Author's Note

Yep it took almost a year the editor and I had to settle this with swords.

Now What

Shining Armor had been sitting on the hard ground reading from a dictionary for over two hours and had just finished the H section. Everyone else but Twilight had wandered off at this point. Each time one left, the colt had opened his eyes for just a moment to watch them go.

“Twilight!”, Celestia called

Wandering over to them, Twilight finally deciding that the colt had done nothing but pull a Rainbow Dash, and was not about to attack Shining now. Twilight looked over the Princess. Celestia looked tired. She had very rarely seen the Princess like this.

“Twilight, as much as I don’t want to do this, I am afraid that if we remain any longer things may spiral out of control back in Canterlot. I can only guess that my guards are losing their collective minds right now”. Twilight could not place why Luna had a bit of a smirk at those words.

“Don’t worry Princess, I know he’s been a bit of trouble, but he’s nothing I can’t handle.” Twilight smiled up at her mentor. Celestia did not look too sure, but nodded.

With that exchange over, Celestia and Luna flew off back towards Canterlot and Twilight returned to her brother’s side to see if the colt had decided he knew enough to start talking yet. “So, Shiny, has he said anything else? I never seen a colt sit still for this long before.”

“No, nothing. It would not be surprising if he fell sleep. I am reading him a dictionary for-“

“Continue.” the colt suddenly spoke. Both ponies turned and saw that the colt was staring at them with a glare that reminded Shining far too much of the one from when he had push his guards to the breaking point in basic.

“Faster.” the colt spoke again.

Shining sighed and began to read again knowing that he was in for a long afternoon.

Three hours with very short drink breaks later, Shining Armor had actually finished the Dictionary. The colt on several occasions had seemed asleep but had immediately responded if Shining had stopped reading. With the final word, he waited for the colt to stir and demand more. Yet, the Colt’s breathing stayed steady. It seemed to be over and he was finally sleeping peacefully.

“It’s finally over?” Twilight said trotting over from where she had been relaxing with a book. “Every time I thought we could stop he reacted. So, Shining, any more thoughts? You seem to understand him better than anyone else.”

“Twilight, I can’t say for certain, but Discords right. This colt has been through a lot. His gaze was as cold as a Windigo’s ice. Me and Cadance are going to be staying until I have had a chance to talk to this colt properly. I have questions.”

At this point, most of the girls and Cadance had gathered back around from their nearby card game. In which, somehow Pinkie had come out with an unquestionable victory. Rainbow Dash now owed Pinkie a gallon of liquid rainbow.

“Ask.” Spoke a almost cold clinical tone. All of them turned to the colt they had believed deep asleep. “Question, ask.”

Twilight in her infinite curiosity was the first to respond. “You can understand us?” The colt only response was to look to in deep thought then nod. “Shining, I think you were right, he must have some sort of translation spell… Well, first things first, I am Twilight Sparkle. What’s your name little guy?”

The colt seemed to be very deep thought again as if he were unsure how to even respond to the question. Twilight wondered if his name was something that the spell had trouble with or if it involved concepts she could not even comprehend.

“G-478972”

She could understand a strange name, or if it were in another language, but every bit of that had been Equestrian and it sounded like no name like she had ever heard.

Shining spoke up. “That’s a designation. Similar to one that we receive in the guard. Are you a soldier of some kind?”

The colt’s ears almost twitch at those words. He turned to Shining Armor. Again, putting on a face of deep thought. Twilight realized this appeared to be a face that he wore when putting words to the ideas in his head. “Heavy Infantry Combat Equipment: Esper” The last word was clearly not Equestrian yet that was the closest thing that Equestrian mouth could sound out. It reminded her of ancient languages.

“I think there must be an issue with the translations, even without that last word he called himself combat equipment.”

“Esper, combat equipment. Understood.” The colt was glaring at Twilight. Even if he could not communicate, he seemed to understand.

What was wrong with these creatures? Even if they were not familiar with the strange human term for Esper’s, He was using their words, what was so hard to understand? It was like they thought he was some normal human. Of course, he might have an easier time convincing them if his internal system were working. “Esper, Modified… human… Weapon.” Hopefully, the purple one could understand that. It was a clear his matrix understood their words, but not how to place them. He would need a lot more Data to form sentences. Why did they seem to be overly attached to humanizing him?

Twitch.

