***A few hours later***

John had gotten somewhat used to walking with his new makeshift crutches. He was saying walk, but it was actually more like a broken shuffle, due to him being much taller than the average pony. The doctors had managed to tape and cannibalize two pairs just to reach his armpits and although awkward, his new shuffle was far better than being unable to walk. He’d nearly fallen over several times already, Luna catching him and providing a bit of support with her magic when he had first tried walking, but as he continued to use them, they were starting to feel more natural, albeit a bit uncomfortable as they dug into the soft flesh under his shoulders. The blue colored princess had assured him he would get used to it soon enough.

He followed the princesses through the halls of the palace or castle they lived in. He marveled at the sheer size and beauty of it all, especially since the ponies he’d seen were so small, and even Celestia, who was the tallest of the princesses he’d seen, only stood a few inches taller than him while she was on all fours. The inside of this castle reminded him of some of the French chateaus the generals and officers would requisition as their personal quarters, living in comfort far from the fighting and squalor of the front lines, but even they paled in comparison to what he now saw in scale and beauty.

He stared curiously at the various ponies in brightly shining, gold painted armor that came to attention as the princesses passed them by, never taking their eyes off of him, and he felt they were ready to stick him with their swords and pikes should he try anything. The fact that they thought he could actually do something, other than smacking one of the princesses on the shins with his crutches, made him feel a little better.

He lagged a bit behind, stumbling on a tile raised a little higher than the others while trying to step forward with his crutches first, and almost landing on his chin again. Luna noticed him falling behind and waited for him to catch up. He nodded as he joined her at her side, greatful that’d she’d stopped and waited for him.

“So,this palace is where you live and those guys are your guards I assume?” he asked while acknowledging one of the ponies in armor standing nearby with a nod.

“You are correct. Me and my sister live here, as well as perform our royal duties. Twilight and Cadance have their lodgings elsewhere and deal with... duties more relevant to their talents and disposition, so to speak,” Luna responded as she looked up at him. “Tell me, do you have any royalty where you are from? I have to confess that I tuned Twilight out when she was going over the answers you gave her. Though I love her like a sister, she does have a talent for making ponies fall asleep even greater than mine, and she does it with no magic to begin with.”

John chuckled lightly at that, “In some places, yes. They’re mostly for show though, not really having a hand in governing. However, the country I’m from is a democracy so we don’t have even that.”

“I see,” Luna said, unsure of what the term democracy meant, but not did want to bother him with even more questions. “As for the answer your other question, John, yes, those are our guards, tasked primarily with protecting me and my sister and keeping the peace in the palace.”

“I getcha.” John said, wanting his real question answered. “So, what’s so important that you all have to ask me outside of my hospital room?” He asked and Luna turned away from him and did not speak again for a moment of awkward silence.

“It is better if we all explain it to you all at once and away from other ponies. Do not worry, we feel that you can help despite what you may think.” She finally replied, leaving John unsatisfied and with a small frown on his face, but he decided not to push it for now.

Eventually they entered what seemed to be a large study and approached the middle of the room where a large chair sat on one side of a large table, which John assumed was there so that he could sit down since ponies didn’t seem to sit in chairs as often as just sitting on their haunches.

“Please, sit and down and relax, John,” Celestia said in her calm and reassuring voice that she usually used when talking to him, but something felt off about it. An edge of nervousness perhaps?

John didn’t think more about it as he sat down. He set his crutches on either side of the soft but somewhat uncomfortable chair, while the princess stood across from him, looking almost anxious. “So, what’s the big news you all have to tell me?” he asked as he looked at each of them, an expectant and curious look on his now clean shaven face.

The princesses all gave each other a nervous glance before Celestia cleared her throat and spoke, “Well, you John, Equestria is in a…. desperate situation. Enemies stand at our doorsteps ready to invade while we are unprepared for any sort of war.” She said before Luna interrupted her

“We have had peace for one thousand years. We do have leaders and generals of course, however they lack in one most important thing, experience and being ready to take charge. You however seem to come from a society much more war-like and from what you say, you yourself are an experienced warrior, if what Twilight told me is correct.” Luna said, then gave a pause for her words to set in “I know that more conflict is most likely the last thing you want, especially after what you’ve been through but… we need help.”

