faced with Violet staring directly into my eyes, the purple glow seems haunting. Before I know it, I seem to be the sunny sky seems to have turned a change purple and the sun is now a strange green. I look around for Luna but she's gone as well as Flaming, in fact, everything seems to be gone. The land is flat and black. The air feels strange and heavy. I look at myself and my colors seem to be switched as well. Violet is standing 20 feet away from me.

"Violet Thorn! What have you done!?" I demand as I point my weapon at him? Both my sword and shield have disappeared. In anger, I look at back at Violet. "Where are my weapons?!" I demand once again, only to be answered by what feels like a punch to the face that puts me to the ground. I look up to see Violet standing in front of me with his arms crossed. When I opened my mouth to say something, nothing came out. I try again with only the same effect. I put my hand around my throat and continue to try but I'm interrupted by a strange voice, clear and smooth, but with a dark and a 'don't mess with me' vibe in his tone.

"Don't even try Celestia." I look up at Violet to see him give a small nod at me, confirming that it was really him.

I snapped out of my shock and looked at him with amazement. "But I thought you couldn't talk?" I say as a question as this is very confusing. Violet only shakes his head.

"No. I'm not talking through myself. This is the voice of my mind." The voice said. I look to Violet for clarification and he nods. I wanted to ask something but didn't know whether to look at Violet or the sky. I make up my mind as I look at Violet with a serious expression on my face

"So what is this place you've brought us to Violet Thorn?" I demand slash asked. He didn't move but the voice still answered.

"We are in my illusion realm. I never gave it a name, but my foes call it the 'Nightmare Realm'," The voice, or Violet I should say, says and at this point, Violet actually moves and makes an air quote at the 'Nightmare Realm' part, "I find it fitting but you can call it what you want," I was about to ask what that means but before I could, a black tendril comes out of his shoulder plate and swings at me, forcing me to duck. The voices tone changes, this time.......it seems......demonic, "Because it won't matter when your dead." More tendrils start to come out of his armor and launch straight towards me. I duck and weave around them, but some are able to hit my body, causing blue blood to come out of the wound. The voice starts to chuckle in amusement and I look over to see Violet making a laughing motion before the tendrils start attacking again. I'm able to dodge most of them, but a few of them are hitting. Plus, whenever I try to use my magic, I get a severe pain in my head that makes me since and groan in pain. The voice laughs at this.

"Ah, ah, ah! This is my realm, remember? You can't do magic because that's against the rules. I control everything in this plane of existence. That includes time, matter, and even magic!" The voice starts to laugh again as more and more tendrils start attacking me. I continue to dodge them and start to run in the opposite direction to escape. But the moment I do, a tendril grabs my ankle and lifts in the air before throwing me to the ground and then away. My whole body is in pain and agony. Every muscles starting to hurt and my heavy breathing is even making my lungs sore, like the air was made of fire. I look over to the tendrils and Violet who seems to be standing in the same spot. So what I can gather, he's either relying on those tendrils for damage and doesn't see the need to move. Or he can't move. Option one seems like the more likely one, but if he is then I could use this to my advantage. I will just need to test which one is the correct one. Checking to see if I could use my wings, I saw that I could and knowing this, I make my move.

I run straight to Violet who I see roll his eyes before the mass of tendrils spears towards me. I then spread my wings and fly up in the air. Violet seems to unaffected by this as the tendrils just go straight up to me. In an instant, I make a plan to hold the tendrils in place. I fly straight down to them and st the last second, I maneuver around them and fly down the length of them in circles. The causes the black spikes to follow me in the same pattern as I. Knowing this, I make multiple sharps turns, circles, and loops until finally, all the tendrils are tied together. Violet seems shocked my this and summons the tendrils cal into his armor. Glaring at me, his voice starts to speak in anger as a black aura envelopes Violet's body.

"So you want to play the hard way, huh? Well then, LETS PLAY!" The black aura covers his entire body and all I'm able to see, are his two piercing purple eyes through the black, smoky cloud. After a few seconds, the black aura explodes away from him, making me shield my eyes from the light. When I look back, I'm in shock.

