Author's Note

Well, that took a lot longer to publish than I originally intended. Sorry about that y'all. This week has been hectic at work. Got promoted to a supervisory role, and had to train the new crew that my production supers put under me. At the very least, most of them were easy to pick up on the tasks, but I still had to check over their shoulders every so often. Then, I almost always had to stay late to finish out my turnover for the morning crew and other new supervisor tasks.

Being an adult is hard...At least the pay is good. Anywho, now that next week is 'suppose' to be a lighter workload, I might be able to work on the next chapter and post a little earlier. Time will tell though. So, in the meantime, enjoy this one here!

As always, many thanks to my awesome-sauce editor and proofreader Regreme for all his hard work.

Ch1; Dealing In

“...stop!”

“...Not gonna...these asses!”

“Please… stand down…”

Sam awoke with a terrible headache. Other than that, it at least felt like none of his important bits were missing.

“...trying to trick us! That asshat Bertrand’s behind this, ain’t he!”

Sam wanted to yell at the obvious offender of loud expletives he knew to ‘shut the hell up, and let me sleep’. However, what did come out was more along the lines of an incoherent grumble. It also didn’t help that even with his eyes closed, he could feel the sting of midday sunlight trying to pierce through his eyelids. As he tried to roll over, someone had noticed his entrance to the waking world, a rather familiar and comforting someone.

“Sam! Thank god you’re okay,” Isabelle said as she helped her fellow conduit up to a sitting position.

Sam fought off the disorientation and opened his eyes as quickly as possible to assess the situation. Isabelle’s tone certainly sounded worried enough to warrant his immediate attention. More shouts and threats were exchanged in the background as Sam’s vision finally came into focus, and he was greeted with a very unusual scene.

Before him was Lu, his back to him and aggressively standing off against almost a dozen armored ponies. That last part certainly qualified for a double-take as these equines were not your run of the mill horses. No, a few had horns jutting out from their foreheads, denoting them as unicorns. Others were hovering above the ground on wings, making them pegasi. All of them, even those without either, held the distinct gleam of intelligence in their eyes as they faced off against the concrete conduit.

“Which ever one of you assholes is fucking with my mind better knock it the fuck off!” Lu yelled, conjuring shards of concrete around fists.

“Listen to me, human!” an oddly familiar voice called out from the guards, “You’re making a mistake. We are not your enemy.”

“Bullshit!” Lu yelled.

More concrete gathered between his hands, and he let loose a barrage on the ponies. Sam called out in desperation to stop. The ponies would not be able to survive such an onslaught. Sam knew this as he remembered that their magic was near useless against a conduit’s abilities. It was too late though, and all the wire conduit could do was watch in horror as the world slowed to a crawl. The fear in the ponies’ faces were etching themselves into Sam’s mind and image after image of the bloody inevitable played out in his head. There was no time to act, but by some form of perhaps divine intervention, the ponies were spared. Spared by the sudden appearance of beams of hazy, pearly-white light that shot the shards of concrete out of the air before they could reach them.

Sam, Lu, and even Isabelle, who was in the midst of helping Natie up to her feet, stared in surprise of the counter. A pegasus, one dressed unlike the rest of the guards, shot down to place himself between the guards and Lu, his wings outstretched threateningly and one forehoof scraping at the ground in challenge.

Lu shook off the daze first and growled menacingly at the pegasus. His arms were now fully encased in concrete, meaning he was getting serious. Sam immediately jumped, flinging himself between the two parties just before the tension broke.

“Wait!” Sam shouted, his arms outstretched in both parties’ directions in hopes of stopping the conflict.

Thankfully, it did. Or, at least, made everyone hesitate upon his sudden intervention. Either way worked if he asked himself.

“Sam? What are you doing?” Natie asked, fully on her feet now, “What’s going on?”

A rather sensible set of questions, but ones that would have to wait, as another familiarly gruff voice called out from the pony side.

