The name's Tony Sparkle Stark

"Ok" I say as I start standing up.

"Great! Let me just put on my armor and we can go" Says Stark.

I take a closer look at Stark's armor as he's putting it on.

The first thing I notice however...

"You don't have hooves?" I ask as Stark puts on a metallic boot that goes up to his knee.

"Uh, no. My people don't have hooves, we've got feet" Stark replies.

I decide not to ponder that further as I see stark put on his other boot.

Going back to examining his armor, I see that he had just finished putting both boots on, but instead of starting to get the armor for the rest of he's legs, he takes out a silver metallic gauntlet. doesn't seem that he has armor for the rest of his legs, just up to his knee.

Odd.

"Is your armor incomplete?" I ask Stark as he's putting on the metallic gauntlet on his right hand.

Said gauntlet went up to his elbow, and had a blue circular insignia on the palm, pretty much exactly as the one on his shirt.

Are they related?

"Incomplete?" Stark says as he looks over himself.

"Oh, no it's actually complete, this is just mark one" Stark says as he starts putting on a brown glove with another insignia strapped to the palm on his left hand.

"Mark one?" I ask.

"Yeah, mark one, I actually make all of my own suits of armor, and this one is just the first version" Stark says as he slips multiple metallic rings through his arm that should probably not stay in place, but do.

I stop examining his suit to ponder what he just said, it was literally His suit, Stark made it, he makes his own suits it seems.

Does this mean he will make more? A mark two? Three?

I go back to examining his suit, which he seems to be finished putting on, the final piece being his helmet, which was white with black covering for his eyes.

"Alright, I've got my armor on, we can head out now" Stark says as he grabs his briefcase and stores it inside of the bag, then slings it over his shoulder.

"So where's the capital at?" Stark asks me.

"Trotgier is that way" I reply as I point in the opposite direction I was coming from.

"Trotgier? Weird name. Well, c'mon Amira" Stark says as he starts walking towards the capital.

"Alright" I say as I start following behind him.

*/---*/

I should probably start up a conversation, can't hurt to get to know Amira more right? I mean she's probably the first friend I'll make in this weird place.

"So, how was life in Trotgier?" I ask as I look behind me at Amira.

"Um, it wasn't really good since, you know... Slave..." She replies somberly.

Nice going dumbass.

"Right, sorry, dumb question" I say as turn my head to face in front of me.

"Change of subject then, what about you Amira? Do you perhaps have any skills that could help me out in this endeavor I've gotten myself into?" I ask.

"Well, I am good with swords, but I don't have any, and even if I did, I am physically too weak to help out in combat at the moment" she replies.

"Swords huh? I wouldn't have thought you would have been a swords wom-... Swords Mare.. who taught you?"

"I taught myself"

"That's pretty cool, I assume you practiced during your free time?"

"Yes"

"Alright well, don't worry, I'll get you some swords" I say as we continue walking.

I mean why not?

"I uh, I actually haven't used real swords yet, I just practiced with brooms" Amira tells me.

"Eh, don't worry about it, both of those things are rather similar, so if you're good with the broom, you're probably good with a sword" I say.

Logic one hundred.

"If you say so" she says.

We've been walking through this desert for a few hours now, I'm not actually sure though, it certainly feels like it. I swear, don't know how people living in South Western states can do it.

I look behind me, and see that Amira is walking slower, guess she's tired.

Might as well take a break.

"I think we've walked long enough, how about we take a break?" I ask as I fully turn around and stop walking.

"A break sounds good" She replies.

"Alright. We should probably sit down" I say as I start doing just that.

After Amira and I sat down, I decided to try and find out more about this strange land. Sure Amira was a slave, so she probably wouldn't know much, but she was a slave to royalty, maybe she heard something?

It couldn't hurt to ask.

"I'm assuming there's more kingdoms out there right? Do you happen to know any of them?" I ask.

"Yes, there are more kingdoms, but I don't know how many, or anything about them for that matter" she replies.

"I have sometimes overheard the prince and king talk about the pony kingdom, I think both kingdoms have good trade relation's with each other" Amira continues.

Nevermind.... Wait, ponies? Wasn't I thinking about ponies a short time ago?

...

Hold on...

"Really? Do you happen to know anything else about this pony kingdom?" I ask.

"Well, from what I've heard, the kingdom is called Equestria, and is ruled by their princess, princess Celestia" Amira starts.

Princess...

"By any chance" I start a bit nervously, "Does this princess have a protege?"

"Um, yes I think she does"

No way...

"And do you by any chance, know this proteges name?" I ask with rising anticipation.

Amira places a finger in her chin as she ponders her response.

"I believe her name is Twilight Sparkle, why did you want to know? Are you looking for her?"

...

...

