The next morning, I woke up before AJ for once. I was pleasantly surprised.

"Huh. Well, might as well take a walk..." I muttered, sliding out of bed and getting dressed. Once done, I left the room as quietly as possible after scribbling a note for AJ, telling her where I went. I put the note on her face, so she wouldn't miss it. What surprised me in the hallway was a Princess. Not Cadence or Celestia, but a tired looking Luna.

"Greetings, Mark." She said, before yawning.

"Aren't you tired? Go to sleep." I said. She looked guilty about something, and glanced in the direction of Duffy's room.

"I will, but I have something to discuss with you first." She said, and beckoned me to follow. I shrugged and complied, matching her stride with my own. As I walked, I noted that I needed to get my uniform repaired, and decided to ask this of Rarity.

'Now, what does she want to talk about?' I thought, rubbing my chin in thought. She answered my unspoken question several seconds later.

"I have to tell you something about the other human." She said, causing me to look at her.

"Yes, Luna?" I rose my eyebrow.

"I... Might have brought him here by accident..." She said sheepishly, looking down.

"Thought that only Dawn could do that." I said, mildly surprised.

"I was asleep at the time. My powers amplify during the night and in my dreams." She explained.

"Well, at least he's another United States Marine Corps soldier. I won't feel as lonely now, with another soldier to talk with. Even if he tends to stay away from others..." I said, muttering the last part to myself.

"You mean, you're not angry at me?" She asked, surprised. I stopped and looked at her in her teal eyes.

"No, lass. If anything, I'm glad. You brought a dead soldier of my country here, in a land full of relative peace. He'll stick out like a white man in a black bar, but that's besides the point." She didn't get the reference. I'm pretty sure anyone else besides Duffy will, except for Dawn.

'Well, I can make as many racist jokes as I want to, but it's not funny if nobody gets it.' I thought, rolling my eyes internally.

"Anyway, if you bring anyone else into this country, make sure to tell me or Dawn first. Celestia would probably just kill them with extreme prejudice." I said. Luna smiled at me.

"Thank you for understanding." She said, before giving me a hug. I'll admit, I was surprised as hell to react. That, and the fact that I was holding most of her weight upon my body, it took all that I could to keep standing. I managed to get an arm around her, and awkwardly patted her back.

"You're welcome, Lulu." I said, making up the nickname on the spot. What happened next was so far into the left field that I was frozen in place.

"Auntie Lulu!" A colt screamed as he galloped towards us. What really killed my mind at the scene was that it was a mini Red Dawn. He had exactly the same colors, mane style, and was a fucking Alicorn to boot.

"Must you do this?" Luna asked, while I just stood there, frozen in place. The colt grinned evilly when he saw my facial expression.

"Wake the fuck up, Mark." He said, using words that children shouldn't know.

"How...?" I stammered, looking at him.

"This is actually my real form. I used a very tricky spell when Luna was Nightmare Moon, and for doing so, I ended up in a colt's body." He explained.

"You look smaller than Applebloom." I observed, rubbing my chin after regaining my wit.

"Don't remind me..." He muttered, frowning.

"So, what's with you being a stallion yesterday?" I asked, waving my hand around.

"He uses that form for important occasions. Queen Chrysalis was one of them." Luna interjected, looking around. "I might as well go and sleep... I'll see you two later, maybe?"

"Bye Auntie Lulu!" Dawn chirped with a retarded grin.

"Bye Auntie Lulu!" I said in the same tone, but got hit with a hoof for it. Damn, hooves hurt like hell. After I finished coughing up a storm, Dawn looked up at me with a blank expression.

"Don't do that again. Celestia and Luna barely tolerate me for it, because it's extremely hard to call them by their name when they're around. Something about this form pegged them as 'Auntie' in my head. Won't bloody go away for another 98 years or so. Anyway, I need to sleep, too. Bloody generals wanting to go attack Chrysalis..." He said before trotting off, leaving me alone in the hallway. That is, until Lyra literally popped out of nowhere, similar as to how Pinkie did when she rose forth from the ground at the picnic.

I managed to keep myself from screaming, but I never knew that I could jump backwards more than a few feet. Lyra giggled to herself before trotting over to me.