G-478972 was confused, he had no way to process that sensory information within his preconceptions of his own body. Up until this point he could just brush off anything that did not match with rationalization, but he could not rationalize his ears twitching. He shouldn’t have the muscles to do that…

Twilight had been talking to herself for almost a minute when the colt had used the word “Human”. That had halted her train of thought. Hopefully, he was just from the world on the other side of the mirror then. It was in this moment the colt began to have a fit. He made sounds like a screeching cat or the brakes of a train. He was holding his hooves, still covered in bandages, up to the only unbandaged part of him, his ears. Shining rushed over and tried to grab a hold of his hooves but could not get a grip.

“Twilight!” Fluttershy yelled in a surprising loud voice. “I don’t he came through as a pony! He’s confused! If we’re not careful, he’s going to hurt himself!” Twilight finally refocused on the situation. It had been very confusing switching forms herself, and she had PLANNED to travel to another world. But, she had come to her senses quickly when she saw her own reflection.

Twilight then made one of the poorest choices she had made in her life and teleported a mirror in front of the colt.

G-478972 looked at the mirror and froze. He could not quite grasp what he was looking at. The thing in the mirror was not him, but one of the creatures of this world, swaddled in bandages like a mummy. This was not him. This was NOT his casing.
G-478972.EXE has stopped working.
G-478972 screamed bloody murder and the mirror shattered. Shining Armor, if that was what his name was, tried to grab hold of him. But he could not, he would not get through the Blunt. G-478972’s mind had fled from his casing.

The scream let loose was way too loud to come from something that small. When it finally ended, a good fifteen seconds past two minutes over passed. His eyes rolled back into his head and he passed out.

“Twilight, what were you thinking? He was clearly in shock because of the change in form and you just drop a mirror in front of him?! Of course, that would push him over the edge!” Fluttershy scolded.

“I’m sorry! I panicked! I just thought to get it over with…” Twilight responded while Shining was putting G-478972 on his back.

Shining did not like holding this colt. Every time he tried to touch him it was like he was covered in slime. Yet, he couldn’t see anything on his fur that would cause such a feeling. “When he wakes up, I’ve got a lot more questions. I don’t think we know anything yet.” Shining trotted off back to the Castle.

“I just hope it’s that easy, Shiny”, said Twilight “I get the feeling that we’re in for a longer ride then any of us are ready for. Spike? Could you do me a favor and read to him? I don’t even care if you read him those silly comics, I think it would be better if he heard as many full sentences as possible at this point…”

When G-478972 awoke next the world felt different. The steady hum of emotions that a human or pony would feel were gone. G-478972’s mind was clear and as cold as a clear winter morning. The storm of panic that had been all too real before was now just a strange dream. His mind began to run like the cold silicon of a computer it was supposed emulate.

Ok, strange body, that was not a problem. It was no different than the neural interface control of a recon drone. First step, find all of the muscle groups. Through a process of starting at the feet and moving up, working through every possible muscle, he learned each muscles movements. G-478972 did not have names for most of these parts, but he at least knew how to use them. Working at the muscles around the strange set up of the legs was weird, but not that different from a hound recon unit. At least this form mostly had the same amount of limbs.

The really strange part of this was that nothing felt unnatural. It was like he was born like this. It had to be some sort of mental programing that was built into the form change. How had G-478972 failed to notice this while stumbling around like an idiot? The tail and ears where the parts that would be a problem. Most of those muscles were built like they were designed for auto movement. Now noticing that his body was covered in bandages, G-478972 gathered the space on his skin and flexed it, causing the bandages to be rendered to shreds.

Looking down his legs G-478972 thought, I think that these things if I remember horses right are called hooves, correct? I hope I can get them under me without too much work. Moving off to the edge of the mattress he had been sleeping on, he spotted a creature of clearly different design. It appeared to be some sort of lizard like creature a little bigger than himself. It had hands though, so some sort of slave race to make up for the lack of hands in the ruling species. Sitting in the creature’s lap was a comic book, similar to what his source used to enjoy.

Putting four hooves to the floor proved to be less trouble than expected. The body had the programming to run he just had to avoid allowing his own ideas to influence the process. Moving out into the hall, he reviewed his Translation matrix. It was much more comprehensive then it had been after that combat horse had helped. If he had to guess, they assigned the lizard slave to read to him while he was asleep.

