James’ phone went off, waking him just like the sun did every early morning. He picked up the phone and turned the alarm off. He got up and went for the shower. He really needed this shower since he smelled like sweat and alcohol from the party. Once he finished cleaning himself off he grabbed the shirt with three diamonds on it and a pair of jeans. Once he had his jeans put on he reached in the bottom of the drawer and pulled out the other five dog tags.

He took a huge sigh to prepare himself for the day’s events since he wasn’t going to come back to the library till very late at night. He knew this would cause most of his friends to worry about him, but he just needed this alone time. He headed downstairs and saw Spike and Sweetie Belle spooning on the couch together. He couldn’t help but laugh at the scene as he walked out of the library and headed for Rose’s shop.

When he arrived he opened the door and saw Rose working behind the counter. Rose looked up from her work and saw him at the doorway. She knew what he came here for and went to the back to grab his roses. She handed him the roses and he smiled at her to show his appreciation.

He decided to take a walk to the forest, feeling that running there would just seem out of place and he didn’t want to ruin the flowers. He arrived at the forest and entered it. He entered through the entrance that led him to the waterfall that he saw last time. When he arrived at the waterfall he saw that it was casting a rainbow color at this time of the day today. He walked over near some rocks and started placing them in a circle.

Once that was finished he grabbed five roses and put a dog tag on each and laid them parallel to each other in the middle. Once the roses were placed he put the remaining ones in a form of a circle around the center ones. He sat down with his legs crossed and his hands over his lap, breathing in and out calmly. After a while of sitting he began a chant that he and his squad had that they would say before the start of the mission.

“One brother can stand alone.”

“Two brothers can fight.”

“Three brothers can think.”

“Four brothers can learn.”

“Five brothers can achieve.”

“Six brothers can live to do it all again.”

“We stand together.”

“We fight together.”

“We bleed together.”

“We cry together.”

“Till the last man we fight.”

“Till the last bullet0we fight.”

“Till we have nothing left to give we fight.”

“We are the six brothers and we will fight and achieve victory no matter what.”

After saying the mantra he just continued to sit there in silence for several minutes. After his silence he started talking. He was never much of a holy man like Jacob was, but he felt that he should at least share stories with them if there happened to be an afterlife. He recounted the tale of how he got here and some of the friends that he has made so far. He even began to talk about Shadow and the only other person that knew about that side of him was Connor.

Connor tried to help him on multiple accounts to conquer that dark side of him, but could not succeed at doing so. James could only keep the shadow suppressed, but only for a little while before he broke free. Shadow came into his mind when he was in college and his father died. His father died protecting someone from a mugger that was trying to steal from a kid. He heard this news when he finished his bachelors in engineering.

He visited his father’s funeral though with some unsure feelings because most of his family didn’t much care for him. Even with the bad blood though he saw it well enough to visit his father. After the funeral he went to hear the Will be read to him. His father left everything to him especially his house and library. He was happy to receive this gift from his father, but he did feel that he didn’t deserve it. After some time alone in the house and moving back into it for three months, he wanted to do some good. He enlisted in the military to get combat training and some more engineering classes taken.

He spent two years in the military before being assigned leader of Elite Sniper. Not only were his heroics on the field amazing, he was a better shot than most other soldiers. He easily passed sniper training with flying colors. He even beat the course record for the longest shot and landing a headshot on the target. He took the lives of others before his own, knowing they had families to return to. He never saw a reason to let anything be half finished either.

He has even surprised many others when he returned from a mission that he should have died in. More than once has this happened and he never liked that from these missions that he came back unharmed and lost good men protecting him because they looked up to him. To everyone he was a hero. He never believed himself to be one, but allowed the other soldiers to think that to keep their minds at ease.

After a while of sitting crossed legged, he laid down in the grass and relaxed, listening to the sounds of the forest. He decided to take his clothes off and sit under the waterfall. As he sat there he continued saying the mantra that he said earlier to his friends. He let the cool water run down his body helping to clean off some of the sweat that started to build. The water even helped to wash away the tears that formed on his eye.

He never liked to cry in front of anyone thinking that it would show a sign of weakness to be used against him. So he would usually wait till he was alone and would let any tears flow if they needed to be. Even though he was alone in the forest, he didn’t want to cry over his friends’ grave, thinking it unprofessional of him. He left the waterfall and went back to his clothes. He collected the dog tags and did a salute over the little grave.

“You are just pathetic.”

“Oh yeah and what makes you say that?”

“You come out to some forest and pray to your friends.”

“Still, I am not seeing what the problem is.”

