After a while, I started getting a little embarrassed of Twilight and Storm, so I go and collect my sword. I look over to Gary's body and think for a minute. I haven't seen that much metal around here. It must be fairly scarce around these parts. I walk over and begin to pry the sword from his body.

"Miles, what are you doing?" Spike says as he approaches me.

"Collecting the metal... it seems to be fairly rare here, so I want to make a little stockpile of raw materials." I finally get the sword out and look it over. It's over a meter long, and heavy as fuck. How did he wield this thing? I flare my magic and begin to crush the sword by trying to make my hand into a fist. This makes the metal crush under my influence until I turn it into a single ingot.

"Miles..." Twilight says from behind. I look back to see her cuddling up with Storm and looking over to me. "You can use magic."

"Oh... yeah... about that."

"Thank you."

"What?" She looks down to Storm, and rubs her nose against his head a bit before she looks back to me. Storm looks like he's on the verge of melting right now.

"If you hadn't been able to do that... I don't think Storm would be here right now. So, thank you." I nod to them and go back to stripping metal from Gary's corpse. Chainmail, a weird metal amulet that has a claw in it, a sack of wine, some pretty weird stuff. I take all the metals and crush them down into ingots, making about three ingots of varying sizes. The last thing I take are the gems in the cap. They seem to be diamonds with an unusual storage capacity. I take them and walk back over to the other two. Twilight is lying down with Storm lying on his side against her. He seems pretty weak right now, but after some rest I'm sure he'll be fine.

"Storm, think you can make it home?"

"I don't know..." He tries to get up but falls back down. "Doesn't look like it." I reach down and pull him over my shoulder, much to Twilight's displeasure, and begin to walk off.

"Wait Miles. What about the body?" Twilight says as she gets up and looks over to Gary. I turn around and think for a second before I shoot a ball of soul fire at the corpse, turning it to ash instantly.

"There, a burial fit for a king. Deverto pulvis et salutant mortuus." I walk off and leave the ash to blow away on its own. Twilight trots up to us with Spike on her back and looks up to Storm with a worried look.

"Hey Miles..."

"Yeah Storm?"

"What did you just say?"

"Hmm?"

"You said something in another language, what does it mean?"

"Oh, it means, ‘turn to the earth and hail the dead’. It's sorta a Spartan saying."

"That's pretty dark," Twilight says.

"And creepy," Spike adds as he looks up to us. I shrug and continue my way home.

We make it home and I immediately set Storm to bed, seeing how he passed out on the trip there. Twilight stays by his side for a while, so I decide to go to the kitchen and see if I can find something to eat, after I put all of the raw materials into the glass case. After looking through the fridge for a while, I decide to have a couple of apples. When I shut the fridge, I nearly drop my food when I find Spike right next to me.

"Damn dude... you nearly gave me a heart attack. "

"I'm sorry..."

"Give a little warni—wait what?" He gives a deep sigh as he takes a seat at the table and waits for me to join him. I set all of my apples down and look over to him. He looks genuinely troubled, and won't look me in the eyes.

"What happened yesterday was my fault. I should’ve just asked you instead of trying to take the information. I put you and everypony else at risk because of that, and..." he looks up to meet my gaze, "I'm sorry."

"Hmm... alright, apology accepted," I say as I stick my hand out.

"What?! Just like that? No yelling, no lecture, just a handshake and that's that?"

"Would you like me to lecture you?" He thinks for a second before he shakes my hand.

"I think I'll just take this and be happy with it."

"Cool, so *munch* why did you have to take those measurements anyway?" Spike grabs one of the apples and takes a bite from it before he answers.

"The princess asked me to, *munch* so I did."

"Aw... that explains it, *munch munch* so, did I pass?"

"I don't think I've ever seen a creature as powerful as you," he says as he throws away the core of his apple and starts another one. I guess you don't eat the cores, then. We spend the next few hours just idly talking to each other. He feels really bad about what happened, poor guy, so I decide not to let him have it. After a while, he starts to yawn a bit, so I decide to walk him upstairs to go to bed. Once he's out, I head down to my room and find Twilight sitting next to Storm's cot, passed out with her face against Storm's. I chuckle a little before I pick her up and take her to bed. I go back downstairs and remove my armor. Strange... I didn't see those two getting close this soon... whatever, good for them. I lay on my cot and just wait for sleep to eventually take over.

---

I wake up violently as something smacks into my face. After some shuffling around, I remove a newspaper from my face and look up to see Luna standing over me, looking really pissed off.

"Hey Luna... what's up?"

"I don't know... apparently there's a human running around Ponyville killing Minotaurs with fiery magic." I give her a confused look but look down at the paper. On the front page is a black and white photo of me crossing blades with Gary.

"Where did this come from?"

"This would be the morning newspaper, that has already been distributed all over Equestria. I received this copy from my sister, who was very unhappy to hear about it."

"I imagine so; your town being attacked twice in one week..." I say as I get up.

"NO! Not that! She's mad about you killing the Minotaur."

"Really?"

"Yes! Really! How could she not think poorly about that?"

"Because he was trying to kill and rape one of your subjects, that's why." Luna shakes her head and begins to walk back and forth, so I decide to finally put on a shirt, blue will do for now. "I don't really see the problem..."

"The problem is that you can't just go around starting fights..."

"What fights have I started here? I haven't started any fights here; I've only finished them."