John was silent and looked at all of them with a blank expression for a moment, before finally speaking in low, shaky voice. “Please, please tell me this is a joke. Please let this be some cruel damn joke,” he said, his voice getting steadily louder. “Because if it is, it isn’t very funny. I did not die in one war only to die in another!” He shouted, grabbing his crutches and standing up.

“How dare you? How fucking dare you! I went through hell once, and I did it for my country, I did because I had to, I did for others of my kind. And you now want to drag me back into another for… for a reason I don’t even know, for people I don’t know? No! Whatever you want, stuff it! This war is yours, not mine!”

“But entire cities and families could be slaughtered!” Twilight exclaimed in shock. “How could you just let that happen?”

“You think I didn’t have a family or a life or loved ones? I was ripped away from it all once by a war and now you all want to drag me into another! No! No way!” John yelled at her angrily and Twilight shrank back from him

“Please understand that we never intended to bring you here, but if there is a way you could-” Celestia began but was soon cut off.

“How? How could I help you! I’m one man, and crippled at that. I’m no use in a fight now! I don’t care what you say, I’m not letting you throw me as another body in a war that isn’t mine! Not that’d it’d do you much anyway.”

“No, that isn’t what we actually want...” Cadance responded meekly

“What you want? You think it matters what you want? I was just a grunt among thousands. Passed a shovel to dig miles of trenches in the mud, given a gun and told to shoot in a single direction till some general miles away from the fighting decided today was a good to launch an offensive at the enemy. We’d get cut to blood smeared ribbons usually and retreat, while being shot at in the back. But every once in awhile, we’d break through and just dig in there and hold off a counter attack and vice versa. Rinse and repeat, with lack of supplies, the rotting smell of your friends and brothers getting worse every single day! We can’t even recover the bodies without getting shot at, so we’re forced to let the rats get them.” He ranted as he stared at the ground, his voice becoming much softer and sounding haunted.

He continued, on much more quiet than before, almost a whisper. “Imagine, sitting in the ground all day with nothing to hear but the moans of wounded men, your comrades shouting in pain, and over them is the whizz, bang and pop of shells. This goes on for days and you never peek your head over the top, lest it get taken off by a sniper. Until one day, while you’ll sleeping, someone wakes you in the early morning and tells you that everyone’s going over the top. You get up, go eat the slop that could very well be your last meal then do whatever you can to calm your nerves for the 2 hours you have left. Chat, drink, play cards, write a letter home or just sit there. Whatever it takes to take your mind off the upcoming onslaught. Now imagine that hell but over and over and over till you either bite it, get hurt so bad they send you home, or simply stop minding it all and accept it. Or if you're lucky, you break for good and they don’t send you home in a box or a basket. Just a messed up head and bad memories.” he finally finished, collapsing into the chair while his crutches clattered to the ground

The princesses were horrified at his description and silently gaped at him.

“T-That must be impossible,” Twilight finally said in disbelief, breaking the silence. “Surely it must be impossible to fight for that long without someone giving up and breaking away.”

“Impossible huh? If only you were right.” He replied in a shaky and tired voice before another long silence that was eventually broken by Luna

“I understand why you would never want to experience any sort of conflict after going through all of that. Nopony would. And we don’t ask you to.” She approached him slowly and he shook his head, as if denying what she said, refusing to believe her. “What we ask you is to help us so that Equestria’s citizens will not have to face such loss and hardship.”

“I am not… I don’t want to fight again. Never again.” John said, feeling the last reserves of his strength leaving him. He hadn’t even known he felt that way, but now that the words came out of his mouth, he knew them to be true. All he wanted was to… to lie down and rest. Lie down forever and never get back up, never feel pain or hurt again.

“You don’t need to fight for us, we simply believe you could give us the tools to stand a better chance.” Celestia said as she walked up beside her sister. “From what Twilight tells us, and your own descriptions, your kind’s weapons of war are beyond our wildest dreams.” She finished explaining, and John was silent for a moment before he starting chuckled maniacally. His chuckling eventually grew to full blown laughter and him wheezing for breath as he clutched his side, but eventually he calmed down enough to answer the stunned princesses.