Violet changes into what looks like a monster. His armor is now gray and rough instead of black and spiky. His metal gloves are now round and seem to be hammer-like. But the biggest feature seems to be that Violet has grown in size. Originally, he was only a foot shorter than me, but he is towering over me by at least 4 feet. He looks over himself and nods at everything on him in approval. His covered face turns to me befroe he stands straight up and the voice emanates with malicious.

"Ah yes, now this is more like it!" My instincts immediately flare and I soar into the sky right as Violet suddenly appears in front of me with speed I didn't think was possible, and smashes his hammer fist into the ground, causing a giant 10 foot deep, 20 foot wide crater into the ground. My eyes widen to the point where they almost pop out of their sockets. But before I could react, Violet was in the air above. I was just able to see him when he punches me in the face, rocketing me to the hard ground.

My entire being is in pain, and I'm pretty sure I broke multiple bones. I was about to get but right as I tried, Violet plummets back down to the earth. I use my wings again and propel myself out of the way. Violet smashes the ground and the shockwave sends me flying away. I land on the ground and try to balance myself back up to which I succeeded. I look over to see Violet coming out of the crater he made and look over to me. Power is practically flowing out of his body. Violet's voice is also oozing with power and malice.

"What wrong Celestia?! Scared!?" He says with a mocking tone. He then dashes towards me again and I see his fist going for my face. Using my wings, I dip and dodge each attack he sends my way. Each punch he throws though is sending a small shockwave that pushes me away a little. His strength naturally is immense, but now, it's like trying to fight a mountain that has the force of a hundred bombs. As he continues to try and pummel me, I try to think of a plan.

'Come on Celestia, think! What could you do to get out of this? If I had my magic, I could try to blast him but I can't since he won't let me. What I really need to do is try to break out of here. But how? My magic blinded him so maybe I could use that but again, no magic. Ugh!!! What could I do?!' My thoughts are interrupted by a punch right into my chest which sends me soaring. Once again, my body is in pain and I'm pretty sure my ribs are broken. Violet makes his way towards me in a slow and menacing stride.

"Now you see my true power Celestia. The true power of the Amterazia armor."

'Wait a minute, I recognize that name.' I stand up, despite the pain, and look at Violet which makes him stop.

"Say that name again."

"This is the Amterazia armor." He repeats.

My eyes widen in shock. The Amterazian armor is suppose to be a myth, a legend. So how does he have it? The fact it's real is shocking enough but also that it's worn by a stallion like Violet Thorn?! It's even scarier when you realize that Flaming Ash is even stronger, so what is he capable of?

I'm once again interrupted when Violet leaps towards me and tries to smash me into the ground. I dodge out of the way and fly away, trying to think of a plan to get of this Tartarus-hole. But I still can't think of anything! I could probably break out by blinding him, seeing as how it's his eyes seem to have brought me here. Looking back to see that he was still right on my tail, I shake my head. No, that wouldn't work. I don't have my magic to do so and his armor seem to be covering his eyes. Speaking of which, it makes me wonder how he even sees. I don't have anymore time to think about it because Violet suddenly was directly next to me and throws a hook right into my stomach, blood and saliva forcing itself out of my mouth. My body is sent flying away and I land right on my left wing, causing it to snap and break.

"AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!" I passed out from the sudden and immense pain. When I wake up, it seems a few seconds have passed as Violet is slowly making his way towards me. My vision is dark and blurry, and my body is in so much pain, it won't allow me to actually move. Violet reaches me and fingers made from his armor start to grow out of his blunt fists. He reaches down and grabs a handful of my hair and forcibly lifts me into the air, making me yelp and squirm under his rough touch.

He starts to laugh at me pathetic attempt to escape his grasp. "What's wrong princess? I thought you were going to beat me for Equestria? But here you are now, squirming like the worm you are!" He throw me back on the ground before placing his foot on my legs softly, his intentions loud and clear.

"No," I say, "Please don't do this." My words only make him chuckle and laugh like a mad pony.

"You know Celestia, my favorite kind of pony," He says, "Are the ones who beg!" He pushed his foot down hard and completely crushes my legs. I screamed so loud, it came out more like a bird screeching. I kept screaming until my throats couldn't physically go on any longer. I just laid my head back, exhausted. Violet reaches down again and lifts me up once more, this time though, I didn't struggle as I was much to tired to even move. He shakes me a little to see me respond and seems disappointed when I don't.