"What about the hydra?"

"What's a hydra?"

"GAH!" She slams her backside into the floor as she sits down and drops her head low. I can tell this is really getting to her, maybe I should try to change the subject a little. I walk in front of her and kneel before her. She begins to look up but freezes when I put my hand on the side of her face. I find a good spot to hold her, just under the ear, with my fingers going behind and my thumb going up, and make her look at me.

"What's really the problem?"

"Uh... I... well..."

"Look, I know what I did, and I won't apologize for it. He was going to kill Storm and rape Twilight. I refuse to let anyone hurt my friends, so I did what had to be done." She gives a soft sigh and looks down, so I begin to gently rub my thumb against her, getting her to lean in to me.

"I know it was the right thing to do, but that doesn't make this any simpler."

"I know, and I'm sorry for that. I'll be sure to be more inconspicuous, I promise."

"Thank you." I hold her there for a while longer, until I notice what I'm doing and stand back up with a blush.

"Ahem... well, I should let you go... it's past your bedtime anyway, right?"

"Yes... of course. I really must be going now, please keep your promise," she says as she stands up and backs away.

"Right, you can count on me. Sleep well, vale usque obvium iterum."

"What?"

"It means ‘farewell until we meet again’." She looks at me quizzically for a second before she flashes away. Once she's gone, I fall flat on my back and begin to rub my face. Did I really just intentionally feel her up? Given she must be the most... NO! Nononononono nnnnnooooo! That's not happening. Shut the fuck up brain. She's a pony, I'm a human, it wouldn't ever work for that matter so drop it. Okay, dropping it, dropping it and it's dropped... time for a shower... really cold shower.

After my ice bath I make my way to the kitchen and take a seat. Twilight has made the largest possible breakfast, which would explain why Storm has his face buried in his plate. When I sit down everyone looks up to me.

"Hmnw ib ut uu ih una?"

"Storm, swallow your food?" Twilight says, making him swallow.

"How did it go with Luna?" I let my face fall to the table. "Wow, that bad."

"No, not really, I'm just an idiot."

"Because of this?" Spike says as he drops a newspaper on the table. I roll my head to the side and take a look.

"Yeah... that..."

"You should’ve seen the paparazzi earlier. With you making the front page and Luna coming down here, it was a fiasco." Storm says before he dives back into his plate.

"What are you talking about?" I ask as I pick my head back up.

"Have a look outside," Spike says as he motions out front. I walk over to the front door and open it widely, getting almost blinded from all the cameras flashing at once. A torrent of questions pours in from hundreds of ponies that all seem to try to push their way to the door. I shut the door and fall forward, letting my head hit the door and keep me standing.

"Not again..."

"Again?" Twilight says as she approaches me. "What do you mean again?"

"Well, back in Topaz Falls, once me and my friends were inducted to the Spartan regiment, we sorta became famous for a while."

"Why's that?" Storm says as he walks up and puts a wing over Twilight.

"Well... you see; Topaz was highly militaristic. Especially after the fall of Diamond Halls. We put almost everything into our military. So, being the pinnacle of military might, people tended to... get weird around us."

"Weird how?"

"I had eighteen marriage proposals in the first week of my induction." This makes them both fall over in laughter, thanks guys.

"Eighteen... proposals... is that how it works for humans... the girls ask the guy..." Storm mutters out as he tries to control himself.

"Not normally, that's just how people were to us." Twilight's composed herself now, but Storm is still giggling like an idiot, so I decide to level the playing field. I walk up to him and whisper into his ear, "So, how far did you and Twilight go last night?"

FWOOSH

"That's not cool..." Storm says as he immediately stops laughing and tries to bring his wings down.

"Yeah, but it was funny," I say with a light chuckle as I head to the stairs. I look back and see Twilight start to play with his wing a bit, getting him to topple over, what a dork. I go back to my room and put my boots on. I seriously need to buy some new socks; these ones are getting fucked up. I stand up and see my sword on the floor, so I pick it up and strap it to my back. I walk back out to the front room to find Storm and Twilight centimeters away from kissing one another. "You know if you move a little closer, things will get way more interesting." They immediately back away from one another and look back to me.

"Why do you have your sword out?" Twilight asks.

"I'm going to work now..."

"So why do you have your sword?" she repeats.

"I've got an image to uphold," I say as I approach the door, only to stop when Storm and Twilight jump in front.

"Didn't you read the paper, you can't go out there, not after what Gabby Gums said!" Twilight says.

"Uh... I can't read pony text sooo... no, I didn't read it. Who's Gabby Gums?"

"It was a made-up pony created by some little fillies, but they ended it soon after they started writing too much about personal stuff. She basically calls you both a hero and a villain, and demands that you either be cast out from Ponyville, or be made to do some sort of trials to show off your powers. I don't think leaving the house would be a good idea right now." I look out the window for a second and take a good look at all of the cameras. They seem to be fueled by gems... this should be easy. I go to the chest and pull out one of the gems from Gary's helmet. I walk around Storm and Twilight and open the door, flaring my magic as I go. Before any of the ponies outside can act, I throw my hand into the air and suck the energy from all the surrounding gems and fill the one in my hand. I pocket it and look back to Storm.

"Well, you coming or not?"

Next Chapter: Chapter 35 Sweet Apple Acres Estimated time remaining: 80 Hours, 40 Minutes