There was a trench in the castle floor. It was only about a foot deep, but that was one more thing that the workers had to fix. It was in the shape of a large oval, and was surrounding the table in the dining hall where Celestia and the alien crew were sitting. This hole was created by the hooves of a pacing pony. A particularly perplexed purple perfectionist pacing pony. This pony's name? Twilight Sparkle. Why was she pacing? Because one of the greatest dangers known to ponykind was recently let loose amongst the populace of Equestria and beyond. And this worries her. And when things worry her, she paces. It helps calm her down... Well, not really, but she likes to think that it does.

Twilight came around for her seven-thousandth-and-something-or-other-hundredth pass. She let out a low whine. "Ooohhh, what are we going to do? What are we going to do?!"

Celestia, Roland, and Sharpe were standing over the table looking at a map of Equestria and the surrounding areas. Celestia was searching for where roads and trials cross, while Roland was checking caravan routes. Sharpe was do research on how many ponies lived in the area and how many travelers go through there.

Sharpe hissed loudly. "You aren't doing anything, so shut the hell up!"

Celestia glared at him. "You will not speak to her in such a manner," she warned him.

Sharpe gave her a cold look. "You know I'm right, but you still refuse to admit it."

She narrowed her eyes further.

He scoffed at her. "No wonder your rule is so weak. You don't know what the hell you're doing," he said to himself.

Roland tried to stop the two from arguing, yet again, but was ignored.

Lily and Megan were going over types of animals that are native to the area. They think- or at least Lily thought- that if Orion knew where the larger, more dangerous animals were, he would gravitate towards that area. Finding where the predators nest at could help find him in their eyes.

Seth and Faiz was trying to find out how the land worked and see if they could find the easiest routes around the country. Orion never liked to work too much, so an easy path could locate him.

Larry was trying to do... something... maybe... But now it seems as if not getting enough alcohol was taking its toll, leaving him a quivering mess half-conscious on the floor.

The Royal Equestrian Guard has been sent out on scouting assignments to try to find anything to help find his location. So far they've decided he most likely went North, but they can't be sure. They're going off what they already know, not what they could find. It seems that they were tracking a ghost, because not a single print, torn piece of cloth, hair, or anything could be found. It's like he disappeared into thin air.

"It's your fault he's gone!" Sharpe yelled at Celestia.

"It's his own fault! He broke the laws I set and he payed for it!" Celestia countered.

"Exactly! The laws you set! If you just let us do things our way we wouldn't be having this problem right now!"

"Your ways are wrong! No being, whether guilty or not, should be tortured!"

"If they need to be tortured then they should be!"

"Argh! I cannot believe how stubborn and blind you are!"

"Me?! You're some omnipotent horse god! Talk about blind, you can't even find Orion without you're 'magic powers' and now we're going to be fighting the griffons without our best chance!"

"I am not omnipotent, Sharpe! If I was I would have simply sent you away before you crashed on this planet!"

"Ooh, good comeback, really. Don't remark on the topic of your people dying because of you, oh no. Tell us more about how you dislike the brutal honesty of somebody who's right!"

"It's not 'honesty' it's rage-fulled stupidity!"

There was a loud explosion as Sharpe tried to kill Celestia with about four frag grenades strung together. Luckily for both parties, she guessed that they were dangerous and threw them towards the nearest window.

"Enough of this shit!" Roland roared over everything in the room.

Every eye turned to him. Except for Sharpe and Celestia who were too busy trying to kill each other with how fierce they could make their glares.

"Sharpe!"

Sharpe ignored him.

"Sharpe, listen to me damn it!"

Sharpe still ignored him.

"If you don't listen to me I'll make you listen!"

Sharpe was still busy staring down the princess.

Roland growled and pulled his blaster pistol from its holster.

Sharpe pulled his S-5 faster than what could be perceived and fired off two shots. One knocked the gun out of Roland's hand, and the other shot sent the gun across the room. He then leveled his blaster with Roland's head, still looking at Celestia. "I am listening, quick draw."

