Prologue:
Dusk

A cold icy gust howled as snow gently fell from the sky, blanketing the rocky mountain slopes. Further out snowy peaks could faintly be seen rising in the distance through the snowfall as they were starting to get hit by the rising sun. The magnificent white layer lay nearly completely undisturbed…

…Nearly

On one of the slopes the snow had melted away, revealing the grey rocks below. Though new flakes of the icy precipitation tried covering it back up, the surface below was still too warm for the flakes to survive.

In the center of the circle lay a well-toned male, unconscious, griffin. Brown-feathered wings fluttering in the cold winds, breathing slow and deliberate as those wings twitched and his body stirred.

Shooting up, I took a deep gasp of air as if I'd just been drowning and managed to stick my head above the water. I followed this by trying to scramble to my claws only to drop back down again as my legs did not respond in the way I'd expected…

What the hell? What's… this… Claws?!

I looked at the appendage, reasonably certain no human was supposed to have the grey appendages of raptors as hands. A quick inspection of the rest of my body revealed that the strange mutation wasn't exclusive to my hands. Legs had turned into the mighty muscled paws of a big cat, wings large and majestic like an eagle, my head following in the trend of that particular bird as a sharp beak protruded from it.

Holy sweet Jesus, this can't be happening! What the fuck is going on? This can't be right, there's no way… I'm dreaming, I must be dreaming.

My breathing sped up as panic spread through me at a rapid pace, as my eyes darted around. Equipment was scattered within the snow-cleared spot around me: camouflaged bags and clothing, rations, a tactical vest… there was no way my stupid mind could dream this mess up, right?

A glint caught my eye from something laying a bit further than the other stuff, lodged in the snow outside of the cleared space.

Alright, keep it together Jack. Whatever has happened, you're sure as hell not going to mope about it here until you're frozen. Survive now, freak out later.

Gritting my… beak, I tried standing up again, finding that if you aren't trying to stand up on just two legs instead of four it wasn't too hard to move about. The first order of business now moving about was an option was investigating if the glint was from what I assumed it was. Stumbling towards the spot I stuck the new claw into the snow and grasped the object that was hidden in it.

The scope was the first thing to emerge from the snow, followed by the barrel and then the body. Wiping off the snow revealed the magnificent rifle in all its glory.

“Hello my baby.” I couldn't help but smile at the sight of my long gun, an Arctic Warfare Magnum chambered in .338 lapua… Wow, this beak was much more flexible than I'd expected if I was able to pull that smile off. Deploying the bipod, I placed the weapon to the side, gathering all of the scattered equipment as the snow was starting to win out over the ground and lightly covering the gear. All in all, I found pretty much a complete setup for someone having to survive on their own, only bummer being that the camo was a green pattern rather than the white that'd be useful in the surroundings I was currently in.

Now if only I knew the reason for this stuff being here… or me for that matter… Ugh, what the hell am I going to do with a ghillie suit here?

Shaking the thought from my head I picked up the canteen I'd found and flipped it upside down in the metal cup that came with it before placing it to the side. The next thing I grabbed were the rations, three days of them. I was going to have to find an alternative source of food really soon, or it would be a very short run for me in this cold. The next thing I picked up was a large backpack, stashing most of the items I'd found into it and only leaving out the tactical vest, long gun, helmet, frag and smoke grenades, a Colt C7a2 with its vertical foregrip attached to the tactical rails surrounding the barrel, a Glock 17, mags, a maroon beret, my watch, and a BDU jacket.

I'm sure sarge can forgive the breaking of dress regulations in my current predicament.

Not that I was particularly cold yet, the feathers and fur on my new body seemed to be good insulation, but I could feel the cold from the outside trying to creep into my body, so an extra layer in the form of the buttoned jacket would be nice. I was pretty sure the jacket would still fit, after some modification with my knife to accommodate the wings of course, but the pants were another issue entirely, so I'd let those stay in the filled backpack.

The tactical vest was next, after strapping it tight I checked all of the mags in it, finding they were all topped off, four of them in total excluding the one already in the rifle. I knew there were more boxes of loose ammo I'd stashed away in the backpack but I'd have to line those up after getting off this mountain, out of the snow. The pistol was secured in its holster, next to a long knife sitting in its scabbard. The long gun I secured to the side of the backpack. No point in keeping that on hand if it wasn't needed. The C7 or Glock would be much more effective if by some random chance I managed to get into an engagement somehow. The helmet suffered the same fate as the sniper rifle as I opted to wear the beret instead.

Not like I'm wearing good camouflage anyway. Might as well make myself more visible in case there's another poor sod who got thrown into this mess.

Picking up the backpack and hoisting it onto my back went much better than expected, my body seemingly a lot stronger than what it had been even as a human. Sadly the backpack wasn't made for four-legged creatures but after pulling its straps tight it wasn't too bad… my wings also helped with the stability.

Wait, holy shit, I have wings!

Although I'd seen them already, the fact now really hit home as I flapped the appendages, feeling myself lift a little.

Whoa! Let's not jump the gun here. You're still on a mountain. Let's not become red paint at the bottom of a ravine just yet.

Closing the two appendages I looked around, picked a direction, and started to walk…

Tallgrass shot up from the ground all around me. The sun had long since dipped below the horizon, shrouding the large field in near-complete darkness. Not that it mattered with the night vision goggles placed on my head. I firmly grasped my rifle as inch for inch I snuck forward, not making the slightest of sound as I along with the rest of my squad made our way to the spot we'd scouted out.

The moon sat high in the sky as, after the hours-long trek, we arrived at the position we’d plotted out. Command had detected something here, and we were supposed to find out what. Getting to work further, Sarge had us build a camouflaged observation post that looked out over the marked open field and manned it, hoping to find out what in the world the higher ups had detected.

Hours went by. The moon advanced through the sky, and the sun started painting the sky in the colors of dawn. Animals waking from their slumber started to break the silence of night.

“Think we got sent out here on bogus intel? I mean, it was vague as hell but at least some high wig thought it important to send someone to check this place out,” Mark, one of the soldiers of the squad whispered to me as we shared the watch.

“I’m not expecting to find anything really. There’s nothing out here,” I huffed, slightly annoyed. “Just sit here for two days and count it as some free hazard pay.”

“Guess that’s not too bad really…” The both of us fell silent as we simultaneously noticed a change in the atmosphere. The forest that had previously been alive now deathly quiet, not even the rustling of leaves in the wind. A stinging headache came up as I looked back at the soldier next to me giving me another surprise as I now sat alone in the observation post. A black mist had flowed into our post, smothering all light, and plunging me into darkness. The pressure in my head quickly became unbearable, making my eyes roll into my skull and placing me at the edge of consciousness.

What… the hell… is going on…

Once again gasping for air, I shot up from my sleeping spot, cold sweat covering the fur and feathers of my body. My eyes quickly adjusted to the dim light that was coming over the horizon as I was quickly reminded of my situation, stuck in a foreign body and a day-long trek under my proverbial belt. Last night I’d set up a little makeshift tent in the treeline and built a fire before going to sleep in my sleeping bag while cradling my assault rifle.

Sun is coming up anyway. Let’s get everything packed up so I can move the moment that there’s enough light.

After packing camp I strode further into the forest to search for signs of either civilization or prey…

Chapter 1:
Company

Snow and ice clung itself to the feathers of my face as I trudged through the snow. Though this mattered little to me at the moment as my eyes were fixed on the smoke rising from the woods a couple of miles away from me. I had nearly missed it if I hadn’t, by complete chance passed through a clearing that allowed me a good view into the distance.

My food had run out the previous day and the utter lack of wildlife I’d ran into was a severe bummer for my supplies, though there had to be at least some because I’d heard the howl of wolves, so running into whoever was out there was a blessing. But all of that said, I still needed to reach the plume of smoke first.

Navigating through the thick forest was a bit of a challenge but eventually, the trees thinned enough that I was able to pick out shapes and colors that had no right existing in the forest.

Oh yes! That’s an encampment!

My heart was beating quickly in my chest and adrenaline coursed through my veins as I was no less than a hundred meters from the camp that I’d been searching for. I could clearly identify the three separate tents standing around a central fire now, four-legged shapes moving between them and aroun-

Wait, four-legged?

I immediately dropped to my stomach into the snow, looking at the encampment in front of me. Why had I expected to find humans here in the first place? I lay in complete silence trying to identify the creatures in the camp. One of them was clear, it was a half-cat, half-eagle creature like I was. The notion that it was a human-like me briefly crossed my mind but quickly cast away as it was more likely that this was one of the locals. The other creatures though made my heart flutter.

I’m going to have to get used to the impossible real quickly, won’t I?

A purple coated and haired unicorn was pacing around the camp, fiddling with various pieces of equipment around the camp while a light blue pegasus with the most magnificent rainbow-colored hair was tending to the fire who’s smoke I’d followed to this location. These were creatures of myth, strange as they were, standing no less than seventy meters from my location.

“Twilight, we can’t stay here for much longer. We still have to make our way back to the outpost, our supplies won’t last forever.” I kept my body close to the snow as I listened in on the ongoing conversation the pegasus had with the unicorn, baffled at the fact that they were speaking English of all languages.

“But I haven’t gotten good readings, Dash! Something happened out here a couple of days ago that sent a magic pulse all the way to Ponyville!”

“And you’re going to starve and freeze yourself to figure out what it was then?”

I think I like this pegasus’ thinking.

“Well…”

“Exactly. You can’t unravel all mysteries like this in an afternoon Twi,” the rainbow maned pegasus, or ‘Dash’ as the unicorn had called her, told its friend.

The small part of the conversation I’d picked up though gave me an invaluable nugget of information: Whatever brought me here, it had apparently attracted lots of attention.

“Awhoooo~”

My muscles immediately tensed as I heard the howl of a wolf, not in the far distance but really closeby. The inhabitants of the camp had also stopped all of their activities to look out into the forest. Nothing moved and nothing cracked as I carefully looked around me in an attempt to find the pack predators. Picking up a glimpse of one of them, moving towards the encampment.

Hot damn, those are big… or am I just small?

“Form a circle!” the bird-lion barked to its two companions as the canines moved closer, the glint of metal revealing it had a short blade to defend itself. One of the wolves made a rush forward but was driven back with a slash. The predator pack proceeded to circle the three, looking for an opening.

They won’t last long with only that bird-lion has a weapon… I guess now is as good a time as any to help them out.

I slung the C7 from my back into my claws, getting out of the snow and standing up. Having figured out how to stably stand on my back legs over the previous days I lined up a shot on one of the wolves, flicking the safety to semi.

Crack!

The wolf hadn’t even the time to howl in pain as it dropped to the snowy ground, the others jumped and looked to where the loud sound had come from. My ears rang as firing the rifle without hearing protection wasn’t a very nice experience.

Crack!

The second of their number dropped to the ground as the bird-lion jumped forward and stabbed a third in their confusion.

The wolves quickly realized they were losing too quickly with two of their number falling in quick succession and a third wounded. The pack turned around and sprinted back into the trees.

The two ponies looked at the two dead wolves in sheer horror while the bird-lion had turned to face me, interposing itself between the two ponies and the new potential threat. We locked eyes as I closed the final dozens of meters to the camp, our expressions hard as I kept my rifle at the ready to respond quickly if it’d decided to charge.

“Who are you?” it asked, trying to keep its voice as confident as her expression but it was clear she was afraid as well. The question though did cause me to pause.

What do I tell them? ‘Oh, I’m some alien turned into a species like yours?’ That was going to inspire much confidence.

“Did you kill those wolves?” Dash asked, trying to sound tough but fear was evident in her voice.

“Yes I did,” I finally answered, pushing the rifle back out of the way before dropping down onto all fours. “Call me Jack.”

The bird-lion eyed me suspiciously for a couple more seconds before she carefully sheathed her own blade and relaxed a bit. The two ponies, on the other hand, did not look very comforted so the creature turned to them. “I would have done the same thing to protect you two,” she flat out told them to their horror.

“I overheard you two speaking,” I looked at the ponies, “mind if I tag along back to whatever outpost you’re heading back to? I’m lost and ran out of food yesterday.”

“O-Of course, we can r-ration out our food until we g-get back,” Twi stammered as I now closed the distance to the little encampment. “We should b-break up camp quickly then, while we still have light to head back.”

The bird-lion nodded, moving to what was her tent and started breaking it down. Twi did the same with hers but Dash stuck around looking up at me. “I’ve never seen any griffin in clothes and with gear like that,” she said, her voice much steadier than it had been moments prior.

“I’m… different from other griffins.”

Of course! Griffin! That shouldn’t have taken me that long to get into my head… At least I know what to call myself now.

“I guess so…” Dash said, awkwardly looking up at me as she didn’t know what to say further.

“Need help with your tent?” I asked in an attempt to break the silence. She looked back at her tent and nodded.

“That’d be awesome, yeah.”

Taking down the tent was a job swiftly done as the ponies loaded up their equipment to get ready to move. They shared some of their food with me, which I gratefully took before we headed out into the white of the forest. The griffin I’d yet to get a name for lead the group followed by Twi, me, and lastly Dash.

“So what do I call you?” I asked of the pegasus, it took her a moment to register the question.

“Oh! I’m Rainbow Dash, fastest flier in Equestria!” She exclaimed, full of pride. “That over there is Twilight Sparkle, and the griffin in front is Griselda, our guide.” I chuckled at the demeanor of the pegasus as she introduced me to the others. “You said your name was Jack?”

I nodded. “Jack Grey. Pleased to meet you, Rainbow Dash.” I held out my claw which she shook with her hoof. “So tell me, why were the three of you out here in the first place?”

This got Twilight’s attention as she slowed down ever so slightly to match Rainbow and me. “That’s a question I can answer for you. A couple of days ago there was an event somewhere within these mountains that sent a pulse of magic all over the world, creating this beautiful aurora. Since this was something unprecedented in Equestria’s history, the princess asked me to go check it out.”

There it is again, this ‘Equestria’. I guess that’s their kingdom if they have a princess.

“Do you have any idea what it might have been?” I asked knowing full well that this most likely was me being deposited in this strange world.

“Well, to be honest, not really. The event was so energetic that I haven’t got a clue about what might have caused it,” Twilight admitted.

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out at some point, miss Sparkle,” I assured her, no point in letting them know about myself yet… not that they would believe me anyway…

Though she did say a fuckin’ magic pulse…

“So what’s your story, Jack?” Rainbow asked, “You said you were out here for days and got lost?”

“I was wondering that as well, there’s nothing out here but snow, trees, and ice… the only thing of note here is the thing the ponies are after,” Griselda asked cynically, stopping in her path to face me while one of her claws rested on the shortsword strapped to her side. I mirrored her and rested a claw on the Glock that was strapped to my chest, glaring her down.

“That’s what lost means, doesn’t it?” I argued but the griffin just huffed.

“You don’t just wander up in these forests if you don’t know what you’re doing or where you’re going,” she argued, pulling the shortsword slightly out of her scabbard. Following the rules of escalation, I tightened my claw around the grip of the pistol and pulled it halfway out. The two ponies backed off as tension building up between the two of us was getting so thick it could be cut with a knife.

I can’t tell them about this, right? But then again, if I don’t tell something to that griffin this is going to be a very ugly fight… Aaagh, what the fuck am I doing anyway? I’m talking to a bunch of mythological creatures what the fuck do I care about what they think about my sanity?!

“You want to know the truth then? Fine. That magic pulse event thing? You’re looking at it,” I growled, the jaws of the two ponies dropped in awe. “I’ve been turned into a completely different species, spent the last three days wandering alone through these damned forests trying to find civilization while my food was running out, and then to top it off had to engage wolves to save your asses!
I’m cold, tired and my nerves are fried! So if you pull that sword, I swear to god, you’ll be dead before you’ve hit the ground!” With that, I pulled the pistol and kept it squarely aimed squarely at the other griffin’s head.

Griselda froze as her eyes widened. Although she couldn't know what the device in my claws exactly was, she’d seen what had happened to the wolves and could most likely imagine what would happen to her. She decided to pick the only option I’d left her and released the sword, letting it slide back into its scabbard.

“J-Jack, calm down,” Dash stuttered as she stepped forward and reached out and placed a hoof on my arm, I turned my head slightly to look at her in the corner of my eye. Lowering the pistol, I slowly re-holstered the gun.

“Just get me out of this damn tundra.”

Chapter 2:
Civilization

Smoke rose from the few houses that formed the outpost, our group had travelled for almost two days to reach this little settlement. The journey had been relatively quiet, not because Twilight lacked questions to ask but because she looked to be too afraid to ask them. I didn't fully trust Griselda either after the first day so the tension in the group hadn't really settled.

“Our contract is completed, feel free to not approach me for a new one,” Griselda growled, marching off towards the outpost and leaving me with the two ponies.

“Charming griffin she was,” I muttered.

"Yeah, no offense but Griffins seem to all be like that," Rainbow agreed, making me frown.

Wow, racism much.

"None taken. Not my kind anyway remember," I casually brushed off the comment, looking at Twilight behind me as I’d figured out she was obviously the leader of the two ponies. “So what are you two going to do?”

“Well… I’m not sure,” Twilight admitted, “I was sent here to figure out what caused the magic pulse, but if what you said is true… well… could you come back to Equestria with us?” Twilight progressively made herself smaller as her voice lost power, looking at me as if I was going to explode into her face for no reason. Raising an eyebrow, I thought over her proposition.

I mean, do I have anything to lose from this? Either I’ve gone insane or I’m genuinely stuck in some land with colourful mythological creatures. Assuming either is true following one who seems to want to help me and knows what she’s talking about doesn’t sound like a bad idea...

“Alright, that sounds acceptable,” I replied, the unicorn immediately bloomed up and smiled.

“Really?! Thankyouthankyouthankyou!” She hopped around in the snow in her excitement, I couldn’t help but smile at the display.

“Calm down there, I’d like to keep moving so we need to restock our supplies,” I told her, getting her back down to earth.

“Oh yes, I’ll go do that. We might be able to reach the train station by nightfall to take the morning train that way!” Twilight happily made her way into the outpost while Dash and I looked at her go.

“You really made her day with that,” Rainbow commented as she smiled up at me, I chuckled in response.

“I’ve honestly got no clue what I’d have done otherwise,” I admitted as I started moving towards the outpost as well, Rainbow remained close by me and with the way she was glancing at me constantly it was pretty clear she wanted to ask something. “Ok, ask what you want to ask but stop looking at my butt like that.”

The blush that formed on the Rainbow’s face was positively adorable to see as she stumbled over her own hooves.

“I wasn’t looking at that! I was just looking at that thing strapped to your backpack!” Dash immediately stopped and held her hooves over her mouth.

“You mean the rifle?” I replied with a raised eyebrow.

“Y-Yes,” she stammered, looking afraid of having asked something inappropriate. “All of those strange tools you have actually.”

“Maybe I’ll tell you later, let’s focus on getting away from this remote place first.” I really didn’t know if I really wanted to tell her about the workings of the guns so I was just pushing it back to think about later.

“Ok, I guess that’s cool I guess...” Rainbow replied, following me the remaining distance to the outpost where we looked for Twilight, finding her in the little store where she was already paying the griffin store owner for the supplies she’d gathered.

“Ah, Jack, I got enough food to get us onto the train tomorrow, is there anything you might need?” Twilight asked as she stashed the items into her bags with her magic.

That’s going to remain freaky as hell to see in the flesh.

“No, I’m good. We can get going if you two are ready?” I told Twilight to her satisfaction.

“Of course, we'll head out right away!” Twilight confidently strode back out while the griffin at the counter murmured something and stored away the bits. The unicorn led us to a marked path that led even further away from the mountains that lay behind us. I glanced back to see Griselda scowl at us for a last time but mostly didn’t pay it any mind as it wasn’t my problem anymore.

“Jack, would you mind if I asked you some questions?” Twilight asked, finally having built the courage to approach me. Not having the other griffin around to build tension probably helped as well on that front.

“Fire,” I simply replied, only for Twilight to rear back and shrink. “I meant go ahead.” clarifying this seemed to bring back Twilight’s cheer as she levitated a quill and parchment. I couldn’t help but snort in amusement.

“What? Did I do something wrong?” Twilight immediately thought she had done something offensive but quickly noticed that I was smirking. I pulled a ballpoint pen out of a pocket that could hold four of them on my upper arm and presented it to Twilight.

“Use that instead, you’ll be much easier off.” The unicorn picked the pen up in her magic and inspected the little device, clicking the button multiple times before testing it by writing on the parchment.

“T-This is amazing! The ink dries so quickly!... and it replenishes from an inkwell on the inside?!” Twilight was completely captivated by the minuscule device as she used it to write down her observations on the parchment. Rainbow, on the other hand, burst out laughing at her friend’s antics.

“Really Twi, of all you’ve seen of Jack the thing that interests you the most is a special pen?” She rolled in the snow out of laughter to the embarrassment of her purple friend.

“It’s a magnificent piece of engineering, Rainbow!” Twilight exclaimed, her cheeks burning.

“So magnificent my kind makes millions of them each day,” I chuckled, adding fuel to the fire of Rainbow’s laughter and Twilight’s embarrassment but it also gave her a nugget of information to work off.

“You make millions of these?! Why would you need so many of them?!” Twilight exclaimed before a much more pertinent question came to her mind. “What is ‘your kind’ for that matter?”

“Ever heard of humans?” Twilight shook her head to no surprise of mine. “Wasn’t expecting you to anyway. We are… well… I was, but you know…”

Rainbow immediately got up next to me, having gotten out of her fit of laughter and caught back up with us, nudging my side with her wing. “Hey, you’re handling this whole change of species much better than I would have dude.”

“Heh, thanks Rainbow,” I smiled at the pegasus, picking up the briefest hint of red on her cheek. “Anyway, humans are essentially really evolved apes who use tools for just about everything they do.”

“Is that why you carry those… things?” Twilight eyed the rifle that hung against my side and the pistol strapped against my chest.

“Yes, they’re part of my job, I’m a soldier,” I answered to Twilight’s widening eyes.

“Y-Your kind was at war?!” Twilight exclaimed in utter astonishment. I just shrugged in response.

“It’s kind of foggy, I can’t really remember what happened directly before I came here but I’m pretty sure we were only running the usual counter-insurgency rather than all-out war.” Of course, I knew what I used to do but I was pretty sure that there was a whole swathe of memories missing.

“So you have a standing army even though you’re not at war?” Twilight still couldn’t get herself over that fact, sounding as if it was a horrible thing.

“Oh come on, Twi, What’s the big deal? You of all ponies should know the old Pegasi used to do the same thing. Even now Cloudsdale has a small militia beside the guard just in case!” Rainbow interjected, coming to my defence.

“Prepared for the worst and hope for the best,” I nodded in agreement to Rainbow. Twilight sighed in resignation, as she had to admit to herself that it wasn’t really that bad to have some kind of standing force after all.

“Alright, fine, but that still doesn’t explain why you have such destructive tools to do so!”

“Look, my world isn’t all sunshine and rainbows so some measure of force needs to be applied every now and then to keep us safe. And when your enemy has weapons like these too you don’t go against them with worse equipment.” I gave her a look of finality that the conversation on this topic was over, Twilight shrunk down immediately under my gaze and looked ready to bolt. Rainbow, on the other hand, did not notice this and happily continued on.

“Soo, how do they work? It can’t be that the loud sound alone is dangerous, right?” she wondered to my annoyance.

“It uses an explosive charge to propel a projectile to high speed,” I stated, “The sound is just because the little explosion and the bullet breaking the sound barrier.”

“Like when I do my sonic rainboom then… huh, neat, I guess that’s pretty fast.”

Stopping dead in my tracks I stared at Rainbow in disbelief, my entire previous train of thought disrupted as I burst into laughter. “You can fly faster than the speed of sound?” I snickered, “Come on, you’re joking right?”

Rainbow did not look at my reaction with the slightest bit of amusement, accusingly stabbing her hoof into my chest. “Hey, watch it! I’ll even prove it for you!” she growled before shooting straight up into the air, my laughter dying down slightly as this crazy female actually seemed to be serious.

“Now you’ve done it,” Twilight casually said as she sat down to look at the display Rainbow was going to give. I could still see the little speck that was Rainbow pretty clearly as she got to the zenith of her flight up and now barreling straight down to the ground. My jaw dropped as I faintly saw a mach cone forming around her,

No way... She was being serious, wasn’t she?

KABOOM!

A ring made of rainbow barreled outwards, lighting up the sky and pushing any clouds that were present in the air out of the way of its path. Dash herself was trailed by a sparkling rainbow as she corkscrewed through the air, and made turns that must've been putting immense g-forces on her body.

“S-She… She… WHAT?!”

“Oh yeah! Whatcha think? Am I awesome or am I awesome?” Dash had landed in front of me with the biggest shit-eating grin on the planet while I was still struggling to find the right words.

“You broke him, Dash,” Twilight giggled at the sight of my complete cognitive dissonance. “Come on, we’ve got quite a bit to go before we arrive at the train station if we want to get there before dark…”

We had a little campfire going a couple of dozen meters away from the train station where we’d set up a single tent to be able to sleep under some cover. Twilight had divided up the food she’d gotten in the afternoon between the three of us which we ate while we still had a bit of sunlight left. I’d, at least partially, recovered from the fact that a being existed that could crash through the sound barrier without the help of a fighter jet, Rainbow was still smug about the fact that she could do it.

“Hey Jack, can I ask you something?” Rainbow asked after finishing her own meal, giving a nod in return as we had been exchanging knowledge and facts about our worlds all day anyway. “Back at the outpost you said you’d tell me about those rifles of yours later, could you do it now?”

“Rainbow!” Twilight exclaimed immediately, “What is up with you?!”

“Oh come on Twi, he’s got these awesome tools and you just want to ignore them! And besides, it's not like he's a real griffin, just has the body of one,” Rainbow groaned exasperatedly.

Again, what in the world is wrong with griffins?... wait, is it because they're herbivores and I'm an omnivore?

“They’re weapons Dash, not toys!” Twilight argued as I saw Dash looking at me in an attempt to get my support in the matter.

“She’s not wrong, Rainbow. They’re indeed not toys, they’re tools to be respected and cared for,” I told her, not taking the side she’d hope I take, “But I guess I can run you through the basics, not like I haven’t done that for interested parties before.”

And it’s not like she can pull the trigger with her hooves anyway.

Twilight groaned and shook her head while Dash beamed. Grabbing my backpack I procured a set of earplugs and picked my helmet that also had active hearing protection integrated into its headset. “I only have hearing protection for two people so we’ll take a bit of distance from the camp.”

“Awesome, lead the way!” Dash beamed as I grabbed the C7 and led her a good hundred meters away to where we had a good view of the decently sized field bordering the train station.

“Alright, first things first, some rules. This is a live firearm, you don’t do anything without my express permission, understand?” Rainbow calmed down a bit as she listened carefully, giving a nod to me that she understood. “Second, you never point the business end at me, Twilight, or anyone else for that matter. If I catch you doing that, I will knock you off your hooves and end this demonstration immediately.”

Pulling the C7 in front of my chest I presented the assault rifle to Dash for her to look at, pulling one of my extra mags out of the tactical vest. “These are the projectiles that get fired out of the rifle, the brass at the back is the cartridge that holds an explosive while the front bit is what comes out of the rifle.”

I continued to explain the basic operating functions of the rifle to make sure she had remembered the entire sequence before placing her behind the weapon in a prone position. “Place it into your shoulder like… that. Now see that particularly tall tree over there?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Aim the scope’s dot dead centre and pull the trigger.” I waited for Dash to face me and tell me her hoof didn’t fit in the trigger guard, but what I did not expect was for the rifle to produce a loud report.

Crack!

WHAT?! How… Oh screw it, she can break the sound barrier and probably do some other freaky magic shit, why in the world would I not expect her to be able to pull a trigger?

Rainbow meanwhile was shaking slightly from the adrenaline rush in awe from the loud bang and recoil, her wings fully extended as she looked past the weapon towards the tree. “That was AWESOME!”

Shaking my head I sighed and smiled, nothing I could change now. “That it is, but let’s leave the shooting for another time when we have light,” I pointed out before she would force me to go through more irreplaceable ammo.

“Right, of course!” Dash handed–hoofed?–the rifle back to me, careful not to point it at anything important as I told her. I picked up the cartridge and stashed it away as well.