“That is exactly what I would like to know, Human. Who are these other, er, humans?”

Sam’s eyes widened upon seeing the pegasus that spoke. It was the one that stood at the front of the contingent of pony guards. His auburn coat shining as healthily as his medallion-colored mane and tail. Though, unlike the rest of the guards’ platemail armor, this one wore a dark, padded coat like vestment that, by the looks of it, had segmented pieces of armor woven into it and covered his vitals. Perhaps it was like ceramic plating or something similar, but overall looking much more modern than the typical pony armor Sam was used to.

However, the most striking thing about this pony was the fact that his wingtips gave off the same pearly-white glow that the beams of light that blocked Lu’s attack shined with. Of course, even with all these differences, Sam could never forget that piercing, focused glare directed at him, nor the subtle undertone of annoyance he gave off from looking at the wire conduit.

“Wait, hold up,” Sam said, “Cappy, is that you?!”

The familiar pony let out an equally familiar exasperated sigh, “Yes, Human. And it’s ‘Administrator’ Aegis Flare, now.”

“What the fuck is going on here?!” Lu suddenly blurted out.

Natie agreed in her own words, “Sam, please. Just what is going on? What-... who are these creatures? How do you know them?” Both sides were confused to some degree, which just left the only conduit in the room with only the vaguest idea on what was the situation.

“Ok, see,” Sam started with addressing his fellow conduits, “I-wait! Waitwaitwaitwait!”

The wire conduit had suddenly realized something that he should have probably taken better note of in his assessment of his favorite guard captain earlier. Whirling back on the spot to face said pony, he scrutinized Aegis Flare, and more importantly, the pearly-white wisps of light coming from both his wingtips and dimly from his forehooves. Sam knew ponies, or at least, enough about ponies to know that a pegasus generating beams of light and glowing wasn’t ordinary. He ran through his head quickly on the possible explanations to this phenomenon, but only one could really stick with him.

“Cappy, you’re a conduit?” Sam asked, almost flabbergasted by the revelation.

Aegis Flare nodded, “Yes. There’s a lot that needs to be discussed, Human.”

“That there is.”

The angelic, motherly voice came from behind the guards. Everyone’s heads turned to see the Equestrian Royal diarchs enter the room that the humans and ponies were in. The ponies all bowed their heads subtly, but remained on guard against the perceived danger still in the room, which looked strikingly familiar to Sam as part of the Royal Castle from the interior that he could see.

Seemingly unafraid, and against the pony guards’ protests, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna strode up to the stunned wire conduit. Their smiles gave away their joy for once again being able to greet their visitor from another world. Sam couldn’t help but gawk at the two from the astonishment of being before more familiar faces that he thought he’d never see again.

“Hello, Samuel,” Luna spoke first, “It is good to see you again.”

Celestia chuckled at Sam’s continued stunned silence, “Indeed, but perhaps we should resolve the potential conflict that this confusion may be having on these other humans.”

Sam shook his head as his mind rebooted once more. Over his shoulder, he could see that his human friends all had varying looks of apprehension on their faces to the situation at hand.

“Guys, chill,” Sam tried to stress to his anxious companions, “They’re not threats. More like, friends.”

“Sam, explain,” Natie demanded.

Sam knew that tone. It probably didn’t help that he blew her off earlier, too, but he now had a chance to recover, and keep his ass from getting fried.

“... Do you all remember that time we got ambushed on the overpass, and I ended up disappearing for a few days?”

Lu and Isabelle nodded, but still seemed confused. It was only Natie that had a look of growing realization upon hearing Sam’s reply.

Natie collected her thoughts into the only logical conclusion she could think of to speak, “...You were actually telling the truth… all of it?”

Sam knew what she was talking about as the memory of his return home, and the shared disbelief they all had upon hearing Sam’s crazy story from months ago, came to mind. He nodded without a hint of deception and smiled knowingly. Isabelle gasped in understanding as everything seemed to click into place for her as well.