Pain ripped through him, causing his legs to buckle under him. It was the leftover void material still scattered throughout his body. Focusing his powers, he gathered all of it into his large intestine, where it would stop destroying his muscles and instead destroy less important things, like his intestines. His regeneration would take care of the rest.

Well, time to find the strange pastel horses.

G-478972 knew that if he was going to find his enemy and finish his task before his final rest, he would need help from these horses. He braced himself and stepped through the nearest door where he heard voices.

“Cadance, I know we need to get back to the Empire, but with everything happening I want to at least talk to this colt before I am willing to just trust him and leave!”

“Shiny, I know that. That’s why we’re going to leave some guards behind on a more permanent basis. You and I have an empire to run!”

G-478972 decided to immediately head in the other direction, lover’s quarrels were not something he enjoyed. His ears suddenly moved, tracking a new sound down the hallway. “What does Sunset mean that there no such things as Espers, that they’re just from television?! If he didn’t come from her world, then where did he come from?” Some of the words were hard to place in the matrix, but it was clear someone had questions about him. He entered without knocking.

Inside. he found a damned Round Table. Around which were seated six of these colorful horses. Each was sitting on something like a highbacked chair with a larger seat then you would find on a human chair. They all turned to him as he spoke up, “You…have… questions?”

The purple one with wings and horn was just staring open mouthed at him. It was the pink one that made the first move, appearing in front of G-478972 like a Teleporter.
“Oh no no no no NO! Are you okay?! You sure had a lotta fun playing with Shiny yesterday, but you should really REALLY still be in bed, Bladey!” The pink one prattled on abou-

Wait… What did she just call me?!

Ignoring that, “You do not have to concern yourself. The emotions you were aware of were the result of malfunctions in this unit. During my rest periods that has been repaired. As a result, no more emotional issues should be expected.”

“HUH?!”, The pink one responded, tilting her head in confusion.

“I don’t understand, you have to have emotions. Everyone has them.” The winged unicorn tried to point out.

“That would only be true for organic lifeforms as you know them, I am an Esper… The closest idea that I can understand from your language is a Golem created from Necromancy. The corpse of a former person is used and then programing is installed to make it function. The emotions you sensed were leftovers from the former owner of this body. On a day-to-day basis I do not experience such things.”

Twilight decided not to press the issue but made a note to call the therapist for the poor colt. “I understand you feel that way, and I am going to try to respect that.”

Suddenly feeling lightheaded, G-478972 collapsed down onto his belly. “I am sorry, my mind is back in working order, but my body is tired. So, I will lay.” G-478972 could not help but feel that something was wrong with his sentences.

“If you don’t mind me asking darling, you have not given us a name. It’s just manners after all.” The white unicorn chimed in.

Putting on an expression that seemed to be his thinking face, he spoke again. “G-478972. That is my name.”

Twilight looked at G-478972 like he had just slapped her.

The combat horse entered the room behind G-478972 and said, “That’s not a name, that’s a designation. That confirms my theory. In whatever twisted place he’s from, he’s military.”

“You understood that nonsense, Shining?” The winged unicorn asked, clearly hoping that like everything else up to this point the combat horse could give clarity.

“In the Guard, we are given a number to give to enemies so that when they give it to our allies in ransom demands so they know who we are; yet tells them no personal information that can be used to pressure us. If he does not feel comfortable telling us his name, he’s just going to keep giving us his designation.”

“Idiot.” G-478972 responded. “I am not a soldier. Esper. G model. 478,972nd off the line.” Shining Armor seemed unsure as to how to respond to that statement. “Please do not patronize me. I am an organic weapon.”

“If you are an organic weapon, what is you activation code.” Shining Armor countered.

“I am on assignment.” G-478972 quickly responded,

“Requesting relevant details?” Shining asked.

“Classified. I need information. You give, I answer.” G-478972 offered,

“Ok, what do you want to know?” answered Cadence, having followed her husband into the Map room,

“I am looking for the other that fell with me. Is dangerous. Must find. Must kill.”

Twilight looked slightly taken back at the idea of a second entity and that they wanted to kill each other. “I am willing to discuss finding this… ‘other’, but Equestria is a place for second chances, you must give this person a chance to seek redemption.”

“Stupid. You will kill us all.” G-478972 sneered at what Twilight said. “I will not be stupid.” The level of stupidity that this purple creature was exhibiting was a sight to behold, the idea that you could reform any creature. Something will always be what it is, nothing changes. Even if something seems to change, it is just showing a different part of its nature.

