A/N: only a few more chapters to go for this arc! I plan on making the end a special chapter for you. I want to get there asap, so I am going to be working hard from here on out till I get there. I don’t want to keep you, on with the chapter!

Twilight had waited till 9:00 and neither Rainbow Dash nor Kyle shown up. “This is it, we need to do something now” she said to herself as she waited for the others to arrive. They are out there somewhere and we are going to find them, no matter how long it takes!

Twilight waited impatiently for the others to show up and about 15 minutes later all of the ponies shown up. “What is Shadow doing here?” Twilight asked as she stared at the shaded grey pony.

“I…umm thought that he might be able to help us” Fluttershy said as she hid behind the grey pegasus.

“Kyle is my friend too and I thought that you could use all of the help you could get your hooves on. I want him and Rainbow Dash back just as much as you do” Shadow Breeze retorted.

“Fine, you can come along, now does everypony have everything that they need? I don’t know how long we are going to be gone, so we need to be prepared” Twilight said as she moved a map into her saddlebag with her magic and closed it.

“Ready” Applejack said.

“READY TO GO CAPTAIN” Pinkie Pie said loudly.

“I’m all set” Shadow Breeze said.

“M-me too” Fluttershy squeaked.

“As am I” Rarity said lastly.

“Good, then let’s go” Twilight said as she opened the door to the house. They all walked out and Spike was left to take care of Stratus while they were gone.

They made it out of town and began walking towards the direction of Stalliongrad. Fluttershy and Shadow Breeze flew high in the air to see if they could spot any signs of them as they went. For all they knew they could just be resting on the way back.

Twilight was looking at the map she brought and saw that the border of Grydon was extremely close to Stalliongrad. They couldn’t have….could they? She decided to put the map away and focus on moving forward.

About two hours passed before Shadow Breeze called down from the air. “I see something, it looks like Rainbow Dash, and she is lying on top of something” he said before landing with Fluttershy next to Twilight.

“Ok, we have to be quiet, she might be sleeping and we don’t want to startle her” the purple unicorn said as they moved over to where Shadow saw the cyan pegasus.

They all stopped a little ways away and saw that RD was lying on something, and she was sleeping. She was lying on Kyle’s chest and he wasn’t moving from what they could all see. Twilight gasped and trotted over to them and looked at Kyle. Even while under RD she could see various cuts, all varying in size and depth. She couldn’t stop looking at the one on his face.

She then looked at Rainbow Dash and saw that she had a broke foreleg and some cuts as well. They must have fought griffons; nothing else could have made precise cuts like this. She looked and saw that Kyle was breathing and smiling in his sleep. Sorry Kyle, but I have to wake you up so we can get you home.

I was finally having a good dream, but then something woke me up. I frowned as something was poking my shoulder. What the hell do you want now? I want to sleep, seeing as I got none of it over the past 5 days now! ARGH!!! I opened my eyes and saw Twilight staring at me. She isn’t real; we are out in the boonies! I blinked and the lavender unicorn was still there looking at me. AWW, she is real! Now I have to explain everything to her or else it’s, ‘you are an idiot for even going out here’ mode for her!

I smiled at her and pretended to look innocent. Dash moved a little and I held her close to me with a free hand. She kissed my cheek and smiled at me “What are you looking at?”

“The lavender unicorn that is looking at me with her dead eyes that can see into my soul” I said as I smiled at Twilight. Please don’t get mad at me, this is the first time I can be openly funny without getting mortally wounded for doing so!

“Good now that you both are awake, we can go home so you can get proper rest and treatment” Twilight said with relief.

I slowly sat up and held RD and stood up. “Ok fine, let’s go home, I want to get a little rest before me and RD go see the princess tomorrow” I said as I held my lover in my arms. Rainbow Dash kissed my cheek again in response to us going to see the princess.

“What? You are going to go see Celestia with Rainbow Dash….by yourselves? What on earth for?” Twilight said exasperated.

No we want to go have tea, ugh you don’t get it do you Twi? “We are going to talk to her about the griffons. I don’t want to even start on what happened to me…and Dash here while we were gone. I just want to get this all settled so I can resume my new life of being a guy who is afraid of leaving town to go on business trips that may or may not lead to death” I said to Twilight with a sarcastic smile. I want Celestia to make them pay, have Luna send them to the moon for all I care!

