Chapter 13: Ready, Fight!

After releasing the clone jutsu in front of Princess Luna, I returned to my sleeping body in the guest room I was given. I later woke in my bed. I could get used to this by having one sleep while the other stays up. Twilight would love to do this. I can see it now, she reads a lot more books and not getting fatigued from staying up late. I got out of bed and made my way to the attached bathroom. Man, even this is huge. I got into the shower and cleaned up. Once out and back in the bedroom, I summoned my backpack from the throne room. I then summoned one of my new gi Rarity made. It was the blue with black trim. I put it on and packed the used one in the backpack. When I exited my room, I saw two unicorn guards standing on either side.

"Good morning gentlecolts. Mind directing me to the training grounds?" I asked.

"No can do, sir. Those are for the Royal Guard use only." The guard on the left side of the door said.

"Princess Luna gave me permission not too long ago."

"She gave permission to a red earth pony in a black outfit named Swift Blaze." The guard on the right said.

"But that is me."

"You are clearly not a pony." The left one said and the right one nodded to agree.

"Let me prove it then." I walked to the other side of the hallway, turned around, and said, "Shadow Transform Jutsu!" A puff of smoke engulfs me and then showed my pony form.

Both guards, like everypony else, dropped their mouths wide open with a shocked look on their faces. They regain their composure and both said back and forth, "Sorry about that sir. Never realized your species can change into another species. We shall escort you to the grounds." They turned and started to walk down the hallway, expecting me to follow.

I changed back to my human form and followed them. "It is alright. You could not have known. Also, enough with the sirs call me Blaze." I said while walking between them.

"Ok, Blaze. Mind telling us how you are able to do that and if we can learn it?" The one on my right said.

"I'm sorry, but ponies won't be able to learn these. As to how I can do it, that is classified. Both Princesses know how I can though. That is why I can walk freely instead of being in the dungeon."

"Can the others of your species do what you can do?" The other one asked.

"My species is called human and no, they cannot do what I do. Before you ask, I am the only one on your world."

"Then how did you get here?" The one on the right asked.

"That's classified."

"Are you ever going to answer our questions without saying 'classified'?" the left guard said in an annoyed tone.

"That will all depend on the question you ask." I said with a smile forming on my face. They both snorted their noses as they did not like the smart-ass response. We soon exited the main castle as the sun was starting to rise. "Mind if I ask what your names are? I don't want to be a jerk and keep calling you 'guard'."

The left guard said, "My name is Iron Shield, but you may call me Iron." He had a light gray coat with a dark gray mane. I could not see his cutie mark due to the armor he has on.

The right guard said, "You may call me Dead Eye." He had a white coat with red mane. Again, can't see the cutie mark because of the armor.

"Nice to meet you Iron and Dead Eye. You are actually the first guards that have not tried to attack me."

"We heard a rumor of a strange creature showing off some skills for the Princesses and badly beaten up some guard ponies in the process." Iron said.

"I wouldn't say beaten up. Just some joints got dislocated, but no broken bones." I said sheepishly.

"That was you?" Dead Eye asked with a surprised look on his face again.

"I gave them three chances to give up. Plus they had it somewhat coming to them."

"How in Equestria did you beat two guards at the same time?" Iron asked.

"I first destroy their weapons without inflicting injury to them. Did the same with their armor. They said they would never give up. So I disabled them by hitting some joints. Princess Luna took them to the hospital to have the doctors pop their joints back in."

"You did that with your bare hoofs?"

"One, these are not hoofs. These are hands." I said as I moved them about. "Two, no I didn't. I used a non-lethal sword I brought with me from my world."

"How can a non-lethal sword be able to destroy armor and weapons?" Dead Eye asked.

"It's all in the technique used with the sword. If I used a deadly sword in place of mine, I would have killed them with one swing."

"Let me guess before asking the question, you can't teach these techniques as they are classified." Iron said.

"Now you are catching on."

We finally reached the Royal Guard training grounds. I could see a track, an obstacle course, a target range, and some practice dummies. "You guards have a nice setup to practice and train. I might be coming here more often for my morning exercises." I said.

"What are your exercise routines that you do?" Dead Eye asked.

"Instead of me explaining it all out, how about you two join me in them? You might actually enjoy it."

"We have been ordered to keep an eye on you, so we might as well. Plus standing around all shift really stiffens up the muscles." Iron said.

"Wonderful. To begin, we shall do some stretches. I make it easier for you to follow by copying my pony form while my human form takes a jog around the track."

