Egil just sat down at the sight of the griffins and changelings converging and heading towards the fort, conjuring up a scroll and pen. “Hey, captain, if you want to survive this, get over here!” he shouted to the captain, who had been ordering troops to hide away the various enemy officers. The captain wandered over to Egil as he continued giving orders to his troops. When he got to Egil, a scroll and an odd writing utensil were put into his hooves. He took the scroll and read it, though it looked like it was written in a different language that he didn’t know. For some reason, even though he didn’t understand the language, the meaning of the words were clear. It read as follows:

The person who signs this contract will, on completion of signature after reading the terms and conditions, receive the same type of immortality as the author of this contract, that being regenerative durability, otherwise known as rapid healing. You will be heal from any wound completely within five seconds of receiving it, and any narcotics that are taken in will be metabolised out of your system rapidly. This contract will last as long as the author, Egil Davinson, is accompanying this military excursion. On the completion of this military excursion, the immortality will be dispelled, and the conditions for receiving this immortality will be placing your trust in the author. The effect of agreeing to this document will also extend to any who are under the signatory’s direct command.

Egil Davinson

He quickly read through the full document, looking over it for any fine print. After finding none, he quickly signed the document, which burst into flames after he had finished signing ‘Captain Swift Moon’ The ashes divided up into twelve equal portions, the first floating into his nostrils and settling in his lungs. This process repeated for each of the ponies under his command, who were each members of Luna’s personal escort. He pulled out a small blade from a holster under his left wing, drawing it across his left foreleg to test if the effect had taken hold. As fast as he cut, it was healed, but he still felt a sting of pain from the cut. “Thank you, Egil.”

Egil nodded and sat down. “Captain, I’m going to try something that will probably be very loud, so I would recommend you get inside or cover your ears with these. And if you could spread the word, that would be great.” Thirteen noise cancelling headphones popped into existence in front of him, and he put one set on. He then stacked the rest onto Swift Moon’s back. Swift Moon nodded, taking the rest and distributing them to his troops.

At this point, Egil had summoned another item, an odd piece of metal with what appeared to be handles on the back with triggers from griffin crossbows on it. He summoned a chair and sat down in it, grabbing the handles on what he assumed to be a weapon of some sort. He pulled the left trigger, causing the large cylindrical portion to begin rotating, and shouted over the whir of moving parts, “Put your headphones on if you don’t want to go deaf!” Swift Moon nodded, slipping his ‘headphones’ on, with his squad following suit.

At this point, the griffins and changelings that had been out of the fort when Egil had executed his plan had all converged, and were only about five hundred yards away. Swift Moon and his squad watched in awe as Egil depressed the right trigger, causing the weapon to spit flames out of the rotating chambers. They could feel the vibrations caused by the weapon, and they could see the pebbles on the cobbled road Egil had set it up on bouncing rapidly around him. They looked to the approaching griffins and changelings, which were rapidly dropping out of the air. In the minute that Egil had been firing his weapon, their numbers were reduced to half of what they originally had, and still dropping rapidly.

The griffins were rapidly approaching the forty yard mark, though they were only at a third of the numbers that they had before fleeing the march of the Equestrian forces across the valley. There were now only twenty or so griffins, and thirty changelings left in the air, only two minutes after Egil had started using his weapon. He let go of the triggers on the weapon, and it flashed out of existence, then pulled out a long sword. It looked Eastern in make, with a red hilt and black writing across the silver blade. The first griffin to come into contact with the blade was only nicked on the leg, but writing identical to that on the blade spread rapidly across his body, and a second later he was dead.

A second griffin, this time an officer, stepped forward to fight Egil, pulling out a sword of his own, a falchion, and easily matching Egil move for move. It was rather clear that Egil didn’t really know what he was doing with a sword when it came to fighting someone else that actually knew how to use one, but he was able to land a scratch on the officer’s cheek, killing him with the curse. At this point, the ponies had engaged the remaining griffins, easily cutting down two each, with the exception of the medic, who didn’t kill anyone, and two of the lower ranked members, who only got one each.

Egil dropped his sword, which phased out of existence before it hit the ground, and an odd weapon materialized in front of him. It was similar to the first one that he had used, in that the business end seemed to be a hollow cylinder, but this one looked much more like a crossbow, at least the stock and trigger mechanism. The main feature about it was the large cylinder drum underneath the weapon, just in front of the trigger. At this point, Swift Moon and his men had taken off their headphones, and the changelings were rapidly bearing down on them.