"I never knew that humans could jump like that!" She said excitedly, bouncing up and down in a way that reminded me a little of Applebloom.

"I didn't either, lass..." I muttered while looking around, before putting my back to the wall and sliding down until I was sitting. She sat down next to me in a very similar position.

'Isn't that fucking uncomfortable for her? I mean, she's a fucking Unicorn!' I thought, but didn't say anything. I suddenly found my body craving something that I haven't consumed in a while.

"Hey, Lyra. Do you ponies have a drink called coffee?" I asked, also wishing for a cigarette. She looked at me, confused.

"No. Why?" Well, damn. There went my morning cup of joe for the rest of my new life.

"It's nothing, lass." I sighed. She frowned at my reply but didn't say anything, for the moment.

"Well, do you want to go get breakfast?" Lyra asked.

"Yea, I'll go get AJ and we can amble around this bloody castle until lunch time." I said, getting to my feet with a groan. We quickly picked up Applejack, quite literally on my part, and did as I commented before; wander around the fucklarge castle while looking for the kitchen.

"Um, could'ja let me down, Sugarcube?" Applejack asked once she woke up, slung over my shoulder as comfortably as I could get her. I stopped, bent down, and let her slide off.

"Now, could you help us find the kitchen? We're bloody hungry." I asked, waving at Lyra and myself. AJ narrowed her eyes when she saw Lyra, but nodded and led us in the direction in which we were going. Along the way, we ran into Rarity.

"Oh my! What ever happened to your uniform?!" Rarity gasped, recoiling a little at the state of said uniform.

"I'm surprised you didn't notice yesterday. I got into two fights, one with a Changeling and the other with Lyra, Colgate, and the other original bridesmaid." I explained. "And I spent an unknown amount of time in a cave, coating myself and Princess Cadence with dust." She seemed to shudder at the mention of dust, but I ignored her.

"Well... I could take it and repair it, if you'd like." Rarity offered.

"Seems fine with me." I said. She waited several moments, holding out a hoof. "OH! You want to do it now?"

"Yes, Mark." She replied, keeping her hoof stretched. I sighed and stripped to my skivvies, putting everything except the sword over her hoof. "Everything, please." I didn't understand, until I noticed that she meant my underwear too.

"Hell no! I'm uncomfortable enough as it is without the rest of my clothes!" I exclaimed, backing up. The three seemed confused as hell, and voiced as much.

'...Sigh...' I thought, decided to give them a crash-course in human anatomy, and dropped my boxers. The reactions that were created hit my expectations right on the dot. All three blushed deeply, while Lyra and AJ had an unusually predator-like grin on their faces.

"On second thought...You can keep that on..." Rarity coughed after a second. I complied, slipping my boxers back on rather quickly.

"Incoming!" Dawn shouted from nowhere, as something crashed through the window and plowed into me, sending me and the unknown assaultant to the ground.

"What in tarnation!" Applejack shouted as something pooled around the pair of us, and it felt oddly familiar.

"Parachute?" Was all that came out of my mouth as I groaned and pushed the body off of me, trying my damnest to get out of the parachute. Then the realization of what, exactly, smashed into me hit me like a brick.

"Ugh..." Another human groaned, opening his eyes. I'm pretty sure he was in shock, and from what he saw I couldn't blame him. Two oddly colored unicorns, an orange earth pony, and an almost naked man were staring down at him. He promptly passed out, right there on the rug.

From what I could tell by his appearance was that he was a US Army paratrooper, 101st Airborne Division when I noted the patch on his suit. He was about 5'10", looked 22, and had a small blood spot on his forehead, with a small indent that made me thing that he was sniped while dropping in somewhere. Spread around us was a rifle, a pistol, and two grenades (which would've gone off by now if the pin was accidentally pulled).

"Grab those weapons, Lyra. I'll drag him into the nearest bedroom and make sure his condition's stable. Rarity, go with Applejack and get a lot of food; if I'm right, he's going to be very bloody hungry." I said, snapping into my serious mode at the drop of a hat. Without waiting for any vocal agreements, I wrapped my arms around the soldier's chest from behind and started dragging him, being careful of the parachute.

