I walked towards Stalliongrad when I felt someone watching me. I drew my katana and swung it behind me to find...

"Auburn? What the hell are you doing here?" I lowered my sword to the now panicking Auburn.

"I saw you sneak away from town, listen." He took a deep breath. "I have something to tell you." He struggled to find some words but none really fit except for what he was about to say, which was going to turn things completely around for me.

"I'm Keith."

I blinked twice, trying to comprehend what was going on. An associate I knew, shot dead, was standing right in front of me as a Pony. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I only needed one answer.

"What did you ask me when I became a renowned swordsmith?"

"You ever gonna kill anybody with those swords?" I nodded.

"Hot damn, you actually did it," His personality became completely different from the pony I knew as Auburn, he became Keith.

"But how did you survive?" Behind a calm exterior, I was panicking. How could someone I thought was dead just happen to come back to life?

"Yes what you know is right. I got shot--through the heart--but I wasn't dead. To be precise, I was left for dead, then some hot buxom biker chick came up to me and asked me if I wanted to go to Equestria, I said sure. Better than heaven, I can tell you that much. So now, I'm here, I'm dead sexy, and I found YOU! Wait, does that mean you're dead?"

"No... Last I remember I was talking to a man in a suit who looked just like me..." This could be complicated.

"So you actually did it, huh, found your revenge, how was it?"

"I have to be honest with you." I turned away. "It was worth it, and I'll remember every second of it." Then another thought occurred to me, Keith knew about this place, and now I had reliable intel.

"So, you know every single square inch of this universe, right." Keith nodded, "Heh, You made a pretty convincing display back there, didn't suspect you for a second."

"I know right, first day I got here I thought, 'Oh shit, need a convincing story NOW!' On the spot I thought up a story, a made up pony name, and faked an accent. You have no idea how hard it was not to make pony jokes every day. It was absolute MURDER!" This was the Keith I knew, part of me still preferred Auburn to Keith.

"At least you learned how to control yourself, but that's beside the point. Did you know about the Dominion beforehand?"

"Well I didn't know about the Dominion part, that's the part we're in. But anything you want to know about Equestria though or other creatures, I'm your colt, or stallion." We sat down in a small clearing and caught up.

"So now what are you planning on doing?"

"Start a new life, simply as that. What about you?"

"Same thing, except without the drugs, still have everything science-y stored up here, though without computers and a known lab, pretty much fucking useless. I had a hunch it was you once you started smithing and told me about your master, but I had to make sure."

"Do you think we're the only humans in this world?"

"Beats the fuck out of me, I just wanna enjoy this. So where you headed?"

"Hold up for a second. Before we talk about any 'buddy-buddy' tag along adventure, one, can you actually handle yourself out here?" He flipped my spear around, showing off his expertise.

"Staves for two years, they said it was a useless hobby."

"Then I guess I won't have to say what two is, I'm headed to Stalliongrad, know the place?"

"Haven't a clue," So much for reliable intel. I immediately reacted to a sudden roar above us. The form was vague and moving fast, but it looked like a black dragon, headed in the same direction I was headed. I stood up and dashed towards Stalliongrad, Keith having to gallop in order to keep up with me. The new body was amazingly durable, I could run for a longer amount of time before getting winded. But could it slay a dragon? We arrived at the city gates to a scene of chaos, ponies and other creatures running for their lives.

I don't know why I did it. All rational pointed towards running away, trying to evacuate all the others. Screaming against rational was a scratching feeling, clawing at the back of my mind. Whatever it was, it felt like it was telling me even though I had no hope of taking on the east, I should still try. I drew my katana and made a beeline towards the site.

"Dude, FUCKING WAIT! THAT'S A BLACK DRAGON!" I looked back at Keith hollering. "Their scales are stronger than DIAMONDS!" Strong armor, but still vulnerable vitals. I jumped onto a roof and started to close in on the dragon. I dodged to the left to avoid an Incoming fireball. I heard Keith laughing from ground level:

"AOI, HAS ANYONE EVER TOLD YOU YOU ARE FUCKING CRAZY?!" I ignored him and continued on. I had a clear view of the tail, and lept onto the flailing mass. The scales were rough, but sleek at the edges, defining their sharpness. I tried to step on the broad flats of the scales, avoiding their edges and slowly making my way up the dragon's back. I needed to get onto the head. What I was trying most likely would not work, but now, I couldn't give a damn. I hit the dragon's back scales to get him to look this way, the scales vibrating with each successive clang. I could feel the air split over the scales, confirming my hypothesis. I finally got the dragon's attention, then jumped. Time crawled to inching milliseconds as I soared through the air.

