Princess Celestia looked at the golem prototype with interest. Now that it had been firmly established that the aliens were not here to kill them all, Celestia had devoted more of the Arcanum towards different pursuits, namely making sense of the new technology that had fallen into their saddles.

It had been decided that, since the technology that ~Alex~ was familiar with was closer to their own, and they even had an instructor to aid in understanding that technology, they would begin by trying to learn about the ~human’s~ 'calculation devices’ first.

Hence the intense study that was going towards the, admittedly incredibly crude, first attempt the ~human~ had made towards creating a golem from scratch. “And he made something this detailed with an Artist’s Matrix?” Celestia wondered to herself out loud.

Unfortunately, one of her mages took that as a non-rhetorical question. “Incredible, isn’t it? It seems that, if one were careful enough, an Artist's Matrix is capable of incredibly detailed work. What’s even more impressive is that the construct did not form in front of him, where the matrix was located, but several feet behind him,” the scientist said. Bunsen Burner was his name, if she remembered correctly. “It may have naturally sensed where Equis’s field was strongest in the room, and used that as its foundation.”

“Were you able to glean anything from his original manuscripts?” Celestia asked curiously.

Bunsen shook his head sadly. “Unfortunately, much of the work was covered in ink stains and alien blood. We were able to clean it off, but the language it was written in is the ~human’s.~ I could use a translation spell on it, but I believe that would do more harm than good. The diagrams and schematics have proven useful, but until the ~human~ has properly learned our language, I believe we have reached a standstill in our research.”

“May I see one of his schematics?” Celestia asked. She had no doubt that she wouldn’t have any more luck than her mages in deciphering the alien script, but she still felt a spark of curiosity at how ~Alex’s~ language looked like in written form.

“Of course, Your Highness.” Bunsen Burner went through several sheets of paper on his desk until he found the one he was looking for. “Here you go. This is probably our most legible sample of its writing.”

Celestia took the page with interest, her eyes scanning over the schematics, but bounced back near the top of the page, her smile turning into a disturbed frown. Slowly, her eyes panned to other portions of the page, her frown only becoming more pronounced as time wore on.

“Is there something wrong, Your Highness?” Bunsen Burner asked.

Celestia glanced up, seemingly surprised that the scientist was still there. “Oh! Uh, no… nothing’s wrong. Just… I need to consult with my sister. Do you still need this?” Celestia asked, holding the page a little higher in her magical grasp.

“No, Your Highness. As I said before, we won't be able to do anything with it until the ~human~ can speak at least passable Equestrian. Until then, we’re kind of stuck here.”

“Thank you, Bunsen. Until that time, I suggest you get back to work on the omniscope. Please, carry on with the good work,” Celestia said as she charged her horn. There was a familiar sensation of disorientation, and suddenly the research wing was replaced by her sister’s bedroom.

Unfortunately, it looked like Luna had yet to go to bed, and wasn’t even in her own room. Celestia pouted in frustration as she charged her horn again. She was still scheduled for a press conference in about an hour, and had a meeting with the alien representatives sometime later today, but she still felt she had enough time to check this suspicion.

She just didn't have time to hunt down her sister. She’d send a note as soon as she got to the library. Hopefully Luna would join her before the real headaches of the day began.

I grumbled a bit as I entered the training yard. All around us I could see soldiers exercise, perform drills, and generally work hard to make themselves the most deadly force on the planet. There was also a snack table nearby, loaded with large water coolers, and oddly enough, small candies. I made a mental note to ask about that later, but at the moment, I had other concerns.

Many of the soldiers stopped their training when they saw Rainbow, Evening and me enter, followed closely by my escort. “Why are we doing this again?” I asked, still not happy with the blue pegasus.

“We need get you better. All way better, and that involve get you in shape,” Rainbow answered.

“Not only being that, but also need information on you body, how it affect by heal magic, now that heal finally stop. Need know all difference, you only one know where strength lying,” Evening said as she readied her clipboard and quill.

I nodded, getting the general gist of what she meant. They wanted to know how different I was from a normal human’s limits. I immediately spotted a problem with that, though. “Um… well, I don't mean to be negative, but how will we be able to do that without shared units of measurements?”