"How in . . . wait. This is another one of your abilities you can do, correct?" Dead Eye asked.

"They are called jutsu and you are right on target." I stepped back a bit from them and said, "Shadow Clone and Transform Combo!" My pony form appeared next to me. Iron and Dead Eye did not go all shocked face this time. "Bye human me, I will teach them some good stretches before we go to the next part." The pony version of me said.

"Be mindful they have not done the training we did. Go easy on them." The human me said as he started to jog to the track.

"Ok then, the first stretch we are going to do is the rear hoofs." I said as I demonstrated with my body. They followed and I heard a couple pops from Iron. "You were not kidding saying you are stiff. Next are the front ones." They repeated the action as we went through the different body parts. After 15 minutes, we stretched all the important parts.

"So if these are basic, what are the ones you been doing?" Dead Eye asked as a sense of relief came over his body from getting all the stiffness out of him.

"Ok, I will show you and you may try to copy me. Just don't blame me if you get injured. The next level is balance control stretches. It helps increase tone on your muscles as you balance yourself at one time." I first got onto my back hoofs. I then made the bottom of my front hoofs touching each other at chest level. I kicked one leg to stick out in front of me, while maintaining balance. Finally I squatted down and back up 30 times. I repeated that for each leg. Once done with that, I got back on all hooves and said, "Does anypony care to try?"

"Yea, thanks but no thanks. We don't have that skill of balance you demonstrated." Iron said.

"I agree. I don't know how you were able to get your pony body to that." Dead Eye said.

"I have been building up to that count since I got my pony form. When I first started, I could only do five before I fell onto my face. If you excuse me now, need to do the front hoofs." I said as I soon went to a front hoof stand. I picked up one hoof off the ground and flex the other to go up and down like I did with the back. I only did 10 on each leg of this. "As you can see, my front ones still need to build up before they are at the level of the back ones."

"So what is next in your regiment?" Iron asked.

"The next thing is sparing with myself. Let me get my other me so he can make another human and pony." I go over and get him. He does the jutsus and we all came back to the guards. We paired up as human vs. pony.

"Before you start, mind sharing with us as to why you are paired up like that?" Dead Eye asked.

"Of course, I am training both forms of different scenarios. One pony is going to be on the offensive while the other is going to be on the defensive." A human version of me replied.

"Would it also make sense to also do a pony vs. pony?"

"Good idea, thanks for the suggestion." I made four more pony versions. "Would one of you mind starting the matches? The rules are no ki or chakra. First to submit or black outs loses."

Iron Shield walks into the middle of where the matches were. He looked at each pair to see if they were ready. "Ready . . . FIGHT!" he shouted and the matches began. He quickly got out of the middle to not be caught in any of the fights. All versions of Blaze's were sparing hard like the other was the enemy. It was getting to the point you could not see the blows. After 15 minutes, a pony in a pony vs. pony match got bucked right in the head and flew across the grounds. When he landed, he burst into a puff of smoke.

"That was some hit." Dead Eye said to the victor.

"He put up a great fight. The other just made a slight mistake which gave me that opening." I said while breathing hard.

"How can you fight yourself when you know how the other you will fight?" Iron asked.

"It's true we all have the same knowledge and style, we are just choosing different scenarios to fight and that is the unknown in these fights." Suddenly a human got a pony into a submission hold. The pony tapped out and disappeared into a puff of smoke. The human came over and let gravity help him sit down.

"Man! That defensive scenario the other chose is very effective. I had to go through several to find out how to beat it. I think I shall release myself so you can review the battle." He did so and disappeared.

"So you are able to learn from all of these matches from both sides? That is amazing that you are getting a week's worth in one session." Dead Eye said.

"It is nice to get the knowledge, but it comes with a catch. With all the knowledge, I also get the painful memories they received. I luckily don't get the actual injuries they received, especially death blows."

"So if you made an army of you, what would more than likely happen?"

"Either after or during the battle, I would probably be entering a coma state due to the pain and the amount of memory overload. This jutsu was never designed to create an entire army, more for intelligence gathering and secret missions."

Both nodded at what I said and we continued watching the other two fights. The speed of the fights was getting blurry for normal eyes. Yet I have been able to keep up. Suddenly a puff surrounded all the remaining fighters and they all disappeared.

"Blaze what happen? I lost track of what happen. The others of you were moving so fast that it was inhuman." Iron said.

"It was a draw. Neither side was making headway. So I ended the jutsu." I said in my human form I just changed back to also. "Let's head back to the castle. All that fighting has given a big appetite."