“Let’s go catch some sleep then so we'll be well-rested for the train tomorrow,” I chuckled making our way back to the tent where Twilight was already laying in her bedroll, not that she was asleep after the previous gunshot, but she didn’t really speak as she tried getting rest. Getting into my own bedroll, I said my good-nights and listened to the calming sound of the forest lull me to sleep.

Chapter 3:
Trainride

Soft snoring entered my ears as I woke due to the morning rays falling on my eyes. Yawning widely, I opened my eyes to find my beak stuck into a particular colorful bundle of hair. Somewhere in the night Rainbow had rolled up against me in her sleeping bag, continuing her sleep blissfully unaware of that fact. Pulling out of her mane gave me a good view of her face.

Heh, she’s kinda pretty…

It took a couple of seconds for my mind to register what I’d just thought about Rainbow.

Holy shit, did you just think an animal was pretty?… Well… animal might be a bit rude, more like an alien since she’s actually intelligent… Does that make it right?… Damnit, stupid, stupid brain!

Looking past the pegasus pony in question I saw that Twilight had done the exact opposite of Rainbow and rolled to the side of the tent and nestled there. Dash yawned at that point, lazily opening her eyes to find me goofily grinning at her. “Good morning.”

Rainbow yelped in surprise, jumping out of her sleeping bag. This woke Twilight as well, who sleepily and confusedly looked between me and Rainbow. “Uhm, what happened?”

“N-Nothing!” Rainbow replied, blushing thoroughly. Twilight groaned, rolling her eyes and turned over to her other side as she couldn’t be bothered to deal with Dash right now. I chuckled, zipping open my sleeping bag and getting out of it to join Dash out of bed. “Hey what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to make breakfast of course,” I told Dash in a way that made it sound as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“But it’s just after sunrise!” Rainbow exclaimed, baffled at the early hour.

“And? Perfect time to get up and about, isn’t it?” I said with a smirk as I dug through my backpack to get the little gas burner that was in there, pouring water into the metal cup that came with it to heat it to boiling. Rainbow just dumbfoundedly stared at me working on the couple of sandwiches, placing them to the side as I got a trio of cups from Twilight’s saddlebags and poured the boiling water into them before getting an unused tea bag from my depleted rations.

“Miss Sparkle, breakfast is ready!” I called out to Twilight who stirred in her sleeping bag and looked out in surprise to see me sipping from a cup while Rainbow was still staring at me.

“Oh, thank you! That’s very kind,” Twilight said carefully as she noticed the three sandwiches, one for each of us, and got out of her sleeping position to join in. Passing long the food and drinks I bit into my sandwich.

“Just a warning, the quality of tea in rations is very wide-ranging. It’s either drinkable or liquid poison, so be warned,” I told them, Twilight eyed the cup suspiciously, taking a little sip before spitting it out again. “If you want I guess I can make coffee too?” I offered sheepishly as an afterthought to which both ponies looked up with glistening eyes.

“Yes please,” Twilight said as I boiled some more water and used some instant coffee to get them their new drinks.

“At least that stuff is supposed to taste terrible,” I smirked, getting a few amused chuckles from the two ponies. “So, when is this train supposed to arrive?”

“Somewhere between now and noon. It depends on how long it’s held up in Griffinstone,” Twilight answered through bites of her sandwich. “We’ll have at least an hour left to get ready.”

“Sounds like a plan, I’ll get to breaking down the tent.” While the ponies finished up their breakfast I took down our sleeping accommodation and stashed them in the bags they were supposed to go.

Within forty-five minutes we were standing on the platform and waiting for the train to arrive, bags laid to the side as carrying them would only be tiring. It hadn’t taken long after for Rainbow to get bored so she eventually decided to just go practice moves in the air.

“I wonder how it feels being up there…”

“Huh, what?” Twilight asked questioningly as I continued to stare at the patterns Rainbow was flying in the air.

“You know, flying and such,” I elaborated, only receiving a blank stare from the unicorn.

“You have wings you know?” she deadpanned, poking at the appendage. I flinched at the feeling of her hoof brushing against them, making her pull back and shrink down again.

Does she expect me to eat her or something?

“Hey, just because I have them doesn’t mean I exactly know how to use them.”

“You don’t know how to fly?!” I jumped to see Rainbow hovering behind me, looking at me unbelievingly. “Dude, I’m so going to teach you how to use these babies! Come on, let’s start right now!”

“Wait, what?”

“You heard me, open those wings!” Dash instructed sternly, reminding me of a drill sarge. Smiling, I open the two appendages to their full span, looking them over and truly admiring them for the first time.

“Now most of the basics should come instinctively but true control is going to take some time for you to learn,” Rainbow continued, opening her own wings and making a flapping motion with them. “replicate what I'm doing, from the angle of my wings to the motions I'm making, exactly. Once you have it down increase the power and speed of your flaps gradually until you go into a hover. Understand?”

I nodded and started to duplicate the pegasus' motions, taking a bit to get the movements down with the new appendages but eventually getting to the point where I could start increasing the power. The moment I lifted off from the platform my heart jumped in my chest.

I'm flying! I'm really flying!

Not that it lasted long as keeping myself in balance in the air was actually really hard. I increased the power of my flaps to compensate but that only made my little flight more unstable as I tumbled back down.

“Harder then it looks, isn't it, tough guy?” Dash smirked as I bounced off of the ground while she flew around me with contemptuous ease.

“Careful there, colours, once I've got this down you'll have some real competition to contend with,” I shot back with a smirk of my own. “But honestly, Flying under my own power like that... It's beyond awesome. I've done free falls with a parachute but this is something way different.”

“Not to interrupt you two but the train's coming.” Twilight pointed to the track in the distance where the train was rapidly approaching. “We should get ready to board quickly, the griffins don't like to be held up for long on a small station like this one.”

I nodded and picked up my backpack, waiting for the train to stop. Watching in wonder as the large steam engine came to a grinding halt.

Holy… they don't make them like this on earth anymore… It's magnificent.

After pulling my eyes away from the locomotive I followed Twilight and Rainbow to a conductor where the unicorn got us the required tickets, raising her voice against the griffins about the price, before entering a cart and walking along the train until we reached the appropriate one.

“So, do you have any good way of passing the time where you come from?” Rainbow asked as the carts of the train were pulled from the small station by the engine in front, boredom already setting in for the pegasus.

“Nothing that I have with me, sadly,” I admitted, lord knows how much I would have liked to show them a mobile phone. Dash groaned and flopped on her back while Twilight had a parchment out.

“Since we'll be on this train for a couple of hours would you mind if I asked a couple more questions?” Twilight asked, giddy for more knowledge but clearly still careful not to step on my toes. I chuckled in response and gave her a nod.

“Go ahead, start your interrogation,” I jabbed at her, laying down on my seat, Twilight grumbling under her breath that she wasn't that bad.

“I actually wanted to ask you personally some questions this time. Your world is very interesting but I really want to get to know some more about the person who got stuck in our world.”

I sighed but realized that it would have been inevitable for the questions to be asked at some point and gave her a nod.

“Alright, so I know your name’s Jack Grey and that you’re a soldier, but other than that you haven’t told anything about yourself, like what is even your age?” Twilight asked, ready with the ballpoint pen.

“Well, I’m twenty-five but I don’t know if that transfers to this world’s time. I’m going to assume it’s the same for my sanity’s sake,” I stated. “To be honest I’m not that spectacular of a person, I’m good at what I do, have my hobbies, but other than that…”

“So you said you were a soldier. What do you exactly do since you’re not at war?” Twilight asked after scribbling some things down.

“Well, we might not have been at war but I think I mentioned counter-insurgency before. There are some regions on our world that have less… savoury groups running around them. It’s a very complicated situation,” I explained briefly, not really feeling like explaining the geopolitical situation on earth.

“What kind of groups exactly?” Twilight continued, oblivious to my feelings but looking concerned.

“What’s this world’s experience with terrorism?” I asked, getting a response from Dash, who had been laying back in boredom.

“What’s that?” The pegasus asked with a raised eyebrow

Wait, what?

“I got to go with Dash there, is terror widespread or something?” Twilight asked as well.

Shit, I can’t tell them about all this crap if they’re this oblivious…

“There are certain groups… I really don’t want to talk about it…” I nervously tapped my claw on the couch I was laying on while suppressing some of my memories of some suicide attacks, desperately trying to avoid the topic Twilight was broaching.

“Oh… okay, I guess we can move on to some other questions. I wanted to ask about your actual home, do you have any family?” Twilight shifted the subject.

I swallowed as tears welled up in my eyes. “Yeah, my dad, mom, and little bro.” my voice cracked as the thought of family came crashing down. “They’re going to think I’m dead, aren’t they?”

Dash, by this point, had sat up and opened a wing, draping it across my back. Twilight quietly nodded as she lowered her parchment. I dug into one of the pockets on my chest, pulling out a notebook opening it to find a picture of me giving my little brother a noogie. Tears fell down while I held the wrinkled picture against my chest.

“I-I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked,” Twilight stammered guiltily.

“Don’t be, it was going to come up at some point regardless,” I told croacked, wiping away the tears in my eyes and holding out the picture for her to look at, a lumb still stuck in my throat. “That’s what male humans look like.”

Twilight carefully picked up the picture in her telekinesis and scribbled some things down on her parchment before passing it back for me to store up again. “I promise you that if I can figure out how you got here I will do everything I can to get you back.”

“Thanks, I really appreciate that.” I smiled as Twilight rolled up the parchment, stashing it away.

“Well, continue later,” Twilight said with a smile, allowing me to sit in silence and watch the trees go by and the snow slowly disappear. Light snoring came from beside me as Dash was napping while Twilight read a book. This remained the case for a good hour before I noticed a flock of something flying over the tracks ahead.

I wonder wha-

Screeeeee!~

The train shook violently as the emergency brakes engaged, flinging Dash and me out of our seats from the rapid deceleration. My heart rate immediately spiked as my mind went into overdrive trying to figure out what had happened.

“What the buck was that?!” Dash exclaimed as she picked herself off of the floor, having been rudely awakened.

“Rainbow, language!” Twilight berated her friend. I ignored the two of them for the moment, opening the window and looking out front towards the locomotive.

“Fuck!” Twilight stared at me wide-eyed as I pulled back inside, having seen enough to get hit by a wave of paranoia, and immediately jumping for my backpack and gear.

“Jack!” Twilight called out again, looking appalled.

“There’s a large group of griffins armed with blades and bows circling the front of the train,” I clarified, strapping my backpack tightly on my back while checking the ammo of my rifle and putting a round in the chamber. No-one was going to catch me dead on my feet.

“Don’t you think you’re slightly overreacting?” Twilight asked, fidgeting nervously as she looked at me. Before I could reply the cart’s door opened, a griffin with a brandished blade stepped in who looked through the cart, his eyes falling on Rainbow and Twilight.

“I found them!”

Crack!

Turning back to the pale-faced ponies I locked eyes with Twilight.

“No, I don’t.”

Chapter 4:
Hunted

“Y-You k-killed him?!” Twilight stammered, her breathing accelerating as I could see panic set in.

“Snap out of it! They’re here for you two and I don’t see them having very good intentions if they get you!” Pulling both Twilight and Rainbow up from their seats. “Move. Now!”

Both the ponies spurred into action and ran the opposite way to where the griffin had come from, me hot on their heels getting a glance of other griffins rushing through the train towards their cart. Pushing out of our cart I quickly checked the sky to see if we wouldn’t get ambushed from above before pushing Dash and Twilight off of the train and pointing at the treeline.

“We lose them in there!” I called out, continuing to scan our surroundings, seeing some of the griffins spot us and rushing our way. One of them notched an arrow on his bow and took aim.

Hell no you don’t!

Crack!
Crack!

The griffin cried out and dropped out of the sky, one of his wings pulled against his body and the other flopping about as he bounced off the train onto the ground.

Not wasting any time I ran after Twilight and Dash, only using three legs significantly slowing me down as I needed to hold on to my rifle as well.

shit, there must be a better alternative to holding this thing... What if I...

In a bright moment I stashed away my rifle under a wing, freeing up my legs to run into the trees with the two ponies. Twilight was obviously not used to running as her breath was already ragged, which slowed Rainbow down who clearly could go much faster. Arrows crashed into the trees around us as the screeching of the griffins came from the train, I was sure they’d be hot on our tails very soon.

We need some more cover…

Pulling a smoke grenade from my vest I tossed it into the trees where it immediately started billowing out its white cloud, obscuring us from view. Aiming my rifle again I flicked the fire selector to automatic and pulled the trigger.

Ratatatata

Another cry came from the other side of the smoke as I hoped that it would make them hesitate in following us.

“W-Who were they?” Dash asked as we ran deeper and deeper into the woods through the foliage.

“Don’t ask me, I haven’t got a clue… That way!” I pointed to a rock formation that’d give a little cover, immediately throwing my backpack onto the ground, digging through it, and pulling out my two reserve camo shirts. “Put those on.”

“What?” Twilight managed to gasp as she was woefully out of breath while Rainbow immediately grabbed the shirt and pulled it on.

“You two are way too colourful to be able to hide effectively in the woods,” I explained, pushing the shirt into her forelegs while digging through my backpack further and pulling a second smoke grenade out of it.

“Wait, but how does this cover for my hair?” Dash asked as she awkwardly wore the shirt due to her wings being in the way and not wanting to cover them.

“We give them a temporary colour later,” I stated, stashing stuff back into my backpack again.

“So what do we do now? Can’t we just, I don’t know, fight them?” Dash continued, Twilight meanwhile was doing breathing exercises to lower the rate at which she was breathing and prevent herself from falling to panic completely.

“If I fight them it’ll be a massacre and it’ll take only one lucky arrow to take me out, two things I’d like to avoid. We keep moving, these guys don’t sound stupid and will most likely try to track us if we lose them as well,” I said, shouts from the direction of the train coming closer to our position as I slammed a new magazine into my rifle. “Let’s go, we’ve been stationary for too long already.”

We sprinted out of our cover, the thick foliage of the forest obscuring us for a while before a cry came from behind as we were spotted. Like I had hoped, the trees were too close to each other for the griffins to take flight and the roof of the forest was dense enough that hiding below it would be easy, greatly aiding our escape.

“Where are we even going?!” Twilight called out as I could see a couple of griffins started to close the distance with us.

“Someplace south... I hope! Right now that’s like step ten, we’re still on step two Twilight!” I growled, coming to a halt for a moment and checking the area behind me for griffins, raising my rifle and firing at a small group of unfortunate griffins who’d gotten ahead of the others.

“I don’t know who you are but we have no issue with you! If you give us the ponies we’ll let you live!” One of the griffins in the back shouted through the forest as I turned and continued to run on. "They're ponies anyway, what are they worth to you?!"

“You'll get them over my cold, dead, corpse!” I called back, catching back up to Dash and Twilight who got quite a bit ahead.

My legs burned with righteous fury as I accelerated as much as possible to close with the two ponies again before I would lose them in the bushes.

“Jack… I can’t… keep running like this…” Twilight’s voice was ragged as I caught up with them, the cries behind us getting quieter. My guess was that the griffins had halted momentarily after seeing so many of their own get taken out with such ease in the short engagement. I had no illusion about them not following us further, constantly keeping a suspicious eye on the sky, but any lead we could build up over them would be very welcome.

“Slow down a bit but keep moving,” I replied, my voice also ragged as I’d been keeping up with the ponies even with the gear I was dragging along.

“Why would those griffins be after us?” Dash asked, looking up at me. She was doing much better than Twilight was but was visibly out of breath too. “I know they're dicks but what did we ever do to them?”

“It’s not what you did, it’s who you are,” I told her as I pulled a compass from my vest, thanking whatever deity that looked over this world again that it seemed to give a consistent direction.

“What do you mean?” Rainbow asked, still confused.

“Twilight, you said you were here on your princess’s request, right?” I asked, in response to Dash’s question, getting a nod from the unicorn who was still catching her breath. “They weren’t interested in me, they just wanted you two, and since you have never met that group the most logical reason for them to go after you two is because they want to get something from your princess.”

“So they want us because they want to get something from the princess?” Twilight repeated, still sounding confused. I nodded at her.

“Yes. They probably want to achieve a goal that the princess would usually not agree with but by capturing you they have leverage over her. Either she agrees to demands or they harm you.” Both ponies’ eyes went wide as the point was driven home.

“That’s… horrible!” Twilight exclaimed, looking horrified. "Even for Griffins that's low"

Oh for fuck... The moment we're out of this I'm finding out why Griffins are such asses.

“Then why did you help us then?” Dash asked after cutting my train of thought.

“Pardon me?”

“Why did you help us? They weren’t after you so you could have just let them take us and not gotten yourself in danger,” Dash pointed out. “We only know you for like four days after all.”

“Because... well... I don't know, you're the only friendly people I know I guess?” I answered. “And it's not like I would ever forgive myself if I just let two innocents, regardless of their views on species, get captured by obviously violent forces.”

“That’s…” Dash winced back at my words and tried to find something to say, but nothing came to her mind. “Thanks, I guess.”

“Don’t thank me yet, this isn’t over until you’re back home under the protection of your own government,” I told them, storing the compass back into my vest. “Is that direction south?”

Rainbow looked up at the sky and then towards the direction I was pointing. “Yeah.”

“Good, let’s go put as much distance between us and them before finding out how to get you two to them.”

By the time we took a break from travelling the sun was closing in on the horizon. Twilight dropped onto the ground, dog tired from the walking and tension of the possibility of being caught.

“I hope you two don’t mind sharing a sleeping bag,” I asked as I pulled it from my backpack and laid it out on the ground. Rainbow and Twilight looked at each other and shook their heads.

“We’re not, but where are you going to sleep if we have the sleeping bag?” Twilight asked groggily.

“I take first watch, I’ll wake you in three, maybe four, hours so I can take a nap before you can wake me for the morning watch again,” I explained, pulling out some of the leftover food we still had from the prior day and dividing it up.

“Are you sure you’re okay getting that little sleep?” Twilight sounded a bit bewildered at the fact I was willing to forgo so much rest.

“Training was way worse so don’t worry about me,” I chuckled, chomping down on the bit of our remaining food. We really didn’t have the supplies for this venture.

“If you say so…” Twilight responded, not enough energy left to ask further questions. After the meal Rainbow and I did a quick survey of our surroundings so we'd know the best way to run if we had to.

"Hey Jack, you know I don't hold you being a Griffin against you right?" she whispered, getting a huff from me.

"Sure making the effort to make me think otherwise," I grunted back. "What's so bad about griffins anyway?"

Rainbow sighed in response, placing a hoof on my chest to stop me from moving further. "There's some bad blood between the two of our kinds, griffins don't exactly make themselves more popular with their greed. I have some more personal history with one... good and bad, I know they aren't all like that all the time."

I looked Rainbow in the eyes in the fading light, finding them to only show sincerity. "Alright then, it was starting to bother me a bit. I'll make my judgement when I meet enough of them."

"That's fair," Rainbow agreed, walking back to the little camp site again before darkness would envelop it. The two ponies snuggled up in the sleeping bag, both dozing off nearly immediately. Being left to my own devices again I pulled my backpack close and took out the ghillie suit.

Guess this thing will come in handy after all.

Using my knife and some rope to remodel the suit, I sewed and cut the pieces so it would be wearable in my current form. Having some large cut pieces left over I proceeded to tie them together and wrapped them around my rifles. Stashing the gear again I continued to pull out the two pairs of pants that were still in there.

These things might fit on the two of them after cutting in a place for their tails and shorten the legs a bit and that should hide their fur somewhat better.

Eyeballing the modifications to the pants and leaving the legs in place so I could at least properly measure them out to adjust on my second watch.

After having finished working on the clothing I pulled an ammo box from my bag, topping off the rifle and pistol mags I’d fired a couple of rounds from. Having done all that I propped myself up against a tree and simply listened to, and watched the forest for any anomalies. Rainbow's words from earlier in the day echoed through my mind again.

Why did I help them...

Thinking about it only put me more on edge, claws tapping on the side of my rifle nervously. Looking over at the two snoozing ponies sent an uncomfortable shiver up my spine.

They clearly have some shitty views on griffins but they really are the only friendly people I know in this place, aren't they?

Pushing all my concerns to the back of my mind I tried focussing on the surrounding forest. Throughout the rest of my watch I heard or saw nothing suspicious. The moon lit up the sky in the stead of the sun by the time I moved to wake the two lightly snoring ponies by shaking them.

“Huh… wha-”

“Your watch,” I whispered as Twilight’s eyes fluttered open, Dash not far behind her.

“Oh, right.” Twilight yawned as she got out of the sleeping bag. Rainbow looking very groggy as she pulled herself from the sleeping bag as well. Pushing my rifle into Dash’s lap seemed to wake her up though.

“Uhm, why are you giving me this?” She asked, baffled at the fact I’d part with it so readily.

“Because if we’re found and you have to wake me first it might be too late. I don't want to wake up with a sword through my abdomen. Though if you notice something off but don’t think we’ve been found I want you to wake me up so we can quietly get out of dodge. Think you can manage that?”

“Yes, sir!” Dash replied a little loud but the look I could make out on her face told me that she’d already reprimanded herself for that.

“Good, it’s half-loaded so you need to chamber a round before you can fire. Remember how to do that?” Rainbow nodded in response, tapping the charging handle and the nob that would unlock the bolt.

Glad to know she actually listened to me when I explained this stuff.

“Perfect. Now before I go to sleep I want you two to try on these pants.” Passing on the two garments over to the ponies. “I cut in holes for your tails but I need to know if they’re placed well and how much of the legs I can lose.”

“You want us to wear pants?” Twilight asked questioningly.

“Just for more camo. I also want to cut some holes in Dash’s shirt for her wings.”

“That’d be awesome,” Dash nodded as she pulled on the pants, using velcro to adjust it’s hip size so it’d fit around her barrel. “Tail hole is comfortable enough.”

“Good. Yours, Twilight?” The unicorn had also pulled on the pants and was fidgeting with it.

“It’ll do I guess… I’m not used to wearing stuff like this,” Twilight admitted, taking them back off. “You can feel it’s not made for ponies though.”

“We’ll have to make due with what we have.” I yawned as I pulled myself into the sleeping bag but not before giving Twilight my watch. “Give me an hour or three. That’ll be enough for tonight.”

“Alright, we’ll wake you then. Sleep well.”

Chapter 5:
Journey

The moment the sun's first rays lit up the horizon I woke Twilight and Dash again, having used my second watch to adjust the length of both the pants to fit the two ponies. I’d also give Twilight my second jacket so most of her fur would be covered up so that’d she'd be hidden away much better than she’d been before. The same was true for Dash as she wore the shirt, pants and ghillie scarf around her neck. Me myself was wearing the adjusted ghillie suit, something that greatly amused Rainbow for some reason.

“So, we have already passed the arctic strait on the train… That’s good,” I said as Twilight had made a little sketch of Equestria’s map, having marked a spot on the top right of it to indicate where we were. We'd briefly gone over where to go the day before but now would go into a bit more detail.

“Manehattan lies to the south of us on the coast, but on hoof that’d be two, maybe three, days,” Twilight continued, then pointing at another spot to the west. “Then we have Rainbow Falls here, it’s closer but the ground is mainly open hills and some mountains.”

“That’s something we can’t risk. Depending on how persistent this group is they’ll have patrols over that place and we won’t have anywhere to hide,” I pointed out. "Can you two eat local plants? We don't have a lot of food and I don't think I can stomach grass and flowers.”

Twilight gagged in response, while Rainbow merely looked disgusted. "Jack that's-"

"Yeah, we can do that," Rainbow cut Twilight off with a wing over the unicorn's mouth.

Note to self, ponies do not like to eat wild plants. Though not that we have much choice right now...

“I guess we’re wasting time then, aren’t we?” Twilight said, looking slightly nauseous as she strapped on her saddlebag which had some of the items from my backpack in it to lighten my load.

“We are. I’ll take the lead, you two follow single file behind me and stay sharp, try to avoid making too much sound.” Pushing my rifle onto my back I started moving into the forest.

Birds chirped all around us as we walked through the bush, avoiding clearings and open fields as we carefully made our way south. The two ponies held up pretty well, considering everything that had happened the previous day, remaining silent throughout the morning. Though that didn’t last forever as we found a little creek to refill our water and take some time to apply my camo on the pony's faces, hair, and for Rainbow her wings.

“So you really do this for a living?” Rainbow asked as I used the green camo I had to colour her face.

“Pretty much. It’s tough work which takes a lot of harsh training but it really teaches you a lot about yourself,” I answered, as I moved over to her ears and made them green as well. “What is your job if I may ask?”

Rainbow smirked, “I’m Ponyville’s weather manager, I can clear the sky in ten seconds flat!” she bragged. “I’m also training to become part of the Wonderbolts.”

Chuckling in response I got some brown camo and started painting a three-stripe pattern on her face. “And what might those be? I take it they’re like a flight team or something?”

“That’s right, the best of the best!” She exclaimed, grinning widely.

“Good luck with that, sounds like a tough team to become a part of,” I chuckled, giving her a pat on the shoulder while fishing a small mirror out of my pocket and showing Dash her own face.

“Whoa, that’s awesome. I look like a completely different pony,” Dash gawked as she took a few poses.

“It should help you blend in even more.” Turning to Twilight I got more of the camo and started working on her face as well. “So you work for your princess, what is your exact job? A researcher?”

“Well, sort of. I normally work as a librarian but I do write theses on theoretical magics and have developed advancements in several magic fields.”

“Sounds interesting but I’m afraid I would not understand much of it without a lot of explanation,” I chuckled, swiftly covering her in camo.

“So, if you don’t mind me asking, what would have happened if we had appeared in your world instead of ours?” Twilight asked speculatively.

“Well, that would have depended on if you’d have changed into a human or stayed as ponies,” I answered, taking a few seconds to think through all possible consequences. “As a human, you’d probably be placed into a mental institution if you claimed to come from another world but as a pony, the results would probably span from being dissected for research to having someone walk you around on a leash.”

“What?!” Dash exclaimed as I finished my thought, looking back at the pegasus as she was sitting on her butt with her wings extended.

“Well, I’m sure there are good people out there but most will probably panic,” I amended, Rainbow still sitting down but now desperately trying to avoid eye contact and pawing the ground.

Wait what did I... Oh dear lord, she’s into that stuff.

I couldn’t help but start snickering, quickly devolving into laughter as I fell onto my side. The flustered look of horror on Dash’s face only fueled my mirth further.

“Uhm, what’s going on?” Twilight asked, completely oblivious to why I was laughing.

Getting off the ground, I slid up next to Dash, and wrapped my wing around her, pulling her close and whispered into her ear. “Don’t worry Dash, I’ll take you out for walkies if you want to.”

Smack

Rainbow’s hoof smashed into my beak, making me stagger slightly but other than a nasty sting it did nothing to dampen my mood.

“Rainbow!” Twilight exclaimed aghast that Dash would do such a thing.

“Calm down Rainbow, just stepping on your toes... hooves... annoying you,” I snickered, giving her a nudge on the shoulder and making a suggestive purring sound before returning to camouflaging Twilight’s face.

“I still have no clue what the two of you were talking about…” Twilight whined while Rainbow tried to disappear into the ground.

“Let it go Twilight, Rainbow is entitled to her private life too.” Twilight shot an annoyed look towards me but dropped the subject. Glancing back at Rainbow I caught her staring but quickly averted her gaze. Deciding to give her some space, I swallowed a verbal jab and focussed on Twilight’s camouflage.

“There, much better.” Stepping back I passed Twilight the little mirror to her and allowed her to look.

“I think I can see the merit in covering our colour like this, though I have to ask, did you just randomly put those stripes on or is there a system?” Twilight asked as she thoroughly inspected my work.

“I tried to hit the spots that protrude out like your nose because those naturally will be brighter due to light fall, by making them dark and leaving the rest of your face light it breaks up your features,” I explained, storing away my depleted box of camo.

“That’s interesting…” Twilight said absentmindedly as she passed back the little mirror. “Anyway, I take it we’re going to be on the move again?”

I nodded, filling up my canteen with water. “Make sure you drink your fill, you never know when you can refill and drink again.”