This made Evening look confused for a little bit, but it was quickly replaced by understanding. “Oh… not think about weight difference… is gravity here different?” She asked curiously.

I shook my head. “No, at least not from what I can tell. Our two planets’ gravities are pretty much the same.” I actually felt pretty confident about this one; stronger muscles or no, you can actually feel it in your bones when you’re in higher or lower gravity.

“Then most lift same, if know weight of similar object.”

I shook my head again. “That’s really not going to cut it. I only lifted weights a couple of times before, so I really have no clue how heavy things are supposed to be.”

Evening deflated a little at that. “Well, still need knowledge about you body work, how strong, heaviest weight to carry, thing like that. So, if start over here? We start small, work way up.”

She led me to an area that consisted of mainly smaller weights, as well as a large collection of unicorn soldiers. Again, I was struck at how similar our two cultures had developed, despite them having hooves. Most of these weights would have gone into a gym back home without a second thought, though there were still a few that I had no clue what they were for.

Shrugging my shoulders a little, I went to what I guessed was the mid-ranged weights and picked up some dumbbells.

“Wow! Careful is being!” Rainbow shouted as I overcompensated and nearly beaned her in the face.

“Sorry! I kind of forgot my strength, there,” I said as I put the weights back. This was true; despite the fact that I had six months to test the limits of my enhanced body, it still never felt real to me. When I had picked up the weights, subconsciously I had judged them to be about twenty to twenty-five pounds, and had lifted with roughly that much force.

These felt more like twenty to twenty-five ounces. Not even remotely heavy.

With a resigned sigh, I moved up to heavier weights, and was just about to grab some before the sound of someone clearing their throat interrupted me.

Standing at my side was one of those 'normal’ Ponies, though another look changed that initial assumption. He had no horn or wings, but his teal eyes were slitted like a cat’s, and his friendly smile revealed a set of fangs, clearly marking him as one of those night-time Ponies. He wasn't wearing anything, though not a whole lot of Ponies out here in the yard were. His clothesless situation only revealed the multitude of scars that ran all over his dark blue coat, though, with the most noticeable one being the scar that ran across one of his eyes.

His messy mane and tail were both tri-colored, an unusual trait in the Ponies I’d seen so far, though his colors were much more muted than the other ponies I’ve seen with multi-colored hair, his being only alternating shades of grey. On his flanks was one of those strange marks that all adult Ponies seem to have; a blue kite shield with a crescent moon superimposed over it. Flanking that shield was a pair of wings, though why that was was anyone’s guess.

He said something to Evening, his tone polite--deferential, even--though it was clearly formed in a question.

“We run test, figure out his strength, how body works, what happen in stress, all thing. Sensing device active, find lots of things about him.”

“Yeah! But main we find limit, so I whip in shape!” Rainbow added, striking a proud-looking pose.

This only seemed to amuse the stallion. He said something, his grin wry, but his tone still respectful.

“Well, if you want, you help,” Evening said as she started making her horn glow.

“Thank you, Lady Twinkle. If follow me? These unicorn weight. We use these make sure War Wizards not fail fitness test. Good idea, work small to big, when exercising. Rule first about work and train new race: When look limits, start big, work down,” the normal pony said with a smile. He then turned around and began cantering towards the other end of the yard. It was the end that I had been deliberately avoiding looking at, since the weights it contained had more in common with local geography than with anything I’d find in Gold’s Gym.

“Pardon me, but what’s your name?” I asked as I nervously eyed a 'normal’ pony lifting a rock that had to have been as large as I was.

“I Warrior Wind. Now, no be nervous, I here help. But please, start by lift this rock here,” he said, as he put his hoof on the boulder next to him.

I blinked in disbelief. The thing was easily the size of my dad’s old toolshed. In fact, I had mistaken it for a decorative piece before Warrior had pointed it out to me. “Uh… I… don’t think that’s even possible…” I said as I made my way around the intimidating rock.

“Uh, yes Warrior, not think most Dirt Ponies lift this big,” Rainbow said next to me.

