The next day came fairly quickly after that, I wasn't really sure what had happened the previous day in the background. From what I knew and was told tickets were given out and drama ensued. I didn't really care that much, we were meant to be going to Canterlot today so Diamond and I were at Twilight's waiting for the train to arrive, Spike was with us again and seemed pretty down he wasn't invited to the capital. I hadn't even considered inviting him just from forgetting honestly. But I planned to get shit pissed again and didn't trust Spike enough to see me in a bar just yet. Twilight seemed pretty pissed as well, something about harvest season at AJ's. I didn't care that much as I really wanted to find out about this sword. Plus Canterlot is pretty cool, from what I've seen. Better than Ponyville.

"So who would we even go to for sword research?" I asked, I had the sword at my side, it was annoying that it didn't have any kind of scabbard and I wasn't overly sure how I was going to carry around Canterlot. I doubted they had any leather or alternate material for a makeshift one.

"Well it is supposedly enchanted is it not? So either the Castle Mages or Toyar. If neither of those can give us any answers then we could ask Princess Celestia. Though she may be busy." Diamond replied, rather quickly.

"A'right. I'm sure she'll make time dude, you're a guard and I'm an alien."

"Yes I suppose you are right." Diamond muttered, Christ everyone seemed pissed looking back.

"Also where would be a good place to get a scabbard for this thing?"

"Aron you don't even know if you can keep it. The mages or something might want to look at it." Spike muttered.

"Suppose that's true. Still, the question stands."

"You do not have any money to pay for one Aron." Diamond grunted.

"Fuck you Diamond."

"I doubt you could find something for it in Canterlot, most ponies use spears or crossbows, and it is only bipedals that use swords. I still do not understand why the old castle had such a sword on display."

"There you go, answering the fucking question. How long we got til the train?" Diamond looked around for a moment, trying to find a clock I suppose.

"About twenty minutes, the trip lasts a couple hours as well so I suggest getting some food before we leave."

"Bitch you got up before me why didn't you get food."

"So vulgar." Diamond muttered.

"I'll go see what we have." Spike said and got up. He had really added a lot to the conversation.

"What do you normally eat anyway?" Diamond asked, I just stared at him for a few seconds.

"Humans are omnivores.” Was all I said, Diamond nodded before replying.

“Not many in the world, none that are sentient either. Most are either one or the other, interesting to know that your people are omnivores.”

“Figured being a pony you’d be against any meat eater.” It was true, yeah he was a guard but I figured he would be somewhat against it. Not that I’d eat horse anyway. Well, unless Tesco gives it to me in the form of beef burgers.

“You have not eaten, or talked about eating me or any other pony and you do not seem to be any kind of killer, despite what you want other ponies to believe. I suppose you would only kill animals that do not talk back?”

“Back on Earth humans were the only sapient creatures so that wasn’t a problem, I’ve never tried horse and don’t particularly want to. I spoke to Celestia about it when she brought me here about my diet. Chicken I’ll eat, pigs, cows and rabbits. Birds if I have to, I was planning on hunting in the Everfree for meat but I can easily live without it. Hell if I ever earn money here I’ll just buy some meat. I’m not trained enough with any kind of weapon to begin with, let alone enough to hunt. Plus I don’t know the first thing about hunting so would fuck up more times than worth it.” I paused for a bit and Diamond just nodded. “So no, I wouldn’t personally kill anything that can talk back but not knowing much on this world if I was given meat from something that talks as long as I was unaware I wouldn’t cause an argument, and I doubt I’d cause much of one even if I did know. After eating it I mean.”

“You really put other’s lives before your own do you not?” Diamond didn’t seem happy with my reply, but wasn’t entirely pissed, he still sounded interested.

“Meh, not knowing shit is bliss. Or however that phrase goes. I ain’t gonna openly eat meat anyway and I’m not gonna go looking for it.” Well until I could find someone to teach me how to hunt.

“Okay.” Diamond muttered, and that was the end of that. Until Spike came back anyway. He had two plates with some cut up apples, sliced bread and what looked like oats on each, as well as a rather large gem of some kind.

“How can you even eat gems anyway?” I asked. Watching the tiny dragon bite on it like nothing. A very audible crunch sound followed as well as a flinch from myself.

“Dunno, I don’t know much about dragons, I presume it’s to do with our teeth.” He replied, sounding pretty unsure. His teeth were just like a humans, except his canines were more like fangs.

“What does it taste like?” I asked, Diamond was watching Spike eat now, though he had slowed considerably when Diamond and I started watching, he looked scared. Lucky I’m an adult.

“Err… Depends on the gem, the rarer the gem the better they taste. I can’t-” He took another chunk out of the crystal. “- can’t really describe the taste to any pony foods. Sorry Aron.”

“Ah dude it’s ‘kay, just curious, ‘nother world, all that bullocks.” I replied, waving my hand. Spike shrugged and went back to eating. I starting chewing on a piece of apple, the asshole of all fruits.