“But…but….ugh, fine go and see her, let’s just go home now please. I want to put this whole mess behind me” Twi said with a defeated sigh.

Shadow Breeze walked up to me “Good to see you again. I was worried that something might have happened to you. You have a lot of guts fighting griffons all by yourself; I don’t even think I could have taken them all on without getting hurt worse than you did” he said with a smile.

I can feel that comment right in my sayian pride’s core foundation in my heart! “Thanks, but I probably wouldn’t be here right now if it wasn’t for Rainbow here, believe it or not, she saved my life” I said with a proud smile.

We started to walk back to Ponyville after that. I held onto Dash the entire way and when we made it into town I told them that we would get treated right after we got back from Canterlot. They all reluctantly accepted and we went in our home and saw Stratus asleep in his bed. Twilight said that Spike had taken care of him while they were gone and it looks like he did a good job. Rainbow Dash yawned in my arms and that rekindled the tiredness in me and I carried her to our bedroom.

I laid down and set her on my chest again. She leaned in and kissed me on the lips. I opened my mouth willingly and we swapped tongues. We would breathe into each other’s mouths and only would pull apart when we needed to get air. I wrapped my arms around her and held her close. When she pulled away to get another breath I looked at her and smiled “I love you Dashie, you don’t know how much I have missed this over the last 5 days.”

She smiled and rested her head against my chest and looked at me “I know, one does not forget the love of their life’s kisses in an instant. I love you too” she said with a contented sigh.

Holy sweet mother of Buddha, she said the Boromir meme! Score one for the boys back home! She just got 2 billion percent cooler with that comment alone, but why make billions when you could make….millions? “Dash, I am going to get us a vacation spot that we can go to when we need a break from here, I think it should be in Cloudsdale, that way Stratus can be around some other young pegasi when we are out there” I said to her with a smile.

“She smiled widely at this “You really want to buy a vacation home for us out in Cloudsdale? That would be awesome! He could learn so much when we are out there. I think that is a great idea!” she said to me.

“I knew you’d love it, I always wanted to see that city anyways. When I get a nice bundle of savings stored up, we can go up there and pick out the perfect spot” I said as I kissed her cheek.

She leaned in and kissed me again. Geez, you don’t need to go that hard on me Dashie, I know you missed me, but we still have stuff to do tomorrow. I wrestled with her tongue for a little while longer and then I pulled her in close gently and we fell asleep smiling.

I woke up in the morning and I felt so much better. I know why that is….it’s because I didn’t sleep on a rock or the hard dirt or anything like that! And Dash lying with me only greatens the feeling! I turned my head and saw that Stratus was sitting next to my head looking at me. Oh boy, I sure hope he doesn’t ask what has been going on with Dash and I.

Hey dad, why were you and mom gone for so long?” Stratus asked with a slight tilt of his head.

Crap! That plan got shot out of the air faster than my laptop. “Stratus, I left a while ago to deliver something for my boss and ran into a lot of trouble out there. Mom here got worried and came out to help me and she helped a lot. We will tell you more later, but for right now I have to get her up so we can to talk with Princess Celestia about what happened to us while we were out there” I said as I rubbed Dash’s mane gently with one of my hands.

Dash woke up and looked at me, then to Stratus. “Hey little man, sorry we were gone for so long. We ran into some trouble that we need to go get fixed. We can tell you a big story when we come home though. Pinkie Pie will be watching over you while we are gone, but don’t worry, we will only be gone for a few hours” she said to Stratus with a smile.

“Ok mom, I hope everything goes better than it has so far with you two” He said before he bounced off the bed and walked out of the room.

I looked at Dash and smiled “that boy knows a lot more than I give him credit for. He is a regular genius compared to my stupid antics, it makes me proud to see such a smart foal” I said. He is smarter than me, either it’s that or he is a better troll than I am.

“Let’s go get this done and over with, I want to come home and forget all of this mess” Rainbow Dash said to me.

A/N: I hope you liked it! I will be working on another chapter soon. Only a couple left before this arc comes to a close! Next update in a while!

Next Chapter: 68. Is It Over? Estimated time remaining: 5 Hours, 43 Minutes