This immediately freaked me out. “Wait, what’s a Dirt Pony? Are you saying there's a kind of pony that could actually lift something like that!?”

Warrior Wind’s booming laughter could probably have been heard on the other side of the planet. “Defender, I Dirt Pony. We three basic kinds pony, with lower kinds, but basic is Pegasus, Unicorn, and Dirt Pony. Each have gift, but basic is sky, magic and earth,” he explained, clearing up something I had wondered about for a while. “We Dirt Ponies… better is show. Hey! Loudfeet!”

That last part wasn't shouted at me, but at one of the soldiers who was currently working with some of the smaller rocks. They were still huge, but compared to the boulder that I was being asked to lift, they were pretty puny.

The pony in question was the beefiest pony I had ever seen, including that weird white Pegasus with the tiny wings I had seen in the town back near my cave. He dropped the rocks he was carrying and stepped up, his expression questioning, but he didn't say anything. All he did was position himself next to Warrior and snap off a crisp, clean salute.

“Sergeant Loudfeet, minding give friend demonstrate of Dirt Pony strength?” Warrior said, his smile widening with every second.

The Sergeant shouted an affirmative, turned around, stood up on his hind hooves, and stretched his hooves as wide as they could go. He then placed them on the sides of the boulder, clenched his teeth, and grunted, but with no other apparent effort he lifted the rock off the ground.

If that was all he did, I would have still been struck speechless, but he wasn't even remotely finished. With another grunt, the Dirt Pony fell backwards, pulling the rock with him until he was lying on his back. He then positioned his hind hooves on the underside of the rock, got a different grip with his fore hooves, then pushed upwards.

For a brief moment, he looked like he was standing upside down, his feet on the boulder 'floor,’ while his back was holding up the dirt 'ceiling.’ He took a deep breath, bent his knees, then started to bench press what was probably well over four tons.

I stared, blinked, rubbed my eyes, then looked again. Finally, I threw my hands up in disgust. “Why am I even surprised!? I mean, it’s not like your rulers can control the freaking sun and moon or anything! Compared to that, this is practically tame!!”

“You being good?” Evening asked as the Sergeant in front of me righted himself, set down the boulder, and cut a sharp salute to Warrior.

“As you being,” Warrior Wind said with a negligent wave.

The soldier turned and went back to his routine as Warrior turned his attention back to me. “No feel bad if not lift, Thunderfeet work years before that strong. I not even close. That too, but also Dirt Pony. Very strong. But still try, need see if possible, know where maximum alien strength lie, if you is experiment weapon, you have maximum strength?” he asked, suddenly very serious.

They wanted to know what they were up against. I could understand that, but I also knew something that they didn’t; it was that a space-age civilizations wouldn’t be waging a war of troops against troops. Any ground combat would have been a formality, brought on only when they needed to take planetary defensive positions, or to pacify the remaining populus. “No, I wouldn't be a good measure for that. I got the feeling that I was made for stealth, not strength. Yes, I’m stronger than I should be, but you shouldn't assume I’m the strongest they can make. Besides,” I twisted my mouth ruefully, “they’ll only resort to hand-to-hand as a last resort.”

The pony in front of me smiled sadly at that. “You think not know that? They throw rocks from space, kill in instant,” he said quietly, probably to keep the other troops from hearing. “We already know. Huge boon, not being attacked. Huge help, they here defend against real threat. But what happen after? What happen when threat disappear?”

I smiled, nodded, but didn’t say anything. His men needed to believe that they had a leg up on the enemy, even if it was an extremely small one. With no more backtalk, I walked up to the boulder and cricked my neck. “Well, let’s see how much super strength I have left, then.”

With a grunt, I reached out, grabbed each side of the massive rock, and heaved. As I expected, I couldn’t even budge the thing.

“Well, that’s a bust,” I said, releasing my grip and stepping back. I didn’t want to throw my back out, so I hadn’t given it everything I had. I just knew that what I had wasn’t enough.

“Very good. Next!” Warrior said, immediately regaining his cheery demeanor and waving me towards a much, much smaller, yet still quite hefty, rock.