About an hour passed and we left for the train, Spike decided to accompany us to the station, since I had no idea where the fuck it was and Diamond was too proud to admit he didn’t either. Cunt. Twilight was still missing so neither her or any of her friends said goodbye. Though I doubt any would miss me. Diamond maybe, thanks to his bubbling personality. The train came and we got on with little issue, Diamond got the tickets because I was fucking poor. The train cart itself had few ponies on it, none of which even looked at me, trying to avoid my gaze.

“How long does the train normally take?” I asked, Diamond just looked at me like an idiot.

“I come from Los Pegasus, and spent most of my guard time in Canterlot or north.” Diamond replied.

“Go on.” I muttered.

“I have no idea how long the train takes Aron.”

“There we go.”

“Cunt.”

“Twat.”

“Fucker.”

“That one was a stretch but whatevs.” Diamond just shrugged.

“It. It takes about 3 hours. This one anyway.” Some mare across the way muttered. I looked around trying to find the owner of the voice and finally found a cream coated mare with purple hair who looked like she was going to start crying, I smiled at her.

“Thank you, see Diamond some ponies here are useful.” I muttered. He just huffed. I rolled my eyes and looked to the mare. “My name’s Aron.” I said, wanting to say more but couldn’t. More scared of her than she was of me. Well probably not but the point is there.

“I’m-, I’m Roseluck.” She whispered out.

“Nice to meet you Roseluck.” I replied, about as quiet as her, it was somewhat awkward.

“Your social skills are going to become legendary sir.” Diamond muttered.

“Fuck off.” There was a long pause of silence before Roseluck spoke up again.

“Did he just call you sir? You’re not a monster, under arrest by this guard?” She muttered.

“He did call me sir. I don’t want him to, but he does. No I’m not a monster, well to you I may look, strange. But I’m pretty friendly. Socially awkward, but friendly.”

“Oh. So you don’t like strangers either?” She said.

“No.” Again que the awkward silence.

“What are you?” Roseluck finally asked, I smiled slightly.

“A human, it won’t mean anything to you I’m sure. But I’m part of a species known as humans, Celestia brought me here for a reason I don’t fully understand.”

“Oh okay, where did you get the sword?” She asked, somewhat fearfully, I forgot I had it out honestly.

“The old ruins in the Everfree.”

“Y-You went into the Everfree Forest?” She stuttered.

“Yeah, it’s hella dangerous. Went in with Twilight Sparkle and some others to stop Nightmare Moon.”

“You stopped Nightmare Moon, the endless night? Is that why he calls you sir?”

“Well I didn’t do much, just fought some Timber Wolves and dodged some fireballs when Nightmare Moon attacked us, and got to talk to Luna when it was all over. Plus got this sword.” Most of that was a lie, everything would have gone down the same had I not been there honestly. Only Diamond really did anything. Roseluck seemed pretty impressed though, Diamond didn’t say anything.

“Wow that’s impressive.”

“Meh, Diamond did more than me, I was just there as a bodyguard to Twilight, was given the rank temporary Defender of Harmony.” Roseluck’s mouth dropped. “Which is why he calls me sir. Though it’s only temporary and I didn’t earn that rank so I’d rather he didn’t.” Diamond just shrugged.

“I have been trained to call those of rank sir or ma’am. I am a fucking guard Aron.” Diamond said, sounding pretty pissed. Looks like I finally struck a nerve.

“Anyway, so what are you going into Canterlot for Roseluck?” I asked, she was sitting properly now and seemed more comfortable, a couple other ponies kept looking at me and flinching when I spoke.

“Going to meet up with some family, my mother lives in Canterlot.” She said. Barely a mutter there. “What about you two?”

“Sword research. Apparently this is enchanted but no one seems to know why or what enchantment it has.” She nodded, smiling slightly. “Though I haven’t seen much of the city so will probably go exploring, depending on what Diamond wants to do.”

“I am following you sir. But I would not mind staying here a day or two. Ponyville is good but I have always been a city pony. Plus we should probably talk to Mirrors. We kind of abandoned him.” Diamond replied.

“You feel bad about that fucker? Mirrors was weird, I kinda forgot about him honestly.”

“Not bad, you had a job to do and I was your guard, but I know Mirrors and his hate might fester.”

“Might?”

“It is most likely that he will immediately forgive you, may not even have realised what you did. Or forgotten.”

“Yeah that fuckers got bipolar disorder.”

“Have you checked out the mage quarters in the castle yet, Aron?” Roseluck asked suddenly.

“Nope, I was only in Canterlot a day just about. Came here sometime in the afternoon, was sent to my room. Got drunk with Diamond and went to Ponyville.”

“You should, it’s amazing. The stuff those unicorns can do.”

“Please do not take this the wrong way Miss Roseluck, but the mage quarters are for castle members, guards or royalty only. How is it that you got in?” Diamond quietly asked. Roseluck looked at him and smiled.

“I used to work there of course.” She replied. Diamond said nothing, just staring at the mare.

“You are not a unicorn.” He bluntly said. Roseluck lost her smile real quick. She paused and took a deep breath.