The two ponies nodded and took the time to drink up while I packed and got my backpack back on. After they were done I got our bearings again, I and my two self-appointed charges moved back into the thick forest. My stomach ached as I'd rationed the food we had left to last three days, which sucked. Rainbow and Twilight had been able to eat some grass and flowers back at the creek and were better filled than me.

This remained the case for the rest of the day as we made our way through the woods. I tried to see if any of the critters would come close so I could catch one but none did. My stomach growled as we set up camp for the evening again, dividing the watch into three this time, allowing me to get the first two watches to sleep before waking me to take the final one for another uneventful night.

Rainbow and Twilight ate some more local flora as I stashed the sleeping bag into my backpack again, watching the two ponies eat.

“Are you okay, Jack?” Twilight asked as she noticed me observing them.

“I’m good,” I answered with a lie, sleep deprivation and the low amount of food getting to me but not wanting to burden them with my troubles. Twilight looked concerned at me for a moment but didn’t press the issue.

After dividing up our water we headed south again, hoping to find Manehattan soon. Our pace, compared to the one we’d held the days before, had slowed down considerably as none of us had the amounts of energy we'd started with. Twilight and Rainbow had a couple of hushed conversations which I didn’t participate in as we made our way through the brush.

“Hey, look at that!” Dash exclaimed as we passed a little open spot on a hill, my gaze immediately following Dash’s pointed hoof out at the horizon where we could see towers shooting into the sky. I smiled and wanted to reply but then noticed a couple of dots in the sky.

“Down!” I said in a hushed but harsh tone as two griffins flew through the sky. I immediately hit the deck behind a bush, Rainbow jumped next to me and Twilight behind her again. Not a leaf moved as we held our breaths, wind rustling the leaves of the trees as the griffins passed way too close for comfort. We remained still for a good five more minutes after they passed before getting up and finding a more secure space under the brush.

“That was close…” Twilight said, her ears twitching in all directions as she attempted to pick up any sound.

“If they’re here then we’re going to run into more of them, we need to move fast because I don’t want to stop for the night if they’re actively searching for us,” I growled.

My body ached and whined at every step as it was tired from abuse, but that wasn’t going to slow me down as I led Twilight and Rainbow through the woods. Both ponies were deathly quiet and constantly observing their surroundings, adrenaline still up from the previous near encounter. It wasn’t long before we had to hide from another patrol going overhead, waiting for them to leave again. I was pretty sure that if Twilight and Dash hadn’t been camouflaged I’d probably have been shooting at griffins by that point.

“We’re not going to make it to the city at this rate,” Twilight observed silently as we lay in wait.

“No matter, we need to get there regardless. No going back.”

"You don't get it, there's farmland outside the city, no cover for a good long bit."

"Well... shit. Still no going back, we'll figure something out." The cycle of hiding repeated itself for a third time before we reached the aforementioned open farm fields that stretched all the way to the city itself.

“This is really a problem,” I grunted, having taken my sniper rifle off of my backpack to scope out the field and air, finding a whole bunch of armed griffins flying around.

“They’re taking a big risk being this close to the city itself,” Twilight said with astonishment in her voice. “Why would they risk the guard coming out to confront them?”

“It’s because they needed to reduce their search area,” I answered, noticing a glint of light coming off of something and aiming my sniper rifle to see what it was. “The forest was an area way too large for them to cover with too many places to hide so since they probably figured where we were going, they set up as close as they dared in a place where they could have a good view of the surrounding area… shit.”

“What’s wrong?” Dash asked, concerned at my swear as I started calculating a firing solution in my head.

“Four pegasi, approximately… half a click, near that farmhouse. Gleaming gold armour. Are they your guards?”

“That sounds like Celestia’s personal guard, yes,” Twilight said with an undertone of concern. “Jack, what are you seeing?”

"Twilight, Rainbow, get back into the forest and hide in the bushes some way away from here," I said authoritatively, laying down between the brush so I'd blend in with my gilly suit.

"Jack-"

"NOW."

Rainbow immediately held her mouth and stepped back into the brush while I returned to looking through my scope. I lowered my heart rate with breathing techniques and placed my crosshair on one of the griffins surrounding the small guard group. A flare shot straight up into the air from one of the pegasi guards as they were attacked.

CRACK!

The sniper rifle gave an immensely loud report as it slung the bullet at supersonic speed towards its target while I hawkishly followed the bullet’s trajectory, it was clear that I was going to miss the first shot. Cycling the weapon I took aim again at the now brawling mix of ponies and griffins. The second round coursed perfectly to one of the assailing griffins and hit its body, evening the odds for four guards as they weren't as outnumbered as they'd been before. The third shot from my rifle tipped those odds into the guards' favour as they quickly dispatched the rest of the griffins.

“JACK!” Rainbow shouted from behind me, making me turn around to see the two ponies running my direction with two griffins after them. Not hesitating a second I left my sniper rifle on its bipod and jumped up with my assault rifle, the two chasing creatures halted in surprise as hadn't seen me laying there.

"Hello chaps, mind dropping those pointy sticks and fucking off?" I said, the two griffins looked at each other briefly before charging me.

Damnit.

Crack!
Crack!

The two half birds crashed into me, one wasn't moving anymore but the second was still breathing. The griffin grunted in pain but got a hold of the barrel of my rifle. Rolling over the floor I reached into my tactical vest, pulled out my combat knife, and stabbed him in the throat. Rainbow and Twilight looked on in horror as I pushed the corpse off me.

“Back into the forest for cover! GO!” I ordered again as I could see more griffins diving down from above. A rogue arrow then came through the canopy, striking me from above in my back near the right shoulder.

In a cry of pain I stumbled, getting my bearings quickly as adrenaline dulled the pain and sharpened other senses. Raising my rifle I returned fire through the canopy. Twilight immediately followed the order but Dash hesitated as I struggled to get my assault rifle into the air to fire at the incoming hostiles, getting only a couple of inaccurate shots off.

“Come on!” Dash shouted as another arrow struck me in the centre of my chest, luckily bouncing off of the ballistic plate inserted in my vest.

“I SAID GET INTO COVER!” I roared, firing a full-auto burst up at the griffins, downing one of them before limping deeper into the forest. Getting my remaining smoke and tossing it behind me. I tried to run but not before getting hit in the leg with an arrow which passed straight through. Shrieking in pain again I dropped to the ground, crawling to a tree for some shielding before firing the rest of my magazine at the griffins.

One of the newly arriving griffins had landed right outside of the smoke cloud and charged. Without time to reload, I pulled my pistol and fired shots at him until he stopped moving. Looking at where Dash and Twilight had disappeared in the brush I was glad to see the two ponies had run off as I reloaded and scanned the smoke for more griffins to appear.

“What’s wrong? You all scared?” I taunted, an arrow suddenly coming through the smoke and glancing off the side of my helmet. My reply, a burst of automatic fire in the direction from where it came, only being rewarded by more arrows flying in my direction, one of which hit my right shoulder again but piercing deeper this time and going into the side of my chest.

With a ragged breath I leaned against that tree, hearing squawks and shouts coming from the griffins on the other side of the smoke followed by the clashing of metal. Behind me, I could hear the faint ruffling of leaves. Sluggishly swerving my rifle around I found two wide-eyed camouflaged ponies poking a little too far out of a bush.

“I… told you to… go…” I grunted at them while coughing up blood and getting back onto my legs, looking through the dissipating smoke to find a larger group of gold armoured guards engaged with the group of griffins that were desperately fighting back and trying to flee. Not having the strength in my busted up arm to use my rifle, I got my pistol and started firing shots to help the guard out.

“Jack, stop!” Dash shot forward as I collapsed again, having no clue what to do after finding half my side bloodied, only seeing the arrows stuck in my shoulder and pulled one out. I Cried in pain as Dash held her hooves over the wound, trying to stop the increased bleeding.

Gritting my beak, I raised my pistol a final time and sent a few shots into a griffin standing over the guard he’d managed to get onto the ground. The avian's corpse dropping right onto the pony he was about to skewer. The fight lasted only a short while longer before the griffins had either fled, had been captured, or killed. The guard then switched their focus on Dash, Twilight, and me.

“Twilight Sparkle? Rainbow Dash?” The two ponies nodded while trying to stop my bleeding. “I’m Lieutenant Steel Thunder, I need you to-”

“Need to what?” Dash snapped at the Lieutenant, “He needs treatment!”

The guard looked down at me for a moment and frowned. He grunted something about civilians and rolled his eyes and turned to his fellow guards

“Medic!”

Chapter 6:
Leader

Two guards sat next to me on either side while Rainbow and Twilight sat across from me at a table which was located in what I presumed to be a barrack of sorts. My head was still swimming as the blood loss in combination of a unicorn's magic had made me very drowsy. That said, even though my mind wasn't all there, whatever magic was applied was immensely effective at treating wounds. My arm might be stiff as hell, a quick inspection revealed it to be healed quite neatly.

What a medic back home wouldn't do to be able to treat wounds like that... Though it was probably for the best that I was a bit out of it, direct application of magic like that would probably have freaked me out severely.

My gear was nowhere to be seen, except for the pistol and rifles which I knew Dash had in her bag and could see slung around her body after having refused to give them up to the guard ponies. Both Rainbow and Twilight still had traces of camo on their faces as they probably had trouble washing it out. Dash though was still wearing the pants shirt and camo scarf I’d given her.

“You two okay?” I asked them as they silently sat and brooded.

Twilight looked up and raised an eyebrow. “You’re asking us? What about yourself?”

I waved dismissively. “Just a scratch.” My voice was rough as I replied with a smirk, causing Dash to chuckle.

“You’re absolutely insane, you know that?” She smiled.

“Just a bit. Did you two get food already?”

"Yeah, while you were being treated we raided the kitchen of this place. Finally got the taste of wild grass out of my mouth." Rainbow answered.

"And you got nothing for me? These two ain't letting me do shit," I said with mock offence while smirking and motioning towards the guards.

"W-Well, I... Uhm..." Right then the door opened, revealing a guard that seemed more decorated than the others. Twilight certainly seemed to recognise him though.

“Shining!” she shouted as she jumped at the other unicorn.

“Twily!” The two embraced each other but my gaze was drawn to the second pony to enter. A tall, white, winged unicorn with an ethereal flowing hair coloured in cyan, pink, and green. She was wearing a large, gem-studded, golden crown and torc while walking on golden shoes. My skin crawled as an aura of authority just flowed from the large pony. Twilight and Rainbow immediately bowed down in respect, the guards beside me not looking very impressed as I didn’t do the same.

“Rise, my little ponies, there’s no need. I am glad you’re both well,” The angelic voice rang through my ears as she spoke. This was definitely the Princess that had been mentioned before by Twilight and Rainbow. “And you, we have not met before. I hear you accompanied my student and her companion over the last week?”

I gave her a respectful nod but nervously scratched a claw over the table in front of me. “Yes, Your Highness. Jack Grey’s the name.”

“Please, just Princess will do,” the large pony said as she sat down at the head of the table. “My name is Princess Celestia and this is the prince of the Crystal Empire, Shining Armor.” She pointed at the new guard that now sat next to Twilight. “As you might be able to imagine I am very interested in getting to know what happened over the last week.”

“I’d love to tell you but unlike your subjects, I have yet to eat. Could I get some while we explain?"

“Definitely. Steel hoof, could you get our guest something to eat?” One of the guards that sat beside me nodded and walked out of the room at his Princess’ command. “Now, Twilight, if you could enlighten me what happened after I sent you on your way to investigate.”

“Of course Princess,” Twilight cleared her throat and sat up straight. “It started with us arriving at the griffin outpost in the north where I’d estimated the magic pulse had come from. We hired a guide from there to take us into the forest and spent the next week trudging through the thick snow cover.”

“Did you find the site of the pulse?” The Princess interrupted, I kept my mouth shut as I waited for Twilight to answer.

“No, we did not… We found something, or rather, someone else.” Twilight guided everyone’s gaze towards me while I patiently waited. “I am fairly certain that whatever caused the pulse displaced Jack here into our world.”

“Is that true mister Grey?” Celestia asked, keeping her stoic expression up but sounding genuinely interested. “Would you mind telling me about who you are?”

“Of course, I did indeed not come from this world,” I answered, anxiety starting to seriously kick in. “I’m just a regular person and, to be honest, changing into a completely different species and being dumped in a strange world is kind of terrifying.”

“I can imagine that to be the case,” the Princess said, looking at me with a slightly pitiful expression.

“Apologies, but may I ask a few questions?” Shining asked as he seemed to have been holding back. I gave him a nod to ask ahead. “I want to know how in the world you were able to take down all the griffins you did, my guards were pretty clear that they found a bunch of griffins they hadn’t downed that had strange wounds. The same for griffins of the group that cornered the scouting party that alerted us to the main force.”

I looked over to Dash. “Rainbow, could you present the assault rifle?” Dash immediately unslung the rifle and placed it on the bi-pod built into the foregrip. “This is what caused the wounds you found on those Griffins.”

Shining immediately tensed slightly, so did the guard sitting next to me but neither made a move. Their tensing also served to wind me up further. “Continue.”

"I think I told Rainbow and Twilight too much already but the basics are that it fires a projectile at high speed. A bit like an arrow but smaller and much higher speed."

“Why would you need something like that?” Shining asked as he realised the implications for that.

“Because he’s a soldier,” Rainbow answered for me as she slammed the mag back into my rifle. At the same time, the guard that had gone to get food came back in with a plate of... something and placed it in front of me.

“You’re at war?” Shining asked, echoing the same question Twilight had asked and I looked at the unicorn to explain why while I tasted the stuff in front of me before starting to devour it as it was great.

“No, he isn’t. They have standing armies for deterrence and ‘counter-insurgency’,” Twilight recited for me as I wiped crumbs off my beak.

“She’s right, though I must admit that I’m pretty sure I’m missing some memories from before I got here, mainly because of some nasty nightmares, but I’m fairly sure we weren’t engaged in open conflict,” I said before working the rest of the stuff they'd gotten me down.

“Mister Grey, thank you for telling us this but I’d like to know what happened after the train was raided. We got the story of some loud explosions happening in the train from the passengers. May I assume those were from these weapons of yours?” Celestia asked this time, I gave a nod to confirm that.

"The firing of projectiles will produce a bang, and the amount of them is because you can fire multiple projectiles rapidly."

Shining cringed. “That sounds…”

“Awfully effective?” I finished for him, making the unicorn cringe.

“That’s one way to put it,” the Princess said, her passive mask cracking slightly as well. “You must understand I cannot let you run around with powerful weapons like these among my ponies.”

“Nor can I just give them over to you,” I told her while frowning, folding my claws in front of me.

“We could just take them from you,” Shining Armor pointed out in return but flinched as I locked eyes with him and leaned forward on the table.

“Then I hope you’re ready to pull them from my cold, dead claws,” I growled, one of the guards next to me immediately lit up his horn and pulled me back. The unexpected move immediately triggered my fight-or-flight as my heart rate spiked. Twilight had not used magic directly on me and with the doctors I'd kinda been out of it...

...This though made something snap in me as all my old, and some new, instincts were calling for self-preservation.

Before anyone could respond my fist had cracked the offending guard's muzzle, sending him sliding across the floor a significant distance. The second guard found himself below me as I tackled him of his seat but before I could hit him, something smashed into my side and sent me into the wall.

Both the guard I'd just attacked and the one I'd already downed jumped on top of me and pinned me down. A couple more guards from outside rushed in to help immobilize me, strapping my wings to my side and putting on a set of heavy-duty cuffs.

"Jack!" Rainbow had surged forward, helping the guard hold me down. "Look at me, you need to calm down."

My breathing started to slow down again as I got back into control of my body, my claws still shaking from the adrenaline rush.

“Mister Grey, I would like to avoid such drastic consequences, you did do a very large service to me and my student after all. Would a compromise be possible?” Celestia said as the guards backed off slightly, leaving the restraints in place and Rainbow alone to calm me down. “Would you be satisfied if we had them in a locked chest which you hold the key to?”

“I’d rather have the lockbox than the key or have the box somewhere I can check up on it easily to see if there hasn't been any tampering,” I said with heavy breath.

Celestia looked over to Rainbow who was looking between me and the princess with concern. “I see Rainbow carrying your weapons is not presenting that big an issue, would you allow her to take custody of them?”

I looked over to Rainbow to see if the pegasus would be okay with that, getting a little nod from her as she seemed to understand. “That would be satisfactory, yes.”

“Then it is done,” Celestia said, a collective sigh of relief going through the room as you could feel the tension drop. “Now, I wanted to ask you if you have any clue who those griffins were that we found searching for you? The ones we managed to capture have said nothing yet.”

“Other than that they wanted Rainbow and Twilight? Only speculation from a place of experience,” I admitted to the Princess who sighed.

“It was worth a try but if you don’t I’ll get my ponies on the task of finding that out. We should discuss where you will remain for the time being then, while we try finding out the exact means of your arrival here of course.”

“The library has a reserve bedroom he could use?” Twilight offered. “Since I take Jack would like to stay close to that chest with his… tools anyway with Rainbow in Ponyville.”

“Are you sure you’re fine with that, Twi?” Shining armor asked, glancing at me with suspicion.

“I spent three nights in the forest with him, Shiny. If he really wanted to hurt me he’d have done it by now,” Twilight countered. “I’ll be working on trying to figure out the mechanics of his arrival regardless and I feel indebted for him keeping us out of the claws of those griffins.”

Shining sighed. “Just wanting to make sure my little sis is safe.”

Twilight nuzzled her brother in response. “We’ll be fine in Ponyville, I’ll be surrounded by friends over there.”

“Worrying is part of my job as big brother,” Shining said, hugging Twilight.

“We should really be getting back to Ponyville soon, Princess. I’m sure the other girls are really concerned about us,” Rainbow interrupted.

“I sent them an update the moment we found you two, they were on the verge of joining the guard in the search too,” Princess Celestia told Twilight and Rainbow to help put them at ease. “I’m sure they would like to see you two in good health though. I’ll arrange for a suitable chest and train ride down to Ponyville along with some more bureaucratic arrangements. If you could get Rainbow to gather all your weapons up then I’ll get the chest here soon.”

“Yes, Princess,” I replied with a nod as the Princess got off her seat and left the room along with Shining Armor, leaving the other guards to watch over me. Another guard came in with my backpack and other equipment, placing it against the wall. “Dash, please put the weapons on the table and empty my backpack.”

Rainbow placed the rifles and pistol on the table before digging stuff out of my backpack while I pointed to the boxes with ammo that were stored in it.

“Jack, why did you become so angry when my brother suggested taking away your weapons? I mean, I get they’re dangerous but you went ballistic,” Twilight asked as Dash placed the boxes of ammo along with grenades on the table as a guard brought in a box.

“Look, see this from my perspective. I’m sure you think your Princess has the best of intentions but I have no idea of what her intentions with those weapons would be. In my world when you give weapons like this to people who don’t have the technological know-how on how to make them themselves, it usually ends with a lot of corpses,” I explained, one of the guards releasing my cuffs as I verbally lead Rainbow through unloading my weapons. “If your kind hasn’t designed these weapons then I’m going to assume there never was any pressure to make them in the first place.”

“That’s… actually very noble,” Twilight admitted as we finished lining up everything I deemed too dangerous.

“Not really, just don’t want to have something like that on my conscience,” I shrugged.

“Well whatever you call it I still think it’s admirable,” Twilight said, not relenting a bit. She proceeded to carry the chest from there in her magic, explaining that the lock wasn't conventional but magical in nature as well. It would only be openable to Twilight and Rainbow, something I thoroughly tested by doing my very best to try and open the darn thing, only to be bested. I stashed the rest of my gear back into the backpack and put the jacket I’d given to Twilight before on again, the one I’d been wearing had been cut up and bloodied heavily, propping my beret onto my head.

“Hey, why are you wearing that thing? You had it on when we found you as well but it doesn’t really blend in like your other stuff,” Dash pointed out as she looked at my beret.

“It’s the ‘casual’ headwear for a soldier for when we’re not wearing a helmet. Mine is red to signify I’m with an airborne unit.”

“Airborne? You guys fly?” I nodded. “That’s awesome! You should have told me before!” Dash squeed as Twilight led us through the hallways of the building with the guards in tow, finding the princess at the exit to the building along with her other guards.

“I’ll be in contact with you my student, I need to finish some business over here in Manehattan but I'll send two of my stallions along with you on the train. Have a safe journey home.” Celestia said, giving Twilight a hug and Rainbow and me a nod. The two Guards followed us as we got a pony pulled taxi to the train station, Twilight got us into the first train leading inland with the provided tickets and to what would be my new home for the time being.

Chapter 7:
Ponyville

This second train ride was much more peaceful than the first one, not having the rude interruption from the group of griffins probably helped a lot. That said, it wasn’t as if we experienced much of the ride either as all three of us used the time to get some sleep in, still being tired from the three-day trek through the forest. A couple of ponies stepped out of the train alongside us, though keeping their distance, before the large engine took off again.

“So this is where you two live…” I idly said, checking out all of the unique buildings visible from the train station. “Not going to lie, it doesn’t look like a half-bad place to live.”

Rainbow snorted, “You don’t know the half of it, Ponyville is awesome!”

“Twilight! Rainbow!” The two ponies in question were suddenly buried by four other ponies into a group hug.

“Don’t ya two scare us like that ever again, Sugarcubes.”
“That letter from the Princess indeed had us very much worried darlings.”
“Yeah, that was so not super duper! Did you get away from the meanies all right?”

“Calm down girls,” Twilight laughed. “We’ll tell you all about it at the library. We should get a new friend of Dash and mine settled there first.”

The pink pony gasped, immediately looking over at me with a near manic smile as she shot forward and shook my claw. “HithereI’mPinkiePieIlovemeetingnewfriendsbecauseeveryoneinPonyvilleismyfriend!Whatmightyournamebe?”

“Whoa there Pinkie, turn it down a smidgen. Ya don’t need ta overwhelm the poor griffin,” an orange pony with a cowboy hat said as she tipped it towards me. “Howdy, Ah’m Applejack.”

“Hi there, I’m Jack Grey,” I replied after recovering from the pink pony’s barrage. The white unicorn from the group stepped forward as well, studying my clothes with a very critical gaze.

“Please darling, what is that horrid jacket you’re wearing? It’s like someone spilt paint in blotches all over it!” She whined, tugging at it with her magic, making me jump backwards in alarm.

“Rarity!” Twilight called out, holding back her friend. “I think Jack would prefer if you didn’t use magic on him,” the purple unicorn hissed.

“She would be correct in that,” I pointed out, by breathing slightly increased from the strange sensation once again. The direct application of magic was still… unsettling.

“Oh, my apologies, I just wanted to inspect what you’re wearing,” Rarity apologized though still looking at the jacket.

“It’s a camouflage jacket. It helps with blending into a forest environment.”

Rarity still didn’t look sure about the jacket but at least dropped it for the time being. The final pony of the group seemed to be hiding behind Rainbow, though her buttery yellow coat and pink mane weren’t exactly blending in.

“Come on Flutters, Jack isn’t that scary. Not like Gilda anyway,” Rainbow said pushing the other pegasus forward.

“H-hi t-there, I-I’m Fluttershy,” she said quietly, hiding behind her long hair.

“Hello miss, nice to meet you,” I smiled, not asking further as she seemed to be enough of a ball of nerves. “So, shall we head for the library now?”

Twilight nodded, picking up the chest and leading the group through the village. My eyes wandered around at all the various buildings and ponies that went about their day in the town, noticing some of them glancing towards me in suspicion while I admired the variety of interesting little bits of architecture and small patches of park that dotted the village but the library was another thing itself.

“Your house is a tree?” I blankly said, viewing the thickest tree I’d ever seen in my life.

“It’s one of Ponyville’s original structures, the tree was grown out by the original apple family earth pony settlers to serve as a small town centre,” Twilight explained, pushing into the hollow tree, revealing rows of bookshelves. On the ground floor and a flight of stairs at the back of the room leading up. Placing the chest against the back wall Twilight headed into a side room while I ran my claws over the walls of the tree, marvelling at the piece of natural engineering.

This would be the perfect house for hippies back home.

I chuckled at the thought of how that’d look. Dash and the rest of Twilight’s friends had taken seats at the Library’s central table and talking in hushed tones while shooting glances my way. Placing my backpack next to the chest I took a seat on one of the pillows that lay around the table.

“So Jack, yer the one that helped Twi and Dash here out of their tough spot?” Applejack asked as Twilight came back with some food and drinks from the kitchen along with a very happy looking little reptile that caught my eye.

“Yeah, I did,” I said absentmindedly, my gaze locked on the little being who cringed back as he noticed being my centre of attention. “Are you a dragon?” I asked, guessing the species.

“Yes?” He replied confused,” scooting up close to Twilight, “I’m Twilight’s assistant and little brother.”

“Awesome…” I said in amazement.

“Have you never seen a dragon before? I thought that a griffin would be familiar due to your lands’ closeness to the dragonlands,” Rarity asked surprised, leaning forward on the table and getting one of the snacks Twilight had brought.

“Well…”

“Jack isn’t really from around here,” Rainbow filled in for me. “Like not even from this world,” she bluntly added. The four ponies and one dragon’s eyes went wide at that bit of information.

“Oh my…” Fluttershy gasped, shooting forward and pulling me into a sudden, unexpected, hug. “You poor thing!”

“Uhh, thanks I guess?” I said slightly unsure of what to do next, Twilight luckily coming to my rescue.

“That’s why he’s staying here as well, I’ll be working on trying to figure out what exactly happened to get him over here,” she explained, pouring some tea for herself. Still being slightly famished myself I took some of the snacks as well, avoiding the food with flowers in them. We went over the events of the past few days again, leaving out a few of the more gruesome details of some of the engagements.

“Well, Ah’m glad ya were there to keep Twi and Dash out of them griffin’s claws,” Applejack thanked after we finished our recalling of the story.

“Those griffins sounded like real meany pants!” Pinkie agreed, “You know what this calls for? A PARTY!” the pink pony shouted before vanishing into thin air, the only thing indicating she didn’t was the sound of the door opening and closing.

“Wait, wha-”

“Don’t bother trying to understand Pinkie, it’s better for your sanity if you don’t,” Twilight bluntly pointed out.

“Duly noted.”

“Well, Ah don’t know about you gals but I’ve got some chores to do on the farm before Pinkie drags me off towards that party of hers,” Applejack chuckled as she got up from the table. “See y'all tonight.”

“Hmm, I should be going as well to get some more work done on my dresses. Glad to have met you mister Jack.” Rarity also apologized, followed by Fluttershy having to work on some things with her animals.

“You don’t have anything to do?” I asked as Dash remained behind at the table, the pegasus shrugging.

“The sky’s clear and the weather team should be fine with me gone for a good while. I make the weather schedule a couple of weeks in advance.”

“Rainbow Dash actually doing work?” Spike smirked jabbing at the pegasus.

“Hey, I take my work very seriously!” Rainbow replied, taking the bait. “Just because I nap a lot doesn’t mean I don’t work! What’s the last time the weather wasn’t on schedule?”

“Well…” Spike tried finding a case where that wasn’t true but couldn’t find one.

“Exactly,” Rainbow smirked victoriously.

“So Jack, if you follow me I’ll show you your bedroom,” Twilight chuckled as she walked up the stairs. Picking up my backpack I followed after her to a small room on the second floor. “It’s a little small but at least it’s better than nothing,” She said sheepily, meanwhile Dash peaked into the room as well.

“Twilight, it’s a double bed. I’m pretty sure this is bigger than what I’d usually have,” I pointed out, the room may have been a little cramped but it wasn’t as if I had the stuff to fill it up.

“Oh, ok. That’s good. I’ll let you get settled then,” Twilight said, leaving me alone in the room though I did notice Rainbow peaking around the corner of the doorframe so every now and then.

“You know that you can just come in here, right?” I said casually without looking at the door frame as she peaked again.

“I-I knew that,” Rainbow stuttered, walking into the room and silently watching me unpack some items from my backpack.

“Alright what is it you want to ask? You’re not a person to just quietly sit and watch.” Dash blushed and looked slightly shocked.

“Well, uhm… I don’t really want to be alone right now…” Rainbow muttered the last part but it was loud enough for me to pick up. I momentarily stopped screwing around with my backpack, and sat down next to dash and wrapped an arm around her.