Roland scowled but spoke. "If you're so angry about this, why don't you go find him yourself? You're a better tracker than anybody else in the Galaxy, right? So go out there and find him. And once you do, you can bring him back here."

Sharpe hissed softly. "I will go out there. But just because you suggested it, I'm going to take extra long finding him. And even longer bringing him back. If I even do bring him back. Hell, I might just kill him for being an idiot."

Roland and Celestia breathed easier when he put his blaster back in his holster.

He walked out of the room and spoke without looking back. "Try not to die too horribly while I'm gone." Then he slammed the double doors behind him.

Roland sighed and shook his head as he leaned back over the map on the table. "Now, if I were a mentally unstable killer with god-like power and a sex drive higher than the stars above, plus a repressed urge to burn and destroy the Galaxy, where would I be...?"

Everybody gave him an odd look at the description of Orion. Then they thought about it, and realized that Roland's description pretty much summed Orion up pretty nicely.

***

"Camptown racers sing this song, all the do-da day! All the do-da day! All the do-da day! Camptown racers sing this song, all the do-da daaaaaaaaaay!~"

At the end of his performance, he took a bow to an invisible audience. "Thank you! Thank you! I'll be here all week! Well, except for Monday and Friday! And weekends! Or any day that ends in Y! But other than that, I'll be here all week!"

He jumped off of the large rock that he was using as a stage and continued down the path. He was heading North-ish. He knew the direction of the Griffon Kingdom, and where the capitol was. He just wasn't sure if he as going straight there or not. Meh, it's more about the journey, right? Yes, and some journey it's been...

On the first day he got into a fight with a bear! It was awesome! That night he had a lot to eat.

On the second day he came across this nice family of farmers that let him eat lunch with them. And all he had to do was paint a barn! With the help of the Force, that barn was done in like, twenty minutes, maybe. At dinner he met the rest of the family. There was a colt, a younger stallion, and a young mare.

The mare was actually a filly, but the parents called her a mare on account of her first heat coming that day. So dinner was a grand affair, with soup, bread, veggies and fruits, and all kinds of other stuff. Desert was even better! Mmm... pie... There was such a good pie...

But it was kind of ruined because the filly was grinding herself into her chair the whole time. The smell was making everybody scrunch up their noses and make a sour face. Well, the family, anyway. At the very first hint of the smell Orion twitched violently and sent his fork into the wall. The father wanted him gone immediately, but the wife said he could stay. After all, there were bears out there, and Orion was scared of bears.

That night Orion snuck into the filly's room and helped her with her problem. It was a very messy affair. Pun intended.

One the third day he spent much of the morning limping. He had no idea that heat could do that to a female. Especially a little filly! And for some weird reason there was a bright glow during their problem solving session and the filly got her magic tattoo. And the way she knew how to work him... It made him wish that one of the princesses was in heat. Or both of them. What a good way to die...

On the fourth day Orion met a nice old mare who taught him how to fish. He spent most of the day catching fish of every size, shape, and color. She also taught him how to cook the fish he caught. That night he had a large dinner once again. He thanked the mare the only way he thought was appropriate: He caught her fish his his very own hook. She waved him off the next day with a happy smile.

It was the fifth day now and Orion was walking down the same path he has been walking down since the beginning of his journey. He was smiling happily as he went through the memories of everything that had happened to him during his adventure. The filly was his favorite. There was just this sense of wrongness that made it infinitely better.

He was so lost in his memories that he didn't even see the three ponies in front of him.

"Howdy there, stranger!"

Orion stopped and looked up from the ground to see a dull yellow stallion carrying a pack full of camping supplies. Behind him were two younger females, both carrying their own packs of supplies. The difference was that the stallion looked excited to be here while the two mares looked like they'd rather be home talking with their friends or at the mall shopping for fashionable accessories.

"Howdy!" the stallion said again.

"Hi!" Orion said happily, smiling stupidly at him.