“Not. Not anymore.” She muttered, moving a hoof over her hair and slowly moving it away from her forehead, showing of what looked like a black spot on her forehead, until I looked a bit closer and noticed it was the ruins of a unicorn horn, completely burned.

“I am so sorry. Guard reactions and all. I am so sorry I pried.” Diamond muttered, looking down, his wings dropping slightly.

“It’s okay, you didn’t know.” Roseluck muttered back, letting her hair drop again, covering up any evidence she was anything other than a dirty mud horse. “Can humans do any magic Aron?” She asked, slightly smiling again.

“No, we prefer technology. Some believe certain people have a small level of magic, we have magicians who just use tricks as magic, some gypsy’s as well but they can fuck off. A couple spiritual people, my aunt was one of them, but they didn’t really have magic. They just believed in it, that’s where a lot of human influences come from, the belief of something. There were thoughts and rumours of people being able to do magic but no hard evidence.”

“Technology? So you all used things like carts and trains?”

“Yeah, though the level you ponies have is where humanity was about a thousand years or so, well, in some aspects. You have central heating and trains down, but still seem to be living in our medieval era, which was hundreds of years ago. If I knew more on your culture I’d say this is where humans would be a thousand years ago without religion holding us back.” This time Diamond spoke up.

“Could you not recreate some human technology?”

“And what is religion? Why did it hold you back?” Roseluck asked.

“I wasn’t, and aren’t an incredibly smart person Diamond, if I thought of it I could try it, Celestia outright told me no when I asked to bring over a piece of technology called a laptop, which is for the best because all that was on it were a load of games, some books and pictures. Nothing that could help me make anything. And religion is somewhat complicated, I won’t go into detail, the idea was that some people believed in a higher power, or powers depending on who they believe in. Religion held us back because religious leaders wanted power and to keep humans in check. Modern religion isn’t much better but educated humanity is better at ignoring it.”

“Did you believe in any higher power?”

“Oh lord no, I’m about as against religion as someone could get without being any kind of extremist.” Diamond looked at me for a second and just nodded.

“I’m honestly surprised you guys don’t have any kind of religion or cults.” I muttered.

“We have cults, and now you’ve explained it I suppose we have some kind of religion.”

“Well now you done got me interested.”

“Good grammar.” Roseluck said, trying to cover it up with a cough, I winked at her.

“I personally have come across two major cults, one with a dedication to the entity known as Discord, and one dedicated to Princess Luna, or the entity we fought; Nightmare Moon. There have been a couple other cults and groups sighted but those seem to be the largest ones.”

“Discord? I’ve heard his name before.” I muttered.

“Yes I mentioned it before. Discord is a being of pure chaos, he is the embodiment really and ruled with an iron fist before Celestia. Her and Luna, kicked his ass, and turned him to stone with the same gems that we recovered during the Nightmare Incident. He is also the spirit of Chaos, but has become corrupted over time, wherein he was born to keep the world in check he very quickly went insane from his own powers and destroyed balance for a long time.”

“Til Celestia stopped him?”

“No, he may have ruled Equestria and the surrounding countries before but that was after his first defeat when he destroyed Equus’ balance completely. Ponies call the Discord ruling with us a dark age but what he did before nearly ended the world, many think it actually did and this is the second cycle of the world. He was defeated by the other spirits in an attempt to fix the world.”

“Neat, so what happened to these other spirits? The ones that didn’t go batshit insane, and if Discord is stone where is he being kept? Somewhere underground? Some secret bunker that nobody knows about? Classified?”

“Either missing or unknown, many of the spirits thought their era was at an end after Discord’s first defeat, and simply left this realm of existence. The spirit of Fire is supposedly still active and somewhere in the dragon kingdom, I suppose there is another religion there, but I will get back to that. Some were corrupted in the battle with Discord and is a leading theory as to why many are missing or inactive. There are far too many unknowns.”

“That’s history dude.”

“I was unaware that Discord nearly destroyed everything.” Roseluck muttered.

“Many do not, it is rare history and not taught today as it is considered irrelevant.”

“No history is irrelevant, especially something as big as that.” I said.

“Did you learn about the past on Earth Aron?”

“Yes I lik-“

“Did you learn about every war?” That stumped me quite a bit, it was very well known at this point a lot of history had been censored and changed so people weren’t constantly depressed. At least I hoped it was well known.

“No, I get what you mean now.”

“Did you have any big fights where you’re from?” Roseluck asked, looking at me.

“Not me personally, but yes, humanity is not unified like you ponies seem to be. We have had countless wars and fights, the most known ones are World War One and Two, they fucked us up a lot.”

“The name alone says a lot.” Roseluck muttered, looking suddenly horrified again.

“My granddad fought in the Second World War, he was a great man, one I never managed to meet. Millions died in both of those wars and the world still hasn’t really recovered from them. When I left there were rebellions, riots and wars going on all over the world.”

“Looks like Princess Celestia got you out just in time then.” Diamond grunted.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised if we turn into a military world, just all out wars constantly.”

“And- And were you in any wars?” Roseluck muttered, shaking slightly, fucking hell she was terrified. Bitch brought it up though so it’s her fault.