"Ah come one Celestia, I was just getting started!" He says angrily. I continue to look down at the black ground in defeat. "Ok.... fine, be that way. I'll just kill you off and get back to my master. Then I can see what little Luna has in store." He states with a smug tone and a laugh. I is look up at him in anger which he notices.

"Oh? Did that make you angry?" He asks in a mocking tone.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH OUR SISTER?!" A bright pale blue light emits from the red sun and out from it, comes Luna in her battle armor! Her eyes are full of rage.

"Ha! It seems you have joined us! My only question is exactly how?" He says with interest in his voice. Luna only looks directly at me with sadness in her eyes. She then glares harshly back at Violet.

"My magic allows me to enter people's minds. I simply tapped into both your minds and made my way in." She explains while still glaring at him. Violet on the other hoof nods his head in an understanding manner. "But that doesn't matter now," She says, getting the attention of both of us, "BECAUSE IM GOING TO KILL YOU RIGHT HERE AND NOW!!!" She yells in the Royal Canterlot Voice. Her horn glows brightly and blasts an incredibly fast beam of magic right on Violet's face, knocking him back and forcing him to drop me.

Luna notices this and quickly flys over and lifts me away from Violet who's quickly recovering.

"Are you ok sister?" She asks in concern, only making me shake my head and motion to my legs. She lands fifty feet away from Violet who looks over to see us but only waits for us. Luna anger spikes as she dents me down and examines me throughly.

Turning her head over her shoulder to see Violet still standing there, she ignites her horn and covers my body in magic which starts to heal me.

"Stay here sister, we will take care of him." She says while glaring back at Violet. Her horn ignites once more and she teleports directly in front of him before I could voice my opinion. At this point, it was too late. The battle already began.

Luna swung her weapon at Violet, it clangs against his armor but it was fruitless. She keeps swinging at him, only for the armor to deflect it off. Violet decides to take the offensive as he started to swing at Luna, only for her to dodge while flying before using her speed to attack him. She rinsed and repeated until Violet decided enough was enough. He took both his coat and slammed them together, creating a large shockwave which pushed Luna away.

"LUNA!" I yelled out in concern.

I saw her get up with little injury, but that didn't help with my concern. Luna takes flight once more and starts to charge her horn.

Violet seemed confused by this. "Huh? You shouldn't be able to use magic in my realm."

"I'm a dreamwalker, Violet Thorn. Your rules mean nothing to me." Luna said with a threatening tone. She then released her magic into a condensed beam of a magic which slams into Violet's chest, causing him to struggle under its strength. Luna lets the beam disperse, leaving a giant scorch mark on Violet's chest. But he seems uneffected.

"You are truly strong Princess Luna, I condemn you. But I'm stronger." He lunges out towards Luna with great speed. Luna anticipated this though, as she teleported directly behind him when he lunged, leaving behind an exact clone of herself. Violet didn't seem to notice so he kept running at the clone, expecting to hit Luna. Instead, he hit the clone and it dispersed into magic that quickly wrapped around his form. He didn't even have enough time to speak as the magic exploded with great force. Luna only saying one thing before it blew up.

"Magic Clone: Explosive Art."

The cloud disappeared, leaving nothing?

I look to Luna for answers.

"Luna, where is he?"

"That move seemed to have forced him to release the technique holding you here." She said as the world starts crumbling apart and I'm suddenly back to where I was. My body seems to be healed completely, but I still feel the fatigue of that fight. I look over to see Luna holding her hand against Violet's head. She opend her eyes and teleported me and her away from Violet.

"Are you okay sister?" She asks with a glance to me, before snapping her eyes back onto Violet who is now looking over to us.

"Yes, I'm fine. Just tired. That fight really just worn me out." Luna simply nods and continues to stare at Violet who waits patiently. Luna and Violet both stare each other down. Violet makes the first move by sliding his left foot toward slightly. Both he and Luna lunges at each other, Luna swinging her weapon while Violet takes it and tries to land a punch. He can't and Luna's speed allows her to land more strikes. They continue to fight, and throughout the battle, Violet is tiring down and he's getting slower. Luna notices this and leaps backwards. Violet seems confused by this but takes the opportunity to rest for a second. I'm confused as well, but I'm not letting him take advantage of this. I pull out my sword and dash straight to Violet who notices and immediately takes up his guard. Luna used her speed to appear behind him and struck him with his back turned, disorienting him for a second. I use this to my advantage and gather a small amount of magic into my blade. I swing the sword right into his side, the magic was enough to send him flying with the force.