The stallion smiled back. "Howdy! Say, do you know where we can find a good place to make a camp around here?"

Orion noticed that he really wasn't saying howdy correctly. In fact, he sounded as if he was from some little town or something and was trying his hand- er, hoof- at camping. He seemed to have a tired look to him and had dirt in places that any normal person wouldn't want dirt in.

Orion pointed to where the path branched about a hundred feet up the path. "I'm going to the Griffon Kingdoms! I didn't see any good places to camp, but you can come with me and go on an adventure!"

The stallion put a hoof to his chin. "No offense meant stranger, but I don't really know if it would be safe to follow you. I don''t really know you, after all."

Orion smiled. "Well, the way I came is just farms and bears, so if you don't find a safe place to sleep you'll get chomped," Orion said happily.

He frowned at that. "Bears, huh...?"

One of the girls spoke up. "Dad, I don't really know how to fight a bear off, and I know that you don't, so let's follow him."

He looked back to his daughters. Then back to Orion. "And you could fight off a bear?" he asked skeptically.

Orion nodded his head. "Yep! Just a few days ago I slaughtered and ate one! It was fucking good!"

The stallion took a few steps back. "Y- you eat... meat?"

Orion nodded again. "Yep! I've eaten more animals that I can even count. And I even ate people a few times!"

He looked at Orion in disgust. "I don't want my family to associate with a predator."

"Oh come on, dad!"

Orion looked over him and to his children. He smiled at them.

The two girls walked up to their father and argued with him about what to do. Both of the girls said that it's too dangerous to be out here without any protection, while the father said he's the protection. The argument went on for a good ten minutes before the dad finally gave up and said that they would follow him until they found a decent place to camp, then they were back to being on their own. He also told them that they would be walking right next to him the whole time.

***

Four hours of walking later, and dear old dad could barely keep up with Orion and the two girls. They had introduced themselves as Mayflower and Sunny. Both being born in the summer, and only a year apart, their parents decided to name them for the time they were brought in to the world.

"So, what happened after you saw her?" Mayflower asked in awe.

Orion laughed. "Well, the hull to the place was breached and she was smacked into the visor. I laughed and laughed at her face being smooshed up against the glass that way."

All three of them shared a laugh as the father, ever lagging behind, groaned in anger. This was supposed to be a time for his family to bond with each other, not a stranger they met on the road darn it!

"Yeah, but after that she kinda came after me and tried to kill me."

They both gasped. "What?!" they breathed out in unison.

He nodded. "Yep! She set a belt of thermal detonators in the reactor and set it to blow."

"Wait, I thought the station was dormant?" Sunny said.

He nodded. "Yeah, it was. But it still had fuel left in it from when it could still operate. And plus, most ships nowadays don't rely solely on one fuel source, so it's easy to get a ship, or in this case, a space station, with a dormant, but still active reactor."

They both made "Oohhh" sounds at his explanation.

He continued. "Yeah, but I was able to get out of there. On my way down one of the hallways I ran into a rouge Imperial scout. I held him up, we shared information, and we went on our way to the hangar bay."

Mayflower piped up. "What's a hangar bay?" she asked.

"Ah, excellent question!" he said in a posh voice while rubbing her mane roughly.

She grumbled while her sister laughed at her.

Orion started to speak in some kind of mockery of an upper-class Trottingham accent, making it sound as annoying as possible. "You see, my little ponies. A hangar bay is a sectioned off area of the hangar. The hangar is where smaller vessels land and take off from, whether they be in a land-based building, or a large Starship. And a hangar bay is a specific area of that hangar where a specific type of ship may land or take off from. So, creating a hangar bay in a hangar makes it a much more organized and seemly affair when it comes to the comings-and-goings of ships, goods, and peoples."

Both of them looked at him dumbly.

He clapped his hands together loudly. "So! We got to the hangar bay and saw that a few old TIE Interceptors were still in working condition. He took one, I took one, and off we went. And now here we are, the two of us close friends, going on all sorts of adventures and racking up a kill count higher than the stars above!