“They are dead and are never coming back and you know as well as I do that they can’t hear what you’re saying.”

“That may be true, but I feel that it’s the thought that counts.”

“You’re just using this as an excuse to keep me locked up in here.”

“Damn right I am. I don’t need you to be the best soldier because I always will be.”

“That pansy ass training that you went through can only keep you alive for so long. Then when the day comes where something is beating your ass to near death and you’re calling for extra strength, I may not even decide to show up.”

“The day that something truly takes me down is when fate believes that I have lived long enough on this world and wants me gone. Though seeing as how fate likes to grant everyone’s wish and not mine, I think I will be fine.”

“Then I guess we just have to wait for time to tell whether or not you need a good ass kicking. Till then, I will wait to see you again. Though to my earlier statement, if you beg hard enough then I may reconsider helping you. Until then have a lovely time.”

“I can’t wait for the day that I finally banish you to the deep recesses of my mind and watch you rot away. That will be enjoyable for me.”

After his argument with Shadow, he saw how late it was getting because he saw the sun giving way to the moon. He took this time to give one last little words of encouragement and went on his way. As he was leaving he heard a loud roar come from behind along with a scream. He believed that he was hearing things for being in the forest for so long and decided to keep on heading out. Then there was a second loud roar and a second scream.

Not wanting to take any chances with what was going on he started running towards the noise. He ran for a bit before he ran into some weird creature. The creature was weird because it was a lion with a scorpion tail and bat wings. In front of the strange creature he saw two pegasi lying on the ground unconscious. He quickly pulled out his knife and got ready for a fight against the creature.

The creature crouched, sizing the human up, looking at him, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. James waited for the creature to make the first move that way he could easily counter it if he needed to. The creature finally decided to attack him by flying straight at him. He barely had enough time to dodge, but he was able to. During his dodge he quickly slid his knife across the creature’s side. The wound wasn’t deep, but he was able to draw some blood. Though the creature seemed unfazed by this.

The creature ran towards him swiping his claw across his arm. The creature was able to graze his arm. This attack compared to being shot hurt like a bitch. This was nothing he ever felt before. He then ran at the creature when he regained his senses from the attack and stabbed the creature in its leg. The creature howled in pain from the stab and swung its tail at him. He was able to remove the knife in time to dodge the tail only to be hit in the chest by another massive claw. His shirt was ripped now and he was bleeding profusely from his chest.

Deciding that it was time to end this fight quickly, he ran towards the creature and brought his leg up, kicking the creature in the jaw. He heard the creature’s jaw crack from the kick and it whimpered in pain. He then quickly did a few stabs in the side of the creature and then the creature brought its tail up in his blind spot. The creature brought it down and got him in the arm. He felt the impact of the sting and grunted at the burning pain that he was feeling. The creature turned away and ran before any more damage could be dealt to it and it knew that it couldn’t take on whatever this strange creature was.

Seeing the creature run away, he cleaned the knife on the ground and put it back in his pocket. He walked back over to the two pegasi and looked them over. He saw they were both mares and that they each had a broken wing and foot. The mare on the left was a golden yellow wearing a pilot jacket and jeans. Her mane was a fire type look that made him think that if he were to touch it he would burn his hand. The one on the right was green with lighting hair colored of orange and yellow.

Even through the searing pain, he couldn’t leave these two behind because that creature may return for them. Fighting through the pain, he picked up the golden mare and put her on his back. Once she was placed firmly on his back he bent down and picked up the green mare and carried her in his arms. He started walking through the forest trying to find the exit.

After several minutes of walking through the forest he found the exit. Once he left he saw Twilight and her friends looking for something. He assumed that they were looking for him since he was gone all day. He continued to walk forward and the lavender unicorn saw him and started running towards him.

“James, are you okay? What happened to you?” Twilight was about ready to cry at the sight of him. His arm was bleeding along with his chest. His breathing was shallow and deep and he looked pale.

“I had a run in with some type of creature. It was a lion with a scorpion tail and bat wings. I scared it off when I tried to help these two mares from it. They each have a broken leg and wing. I took two claw swipes and a tail sting,” after hearing what happened, Twilight gasped out of fear.

“How are you still standing from fighting a manticore? Most ponies die within a few minutes of being stung by that creature.”

“I would say that it’s only because of adrenaline that I have survived this long right now. Though my vision is getting blurry and it’s starting to get hard to breathe,” James fell to his knees because he couldn’t hold his weight anymore.

He could feel his heart slowing and he felt like he was going into a deep sleep. The lavender mare saw what was happening and acted quickly. She teleported the human, herself, and her friends to the hospital and quickly started yelling for someone to help.