Me and Luna lock eyes together.

"Shall we, sister?" She says.

"Let's shall."

We both dash in a crisscross pattern to confuse Violet which works in our favor as he couldn't keep his eyes on us. We then move to his sides faster than he could track, Luna taking his right, me taking his left. Quickly, we side slam him with our shoulders, sandwiching him between us.

"Celestia, now!" Luna says. I nod with a 'right' uncontrollably coming from my mouth.

Both our horns glow and we teleport away from Violet, leaving behind clones of ourselves which held him in place. He tried to squirm his way out but couldn't as the clones locked him in place. Both of us appeared and were back to back. Ours voices were in perfect sync as we glared at Violet.

"Twin Magic Clone: Explosive Art."

The last thing we saw of Violet was his pleading purple eyes, staring at us with intent as the explosion took his body. When the smoke dissipated, his damaged, burnt armor was all that was left. The armor still intact of course, but the body was practically destroyed. Bits and pieces maybe, but nothing more. We look over to Flaming Ash who seems to have no emotions over his comrades death. The only thing on his expression is boredom.

"Well that was unexpected," He started, "But that only just delayed the inevitable. You're both worn out after that, Celestia, your clearly exhausted from that fight. And Luna, I may not know much about magic, but I'm pretty sure that little 'dreamwalker' spell must spend a lot of magic." He slowly starts to make his way towards us, pulling out his halberd in the process. We get into a battle stance but wince from pain. His words were true, though I still wish they weren't. He's fully pulled his weapon and makes a battle stance of his own. But right as he's about to leap to him, a certain someone dropkicks him away.

AARON POV

I stand in front of Celestia and Luna with my sword out and in a defensive stance.

"Stay away from them you bastard!" I yell out. Flaming gets up with ease, brushing dirt off of him.

When he finishes, he puts grabs his axe and puts a hand on his hip.

"Well that was rude." I only growl in response. "Oh come on, don't be like that! It makes you look like an angry puppy." He says with a mocking tone. My anger spikes but I manage to keep a stone face so I could respond.

"It doesn't matter what you think of me, what matters is how I'm gonna kill you." My voice turns dark at the end and I could hear the sisters behind me gasp, probably didn't expect that from me. Flaming only laughs at my remark.

"Now that's the way to think. I like you Aaron. You'll truly be remembered in my heart." He says while patting his chest, however this is short lived by what he said next. "With that being said, die!" He dashed right at me and swung his axe. I expected this and moved to in the directions where he swung. He smirked at my stupidity but I had other plans in mind. Right before the blade connected with me, I used my new speed to bend back, the axe barely missing the tip of my nose. I then put one hand on the ground and jumped to make me flip backwards. Using this momentum, I swung both my feet downwards and right into Flaming's head, pushing his face into the ground. I made it even worse for him by actually jumping off the back of his head, pushing him down deeper into the dirt. He is still conscious though as he pried his head out of the ground and smirked at me, no injury seemed to be visible on his face.

"Nice moves there Aaron. Now I can see how you defeated Swift. No matter though. Just means to be more cautious. Now let's continue." He goes into a stance while holding his axe behind his back. I've seen these kind of tricks before, the opponent would wait with there weapon behind their backs, giving the opposing an opening. But right before you strike, they would suddenly swing their weapon out and strike you when your defenseless. Emanuel taught me all about it. Useful, but when your opponent doesn't know how it works. I do though, so it will be easy to counterattack.

I dash towards him and prepare my sword. He smirks slightly, but I'm not falling for his trick. I pretend that I'm about to swing my sword, and he swings his axe out from behind him and tries to hit me. But I'm prepared. The moment I saw him move his axe, I use my speed again to move behind him. He swung his axe and left his back open, giving me perfect opportunity to strike. I thrust my sword straight into his back, or at least, that's what I thought. Instead his armor deflected the strike off and gave him time to turn around and swing at me again. I roll right under his axe and stand up. A flurry of strikes is what I send him, only for him to block it with his axe. I attempt to sweep his legs but he jumps up and swings his axe down onto me. I roll out once again and Flaming starts swinging his axe at me. Blocking would most likely break my sword, so I'm forced to dodge.