“No, I’m a coward, I have zero strength and zero courage. My dad was the first person in my family to not go to war, though he worked with a military organisation. As did I, illegally, for a while.”

“I see.”

“Listen Roseluck, I will bash humanity until the day I died but please don’t fear me because of the mistakes of my race, some of us are actually fairly smart and decent people. I’m not one of either of those things, but I’m not evil.” She looked at me for a second before nodding.

“Okay, I’m sorry.”

“Awesome, how long we got til Canterlot Diamond?” I asked. And so we went, talking about this and that until reaching the big city. I didn’t bother looking for that Everfree Central place, and instead talked to two ponies and wondering where my life went to lead to this point.

We got to Canterlot a couple hours later, the train went all over the fucking place, which was honestly fair enough since Canterlot was on top of a damn mountain. We got off, said goodbye to Roseluck and started heading towards our first destination. Which was apparently the main walls.

“Dude I thought we were going to the blacksmith or some shit? Not outside the city.” I said.

“Yes we will be, but first, do you remember our first conversation about Canterlot, where you asked about defences?” Diamond replied

“Sure, you told me to eat a dick.”

“Not even close, I am showing you the defences we have.” He said, then we continued in silence. That was until some random yellow Pegasus walked up to me.

“Never seen anything like you before.” She said, I looked at the pony before me, she had awesome green and yellow spiked hair, which reminded me a lot of Vinyl’s hair, and what looked like a burning toaster as her cutie butt tattoo.

“Never seen a Pegasus like you before either. You have awesome hair by the way.”

“Ha-ha, thanks. Who, and what are you? Put bluntly.”

“Name’s Aron, I’m a human, a being of another world. Do you happen to know who Vinyl Scratch is?”

“I'm Glaze. Wow, exotic. Yes I do, lives in Ponyville right? We’ve done some gigs together.”

“Hey, everyone here is exotic to me. Ah nice, yeah I went by, poor girl doesn’t say much but she seems cool. Oh you’re a musician too?”

“True I suppose. Yes I am, was actually on my way to my setup now. It’s why I’m in Canterlot, usually based in Manehatten. You should stop by.”

“As much as I’d love to get to know you Glaze, you seem awesome, I am actually on business myself. Won’t be staying in Canterlot very long and it actually looks like I’m close to my first destination, hopefully I will catch you one day in the future though.”

“Way to lead a mare on.”

“I never lead you anywhere, except for whatever the fuck I am being lead.”

“Meh, I’m not into stallions anyway. I’ll see you around Aron.”

“None of the good ones are, see ya Glaze.” I said, as she walked off. I didn’t even ask what was with the toaster. “Nice girl.” I muttered.

“Thought you weren’t into ponies.” Diamond muttered.

“Fuck off. I said she’s nice.”

“I’m a stallion as well Aron.”

“Yeah but you’re not a real boy, you need emotion for that.”

“Ouch my feelings.”

“You’d be a great human Diamond.”

“Thanks.”

“And I’m not into ponies yet. I’m probably not ever going to see her again, and she’s a carpet eater.”

“Do I even want to know what you just called her?”

“She’s gay Diamond.”

“Yeah I knew that, she said she was not into stallions. But she never said anything about carpet eating.”

“Human term.”

“What does it mean then?”

“Don’t worry.”

“You will teach swears and talk about horrible wars but refuse to tell me what that means?”

“For fuck sake Diamond it’s just a term for lesbians.”

“There, simple.”

“Cunt.”

“Bitch.”

“I’m not female.”

“You are an ass-hat though.”

“I never taught you that?”

“No, it just felt… Right.”

“Diamond you’d be a great human.”

“You have said.” There was a short silence before Diamond lead me to some stairs connected to a section of wall, up we climbed and holy shit did they have some awesome shit up there. None of which I understood at the time.

“Damn, it’s full of, poles and catapults.” I muttered, somewhat unimpressed. Yeah the catapults or trebuchets looked pretty cool but I had seen those from a distance. There were a couple ballista that I hadn’t seen, but as I said, a lot of the wall was covered in weird spear things. Some bigger than others, all had circular runes around them and some had a strange claw on top of them.

“Trebuchets Aron, plus crossbow turrets. And, these.” Diamond replied, pointing to the nearest spear thing.

“Yeah what does it do Diamond?”

“Automated magical turrets.” Diamond replied, an actual smile on his face. It took me a second before I joined him.

“Really? Holy shit.”

“Yeah really. The taller ones shoot fire balls, the smaller ones fire icicles, the clawed ones shoot lightning. There are a couple other variations but the idea is that they kill whatever gets close to the wall that could be a threat.”

“Damn Diamond, back at it again with the awesome. Can you do a manual shot so I can see?”

“No, they are off at the moment, Canterlot is not under attack, and I am not a unicorn so cannot turn them on myself. Plus they would class you as a threat. They are magically designed to attack non ponies. Hence why there are not magical defences all along the wall, we have weapons for skirmishes and pony raiders.”