“Hey, I know we know each other for like a week but if you need someone to talk to about what happened I’m willing to listen.”

Rainbow leaned her head against me. “I… don’t worry about it, it’s lame anyway.” She immediately got herself out of my grip and got out of the room as fast as she could, leaving me alone and slightly concerned.

I should talk to her later, if she's stewing on some of the stuff she’s seen then she’ll tear herself apart.

Returning to unpacking some of the slightly ruined clothes I had, folding and placing them on the cupboard next to the bed for washing and hopefully repair. Hearing somepony come back up the stairs I stuck my head out of the room to see who, coming beak to nose with Twilight, surprising her.

“Oh, Jack. Everything in order?”

I nodded and pointed over my shoulder at my clothes. “Do you have somewhere to wash those and a place where they can be adjusted for my wings?”

Twilight smirked and picked them up from the cupboard, her horn flashing a bit brighter before holding them out in front of me. “They’re cleaned!”

I stared at the clothing, not a spot visible or smell coming from them. “Wow… just like that?”

“Well, not really. That’s not something most unicorns can do,” Twilight said sheepishly while refolding the clothes. “To get it adjusted I’d say go to Rarity’s boutique. She’ll gladly do it without a doubt. Dash is still downstairs, she can lead you towards it.”

Twilight gave me back the stack of clothes and started walking back to the stairs, me hot on her heels with the clothes clamped under my wing.

“Hey Rainbow, want to show me the way to Rarity’s boutique?” I asked, getting her attention from the book she was reading.

“Huh? Oh, yeah sure!” Rainbow quickly put the book away in the appropriate section before leading me out of the library. “So, do you have anything you're planning to do now you've got a place to stay here in Ponyville?”

“To be honest, not a clue. I'd like not to be idle but what to do is something I'll need to figure out at a later date. Let's get this 'party' from yo-”

The pink pony popped up from nowhere and pushed a letter into my claws before disappearing again, leaving me dumbfounded.

Deep breath and don't try to understand

Confetti exploded from the letter as I opened it, Rainbow snickering in amusement at my startled reaction. “It's an invitation to a party at seven o'clock at the Golden Oaks Library… What time is it Rainbow?”

The pegasus briefly shot into the air and looked out over the village before dropping down again. “Little over five, so we've got plenty of time.”

Checking my watch I found it showed the same time on there, satisfied that my wristwatch was most likely still accurate I let Dash lead me the rest of the stretch to the boutique. Another building that amazingly depicted the variety of architecture in the town. A little bell rang as we entered the main room of the shop.

“Be right down,” Rarity's melodic voice called out from upstairs, the sound of hooves coming down the stairs announcing the unicorn's arrival. “Oh, I wasn't expecting to see the two of you until Pinkie's party, darlings. What can I do for you?”

“Well, I have some clothes that got torn up real bad, Twilight said you'd be able to fix them and give them holes for my wings,” I said, pulling the clothes from under my wing and surrendering them to Rarity's telekinesis.

“Oh dear, those are in really bad shape… but I'm positive I can make something work!” Rarity exclaimed cheerfully, floating over a tape measure and looking at me. “May I?”

Stepping forward I allowed her to swiftly do her work, getting all of my measurements within a minute. “I should not forget to mention that I don't have anything to pay you with yet”

“That's no problem, darling. You helped my friends so I'll gladly help you out with this,” Rarity dismissed my concern, “Now I'll leave you two to it because I've got some more work to get done. See you tonight!”

With that Rainbow and I left Rarity's boutique and got back onto the streets of Ponyville, the only thing I was now wearing being my beret after having given up the rest of my clothing to the seamstress.

Guess I'm a nudist now. Not like anyone cares regardless around here with their fur.

“So, any good places here to hang out? Since we probably shouldn't crash my party prematurely,” I smirked to the mare walking beside me.

“Oh definitely, follow me!” Rainbow exclaimed, shooting off into the village. We spent the next hour or two checking out all of the landmarks and activities Ponyville had to offer, eventually finding ourselves walking down the main street back towards the library.

“We really should check out that disco back there at some point,” I laughed as we'd ran all over the place and had checked out practically the entire town.

“Heck yeah! Usually, only AJ's up to go there, it'll be way more awesome with a third person there!” Dash exclaimed laughing. “But before that I'm going to teach you how to fly, Derpy already fills Ponyville's crash quota.”

“Heyyy, I'm not that bad,” I whined playfully, getting some dirt out of my hair.

“Can it rookie, you weren't able to even get into the air. Pretty lousy flying for someone who claims to work in the airborne infantry,” Rainbow smirked as we arrived in front of the library. All of the lights in the building… tree… were out and curtains covered the windows from the inside. “You first.”

“That's totally not suspicious at all,” I grinned but did as she told, finding the main room of the library to be shrouded in darkness. Stepping forward I prepared myself for the jump-scare I assumed was about to happen.

Bang!

It was probably best that I carried no weapons as I was doused in a spray of confetti, all the lights springing on to reveal a completely decorated library.

“SURPRISE!” The five present ponies and single dragon shouted.

“Welcome to your 'welcome to Ponyville' and 'thanks for saving Twilight and Rainbow' party!” Pinkie exclaimed, bouncing around.

“Well, thank you, miss Pie” I chuckled, stepping in further to allow Dash to enter as well. “What are we waiting for? Let's get this party started!”

After having helped clean up the last of the bits of confetti from the floor I said goodbye to Twilight's friends, having played all types of games throughout the evening and eaten out fill of pastries. All in all, it had served to put me in much-needed ease as it kept my mind from wandering.

“There, that was the last of it. Thanks for staying to help clean Rainbow, I honestly am not used to seeing you giving a hoof like this,” Twilight said as she levitated the remaining bits of confetti into a trash can.

“Hey, just thought I'd help out for once!”

“Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, just surprised,” Twilight chuckled, placing the trash can back in its intended space. “We're done now though.”

“A-Are you sure? Nothing else that needs cleaning? The kitchen maybe?” Dash stuttered, making Twilight raise an eyebrow.

“Are you okay, Rainbow?”

“Y-Yeah, why wouldn't I be?” Dash replied trying to nonchalantly lean on the main table.

“I think it might be a bit late out, I'm sure that if she had to go home as well now, Rainbow would get little sleep,” I cut in, remembering the short, awkward, conversation we'd had in the afternoon.

“I guess she could take the couch, unless you don't mind sharing your bed, Jack?” Twilight said in slight confusion.

I waved off the concern. “We shared a sleeping bag, I'm sure we'll be able to find space in a large bed like the one upstairs.”

Twilight looked between us two for a moment before sighing. “I guess it won't hurt. You can stay Rainbow,”

Dash smiled brightly as she followed Twilight and me up to the first floor where we quickly took turns in the bathroom to get ourselves ready for bed. Dash was already under the covers by the time I entered the bed too.

“Hey Jack?”

“Hmm?”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

“Sleep well.”

“You too.”

Chapter 8:
Flight

I woke up the next morning to the sound of soft snoring and something warm attached to my back while the sun’s rays poured in through the window.

Oh boy, how am I going to get out of this one…

Rainbow had me in a vice grip, clinging onto me like her life depended on it. It took me a good few minutes of carefully prying myself Rainbow’s grip, only managing to turn my body around to face her before she desperately grasped onto me again.

Well, shit. I guess she’ll wake up like this then.

Rainbow pressed herself deep into the soft feathers of my chest, letting out a relieved sigh as she did so. Her messy hair splayed out over the pillow she was resting her head on. I slowly ran my talons through her hair which was surprisingly soft for how rough it looked.

She should grow it out some more. The short rough tomboy look isn’t bad, but her hair would be real pretty if it were longer…

I lay there for another few seconds before I truly processed my train of thought.

Wait, you thought she looked pretty… again? Switching species must be screwing with my mind worse than I thought... Ugh, I’m going to have to deal with this sooner rather than later since I’ll be going home at some point…

Right?

Rainbow stirred in her sleep as the light from outside was rapidly getting brighter, making slumbering much tougher.

“Good morning,” I said as Rainbow yawned widely and her eyes fluttered open. She immediately grew a blush as she noticed the position she was in on my side of the bed.

“I-I uhm… Good morning to you too,” she settled with, though she had yet to untangle herself from me. “Sleep well?”

“Much better than sleeping on the ground, yes,” I replied as she only now decided to pull herself from my fluffy chest.

“I guess we should check to see if Twilight’s up already.” Rainbow leaned forward unfurled her wings, stretching her body in the same way a cat would do. “You coming?”

Stopping my staring at her butt I swiftly rolled out of the bed, briefly having the urge to put some clothes on but then remembering that it wouldn’t matter anyway around here. Downstairs we found Spike working on some sandwiches in the kitchen.

“Morning,” I told him as we came into the kitchen.

“Oh, good morning. Hey Dash, did you not go home last night?” The little guy said as he stacked the food he’d made on plates and placed them around the kitchen table.

“Nah, it was a little late so I decided to stay here,” Dash casually waved off.

“Well, in that case, I’ll make another sandwich. The one at the head of the table is yours, Jack,” Spike pointed out as he got some more ingredients to make a fourth sandwich. Twilight soon joined us as well at the table to get ready for the day.

“So, do you have anything you want to do today?” Twilight asked of me while eating her sandwich.

“Other than think of something to get out of your hair? Not much,” I admitted. “Dash did show me a gym but without cash I’m pretty sure I’ll be going nowhere.”

“The Princess did send a letter to inform me that she’ll be giving me an allowance to cover your costs, the amount she’s allocating is definitely enough to cover that bill,”

“Heh, awesome! I could show you around, Bulk has plenty of stuff in there that can strengthen your wings.” Dash exclaimed, wrapping a wing around me and pulling me close, only to immediately blush and let go again.

“That would give me the peace of mind to write up the petitions to the various universities for the data from the magic event…” Twilight pondered. “Are you sure you can keep Jack entertained today, Dash?”

Rainbow chuckled and smirked confidently. “An awesome pegasus like me? Of course I can!”

Twilight shook her head but couldn’t help but laugh. “Thanks Rainbow. Well, I’ve got my work cut out for me, I’ll be in the lab downstairs if either of you needs me. Spike, you have the library.”

“Yes ma’am!” Spike smirked, giving Twilight a crooked salute.

I’m going to teach him the proper form for that before I’m gone.

Twilight disappeared from the kitchen, soon followed by Spike, leaving me with Rainbow. “So, how is miss awesome going to entertain me today?”

“Why don’t you follow me and find out?” Rainbow smirked, running out of the kitchen and forcing me to swiftly follow. The pegasus continued to keep me on edge as she used her wings to fly through the streets of Ponyville while I clumsily struggled to follow her, though my speed increased incrementally as I got more comfortable with my own movement. Bobbing and weaving through the crowd we passed ponies starting their workdays and fillies that had their bags packed with books for school, soon Rainbow’s lead wasn’t as big as it had been at the start of the run.

“Come on! Catch me, slowpoke!” Rainbow taunted as she entered the fields of grass that lay beside the town.

Oh you’re so on!

Opening my wings I flapped them hard once, flinging myself through the air right towards Rainbow who in her cockiness wasn’t looking behind her. It wasn’t exactly an elegant flight but that didn’t matter as I wrapped my arms around her midriff and pulled her to the ground with me. We rolled a couple of meters before coming to a stop with me pinning Rainbow to the ground on her belly.

“Caught ya!” I smirked, making sure Dash couldn’t struggle out of my grip.

“Fine, you win,” Rainbow grumbled as her struggles weren’t getting her anywhere. She stretched for a moment after I let her go.

“So, why did we go out here?” I asked, looking around the open field.

“To practice your flying of course!” Rainbow laughed again, “You got those wings but now you need to learn how to use them.”

“Oh boy, this’ll be fun.”

“I know!” Dash squealed before starting to instruct me, putting me through various stretches and warm-up exercises. Then after some time, we moved on to some hovering and glide exercises which we did until my wings were burning.

“Tired already?” Dash smirked after what felt like an entire day of flying.

“First time… real hard… Also got shot with arrows like two days ago...” I gasped, still completely out of breath as I lay splayed on the ground. Rainbow was only amused at the sight of me completely being out though.

“Ahh, does the little griffin need somepony to hug him?” She said in the most demeaning voice possible while poking me.

“Let it be known that I hate you right now.”

“Hey Rainbow!” a squeaky voice called out from the village as the quick buzzing of wings signalled the approach of an orange coated, purple-haired little pegasus.

“Hey squirt, how are you doing?” Rainbow chuckled as she left me on the ground to talk with the kid.

“Got a free day from school and I saw you flying around, wanna hang out?” The little pegasus squealed.

“Well… I’m supposed to babysit that Griffin over there-”

“Screw you.”

“-but I’m sure we can find some time to hang out,” Rainbow finished ignoring my rude comment.

“Awesome! Want to go get milkshakes at Bon Bon’s?” the little girl asked, giving Rainbow the biggest puppy eyes possible.

“Wow, that’s A grade extortion right there,” I smirked, having caught my breath and found my paws again, draping a wing over Dash’s back. “Just look at those eyes, are you going to say no to that?”

“Ugh, fine, we’ll get some milkshakes.” Rainbow immediately relented, pushing my wing away and walking ahead.

“So what’s your name?” I asked the little scooter riding pegasus.

“I’m Scootaloo! Rainbow’s number one fan!” She exclaimed, briefly hovering up in excitement. “How do you know Dash?”

I chuckled. “We met up north, spent a good week in various forests with her afterwards. I’m Jack Grey by the way.”

“Huh, so you met and went on a camping trip?” Scootaloo questioned eagerly to get more information out of me.

“We’ll go with that, yes,” I settled with, preferring not to tell the story about being hunted to the kid. We soon after arrived at the little store Scootaloo had asked to go to, Rainbow going in to get the milkshakes while Scootaloo and I held down a table outside.

“So why are you skipping class?” I asked calmly as the shop’s door closed and Dash couldn’t hear us anymore. Scootaloo’s eyes went wide in surprise.

“I-I’m not! I did s-say I had a free day from school, r-right?” she stuttered, nervously trying to put up an innocent face.

“Of all the things I am, I’m not imperceptive Scootaloo. I saw other children carry books this morning. Schoolbooks,” I pointed out, Scootaloo’s smile dropping as she realised she’d been caught.

“Are you going to turn me in?” she quietly asked.

“Right now I’m only asking why you’re skipping class.” I folded my claws in front of me while I waited for the answer.

“There are two bullies in school… I was supposed to hold a presentation about a hero of mine today… they were making fun of me all throughout the week… Telling me how useless I am…” Scootaloo sniffed as her eyes teared up. I extended a wing and wrapped it around her, holding her to my slightly sweaty coat though she didn’t seem to mind.

“Look kid, there’s something an instructor of mine once told me after I got into a fight with someone I absolutely despised. He said that you can’t always change a person, what you can do is change your own response. Those two may be jerks that tell you that whatever you want to do is impossible, but what does that matter? The only thing the word ‘impossible’ should serve as is motivation to prove whoever said it wrong.”

“You really think so?” Scootaloo still sniffed but there was hope on her face.

“I’ve personally seen someone who everyone, even his doctors, thought would never walk again telling them to screw off and get back on his legs. It took monstrous amounts of work but the key factor in all of it was that he never gave up, not a single moment. Of course there’s a measure of luck in anything you do, but if you’re not putting the effort in you’ll never get where you want to be.”

Scootaloo stayed silent for a bit, mulling over my words. “It’s just like Rainbow Dash. She’s crashed so many times when practising only to get back up and try again… That’s what you mean…” in a single moment Scootaloo had attached herself to me in a hug and smiled. “Thanks.”

“Not a problem kid,” I smiled, and checked my watch seeing it was almost twelve. “Does your school have a break in the afternoon?”

Scootaloo nodded. “Between twelve and one.”

“Do you want me to come along so I can talk to your teacher? It should be easier without your class there.” I asked getting another nod from Scootaloo. Dash chose that moment to return with the three shakes, dividing them among us.

“Sorry about the time, Bon Bon had to get the ice from out back and I got into a conversation with Lyra,” Rainbow apologized as Scootaloo got her milkshake and started downing it happily.

“No worries Rainbow, it gave me some good chance to get to know Scootaloo here a bit better,” I laughed, tasting my own shake and finding it to be strawberry flavoured.

Oh, this is really good. Not some processed chemical shake but one with actual strawberries.

“So, have anything planned for the afternoon Rainbow?” I asked as I quickly finished up my milkshake.

“Well… I was sort of counting on you being completely out right now,” she sheepishly admitted.

“Miss awesome thinking that I couldn’t take a little training?” I smirked.

“You did better than I’d expected,” Rainbow grumbled in defeat. “I wanted to get some practice in for myself while you napped.”

“Hey you can still do that, I’ll be fine exploring Ponyville on my own a bit more.”

Rainbow looked over at Scootaloo, “Are you okay with that?”

“Yeah, I remembered that I have to pick up some stuff at home anyway.”

“Awesome, when shall we meet back up again, Jack?” Rainbow asked as I checked my watch, finding it approaching twelve already.

How our world's time systems match up this perfectly is beyond me. Gotta ask Twilight how that's possible if she gets anywhere in her research.

“Say two o’clock in front of the library?”

“Deal! See you then!” Dash immediately launched herself into the air and barrelled towards the open field outside of town.

“So, let’s go get your stuff.” Scootaloo and I walked over to her house where she swiftly got her bags before heading on to the schoolhouse. As we arrived the other children were playing all kinds of games around the schoolhouse, some playing tag while others were going off the slide or swinging on the swing.

“Where have you been, blank flank?”

Scootaloo immediately froze as she heard the voice call out loudly. I could see two of the children approaching from the side as I interposed myself between them and Scootaloo. “Hello there, I seem to have missed your name.”

The pink filly with a tiara on her head looked up at me in annoyance. “I didn’t say. Now get out of my way, stingy chicken.”

“I’m afraid I can’t,” I calmly answered to the filly’s chagrin.

“Look, I don’t know who you are and I don’t care. Just get out of my way.”

“No.” The surrounding playground had grown a lot quieter as the other children were shooting glances in my direction to see how this would turn out. The pink filly seemed to snap at my stubborn refusal.

“Do you know not who I am?! My father-” As she mentioned her father I couldn’t help but burst out into laughter, tears in my eyes.

“Your father what?” I burst out, “Is he like a mob boss, going to send his goons after me for getting in the way of his kid?” The children around me snickered quietly while the bully was blowing steam out of her ears. “That’s right, he isn’t. Now stop bothering Scootaloo here, I'm no fan of bullies and you two seem to fit that category quite well.”

“Y-You… AAARGH!” The filly stomped away red hot with anger.

“That. Was. Awesome!” Scootaloo exclaimed, not being able to hold her own laughter.

“Scootaloo!” Two new fillies came running up, a yellow earthpony with red hair and a white unicorn with purple hair. “Where have y’all been? Cheerilee moved yer presentation to the afternoon in case you’d show up late.”

“Hi girls, I had some things that I needed to work out. Jack here helped me along.”

“You’re that griffin Rarity is fixing those strange clothes for, aren’t you?” the unicorn asked.

“Yes I am, and you two are?”

“Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom,” Scootaloo pointed out for me, the two nodding.

“Sounds good. I’m sorry you two but I promised Scootaloo I’d talk to your teacher with her and we already wasted some time with that little distraction just now.”

“Alright, that’s fair. We’ll see ya in class Scoots,” Apple Bloom called out allowing us to move to the large red schoolhouse. After looking for a bit we found Cheerilee at her desk looking through some assignments. I knocked on the doorframe three times to get her attention.

“Oh hello there, what can I do for you?” she said, looking up at me with a slightly forced smile.

“I’m just here to return a student,” I stepped aside a bit to allow Scootaloo through, her ears flat as she looked at her teacher.

“Scootaloo! I was very worried about you, where have you been?” Cheerilee immediately brightened at seeing her student.

“She was having some serious anxiety issues about her presentation, and how her bullies would react,” I answered for the filly. “The two of us had a talk and she wants to hold it anyway now.”

“Of course, I’d like to see you after class too Scootaloo, but if you still want to give your presentation then I won’t stop you,” Cheerilee smiled, “You go outside and play with your friends, I’ll talk with mister…?”

“Grey.”

“Mister Grey here.” She finished. Scootaloo nodded and ran back outside to catch up with her two friends while I took a seat on a stool in front of Cheerilee’s desk. “I’m surprised you got her to come in here, usually she’s gone for at least the entire day when she doesn’t show up.”

“It happens more often?”

“It could be worse but about once every month,” Cheerilee admitted.

“That’s sad, she sounds like a good kid with drive, just needs a push in the right direction.”

“You seem to have gotten through to her, would you mind checking in on her so every now and then?” Cheerilee asked, “It’d do her some real good.”

“As long as I am in Ponyville I’ll keep an eye out for her,” I smiled back in reply.

“Thank you, now I must ask you to leave since class is about to start again.”

“Of course, have a nice day, miss Cheerilee.”

“You too, mister Grey.”

Chapter 9:
Incident

The following days were rather similar to that first one, part of the day would be me along with Rainbow either doing flight training or working out in the gym. The afternoons would be mostly for my own to fill in which I used to read up on this world and its inhabitants from books in Twilight’s library. One of my main discoveries being how insulated a society Equestria was, conflict essentially being non-existent at larger scales.

Then again, they do have a fucking immortal deity watching over them... Wouldn't I have pissed myself in that first meeting if I had known that...

Then in the evenings, I had gotten Scootaloo to come by the library and would help her out with homework, particularly the math problems since that’s one of the area’s I’m good at due to my sniper background.

Also a great distraction from any other concerns.

This day, however, started a little different.

“You ready for some more flight lessons, rookie?” Dash asked as she walked in on me eating breakfast, having slept in a bit longer as she was still bunking with me in the library.

“You bet I am!” I smirked, “Just give me a sec to bring this to Twilight downstairs.” Picking up a third sandwich I’d made I went down to the basement to give it to the unicorn working down there. The entire basement was filled by machines of all kinds, a chalkboard full of equations and glowing symbols I didn’t even pretend to understand, paper strewn around everywhere… And then there was a sleeping unicorn in the midst of it all.

That pony works way too hard… Can't say I don't respect her for it.

Placing the plate to the side, I proceeded to lift her onto my back, carried her back upstairs, placed her into her own bed, and closed the window blinders before heading back down to pick up the sandwich to place in the freezer.

“Did Twilight fall asleep again down there?” Spike asked as I ran into him in the kitchen.

“Yup.”

The little dragon sighed. “I’ll get that sandwich to her when she wakes, thanks for carrying her up by the way.”

“No problem, see you in the afternoon,” I smiled as I left the library, Dash already sitting outside and waiting for me to get out.

“Took you long enough. Come on, I want to show you some real moves,” Dash smiled, flapping her wings to get in the air, “Follow me!”

Glancing down the street I noticed a set of stallions that I'd consistently been seeing over the previous couple days. A day earlier I'd cornered them after slipping away from watching one of Dash's performances, quickly discovering the two stallions were part of Shining Armor's insurance policy. After waving to the two to let them know that I'd already spotted them I opened my own wings to get in the air. I only made small hops low over the ground as any actual sustained flight was... well, difficult to say the least.

“Breaking… Manehattan…”

As we passed through the town square we stopped moving as it was filled by ponies standing around the news booth. Everyone was talking with each other, looking concerned as they waved the newspaper around.

“What going on here?” I asked one of the ponies at the edge of the crowd, Rainbow landing beside me.

“It’s horrible!” The pony pushed the newspaper into my claws and allowed me to read the headline:

‘Breaking: Bombing in Manehattan, fifteen dead and dozens wounded. Perpetrators unknown’

“Shit…” I muttered below my breath. “Dash, we’re not going to train today.”

“Nope,” Rainbow agreed with me as I pushed the newspaper back into the other pony’s hooves.

“I need to go check up on Rarity, Spike told me she’s got my clothes ready.” Moving away from the crowd I made a direct beeline to the boutique, Rainbow following me there.

“Rarity, are you home?” I called out as I pushed through the door, the fashionista peaking out the door that lead to the private part of the store.

“Of course, though I’m still closed to business at this moment,” She said, Sweetie peeking from behind her to who entered the shop.

“I’m sorry for the intrusion but I need my clothes right now,” I apologized as Dash stepped forward and hoofed her a newspaper she’d gotten back at the town square.

“Oh my… I’ll go get them immediately.” Rarity immediately shot upstairs to get the clothes while Sweetie stepped forward in confusion.

“What’s going on? What happened?” She asked.

“There was an attack in Manehattan,” I bluntly said. “Can you tell Scootaloo I won’t be there today? I’m heading up to Canterlot.”

“Oh… ok.”

“Thanks, I’ll try to be back soon but I’m not sure how long this might take if my help is accepted,” I told her as Rarity came down and floated my clothes back over to me.

“There, the pants were a bit of a problem but I got them adjusted to the best of my abilities.”

“From what I’ve heard that’s a pretty good guarantee for quality from you. Thank you Rarity.”

“My pleasure darling, now you go do what you have to,” Rarity smiled, I gave her a nod and left the boutique again for the library. Spike jumped in surprise as I threw open the door and ran upstairs.

“Hey, weren’t you two going to train?” He called upstairs after me only for Dash to show him the newspaper.

Within two minutes I was back downstairs, fully dressed, backpack on my back and tactical rig strapped in place. “Rainbow, can you open the chest? I’m not leaving my weapons here and I’d prefer not to drag along that box everywhere.”

“Well, technically I’m not supposed to… but maybe if I go along with you.” I rolled my eyes and nodded, Rainbow made a happy sound and opened the box. After quickly stashing the weapons and filling the pouches of my vest with magazines, we left Spike and the library behind me again as we made our way over to the train station.

“When do the trains from here head to Canterlot?” I asked Rainbow who pointed at the train that was sitting at the platform of the station, its whistle blew, signalling its departure.

“Right now!”

“Well, we’re not missing that train!” I growled, speeding up some more flapping my wings to make little hops with all of my gear. We managed to jump on the back cart right as it steamed out of Ponyville station.

“That was way too close,” Rainbow laughed, her adrenaline up from the run. I noticed my two tails standing back at the platform and flipped them off as they hadn't gotten to the train in time.

“Hear, hear. Let’s go find a conductor to make sure we’re not handed off to the authorities the moment we arrive at the next station.”

“Sounds good to me,” Dash chuckled as we opened the door leading into the back cart and walked through the train to find a conductor, explaining our situation to him as we did and managing to buy a ticket from him right there. The ponies in the cart we seated in all glanced in our direction, whispering quietly to each other.

Neither I nor Dash talked much as the train rode up the mountain towards the city hanging off the side of it. I still couldn't wrap my head around how they engineered it to not collapse and fall into the valley below, a lot of it probably had to do with magic. The train slowed to a stop at its final station and main destination, ponies quickly scuttling out of our cart and new ones avoiding me with a wide berth. There was a palpable sense of suspicion of me up here that Ponyville simply didn't have.

“You know the way around here better than I do, Rainbow, can you get us into the palace?” I asked as we walked away from the train station.

“You bet I can!” Rainbow replied pointing out the way through the Canterlot streets up to the palace. Here too ponies were engrossed in their newspapers, sometimes arguing with each other about who was responsible. But once again, just like the station, every time I was noticed ponies would make sure to stay away from me.

“This is bad,” I grumbled as we saw Royal Guards rushing past us in groups towards the market we’d just passed, completely ignoring us as they headed to wherever they needed to be.

“You’re telling us? I don’t think Equestria ever had anything like this happ-” I cut Dash off in the middle of her sentence as I froze in the street, a cold sting in my gut telling me something was wrong. “Jack?”

“Rainbow, Two o’clock, halfway down the street. I don’t like the look of those two.” I told her, my eyes fixed on two griffins that were pulling a tarp-covered cart, one of them had a cloak around his body as he kept half an eye on every guard in sight.

“What are you thinking?” Dash asked, anxiety in her voice.

“Do you think you’d be able to restrain the small one if you dropped from above?”

“Whoa there, we can’t just do that to them!” Dash exclaimed, shocked at what I was suggesting.

“No. That’s why I’m going to talk to them, I just want to cover all my bases,” I told her as I proceeded to load a magazine into my pistol and made my way over to the two griffins. Behind me, I saw Dash take off into the air and shadow me from above.

