Shadow of a Sword

The apology with Pinkie had been a threadbare thing. He had said that he was sorry that the realities they came from were incompatible and stated for both of their mental health they should never allow themselves to see or hear each other again. Pinkie had simply put on a smile and said ok. Much to everyone’s surprise.

It had been four days since Blade made Pinkie cry and Blade Dancer was not getting in any better in his behaviors. He spent most of his time wondering around. Twilight had given him some of the local currency, something called “Bits”. They were made of gold. Given what he knew about metal it was problem for their easy of work and lack of rust more than value given the Earth Pony powers.

He mostly spent the money on extra food. Blade would not believe it if he had not seen for himself that a Dragon cooked meals for him, but what he made was for a normal pony’s sweet tooth in mind. Twilight said they had very strong metabolisms and needed more raw sugar to fuel everything.

He so far had found that he could just not build up any strength. He was keeping his belly full whenever he could and his body was already building up its reserves of every form of matter needed. He discovered that this world had two foods that he was more pleased to see, Siracha and Jalapenos. They were something that he used to warm his body whenever he developed hypothermia back home. He had started adding them to all the meals that Spike was making.

You know that those only made think you were warm and did not actually help, right?

Blade walked around town. As he walked, he noticed a group of the non-special ponies he had heard were called “Earth” Ponies moving a wagon full of glowing rods which they were pulling up a hill to a construction site. According to what Twilight was saying it was going to be a holding cell for dangerous magical beasts that sometimes came out of the Everfree. It was also going to function as a guard station and house an increased guard unit that Celestia was hoping to put in place.

It was in that moment that it became a Ponyville day.

Derpy Hooves was one of the local mail ponies. The poor mare had a horrible lazy eye that just would not let her focus. She heard but failed to see as the straps holding the two stallions to the wagon of metal rods broke, causing the cart to roll down the hill towards the market square. This caused ponies to flee in all directions. Derpy could not run as she was knocked over by the mare she had been giving mail to. With already poor balance, she had not recovered. Worse yet, as it neared the bottom of the hill the wagon hit a fence. It stopped the wagon, but the already damaged bands broke unleashing a flurry of rods like a cannon blast. It was about to be the end for Miss Hooves.

Derpy had just managed to get her awareness back to see the rods coming at her. At once, several things passed through her mind. Her daughter, Dinky, would become an orphan. She would never see Dinky’s father again even after waiting all this time. She would never pay of her overdue library charge.

“Out my way, you wall eyed freak.” someone said, pushing Derpy and saying some very mean things. She went flying, hitting a stall and nearly breaking her foreleg.

Shluk!

Derpy’s first thought was that she was alive. She turned to thank the pony that had saved her and immediately she regretted being alive. A colt the color of silver was impaled by no less than six of the rods, the rest scattered around him. One was through his right forehoof, three were scattered throughout his barrel, one had pinned his tail down by its hair, most likely not hitting the tail itself, and the last was going through his flank until it was under him.

Most people did not know this about Derpy Hooves, but she loved children. The idea that one had just given his life for her broke her. This young colt her daughters age… It was more than her heart could take. “SOMEPONY, ANYPONY, HELP!” Derpy screamed. She turned to see some of the other townsponies coming out of their hiding spots.

“Stop your whining.” The colt was speaking, that should not have been possible with the rods through his barrel. Nurse Redheart, who had been off duty and grocery shopping for her food for the week was already overlooking the wounds. Ponies were strong, yet Redheart knew that with this many deep all the way through wounds if she did not get him to Ponyville General, he would be dead in minutes. “I need a strong stallion, now!”

Shlup.

Derpy turned from trying to call out to Noteworthy, as an earth pony he should be able to at least lift this much, to find the colt, who should have passed out from blood loss, was pulling out the first of the rods from his foreleg.

Nurse Redheart responded, “Don’t you dare pull that out! You will bleed to death before you get to the hospital, young stallion!”