"You go ahead. Our shift has ended so we are going to return the barracks. I'm sure you know the way." Dead Eye said.

"Alright, I shall see you two some other time. If you get some leave coming up, come to Ponyville so we can hang out. I should have my place done by then." I think I will try out the Teleportation Jutsu so I can get used to it. I performed the hand signs and thought of where I wanted to end up was right outside the dining room. A puff of smoke surrounded me. My vision changed from seeing the grounds to the big doors to the dining room. I quickly look myself over to see if I lost anything. Nope everything is here. Sweet! That will defiantly come in handy. No bright flash of light like the unicorn's spell version.

Those guards look angry. OH SHIT! I started to run as the guards that were standing outside of the dining room were charging up some magic spells. I dodge out of the way of their magic beams. I don't know what spell they are trying to hit me with, but I know I don't want to get hit by it. Time to pick up some speed. I channel chakra to my feet and started to jump further distances and was starting to get away. I turned the corner and saw six unicorn guard ponies charging at me. OH YOU GOT TO BE KIDDING! Getting tired of this, I swap to ki energy and flew over the approaching guards. I kept on dodging all the beams the total of eight guards was shooting at me.

As I was flying through the halls, I saw an open window and flew to the outside. "See ya suckers!" I yelled looking to the guards at the window, still shooting beams at me. I turned my head forward and saw a dozen Pegasus guards were heading to me from the castle wall. "WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PONIES!" I yelled at the top of my lungs. They were still flying to me without stopping. Can't catch or hit what you can't see. I flew higher into the sky so everypony could see me. I channel my ki to my hands and said, "SOLAR FLARE!" A pure white light shined down on everything and everypony, blinding them. I quickly performed the Teleportation Jutsu and appeared inside the dining room.

Both Princesses were sitting at the table and were surprised to see me appear like that. The staff in the room started to run for the door to the kitchen. I said this while breathing heavily, "Excuse me Princess Celestia, did you forget to inform your Royal Guards about me in both forms?"

"I was going to do that this morning after breakfast. Princess Luna did inform some of the guards when she offered you access to the training grounds. Did something happen?" Princess Celestia asked.

"Oh nothing happened with Iron Shield and Dead Eye. There was a slight miscommunication as she told them about my pony form, not the human form. I quickly resolved that by showing I can change into that form. At the training grounds themselves, nothing happened as I was able to get my morning exercise in. It was when I came back via teleport jutsu to just outside the doors down there. The unicorn just started to fire their magic beams at me. So I ran so I would not harm them. Six more came around the corner as I thought I was getting away. I started to fly at this point and flew straight out the window. The eight unicorn guards will still firing at me, but now I see a dozen Pegasus guards flying towards me."

"Care to tell us how you escape from being captured?" Princess Luna asked.

"Do you recall a bright flash of light come through those windows?" They both nodded. "I performed a ki based attack called solar flare and temporally blinded everypony that was looking at me. I then performed the teleport jutsu to here."

The dining room doors burst open and a battalion of both unicorn and Pegasus guards were flowing in. I started to channel my chakra to defend myself.

"HALT!" I heard in the booming Canterlot Voice coming from Princess Celestia. All the guards and myself stopped in our tracks.

A unicorn guard walked in front of the others and addressed the Princesses, "Your Highness, pardon for our intrusion but we are here to stop that creature from trying to assassinate you. Please step away from it so we may capture it."

"You may stand down. He is our guest." Princess Celestia said.

"But Princess Celestia, then why did it run away from the guards and why was I not informed yesterday?"

"Excuse me, I am not an 'it'. My name is Swift Blaze and I am human. The reason why I ran is your guards just started to fire their magic at me without letting me explain about me. As to why Princess Celestia did not inform you. She was in a private court session till sunset with a discussion with me." I said interrupting their discussion of me.

"That is correct Captain Armor. I was going to inform you this morning after breakfast. Looks I should have done that before the commotion." Princess Celestia said.

"But Princess, how can you trust him with the havoc he caused in your castle." The guard captain said.

"I did not cause havoc. Your guards were shooting beams at me without allowing me to explain why I was there." I said. I moved over a chair at the table and sat down.

"ENOUGH!" Celestia shouted again. "He a guest here and has been staying in Ponyville for the past week. I shall explain more to you later."

"As you wish, Princess Celestia." The guard captain orders the others back to their post. They closed the doors when they left.

I turned my head to the Princesses and Princess Celestia was giving me a stern look. "What?" I said.