“You-you assume I know anything about weapon manufa… heh…” John began laughing all over again, clutching his chest and bending over. “Air, oh God, I need air!...Okay, okay, I can talk again... Look, even if I wanted to help you do that, I can’t. I barely know how my rifle works, and that’s only to clean it. I couldn’t tell you how to make one or even make the parts for one! Let alone everything else. The aeroplanes, the armoured landships and the masses of artillery? I only know how they kill, maim and what they look like, not how they work. So even if I would help, I can’t. At least not with the construction of weapons, besides what scant little I know of my rifle. What the hell is this war about anyway, huh? Care to tell?”

“Sister, it will be easier for him to understand if we show him exactly what is happening.” Luna told her sister and Celestia nodded in agreement

“Perhaps you are correct Luna. Please, follow us John.” as they both walked towards the door.

John gritted his teeth but reluctantly nodded. “Fine. Guess I don’t have much of a choice now do I? Lead on.” he got up slowly with his crutches and hobbled after them while Twilight and Cadance looked at each other nervously, both looking rather upset after what they’d heard.

The princesses led him to what looked to him a hastily put together war room, with a map of ‘Equestria’, as they called it, hanging on the wall. On the large table in the middle of the room was a much larger map, depicting other strange lands and landscapes surrounding Equestria. He could see just how big it was and how many different cities it had, he noticed all the different blocks and pins used to represent various Equestrian forces. All of the territory surrounding Equestria was marked in red and a large amount of red blocks were around and in a particular city, not that far from the border

“G-Griffon… Grriffonstone?” He said aloud as he read the name of the city aloud. “What kind of a name of that?” He asked as he began reading the names of Equestrian cities. “What the- Canterlot? Manehatten? Fillydelphia?”

“Is there a problem with the names of our proud cities?” Celestia asked as she watched his eyes scan the map

“They don’t make any sense is the problem.I mean, what kind of a name is Cloudsdale? Or Appleloosa?” John asked as he read before a realization hit him and he nearly facepalmed “They’re horse puns.Goddamn horse puns.”

“Excuse me? How dare you compare us to the horse's!” Luna snapped before seeing the true look of confusion on John’s face and blushed in embarrassment “Apologies, we have not explained who we face have we?”

“We have not explained anything to him sister. Though I am confused by his statement as well, he is probably much more confused by yours.” Celestia said as John turned to face her

“Finally going to tell what the heck is going on?” He asked with a raised eyebrow “I’ve been waiting for a while to know.”

“Yes, we are going to explain and apologize for not explaining earlier, but… we wanted to make sure you could take it. But, that is beside the point.” Celestia said before taking a deep breath “All of our allies and neighbors have been conquered, one by one. Each powerless to stop their advance. When our closest ally was threatened by their wrath, they asked for us assistance we gave them what we could muster. We had been careless and had ignored the threat for long as possible, so we were not prepared for any sort of fighting. The troops we gave them were… butchered, for lack of a better word, along with their own and so the Griffon capital fell in less than a month. Luna saw the fighting herself and was even wounded during the retreat of what few ponies remained after holding the enemy as long as possible, allowing Griffonstone’s citizens to escape. Now, Equestria stands alone against this horrible threat. I am no general and neither is my sister nor Cadance or Twilight, so we attempted to bring a great, ancient general back from the cold grip of death to help. But it seems even that has failed as the spell we used brought you. So now we still stand alone with no help and I have no choice but to sentence many innocent ponies to die with little hope of victory.” She finished solemnly, leaving John stunned at what she had described. He couldn’t believe what she said but he knew it had to be true with how she and her sister both looked right now.

How can I help though? How could I help them? I’m crippled and near useless in a fight, I don’t know a damn thing about making weapons and I have no reason to help. He thought, trying to convince himself to not offer to help, which was a growing feeling in the pit of his stomach. But he thought about the reason he’d given his family for enlisting. “I’m doing this to keep innocent people and their families safe. I can’t just stay here and watch them die and be driven from their homes. I may be but a single man, but every bit helps.” He remembered saying to his crying mother as she embraced him, her eldest child and only son

He was silent as he thought back on this memory, thinking of how honestly he’d meant those words when he could have easily stayed. When you told her those words, you truly meant it.