“I’ll be fine. I am not sure how they even got past my blunt in the first place. Some rest and I will regen from this level of damage in no time.” The colt then proceeded to shove off Redheart and rip all of the remaining rods out. What left Redheart unsure was that with each rod pulled out instead of the gush of blood there was an oozing of white glue-like gunk. She had never seen anything like it. Noteworthy tried to force the colt to go the hospital but he showed amazing strength and shoved him off each time.

They followed him home only for him to lead them to Twilights Castle. Noteworthy could not help but hate the building. It ruined all of the small-town décor, which was the sole reason he liked this place. Noteworthy was the next to speak up. “Guys, if he lives with Twilight then that means she can handle it. We should go find her. I don’t feel comfortable shoving my muzzle in ‘Royal Business’.”

Derpy glared at Noteworthy. “How can you say that? He saved my life! He’s going to die!”

Redheart spoke next, “Twilights castle is also used as the town public library, so we’re allowed to go in there. I am going to fight anyone that says I can’t save a life.” With that, Redheart ran off inside the castle at a full gallop. Derpy followed after her. Noteworthy was unsure of what to do. It was dangerous to just allow them to follow this mad colt. Yet, Redheart was a member of his herd. As the stallion it was his job to defend her with his life. He followed the trail of white goo.

He found the colt being fussed over by the two mares. Derpy had somehow found a loaf of bread and was force feeding the colt. The colt, surprisingly, did not seem to mind and was eating as fast as the crazy mare could feed him. Redheart had somehow managed to find bandages and was trying to wrap him as he was pushing her off and trying to focus on eating the bread.

Noteworthy was unsure of what to make of this. “Redheart, how crazy is this foal?”

“Well, somehow, he’s healing at an incredible rate. This white stuff seems to be a byproduct. Yet it seems that he’s using everything his body has just to heal. Noteworthy, go get more food from the kitchens. He’s going to need more than a loaf of bread to heal.”

Noteworthy did not bother arguing with her. He knew better than trying to change Redhearts mind when she was with a patient. He turned around and trotted off. It took all of ten minutes to find the kitchen in the labyrinth that was the castle. Inside was a massive amount of sandwich material and breakfast food. Clearly, Twilight Sparkle was in need of someone to teach her how to make proper dinner food. Not a single mushroom steak, rice pilaf, or even a squash to be seen. He would have to have a talk with Spike during the next guys night…

Twilight was looking down at the bandaged colt. He was sleeping after eating two loafs of bread given to him by Derpy. “Thank you Redheart, how soon till we can take off the bandages?”

“They’re ready to come off now. His healing abilities are scary. I mostly wrapped him to prevent his body from wasting so much of that healing gunk. I have no idea what that stuff is made of. The big thing will be making sure he sleeps as much as possible, then feeding him again.”

“Derpy are you sure he saved you? It just does not seem like him.”

Noteworthy spoke instead, “Yeah, he walked right up when he saw the wagon rolling then shoved her so hard I was worried he hurt Derpy. The whole square was empty because every pony was trying to avoid getting hit. Yet, he pushed her instead of just going around. The only reason to do any of that was to save Derpy.”

Twilight was clearly unsure. “Noteworthy, that does not make sense. Everything he’s said and I’ve seen… he’s not the type to do this.”

The Girls had who had come to hear the story had gathered around after hearing what happened in the market square. “Actually Twi, I might think he not been telling you everything. The other day Applebloom… Well, she was making me so proud, practicing her applebucking, she bucked a tree that had been sick early this spring. It scared me half to death when a whole third of the tree fell nearly on top of her. Suddenly, the whole branch turned into sawdust! It spooked me something fresh. The only clue as to what happened is that walking by on the road was Blade, it’s hard to miss that shiny coat of his.”

“Well, maybe he does not mean to lie. It could his just doesn’t know the truth.” Fluttershy mumbled.

“Whats that, sugarcube?” Applejack tilted her head.

“Well, maybe he does not mean to lie. It could his just doesn’t know the truth,” Fluttershy repeated. “You all seemed to know that I was braver than I thought I was back when we first met, maybe he is the same. He thinks he is one thing and really he is another person entirely.” She explained,

“You may be right Fluttershy. Everything about this makes what Discord said about him being an anti-hero makes a little more sense…”