"Ah'll be right back, sugarcube!" AJ exclaimed as her and Rarity ran off, while Lyra picked up the fallen weapons in a dull yellow aura. I kicked open the nearest door, which was probably a bad thing because I made a certain purple unicorn jump out of bed in fright and almost lost half of my hair to a laser.

"Twilight! Stand the hell down! I've got a wounded human here!" I shouted as she looked at me confusedly. "And don't question as to why I'm just wearing skivvies. Just, don't." I added, dragging the paratrooper (if the patch is authentic) further into the room, allowing Twilight to see him.

"What happened?!" She asked, hopping down from her bed.

"He crashed into the hallway through a window, landing on top of me. Help me get him onto the bed, sumbitch is heavy with all this gear." I grunted, not used to carrying two hundred pounds of unconcious meat and gear. With the help of a familiar purple aura, I managed to get the guy onto the bed, and proceeded to strip all of his shit off of him.

"What are you doing?" Lyra asked, popping up next to me.

"I'm checking for anymore wounds. It's possible that he could've been seriously cut up when he smashed through the window." I explained, wriggling him out of the parachute first.

'And I'm checking for other bullet holes, just in case.' I mentally added.

"What's that smell?" Twilight suddenly asked, holding a hoof to her nose. Lyra did the same after sniffing, and I subconscously sniffed too.

"Sulfur. It's found around active volcanos..." I trailed off at the end when I got a good look at his uniform.

'United States Army, 101st Airborne Division. Looks around WWII. Son of a bitch...' I thought.

"I'm pretty sure I know where he was when he died..." I muttered, slipping his shirt off.

"Where?" Lyra asked, having heard me due to being in very close proximity.

"An island in the Pacific called Iwo Jima. Our navy, marines, and army invaded it during World War II. One out of three men were casualties, mostly fatal. From the way he literally dropped in, I'm guessing that he didn't even feel the ground beneath his feet before he died." I explained, unlacing his boots and tugging them off to get his pants off.

'One does not simply remove pants before the boots, after all. Managed it once, but it took a bloody long time.' (True story, bro.) I thought, before sliding his pants off and searching his uniform for his wallet.

"What're you doing now?" Twilight asked, standing on the other side of the bed.

"Checking for this PFC's identification." I answered, pulling what I was looking for out of his trousers. Flipping it open, I took a quick look at his driver's licence before placing it on the nightstand and neatly put his pants with the rest of his shit.

'Alright. Name's Jeremy Williams. He's a Private First Class in the United States Army. Don't particuarly get along with most of the Grunts, but I'll try my best to with him.' I thought, before looking back at Lyra.

"Lass, could you levitate his weapons to me?" I asked, holding an arm out. She nodded and passed them over, the grenades going first (which I was careful as fuck about), followed by his rifle and pistol.

"That's a bigass knife..." I muttered in German, slipping into my other known language. The unicorns were confused, but I ignored them. Instead, I detached the 16 inch bayonet from the end of Williams' M1 Garand, placing it next to the grenades and the pile of ammunition I made. I manually ejected the clip from it, getting a metallic 'ping' in response. The pistol was an M1911, which I unloaded it and popped the bullet that was in the chamber, also going next to the pile of weapons.

"That's a lot of stuff..." Twilight muttered, looking over the weapons.

"Psh. That's considered light. Paratroopers didn't hold nearly as much ammunition on them, as the rest was airdropped along with them." I said. "Should've seen what the German MG42 squads had in the way of bullets. THAT'S a lot of stuff. Probably about 300 bullets per belt, and every man in the squad had one to three belts, with usually five men per squad." I shuddered a little, thinking of all the spraying and praying one squad alone could do.

'Jeez. That would pretty much mean 'fuck you!' to whoever was on the recieving end of the barrel.' I thought, before flipping Williams over to check his back.

"Nope. Single bullet to the brain socket, just like I thought. He'll wake up soon feeling like hell, probably, but he'll be ticking like the rest of us." I finally said, putting him back on his back. After settling down in a chair, I looked at the unicorns.

"Yes?" Lyra asked, looking at me with a grin.

"You two might want to leave. If he wakes up and sees you two, there's no telling what he'll do. I'm safe, seeing as I'm a human." I said, waving them out. After they left, I had a thought and decided to get his measurements. Rather than look for a measuring tape, I simply slid on his uniform. The pants were a little short, where I could see my lower calves easily.