“Hello there! What are two of my kind doing here on this magnificent day?” I called out, getting the attention of the two griffins. The older griffin's face went through various emotions before he got a grip giving a cold stare while the younger one was obviously nervous.

There’s definitely something wrong here… The older one is the priority target if this goes sideways.

“Just getting some trade done on the market. Bloody ponies can't even get themselves to buy shit from me,” the older griffin grunted.

"Man that sucks, what are you selling anyway?" I asked, trying to glance under the tarp and spotting some barrels.

"Nothing interesting, just ale," he grumbled, pulling down the tarp to obscure the barrels from my view.

"Sounds interesting... say, if the ponies don't want to take it off your claws I might be able to get a barrel from you?" I continued, locking eyes with the smaller griffin who looked confused. "What do you say, little one? Can't hurt to make some cash, now can it?"

"B-but we were delivering a package, weren't we?" she stammered, looking over to the older of the pair.

Bingo.

The older griffin tensed up but the younger one taking a step back away from her companion. “You know, something tells me the guard would be very interested in your cargo. You wou-”

That was the moment crap hit the fan.

The old griffin pulled the tarp off the cart and threw it over me in a smooth motion, forcing me to spend valuable seconds getting out from under it. The moment I did I could see the old griffin lighting a fuse running into one of the barrels on there.

Oh, hell no.

Pulling my pistol, I fired three shots into his centre mass before charging forward. Rainbow meanwhile dropped from above and pinned the younger griffin to the ground as she desperately tried getting away from all that was happening.

I wasted no time jumping on the cart and gripped the shortening fuse, ripping it out of the barrel, and tossing it as far away as possible. The moment the fire of the fuse reached the part of it that had stuck in the barrel, it exploded.

“You coward!” The old griffin spat along with some blood as he had trouble breathing. “Why would you help these damn ponies…”

“Because they’ve only shown me kindness,” I growled, approaching him but jumping back as he suddenly pulled a sword from under his robe and swung it at me. The weapon clattered to the ground as the griffin quickly lost the strength to wield it.

“If you think you’ve won you’re wrong…” He gasped before collapsing to the ground, his body limb as blood flowed onto the stones of the street. A quick check by means of an ‘eye poke’ confirming he’d died.

“Shit,” I cursed, seeing Rainbow still struggling to keep the other griffin down. Quickly rushing up to her I helped Dash subdue her, using a set of zip tie cuffs to secure the griffin’s wrists behind her back.

“There, now let’s go get-”

“Stay right there and surrender yourselves!”

“-the Guard.” A squad of Royal Guards had already surrounded us and more could be seen coming our way.

“Step away from the cart and lay down on the ground!” The unicorn at the head of the squad shouted with a lit horn. Dash looked at me for what to do as I slowly stepped away from the young griffin and the cart, laying down onto the ground as ordered.

The guard stepped up and placed a set of heavy cuffs around my wrists and restrained my wings before they pulled me up. They took my backpack, combat knife, and rifles, yet leaving my pistol as they probably didn’t recognise it as a weapon before moving on to get the young griffin and cutting my wraps and cuffing her themselves. I didn't like giving up my weapons to them but if played diplomatically I'd most likely have them back the soonest.

“Careful with that cart, you’ll find the contents of those barrels to be very explosive.”

The eyes of the lead guard widened a bit before barking a couple of orders and having the street blocked off before turning to the guards next to us. “Bring them to the cells in the barracks.”

The young griffin and I found ourselves pushed into a holding cell together while Dash was led to another while the guard processed the necessary paperwork. The young griffin female pressed herself into the opposite corner of the room to where I was sitting. My gaze squarely focussed onto the terrified griffin as her grey feathers blended with the dull stone of the cell.

“Who are you?” I asked poignantly, not in the mood for games.

“U-Uncle s-said I-I’m not s-suppos-”

“Your. Name.”

“G-Gabby!” She immediately stuttered, her wings twitching against the restraints at, what I assumed to be, an attempt to hide behind them. My anger continued being up only for a moment longer before it fell away to pity.

“Do you have any idea what you were just caught doing?” I asked her, my tone of voice a lot softer.

“N-No? U-Uncle Garett wanted m-my help with a delivery to C-Canterlot. H-He was acting strange b-but that’s just him…” Gabby started hyperventilating as she thought back to what happened outside on the streets. “H-He’s dead. Y-You killed him.”

Gabby renewed her attempts at disappearing into the corner as I got up from the bench and approached her, sitting down next to the little griffin and wrapping an arm around her. “What you brought into the city was a cart full of explosives. Had your uncle succeeded then you, me, my friend, and a lot of ponies around us would have died in the blast.”

“H-He wouldn’t!” Gabby exclaimed exasperated, her face dropping further as she saw the serious, but sincere, look on my own. “No…”

“I’m sorry, but you were used.”

She couldn’t hold it in any longer and started sobbing against my coat while I rubbed her back, not entirely sure what else to do. Keys jangled as the prison door opened and a familiar stallion stepped in. “Jack Grey.”

“Shining Armor.”

“I really wanted to have you locked behind bars permanently after that stunt outside only to get a report on what was in the barrels of that cart,” Shining said with a sigh. “You probably saved dozens of lives by stopping that griffin. I can set aside my doubts for a bit, too many other things I need to worry about anyway. It also helps that the Princess wants to see you.”

“Well I came up here to offer my help but I wasn’t expecting this would be the way,” I said without a hint of mirth as it wasn’t the proper timing right now.

“Who’s she?” Shining asked, pointing at Gabby.

“She’s the niece to the bomber but I don’t think she was involved. I’d recommend keeping her in protective custody as she might know something she doesn’t even realise is important,” I told Shining as I got off from the floor and helped Gabby up as well.

“I’ll get something arranged. I already got Rainbow out of her cell, she’s already being escorted to ERGIS’s situation room.”

“ERGIS?”

“Equestrian Royal Guard Intelligence Service,” Shining clarified, getting a huff from me.

“Well, someone fucked up big time there if the newspaper is to be believed.”

“We haven’t had something like Manehattan happen in over two hundred years, Jack. We have dealt with minor skirmishes in our time but not this, and after that event they did manage to prevent another bombing in Trottingham before you stopped the one here in Canterlot,” Shining defended before calling over two guards. “I’ve got my hooves full of work right now. Hell, I was supposed to be back up north in the Empire by now, I’ll see you around. Bring him to the situation room and get her a room under guard up in the palace.”

The two guards at the door saluted and proceeded with their tasks, the one leading me first getting me my gear back and unbinding my wings before bringing me to the situation room. Princess Celestia stood at the head of a central table that had a map laid out on it, three little red flags were placed on Manehattan, Canterlot and what I presumed to be Trottingham. More yellow ones were placed on various cities as runners brought information from the analysts that were working on the outer edges of the room to the central table.

“I see you’ve gotten your stuff back,” Dash said as she approached from the side, getting a nod from me as I walked up to the central table after the Princess noticed me and motioned for me to come closer.

“Any information on the motives of the attackers, Princess?” I asked, making the princess shake her head.

“Not as of yet. I just got a report telling me you had a claw in preventing a similar attack in Canterlot?

“Yes I did, Princess,” I answered, lowering my head and my elbows bending a little to bow ever so slightly. It was a much larger gesture than the one I'd given at our first meeting.

“My gratitude for that then, did you find anything useful we can work on there? I remember that you did something called counter-insurgency where you are from, my hope is that you could give us a new perspective on how to deal with this crisis,” Celestia asked, a scribe ready to note down anything I said.

“Our army's focus was on that at the moment but I'm no dedicated terror fighter, yet I see your point and will try to help to the best of my ability. The griffin I killed was ranting about me being a coward. After that he died and the guard arrested us…” I answered, the Princess looking annoying that an avenue to gain information was lost, “…There is another thing though. We have the young griffin who accompanied the bomber in captivity. His young niece.”

Celestia thought for a moment. “Then I think it is time we asked her some questions. Mind joining me?”

“I talked to her in the holding cell a bit as well, I think she was out of the loop.”

The princess shook her head. “No matter, we shall still question her regardless.”

“Yes ma’am,” I said, motioning Dash to follow as I followed the princess to the exit of the situation room, guards right on our heels. “Prince Armor had her brought into the palace under guard. I’m not sure where she is right now.”

Celestia stopped and thought for a moment before continuing her walk. “I know where she’ll be located if that’s the case, and if not the guard will know.” The princess turned to another pony in the room. “Captain Radiant Shield, I will be unavailable for some time, I trust you can make sound judgements in my stead.”

“Of course, Princess,” he replied, continuing to move between stations.

“Perfect. Now mister Grey, Rainbow Dash, please follow me.”

I silently nodded trusting the Princess to know where to go for my second meeting with Gabby.

Chapter 10:
Organization

A set of guards were posted in front of the room where Gabby was being held, they bowed as the Princess approached.

“You hold the young griffin captive here?”

“Yes Princess,” one of the guards answered from his bowing position.

“Rise. Anything you heard in there?” the Princess asked as the guards rose again.

“She can faintly be heard crying in there but other than that we've heard nothing suspicious,” the second guard told her.

“Thank you, we'll be going in and do not wish to be disturbed,” Princess Celestia told the guards.

“Are you sure, Princess? We could come in with you?” the first guard asked.

“Thank you, but we'll be fine on our own.” The guard's eyes then fell on me, a faint frown forming on his face, something Celestia picked up on immediately. “He's with me, soldier.”

“Yes Princess,” he nodded and opened the door for us. The room itself didn't have much furniture in it but the pieces themself didn't look all that uncomfortable. Gabby was sitting on the bed with her back against the wall, squeezing a pillow against her chest, while her eyes were bloodshot from all the crying she'd done. She looked over at us as we entered, hiding behind her pillow as she saw the Princess.

“Hello there, are you comfortable here?” Celestia asked as she sat down at the table in the centre of the room, summoning a pot of tea and cups from thin air.

“Y-Yes P-Princess,” Gabby squeaked, still doing her best to disappear behind the pillow. Rainbow and I took seats at the table too.

“Then would you mind some tea?” Celestia asked, pouring a cup of her own. Gabby quietly nodded but didn't move off the bed. The princess also offered Dash and me the tea, Rainbow declined while I took a cup from her.

“Gabby, can you join us here at the table?” I asked as the other griffin didn't seem to be moving.

“O-Okay,” Gabby stuttered, her voice cracking as new years welled up in the corner of her eyes. The little griffin carefully stepped up to and sat down at the table. She picked up her teacup but the shaking of her hand nearly made the liquid spill out.

“Hey, you know we're not going to hurt you, right?” I said with a small smile, laying a claw on Gabby's shoulder.

“O-Of course,” Gabby stuttered, taking a sip out of her cup.

“Now, I’d say you weren’t in trouble but that’d be a lie,” I continued, pulling out a pen and notebook. “But right now we need your help in saving the lives of more ponies.”

“Alright, I-I’ll help with that,” Gabby answered, the shaking in her hands at least settling down enough to be able to drink the tea.

“Thank you Gabby, I shall make sure this is a major factor in any trail you’ll be a part of,” Celestia said, signalling me to continue my questionnaire. Rainbow just continued to sit to the side and watched.

“Now, your uncle, I need to know who he hung out with, even if you just have descriptions it’ll be helpful,” I told Gabby, getting ready to write down her answers.

“H-He hung out with this one large griffin back a-at the castle a lot, I don’t know his n-name though,” Gabby told me, “O-Other than that he usually hung out at bars when he wasn’t delivering packages.”

I scribbled some things down. “The large griffin, anything notable about him? You know, like the colour feathers, scars or something else notable?”

“He’s got black head feathers a-and dark grey on the rest of his body… his wings didn’t look that cared for I think.”

“Thank you, was there a particular bar he went to often?” I asked as I penned down the features of the griffin.

“N-No not really...”

I sighed and picked up the cup of tea, being pleasantly surprised as I took a sip. It tasted like a blend you’d get from Afghani locals as opposed to some of the manufactured stuff we’d have in the west. “Do you know where your uncle brought some of his other packages?”

“Not really, he just picked them up from the post office and then left town to deliver them… then one day he offered me to come along to Canterlot with a ‘very big delivery’ as he said… and then in Canterlot...” Gabby started hyperventilating as she closed her eyes and curled up into a fetus position. “...H-He had a s-sword and was a-acting all shifty, t-then y-you k-k-killed him.”

Rainbow shot forward and wrapped the little griffin in her wings as she broke down crying. I froze completely, swallowing as old and buried memories flashed through my mind and tears sprung into my eyes.

You're not there... need to calm down... don't panic...

Rapidly any attempt at remaining calm were thrown out of the window as images of crying children and utter chaos invaded my head. My breathing rapidly increased as I curled up into a ball, clutching my head.

Stop it! I... What the hell are you even doing here?

The attention upon Gabby shifted towards me as I shivered in my curled up ball while being lost to memory and thought.

You need to get out...

Looking up from my curled up position I zeroed in on the door, not even hearing Rainbow and the Princess asking me if I was all right as a single though kept hammering me.

GET OUT!

Within a fraction of a second, I sprung up, charging the door and surprising the four guards waiting for us outside. Not hesitating a moment I was off into the hallway, bolting around corners as I searched for an exit. Behind me, I could hear my names being called but I wasn't stopping as I saw an exit where sunshine was coming through.

"Jack!"

Ignoring the vaguely familiar call I jumped through the door, taking in the surroundings. A large garden of sorts, neatly maintained and divided into sections lay in front of me as grass sat below my paws and talons. Feeling my arms and legs become weak I collapsed and broke down crying.

What are you doing here Jack, what the hell are you doing pretending like you're some stable genius here...

Something draped across my back as a source of heat laid down next to me, light blue feathers brushing against me.

"Hey, Jack, What's wrong? Please talk to me." Rainbow asked as she pulled me close.

"I..." I sniffed hard, leaning up against the pegasus. "Bad memories. Very bad ones."

Rainbow muttered something but I didn't catch it in my current state. "Want to, I don't know, talk about it?"

"Not really... maybe someday." I steadied myself further, trying to distract myself with the situation at hand, noticing a set of guards watching us from distance with the Princess. "We should get back to the princess, there's still a job to be done."

"Jack you-"

"Rainbow, please." Dash frowned but ultimately helped me up, the two of us walking over to Celestia after I'd wiped away my tears and made sure my clothes were straightened up again.

"Are you okay, Jack?" the princess asked in concern.

"Just some old demons that still haunt me, I'll be fine," I said with my regained composure “Princess, could you have me lead to the griffin representative in Canterlot?”

"Are you sure you are capable of functioning correctly right now?" She asked, not completely convinced.

"Yes I am, ma'am," I answered confidently.

“Then please, follow me,” Celestia said, leading the way through the halls of the castle. Rainbow closely behind, looking at me with concern in her eyes.

The hallways got a bit more crowded as we got closer to the exit of the castle, various reporters were being held back at the entrance of the castle as they demanded an audience with the Princess. Celestia turned to the two royal guards with here and swiftly scribbled something down on a parchment and summoned some wax, rolling it up, sealing it, and giving it over to me.

“He needs to be brought to the Griffonian consulate, please get him there as soon as you can.” The two royal guards saluted and made an opening in the row of reporters at the door to allow me through.

“Hey, colours?" I asked as we followed the Royal Guards to the consulate.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks, I really needed someone back there,” I told her as we walked down the long street.

“Would've been a terrible friend if I just let you run off in that state,” Rainbow smiled, placing a wing on my back.

“I'm still glad you did, being alone when something like that happens is the worst.”

“No problem, I'm the Element of Loyalty after all!” Dash beamed, making me smile as well while we walked. The two guards brought us to a walled-off compound and looked at each other in slight confusion.

“Anything wrong?”

“There should be at least two griffins holding guard here,” one of the two answered, pointing at the empty guardhouse. I immediately pulled my rifle off of my back and checked the mag.

“You two stay with Rainbow and get help, I’m going in alone,” I told them, looking over at Dash. “That’s not negotiable.”

Rainbow cringed “Fine...”

“Good pegasus,” I smirked, walking up to the gate and pushing it open, finding it wasn’t even locked. The courtyard had a few scattered corpses and a moaning, grey armoured griffin clutching a bleeding leg laying near the entrance of the main structure. Cursing quickly I rushed forward, picked up the sword that lay next to him and tossed it away before grabbing my medkit. “Your name?”

“G-Gael,” He grunted, surprised at my appearance. There was a significant amount of blood pouring from a stab wound that pierced his thigh and a few insignificant ones on his arms. “W-Who are you?”

“A friend of Princess Celestia’s,” I answered, wrapping a pressure bandage around the cut and tightening it. “Where is the consul?”

“Somewhere in there,” he grimaced. “There was only a small group of the bastards here so they might have gotten them already.”

“To what bastards are we referring here?” I asked as I tied down the bandage.

“You know... the Red Claws?” he said slightly confused, his eyes suddenly widening, “You didn’t know...”

“No I didn’t, but thanks for telling me. I’ve got a consul to see.” Leaving the wounded griffin in a bit better shape I continued further into the building, hearing voices around the corner at the end of the hallway and clashing swords. Running over the carpet to the end of the hallway I passed various motionless griffins, some clearly still breathing and others moaning in pain from grievous wounds, before coming to a skidding halt at the end of it on my back legs and rifle raised.

“STAND DOWN!” I barked, the two griffins that were engaging each other pausing to look who’d interrupted them. A third griffin stuck at a closed door sitting at the end of the hallway also took note of me as we locked eyes. “Consul?”

The cloaked griffin that had been fighting the guard lunged forward to the other griffin now his defences were lower, but before he could stab him I fired my rifle, hitting him in the shoulder. He immediately dropped his sword in a cry and clutched the spot that just got hit.

“Who are you?” the guard immediately asked with ragged breath, stepping in between me and the consul. In response, I pulled out the parchment the Princess had signed for me and showed it to the guard, though I was not letting the griffin on the ground out of my sight. He looked back at the consul after reading the scroll and motioned him to come forward, to let him read as well. In the meantime, I checked out the wound on the downed griffin who was breathing heavily.

“The princess sent you?”

“She did. I had some questions, one of which I already have answered by Gael outside,” I replied, looking at the guard. “There are two Royal Guards outside, they should have gotten emergency medical services so you can check up on your brothers in the hallway.”

“I get paid to defend the consul’s life no matter the cost. I do not answer to you,” he replied, suspiciously eyeing me.

“Look at this twat, think I couldn’t have ended all three of you the moment I came around the corner?” I growled, the griffin below me spitting on my arm. “Yes, I could have, now go to the Royal Guard for that help.”

He looked back at the consul who waved him off which got him to pass me and run outside. “I seem to be in your debt, what is it you needed to know?”

“Who are the Red Claws?” I flatly asked, the griffin below me letting out a pained chuckle.

“The end to weak and illegitimate pony rule over griffins.” He growled, spitting up blood, but between his mangled arm and me holding him down there wasn’t much he could do.

“The adults are talking, please be quiet,” I told him.

“They’re a small separatist group advocating for griffin self-rule,” the consul answered. “They’re a small internal nuisance, nothing we can't-”

“That small nuisance just charged through your guards like they were wet blankets, blew up a massive explosive charge in Manehattan, tried to do the same here in Canterlot, and I’m pretty sure they attempted to capture Princess Celestia’s personal student and her friend. So please Consul, cut the political bullshit, this has blown up far above anything you can manage on your own.” The consul grimaced as his guard returned with one of the Royal Guards and Rainbow Dash, more ponies entered after them and started to treat the wounded. I turned to the Royal Guard and got off the griffin under me. “Search him and take him for medical attention. He also needs to be questioned.”

“Understood,” the pony replied, checking the downed griffin for any weapons with the griffin guard.

“You okay?” Rainbow asked, looking sick as she avoided the fallen in the hallway.

“Never been better,” I replied. “Consul, you’re coming with us and are going to explain to the guard in exquisite detail everything you know about these ‘Red Claws’ you know. Clear?”

“Crystal.”

Princess Celestia pranced around the room in circles. Rainbow, Shining armor, a female ‘thestral’ or batpony called Midnight, and to finish it off the second Princess called Luna. The Solar Guard Captain was still in the situation room to keep things going there.

“An extremely violent separatist group growing right below my nose...” Celestia sighed as she looked over the table that had a map with flags like the ones in the situation room on them.

“You didn’t get any indication of them being around, sister?” Luna asked with a raised eyebrow.

“You know griffins are proud, they’ve always had a faction that wanted to separate from Equestria,” Celestia sighed, taking a seat at the table. “This though? It never got this bad. Small skirmishes that got resolved quickly by other factions in Griffinstone most of the time.”

“This isn’t something we can fix with the elements, is it?” Rainbow asked.

“No, it isn’t. This is going to take the royal guard up in Griffinstone to root out these Red Claws,” Celestia sighed, looking at the map in front of her.

“Just sending in the guard as a blunt force object may have the opposite effect that you’re trying to achieve here,” I said with crossed arms.

“What would you know about that?” the Lunar Guard captain asked.

“They’re going to say the guard is an occupying force and rally support behind their cause that way,” I pointed out to the bat pony. “You need to find out who’s on your side and work with them to clean out corrupt elements fast. I can’t imagine they would have been able to stay hidden if they didn’t have people covering for them. Hell, the consul didn't want to ask for help because of pride so even any potential ally will not be inclined to help.”

“That’ll still require the guard to go up there to figure out who’s on our side and who’s not,” Shining pointed out.

“I can go ahead to gain intel who’s dirty and who isn’t. That way you can cut off the head of the snake before they start agitating. It’ll still be tough if the ideas are ingrained enough but it’ll calm down the region for a while.”

“You’d do that for us?” Princess Luna asked. “You barely even know us.”

I shrugged, “Twilight Sparkle is working her ass off to find a way to get me home, I owe you at least something.”

“I’m pretty sure you’ve gone way past something already, Jack,” Rainbow pointed out.

“So I’m supposed to sit on my butt and watch?”

“No-one would blame you if you did that,” Celestia told me. “You’ve done a lot for us already and I am not sure if I want to send you after having an episode like the one this afternoon again.”

"He didn't freak out at the consulate and that was a bloodbath," Rainbow pointed out, choosing my side.

“I wouldn’t be able to sleep knowing there was something I could do to prevent more attacks, Princess. And besides, where are you going to find a griffin willing to work with you that definitely doesn't have ties to this organization?” I argued. "You can of course go to that place with just the Consul's words to rely on but how much do you trust those?"

"He's right Tia, if you will not take him then I will," Luna sighed, "We need eyes and my guard, good as they are, won't stay hidden for long in Griffinstone itself. We would be fools to go in blind against griffins."

The two sisters looked at each other and nodded, Celestia speaking up. “Then it is decided, you shall go ahead to Griffinstone while we muster the guard over the next few days.”

“I’ll requisition anything you need,” Midnight told me. “Prince Armor, you should go catch some sleep. We require you fresh for when you return to the Crystal Empire.”

“I’ll be ready, Captain, don’t you worry.”

“Good. Mister Grey, since you’re volunteering for a covert operation I want you drafted into the Lunar Guard’s special operations squadron. Do you consent to this?” Captain Midnight asked, I nodded. "I need a verbal confirmation."

"I consent."

"Good. Then you are hereby part of the Lunar forces, keep in mind that your actions will now reflect back on the Princess herself. Do not dishonor her name. We shall take care of any oaths later."

I looked between the Princess of the night and the batpony, Luna just sat by as Captain Midnight handled the situation.

“Understood, Captain.”

Chapter 11:
Griffinstone

”You're not coming, Rainbow,” I told the pegasus as I repacked gear from my backpack into more unassuming brown saddlebags provided to me by the guard. Mainly things like ammo and my leftover zip tie cuffs.

“Oh come on, I can handle myself! I'll just… stay out of sight!” Rainbow exclaimed in response.

“It's out of the question Rainbow, they already went after you once I will not put you in danger again,” I completely rejected her proposal again. “That rainbow hair of yours just paints a massive target on your back.”

“I can just give it another colour!” Rainbow persisted, but there was a little doubt seeping into her voice. I finished stashing gear into my new bags and closed them, turning to face Rainbow directly.

“And what happens if we get revealed? We'd be in the middle of a hostile city with who knows how many griffins around us. You’d be a danger to both me and yourself.”

Rainbow huffed but didn't try to rebut me again.

“I'll be just fine on my own, Dash, it's just two weeks. And besides, Scootaloo is going to have some free time to spend now I'm not helping with her homework,” I finished, strapping on the bags over a mundane brown cloak that would hide my weapons and tactical rig. The sniper rifle remaining in Rainbow's care since I wouldn't be able to use it regardless. “I've got to go and see Captain Midnight, see you around Rainbow.”

Leaving the pegasus behind in the previous room, I entered the hallways and walked towards the situation room. The traffic around the room wasn't as bad as when I'd first entered but clearly busier than usual. The pony I was looking for stood by one of the tables and was listening to one of the analysts.

“Captain Midnight?” I said, saluting as she turned to me.

“Specialist Grey. I see you know the meaning of haste, I didn't think you'd be here so soon,” she commended, motioning for me to follow. “We've gotten you the appropriate documents, funds, and put together a brief to get you up to speed on the most recent information.”

The bat pony passed along a file and a few loose documents which I quickly stashed into one of my bags. “How much money is this?” I asked as I held out the bag of bits Midnight passed me.

“Enough to last you for at least four weeks. Just keep in mind that just about every Griffin will try to hike prices, they're extreme penny pinchers, you can barter off at least a quarter of the initial price most merchants give you,” she informed me.

“Thanks for the heads up.” I rolled my eyes.

“No problem. I also have this for you.” Midnight gave me a metal cylinder which after opening revealed a green candle with parchments rolled around it. “Dragonfire candle, burn anything and it'll be sent over to an analyst in this room. It's the most secure method of communication we have.”

“Not going to pretend to know how that works but that sounds really useful,” I smiled, stashing away the cylinder as well.

“Indeed it is, I'll have a covert team camp out in the neighbourhood as support if it's needed. They'll only be observing so they won't be immediate support but they might just provide you with an exit if you can hold out long enough. Now the Princess wanted to see you in her office. She'll have somepony drop you off at the station once she's done with you. Good luck out there.”

“Thank you, Captain,” I respectfully nodded, leaving her behind in the situation room. The Princess was seated behind her desk and looking over a stack of paper as she noticed me.

“Jack Grey, good to see you're done preparing. There's something I wanted to give you.” The Princess took me into a side room and produced a longsword out of a locker. It was of a simple design, the only really notable thing being the dark blue gem set into the pommel. The hilt was made of dark metal and grip of black leather.

“My sister and I know you have those weapons of your own but we agree that maybe you should carry something more visible to deter these 'Red Claws' from attacking you outright were your cover to fail.”

Sliding the blade from its sheath I looked it over, finding it was very well balanced before re-sheathing it. “Thank you but I'm afraid that if I would get into a situation where I'd have to use it I wouldn't know how.”

Luna smirked a little deviously, “When in doubt, stick them with the pointy end. I'm sure you can deal with any threat in your own way… but if not, the sword might yet surprise you,” Luna cryptically added. I couldn't help but chuckle at that as I wrapped the belts attached to the hilt around my body and tightened them. "One more thing, you work for me now so please refrain from starting an international conflict. It looks like we're only getting away with that incident at the consulate because you technically didn't work for us among a few other things. The other embassies in the city have all sent veiled messages to us to not try something similar there."

I cleared my throat and straightened up. “I'll stop myself from doing something stupid up in Griffinstone... I should get going if I'm to catch that train.”

“'Of course, I won't stop you from performing the task I myself gave you” Luna nodded as she flagged over a guard. “He'll show you the way out but won't join you all the way, we want the possibility of you being detected as low as possible.”

“That sounds like a good way to avoid surprises,” I nodded.

“I wish you good fortune out there, mister Grey, we'll speak via dragon mail candle.”

“Understood Princess,”

The train slowly rolled into the Griffinstone station, having travelled all throughout the night. The journey had been relatively long as the railway tracks around Manhattan had all been shut down. There were not that many others on the train, the ponies that had been shooting suspicious glances my way had already gotten off at prior stops. It wasn't that much of a bother anyway as I used the journey to catch up on sleep and read over my alias and the intel.

But now I stood at the bottom of the mountain on which Griffinstone was built. Somewhere up in the distance, I could see structures hanging on the trees and built into the side of the mountain.