"This is going to be a long day…” I said as I bent down and wrapped my arms around its stony surface.

Rainbow Dash and Twilight watched the ~human~ try rock after progressively smaller rock until he found one that he could at least move.

“Good! That puts you at a little above average for Earth Ponies!” Twilight said, making a note of it on her clipboard.

“Jeez, if that’s what he’s like with enhancements, then how did his race hunt the other things on his planet?” Rainbow whispered to Twilight, disbelief in her voice. “I mean, he’s a carnivore, right? Doesn’t that mean he has to catch and kill things if he wants to eat? If he’s this weak, is everything on his planet weaker?”

“Rainbow, he’s not just a carnivore. He’s an omnivore, like a Thestral, or Captain Knight Breeze over there,” Twilight reproved her.

Rainbow just shrugged a little. “Whatever, my question’s still there, though. If his race is nothing but weaklings, then how did they hunt? The claws aren’t natural, and we’ve seen how his teeth are supposed to look like, and they’re pretty stupid for that, if you ask me.”

“Rainbow, you’re forgetting his planet doesn’t have magic! Earth Ponies augment themselves with magic, so it’s entirely possible that he doesn’t need to be that strong!” Twilight pointed out. She stared at ~Alex~ thoughtfully for a bit, though, as he held the rock in different stances and positions according to the captain’s instructions. “But… you do have a point, there. Griffons use weapons to hunt now, but before that, they used their claws and talons. Night Tribe ponies primarily ate fish as their meat source... but ~Alex’s~ people don’t look like predators. He’s really more of a… scavenger, now that I think about it.”

“No, we hunters,” a voice called out, making them realize that the ~human’s~ hearing was better than they thought.

Both ponies looked up to see ~Alex~ put down a rock that was a bit bigger than his torso, a wry expression on his face.

“If you’re a hunter, then how did your people hunt when first starting out?” Twilight asked curiously.

“Yeah, you got to admit, you guys don’t look particularly impressive,” Rainbow added.

The ~human~ grinned, his unnaturally sharp teeth and black, soulless eyes making the friendly gesture a lot more unnerving than he probably intended. “You right, Evening, Rainbow. We bodies not built be predator. We bodies built scavenger, and compare most other creature, we look pitiful. We MINDS, though...” He trailed off, as if he were trying to figure out how to say what he was trying to say.

“Um… you aren’t really making a good case for yourself when you said you were a hunter there, pal,” Rainbow said, a little confused.

Suddenly, ~Alex’s~ face lit up, as if he had thought of something. “Tell me, how long you run?”

This seemed to confuse the ponies even further. However, this did not stop Rainbow from puffing out her chest and flying a little higher. “My wing power is 16.5! I’m able to break the speed of sound if I have to!” she said, her pride ringing through her voice.

The ~human~ looked impressed, but a little confused. “While that… cold, not what asked. How long can run? How long keep pace? How long till need food? Water? Sleep?”

This deflated Rainbow a bit. “I… I don’t know about food and sleep and stuff like that, but I can go for about fifteen minutes at full speed until I need rest, about a half an hour to an hour if I go a bit slower,” Rainbow said with a shrug.

Captain Breeze let out a low whistle. “That pretty impressive, Miss Dash. Most ponies are only capable of about thirty minutes tops before they’re wasted.”

“As for food, water and sleep, a pony can go about one and a half days without water, six without sleep, and two weeks without food,” Twilight rattled off.

The human nodded, his eyes twinkling with mischief, then got back up. “Tell me, if you were, say, pig, and I were walk up to you, what would do?”

“Depends on the pig,” Rainbow said with a shrug.

The human raised an eyebrow at this.

“If it were one of Fluttershy’s or Applejack’s pigs, he probably wouldn’t do anything. Just sit there and wonder what you were doing,” Rainbow said with a shrug.

Twilight frowned at her. “I think he meant out in the wild, Rainbow.”

“Oh.” Rainbow thought for a second. “I guess I’d run away.”