"Whoa..." was the double utterance from the girls listening.

Orion suddenly held his hand out. "Wait!"

They all stopped and went wide-eyed. Everything in the woods seemed to silence as he did this.

He pointed his finger just ahead of them, at a single tree surrounded by lush grass. "That right there is a perfect camping spot."

The stallion caught up with him and looked to where Orion was pointing. "There's a tree there," he said in a whiny voice.

Orion waved his hand, and the tree took flight, sailing above the clouds, free like a bird, but far less graceful. Then it hit the ground somewhere. He shook his head. "No there's not!"

All three ponies gaped at the new hole in the ground where the tree used to be.

Orion walked to the spot and sat down on the ground, enjoying the warming light of the late afternoon Sun.

***

"I got dinner!~" Orion screamed as he walked through the trees and back into the small camp where the ponies were waiting.

The two girls whooped while the dad grumbled his thanks. He had tried to cook a pot of vegetables, but they overcooked and turned into a greenish-brown paste. It tasted kind of like toothpaste, but not nearly as fresh.

Orion threw a line of large fish on the rack above the fire.

All three ponies cringed back away from it.

"Uh, ponies don't eat meat," the father said. He never really mentioned his name, so "the father" is what he's now officially called.

Orion wagged a finger at him. "Not true, my four-legged friend. I ran into a nice old mare on my travels who ate fish. She told me it was the easiest way to survive out here, seeing as fish are so plentiful around here. And plus, fish aren't really meat. They're some kind of condensed protein, or something." Orion then used the force to tear off the scales, fins, tails and heads of all the fish. After they were clean, he set them on the rack in a line to cook properly. "I don't really have a stove, so this is the only way I can cook these."

The father gave Orion a dirty look. "I refuse to let my daughters eat something that was alive once!"

Orion snorted and poked the fire with a stick. "All plants are alive. Hell, most of the vegetables you were cooking were alive. You just boiled them to death." He looked up at the father with his goofy smile. "All ponies either eat or cook plants while they're still alive. The only difference between us is that I have the decency to kill what I'm going to eat so I'm not torturing it with fire."

Both of the girls looked a little bit uncomfortable with their new knowledge that they were eating something while it was still alive.

The father snorted a laugh at him. "Oh yeah? And how do you know all of this? How do you know what's alive and what's not?"

Orion flipped the fish over on the other side, getting a nice sizzling sound from them. "The Force tells me. The Force lives within all things, and I can see it inside of them."

The father laughed. "What a load of horse apples!"

"Actually, it's true."

They all turned to see an enormous shape emerge from the growing darkness of the forest. How something so big hid in the shadows like that, they didn't know.

Orion waved to the shape. "Hi Sharpe! Want some fish?!"

The giant reptilian man stood at the edge of the firelight, gazing at the camp's occupants.

"It's a monster!" cried the father. He then grabbed a burning stick from the fire and ran at it. "Cmm rhet shum!" he yelled around the stick.

Sharpe pulled his S-5 out and shot the stallion right in the head.

Both of the girls screamed.

Orion stood up and yelled at Sharpe. "Why'd you do that?!"

Sharpe put his blaster away and walked over to Orion. "It's time to go."

Orion crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm not leaving. I need to get to the Griffon Kingdoms!"

Sharpe grabbed Orion by the front of his shirt. "No. We're going back to Canterlot. Now!"

Orion pushed Sharpe away. He was no longer smiling, but looked slightly angry. "I'm doing this to protect my girls, Sharpe. If you get in my way, I'll end you."

The two of them stared at each other for a very long time, neither of them moving or blinking.

Sharpe sighed and angrily shook his head. "Fine, but if you have to go, I'm coming with you to make sure you don't blow up half the planet."

Orion smiled again. "Sure thing!"

"But what do we do with these two?" Sharpe gestured to the two girls hugging each other in fear.