Aaah, darn. I hate mountains.

Sighing I took the firsts steps on the path up to the city as the morning rays of the sun shone down on me. The path up was terribly maintained. Wooden railings that were limply hanging from rotten rope or entirely missing, paved sections contrasted by broken up ground.

If this is the path up there is already this bad...

Being careful with where I set down my paws I slowly but surely made my way up, taking a break halfway to eat something before hiking the last bit of the way to the top. The badly maintained houses that were scattered on the way up not heightening my expectations…

...yet even my low expectations were way too high for the absolute dump I was looking at.

It’s pretty much a slum… hell, slums have more cheer than this place. Wow, I actually pity anyone who has to live here.

Griffins actively tried to avoid each other on the street as I walked through, there weren’t even children running about the place. Sometimes two griffins would collide and exchange some harsh squawks.

These birds need to chill out big time.

Careful not to bump into anyone I looked around for an inn to stay at, a flash of colour behind me suddenly caught my eye but the moment I looked I found nothing there.

Strange… I swore I saw- Oh stop it you, she’s not here!

Shaking my head I continued on through the streets.

“Hey! Who are you!” A shout came from an alleyway. At first, I simply ignored the call but that became harder once two griffins blocked my path. “I don't know your face, stranger, what are you doing here?”

“Business,” I flatly stated.

“Of what kind?” the other griffin asked.

“The personal kind,” I growled back, looking around to see if there were more griffins surrounding me, finding it not to be the case. “Now if you two can stop bothering me, I want to find an inn.”

The two griffins looked at each other while I stared them down and was mentally noting their features so I could possibly recognise them later.

“Yeah, go ahead.” The leader of the couple said as he glanced down at the sword hanging from my side, stepping aside to let me pass. “There's an inn down the street. Hard to miss.”

“Thank you,” I told them, walking past and not looking back. Surprisingly, just like they said, an inn sat about four hundred metres ahead. The building was built on an old tree and looked remarkably well maintained compared to the rest of the city. Mentally noting its location for the night I got to a square and took a seat on a large boulder that lay on the edge of it.

Right, now to-

I swung my head to the side as I swore that I saw something in the corner of my eye, once again finding nothing of note where I’d imagined seeing something.

Fucking hell, Jack, you need to chill down this paranoia.

Returning to what I was doing I took out the intel file. One of the griffins at Trottingham had talked and given the name of a bar where he'd met his contact so I scribbled the name of the establishment down on my notepad. The file also gave me a small list of griffins I could trust, something provided by the ambassador.

I should also try to find where Gabby's uncle worked, pay their office a small visit. If they're helping the talons move around gear then that's a major issue.

Getting back up, I started to look around for the post office. The longer I walked through the streets the better a feeling of the tension in the city I got, Griffins looked around and were jumping at shadows constantly. It took me some time to find, but eventually, I stepped into the building.

“What do you mean, you don't know?!” a female griffin screamed at the clerk standing at the front desk. “He works here, right? You gave him a large shipment to deliver someplace!”

Standing at the entrance, I simply watched the altercation play out.

“G, I honestly don't know! We haven't given him an order for weeks, too many things broken due to him always being drunk,” The clerk defended, the other griffin screamed in anger and turned towards me and pushed me aside.

“Out of my way, dweeb,” she said as she handled me, flying off before I could say anything to her.

“My apologies about that, one of our employees got under her feathers,” the clerk sighed. “What can I do for you, sir?”

“I wanted to inquire about a possible employee too. Some griffin called Garrett supposedly works here,” I said, the clerk's eyes went wide.

“That's what Gilda was after too. What did that drunk get himself into now? I assure you, we did not give him your mail if he destroyed it! The post office isn't liable for that!” she barked, immediately deflecting blame off of herself. I turned to see if I could still see the particular griffin but this Gilda was long gone.

“Nah, there was something else I wanted to ask him… say, do you know where Gilda lives and point me in the right direction?” I asked, but I wasn't prepared for the response.

“How many bits are you offering?”

It took some serious effort to keep my exasperation in check. I'd been warned about griffin greediness by both the Lunar captain and a segment of the briefing but I'd written it off as a stereotype. I guess all stereotypes are bound in some truth... Simply reaching into the bag, I pulled out three bits and placed them on the table.

“Well, maybe if there were more-”

“No.” I moved to pick the bits off of the desk but they were snagged right from under my claws.

“Fine! G lives two streets east of here, her aerie is unmistakable. Actually paints the damn thing. Bloody waste of bits.”

I rolled my eyes and sighed. “Thank you for the information.”

The clerk mumbled something unintelligible as I left to look for the house. It wasn't much of a search in the end as the house I was looking for was the only one in the area that didn't look like a complete dump.

After knocking on the door I waited for a response, hoping that Gilda had gone straight home after running into me at the post office. There were some muffled voices as the door swung open only a crack.

“What?”

“Miss Gilda?” I asked, hoping to confirm her identity. The door opened up a bit further so she could see me better.

“Oh, it's you. If you're after an apology for being shoved out of my way you can buzz off,” she growled.

“No, I just wanted to ask you why you want to know where Garrett is,” I calmly stated, Gilda's demeanour changed visibly as she nervously looked past me to see if I was alone.

“Look, I've got stuff to do. I had somepo-griff drop by unannounced and-”

My eyes narrowed at the slip-up and now hawkishly looking past Gilda and into the house, spotting a familiar set of Wonderbolt merch saddlebags. A set of saddlebags I'd seen used by one very particular pegasus…

For fuck sake! She fucking didn’t!

Pushing open the door, I barged past Gilda into her house and slammed open the door to her living room. A yelp came from the couch as I spotted the sky blue, rainbow-haired, pegasus sitting there.

“Hey! You can't come in here!”

“Rainbow.”

“I-I can explain!”

Chapter 12:
Intel

“Go on then, tell me why you completely ignored me,” I said venomously. Gilda was still tense as she looked between me and Rainbow.

“Well, you see… I, uhm… Oh come on, I couldn't just sit back and do nothing!” Rainbow exclaimed as she tried defending her action. Her stature shrunk though as she took in the true size difference between the two of us as I loomed over her.

“That was exactly what you were supposed to do! I guess I won't have to worry about you being captured then, miss awesome. I'm sure no-one saw you and reported that sighting prompting any claw to be hyper-alert for any sighting of you.” Sarcasm was dripping from my voice.

Gilda stepped to the side and looked at Dash too. “Your friend here’s right Dash, this place isn't safe for any pony right now and most definitely not anyone connected to the princess.”

I glanced at the female griffin, she seemed to be knowledgeable of what was going on and if Rainbow trusted her… she might be a very decent source of information.

Rainbow huffed stubbornly, fueling my frustration further as I felt like bashing my head against a wall. “So what now? We both know what happens if these griffins find out what train you're on, and I'm not walking all the way to Manehattan again.”

“I could help with, I don't know, spying on griffins?”

“Dash, you are literally a rainbow coloured target waiting to be snatched up the moment you leave this house. You really didn't think this through, did you?” I sighed as I buried my face in a claw.

“What did you mean by walking to Manehattan?” Gilda spoke up, looking between me and Rainbow suspiciously.

“We were on a train from the north down to Manehattan and got stopped… kinda had to flee and walk all the way to the city from there. Twilight was there as well,” Rainbow quickly summarized.

“Right… Hey Rainbow, it was nice to see you again but I really have stuff to do and a griffin drunk to track down,” Gilda suddenly broke off, trying to leave the two of us behind.

She knows way more than she’s letting on.

“You mean Garrett?” I asked, stepping in the other griffin’s way.

“Exactly,” she hissed back, trying to pass me regardless.

“He's dead.”

“He has someone with him who- wait, WHAT?!” Gilda exclaimed as she processed what I'd said.

“He's dead. Died in Canterlot a day ago.”

“No, no, no, he can't-” Gilda's breath went up as she started panicking, grabbing a hold of my cloak to pull me closer. “T-There was a grey griffin, a small one, with him. She has nothing to do with whatever that jerk was doing!”

“She's fine G, Gabby is in the castle with the princess,” Rainbow said in an attempt to calm Gilda down. “Seriously, I've never seen you worry about someone like this.”

“She's family,” Gilda growled. “That bastard was never up to any good.”

“You got that right, Dash and I caught him with enough explosive material to flatten multiple houses…” I said as I grabbed Gilda’s wrist and slowly pried her claw off my clothing before falling silent again as I went over the assessment of the explosive yield from the intel brief in my mind. “...or one really big mansion.”

“And? He just wanted to kill ponies, right?” Dash questioned while Gilda tried to keep calm.

“No, I don't think so. Remember where we found him and his cart?” I asked to see if Rainbow still knew, pacing around the room as gears ground in my head.

“Uhh, at the market?”

“Not exactly, we stopped them while they were moving away from the market. If he really wanted the maximum casualties he'd have halted right in the middle of that place and blew up his payload. He had another target.”

“Kinda hard to figure out now he's not here to tell us,” Dash grumbled.

“But we can speculate. The street we were on, if we'd walked all the way up it where would we have ended up?”

“The palace. That's where I was leading you, remember? But he would have never been able to get that cart into the walls itself without the guard noticing with how on edge they were,” Rainbow replied. Gilda still looked panicked as she sat back down to listen in but she was clearly nervous about something.

“So not the palace… on the way up, what kind of districts do you run into on the way there?”

“Well, first you'd go through the upper districts where all the nobles live and right before the castle itself you have…” Rainbow paused as she made a connection. “...the embassy district with the griffin consulate.”

“I think now is a good time to send a letter to ask if any important griffin figureheads were present in Manehattan, Trottingham, or any other site where they found explosives.”

“The post office is compromised, they check every letter that gets sent out of Griffinstone,” Gilda spoke as I dug through my bags and pulled out the cylinder with the dragonfire candle.

“Good thing that I have a more reliable line to send messages.” Using a lighter I set the candle aflame, a parchment immediately materialized from the fire. Breaking the lunar guard seal on it I opened the scroll and read the contents. “It seems your absence has been noted by ERGIS, Rainbow. They want me to check if you haven't followed me.”

“Guess you have the answer to that,” Dash sheepishly said as I started writing a small report on the pegasus' status followed by a request for them to look into any griffin casualties from the Manehattan bombing and possible targets in the foiled Trottingham bombing. The moment the letter hit the flame of the candle it burst into fire and a puff of smoke escaped out the window.

“Well, that was way easier tha- why are you watching me like that?” Gilda was looking at me with a shocked and slightly terrified expression.

“You’re the demon of Stoneweed forest, aren’t you?” A little fear started creeping into Gilda’s voice as she tried keeping it steady.

“Uhh, what?” I simply replied. “Sorry, I’m not sure where that forest lays.”

“It’s the one we walked through, Jack,” Rainbow pointed out for me. Gilda swallowed nervously as she backed off into a wall.

“So the two ponies they mentioned… that was you and the smart dweeb, right Rainbow?”

“Hey-”

“Miss Gilda, you seem to know a remarkable amount of information. I would like to know how you do know the information you know.” I got ready to tackle her if she tried to flee, she wasn’t carrying weapons so capturing her would be my priority.

“They talk about you in their reports and messages,” Gilda answered, her voice wavered as whatever she’d read had clearly made an impact.

“Pray tell, how would you have access to those reports?”

“Gilda?” Rainbow frowned in concern as she got off the couch and stepped next to me.

“I-I have sources, okay? I copy them. Stuff has been going on around here for a while you know.”

I stared at her, going through possibilities in my mind. She’s probably not part of the claws themself, otherwise she wouldn’t need sources to get those reports…

“Miss Gilda, we’re going to take a walk,” I told the other griffin. “Rainbow, if you hear gunfire then you’re going to take the candle, my notepad and pen, and book it out of here. You don’t come looking for me or anything stupid. Clear?”

Rainbow looked away and muttered something.

“I said, am I clear?” I repeated, much harsher in tone as I really wanted to make sure she wouldn’t follow me this time. If Gilda turned out to be part of this organization then she’d have time to get out while I’d make a stand.

“Completely,” Rainbow said through a clenched jaw. I got my pistol out and chambered a round into it before holstering it again, Rainbow frowned and gave me a concerned glance.

“Good. Gilda, follow me.” The female griffin stayed close as I left the house and Rainbow behind. The moment I was sure we were out of earshot of the house I stopped Gilda dead in her tracks. “I’m going to give it to you straight, if you even dare to call for anyone’s help for some reason I’m ending you right there. Rainbow might trust you, which is a point in your favour, but I don’t know anything about you.”

“A-Alright, so you want me to earn your trust?” Gilda stammered.

“In a way. What is your opinion about ponies, Gilda?” I asked, as I walked in a random direction, making sure no-one was too close nor that I’d give Gilda an easy escape.

“It’s complicated… do you mind going to someplace where I can more easily explain?” Gilda asked.

“Depends on where that place is,” I replied, letting Gilda take the lead.

“A few streets from here, a place called the pits,” Gilda answered. “Nogrif goes there nowadays so it should be private as well.”

I nodded, sticking close to Gilda as she led me to the place she'd mentioned. As we arrived there I found that these ‘pits’ were just that: fenced off holes in the ground with raised viewing galleries around them. Gilda took a seat in one of the empty galleries, motioning for me to join her.

“So, want to explain why we’re here?”

“I’m surprised you don’t know actually,” Gilda admitted, pointing at the pits. “They were kind of a big deal around here.”

“Well, I’m not really from around here so feel free to indulge,” I stated, making sure no-one was watching us.

“They’re the fighting pits, we used to have tournaments here. Some small, others large. On some days to settle grudges or simply to see who was the better fighter.”

“How far did those fights go?”

“Not to the death if that’s what you’re thinking of. The type of fights were varied but they were to measure skill, not to take out the opponent,” Gilda let out a deep sigh as she looked out over the field.

“So how long have these things been shut down? Can’t have been yesterday, this place looks pretty run down,” I pointed out to her.

“Decades, I wasn’t alive when they were closed. Heard all of the stories from grandpa Gruff.” We both stayed silent after that as Gilda was staring off into nothingness and I gave her some space to get her thoughts ordered.

“Gilda?” I eventually broke the silence.

“Yeah, sorry. You asked me about my opinions of ponies,” Gilda got back to the original topic. “You see, I’ve been to Clouddale’s flight school so I got to know more about ponies than other griffins around here, it’s also where I met Rainbow. But I also got to hear about how Griffins used to run things from grandpa Gruff. This place wasn’t closed down because we wanted to, it was closed because the ponies themselves closed them.”

Gilda looked over to me if I was getting what she was saying. “Go on.”

“Ponies and Griffins aren’t the same. We’re predators, they are not. What’s good for them is not necessarily good for us,” Gilda looked at me again to see if she could gauge me but I just kept myself impassive. “Everygriff is pent up with the status quo, I don’t think there’s anyone who disagrees with that around here, but some take that much further than others.”

“The Red Claws,” I pointed out as an example.

“Exactly. Now don’t get me wrong, I want independence just like any other Griffin but I know how much we rely on ponies for our food. We can’t just cut ties and wave goodbye, and definitely not bite the hoof that feeds us… literally.”

“I see.” Standing back up I walked down the gallery, stopping at the pit’s edge and leaning on the fence before jumping in out of simple curiosity. The pit was quite a bit larger than a boxing ring but not so much that you could easily run circles around an opponent.

“What are you doing?” Gilda asked in confusion.

“Why hasn’t anyone simply started these pit fights up elsewhere?” I asked ignoring Gilda’s inquiry.

“Once a transaction is done or an agreement made we honour it,” Gilda simply replied. “When our last king fell we made an agreement with the Princesses. I think you can piece it together from there.”

I flapped my wings and got back out of the pit, trying to make it look as steady as possible to hide the fact I could fly like shit. So they’re greedy but honourable… I guess that’s why the Claws had to fight their way into the consulate instead of just bribing their way through.

“I think I’ve heard enough,” I told her. “You said something about sources and reports back at your house, right?”

“Yeah?” Gilda asked, still looking tense.

“Calm down, you passed in my book.” I walked back in the direction of her house. “You’ve got copies at your home?”

Gilda nodded as we swiftly walked back to her house. Gilda opened a closet near the front door and pulled out the floorboard, revealing a box. She carried it back to the table in the living room and waited for me to come in as well. I gave Rainbow a nod of approval as she looked between us to see how our conversation had gone.

“Most messages you can read are pretty mundane, some interesting but what are probably the most important ones are written in old Giffonian,” Gilda explained, pulling out three of the papers and showing them to me. “Unless you studied that dead language you’re not going to have much luck with those.”

Old Griffonian my ass, this is German...

“Die Sprache wird von mir selbst noch genutzt,” I smirked as I got out my notepad and started translating the three messages to English. Gilda stared at me with wide eyes while I did so.

“How...”

“Don’t bother G, you’re not gonna get the answer anyway,” Rainbow said as she looked through the more mundane messages. Meanwhile, my smirk had completely dropped away as I read the content of the first of the three papers.

The unknown event up north has attracted the attention of the sun-tyrant, from what my sources can gather her personal student with an attache has gone to investigate days ago by the time you receive this. I need you to send someone up there to verify and if true send a force to capture them. The student has to survive at all cost, her value to our cause as a bargaining chip is immeasurable. Her attachee and anyone else are more expendable.

You know what to do.

-Ca

“Well, that confirms beyond the shadow of a doubt who was after you and Twilight, Rainbow,” I said as I passed the translated version on for her to read.

The final shipment of the new experimental weapons is on its way, I will remain here for a while longer to take care of some of the more unsavoury zebras that can’t be trusted to keep their mouths shut.

-Ze

“Gilda, how old is this message and do you know anything about shipments of weapons coming into Griffinstone?”

The other griffin shook her head, “There’s mention of shipments but never their content in the other communications I have. And I got that particular one two weeks ago from my source, that last one is the most recent.”

“Do you have an estimate of how many shipments came in?”

“A lot. If the boxes all contained swords… enough for a small army.”

I need to get my claws on one of these weapons, if they're experimental they probably aren't swords... there are just too many unknowns here.

I was about to take a look at the third parchment but right as I did three loud bangs came from the front door. “Grimmfeather! Open up!”

The three of us froze, looking between each other, a second set of bangs sent us in a hurried frenzy, stashing all the paper back into the box.

“Rainbow, get to the kitchen and hide beneath the table under the window so they can’t see you from outside!” Gilda hissed before looking at me. “You! hide these papers, they can see into the hallway from outside so I can’t stash them in their hiding spot!”

“Grimfeather! Last chance or we kick this door in!”

“I’m coming, you impatient chickens!” Gilda shouted back at them, mouthing at me to hurry up as she walked to the front door. I immediately got the dragonfire candle from Rainbow.

I hope the analysts like their birthday present...

After lighting the candle a new message from the other end came through but without the time to read I simply stashed it into a pocket along with the untranslated one before torching the entire contents of the box. A large puff of smoke went up and disappeared into nothingness as all the paper was sent over to Canterlot.

“We know you have someone over, Grimfeather, one of our people saw a pony with a cloak enter your house!”

Time to take the heat off of her.

“Excuse me, but I’m pretty sure that whoever you have watching G here is fucking blind if he thought I was a pony,” I growled at the two griffins at the door who I immediately recognized, just as they did me.

“You!” the leader of the two exclaimed, “What is he doing here, Grimfeather?”

“Personal business, remember?” I sarcastically said, making him grind his beak.

“Look, I know him from Cloudsdale alright. Old acquaintance,” Gilda smoothly lied as he and I glared each other down.

“Fine, but we’re watching you,” He eventually growled, turning around and walking off. Gilda immediately closed the door, slumping against it as she let out a relieved sigh.

“I think you just saved our feathers there.”

“Not getting ratted out sounded like a good idea,” I told her, turning and walking to the kitchen where Dash had disappeared into. “I told you that you’d be seen, didn’t I?”

“Yeah yeah, you’ve made your point,” Rainbow grumbled. Shaking my head I pulled the letter from ERGIS out of my pocket and read it.

“The Lunar Guard is arranging an extraction for you, Rainbow. It’s going to take a few days to get everything set up though,” I told her as I re-folded the paper and stashed it under my cloak and got out the candle again to apologize for the dump of letters, sending a quick note explaining why I had dumped the pile on them.

“You sent all of those letters to the ponies?” Gilda asked.

“Yes. Is that a problem?” I raised an eyebrow.

“No, I did tell you to get rid of them after all and I've read them regardless.” Gilda shrugged as I got out the last letter and quickly worked to translate it.

“Is Trottingham significant to the Griffin’s, Gilda?” I asked as I read through the content of the letter.

“It’s the pony city most responsible for delivering our food. Why do you ask?”

“When did you get this letter?” I continued, holding out the parchment.

“Yesterday?”

“Fuck.”

All Trottingham cells are ready to strike. All outward communication will be cut at dawn after which we shall take control of the city.

Griffinstone must be ready to do the same.

Good luck our brothers.

-Tr

Chapter 13:
Intel

Shouts came from outside, drawing our attention to the window through which the ruckus came. Walking up to the window Gilda and I looked out over the city, Griffins in uniform armour and with weapons in claws were forcing griffins into their homes as they took up position in the streets.

But what caught my eyes were the particular weapons they were carrying. Long tubes with wooden stocks that had a glowing fuse waiting to ignite gunpowder in the tube itself.

Fucking muskets… They can’t have gotten the idea from me though, too short a development time, this must have been in development for a good while...

“Rainbow, I suggest getting comfortable under that table. Gilda, I’m going to need your help identifying the leaders of the movement.” I threw off my cloak, revealing my tactical vest and other weapons as I untied the wrappings that concealed both my rifles.

“To do what? They’ll never allow you to get close enough to harm them if that’s what you’re after.” Gilda said reaching for my rifle to see what it was, only for me to swat away her claw.

“Good thing I prefer to keep my distance to targets,” I told her readying my vest in case the griffins would figure out who I was. Gilda huffed in reply as she didn’t know the capabilities of my weaponry.

“Your funeral. The leader of the Griffinstone faction is called Garrick, big bastard he is, grey feathers and fur while his head has black feathers. He’s as savage a griffin you can get.”

“And he has badly maintained wings?” I asked as the description was familiar.

“Yeah… How did you know that?” Gilda asked in surprise.

“Gabby described him to us as Garrett’s contact in the castle,” I answered her, more shouting from outside drew more of our attention. A griffin was arguing with a group of Red Claws armed with muskets, shouting all sorts of obscenities at them as he refused to follow their orders.

Come on man, get out of their way before one of them does something stupid.

What I feared happened mere seconds later as one of the claws raised his musket and warned him for a last time. The griffin protesting hesitated for a moment but then drew a knife on the others. A loud crack later and a lot of smoke from the musket's barrel he was lying motionless on the ground.

“Damnit,” I cursed while Gilda beak dropped open in horror.

“What? How did they… did they just kill him?!” She said in utter shock.

“They did, the weapon they carry is called a musket,” I explained as I pulled her away from the window. “It fires a metal ball at a target through means of an explosive charge.”

“So it fires a projectile like a bow and arrow?” Gilda asked while I kept an eye on the happenings outside.

“Muskets are more powerful, one of those shots will make metal armour quite literally explode where arrows will bounce.”

“So what do we do?” Rainbow asked as she sat on a pillow under the table in the kitchen.

“Right now? Nothing,” I sighed. “We don’t want to attract undue attention to ourselves, those two that came knocking before are enough attention as it is.”

“They won’t be too much trouble, they’re a lot of bark and no bite,” Gilda spoke up. “As long as we don’t antagonize them then we’ll be fine.”

“That’s good to-”

A rapid set of knocks came from the front door again, immediately getting me to spring into action, taking position at the door to the hallway with my rifle and motioning for Gilda to open up.

“Calm down, I think I know who this is,” Gilda held out her claw, gesturing for me to relax as she went to open the front door.

“M-Miss Gilda I-”

“Get in here.” The front door slammed closed again as Gilda pulled in a small blue griffin. His coat was faded from all the dust in there and you could see his ribs through the furry skin as he was clearly underfed. He shrunk down as he noticed me examining him from my position at the doorpost.

“Come on, into the living room you go.” Gilda shoved him past me.

“I-I don’t have a-anything for you this time, miss Gilda,” He stammered as he kept his eyes squarely focussed on me.

“That’s not important, Gallus, It’s better to have you off the streets right now,” Gilda said, turning her attention back to me. “I don’t have the bits to support you all, you’re going to have to find a way to make due.”

“I have enough bits for the moment, I’m more concerned that they’re going to ration food because I can’t give up Rainbow.”

“I can barter under the table if the need’s there in that case. I’m going to check my supplies upstairs. Rainbow come along, I’ll point you to a hiding spot up there. It’s much more secure and out of view.” Dash waved sheepishly at Gallus as she passed him and followed Gilda up.

“So, Gallus right?” I said, holding out a claw to him while I slung my rifle onto my back. He carefully nodded and shook it. “My name’s Jack Grey. I’m kind of new around here, how do you know Gilda?”

“W-Well, she allowed me to sleep here last winter. Taught me to write as well and… I shouldn’t talk about that.”

Gallus looked away, making himself smaller. I had my suspicion about what he almost revealed though. “You’re Gilda’s source of information, aren’t you?”

He went a bit paler as I probably guessed right.

“Don’t worry kid, I’m not ratting you out,” I assured him, “You’re a courier for them or do you get them in other ways?”

Gallus still didn’t look at ease but more of that nervousness seemed to be directed at the noise from outside now. “They give inconsequential letters to street kids to deliver around Griffinstone for food because they can’t read them anyway...”

“...Except you could because of Gilda. But she had more important letters too.”

Gallus scratched his claw over the floor, “There are more ways into the castle than the front gate...”

Hmm, that’s useful to remember in case I need access into that place...

“To all griffins! An announcement will be made in an hour!” Someone announced from outside, “All griffins are obligated to head to the castle square to listen to the glorious re-instatement of our kingdom!!”

I scowled as I looked out at the announcer who continued on his way to the next section of the city where he’d most likely relay the same message again. Gilda came back down, this time without Rainbow.

“We should get there as soon as possible,” Gilda said as she had heard the message too.

“Agreed, I’ll drop my stuff with Dash upstairs. I don’t think they’ll appreciate me heading there fully packed.”

“Probably not, no,” Gilda said as I grabbed all my gear and hauled it upstairs, finding Rainbow and pushing my rifle into her hooves along with my tactical vest after taking out the pistol.

“Don’t you need this?” Rainbow asked as she held the rifle.

“I’m going without a cloak so I can’t hide it. I’m taking my pistol and a mag with me since I can actually hide that under a wing,” I told her as I helped strap on the tactical vest around her barrel. “If you’re found… well, let’s hope they don’t search the house. Clear?”

Rainbow shook a little but nodded in understanding.

“Good, don’t play around with the rifle but be ready in case there are uninvited visitors,” I clamped my pistol with an extra mag under my wing and turned to the stairs again. “Keep that dragonfire candle close. We’ll be back as soon as we can be.”

Gilda and Gallus were already waiting for me at the front door as I came down.

At least I’ll have Gilda on my side here.

Griffins were slowly coming out of their houses while the armed griffins watched over everyone and pointed them towards the square, armed griffins were standing guard all around while others worked to set up a little podium for someone to speak at. Whispers rang throughout the growing crowd as the given deadline for assembly came closer.

Gallus squeezed himself between Gilda and me, shielding himself from all the other griffins in the square. Neither Gilda nor I said anything to each other as I took my time to study the guards, finding markings on the chest of their armours of which I became pretty sure denoted ranks.

Eventually, the castle’s door opened and a new group of griffins came out who walked over to the podium, his rough black feathers moving about in the wind.

“That’s Garrick,” Gilda muttered silently as silence fell over the massive crowd.

“To all griffins assembled here, rejoice! I am sure you all have many questions, some of which shall become clear over the next few days! But, brothers and sisters, from now on Griffinstone shall no longer wither away under the rule of weak ponies. Our magnificent city shall blossom like never before, but as with any new venture like this the ponies shall not take kindly to our new path!” Garrik looked over to a group of his griffins who brought forward a pony onto the stage. I frowned as I could see the heavily mangled and gagged batpony struggling to stand, claw marks all over his body and one of his wings completely missing.