Though he had not said anything, it seemed Twilight understood his thoughts. “You will find that Equestria is a place where things you probably can’t imagine are common.” G-478972 at this moment decided that the purple one was useless and should be dumped wherever trash is placed. He turned to the only one in the room he knew had common sense.

Shining Armor was trying to keep a stone walled soldier’s face. “I will help you. If nothing else to prevent an enemy of Equestria from running loose. Additionally, I am willing to treat you as a citizen as long as you don’t break any of our laws. So, you are to remain in whatever form of inactive mode you possess and are not to engage combat protocols.”

“I agree”, G-478972 responded. “I will return my quarters, give information when you have what I need.”

“Going back to your room already?! Didn’t you just get out of bed? Don’t you want to eat something first? I can make you some of the best pancakes you’ve ever had!” Pinkie said as she invaded G-478972 face a large smile on her face.

“Back away!” With that G-478972 shoved Pinkie right into the table.

“You know, it would be easier for everyone if we had a real name to call you by. Maybe we could use the one Pinkie came up with.” said Shining Armor, interrupting. G-478972 glared at him. Clearly deciding that nothing this “Pinkie” said was worth listening to, he aligned himself towards Shining and would pretend that Pinkie did not exist.

“You still want that rematch?” Shining asked. This was the first point in the conversation were G-478972 showed any reaction, his ears twitching in Shining’s direction.

“Rematch?” G-478972 pondered, his tone conveying no interest. His ears, however, showed that the idea had captured his attention.

Shining smiled knowingly. “I am willing to have a rematch. In the Guard we always add stakes though.” Shining noticed that colt became agitated.

“I want to place a bet.” G-478972 narrow his eyes. “If you win, I will stand against the Princess’ on you being allowed to kill your enemy. As the Captain of the Guard, I have authority in this matter even above the Princess’. If I win, you take Pinkie’s nickname for you as your own, Blade Dancer.”

“I teach you”, G-478972 growled.

With that, G-478972 strode out of the room, everyone followed him right out of the castle yard.

“He must really want that match. I was hoping he would be willing to wait ‘til we had given him a medical checkup…”

G-478972 was pissed. His matrix was still giving him trouble with sentence structure. The Pink one was clearly mentally handicapped, but she must serve some function since they have not put her down. When she called him something so childish as that nickname he had been ignore it. Now it seemed that even the competent one was beginning to join in on the idea that he was like them.

It was time to put a stop to that. A match against him now that he was in proper control of this flesh suit would show these fools the difference between them.

The white one took a stance that reminded G-478972 of a dog with its front lowered to the ground and front legs spread. Its horn began glowing with that strange energy he still couldn’t identify.

Gathering his space to form a sword, he couldn’t help but admire it. He always liked how it looks. Like sand appearing out of the aether, swirling together until it compresses into the form of a blade. The space around his body was weak, but one sword should be more than enough. He waited. And waited. And waited. And waited.

Well, that answered his first question. His normal methodology was to wait for his opponent to make the first move. A person’s first move tells you a lot. Complete frontal attack; Power Fighter. Grabbing; A Tactics Fighter. A feint; You’ve got someone with brains. Mr. Competent had not made any moves and seemed to be trying to beat him with boredom; A Defensive. Someone who turns people’s own power against them.

Only one way to deal someone like with him.

Rushing forward with his sword in his left hoof, he made a broad swipe designed for power in order to force him to show G-478972 his method of fighting. A translucent pink wall formed between him and his target in an instant. Then the strangest thing happened, instead of cutting through it, his sword bounced off.

Allowing the recoil to spin him around, he went to strike from the other side. Switching the blade to his right, he used the bounce to bring it back down in a left downward strike, but the barrier did not yield in the slightest.

Ok, so the colt clearly did not show everything that he can bring to the table the other day. Nearly ten minutes in, and the attacks had not paused for even an instant. It was like a face off against a whole unit of his guards. At any one time only one of the kid’s hooves was touching the ground. He constantly attacked with his sword and made jabs with his legs at any place I was not looking.

What was scary was how he was handling the recoil. Whenever his sword or blow bounced off his shield; instead of trying to push back, he would spin with it and add the energy onto the next strike. So instead of running out of steam, each blow seemed to continue on with the same energy as the first. Even his most heavily trained guards would have been exhausted after hitting his shield this many times. The amount of precise calculation needed for that is inequine. Yet despite his failure the colt was not even showing the mental stress of repeated failure.