They both looked at them for a while.

Orion hummed in thought. "Well, I was planning on fucking them. I could give you one and I could take the other?" he suggested.

Sharpe rubbed his chin. "Sure, why not?"

Both of the girls felt a cold dread enter their souls.

***

Sharpe and Orion walked down the path, both of them munching on strips of fish and meat.

"It was weird. Like a person, but different. I don't know, it was the same, but different," Sharpe said to Orion.

Orion laughed. "I know what you mean. But if you really want a rush, try a bat pony! Those things are awesome!"

Sharpe looked at Orion. "Bat pony?"

Orion swallowed a large chunk of red meat. "Yeah. You know, the ones with fuzzy ears and eyes like yours? Those ones know exactly what they're doing."

Sharpe swallowed a whole fish and nodded. "I'll have to try one some time."

Orion took on a slightly saddened look. "Yeah... Hey Sharpe?"

Sharpe looked at him.

"Did we really have to kill them? I mean, I'm in total support of the death of their father. But did we really have to kill those two?"

Sharpe let out a hiss. "They were witnesses. We couldn't let them go, they would have told somebody what I did."

Orion nodded slowly. "Yeah, I guess. But we could have kept them with us. Like a pet kinda, but instead of petting them, we could have fucked them. I could have tied them to us and then we could have had a pair of sex slaves."

Sharpe used his tongue to pull another chunk of meat into his mouth. "Yes, we could have. But then we wouldn't have all this food."

Orion shrugged. "I guess... But when we get to the Griffon Kingdom, we should see if we can get a few females."

Sharpe nodded. "Sure. Griffons are more my style anyways. Killing, maiming, slaughtering? I like females that know how to take somebody's life," he said, pulling his lips back into a smile.

Orion laughed. "Yeah, griffons are awesome. You just gotta watch out for their tails. Both of the griffons I fucked almost choked me out with them."

Both Orion and Sharpe laughed at the thought of having a griffon in bed with them, knowing that when they got to the Griffon Kingdoms they would both probably get strangled into unconsciousness before they left.

***

Celestia sighed and took another drink of her coffee. Well, she tried to, but the cup was empty. This had to be the hundredth time that day that she had an empty coffee cup. She felt a sudden spike of anger take over and she threw the cup against the wall, almost decapitating Roland.

"Hey!" Roland yelled at her. "If you wanted more coffee, just ask! Don't go throwing shit at me!"

Celestia pushed her anger down inside of her. "I'm sorry Roland, I'm just tired."

Roland went back to staring at the map of Equestria. The only difference now being the map of the Griffon Kingdoms directly above it. "I've been awake just as long as you have. I know you're tired."

Celestia sighed and put her head down on the table, staring at the map of trade routes and populated areas in the Northern borders. "I've never stayed awake this long before. Not even when I was younger. It feels like my body is falling off of me."

Roland sighed. "Go get some sleep. I'll take over for now, and when you or Luna are feeling better you can help me again."

Celestia looked at him. His eyes weren't just bloodshot, they were completely red. His hair didn't seem as lively as before, now it looked more like dead grass than its normal blond color. Even his skin looked like it was taking on a yellow tint, and his veins were visible on his face.

She righted herself and strode over to where he was standing hunched over the map. She put both of her hooves around him and tugged him away from the table. "You need rest. We both do."

Roland attempted to push her away, but now that the table wasn't supporting most of his weight, he stumbled and fell on the floor. "I need to find Orion first. He could be killing the griffons an-"

Celestia put her hoof over his mouth to silence him. "I'm going to my room to sleep, and I'm bringing you with me."

He groaned and closed his eyes. "I just need a cold shower, and I'll be fine. Just set me down in a bathtub. Just put m... put me... in..." he stopped talking and a quiet snoring sound started to come from his mouth.

Celestia smiled and lifted him up with her magic. Both of them needed desperately to sleep, and Celestia's bed was perfect for that task.