“This is the leader of a group of Lunar Guards which we captured as they spied on our great city! They were here to stop us from reaching our goals, to keep us living in the dirt!” The bat pony tried saying something through the gag but had not the strength to do so, a wave of disapproving shouts came from the crowd aimed at the pony.

“No more! We have cast off the chains of the throne in Canterlot and shall make our own path! No lowly pony shall stand in our way, and any hostile action against our new state by the ponies shall be punished severely!” The Griffins around the batpony pushed him into position while Garrick was given a musket.

The bastard is going to execute him right there...

“Gallus, look away,” I told the little griffin who obediently turned his head away. Garrick took aim at the batpony and pulled the trigger, the loud explosion startled most of the crowd as the Lunar Guard dropped onto the stage lifelessly. I felt anger boiling inside of me at the callousness with which this griffin had killed the guard.

This is wrong. I can see Gilda’s point of view but this is way too far.

“We shall not tolerate any interference with our new state! Glory to Griffonia!” He turned and along with his guard retreated back into the castle while they just left the pony’s body out in the open. A definite mixed feeling could be felt in the crowd as the guards around the square started calling for everyone to return home again, some seeming to be cheerful while others silently minded their own business.

“Gallus?” I asked as we got out of the square.

“Y-Yeah?”

“I’m going to need pointers on how to get into the castle unseen,” I told him as we strode back to Gilda’s house, passing guards that were now posted everywhere. They must have quite the force if they got this many out on the streets.

“Why?”

“Multiple reasons,” I responded, “Reasons not best uttered in public.” Gallus kept silent after that until we reached the house and Gilda opened it back up. “I’ll check up on Rainbow.”

Gilda nodded and was going to make something to eat for all of us.

“Hey Dash, you still here?” I asked as I didn’t immediately see Rainbow where I left her. Her mane slowly appeared from behind a box, streaks of tears having matted her fur, and my rifle pressed against her chest as she shot forward and pulled me in a crushing hug. “Whoa there, what happened?”

“T-They were c-checking houses to see if everyone had g-gone to the announcement,” Rainbow sniffed, “They t-tried the door first and l-looked in through the windows after that.”

I stroked her hair as Rainbow cried into my chest, carefully getting my rifle back from her and setting it to the side. “Rainbow, why did you follow me? This is one of the main reasons why I wanted you to go back to Ponyville.”

“I… I just couldn’t l-let you go alone, i-it felt so wrong,” Rainbow choked, making me sigh.

“Dash you-”

“I didn’t feel safe, okay!” She shouted, starting to shake as her grip somehow became tighter. “Every time you’d go on your own I was looking over my shoulder at every bush in case a griffin was hiding in there!”

Ah, crap. What am I going to do with you Dash, I have work to do here...

“Rainbow, I can’t be there to constantly keep watch of you.”

“I know...”

For a few minutes, I just sat there, stroking Rainbow’s mane while she kept herself pulled close against me. “Look, let’s get some food before we decide our next move.”

Rainbow silently agreed and after grabbing the dragonfire candle, my rifle, notepad, and pen, we joined Gilda and Gallus at the table downstairs. Gilda had prepared some bread which we silently ate. While we were doing so I lit the dragonfire candle, a letter appearing from the fire.

“Anything interesting in there?” Gilda asked as I read through it.

I huffed. “They lost contact with their scouts in the mountains around here.”

“That’s bad, isn’t it?” Rainbow asked as she hadn’t been at the square.

“They were captured, Rainbow. Their leader was executed at the announcement,” I answered, starting to write my reply. “That’s one of the reasons I need Gallus here to show me a way into the castle. The rest of his team are most likely still alive and I might not be part of the night guard for that long but I don’t leave people behind.”

Taking my letter I put it to the candle’s flame and waited for a reply. Thirty minutes later two separate replies came back, one stamped with the seal of the Solar Guard and the second with the crescent moon from Luna’s night guard. First opening the one with Solar seal, I read it out softly so the others could hear too.

Mister Grey, we thank you for your willingness to help but, as you yourself have determined, this situation has deteriorated way past the point of reasonableness to ask you to continue to risk your life.

We ask you only to give us as much information about these new weapons you describe and lay low while forces are assembled and sent to Griffinstone.

Stay safe up there.

-Princess Celestia Morningstar, Diarch of the sun.

“Sounds like the reasonable way to go about this,” Gilda muttered, I ignored her as I broke the seal on the second scroll and read it aloud too.

Specialist Grey, If you have not read my sister’s scroll first I will ask you to do so first.

I know that my sister asked you to sit back and wait but as you pledged yourself to the night guard, and by extension me, I wish to give you another option.

The unit that was captured was part of a larger infiltration force in the area and acted as the eyes of the unit. We were still trying to figure out why they had gone silent when your message came through.

Attached to this message you shall find a map, if you agree with working with us then I will have thestrals be sent out to the marked locations on there at a night of your choosing. Your task will be to determine the status of the captured unit and free them from the griffins’ claws.

No action will be taken against you if you opt to take the option my sister has presented to you but the Lunar guard would very much appreciate your help in returning its members. If you agree, sign your next reply with a crescent moon.

-Princess Luna Morningstar, Diarch of the moon.

We all looked at each other in silence as I finished reading the scroll. I read through it again just for myself before starting to pen a small reply to the princesses.

A small crescent moon marked the end of the reply.

Chapter 14:
Extraction

“I’m not expecting to find anything really. There’s nothing out here,” I huffed, slightly annoyed. “Just sit here for two days and count it as some free hazard pay.”

“Guess that’s not too bad really…” I along with my fellow soldier fell quiet again, the dream I’d been having ever since dropping into this world repeating itself once again. The forest around our observation post went deathly quiet as the smothering black mist rolled into the dugout again once again…

“What are you doing?” I heard something say in a screechy language, almost as if a bird was speaking.

Wait, shouldn’t I have woken up by now?

“A betrayal for a betrayal, that’s the price you pay.” another voice answered, the black fog had wisps of green fire going through it. My head hurt again as I felt the pressure build as it had done before. The sound of a blade being drawn and a wet splotch were the last thing I heard.

I gasped air in and shot up, still being in the room in Gilda’s house I’d fallen asleep in. The sun had sunk towards the horizon as I had slept through the day in preparation of tonight. We’d been laying low for four days, waiting for more griffins to be about on the street so I could scout out the road to the castle with Gallus.

Rainbow had remained in Gilda’s house, staying on the first floor during the day so she wouldn’t be spotted through the windows. The fact that she’d been able to keep herself contained within the house had been an absolute blessing.

“So you’re up then, I was about to wake you if you weren’t,” Gilda said from the open door frame, I twitched as I hadn’t heard her approach.

“Thanks, shouldn’t be late to start my own party,” I answered, getting my gear and strapping it on.

“We’re getting ready downstairs as well, we got some food ready for you before we head out,” Gilda informed me, staying in the door opening to look at me as I got all the stuff ready I’d deemed necessary before going to sleep. “You really don’t get it, do you?”

I looked back at the other griffin with a raised eyebrow. “Get what?”

“Why Dash is here. You don’t even smell it,” Gilda repeated, amazement on her face as she couldn’t believe whatever she was hearing.

“Smell?” I asked in confusion, Gilda smacked her face with a claw.

“Seriously, who raised you? Can’t have been griffins and this pretty much confirms it wasn’t the ponies either,” Gilda bluntly stated. “Like seriously, I’ve lived in Cloudsdale and it was one of the things I found out very early.”

“Can you please get to the point,” I groaned, not in the mood to beat around the bush.

“Fine. Rainbow Dash wants to rut you.”

I nearly dropped my rifle hearing that. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me just fine,” Gilda said with a roll of her eyes. “I can smell it off her and we’re lucky that no griffin else around here probably knows how a horny pony smells because we’d have gotten unpleasant visitors otherwise.”

“It would have been nice to know that earlier,” I pointed out, going through some inner turmoil.

Damnit Rainbow, what the hell am I going to do about you now… you really aren’t gonna make anything easy on me, are you?

“We’d be screwed if anygrif did anyway. I’m downstairs eating if you need me.” Gilda turned around and walked down the stairs. I silently muttered some curses as I got everything strapped in and followed her down. The four of us there eating in silence as it would be our last night in the city regardless of what would happen.

Gilda, Gallus, and Rainbow would head out directly to an agreed extraction point while I would break into the castle and find the Lunar guards inside. Gallus and I had gone over everything he knew about the layout of the castle so many times that I could recite all his knowledge from memory. Princess Luna had also sent over the layout plans of the castle which they had in the Canterlot archives.

All this was done without knowledge of it leaking to Princess Celestia of course.

I checked my watch as no more preparation would make me more ready for the task ahead. Princess Luna had assured me she’d make the night as dark as possible to help with the operation… whatever that was supposed to mean I did not know, but I would find out very soon as the last sliver of the sun sunk below the horizon. I turned to watch the location where the moon was supposed to rise but to my surprise, it did not appear immediately.

Wait, what? She can’t have made the moon disappear, can she?

Being entranced by the fact the moon didn’t show up as it had since I first stepped foot in this world, I noticed another detail about the skies.

The stars.

They’re not there.

It was almost as if I could feel the temperature drop several degrees as something finally came up from under the horizon, a dim but blood-red moon slowly rose into place in the sky.

Subtle. Very subtle.

Though this might just tip the bastards off...

“Whoa… never thought I’d ever see this happen,” Rainbow spoke up, looking up at the sky.

“What?” I asked as Rainbow peaked past me at the sky outside.

“A blood moon. It’s supposed to mean Equestria is at war,” she answered in awe.

I looked back at the faint, red, glowing sphere in the sky. “That’s one hell of a way to inform everyone on the planet.”

“Yeah,” Rainbow agreed as we stepped away from the window and loaded her up with all the gear I wasn’t taking into the castle with me. What I did have on me was my rifle, pistol, combat knife, lots of ammo, a long rope, and the sword I’d gotten from Luna.

“Everything is in place, you all remember the drill right?” I asked them.

“I’ll drag their butts over there, don’t you worry about them,” Gilda said, satisfying me as I pulled my cloak around me so all my gear would be hidden on the way to the castle.

“Good. Now Rainbow, stick with her. I don’t want to have to pull you out of that castle after you’ve done something stupid.”

“Yeah, I got it...” Dash mumbled, not sounding all too pleased.

“I’m not joking here Rainbow, you’ve yet to see me truly angry. Don’t push me there.” Taking a peek out of the door I found no patrols on the street. “We’re clear, see you three at sunrise.”

Slipping out the door, I merged with the shadows, sinking into alleyways that gave good cover as I made my way to the castle. I had to wait in cover a few times as patrols came by but in the extreme almost unnatural darkness they hadn’t even the chance to spot me.

Arriving at the castle itself I stuck close to the walls, walking along until I reached a drainage pipe close to the edge of one of the cliffs. It was too dark to really see what I was doing as I felt the iron bars blocking the way further. What made things harder was that out here I couldn’t use light yet as that might attract the wrong kind of attention.

Let’s see… the third bar from the cliffside should be the loose one.

Counting off the metal bars I quickly found the one that was loose and carefully pried it out, making sure I made no sound doing so. A small stream of water flowed through the pipe while echoes of talking griffons could faintly be heard echoing against the walls.

Right, now this pipe should be directly connected to the lower cellars...

Clicking on a small, red, headlight, I made my way down the small tunnel. If I had still been a human I might have had to crawl on my belly to get through the small space. On a few occasions, I had to turn off the light as patrols walked over grates above but eventually, I came to the one that led into a storage room according to the building plans I’d studied.

Slinging my rifle onto my back I reached out and pushed the metal grate that covered the hole above aside and squeezed myself through the hole, quickly clearing the room. The only things that filled it being barrels.

Perfect, the next part-

“Are you crazy?!”

I immediately grasped my combat knife and took position next to the door to the hallway.

“I thought I heard something in there.”

“You know what’s stored there. If you take that damn torch into that storage you’ll kill us both,” a second growled. “And besides, no-one’s down here other than those bats and they’re chained up.”

I heard some muffled grumbles and steps leading away from the door, the hallway on the other end staying quiet. The extra confirmation that my objectives were down here was nice too.

Wait, they couldn’t take fire in here…

Looking out at the barrels I checked if I could find one that I could open. Careful not to disturb the contents of one of the wooden containers I removed and set aside one of the lids and brushed a claw through the black powder that sat within.

Gunpowder.

Shaking the stuff off of my claws, I placed the lid back and filed away the particular bit of information in case it’d be useful later. Right now I had an objective to complete.

Waiting at the door and listening to make sure the hallway beyond was empty, I pushed the door open and stepped out of the storage room.

End of the hall, Stairway down to the dungeons.

With my rifle raised, I swiftly moved through the hallway and towards the door at the end of it. Just like the building plans had shown a stairway down revealed itself.

Knowing that the dungeon was at the bottom I silently snuck down, careful with my every step to reduce the amount of sound my movement made. There was no door at the bottom of the stairs, only a dark and long hallway with cells sitting on either side of it.

Right at the entrance, a griffin sat at a desk, a small candle lighting his table. It wasn’t bright enough to reveal me standing at the entrance but there was no way I would be able to pass him without getting seen.

“Hey, chicken!” someone called out from the darkness of the cells, gaining the griffin’s attention. I briefly swore that I could see the glint of eyes focussed on me through the metal bars.

“Quiet! Keep your poison to yourself,” He snarled, taking his candle and walking up to the cell to address the pony who’d shouted at him directly. “You know what happens if I have to come in there.”

The faint candlelight was enough for me to see the fangs in the batpony’s mouth as he grinned while I slowly snuck up to the other griffin.

“I wasn’t talking to you, dirtbag.”

The guard’s eyes went wide, finally turning his head around. Panicked flashed on his face as I closed the distance immediately, bringing down my combat knife and plunging it into his throat while holding his beak shut. The candle fell from his claws and winked out.

“Corporal Comet?” I asked as I dropped the limp body of the griffin onto the floor and turned on my headlight.

“The one and only. May I assume you are Specialist Grey?” The batpony’s eyes glowed red as I shone my flashlight in his direction. There were multiple batponies in this particular cell, their hooves chained to metal rings that were sunk into the foundations.

“You’d be correct in that. Is your full team here?” I asked, pulling the keys to the door off of the downed griffin.

“We’re… missing our sergeant. That bastard told us they’ve executed him.”

“They did. Forced the city to watch them do it,” I sighed as I entered the cell and removed the shackles. The five ponies looked like absolute crap, badly dressed wounds, blood and grime still clinging to their coats, and bags beneath their eyes.

“Well, shit… The body?”

“They took it away, I don’t know where it is.”

“Damn,” he cursed helping one of his subordinates to stand up. “You have an extraction?”

“Depends, can you fly?”

“No, our membranes have been cut. If we took off they’d tear and we’d plummet down,” the corporal answered as he followed me back to the stairs up.

“That makes things more difficult but not outside of planning. Follow me.” with the five ponies in tow, I made my way back up but halted as I opened the door up top. A group of five griffins standing there, looking at us with surprise that faded nearly instantly.

“Fire!”

“Down!”

I jumped back, forcing the corporal down onto the ground as he was the most exposed alongside me. Five cracks of muskets could be heard as stone exploded above me and I felt one of the bullets hit my armour plate and another graze my right back leg.

“Charge!”

The five griffins, muskets lowered with bayonets attached ran forward. Though the pain in my leg was agonizing and my ribs felt like they’d just been kicked in by Rainbow Dash, I flicked the fire selector on my rifle to automatic and pulled the trigger. All of the hostile griffins in the hallway collapsed to the floor as I emptied my entire magazine.

“Everyone good?!” I called to the batponies behind me as I reloaded my rifle and opened my med pouch and got out my last pressure bandage and wrapped it around my bleeding leg. The bat ponies all laid down and had their ears covered, whining in agony. “For fuck- Get up! We’ve got to move!”

After pulling up the Lunar guards I stumbled down the long hall towards the storage room. Hobbling past the griffins and trying the door.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

I slammed my shoulder against the heavy wooden door to no avail. Stepping back I pointed my rifle and fired three shots through the door where the lock sat, slamming against it again but still not being able to get through it as the door stubbornly remained in place.

“Motherfucker. Alright, plan B, follow me!” Picking up a torch from the downed griffins while mentally bringing up the layout of the castle. I reminded myself of a second exit point a floor up. Placing the torch at the base of the door to the storage room, I got the ponies to follow me up through the castle. Running there was out of the question as none of my group was in shape for that and my leg was hurting too.

Shouts echoed all throughout the hallways now though as I’d truly poked the hornet’s nest. The only positive was that the griffins had yet organized well enough to stop us. The few of them we ran into were definitely not ready, getting mowed down before they could do anything.

They’re not going to like the next part...

Slipping into a side room I found the window I was looking for. There wasn’t a lot of anything in the means of furniture in the room as I looked around for someplace to tie my rope to. Meanwhile one of the batponies looked out of the window while I tied my rope to a wooden beam.

“Hey, not to complain but there’s really no way we’re not going to get seen if we go down here,” the mare pointed out.

“This was one of the ways out if you five could fly, not really optimal for how we’re doing things,” I answered, tossing the rope out the window and placing the beam in such a way that if you’d hang from the rope it wouldn’t slip. “Go on, make it quick, I want to get off this mountain.”

The five ponies rapidly followed each other down the rope, getting spotted by a few sentries as the nightguard mare had predicted. The moment the last of them reached the bottom of the rope I took my knife and cut the end off, letting it drop down so we could take it along.

Checking the air I found a small squad of griffins rapidly approaching the base of the walls where the batponies were waiting for me. Pulling the bipod hidden in my foregrip out, I took aim at the leading elements of their flight.

The three leading griffins immediately dropped from the sky making the others hesitate too as they dove down for cover from my fire. That gave me the time to leap from the window and ‘glide’ down to the ground, the way I slammed down was reminiscent of a superman landing.

“Where are we-” the corporal was interrupted by a dull thud that made the ground shake, a cloud of dust forcing itself out of the window we’d just jumped from.

“To the cliff!” I called out, pointing in the right direction. A few of the griffins that had seen us popped up between the battlements, one of them aiming a musket and firing at the batponies. The shot landed on the corporal before I could even respond, my shots impacting the stone around where the griffin had fired from.

“Corporal!” the female guard exclaimed, grabbing a hold of the downed pony and dragging him along as he gasped for air. My cover fire would keep their heads down a little longer but if too many griffins got up there we’d be royally screwed. Finding a large rock at the cliffside, all of us took cover behind a large enough boulder. I continued to pop shots at the wall but tried conserving my precious ammo.

“He’s having trouble breathing!” the guardsmare shouted, I pulled back for a moment and opened my medkit. I found the entry wound on the pony’s chest, feeling the back for an exit wound made me grimace at the hole.

“He needs medical, asap.” Opening my medkit, I pulled out the chest seals and prayed they’d close the wound well enough on the fur.

“No shit, where are we even going?!” she exclaimed as the corporal lost consciousness.

“Right here!” I swirled around and locked eyes with the newcomer who was dragging a chariot behind her.

“I TOLD YOU TO LEAVE!” I roared as I locked eyes with Rainbow Dash, making her flinch before turning back to the batponies. “Get him on that chariot!” Popping back out from behind the rock I fired a long salvo at the walls. The batponies used the straps in the chariot to secure their wounded comrade.

“Specialist! Get on!” the guardsmare called out, I immediately turned away from the wall and jumped on as well.

“Hold on tight! We’re gonna go fast!” Rainbow called out, pulling the chariot of the cliff and giving her wings a might flap. The wagon lurched forward, soaring off into the darkness.

Chapter 15:
Consequences

I sat alone on the roof, backpack next to me with ammo boxes open as I diligently filled my emptied magazines back up with ammo. Precious little of the assault rifle’s ammo remained, but a few rounds sat in the box leaving me with only my current magazines.

From here on out my role would be better suited at a distance where none could challenge me.

Below me, the ponies of Manehattan were going about their day, though the atmosphere was much tenser than when I’d been here before. The happenings of the last few days had shocked the entire country, perhaps even the world, as newspapers printed bold headlines in an attempt to catch the eye of ponies and increase sales.

“I was told I could find you here.”

I turned ever so slightly as princess Celestia took a seat at the edge with me, placing my rifle to the side and stashing away the filled up magazines. “It’s a good place to think,” I replied, turning my gaze back to the pegasi that were working the clouds in the distance.

“You know you couldn’t have saved him, right?” the Princess tried comforting. The batpony corporal hadn’t even made it close to help when he bled out from internal bleeding in the chariot.

“Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” I gruffly replied, silence falling between the two of us for a bit before another topic came to my mind. “What’s the situation in Trottingham?”

“Unknown. The guards we sent over to regain control faced the same weapons you warned us of,” Celestia replied, her face remaining passive as no emotion on the matter was betrayed.

“Casualties?” I pressed, sensing that the impassive mask was to hide her true feeling on the matter.

“Too many.”

That told me all I needed to know about what had happened. “Shouldn’t you be in Canterlot managing the situation then?”

“My healing magic is unmatched. I sent my stallions into a situation which I knew would be perilous and they paid the price for me not heeding your warning seriously enough. I owed them to give my full attention to relieve their wounds and it’s not like my sister and our captains are not capable while I spend my time here.” Celestia looked out over the city with a haunted look. “I’ve never seen this kind of serious damage done against my guards and their protection by an ordinary foe.”

“Starting to understand why I didn’t want you to get a hold of my weapons in case you wanted to study them?” I inquired.

“Yes… And I fear that’s a request I will have to make of you regardless now.”

“And what if I refuse again?”

“I need to protect my ponies, specialist Grey, and I will point at the oath you took to my sister,” she stated, looking me straight in the eyes.

“The only reason I felt even remotely comfortable taking that oath was because I don't see your nation ever even interacting with mine. And once you’ve gained those weapons, Pandora’s Box has opened, no closing it again,” I replied.

“This defeat will make us look weak, creatures fear and respect me but that’ll help us only so much. If the guard cannot hold back a group of griffin rebels then what’s going to stop the Saddle-Arabians from eating away at our southern borders? The dragons from landing on our eastern shores? What about the yaks in the north?”

“The cost you’ll pay in blood for these weapons will be extreme. Maybe not tomorrow, or in my lifetime, but the debt will come due.”

“If what the griffins have made is an indication then we’re already on that path,” The princess pushed on.

I shook my head and sighed. “There's something else. Let's say I helped you build more advanced weapons, what would you do with them?”

The Princess looked at me strangely. “I'd take back Trottingham of course?”

“And Griffinstone?”

“It's part of the realm so yes,” she confirmed for me. “I fail to see why you ask this, I don't think you aren't able to deduce that would be my goal.”

“The griffins have been suffering, Princess. Gilda showed a place she called the pits, explained to me what they were used for,” I told her. Celestia immediately got a look of revulsion on her face.

“I shut that barbaric place down over half a century ago, did they start them up again?”

“Maybe from your perspective they are barbaric, from theirs they were a tool. A tool to do things like settle grudges,” I pointed out to her. “And no, the griffins though discontent with the status quo honoured their agreement… well, until now probably.”

“I see. Though I still do not understand why they would need them to settle grudges among other things, talking things over is far more efficient.”

“From your perspective as a prey animal maybe, griffins are predators. You may not see it their way since your way of thinking is fundamentally different to theirs. When you're a hunter, traits like aggression are much more common than when you're on the opposite end.”

The Princess remained silent as she mulled over that proposition. Behind us a flight of pegasi dragging a chariot landed on the roof's landing pad, doctors immediately carried a wounded pony on a stretcher into the hospital below.

“They never came to me directly to complain,” she finally spoke up. “I do remember overhearing the consul in Canterlot bothering the nobles...”

“I don't know about what agreement they signed, but they might have felt honourbound to not complain. It's just one example I know of but I'm guessing that it's not the only change you made in Griffinstone,” I provided, the Princess nodded.

“You're asking me if I will enforce the status quo if you help us build weapons,” she stated, going back to the initial point.

“Yes ma'am,” I replied. “Because I promise you that if you do it's only a matter of time before they get their claws on any design you make and turn it against you. I will have no part in that.”

“I… have some things to think on. Thank you specialist Grey, I'll make sure transport is arranged for you while I work out how to proceed.” Celestia stood back up, turning to leave.

“And my weapons?”

“I’ll have the guard ready your 'rifle' and other gear that is in Canterlot so you can pick it up when you’re done with your business in the capital. We'll resume that discussion after I have confided with my sister.” Celestia took a step back towards the entrance down into the hospital but paused. “I should also inform you Rainbow Dash was looking for you too.”

“Thanks.” I didn't really want to see the pegasus right now but it was probably unavoidable if Celestia had managed it too. The Princess disappeared into the hospital while I stashed my remaining bullets back into a bag. I considered jumping off the roof and gliding down to the ground to avoid the pegasus but decided against it as I didn't know if I could reliably do that without splattering.

“Hey Jack! I've been looking everywhere for you!” Rainbow called out as she finally found me on the roof.

“I heard,” was my curt reply, not even turning to look at her.

“Oh come on, still mad? I was the fastest flier there, it made sense for me to get you!” She exclaimed, I only replied with a huff. “Hey it's not like I was trying to get caught!”

I shot her a withering glare, standing up to make for the door inside. “Follow me.”

Rainbow grumbled as she followed me through the stairways of the hospital down towards the basement. The further we went down the more confused Rainbow became.

“Hey, what are you doing down here?” one of the staff called out as I barged into the morgue, he immediately tried blocking my path. Quickly rummaging through my saddlebag, I pushed the scroll sealed by the two princesses that was supposed to be my 'get out of jail free' card in Griffinstone into his forelegs and went on with what I was doing. I knew the exact freezer I’d needed to open as I’d been down here earlier in the day as well.

Rainbow tried to avert her eyes from the tables with tarps that covered up deceased ponies as I slid out another one out of the freezers in the wall and gently pulled the cloth covering him. “Jack, can’t we talk somewhere else?” Rainbow said, looking away from me as I uncovered the dead pony.

“No,” I simply replied, stepping out of the way so she would be able to see the pony too. “Look at him.”

“Jack-”

“I SAID LOOK AT HIM!” The shout echoed through the room, the staff member that was looking on from a distance looked like she wanted to bolt but didn’t as he didn’t want to leave us alone here either. Rainbow finally looked up at the motionless pony, his eyes closed as his chest didn’t rise and fall. I hadn’t pulled back the cloth far enough to expose the hole in his torso, I didn’t need to to make my point. “This is corporal Comet Mist, he was part of the scout force observing Griffinstone that was captured. He has a girlfriend up in Canterlot, wanted to propose to her sometime soon from what I heard from his comrades in arms. A good pony that just wanted to help keep his country safe.”

Rainbow looked ready to throw up as she stared at the dead pony.

“I can assure you that he was not trying to get caught, not trying to get killed, yet he’s dead now anyway.” I locked eyes with her. “And now I’ve been trying to think of ways how to talk to that poor mare who has no idea her lover has passed, or how to approach his parents. I could of course just leave that to the Night guard to do but they’d most likely send someone who wasn’t there since the others are still in this hospital.”

“Jack I-”

“What if you were struck Rainbow? Would I be the one having to tell the girls? Would I have to go to your parents to explain why their daughter had died?” Rainbow’s hind legs collapsed, putting her on her flanks as I covered the Corporal with the cloth again and pushed him back into the freezer.

“I’m heading off to Canterlot now, don’t follow me. I’ll see you in Ponyville.” Leaving Rainbow to stare blankly at the wall, I passed the staffer who was still clutching the opened scroll and headed up to the main entrance and left the hospital for the train station.

I was positive that I’d never forget the wail from the batpony’s mother as I handed her the folded up equestrian flag. If I’d been in a more clear state of mind I’d have made the connection to the very similar human tradition. The corporal’s marefriend, too, had broken down, I was very glad at that moment Luna had sent a pony along to either location for support.

After having talked at length to all three of them I had left the capital again and gotten the train to Ponyville as the sun was going down. I was still wearing the dress suit the guard had given me for the occasion, my gear sitting on the bench across from me. I’d wanted to take a nap on the way back but couldn’t manage to shut my eyes.

At least they didn’t blame me for what happened…

The train slowly came to a stop at Ponyville train station, only a few ponies getting off with me before the large train drove off again to it’s next destination further to the south. No-one was at the station to get me so I made my way through the dark streets towards the library. It’s windows still showed lights being on as I arrived and knocked on the door.