“What about the castle? Does that not have defences?”

“We are meant to hold the walls.”

“Jesus. You ponies are awesome and fucking stupid at the same time, ya know that?”

“I know. I was joking, there are turrets all over the castle, just are rarely used, thus invisible. Canterlot hasn’t been attacked in a long time. We also have some final plans if Canterlot is taken and ponykind is in danger of extinction.”

“Damn, like what?”

“You sound like someone trying to learn our weaknesses and invade.”

“Fuck off Diamond.”

“Noted. We have magical landmines that, again, are dormant until needed, meant to level the city and mountain in a last ditch effort to wipe out any invaders. There are tunnels all through the mountain for the Princesses to escape and teleport nodes in random buildings to allow military units to get around the city quickly. Though besides the royal guards most of the Equestrian military is off continent.”

“How come? Doesn’t that mean Equestria is open to invasion?”

“Yes it does, but they are dealing with an issue that, if is not resolved, would mean Equestria is invaded. Princess Celestia deemed it important enough to send the fight to our enemy.”

“So Equestria is at war?”

“Officially no, unofficially no. There are a few more layers where that answer would be no as well.”

“And yet you tell me this? Out in the open?”

“Oh this conversation is being monitored, we were being watched and listened to since we entered Canterlot, Celestia is far more paranoid than many think. I tell you this because I trust you and the Princess trusts you. You may not be a hero, but you have the aurora of a good person. Shit I was not told the information I have lightly.”

“And yet they give you shitty guard duty looking after me?”

“Everypony has a place, sometimes it is a shitty one. But you have not made me regret my life choices much, so I do not complain.”

“Alright then, well the walls are awesome, I know far too many state secrets. Where next?”

“Blacksmith or Mage Tower?”

“Which is closer?”

“Fuck Aron, you are lazy.”

“Deal with it Diamond.” He face hoofed, probably regretting his life choices.

“Mage Tower is closer.”

“We go to the blacksmith then.” There was a pause, like for a minute or so. It got awkward.

“Why go to the further away one?” Diamond muttered.

“Means we can go to the mage tower on the way back. If we gotta go further for blacksmith it means we will have to go back on ourselves to come back. If we went to the mage tower we would have to go further away and then back on ourselves. It’s broken logic just fucking deal with it.”

“Actually it sort of makes sense.”

“No it doesn’t Diamond, lettuce go.”

“Did you just say lettuce?” I paused.

“I don’t know what you mean.” Diamond face hoofed again and we continued. I looked around a lot more now he mentioned we were being watched, but I figured if Ponyland was this secretive then whoever was spying on us was probably a lot better at hiding than an untrained human was at spotting them. Hell Glaze might have been a spy for all I knew.

We didn’t have any more delays on the way to the blacksmiths, as we got closer I recognised the building.

“Oh shit this is where I threatened Shining Armor!” I shouted, a couple ponies jumping. I got a hatchet of face hoofs from Diamond.

“Is that all you remember?” He asked.

“No, but I figured it would be the funniest thing to exclaim. Toyota’s place or something right?”

“Toyar, yes. The blacksmith for the people you said if I recall.”

“I’ve never met the dude but yes I remember that convo.”

“Anyway, after you.” Diamond muttered after a short pause. I wanted to tell him to fuck himself but I just entered like a good noodle.

I walked in to see a small trail of smoke on the floor and an unfamiliar smell, there was a crackling of flame coming from another room. I held the sword in two hands like I was about to make a vow to someone or something like that. Diamond followed me.

“Toyar! You in?” Diamond shouted, making me jump slightly.

“Aye. Diamond that you?” The very Scottish accent of a voice cried back. Holy shit not the Scottish. I heard something clang against the floor and the familiar trotting of hooves. A door opened in front of me and more smoke bellowed out, followed by a very dirty orange pony, he had red hair and no visible wings or a horn, his eyes were yellow and a small nick in his left ear. He had some sort of saddle on with two golden claw things reaching forward, kinda like the fake hands that Bender had in Futurama. But the clamps instead. Christ that was a horrible way to relate something.

“Ah, this that human that I’ve been hearing about?” The pony asked, I noticed a couple scars and what looked like small patches of metal on his face, burned skin patches surrounded the specs of metal. Damn that’s hardcore. Fucker didn’t even have an apron on.

“Aron of Earth, at your service.” I said, smiling.

“Aye I doubt that, looks like I’ll be at your service. What’s with the sword?” He asked. I noticed I was still holding it like a complete twat and reached a hand out to give it to him, one of his hooves reached out and took it.

“We were wondering if you knew anything about it. It was found in the Old Castle and supposedly has magical properties. I was wondering if you had any personal knowledge of the sword.”

“Does it have a name?” Toyar asked, looking at the sword, he placed it down on a small table and started stroking the blade.

“Not sure, Aron you read the section on it?”

“Yeah but it sounded Latin, or at least the pony version of it. Spirit-us Pro-seed-ee-um or something along those lines.” I replied.

“You brought the extract with you Aron.” Diamond grunted.