The human smiled again. “You right. On my planet, we have creature similar to you pig. Would do same thing, if human walk up. In fact, most creature we hunt do that. Run second see, run second smell. They fast, too. Faster than us.” He looked like he wanted to say something else, but shook his head and looked around. “Is there track nearby? Need show. Can’t just tell.”

Rainbow perked up at this. “Track? Like a race?” she asked, her curiosity piqued.

“Hm… Kind of. Special race, special rules. You want?” he said, raising an eyebrow.

“Heck yeah, I want to race!” she shouted, pumping her hooves into the air.

Twilight looked at her sheet of paper, then shrugged. “Well, we needed to test his endurance and speed next, anyway, so…”

“This way. The guard’s track is just through these doors,” Knight said, cantering towards a small door set into one of the walls of the training yard. He pulled it open, then made his way through. Several troops followed him, clearly in interested in seeing where this was going.

Rainbow, Twilight, and ~Alex~ followed them, and got their first look at the Royal Guard’s running track. It was a pretty good-sized one, obviously used to train soldiers to be able to march in heavy armor for long periods of time. Both Rainbow and ~Alex~ lined up at the start, with the soldiers taking the stands nearby.

“So, what are the rules?” Rainbow asked, her competitive spirit shining brightly in her eyes.

“Very simple. You not use wings, only run. No let me get ahead you,” the human said as he began to go through an odd series of stretches. “Go fast as want, slow as want. You may lap many times as want. But my position ever reaches yours, not include lapping, you lose.”

Rainbow looked confused. “How do I win?”

The human just gave her another one of those sharp-toothed, unnerving grins. “You win if I give up,” he said simply. “And for purpose of match, me collapse counts give up.”

“I’ll keep track of the laps,” Twilight said, holding up her clipboard and quill.

“It would probably be better if you used the chalkboard over there, Miss Sparkle,” Captain Breeze said, pointing to the other end of the field as he went to sit with his stallions. “That way, we and the competitors can see where they are.”

“Ah, good idea, Captain. Thank you,” Twilight said as she trotted over to the board.

Both the ~human~ and Rainbow continued stretching for a bit, until they finally signalled that they were ready. They both crouched down in front of the starting line, Rainbow’s face contorted into a look of fierce determination, while ~Alex~ had one of mild certainty.

“Oh, one thing more,” ~Alex~ said, only loud enough for Rainbow to hear. “Make sure you be careful, there. Don’t kill self, try get away, okay?”

Rainbow frowned at that. “Wait, what?”

“On your mark, get set, GO!” Twilight shouted.

In a multicolored flash, Rainbow had shot out of the gate, determined to put as much distance between herself and the human as possible. She wasn’t going as fast as she possibly could, though, simply because of the no wings rule, and because of the fact that there was no finish line to race to. However, she still was going pretty freaking fast, probably somewhere around sixty miles per hour.

She passed him in a little more than a minute, again in almost three, and a third before five. Even though he pumped his arms as fast as he could, his legs moving like pistons, and his breath was already a heavy panting, his speed really wasn’t that impressive. Even with her constant passing, he still had a look of grim certainty on his face, as if he already knew how this was going to play out.

“Come on, you slowpoke! Aren’t you going to catch me?” Rainbow taunted him as she trotted backwards for a few yards, easily keeping pace with him. “You’ll never get me at that rate!”

All the ~human~ did was grin, shrug, and keep running. Rainbow shook her head, turned herself around, and turned on the juice again.

She couldn’t keep up that pace for long, though, slowing down to a canter, a brisk trot, then to a fast walk. She had about twenty laps on him now, and since the track was about a mile long, he would have to travel a pretty hefty distance to reach her. She was tired, though. Her legs were aching, and she was short of breath. If she had been allowed to use her wings, she probably would have been at least three times as far, and not nearly as winded.

That being said, she still felt pretty confident about where she stood. She spotted ~Alex~ just ahead of her, his legs still pumping, but his speed was about a third of what Rainbow had been doing. “I can’t believe it. He’s never going to catch me like that!” she said.

“She’s fast, I think I’m in love,” Lieutenant Feather said, his eyes glued to the blue pony below.