I dodge his attacks and look for an opportunity to counterattack. Flaming swings his axe horizontally and I quickly squat out of its way. This is my opportunity! I swung my fist as an uppercut and it connects with his jaw. His head is sent backwards and I spin and kick him right in the chest. He's stumbles backwards and I release a barrage of sword strikes onto his chest. I continuously strike him with my blade, the metal of my sword clanging against his armor's. I must have struck him at least 30 times before I stopped. But I didn't allow him any breather room because I backed up and jump kicked him right in the face. He grabs his face in pain which allows me to practice my martial arts some more. I start to throw punches before kicking him and then mixing it up a few times. He retaliates by moving one of my punches away and swinging one of his own. This didn't go well either since I tilted my head to dodge it and sent an uppercut at him once more. It hit him and made him stagger back once more. I decided to give him some breathing room and myself a small break.

"Have you had enough yet?" I ask. He shakes his head in response and looks at me with a sadistic ear-to-ear smile on his face.

"Are you kidding me? I'm just getting started!" He takes his axe and dashes straight towards me again. I get into a stance and wait for him, only for him to dissapear right in front of my eyes. Learning from Swift's fight, I quickly turn around and lift my sword, Flaming's axe striking it causing me to fly back a few feet. I do a flip though the air and land. I look over to Flaming who's running at me again. He swings his axe at me again, causing me to dodge. He swung for my feet, making me jump to dodge it. But he then spun around and kicked me in the chest, before attempting to swing his axe down onto me. I roll backwards and dodged before literally running up the length of his axe and shoving my knee into his face. I push down on the end of his axe, causing it to pull up from the ground. I turn around and grab it with both my hands, dropping my sword in the process. I spin around and threw his axe straight at his chest, before reaching down, grabbing my sword, and following after it so I may follow it up. This didn't go as expected since he grabbed the axe out of the air and used it own momentum to hit me with it. Fortunately, I was able to block it with my sword, but was set flying due to the force. I landed and checked my sword only to be suprised that it wasn't damaged in the slightest.

'What is this thing made of?' I thought. My thoughts were snapped out of it when Flaming dashed towards me once again and swung down at me. I dodged out of the way and immediately punched him in the face, before jumping up and kicking him there too. I start punching, kicking, and swinging my sword at him, forcing him to take the defensive.

After unleashing my 5 minute barrage on him, I back away a good distance and observe to see what damage I may have caused. Flaming is standing still with his arms in covering his face, he's also breathing heavily and his armor is a little scratched up in certain areas.

Lowering his arms, he looked at me while breathing heavily before smirking.

"You have..... thwarted..... my expectations of you..... Aaron," He started after getting some breath, "let's see..... what you will do...... when I'm serious." His smirk turned into another ear-to-ear smile which sent a small shiver down my spine. My instincts instantly altering me that something bad is gonna happen.

Flaming continoued.

"Show me how strong you truly are Aaron Blackgate!" He drew out his axe and held it in front of him. Suddenly, a massive orange aura completely surrounded his body. His body was flashing and seemingly cracking with radiance and fire. His skin seemed to turn ashy and slowly burn away, leaving glowing embers that lit up his skin in a strange pattern.

Before I could have an opportunity to react, there was a sudden flash of bright light, before I felt a heavy impact slam into my stomach. The blow sent me flying through the air, my skin pulsing and beating in pain, as it felt like fire was dancing inside my own skin. I slid across the rough dirt and slowly tried to pick myself up. My ears were ringing and my body was screaming for me to stop. As I tried to look around, my vision slightly blurred, I noticed a large orange glow and extreme heat coming from behind me.

As I got up and turned to look, I noticed my sword on the ground with a towering entity with a large flaming axe with ashy black armor, their whole body seemingly in this state of perpetual fire. The entity reached down and picked up my sword, which looked tiny compared to its massive frame. The entity looked at me and I could hear a deep, bellowing voice enminating from its form.

“So, surprised? Not many people get to see me like this, but I decided to give you a treat. Make sure you savor it, because I know I will.” Flaming then threw my sword in front of me before charging forward with his ace high in the air, I didn’t even have time to reach for my sword before my vision was cut to black and I could feel nothing.