“That I did.” I said, not forgetting about it, I pulled it out and skim read the extract. “Spiritus Procellarum.” Toyar looked up at that.

“Let me read that.” The blacksmith said, grabbing the page from me. His eyes followed the text in what honestly looked like fear. “Mr Aron, if this really is the sword of legend you are a very lucky man. I suggest keeping this safe and keeping it away from the mage tower until you have a chance to use it.”

“Why until then?”

“You will know if it is enchanted or not then. You will know the feeling of whether this is Spiritus or not.”

“Alright, thanks.” I replied.

“Now, can I help you two with anything else, you could do with some armour Mr Aron, and a weapon that isn’t a longsword.”

“I’m no fighter Toyar, it was just luck that brought me across this sword and I have kept it as a self-given reward for helping defeat Nightmare Moon.” Not that I did anything.

“I see. Well if you insist, you look like you would be great with throwing knives and light armour.”

“I couldn’t pay you even if I wanted to. Plus if I ever do become a fighter I would want to be trained enough to help out on the field, I’m no magic user so I can’t become any kind of medic, well any medic worth a damn when magic is around.”

“I agree to that, magic has made a lot of things obsolete but it helps the world more than it hinders it.” Toya said smiling, I nodded.

“Humans don’t have any magic, we heal our wounds ourselves.”

“Now that I can get behind.” Toyar said, rubbing a hoof over a piece of blue metal on his check.

“Do you work with chemicals at all?”

“Depends on why I need them, some weapon designs need certain dusts and some liquids I use have some chemicals in. Why?”

“Alright, do you know what Potassium Nitrate and Sulphur Powder is?”

“I know Sulphur yes, what about the nitrate?”

“Saltpetre usually contains it.”

“Ah yes I know that. Why?”

“I’m going to see if you can make gunpowder. You’ll need a mix of 75 to 15 to 10 to create it.”

“What do I need? Wait hold on.” Toyar said and ran into the other room, excitement plastered across his face.

“What are you trying to do Aron?” Diamond asked, concern in his monotone voice.

“Make a human weapon, or at least see if he can make one.”

“What does it do?”

“Well I couldn’t make a gun, maybe a bullet but I have no idea how to make the firing mechanism of a gun. I do however, know how to make a very basic grenade.”

“I do not understand half those words. Is this going to be dangerous?”

“Dude I’m making a fucking grenade of course this is dangerous. Right, do you know the-“ I paused. “-Things we were talking about earlier, the fail safes. Do any of them just explode?” I asked.

“Yes, some are not elemental.”

“Radius?”

“Pretty fucking big.”

“Huh, alright, well a grenade will explode like a mine but do far less damage, the one I know how to make is very old compared to what humans have now and aren’t used at all anymore. If they were it’s more for crowd control rather than killing.” That was a lie, the grenades I knew were from World War Two and were shit compared to modern technology, but would still kill someone. Honestly I was terrified of using an untested grenade but I figured it would be a great way to die.

“Well we shall see how these grenades turn out then, if they can be made. I trusted you with Canterlot’s defences, I hope you trust me with keeping this project secret from the Princess.”

“Tell her if you want, if she tells me to stop I will, well I’ll tell people to stop production if it takes off. After that I can’t do much. I’m honestly more interested in seeing if it can be pulled off rather than actually using these for destruction, I really don’t see myself as any kind of fighter.” Toyar walked back in with the sword and some parchment and a quill and ink. He made me write down some instructions for him and he immediately ran into his side room again without even saying goodbye. We let ourselves out.

“Well now what, Toyar suggests not to give this to the mage tower and that was our final destination, what’s the plan Diamond?”

“Is it not obvious?” He replied slowly.

“Diamond don’t play me like this.”

“We have to see Mirrors.”

“YOU BASTARD!” I shouted. He smiled slightly.

“Plus I am sure Princess Celestia will wish to meet you again.”

“Well I got that going for me, let’s go enter the heart of darkness then.” And so we did. The walk back to the castle was uneventful and was fairly short. I never noticed how big Canterlot was honestly, the walls looked fucking miles away and it had really felt that long earlier. We entered the castle without issue and one guard nodded to Diamond.

“So where would Mirrors be?”

“In front of you.” Diamond replied, I looked back in front and sure enough there was a carbon copy of every other guard standing in front of me with a huge shit eating grin.

“You came back!” Mirrors shouted, lunging at me and hugging me. It was awkward for about three seconds before he punched me in the stomach, I very nearly started crying. I held on because I probably deserved that and I really didn’t want to burst into tears. MANLY MOTHERFUCKER AIN’T I?

“Well yeah, we were only down in Ponyville to save the fucking world.” I muttered.

“You left me to go drinking!” Mirrors accused.

“Well, technically. Yeah, you are absolutely right Mirrors. We did piss off to go drinking, but only because I wanted to see if Diamond was a human underneath all the monotone.”

“He’s a pony Aron.”

“Fuck off.” There was a short pause.

“Anyway Mirrors, we came by to say hello to you but Aron has a meeting with the Princess.”

