I stand as the undying guard to those who are less than I, I am Tempest Knight.

I breathed a fresh blast of fire as our new friends sat down next to me, even though I had explained my dragon heritage they still scooted back a bit. Honestly I don't blame them after the stuff they have seen, and through Trixy I have seen as well.

"So if you don't mind me asking what hit her?" Shadow Star asked much to my displeasure.

After I let out a short but audible growl accidentally scaring the two fillies at which I felt horrible for I took a sigh before nodding to Dark Lightning.

"We raided Red Eye's fortress and we came out short one friend and she was also wounded badly." Lightning said for me as I gave a worried expression towards Applebits while she slept as I hoped she would awaken soon.

"Why would you even go near there?" Shadow Star asked with a face that immediately said that she was sorry she asked as I turned back to her and stood to my full height.

"They laid siege to rescue me from the false goddess my young friend, and they paid the price." I said as I turned and flew up to a roof and observed the horizon.

I occasionally looked down to see that my group had stopped talking since I had left the circle and my attention drifted towards what looked like an old factory of sorts. Thinking nothing of it I decided to take a look around it in hopes of finding something I could use to create artificial limbs for my old friend who had paid a steep price just to get me back.

I landed in front of the double doors that marked the main entrance to the building, after fluttering my massive dragon wings a few times I folded them inward to cover my weapons sides as I walked up to the doors. I pushed on one of the doors and they both fell inward making a thunderous sound as well as generating a nicely sized dust cloud when they hit the floor inside.

"Well then, I wasn't expecting that." I muttered as I walked inside and used the gemstone in my chest plate to bring one of my swords out in its red magical field.

Inside the factory I could see ponytron parts almost everywhere, though on the conveyor lines it was easily identifiable that this was a weapons making facility. The ponytrons looked as though they had been cut down with Luna's broadsword which set me on edge since they were made of metal and even my swords as sharp as they were wouldn't be able to cut through the chest piece on them so cleanly. I also noticed that a few of the robots had plasma burns, I inspected one that had been decapitated, but it didn't have too much in the way of degeneration when it came to its legs.

I was about to pick it up in my magic when I heard a clatter from across the room, I quickly unfurled my wings and bolted my prototype auto cannons. Narrowing my eyes since I had terrible night vision, my eyes being my only Crystal Pony trait, I saw a massive dark brown dog looking thing slowly approaching me that seemingly stopped when I locked eyes with it. I tilted my head slightly in confusion as I had never seen a creature like this before it jumped towards me with amazing speed and before I knew it my old knights training kicked in. Ducking down to my right before launching into the air I counted four large claws per hand on the beast and several features to suggest that this thing was a Diamond Dog, but they were not usually hostile, well then again I suppose a lot can change in two hundred years.

Landing on a catwalk above it I watched as it looked around the ground floor thinking that I had just sidestepped, I suppose I was lucky that it hadn't noticed me flying upwards when It missed me, that luck ran out when it saw me and jumped onto the catwalk with me.

"I don't wish to fight thee Diamond Dog." I said praying that my observations of the creature were correct.

It stopped a moment and tilted its large head before I locked eyes with it again, we stood there for a time waiting for the first move and trying to discover if we could really part ways without conflict. In the end I suppose it was hungry as it charged me, I jumped off the cat walk but it did manage to slice cleanly through my flank, thankfully it wasn't too deep, before I got out of range. This shot a massive wave of pain through me as I landed heavily and collapsed to the ground. Getting up I could feel my blood gushing out of the wound so I once more seared my wound with my flames to stop the bleeding as the creature landed in front of me. I opened fire and let out a torrent of yellow from the four cannons upon my sides, the creature was quickly reduced to a splatter mark across the facility.

"I am sorry but you left me no choice, rest in peace as you are no longer my foe." I said as I limped past its remains and retrieved my sword that I hadn't realized I had dropped.

I also grabbed a few ponytrons as I limped out of the factory and flew towards camp.

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I landed at the end of the street and began to limp over to camp, my flank burning with ever step I took and occasionally I would stop and sear the open wound again with my flames when I would feel blood run down my leg. I levitated the four ponytrons I had gathered over to rest near Applebits as I realized the fire had gone out. Looking around and concentrating as I did I noticed Bulls Eye and the two fillies sleeping in another corner of the blasted out building opposite of Applebits.

"Well you stayed out late." Lightning said as he landed next to me and yawned not noticing my wound.

"I had an idea for Applebits seeing as though I am the reason she was hurt in the first place." I managed to say as I coped with the pain in my flank.

"Something wrong Tempest?" he asked me now looking at me before his mouth dropped open.

"What," I groaned, "never seen a flesh wound before?" I asked as I winced when it started to gush again.

"WHAT HIT YOU?" Lightning yelled making Bulls Eye and the fillies jump out of their restful sleep.