“This isn’t even her top speed, you goof. If she’d been using her wings, she’d have been going so fast she would have made a Sonic Rainboom by now,” Sergeant Thunderhooves said, his eyes fixed on the strange alien below. “Cap, what did you say the rules of this shindig were, again?”

“She loses if he catches her, but he loses if he gives up. Collapsing counts,” Captain Breeze said, his eyes locked on the spectacle below. The ~human~ couldn’t match her speed; he was barely going twenty miles per hour. There was absolutely no way he’d beat her in a straight dash, but something about the way he moved set him on edge.

“That all? I betcha fifty bits he gives up after only forty minutes,” Thunderhooves said, waving his hoof in disdain.

“I dunno, he’s got a lot of gumption, I’d give him fifty, tops,” Lieutenant Feather said, his eyes never leaving the track.

More bets were made as Rainbow’s lead increased by a larger and larger margin. Eventually, she slowed down after the thirty minute mark, stacking an impressive thirty laps against his almost pitiful ten.

“Is that the fastest you can go?” she shouted loud enough for everyone to hear.

The human shouted something else back in his own tongue.

“What’d he say, Captain?” Sergeant Thunderhooves asked curiously.

“He said: ‘Yeah, pretty much.’” Captain Breeze said, his eyes narrowing in thought. Suddenly, his eyes widened as something occurred to him. “Boys, what’s the current betting pool?”

“Fifty bits each on when he gives up. The longest time is Soft Shoes here, who thinks he’s going to give up in about an hour.”

Captain Breeze stared at the human for a few seconds longer before turning to the others. “Fifty bits says he catches her in roughly two hours.”

The others started laughing. “No way, Cap. If that’s the fastest he can go, he’ll have to kill himself to reach her!” Lieutenant Feather said dismissively. “There’s no way he’d catch up; the moment he takes a second to catch his breath, she’ll gain another thirty laps on him! There’s no way he’ll beat her!”

The captain didn’t say anything. Instead, he just settled down for the long haul. Officially, he wasn’t on duty. Unofficially, he and his stallions were standing guard, making sure that none of these tests were interrupted by outside interference. Compared to watching an empty room for six hours straight, watching a race like this was practically carnival-level entertainment.

“Fifty on him winning,” he said again.

The others just rolled their eyes and continued watching. If the captain wanted to blow half a day’s wages on something this trivial, they weren’t about to complain.

I wasn’t out of shape. At least, not exactly.

Every morning I did the usual suite of calisthenics: pushups, situps, and squats, as well as a few things of my own design. Not only that, but the alien tech in me was more than enough to keep me in shape as long as I was fed. After all, they kept us stored in a tank, only letting us out for missions. It stood to reason, then, that they had put in some form of built-in exercise to keep us in fighting shape.

That being said, I wasn’t really used to running this fast for this long. I could still do it, no doubt about it. It was just that my muscles were going to hate me for it later.

Yeah, I could move a lot faster than this, but only in short bursts. Moving like that would have tired me out instantly, and besides, moving like that was only for dodging plasma fire.

No, like the good old tortoise of old, slow and steady was going to win this one.

Thirty minutes passed, and Rainbow had already slowed down to a crawl. Huh, good to know they can’t keep something like that up forever, I thought when she failed to pass me. I knew it was a good idea to keep her from using her wings; otherwise we would have been here for days as I tried to catch up to her. My augmented ears could hear her labored breathing behind me, but that only fueled my determination.

I was going to win this; she just didn’t know it yet.

After an hour, the other soldiers were just staring in blank comprehension. “He’s breathing heavily, right? He’s about to pass out, right!?” Thunderhooves asked, worry bleeding into his voice. “Should we… Should we call a medic?”

“He’s breathing heavily, but if anything, he just hit his stride,” Soft Shoes said quietly. “What… What are these things made of? Steel!?”

“Oh, dear Celestia, he just passed her again,” Lieutenant Feather said after rubbing his eyes a bit.

Fifteen more minutes passed, and he was still going at that same, steady, deceptive pace that just seemed to eat the track underneath him. Lap after lap disappeared behind him, and after another fifteen minutes, he was already up to thirty, while Rainbow had barely completed an additional ten.