'He's 2 inches shorter than me. That'll make him 5'10"...' I thought, stripping out of his clothes and decided to wait for Rarity to inform her.

[Nighttime]

"Sumbitch's taking too long to wake up..." I muttered, having spent all bloody day in Twilight's room with the unconcious PFC. Rarity and AJ arrived earlier with a bigass plate of apple products, and I pretty much told them the same thing as I told Twi and Lyra. I also gave Rarity his measurements and quickly drew a new dress uniform for him, considering that he's pretty much forced into a wedding. They left without the food, and I spent the rest of the day field cleaning his weapons to keep myself from boredom, eating only when my stomach decided to let its discomfort known.

"How is he?" A voice asked, causing me to look up from my chair. Luna had half her body in the doorway, looking in cautiously.

"Still knocked out. I'm not a bloody medic, but I can tell that he's still alive. Just knocked out." I replied, putting the M1911 back together within seconds. Luna looked impressed with my skill in maintaining the very familiar pistol.

"That's remarkable." She said, closing the door behind her.

"Had one just like this, before I got a faceful of evil flower." I replied, blowing a speck of dust off of the trigger guard. I watched as Luna walked up to Williams and tapped his bullet wound with her horn, and whatever voodoo shit she did woke him the fuck up.

"AGH!" He screamed, clutching at his head. I was out of the chair and at his side like a bullet, forcing him back down.

"Calm down, soldier!" I shouted, holding him tightly. He looked around in confusion, while Luna hid from his eyes.

"W-Where am I?" He asked after a moment, looking at me. "And why aren't you wearing clothes?"

"I'm ignoring the second one for now. First off, you're safe, so don't worry about being attacked. Second, you're not on Iwo Jima anymore." I answered. "What do you remember about the drop?"

"Uh... I remember seeing a gun firing below us when I jumped, and a sudden pain in my forehead..." He said, before his eyes widened. "A-Am I dead?" He quietly asked. I sighed, hoping to avoid this conversation for a while.

"Yes, Jeremy, you're dead. Someone who lives in this dimention decided you've deserved a second chance, though." I answered. "And he ain't human." I added.

"What do you mean by that? Did God do this?" He asked, slowly sitting up.

"Not really. Meet one of the rulers of the country we're in; Princess Luna." I said, waving her forward. She came out of the darkness with...

'Holy shit, is she BLUSHING?!' I was very surprised, to say the least. Looking at Williams, I could tell that he was, too. 'Well then! Operation Shut-In is now a go!' Completely making up the name and operation, I got up and excused myself.

"I really need some sleep. I'll see you two later, perhaps at the wedding?" I called from the door. As soon as Luna started to come with me, I slammed the door shut and braced it as best as I could.

"Open the door, Mark!" Luna shouted from behind said door, after testing the door.

"I know what you think about Williams!" I shouted back. "Consider this a bonding experience, and try to get to first base!" I added, bracing again after she kicked it.

"Let me out!”

“It’ll keep you from doing work.” I deadpanned, offering the thing that usually motivated me when I felt lazy.

“...Fine... I’ll stay in here for a while, I guess...” She finally said, succumbing to defeat, her feelings, and an excuse to stay away from prompous royal twits.

“Good girl. Stay in there as long as you want.” I said, standing straight and waiting for a few seconds. The clopping of hooves told me that she was going deeper into the bedroom to talk to Williams.

‘Alright, now to find AJ...’ I groaned, realizing that I had no clue as to where she was. I grit my teeth and started randomly opening doors, shutting them when I got closets, bathrooms, unoccupied bedrooms, and occupied bedrooms. When I thought I finally opened the right door...

“Get the fuck out of my office.” Dawn said, throwing a stamp at my face. It was so far into left field that I just stared until the large DENIED stamp smashed into my face, downing me. As I struggled to get up, the door was magically shut and I looked in a nearby window, seeing DENIED stamped in red across my face.

‘...Fuck it. I’ll just sleep right here...’ I thought, pressing my back against the wall and closing my eyes, drifting off into sleep.

Next Chapter: Wedding Estimated time remaining: 12 Hours, 49 Minutes