How was this possible?

Even as G-478972 allowed his sequence of attacks to continue it became clear that there was a problem.

1: The energy level of his sword was too weak to pierce this barrier.

2: There had been a leak.

The void energy was leaking out of his intestines and was eating his kidneys and lungs. He would be fine to continue this fight without his kidneys, but he was still healing from the rest of the damage. He couldn’t go that long without oxygen.

Well, nothing he could do about it right now.

Damn! Does this colt have no limit?! Thirteen minutes in and not a single break between attacks. Wait is that blood?

“Pony-feathers your still injured! That’s it! We can pick this up later.”

Crack!

The shift in focus had caused a crack to appear in Shining’s shield. Refocusing his efforts, he had realized that the colt was coughing up blood but seemed to be ignoring the life threating moment. It was scary to see the way he had not even slowed down. He was ignoring his own injures and focusing entirely on the part of Shining’s shield that had been damaged.

“Stop the battle you brat, you’re bleeding out! You’re already covered in your own blood!” In that moment the girls began to see what Shining was seeing.

He did not seem to allow his momentum to slow, however. His movements were amazingly smooth, yet each blow held a level of precision that only a Master should possess. His lack of concern for his own wellbeing was starting scare them as well. He was changing color as his fur was quickly becoming ashen and losing its sheen.

Twilight was running a basic health scan. Shining could tell as he felt himself getting scanned as well.

Twilight was about to have a heart attack.

Thank Celestia, Shining was alright, his magic was far from exhausted. It was the colt that she was having a panic attack over. Even with her level of skill in this type of magic, she had no idea what was causing the damage, but he was missing a kidney and most of a lung. It was no wonder he was bleeding out of his mouth.

“Girls, that colt completely out of his mind! He started this fight with Shiny when he is clearly in no shape to fight. He’s missing some of his internal organs for pony’s sake!”

“What?! Twilight what are you talking about?” Whimpered Fluttershy.

“From the scan that I was running; He is missing a section of his intestines, one of his kidneys, and the bottom half of his left lung. I don’t know how he is even standing! Let alone pulling off all those complicated combat moves. “

“Girls, Shining has been trying to convince him to stop the fight for the last couple of minutes. I don’t think that colt is going to listen. I am not sure if he is even capable of fear at this point! He does not seem to mind the fact he is covering himself in his own blood.” Rarity cut in,

“Ah hate to agree with Rarity on this, but ah know what it’s like to have just a bruised kidney. To have one missing must be on a whole different level of pain!” answered Applejack.

Pinkie gulped as her hair deflated and worry crossed her face.

“There is no way I am going to try and get between them. That colt moves like a blender! You see how there’s no break in the speed of the blade when switches hooves? I don’t even think Windblade could do that, and he was considered one of the greatest blade masters in the modern era!” Rainbow explained,

“That’s it! I don’t have any other choice. I’m going to have to knock him out with sleep spell. I just hope that I don’t kill him.” Twilight said grimly.

G-478972 had just decided that he was going to that have to pull out all the stops that he knew of. His regular sword could cut through steel like butter, Hell, it could cut through most Earth-made materials without him even noticing. Yet, whatever this shield was made of seemed to ignore all the powers his sword was made with. It had to have something to do with how the powers of this universe work.

The damage had spread from his lung and onto the very edge of the heart. He was having to spend more and more of his focus on just keeping the damage where it already had eaten. If it got to even one of his hearts, he would not have the strength to win this fight.

He had failed to take proper advantage of the crack in that shield. Well, never let it be said that he was not ready to die. He began to gather more power into his hands hooves in order to layer his sword.

Wait. Why did he suddenly feel weak? His legs gave out under him. Was this body weaker than a normal Espers body? He should have been able to keep fighting for longer. His healing factor alone should have allowed him to keep fighting well into the point in which he had entered the valley of death. He had been there before,

it.

did not.

scare.

him…

Twilight watched the colt stumble. She had hit him with a sleep spell powerful enough to take down a greed grown dragon. She knew that because she had learned this spell for the sole purpose of if Spike had another one of his greed attacks.

Yet the colt was clearly only unbalanced by such a powerful spell.

She powered up the spell for a second shot.

It was all he could do to remain standing but he needed medical attention.

She fired again.