Egil turned the end of the weapon towards the changelings and held down the trigger, each shot spewing flames about three feet from the barrel, and wherever he shot, a small explosion would take place. The cacophonous noise had the guards covering their ears in pain, and the changelings were dealt with before they could even get within fifty feet of the defending ponies. As soon as he saw that there were no enemies remaining, Egil leaned against a building, vomiting profusely at the putrid smell of the griffin corpses voiding their bowels. The street ran heavy with blood, but due to the contract that Swift Moon had signed, none of the ponies were injured, though their equipment was in pretty poor shape, as it was nicked, scratched, and caked in blood and viscera.

Egil spent the next twenty minutes vomiting, and, as soon as it stopped, summoned a piece of cloth to wipe his face clean. Swift Moon wandered over to him as soon as he saw that he was done vomiting, concern written clearly on his face. “You alright?” he asked, and Egil just nodded, walking over to a nearby open door, which led to a planning room of some sort, and sat with his back against the wall, head between his knees. “How much longer will the griffins here be unconscious?” he continued, and Egil looked up from his knees.

“Till I say they can wake up,” He croaked out, then summoned a bottle of water, taking a mouthful and swishing it around in his mouth to wash out the taste of bile. “I wove a sleeping gas into the smoke that I used to knock them out, they won’t be waking up until I give them the… antidote? No, the countermeasure.” he said, elaborating on his previous statement. He put his head back between his knees, and Swift Moon went back to commanding his soldiers. As soon as Swift Moon left, tears started streaming down his face as he fought to keep another round of vomit down.

He silently sobbed for the next twenty minutes, his only company being his thoughts. He cried over never seeing his family again, he cried over his killing of sentient creatures, and lastly, he cried over the realization that death wasn’t even an option. After he got the misery out of his system, he made a bottle that contained a shimmering blue liquid. After having an internal debate with himself, he downed all the liquid in the bottle, and his sadness and guilt faded away. He was angry at himself for taking the coward’s way out, but he felt that it was necessary for him to continue to function.

Since his clothing was torn and bloodstained, he made another set of clothing, which consisted of a pair of dark blue jeans, black leather hiking boots with comfortable socks, a plain black t-shirt, and a dark green hoodie with a silver dragon embroidered onto the back, which was shuffling a deck of cards between its talons. Over his heart was a silver spades symbol, which occasionally flashed a silvery green in the lighting. He dropped his old clothing on the floor, and the only thing he kept from it was a deck of cards that he always carried in his breast pocket on stage. He put the deck in his left pocket, and materialized a match, throwing the suit in the fireplace and lighting it up.

With that, the only thing left from his old life was his deck of cards and his appearance. As an afterthought, he made a silver ring that would change his form into that of any race that he desired to be, and would fully change him, down to his very DNA. It would also change with his form, fitting the most convenient location on the altered body. He quickly swapped through changeling, minotaur, griffin, and pony, noticing that the color scheme stayed largely the same through each, namely a dark green coat, a black mane/hair/feathers that faded to silver at the ends.

He lingered on the pony form, which was a very large earth pony with a fan of cards as the destiny mark. When he looked at the wall, he noticed that while he was a good deal shorter than he was as a human, he was still nearly as tall as Luna, if he remembered correctly. He willed his form back to his human self, along with his clothing, and left the room that he had been sitting in for the past hour. The road outside was significantly cleaner, though the smell was still present, and there were soldiers in gold armor walking the street. As soon as he stepped outside, a thestral flew down from the rooftop, landing in front of him.

“Sir, Princess Luna has requested your presence, if you would follow me, I will lead you to her.” he said, looking over Egil.

Egil nodded, then looked over the pony in front of him. Unlike the typical soldiers, who were all roughly the same two color schemes, the bat ponies he had seen were all what he assumed were their natural colors. This one was a very dark shade of gray with a dark red mane. His destiny mark was hidden beneath his armor, but a sliver of something reddish-orange was just visible in a gap.

“So, what is your name?” Egil wondered aloud, and the guard snapped his attention to him.

“My name is Blood Moon, and I’m a corporal in Princess Luna’s personal guard detail.” he said, almost immediately after Egil’s question.

“Ah,” Egil continued, “I noticed that so far the few ponies and members of other races that I have caught the names of have names that match a physical trait or their destiny mark. Why is that?”

At this, Blood Moon launched into an explanation on the naming conventions of the entire world, and how it revolved around physical traits and for the ponies and hippogriffs, their destiny marks. It was really quite interesting how the ponies managed to name their children after something that didn’t exist until years after their birth, and how they had an accuracy of nearly one hundred percent, with the exceptions being nobles. The nobles apparently had the same compulsion to name their child after their destiny marks, but apparently chose names like ‘Nobilis Flamma’. At this Egil laughed, and the ponies around him looked at him in concern.