..Wait! Brain, before you freak out, ya gotta think of a response bro. We've just been asked a question that could potentially shape our damm future in this place!"

"Uh, yeah actually, I'm her cousin"

Nice.

"Cousin??" Amira ask me, guess she doesn't buy it.

"Yes"

...

"But your not a pony"

Shit!, Brain! Alibi!

"It's a long story, but to make it short, basically my father, which in this case would be Twilight's uncle, was a pony who accidentally found my homeland and my people" I start saying.

From the looks of it, Amira seems to be paying attention to the bogus story, doing good brain.

"After a bit, he fell in love with one of the ladies there, had me, settled down, and began to raise me" I continue.

"... Eventually though, both of my parents got ligma disease and fuckin perished. In his final moments, my father told me to seek out my cousin, he didn't tell me where the hell to go to though, just gave me the name and died" I finished.

Amira seems a bit surprised from my story, at least the final part.

"Is that why you are here? You're looking for your cousin?" Amira asks me.

She believes me? Let's go.

"Yes, but since I didn't know where Equestria was, I decided to just look everywhere I guess. This was my first stop" I say as I zip open the duffel bag and take out two canteen's of water.

"I'm almost out of water, how much is left until we arrive to Trotgier?" I ask Amira as I hand her a canteen.

"It should not be too far, if we don't stop walking after this break, we should arrive by sundown" She replies.

"Great!" I say as I take a swig of water "well guess we should start walking again, the sooner we get this business over with the better" I say as I shove my canteen inside of the duffel bag.

*/---*/

"Well guess we should start walking again, the sooner we get this business over with the better" Stark says as he shoves his canteen inside of the bag.

Wait, he's still going through with this? He just found out his cousin isn't in this kingdom, why is he still going to try and confront the king and prince?

"You're not going to leave?" I ask as I take a quick sip of water, hand him the canteen, and stand up.

"Leave?, why the hell would I do that?" Stark asks as he places the other canteen inside of the bag and stands up.

"Well you just told me the reason you're out here in the first place was to find your cousin, and now that you know that she's not in this kingdom, I thought you would have left" I say somewhat somberly.

I know I probably shouldn't get my hopes up, but I can't help it, I'm quickly getting used to being around Stark, I kind of don't want him to leave. And I can't help but hope that he'll somehow pull this off.

But at the same time, if he stays and does this, he could get hurt, captured, or even killed! I haven't seen him in battle yet so don't know if his suit will really help him.

He would probably never find his cousin.

"Really? You thought I was just gonna leave the first chance I got? Man you think low of me" Stark says in a lighthearted tone.

I can't help but cringe a bit.

"No Amira, I'm not leaving until I've at least tried to get rid of slavery here, otherwise I'd feel like a dickwad who could have probably done something about this, but didn't" Stark says as he starts to walk.

"So c'mon, we've got an appointment with the king, it would be rather rude to keep him waiting"

"Ok" I say as I start following him.

I smile to myself as I follow behind him.

Stark certainly sounds determined for this. I can't help but respect him, even if he doesn't succeed it seems he's going to at least try.

It is a shame he won't stay if he succeeds in doing this, he still hasn't found his cousin.

Maybe he'll let me join him?

...

"So is Trotgier big? Like am I gonna be able to see it from the distance?" Stark asks as we continue walking.

We've been walking for another good chunk of time, and the sun will be setting soon.

"Yes, it is fairly large, you should probably be able to see it soon" I reply.

"Good, cuz we're probably gonna sleep another night out here, and tomorrow we can talk to the king" Stark says as he looks up to the sky.

"Alright" I reply as I look around at my surroundings, which was just more sand.

And what seems to be a carriage approaching us from the distance.

Oh no...

"What is that?" I hear Stark say.

I look over to him, he's looking at the approaching carriage as well, guess he noticed.

"I think it is a guard carriage" I say.

"Guard's?" Stark asks.

"Yes, it seems we are closer to Trotgier than I thought, if were already seeing guard patrols" I reply.

I was gonna tell Tony about this once the city was in viewing distance, but I guess it's too late for that, since this patrol squad has probably already seen us.

"I should probably deal with them no?" Stark asks.

"Well, probably.." I say.

"Yeah, I probably should" Stark says as the carriage approaches us.

When the carriage arrives, four armored and angry looking stallions step out and start eyeing us up, but mostly me.

I instinctively move closer to Stark.

"Heh, I knew it, boy's, we've found the prince's favorite slave" says one of the guards.

"Ugh, finally, hopefully we'll get a raise from this" says another guard.

"Well, c'mon slave, you're coming with-" the first guard started to say, but was cut off by Stark.

"Sorry, but I'm afraid she's not going anywhere with you, but, you can give us a ride to the capital, We would greatly appreciate it." Stark says as he steps in front of me, blocking me from the guards view.