Rainbow Dash seemed to have realized this, judging by the way she started picking up her pace again.

The thing was, though, that the pony body might have been capable of stupendous feats and magically augmented powers, but each one of those abilities burned calories faster than a dragon torched a town. They needed food, water, and lots of rest in order to perform any of them. It was the reason why candy, sweets, and other high-calorie foods were so popular among the Equestrians; magic was such a central part of their everyday lives that they needed all those extra calories just to get by.

But not ~humans,~ apparently.

Even though she was going much faster than before, it wasn’t nearly at the same breakneck pace as when she started. She was struggling, and it showed.

Fifteen more minutes and he was still gaining, even with her increased speed. He was only twelve laps down, now, and Rainbow looked like she was freaking out. With a sudden noise of panic, she took off as hard and as fast as she could, trying to get back the lost distance.

It was too bad, then, that she had nothing left in the tank.

She only made it another lap before she collapsed on the ground, panting as if she were trying to suck in all of Equis’s air as quickly as possible. Shaking like a leaf, she got back up to her hooves and tried to put a little more distance between them, but she fell again, and did not get back up.

The ponies present got up and rushed forward, just as the human passed her. He was only eleven laps down, now, and Captain Breeze knew that it wouldn’t take too long for him to catch up with her. Another half hour at most, especially if she wasn’t moving any. He seemed to realize this, and with victory in sight, he increased his speed. Not significantly, but just enough to be noticed.

“Rainbow, are you alright!?” Twilight said as she came up to her wheezing blue friend.

“I’m… I’m okay… I… I just need… a drink… of water…” she gasped as she lay there, cradling her front right hoof. Lieutenant Feather reached out to help her, but she just waved him off. “I’m okay, I still got to win this. He can’t keep running like that forever, right?”

With a rhythmic thumping sound, the ~human~ came around the bend again, and passed the ponies gathered there. “Ten more laps,” he said, as casually as you might tell someone that it was a fine day today.

“Get out of here, you guys! I have to win this!” Rainbow shouted, waving the crowd off. Once they backed away sufficiently to suit her tastes, she got back up to her hooves, and very slowly, began putting one hoof in front of the other.

She was able to complete an additional lap before he finally caught up to her. He was still breathing heavily, and sweat was pouring down his face, but otherwise he didn’t look any worse for wear. ~Alex~ said something as he came up to her and lightly touched her withers, but whatever it was, Captain Breeze was too far away to hear.

The ~human~ came to a halt just as Rainbow sat down heavily, her tongue hanging out like a dog as she tried to catch her breath. The other ponies all rushed over, eager to hear what the two were saying.

“How did you freaking do that?” Rainbow asked between gasps, completely perplexed.

~Alex~ said something, something that sounded more like a speech, than anything, but whatever it was made the ponies that could understand him pale.

“Sir, what did he say?” Thunderhooves asked, somewhat confused.

Knight Breeze gulped, shook his head, then looked at his subordinate. “He said; ‘Three days no water, no sleep for over week, a month no food. When prey bed down sleep, we never stop running. When prey run for lives, we follow, using tracks for guides for days. We need no claws, teeth or magic to make kill.’” Knight Breeze shook his head again, then looked up at the human with an odd mix of wonder and horror. “‘No, our natural weapon determination. We weaponized will to never give up.’”

Author's Notes:

Well, here's the next chapter! I hope you enjoyed it!

Also, for any of you who think that this isn't how this would go down, just remember: Rainbow is an athlete, but her specialty is flying. Applejack and Pinkie Pie are both able to keep up with her if she's bound to the ground. Pinkie even more so, because she's freaking Pinkie. Also, remember the time where Pinkie was hunting Dash, hoping that she'd be down for some pranks? Rainbow got winded and gave up pretty easily, all things considered.

Anyway, make of this what you will, and if you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them. After all, I'm not a horse specialist. I'm a computer programmer with a penchant for writing, so I am REALLY open to suggestion.

Tip Jar!