The dragon's jaws opened wide, I held my sword backwards. The air tensed, the dragon's mouth started to close, I swung and carved an enormous gap in the teeth, the force causing the dragon's head to jerk to its right, me continuing the momentum of the swing to turn myself forward and grab one of the dragon's barbs below the head. I swung on the dragon barb and stabbed upward as I hit the chin of the dragon, and was rewarded by a large flow of blood from where I stabbed it. It reeled its head backward allowing me to put my full weight onto the blade, dragging the sword down its neck until I hit the tough black scales, the blade becoming lodged in one of the muscles, the abrupt stop causing me to lose my grip and fall, I saw Keith directly below me dragging a huge cartful of hay, breaking my fall.

I woke up from shock by the wailing of a dragon. My bruised form crawled out of the cart, stumbling due to the disorientation from impact. I look up to see blood spewing from the large wound in the dragon's neck, then the dragon falls to the ground spanning over 20 houses. I staggered over to my blade ripping it out of the dragon's neck dislodging a small scale about the same length as my blade. I grabbed the scale, its edge slightly cutting into my paw. Throughout the hazy perception of reality and shaking field of view, I somehow made out enough illogical sense in my head to take the scale a s a crude trophy. Keith starts trotting beside me, awestruck.

"You, my friend, have just become 20% cooler," I coughed in response, still slightly dazed from the impact. "Uh oh, here come the paparazzi." I was suddenly surrounded by twenty guards and a mob of citizens. I waved my sword at them, signaling to clear the way, then sheathed it. Slowly, I walked up to the head of the dragon; he was still breathing, but I could hear his pulse fading. If dragons could understand English, then he wouldn't mind me talking to it.

"You just... *cough* gave me... the most difficult... fight..." my hand slips from the bridge of his nose and my back slams into his maw, me slowly sliding it, "...that I have ever had... and I... *cough* I loved every living second of it... thank you..." I started to laugh, and to my grand surprise, he heard me. To this day, I had no idea why I actually said that.

"To you, young one... I give my thanks..." Thanks, for stabbing him the neck? "My life was drawing to a close... I came here to end it all... I've lived too long in peace... I wanted to feel... the fires of battle... one... last... time..." most likely a dragon whose seen and enjoyed the taste of war, he spotted his scale in my hand. "To you I grant my scale... to fight your new battles... so that I may live on... and lend you my strength..." We stayed still for several minutes until he finally died, his chest falling for the last time. Before all sense of consciousness left me, I slid the scale towards Keith.

I woke up in the Stalliongrad General Hospital, a unicorn treating two of my fractured ribs. It stung like a pole driving through my sternum as a glowing yellow aura set my ribs back into place. I located Keith right next to me, sitting in a foldout chair, holding onto my sword and the scale.

"Holy fucking shit, you actually killed a dragon." He sat there grinning shaking his head in slight disbelief. "And you did it taking a Leap of Faith." I looked up at the ceiling. Looks like my new life was going to be great.

"You know, the day I thought you died, I drank five shous of sake after hearing you went down--how do you say it--'poppin caps in asses'?" He laughed.

"Something like that." He rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment. "Wait, you actually got drunk?" I nodded, and we both laughed.

The next day I was discharged from the hospital. Keith feeling somewhat like a pack mule.

"Damn, you are seriously loaded," he remarked as he was looking through my belongings and found the bits, "I mean SHIT! you could buy a house with this." I grabbed my wallet and went to a local armory to buy a bow, I was going to need a long ranged weapon. After placing it over my shoulder I also bought a quiver of arrows.

Afterwards, I saw that the dragon had its scales and bones harvested, the carcass looked like it had been butchered in place. I took back my sword and looked at the blade, there were a couple of nicks in the blade, but I had an idea on the repairs. But first I needed some clothes, I stopped by someplace where it looked like had some oriental clothing. Their stock surprised me.

"Son of a bitch..." They had a full set of traditional Japanese clothing. I tried it on, it fit rather loosely, but it would make do for the time being, so I paid the woman the bits and left. Now It felt a little bit like home again.

"Dude, I don't know why you don't just go naked, but I won't complain, the new duds look swag." I began to feel like bringing Keith along may or may not have been a good idea.

We left Stalliongrad, with me setting up a makeshift forge next to a lake, I built up a strong fire, reaching almost a tree in height, from then on I worked. I managed to break the scale after heating the scale up and cutting it into a long sliver, then the hard work began. I used the sliver to cut the blade down the middle, then insert the sliver into the blade, using steel that Keith had. I reworked the entire blade, taking me 3 days straight in order to pound the metal so that the original blade fused with the dragon scale. As the sun set on the third day, I painted the new hamon, adding an almost undetectable dragon design to the base of the blade, then began the quenching process. I guessed the dragon scale needed to be heated to a higher temperature in order for it to work, so I scanned the flames diligently, waiting for the right moment to pull the blade. Instinctively, I pant in reaction to the hot temperature, the hours dragging into the night. Then I hear a sound, I don't know whether it was from the many years I had been doing this same ritual or what, but the sound gave me the signal to pull the blade to quench it. Keith heard it too, as he later told me...

... it sounded like cannon fire...