“It’s Princesses now Diamond.” Mirrors said, smiling still.

“Yes, that is going to take some getting used to. But it is a meeting with Princess Celestia.” Diamond replied.

“Of course, I’ll come with you, I was actually then going home.”

“Little early to be off duty is it not?” Diamond asked.

“Not for me, I’m a night guard now.”

“Night guard?” I asked. He still looked as white as snow white to me. Not good for night missions. Though he probably meant something else.

“Yeah, the royal guard for Princess Luna. With her return she needs her own guards and with our numbers down we had to split guard duties.”

“I was unaware of the changes.” Diamond muttered.

“You’ve been away from the capital saving the world Diamond, talk to Princess Celestia about it if you want.”

“I might, though I prefer being awake during the day and my current mission is accompanying Aron.”

“What are the differences?” I asked. “Like perks and shit?”

“We change coat colours and our wings look different. We get new weapons and armour, as well as staying up at night and sleeping during most of the day. I’m actually up fairly late for me.”

“Okay first off, you’re still white as snow so that seems bullocks. And secondly it’s been like two days, how have you organised all these changes already?” I asked. Mirrors quickly looked down at himself and I swear his eyes went green again.

“I- I haven’t received my changes yet.” Mirrors said rather quickly. “And I’m not sure, Princess Celestia seemed very quick with the changes yes but most are settling in nicely.”

“Alright whatevs, I don’t care too much, it’s her kingdom. Or Queendom I guess. Or Princestdom.”

“Monarch.” Diamond muttered, he then lead the way deeper into the castle, Mirrors asking a load of questions about what we’ve been up to and about the sword. Eventually we got to two big double doors that I recognised from my arrival here. Diamond just opened the door and wondered in.

“I’ll catch you guys later.” Mirrors muttered and wondered off to go torture someone else. I shivered a little when that thought came into my head, wholeheartedly believing that thought.

“Ah hello Aron. Long time.” Celestia said quietly as we walked in.

“Hey Princess, Diamond says hi to.”

“I’m right he-“. He began.

“Do tell him I said hello when you see him next.” Celestia replied smiling. I turned to Diamond.

“Celestia said hi.”

“I know I’m stan-“. He started. I had already turned back to Celestia.

“He’s in the bathroom or something, I’ll talk to him later.” Celestia just nodded, Diamond face hoofed.

“How may I help you two today?” Celestia asked. “I see you still have your sword.” She added, she didn’t even sound pissed.

“Honestly nothing, we just came into Canterlot for research on the sword and found most of what we needed and are now bored.”

“Oh, not coming by to see a friend?” She asked, faking hurt.

“I barely know you. But I would happily just come by to chat honestly. Diamond only has so much emotion he can give out. But we came here on a mission so I hadn’t really thought about coming by until earlier.”

“I’ll have to get a meetup sorted between the two of us, we could talk about so much.”

“Indeed Princess. How’s your sister?” I asked, I had no idea what the fuck I was doing.

“Luna is fine, still a bit traumatised about her time on the moon and is very fixated on meeting her saviour.”

“Twilight was busy with her fuck buddies or something.”

“I mean you Aron.”

“I didn’t do anything though. Just dodged some very deadly magic and was the first to welcome her back to the land of the pony.”

“Well either way, she wants to meet an alien that definitely wasn’t part of Equestria when she was here last.”

“She seemed alright. We barely spoke, she fucked off once I mentioned you.” Celestia muttered something that I swear was:

“Yes that has happened in the past a few times.” Before actually saying. “Again, she wishes to meet you, but it will have to wait, she is asleep right now and won’t be up for a good while. I have no real missions for you both. You may stay here if you wish or return to Ponyville. Well, you both may do as you please, go on a vacation if you really want to. I know how dreadfully dull Ponyville can get.” I nodded.

“Can we have a chariot back to Ponyville?” I asked.

“Of course, and now there is no immediate threat your Defender of Harmony title will have to be revoked. Maybe one day you can earn it for real?”

“If I earn it I might be more open to being called sir by Diamond, but until then I prefer to be an everyman and just watch from the side lines, I’m not a warrior.”

“Of course, I’m sorry I asked you to guard Twilight like I did, but you are both safe and Equestria is safer thanks to you two. And whatever you may say you helped bring my sister back.”

“Yeah suppose that’s true. Alright Princess I’ll see you soon for the epic meeting between master race and friend.”

“Goodbye for now Aron. Oh and Diamond?” Celestia asked, Diamond grunted something. “Don’t give out state secrets like that again, yes I am happy Aron knows and trust him as you said. But do not give them out for any reason again.” She said that with the same motherly voice as normal, I was terrified.

“Of course Princess.” Diamond replied.

“Good. Glaze wasn’t a spy Aron, she is a rather good musician and I recommend going to a party of hers. Also stallion doesn’t necessarily mean males.”

“Now you’re just showing off.” I muttered, not really that surprised she had already been informed of our conversations. Rather not be spied on but it seemed to be only in Canterlot.

“It’s what I do. She is a lesbian though, just seeing what your reaction would be.”