“What the hell are you talking about?!” Lu asked bluntly.

Isabelle leaned over to whisper to the concrete conduit. His face went through a gambit of reactions. Shifting from confusion, to surprise, and then back to disbelief.

“No fucking way! You’re telling me this dumbass actually came here? Like, actually came to another world?”

“Oh yeah,” Sam replied with a smirk, “Not to mention saved their city from a megalomaniac about as powerful as Bertrand, became a hero slash celebrity, and got a nice little vacation away from a certain concrete meathead that anyone would kill for.”

It didn’t take long for Lu to catch onto that last comment, and he stomped up in front of Sam and glared.

“Oh, you think you’re gonna get away with that?” Lu growled in Sam’s face.

Sam chuckled at how easy it was to rile him up still, “Well, that would imply that you’d be fast enough to catch me. Try emptying that thick head of yours, and you might have a chance.”

Before the two could get into their usual confrontation, they were both treated to an electrically charged slap upside both the back of their heads. Coincidentally, making them bash their faces against each other and dazing them. When their senses returned, they both saw the angry scowl of Natie glaring down on them. They both flinched and decided it was best not to anger her further.

Natie, now reestablishing her prompt to Sam, asked him once more, “Sam, for the love of God, just tell us what’s going on.”

Sam backed up out of swatting distance and cleared his throat, “So, princesses! These are my friends from my world, and the rest of the Four Aces. Natie, Isabelle, and Lu.”

The wire conduit figured that it was safer to address the snickering princesses first and finally give out some introductions. The princesses eyed Sam’s friends with contemplation, each giving their own wave or greeting.

“Natie, Isabelle, Lu,” Sam continued, “Back when I disappeared on that day, I came here. A lot of shit happened and I made friends with the natives. These are Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, random royal guards A through F, and Captain Aegis Flare, or as I call him, Cappy. Finally, there’s- hey, wait...where’s-”

“Sam!”

Barreled over by a purple pony that just teleported in front of him was not exactly how he expected to be greeted by his long time Equestrian friend. She tightly held onto him in a hug that would make a bear envious of her strength. The hysterical mare was speaking a mile a minute, with only bits of which Sam could discern. Some of it about how she was happy to see him again, and more about how sorry she was for some reason.

“Sparks,” Sam playfully acted like he was actually being choked out, “most people consider air to be a necessity from where I come from! Blurgh~!”

The purple pony, formally known as Twilight Sparkle, immediately let go and started apologizing even more while Sam chuckled over her enthusiasm. He even scooped her up into his own hug to put an end to that, which made her let out an ‘eep’ and fell silent.

“Hey, Sparks. It’s been a pretty long time,” Sam said to the pony slowly calming down in his arms.

She brushed a few tears from her eyes and smiled, “It really has. I’m so glad to see you again, Sam.”

Sam pulled her in for another embrace as he replied, “Same here...Say, not to ruin the moment, but I do have a few questions. First and foremost, when did you grow wings?!”

Twilight pulled back and blushed in embarrassment. Her gaze fell over her withers and the two feathery appendages that adorned her back and that seemed to rustle with her embarrassed expression.

“Those are, um...new,” Twilight fumbled over her words, trying to explain, “Well, not new new, just new for you I guess. There was this thing, and then another thing. The Magic of Friendship was involved, and I ended up ascending, which was another thing entirely.”

She continued to ramble, but stopped when she saw Sam holding back laughter.

“Sounds like you’ve been busy then, huh?” Sam asked.

Twilight let out a tired sounding sigh, her newly acquired wings sagging a bit, “You have no idea.”

“Heh, I guess three months can really catch up to ya.”

Sam’s comment was met with silence. As he scanned the crowd, they all wore similarly anxious expressions. Even Twilight, who had wriggled free of Sam’s grasp, looked up at him with an apprehensive stare. The purple winged unicorn fought to get the words out that would shock the wire conduit for a good long while.

“Sam...it’s been 2 years.”