"No need to yell, I just had to put down a rather grumpy dog." I said as I burned the wound again before noticing that it had been cut clean through my armor.

"A Hellhound?" Lightning asked getting and odd expression from both myself and Bulls Eye.

"Large with sharp as Deaths scythe claws and dog like features?" I asked him as I gently removed my armor and set it down nearby.

"You need a healing potion now!" Lightning declared to which I was not happy.

"I'll be fine, just give me an hour to rest and the wound will seal, only reason it hasn't done so yet is because I have been flying." I sated as I walked over to the robots I had gathered.

Lightning looked at me before sighing in agreement, he had heard stories of how well I have healed before when I was cut open by a sword during a sparing match with Prince Shining Armor so he decided to drop it.

"You think you could help me with a little project?" I asked him as I used my gemstone to disassemble the broken ponytrons.

"Sure, but just what are we doing?" he asked as he sat down and began taking them apart with deploy-able tools on his hoof armor.

"Building her new legs." I said as started to sort through circuitry.

"I'll handle the arcane science portion Tempest, I remember that you never really trained in it." Lightning said as the two engineer ponies went to work.

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A few hours past and the fillies had gone back to sleep, though Bulls Eye was now wide awake and watching us work. I had made a sturdy framing for her new legs as I knew that with her armor she weighed in around a half ton, but I also knew that she needed to be able to move around without the armor so the legs couldn't be too heavy. I looked at her, she had lost half of her leg and all of her muscles on her left and there were no remnants of the right aside from a little flab of flesh that still clung onto her flank. Her armor was in decent condition aside from the leg sections completely missing and her weapons being totaled, luckily a few of the ponytrons had gatling guns so I would at least be able to give her a familiar weapon even if she no longer had missiles.

"Sir!" Bulls Eye interrupted my thoughts as I was trying to plan a way to install her new legs.

"What do you need knight Broken Blade?" I asked turning my head towards him.

"I'd like to volunteer my armor to repair hers sir." he said as he began to remove his helmet and portions of his leg armor.

"Are you positive?" I said looking once more to Applebits' crushed helmet.

"Yes sir, my weapons are meant for long range whereas hers are closer and more in your face, she needs the extra protection." he said giving a worried look to his commanding officer who was still unconscious.

"I understand." I said taking the pieces of armor he gave up, "Though I will be constructing you a brace for your hind legs using your frontal armor since you'll need them when you fire those monsters you got." I added as I walked over to Applebits.

I carefully knelt down and began attaching joints to her legs as I also breathed short bursts of flames carefully to fuse the metal and the flesh. I had finished attaching the joint to accommodate her left leg as Lighting came up behind me using claws built into his hoof armor, I swear he has too many improvements on it, and gave me the new leg. I looked at him sypathetically as I knew that this had to work for her, if it didn't then she would be crippled for the rest of her life. He quickly hooked up the arcane technology as I connected it to the dull silver mare, I waited for the click before I began sheathing checking to see how well we did.

The leg was designed to be able to take abuse, around jointed areas were rubber seals meant to keep the dirt and grim out as they were also water proof and allowed full range of motion so that she wouldn't be impeded. I did the same to her other leg, but since it was completely gone we had to connect it to her flank which I knew would probably hurt in the morning. Alas when we finished she had two identical legs aside from the one on the left having the only portion of her flesh atop it granting her cutiemark still, which I was more than happy to preserve. I used my flames to adhere the flesh to the specially designed metal to keep it there and her legs, all four, twitched which was followed by a groggy yawn as she sat up.

"Ung, what happened?" Applebits said as she began to stand, only to find that her hind legs were really stiff.

"YOUR ALIVE!" Bulls Eye yelled as he hugged her which earned a shocked expression from the silver and red mare.

"Well I'm not dead." she said before she remembered what happened upon seeing me.

"We thought we had lost you." I said as Bulls Eye let go of the mare.

"Defense is gone, isn't she?" she said as her smile turned into a frown.

I looked at her in the eye before I nodded and returned to working on her armor that we had removed for repairs. She trotted up behind me and nuzzled behind my ear, I moved away and she stopped.

"Your armor is fixed too." I said as I moved away from the refurbished armor.

"Thanks, but I don't remember having rear legs when you dragged me out." she said as she began to turn her head to see the two metal pillars that we had built for her.

"Lightning and I put our heads together and built you those, as you may notice they are both identical except for your flesh on the left." I said as she noted her cutiemark was still there before looking around her neck.

"My necklace." she said.

"I found that you were holding onto it so I placed it around your neck when you lost consciousness." I added before walking over to my ponytron pile to begin working on makeshift armor for my other ranger.

Author's Notes:

So Tempest found out that diplomacy won't work with the new foes they are about to face and Applebits is finally awake after sleeping for almost a day. Fun chapter to write and hope you all like it too!!!