“Alright, see ya soon Sunbutt.” A guard coughed at that and Diamond gave me a quick glare before we left and went towards what I hoped was the chariot place.

“Celestia is fucking awesome by the way.” I said suddenly. Diamond nodded slightly.

“She can be fun at times, she tends to get bored a lot.” He muttered.

“Was that a non-positive sentence about your princess?”

“Many ponies forget she is just another pony. I do not. I respect her above any and am glad she is our ruler. But she has flaws as everyp- everyone does.”

“The best people have the worse flaws.” I muttered.

“That just means you’ve an upstanding citizen.”

“And you’re the happiest person in the universe. Look my metaphors or analogies or whatever the fuck that was don’t always make sense, I just quoted something I don’t really remember because it fit alright?”

“So angry.”

“Where I’m from what I am is salty.”

“Salty?”

“It’s a different word for pissed off, or angry-slash-upset. Usually used by gamers.”

“Your phrases intrigue me. I will use salty, I take it you can just use salt if the grammar fits? What is a gamer?”

“Depends really, ninety percent of the time you would just say salty. Like ‘Diamond is salty’ or ‘you’re so salty’ but you can change it to shit like ‘you’ve had too much salt today’, just use it in that context like it’s actually salt and the meaning will get across. With me anyway. Hopefully Spike when I start teaching him human phrases.” I replied. “And a gamer is someone who plays a lot of video games, those depend on who you ask, basically controlling something on a screen, and having to complete certain goals. People get addicted to that shit.”

“Were you a gamer?”

“Oh gods yeah, I was the most unhelpful-to-society person I knew, I was horribly addicted, I’m actually going through some minor relapses now, but I normally don’t until I’ve been away from a computer about a week.”

“What kind of games were there?”

“Christ Diamond, loads. I had a pretty large like of games so I’ll start with them. Strategy, sandbox, some shooters, open world, fantasy, survival.”

“Go on?”

“Alright, strategy games are fairly simple to explain, usually you get to be in control of an army or force of some kind and usually get the objective to wipe out another army with yours. There are two kinds of games in these, against AI, so the game itself plays against you, and you will have a campaign ahead of you with various missions and troop options. Say the first mission you can only use Earth Ponies to wipe out a base, but the second you have unicorns but have to do it quicker. Then you can play custom games were you will get to use everything against an AI that will use everything. I lost a big interest in them for quite a while until one game came out. Sandboxes are usually games that let you do anything, to an extent. Like this one game I liked the whole objective was survive, you could build a house, gather iron and other resources and make a better house, there were loads of options on that one and I’ve never really lost interest in it. Shooters are usually games where you go around with various human weapons, guns, and just kill anything the game tells you to kill. Open world games are usually also sandboxes but just give you a huge land to explore. Fantasy games are basically based on another world and are very surreal or grim dark, depending on the game itself with magic and unicorns and shit. Equestria to me is about as fantasy as you can get, but real rather than a game or some shitty kids show. Survival games just tell you to stay alive as well and some let you play with other gamers who will kill you and steal your baked beans.”

“Seems interesting, do you have a way to replicate any of them here?”

“I don’t have the parts to make the parts to make what I’d need. Without a computer to either use or reverse engineer I couldn’t do it, even then I had very limited knowledge of making games myself. I’ll talk to Celestia during our next meeting and see if she can send me back to get my laptop, or just send us both back so we can bum around in my house for a day or two. I’d like to go home just to say goodbye honestly. But I won’t be missing out on much if I can’t get back.”

“How many games, and gamers were there?”

“Millions, I couldn’t even guess how many games existed, many shit, and the gamer population was huge as gaming became a mainstream thing, people were getting rich from making their own games as well as playing them. I owned about two hundred I think, a couple copies and some early games that I got sent to test.”

“Two hundred? Is that how you became addicted?”

“No, I was addicted long before I got that. I played a lot as a kid, I had a horrible childhood and gaming was my escape and then went into a major depression about 5 years ago and used gaming as my escape again, whenever I got out of depression I realised how fucked I was because I’d wasted so much time on a computer so would go back to the one thing stopping me in life.”

“Why did you not get help?”

“The only person I could ask was my dad, who I hated so could never give him the satisfaction of asking.”

“Gaming sounds depressing.”

“Nah gaming is harmless, I just turned it into a weapon against myself, gaming alone won’t do anything bad to you.” It was at this point I wanted to get something alcoholic to drink, but also the time we reached the chariots, we boarded the nearest one and two Pegasi guards hooked up and e left, returning back to Ponyville. I talked a bit more about gaming, got back, talked to Spike about gaming a bit and pissed about in the library for the rest of the day.

Turns out Applejack went full retard, tried to harvest an orchard the size of Newark alone and ended up getting half the town poisoned on dirt cupcakes, sending Rainbow Dash half way across town in a freak stunt, and causing a rabbit army to invade Ponyville. Honestly I didn’t care too much and refused the cupcake Spike kept offering me. Especially after a worm crawled out of it.

Author's Notes:

gotta get that fandom reference in here.
fucking people