“What has happened to these three?” A doctor asked, quickly having nurses running around with beds to pick up the three patrons.

“The two pegasi have a broken foot and wing. The human was scratched two times and stung by a manticore. As far as I can tell he has been going around bleeding and had poison flowing through his veins for several minutes.”

“How the heck is he alive then? Though I guess that answer can wait. We need to administer the antidote and keep an eye on him for the rest of the night and tomorrow morning to make sure he heals okay.”

The doctors took the human and the two pegasi away. Everyone waited until tomorrow to see how he would turn out. Rainbow Dash mentioned though that the golden pegasus that James saved was none other than Spitfire of The Wonderbolts. Rarity was a little upset that one of her shirts were ruined especially since it held her cutie mark on it and that she also had to make another two shirts with Spitfire’s and the mysterious pegasus’ cutie marks on them with Octavia’s and Vinyl’s and she had to make another one with hers on it.

Lyra was on the verge of tears sitting in her chair worried that he wasn’t going to make it. Most of the girls would be lying if they didn’t have some sort of fear. Though they believed in him and that he would easily get through this and be okay. Rarity excused herself so she could go check on the two pegasi and see what their cutie marks were so she could get to work on the shirts tomorrow. After a few hours of sitting around in the waiting room the doctor emerged from the human’s room.

“He will make a full recovery in the morning. We would like to keep him until the afternoon though to make sure all the toxin is out of his system. Though Twilight if I may, I would like to have a word with you privately,” Twilight nodded her head and followed the doctor to the other side of the room. The doctor then pulled out six metal items on chains.

“It seems our friend here has a long history with violence. These are dog tags that probably belonged to fellow soldiers that he cared for. It would seem that he has suffered many previous injuries before coming here. I don’t know what he went through back on his planet, but he has survived many things that probably should have killed him.”

“So what exactly are you trying to say here, doctor? Are you saying that we need to separate James from Equestria or that we need to banish him?” Twilight was a little hurt that the doctor was so cold to him after he saved two mares from a manticore and even made sure they stayed safe over his well-being.

“I’m not implying that we do anything of the sort. I was just hoping that you could send a letter to the princesses telling them of what happened. I just want to make sure that everypony at this hospital is safe,” Twilight understood where the doctor was coming from and decided that it would be best to mention this to the princesses. She hoped he wouldn’t be too mad at her for making such a fuss about this, but it was for the well-being of all the ponies here.

Inside Spitfire’s and Lightning Dust’s Room

Spitfire groaned as she awoke to the dim lights of the hospital room. She looked over to her left and saw Lightning Dust laying in a bed. Spitfire tried to get up but stopped as she felt a sharp pain run through her back. She turned her head enough to see that her wing was bandaged. Then she looked down and saw that her right foot was also bandaged.

She looked over to Lightning Dust to see that her wing was also bandaged. The golden pegasus then heard someone at the door and got worried at who it might be. When the door opened she saw a white unicorn mare that looked like she had been crying for a while.

“Hello there. I didn’t expect you to be up yet. I thought you would still be asleep after what you went through.”

“What exactly happened? The only thing I remember is flying above the Everfree forest and then everything is a blank,” Spitfire grabbed her head from the pain that was running through as she tried to remember what happened.

“Well, you and your friend there were attacked by a manticore. My friend James saved you two though he suffered some serious injuries. He was heavily bleeding and had been stung by that awful creature, but was able to keep himself going long enough to get both of you out of the Everfree. And by the way my name is Rarity, but there is no need to introduce yourself as one of my friends graciously explained who you are.”

Spitfire just looked in amazement at Rarity from what she was told. Not only did someone named James save her and Lightning Dust, but was able to easily keep the venom from the manticore from killing him in the few short minutes that it would take to kill someone. The pegasus ran these thoughts through her head, oblivious that the unicorn was sketching her’s and Lightning Dust’s cutie marks.

“I would like to personally thank this James for saving mine and my friend’s life,” Spitfire told the white mare because she did want her savior to know that she appreciated what he did.

“I’m sorry to say that you won’t be able to do it tonight. He is currently in a medical room with doctors dealing with the venom. Though you can thank him tomorrow because I have high hopes that he will make a full recovery,” Spitfire smiled at the unicorn, glad to know that James will be okay and that she could thank him for what he did. The unicorn then left the room and the pegasus laid down in bed once again falling asleep nervous for giving James the proper thanks he deserves.

Author's Notes:

I would like to thank ErikTheSoulReaper for the idea on how to introduce Spitfire and Lightning Dust and for also being very helpful with how this chapter turned out.