"I did not appreciate how you talked to Captain Shining Armor. He was only doing his duty as well as his guards. I realize it is somewhat my fault for not informing him, but you can't go running around without a guard escort. You are considered a guest from an outside nation so you need an escort to everywhere you go."

"I am sorry Princess for causing the commotion. Please don't blame Iron or Dead Eye for leaving me after their shift. I had no idea I was to have an escort. It won't happen again." I said as I bowed to her.

"Then after breakfast, let's fill out those forms you can be a citizen. Then schedule you to go through basic training of the Royal Guard next month. Once you complete the training, you won't need an escort while inside the castle grounds."

"Sounds like a plan your Highness. If you can summon a waiter, I already know what I would like to have. This morning exercise and events gave me a big appetite."

She rang a bell and a waiter came out of the kitchen. She directed him to me to get my order. I ordered a dozen egg omelet with cheese, onion, and bell pepper; a side of roasted potato chunks; and two tall glasses of orange juice. The waiter headed back to the kitchen after taking it. Soon after, he came back with the glasses of OJ. I drank the first one down without taking a break.

"A little thirsty there Blaze?" Princess Luna chuckled.

"Just a little bit Luna. I did not plan on a playing tag after my exercise routine." I replied back.

She started to laugh and I joined her. Soon Princess Celestia joined in with a chuckle. Soon my breakfast came out of the kitchen and I dug right into it. Whoever that cooks is, everything they make is this the best I ever had. I think I need to come here more often. I cleaned the plate of the food and leaned back in the chair.

"Well I'm stuffed like a turkey on Thanksgiving." I said.

"Shall we go and take care of that paperwork then?" Princess Celestia suggested. I nodded my head and stood up, suddenly falling back down in the seat. "Blaze! Are you alright?"

"Yes Princess. My legs are just exhausted from this morning's events. Would you mind if I fly to follow you?"

"Not at all. I am glad it was nothing serious."

"Well, we, I mean I am going to head to bed. Goodbye Blaze, I can't wait for the next lesson." Good day Tia, I will see you this evening." Princess Luna said as she got up and headed to her room.

"Sleep well, Lulu. Don't let the bed bugs bite." Princess Celestia said with a smirk. Princess Luna chuckled from the comment recalling what happened last night. "Ready to go Blaze to the throne room?"

"Yes your Highness. The flying will be good practice for me to get some precision control of it." I said as I started to hover out of my chair in a sitting position.

I followed behind the Princess out of the dining room trying different positions of my body. Some of them caused me to lose control and fall down in the direction I was in, mostly when my head is below my body. The princess smirked each time I fell and how my body positioned itself from the fall. We finally arrived in the throne room I saw a table on one side with a sack of about a hundred page legal document.

"Is that the forms I need to legally become a citizen here?" I said with big eyes and pointing to the table.

"Yes it is. I am sorry we did not get to this yesterday. I don't think you will be able to make it to Applejack's award ceremony this afternoon. It takes some almost two days to fill out everything."

"Well it is a good thing I have an ace or two up my sleeve." I summoned my back pack to me and began digging through it.

"What are you looking for? I have everything you need to fill the forms out. Couple quills and ink wells."

"It is another technological advance the humans have created. BEHOLD, THE MIGHTY PEN!" I said as I pulled it out of the bag.

"How does it work?"

"It is like a quill, but the ink is stored inside and the tiny metal ball rolls it out as you write."

"That is quite impressive. I take you are going to use your clones to speed the process up too?"

"Now you are getting to understand my thinking."

I made two clones and we went straight to work. They were going to read the pages. I was going to fill in where I needed to. We were making good process with this assembly line. The Princess just watched as the clones and I was not talking and was in sync with filling out the forms. In one hour we finished. I released them and did a quick review of what they read.

"All done Princess. Every part of that document has been read and filled in correctly. If you would please excuse me your Highness, I would like to head back to Ponyville and see my friends."

"Very well Swift Blaze. I shall review this and see if there are any mistakes. If there is, I will summon for you. If not, I shall send you a letter to let you know your citizenship certificate can be picked up at Ponyville City Hall. Shall I get you a royal carriage to take you back, or are you going to fly?"

"Neither, I am going to teleport. I will summon my bag when I am back at Twilight's. Goodbye Princess Celestia. I shall see you next month, if not sooner."

"Goodbye Blaze. Please try to stay out of trouble with my guards."

"I will if they don't harass me when I did nothing wrong." I did the hand signs and teleported back to Ponyville, my new home.