“Yes?” Twilight asked as she opened the door. “Oh.”

“Am I still welcome here?” I asked, looking past her to see Rainbow sitting at the library’s central table. She nodded and got out of the way, Rainbow averted her eyes from me as I stepped in.

“I should be going.” Was the only thing she said as she squeezed between Twilight and myself before flying off into the night.

“She told me what happened,” Twilight informed me as we both looked at where she’d disappeared to.

“All of it?”

“All of it. From how she followed you to Grifinstone to the Manehattan hospital.”

I sighed and stepped deeper into the library, placing my gear to the side. “And?”

“Well, you got through to her pretty well.” Twilight levitated a set of cups over to the two of us along with a tea pot. “Tea?”

“Yes please.” Twilight poured the two cups and took a seat across from me. “You disapprove of what I did.” I could see Twilight’s opinion from the way she carried herself.

“Rainbow Dash is one of my best friends, Jack. You hurt her pretty badly… though I agree she needed to understand that she can’t just go everywhere she wants, I would like to think there’s a better way you could have done it.”

“Maybe,” I said, taking a sip from my cup of tea. “But how long would that have taken?” Twilight didn’t answer that question. “She needed to see what could happen, Twilight, before something truly went wrong.” I finished my cup of tea and placed it to the side. “I’m very tired Twilight, mind if I go to bed?”

“No, go ahead. I should get to bed as well.” Twilight sighed. We didn't exchange any more words as I dragged my stuff up to the guest room and simply fell onto the bed.

Three taps came from the window.

Rainbow was flying in front of the glass, she looked like a mess. Dragging myself off the bed I went over to the window and opened it. “Come in.” Dash stepped in as I let myself fall back onto the bed. “Close the window behind you, it's cold outside.”

She did as I said before turning and waiting at the foot of the bed. “Jack, I…”

“Do you understand why I said what I did?” I asked her, sitting against the headboard of the bed.

“I-I think so. You wanted to make sure I was safe, even if that meant you'd be in more danger,” she answered with a hoarse voice.

“Exactly. You very well might have been the fastest way to get out of there, but you'd have to put yourself in the line of fire to do so.” I showed her the stray line from the musket ball that had grazed my right leg. “If the musket ball had moved a fraction more to the side I wouldn't be walking at all right now. It only takes a single lucky shot, Rainbow. Just one and it can all be over.”

Dash still wouldn't look me in the eyes, tears falling on the wooden floor.

“Rainbow, please come up here.” Dash hesitantly stepped onto the mattress with me, the moment she was in reach I pulled her close. “I want you to swear to me that you'll listen to me next time I order you to do something like that.”

“I-I will.”

“Thank you.” I sighed, Rainbow finally looking up at me. Before I could move or say anything else, Dash had shot up and planted a kiss on the tip of my beak. I froze, a shiver going down my spine as I processed what just happened.

“I- sorry, I shouldn't have done- forget I did that. I should go,” Dash tried getting out of my grip but it was firm enough that she couldn't. The panic on her face was plainly visible. “J-Jack, I-”

I placed a talon on Dash's muzzle, silencing her. “Rainbow...”

Rainbow might not exactly make the most rational decisions at times, stubborn to an extreme… but she was loyal and her heart was in the right place. I could, of course, use the excuse that I'd be going home at some point again, but for all I knew that'd never happen. Twilight had been working herself to the bone and as far as I knew she hadn’t really made any progress on the subject in the slightest.

So either I could remain alone and wait things out, possibly forever, or take the leap and hope the landing wouldn’t be a horrendous crash.

Dash probably has a way larger crush but that doesn't mean we can't make it work... Damn this beak, not being able to kiss her right now.

“...You don't have to go.”

Rainbow Dash immediately stopped trying to run away, looking up with a hopeful gaze. “Are you saying…”

“I'd kiss you but I don't think I can with this beak.”

Dash let out a snort and barked a laugh, tears in her eyes accompanied by a smile. “That flexible beak of yours definitely can. Guess I'll just have to teach you how, won't I?”

“I guess you will.”

Chapter 16:
Research...

It had taken an hour or two of instructions from Dash but by then I had the beak-kissing reasonably well down. It still felt a bit awkward but it was better than nothing. After we'd done that the two of us had fallen asleep together, huddling up close under the sheets. The next morning we slept well after sunrise, Twilight eventually knocking to ask if I was coming out for breakfast.

“Jack, are you awake? Spike is ready with breakfast,” the unicorn called from the other end of the door.

My eyes blinked open, as I'd only been semi-awake before, and yawned. “Yeah, we’ll be right down!” I called back groggily, Poking Dash until she was awake as well.

“Five more minutes...” She groaned, clinging on to me.

“Are you really going to skip one of Spike’s breakfasts then?” I smirked, tickling her side. She yelped, letting go to flail a bit and allowing me to get loose of her grip.

“Cheater,” she mumbled, pushing the bedsheets away. I stuck out my tongue at her teasingly, she narrowed her eyes as a response and jumped at me. With Dash’s speed and the distance between us getting out of the way was pretty much impossible as she latched onto my back.

“So, what are you planning to do back there?” I smirked as Rainbow laid on my back with her hooves wrapped around my neck and barrel..

“I… Shut up and bring me down to breakfast,” she mumbled, burying her face in my feathers.

“As you wish, my lady.” Carrying Dash down was easier than expected as she didn’t weigh as much as a pony her size would suggest. Spike paused for a moment as he saw me and Rainbow enter the kitchen, looking puzzled at the sight.

“Weren’t you two having a fight or something?” He asked bluntly.

“We made up,” Dash answered from her position with her nose in my feathers, her hind legs lazily hanging across my flanks.

“That’s good to hear, though I remember you leaving out the front door last night,” Twilight pointed out with a mildly amused smirk.

“I uhh, may have used the window?” Rainbow blushed, sliding off my back onto a seat. Twilight passed one of her sandwiches to Rainbow as she shook her head.

“Nothing I need to replace I hope?”
­
“Just one time! I crashed into this place one time!” Rainbow exclaimed, “Am I ever going to hear the end of that?!”

“Hey, I’m just looking out for the wellbeing of my library and its books.”

Both me and spike snickered at the teasing from Twilight, Rainbow huffing as I wrapped my wing around her back. “Oh come Dashie, I’m sure you understand that… huh, I hadn’t thought of it that way.” My train of thought was completely disrupted as I had a moment of clarity.

“What is it, Jack?” Twilight asked, leaning forward curiously.

“Are we just going to ignore that he called Rainbow ‘Dashie’?” Spike asked but was hushed by Twilight, Rainbow’s cheeks going red completely being missed by the unicorn though not the dragon.

“If books are destroyed that might very well mean the destruction of a particular piece of knowledge around here, doesn’t it?” I asked Twilight who looked confused that the question even needed to be asked.

“Well yes, though Ponyville’s books mostly have copies in places like Canterlot Library. If something happened there it might be far more disastrous. Why do you ask? Is it not how that works where you came from?” Twilight inquired.

“Seriously, nothing about Dashie here?” Spike tried again, Rainbow shooting him a glare which he stuck his tongue at. “Mushie,” he smirked.

Ignoring the two of them I shrugged. “I guess it is, but when everyone has a device that can fit in my claw and can pretty much backup an entire library it isn’t exactly at the forefront of your mind.”

Twilight nearly choked on her sandwich after hearing that.

“YOU COULD CARRY AN ENTIRE LIBRARY WITH YOU?!” She shouted after getting rid of the bit of food lodged in her throat.

“Well...”

Shit, how am I going to explain advanced electronics.

“Imagine having a worldwide network of devices that can instantly send information from one side of the planet to the other. And that network would have places where you could draw information from like you would from libraries only from nearly anywhere you are.”

Twilight was salivating on her plate from hearing that.

“Wow. Careful there Jack, you’re making Twilight horny… and I’m not referring to that spike on her head.” Rainbow smirked, poking me in my side.

“Rainbow!” Twilight snapped with reddened cheeks while Spike rolled over in laughter.

“Let the poor unicorn have her fetishes, Rainbow, or should we start talking about yours?” I glanced at the pegasus and gave her a smirk of my own, thinking back to the little tidbit of information I'd figured out after first meeting her.

“I-I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about!” Dash immediately said, trying to hide her face by taking a bite from her sandwich.

“Alright, what in the world is going on here?” Twilight asked. “Yesterday you couldn’t even look Jack in the eyes, Rainbow, and now this.”

“Yes, Dashie what’s going on here?” Spike asked with an amused glint in his eyes.

I coughed. “You see-”

“Shut up Jack,” Rainbow commanded.

“Dash-”

“Shut up and do that thing I taught you.”

“Yes ma’am,” I chuckled, leaning down and kissing Dash. Both Twilight’s and Spike’s mouths fell open.

“You know, I just remembered I was going to see Rarity. Bye!” Spike bolted out of the kitchen at record speed and out of the front door which he slammed shut behind him.

“This news is going to spread fast, isn't it?” I chuckled after breaking the kiss.

“Oh Rarity will try to get as much gossip as she can from Spike but you really should be scared of Pinkie,” Rainbow snickered. “Nothing quite gets the attention of the entire village as a massive banner saying ‘Rainbow and Jack are a couple party’.”

I snorted a laugh and shook my head. Twilight meanwhile was at the tail end of her recovery from the shock. “I, uhh, congratulations?” she settled on.

“Thank you Twilight,” I smiled as I held Rainbow pulled close to me.

Twilight shook her head and smiled. “So, what are the two of you going to do today?”

I looked down at Rainbow dash and sighed before moving my sight back over to Twilight. “We need to talk, Twilight. Something relating to the Princesses.”

“What about?” the unicorn asked curiously as she finished up her sandwich.

“Weapons, armour, and medical equipment.”

Twilight stared at me for a moment, a frown forming on her face. “You aren’t going to give them away, right?”

“Princess Celestia asked me about them back in Manehattan again. I’ve considered it but my mind is not made up about it yet,” I told her honestly. They of course wouldn’t be able to manufacture anything as complicated as my Colt or as accurate as the AWM but even the smallest advancement would be a massive leap for you ponies.

“But… you were going to help us out, right?” Rainbow asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Helping out and giving technology half a millenia more advanced than what is currently available are two different things,” I replied. “Though I fear that I’ve made a critical mistake already to make part of that point moot.”

“Explain?” Twilight urged me.

“Rainbow, could you get my rifle and armour from upstairs?” I asked the pegasus who swiftly went up and got the two items. I took the rifle and pulled out the magazine, getting a single round from it. “This is my critical mistake.”

“Your bullets?” Twilight asked as she didn’t see what was so important.

“No, the casings.” I answered. “They get ejected when I fire off a round and I haven’t exactly been picking them up and taking them with me. You can be sure the griffins have been picking them up and trying to figure out how my weapon works.”

“They can do that from just studying those?” Rainbow questioned while frowning.

“Most likely not, that’s a pretty large leap of logic to make, but if they figure out how to make rounds instead of loose blackpowder and balls they’ll be able to increase their fire rate so significantly that your won't be able to counter it at all..”

“So why are you hesitating about helping us then?” Rainbow’s question was valid of course, Twilight nodded in agreement from the other side of the table as well.

“Because I can probably design weapons that would be horrendously effective.” I picked up the armour from the ground and placed it on the table. “I’d rather not have that blood staining my claws. What I can do is help out with this.” I pulled out the armour plate from the vest and placed it in front of me. A squashed musket ball was still embedded on its surface, a little dent where it had hit.

“Jack! What the buck?!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed in shock as I peeled the squashed lead ball out of the armour plate.

“Got lucky but it’s also a good example of what I want to achieve. I want to see if we can produce something equivalent to this here.” Twilight picked up the plate in her magic inspected it.

“You don’t want to give us weapons so instead you want to give us something to make them unable to harm us,” Twilight said with a smile though it fell a little immediately. “But if you want to give me this thing to study I won’t be able to continue looking for a way to get you home.”

I let out a sigh. “This takes priority. I’m sure the Princess will be here again in the coming days to ask for my weapons and I want to be able to give her an alternative.”

“I see…can you tell me what you know how this thing is made?” Twilight asked as she tapped the thing.

“The strike face is made out of a layer of boron carbide, the layers behind it are most likely kevlar to spread out the shock over a wider area. The idea is to let a bullet smack and deform against a really hard outer layer and then have composites behind that spread out the force.”

“Right, I have no idea what this ‘boron carbide’ is but I can think of a few materials that can emulate it,” Twilight murmured as she started sinking into thought.

“Cut this thing open if you need to Twilight, just be careful about it. I’m not joking when I say that boron carbide is tough as nails, it has to stop shots from my rifle after all.”

“Wait, you’re telling Twi to destroy your protection?!” Rainbow exclaimed, pushing away from me to look me in the eyes.

“I have a second one placed on the back portion of the armour, I’ll put it in front instead,” I told her and wrapped an arm around her back and pulled her close for a kiss which she reciprocated.

“Good. Don’t you dare get killed,” she warned me.

“No ma’am,” I chuckled.

“Well, I’ve got my work cut out for me. You take a day off Jack, I can handle some of this on my own for a while.”

“Alright, though I’ll probably help you out in the evening.” I ruffled Rainbow's hair which made her squirm a bit. “What do you say about getting some more flight lessons done with me and Scootaloo?”

“Oh yeah! That’s a great idea, rookie,” she poked my belly with a wing as she teased. “You head out to the field while I go look for her, alright?”

“Sounds good to me, I’ll see you there.”

It took a while for Rainbow Dash to arrive at the grass field as well so by the time she did I was already doing some of the warming up exercises we’d done on previous occasions. Scootaloo was short on her tail, her scooter rushing towards me at high speeds. Right before she was about to crash into me she pushed the vehicle to the side and lept, keeping her momentum and crashing into me with it. “Don’t you dare disappear like that again!” she exclaimed.

“Sorry about that, I had some things I wanted to help the princesses with,” I smiled as I hugged her tightly. “You have been keeping up with your homework, right?”

Scootaloo blushed and looked away. “Not really...”

“No more excuses then, after the flight lesson we’re going to work on that. Can’t have a filly as smart as you slacking off.” Scootaloo huffed but smiled as I ruffled her mane.

“Enough sappy, now get to warming up those wings of yours!” Rainbow cut in between the two of us. Both Scootaloo and me went on to finish the warm-up and ran through the flight lesson, I was pretty sure that it wouldn't be long before I'd be able to do sustained flights. My wings didn't hurt as much after the lesson as they did when I first started, muscles having strengthened significantly.

Just as I had promised at the start of the training, after we were done we went over to a quiet spot in the park to work on Scootaloo's homework assignments. Rainbow, of course, used this time to nap while I explained things.

“...do you understand?”

“I think I do.” Scootaloo scribbled down the answers to the various math questions we were working through. “Hey, Jack… can I ask something?”

“That’s what I'm here for, aren't I?” I smiled though already feeling where this was headed.

“Where did you and Rainbow go last week? I know you went to help the princess but no-one would tell me anything else, and with all the news in the papers, and that red moon…” Scootaloo rattled off.

“We went to get some information on what the griffins were doing for the princess, something that we needed to take our time for,” I carefully explained. “Couldn’t rush it and put ourselves at risk.”

“Oh…”

“Don't worry about it too much, squirt, it'll get worked out one way or another.” I ruffled her already rough hair a bit, closing her math book after as I deemed that we'd done enough for now. “Hey Scootaloo, do you want to sleepover with me and Dash if we can convince Twilight? You know, to make up for last week?”

A massive smile formed on the little pegasus’ face. “Yes, of course! I’ll have to ask at home but for sure!”

“Well, you go ask permission then, I’ll go see if Twi’s okay with it,” I chuckled, looking up at the low hanging cloud with rainbow hair hanging over the edge. “And I’m taking her with me.”

Bracing my legs and unfurling my wings I made a mighty leap, my claws piercing the cloud and wrapping around Rainbow’s barrel, pulling her through the white cumulus. The sky blue pegasus woke with a yelp as I pulled her close before rolling across the grass.

“Gotcha!”

“J-Jack! What was that about?!” Rainbow’s cheeks turned this adorable shade of pink as she lay below me.

“I’m gonna ask Twilight if the ‘squirt’ can sleep over for the night,” I chuckled, leaning down for a quick kiss. After releasing it and helping Dash up we turned to see Scootaloo with her jaw wide open, staring at the two of us. “And you are going to explain that kiss to Scoots here while she goes to ask permission on her end. Have fun!”

Chapter 17:
...and Development

“...So we'd taken his locker, which was locked, and turned it upside down so it was standing bottom up. When he finally opened the thing a bunch of things fell out and everything was messed up.” Rainbow and Scootaloo were snickering as we sat wrapped in blankets, telling stories to one another of the haunted type and others.

“He must have been so pissed off,” Rainbow said, holding back a laugh.

“At first yeah, but looking back at it he can laugh about it too,” I chuckled back, a wide smile on my face. It fell a little when I reminded myself that there was a good chance those memories may be all that I'd have left of them.

“I'd love to meet them if we ever got the chance, they sound like people who'd appreciate a good prank,” Rainbow chuckled, nudging me with a wing.

“Heh, yeah, they're like family really. We went through lots together, that connects you to them in ways others don't,” I replied.

“So do you have more stories?” Scootaloo eagerly asked, a bright smile on her face and cheeks still stained from tears due to previous laughter. I took a quick look at the time, determining that it would probably be best if we all got some sleep.

But hey, when had that ever stopped me before?

“Well there was this one time we had a two-day long exercise,” I grinned, both Scootaloo and Rainbow leaning forward with interest. “We were put into a forest on a road and told to set up a vehicle checkpoint. That was pretty much the entire instruction we'd gotten, the idea being was to see how creative we'd get setting up a checkpoint. The officer that was going to see how we did was part of an allied country's armed forces, by the way, so he had some prejudices in how he thought how we'd do based on what he expected of his own forces."

"And you guys went well past that I take," Dash snickered.

"By a mile," I laughed heartily, "Over that two-day time span we went and dug out a bunker pit, setting up our heavy machinegun with a good view over the road. We also got a load of fallen trees and made spikes out of them, digging those in as well in such a way a vehicle had to swerve to miss them and slow down that way. I don't think any of us slept more than two hours over those two days but none regretted that, the face that officer made was totally worth it."

"What was he expecting though?" Scootaloo asked with a giggle.

"Well, he later said that he'd have expected his own armed forces to set up some basic barricades, nothing more, not a position that would be assault resistant."

"Showed him," Scootaloo said continuing her giggles but getting interrupted by a yawn.

"I guess that's the signal we need to go to sleep," I smirked, booping the filly on her nose.

"Ahhh, one more pleeeaaasseee?" she begged, giving the biggest puppy eyes she could.

"Nope, not using all my stories in one go," I smirked, moving over onto the bed and got myself comfortable. Scootaloo had one side of the bed and Rainbow snuggled up to me on the other side of the large bed. We'd already brushed our teeth, well, the two ponies had, and washed before starting the storytelling.

"Good night, Scootaloo."

"Night..." the small filly almost immediately fell asleep, snoring softly.

"You too, Rainbow."

The pegasus buried her face in my chest fluff and made the most adorable little purring sound. "g'night."

My eyes fluttered open as the first rays of light entered the library's guest room, the two sources of snoring either side of me indicating I was the first one to wake. Rainbow had attached herself to me once more and it didn't seem like she would be letting go until she woke up...

Oh dear god please no.

My face turned red as I prayed to the deities above that Rainbow would not wake up, any trace of sleep having completely disappeared.

Bad timing. Extremely bad fucking timing.

A very bad case of morning wood was pressed up against Rainbow's belly while the mare snored blissfully unaware of my predicament. There really were only two options; try to get loose and risk waking the pony or hope it would recede before she woke.

There was movement on the bed behind her, followed by a fawn. "Jack, Rainbow, you awake yet?"

Damnit.

"Yeah, Rainbow isn't though," I answered without turning.

"Right... I need to use the bathroom, be right back." The filly got out from under the sheets and left the room as quietly as she could. That returned me to my predicament as my hard-on was still firmly pressed against the pegasus, her snoring becoming less loud.

That's not good.

Prying myself loose really wasn't an option any longer, even if I got loose I could run into Scootaloo and that would really be awkward.

"Hmmn... Jack..." Rainbow muttered at least being somewhat asleep still.

Stay asleep, please stay asleep.

She didn't.

Rainbow's eyes opened, staring up at me contently, she seemed to still be groggy but that disappeared the moment she saw the slightly panicked look in my eyes. Her mouth opened to ask what was wrong but only a squeak came out as she felt what had me riled up.

I'm so dead.

The door swung open again, Scootaloo having finished with her business on the toilet. She noticed both of us were awake now. "Morning, Rainbow."

"G-Good morning," she stammered, hiding her face in my chest as her face was on fire. Scootaloo raised an eyebrow but didn't comment on it.

"Hey Scootaloo, want to check if Spike is already up for breakfast?" I asked of the filly who just got more confused. "He's usually up pretty early."

"Okay?" she said turning to head down to the kitchen. The moment the door closed Rainbow pushed off of me, her wings erect as she plopped down onto the floor on her butt, her forelegs between her hind ones.

"I-I can explain," I stammered, pulling the sheets from the bed around me to cover up my private parts.

Dash's blush lessened somewhat as the groggy veil from just waking up receded and allowed her to pull her mind somewhat out of the gutter. "Morning wood?" she asked.

"Y-Yeah." The two of us stared at each other for a bit before Rainbow started giggling, giggles soon spreading until both of us were rolling of laughter. "Look at us, awkward as if we're a pair of teenagers."

"I know," Rainbow managed to get out through her laughter. "We should take a shower, that should help you out down there."

"For sure. You go first, I'll wait 'till you're done," I chuckled, Rainbow smirking and shaking her head.

"I said we should take a shower." Dash grinned as she pulled the bedsheets off of me and dragged me to the door.

My feathers were still a little wet as Dash and I joined Spike and Scootaloo in the kitchen for breakfast, Twilight notably being absent. "Morning Spike, sleep well."

"Yep, thanks!" the little dragon smiled, placing a stack of pancakes on the table. Scootaloo's mouth was already watering at the sight of the large stack of food. "Dig in, I'll go get Twilight. She should still be lucid enough after only one all-nighter."

Surprisingly though, before Spike could leave the kitchen Twilight came in, dragging her hooves as she didn't seem to be in the best mood. She slumped down in one of the chairs, taking a pancake, drowning it in syrup and wolfing it down.

"You seem to be in a good mood," I commented sarcastically.

"Your armour," she grumbled, "It's... impossible."

We all took a seat at the table as Spike put down a second plate of pancakes and gave us all plates. "How so?"

"I tried every single analysis and replication spell, technique, and alchemical mean to replicate even a little of the stuff... I just can't. The material is so advanced that unless it's properly made there is no way I can replicate it without it being so critically flawed it may as well be useless," Twilight grumbled.

"Wait, you're giving up?" Rainbow said in surprise.

"Yeah, you'd usually go on for days and then figure out how to do something anyway," Spike said with equal surprise.

"I can't do it alright!" Twilight exclaimed, resting her head on the table next to her plate. I reached out and placed a claw on her shoulder comfortingly.

"I gave you that thing knowing there was a chance you couldn't do anything with it. Don't sweat it, Twilight."

She looked up at me, annoyed. "There's a war going on if you hadn't noticed. Ponies haven't really let that sink in yet but if we don't get an edge soon a lot of them are going to die!" she exclaimed.

I locked eyes with hers, my features hardening at the accusation. "You aren't telling me something I do not know, Twilight. I have been fighting said war, remember?" I scolded her before softening again. "Don't take the burden of every life on your shoulders, Twilight, you are just one pony doing her best." I looked over to the filly at the table who looked really uncomfortable at the conversation. "Let's drop this, we still have a stack of pancakes to go through."

"Yeah! Dig in!" Rainbow exclaimed, the mood at the table taking an upswing as we all enjoyed the treat. We laughed at a few jokes as they were thrown around and enjoyed the pancakes while they lasted.

"Those were some good pancakes, Spike," I complimented as I helped move the dishes to the sink to be washed.

"Pinkie gave me some pointers on those, helped a lot," Spike replied, filling up the sink and starting to wash. Before he got done with the first plate though, he let out a burp, a flame followed by a scroll materializing. Twilight snatched it up from the air with her magic and read it.

"What does it say?" I asked as she rolled it back up.

"The Princesses are coming here to Ponyville," she announced.

"Both of them?" I stated with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes," Twilight confirmed to me. "They wish to see you, they will be here before noon."

"I see," I replied flatly, there really was only one topic they could come to me to see about. "Rainbow, can you take Scootaloo into town? I'll look for you when you have time." Rainbow glanced at me wearily but did as told, taking Scootaloo on her back and making her way out of the library. Spike gave me a nod too as I went up to get my rifles and brought them to the library's main room, I took a seat and closed my eyes, waiting for the princesses to arrive.

It took less than an hour for the building's front door to open and a small group of guards to enter, two Solar and two Lunar guards. They were followed by their respective Princesses, my eyes locking with theirs. "Princesses."

"Specialist jack," Celestia replied, taking a seat across from me at the central table. "It's good to see you again."

"You finally made your decision then?" I said, noting the guards that took position in a half-circle behind the princesses, their eyes fixed on me as if expecting resistance.

"You knew it may come down to this," Celestia said with a sigh, pressing her hooves together on the table in front of her. I looked over to Luna to see what her mind was on the matter but she seemed to agree with her sister from what I could see.

"At least throw me a bone. Have you at least considered the griffins' position?" I asked, one claw on the table and another below as my eyes scanned the guards.

"Those questions are mostly academic until we can get a hold on the situation, but-" Celestia responded.

"Humor me," I stated frankly.

Princess Celestia sighed. "After this rebellion has been put down I will make sure the treaties with them will be revised, but I cannot let the griffin rebels set the terms. If that were to happen it would send a message to other nations surrounding Equestria that bites can be taken out of us."

"And you swear that you will do this?"

"Is our word not good enough?" Luna spoke up, with a piercing glare that was hard to hold. "It was enough for thou to help us at Griffinstone."

"Griffinstone was a unique situation, you know that Princess. And even though I'm willing to help, I do not know either of you very well," I responded, breaking Luna's gaze and looking back over to Celestia as she leaned forward a bit.

"Pass me your knife," she ordered, I hesitated. "I require it for what I am about to do next."

Still not completely sure what she wanted to do I unsheathed the thing and passed it over. The royal guards tensed a bit as the princess took the knife, not knowing if that was a signal to move in.

"Sister you cannot really be-"

"He needs the reassurance Luna, I will not send ponies into battle against a superiorly armed foe if I have the means to give them an equal chance," Celestia cut her off, lighting her horn as she brought the knife down on her hoof and drew blood. Her magic then changed colour, turning into the same shade as the red liquid coating the blade. "I swear that when this rebellion is put down the treaties will be addressed and adjusted to take into account the needs of the Griffins."

A wave of magic washed over me, the air feeling as if it was charged with static electricity. Though it wasn't said out loud, I somehow knew she would not be able to break that oath.

Luna looked at her sister in shock, not believing what she'd just done. "Since when do you partake in blood magic?"

"I have catalogued almost every tome of the dark arts that exists sister, though I do not use that knowledge lightly. One should be careful with one's soul as you are very much aware." Luna scowled as her sister said that but said nothing further on the topic.

"Even if I am willing to help, I will not be able to give you exact replica's of my weapons..." I held up a talon as Luna tried speaking up to scold me. "...Your material science is not advanced enough, but, I shall help you to the best of my ability in designing weapons and teach you the tactics to use them." Celestia let out a sigh of relief and gave me back my knife, I cleaned it off and re-sheathed it. Raising the claw I'd held below the table, I pushed the pin back into the grenade I was hiding there and stashed it into a pocket on my vest.

Both the princesses scowled as they saw me pocket the explosive as they'd already heard about grenades from me. "That was not one of those 'smoke grenades' was it?"

"No. That one would've gone boom."

That didn't do much to remove the frown either Princess' face but there were more important things to discuss. "What is it you require, Specialist?"

I smiled as I mentally started making a list of stuff I'd need and what kind of skills I'd require from the ponies helping me. "Well..."