A third guard came up next to the first one.

"And who are you supposed to be?" The guard asks.

"Me? I'm Stark, it's a pleasure. But anyway, as I just said, you can take us to the capital, but she's not going anywhere with you, and especially not back to the prince" Stark says as I start to build up a nervous sweat.

The fourth guard comes up.

"And what do you plan to do? Stop us? You can't, were part of the kings royal guard, you would be starting a war with him, and even if you tried to, you would fail, I mean do you see your armor? It's not even complete!" The guard says as he lets out a short laugh.

The other guards chuckle as well.

"Uh, yeah, that's exactly what I'm planning to do" Stark says as he raises both of his fists.

Guess I'll finally see how well those gauntlets really protect him.

The first guard lets out a loud sigh as he unsheathes his sword and starts walking towards Stark.

"Don't worry, I'll make this quick" the guard says as he raises his sword for an attack.

"No, actually I will" Says Stark as he takes a step back and opens up one of his fists, specifically his right one, to where his palm is facing the guard.

And it was from said palm that a short but very bright beam of light shot out and hit the guard straight in the face.

"Augh!!!" Screamed the guard as he was sent to the ground.

Before any of the other guards could react, Stark was already engaging another one, punching him hard in the gut, emitting an audible crunch sound, then headbutting him, sending a second guard to the ground.

If the crunch was from his armor, his ribs, or both, i couldn't tell.

I looked over to the two other guards, who seemed to have finally snapped out of their shock, and had taken out their swords, with one guard advancing over to Stark with his blade.

The guard stabbed forward, but missed as Stark dodged the attack.

With the guard exposed, Stark shot him with another beam of light from his right palm towards his chest, which sent the guard to the floor.

The fourth guard tried chopping Stark, almost successfully slicing him, if it weren't for the fact that Stark just grabbed the sword with his
right gauntlet, and closed his fist, breaking it in half.

"Whoa, can you imagine how screwed I would be if I wasn't wearing this?" Stark calmly asked the wide eyed guard.

"Eh" Stark says as he opens his hand to presumably shoot another beam of light at the remaining guard, who was taking several steps back.

But instead of a powerful beam of light, only sparks of light erupted from his palm.

"The hell?" Stark asks as he looks at his palm. "Oh, guess you actually managed to do something" he says as he lowered his right arm to the side, and raised his left one.

"Wait!" Screamed the last guard, but before he could say anything else, a beam of light had already hit him in the chest, knocking him onto the ground.

"Oh, he was gonna say something.. probably wasn't important" Stark says as he goes towards a downed guards body and grabs his sword.

I'm still processing what I've just witnessed, what were those beams of light from his palms? Attack spells? I do know that there's magic in Equestria, but don't you need to be a unicorn to utilize it?

I think back to the information master Stark has given me so far, his cousin is Twilight Sparkle, who I'm assuming is a very powerful unicorn.

So master comes from a unicorn family, but isn't one...

Oh, of course, his mother wasn't a pony. I don't actually know what his people are called though, I'll need to ask him later, but from what I can probably deduce, his people from his mother's side must have been smart as well if he was able to create his armor.

Of course! Stark adapted! He wasn't born a unicorn, or a pony for that matter because of his mother, but must of still had powerful magic from his father.

And without a horn to channel it, maybe his suit does?

...

Wait, Master Stark? Where did that come from?

...

And why am I already accepting it?

"Yo... Amira?" I hear Stark asking.

"Huh? Oh, sorry, I guess I zoned out" I reply.

"All good, anyway, here you go" Stark says as he hands me one of the guards swords.

"You can start practicing with a real sword now, at least until we actually find you a good blade" Says Stark.

"Thank you" I reply.

"Your welcome, now c'mon, suns setting, we should probably get a bit far from here in case they wake up" Stark says as he points behind him to the guards bodies.

"There not dead?" I ask.

"I mean... I don't think so... There, fine... probably" Stark says with some uncertainty.

"It's fine" I say.

I don't really have trouble if master Stark kills anyone, I mean, the guards did attack him.

"Aight, well c'mon Amira, let's find a spot to snooze the night away" Stark says as he starts walking towards the capital.

"Man, I don't think I very much like deserts" Stark says as he lays his head down onto his bag.

The sun has fully set, and we're pretty close to the capital now. Were currently sleeping on sand again, but it's not so bad.

"Well, good night Amira, see ya tomorrow" Stark says as he closes his eyes.

I'm left pondering to my thoughts, if I was a bit skeptical before that Stark was gonna be able to possibly pull this off, then that skepticism has evaporated.

With that suit, i think there's a very real chance Master will be able to do this.

...

Guess only tomorrow will tell...