After that final, resounding thought he sighed and began slowly looking over the maps laid out in front of him, the feeling in his stomach shrinking away slowly, while the sisters were quiet, letting him think clearly on what to say
“What or who exactly are you fighting?” He asked them meticulously, having to force the words from between his lips as part of him still wanted nothing to do with any of this

“We aren’t entirely sure, but it is rumored to be the mysterious ‘horses’. Normally they are squabbling tribes from a harsh wasteland in the far east, fighting with each other over what few resources they have. Why they strike now nopony knows but they are fierce and vicious warriors and live in the toughest of conditions, faster and stronger than even the strongest of Earth ponies could be physically but they lack the abilities of unicorns or pegasi. From what I’ve seen of their tactics, it seems to involve sudden strikes and mobility. That is all we know.” Luna said, taking note of the confused look on John’s face.

“Horses? But I thought you were all horses?” He said, slowly shaking his head trying to understand what he’d just heard

“They are believed to be distant cousins of ponies by a few scholars who have witnesses them in their home habitat but as far as we know, ponies and horses are completely differently.” Luna explained

“I… Never mind.” John said as he searched his mind for a question they could answer over the plenty he knew they couldn’t “How long do you have until they attack? Your border don’t look so far on that map over there.” He said, nodding at the map on the table

“They have not yet begun marching towards Equestria, as they are still celebrating their bloody victory over the Griffons, but it would take them less than a few weeks to march from Griffonstone to The Crystal Empire if unopposed or stopped.” Celestia said as she pointed at the Equestrian city, which John couldn’t help but find the name stranger than the rest. His eyes scanned the map and noticed something near a town named Trottingham.

“Hey, wait a second,” He said, catching the attention of both of the princesses “see that railway bridge near Trot-Trottingham? Looks like their easiest way into your borders. You could hold them up there, it’d buy yah some time.” He said pointing at the bridge in question, drawing the eye of both the princesses.

“We planned to hold them outside of Equestrian borders.” Luna explained as she motioned at the blue blocks set around somewhere called Griffonstone station.

“It is better to not allow them closer to Equestria, lest it cause panic.” Celestia told John as he frowned and shook his head “Something wrong?”

“Wouldn’t it be better to bottleneck them? You could concentrate your forces on your side of the bridge, your best units in front with archers and artillery behind them to rain down hell on the enemy with reserves waiting as a stop gap should they break the front ranks.” He said as he began moving the blocks around with his hands while resting on his crutches. Once he’d finished, no Equestrian forces were on the other bank with most being placed around the bride and others further back in reserve. “See? Even if they do break onto the other bank, you have fresh units to drive them back.”

The princesses looked at each other and both could tell the other was thinking about the humans plan.

“Celly, do you think it would work?” Luna whispered to her older sister “He certainly makes a good point, even if it does not address every possibility. Maybe he knows more than he lets on.”

“I agree sister, perhaps his plan could work. But what if it doesn’t? What will we do?” Celestia whispered back before clearing her throat and asking aloud “And what if our forces are routed? What will we do?”

“Wait, you mean that’s all you have?”

“I am afraid so.”

John sighed deeply as he slumped for a second before standing up straight, “Ok, not much to work with. We’ll worry about that soon because I need a moment to think about all this as I suddenly feel very tired.”

The princesses looked at each other and Luna cleared her throat, “You are aware we don’t have much time before they strike correct?”

“I know but I need some rest and time to process this all. After that, I can think clearly.” He said with a yawn as tiredness hit him like a brick wall even though he hadn’t been up that long but he chalked it up to his body getting used to moving around again and mental fatigue

“Of course, of course. You can sleep in a royal guest room as I’m sure you’ll enjoy that much more than your hospital bed.”

“Thank you. And don’t worry, we’ll definitely figure out a way to defeat these, ummm, horse things.” He said in as sincere a tone as he could muster after the little briefing he’d been through and hoped they bought it. He sure as hell didn’t.

Author's Note

(If you're curios what map I'm using when I write this,the here is a link:https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uj5l0C_W9Ps/Vh9gxWnaXKI/AAAAAAAAA98/kYLCGxpkHmI/s1600/eq_map.jpg)