“So, why’d you laugh at the name of the noble?” Blood Moon asked curiously.

“Okay, so the thing is, I thought it was only the Princesses who were named in Latin, so when you told me that the nobles were also naming themselves in Latin, it was hilarious.” Egil said, still slightly chuckling. Blood Moon looked at him questioningly, before noticing that they were outside the keep. He opened the door dramatically, bowing with a flourish.

Egil walked in, and Luna looked up from the maps that she had strewn about in front of her. “Good afternoon Egil, if I may ask, how do you feel about waking up Duke Silverbeak and the changeling Queen that was with him?” Luna asked, gesturing to the griffin and changeling in question. Egil made a strong smelling liquid under their noses, and they immediately shot awake.

Silverbeak’s eyes immediately locked onto Egil, and he shouted, “YOU! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO HELP US!” Luna looked at Egil accusingly, and Egil shrugged.

“I never agreed to help you, though I might have if you had told me about the changelings. One of the first things I told you was that I have magic immunity, so you introduced me to a magic shapeshifter.” Egil said calmly, then continued, “Also, I told you I was going to get the ponies’ side of the story before throwing my lot in with either side. They told me that you had been instigating border tensions for ten YEARS before they decided to oust you. I know it’s the truth, because I’ve been wearing a necklace that lets me see through lies since I got here. I just had it hidden beneath my shirt.”

At this Silverbeak looked crestfallen, and the changeling to his side spoke up, “Now that you have captured us, what do you plan on doing with us?”

Luna looked at the changeling in surprise, before giving what she had said some thought. After seemingly coming up with nothing, she looked to Egil questioningly. He sighed, then said, “Personally, I’d use Silverbeak as a bargaining chip to end the war and have all of the griffin noble families and any griffins who wouldn’t want to be under pony rule return to their kingdom across the ocean, and for the changelings, I could just provide you with an item that feeds you all as long as you don’t try to feed off of or attack ponies or other sentient races again. If you were willing to sign a contract that would have you working under the Equestrian Crown, you could become spies with an infinite amount of food.”

Luna looked like she was thinking over what he said, while the changeling was actually looking hopeful. Just before Luna seemed about to speak, the queen said, “I, Queen Mandible of the Ruby Hive accept this proposal, if the Equestrian Crown would do the same, it would be beneficial to both our races.”

Luna sighed almost unnoticeably, then said aloud, “The Equestrian Crown accepts Egil’s proposal, and will have a treaty drafted to be signed by myself, my sister, and Queen Mandible of the Ruby Hive. As for Duke Silverbeak, I also find this proposal acceptable, and as this was the last large military outpost belonging to the griffins on this continent, an ambassador will be sent to Griffonia to negotiate the peace.” At this she turned and left gesturing to Egil to follow. “So,” she continued, “Was thou really wearing a lie detecting necklace?” she asked.

Egil grinned and shook his head. “Nope, just bluffing, though I knew he was lying, just not how much or about what. I can read people pretty easily.” Luna shook her head in amusement, and she walked into what used to be Silverbeak’s personal quarters.

She sat at the wooden desk, and pulled out a scroll and inkpot, pulling out one of her feathers to use as a quill. She started writing, and Egil sat against the wall, just waiting for her to finish. She cast a spell on it, and it flew out the nearby window.

Egil stood up, and stretched, cracking his back with several pops, and Luna turned to him, and smiled. “So, tell me about the items that you left in our tent last night,” she said with a soft smile and a curious tone to her voice. Egil proceeded to explain their effects. She seemed most interested in the statue and the amulet, but she didn’t seem very interested in the rings or mirror. They talked for a bit, then Egil went outside to relax for a bit. He pulled out his deck of cards, and began shuffling, at which a few of the soldiers came to watch. Eventually some of Luna’s personal squad came around, and he explained the rules of seven card stud to them.

They seemed down to play, so he got a loaner of fifty bits from them, and they began playing. By the end of the night, he had won two hundred bits from them, after paying back the bits he had borrowed. As it turned out, ponies in general were terrible liars, as they were unable to bluff their way out of anything, where he was bluffing almost constantly. You would think they’d have figured it out by the third time, but they never did, so their bits were his.

Apparently, he also got a tent now, so he laid down and thought about his first full day there. In the last twenty-four hours, he had killed around one hundred and twenty people, got four abilities that shouldn’t even work, physically speaking, captured an enemy fort, and helped broker the peace between two races that had always been at odds with each other. It had been a weird twenty four hours.

Author's Note

Hey, I'm on a roll with this, three chapters in four days.