The inside of Boss's office was filled with book shelves. My heart beat faster at the sight of those shelves.

Knowledge is power and books were an uncorrupted media. Canary was standing behind me. I could almost feel his filthy dog zebra eyes on the back of my head. He was probably waiting for just the right moment to have his beloved leader slain so he could take my place. I wasn't going to let that happen.

There was a single desk complete with two modified chairs to make it easier for quadrupeds to sit in. One chair was behind the desk and one was in front of it. Boss sat in the chair behind the desk and stared at me. "Sit." She motioned at the other chair.

Chairs suck. When I built my house, it was going to have benches, and lots of them. Heck, I'd get the best throw pillow in existence before I sat in a chair like the one I was sitting in again. It pressed against my form in all the wrong places. "I have."

She nodded. "So I can see. Now, let's agree on terms." She pulled out several sheets of paper.

I tried not to get excited. I hadn't seen paper since I had arrived in this world. Well, except for the scrap which had my name on it. I smiled when I thought about Fireball. "Right. I would like to request a great portion of your forces to help fight off the slaves in a month's time. I think it sounds reasonable." I smiled wider.

She shook her head. "Denied." She didn't give a reason.

"Why?" Figures. Dogs.

"In the time it took to clear out the rubble from the latest damage to the building, the fires in the coal veins increased by Twenty degrees centigrade from the lack of constant attention on it. If we are to save the trapped slaves we must not leave the fires without being to cool them or else the entire network of tunnels could collapse."

Shit. That's an actual reason. Why can't I be dealing with irrational reasons so I could just get away with sabotaging everything without looking like the bad guy?

Honestly, my goals were not noble but they required the support of the people at first. Without that, I couldn't start my island empire.

Which mean I had to take the honest route. "How many of your people could you spare for a raid on the Magickers? Surely a better spell for cooling things is in their t-" Pop. A book fell off of the shelf.

I stopped and stared at her book shelves. The books were shaking off. As I watched, another one fell. My eyes widened. "I have to get out of here!" I stood up to leave and then the shaking stopped.

I was at the door and was about to peek my head out when it slammed open and the room was bathed in a mass of magic beams and spells. Only three of my Flock got their spells up in time. Boss, the stupid bitch, had sadly gotten under her desk when the spells hit her walls. She was perfectly fine.\

I was fortunately enough, thrown behind the door. My form was small enough that I could fit there without too much trouble.

Oh right. I forgot to mention that Canary made it out alive. That's to threats that I wanted neutralized that hadn't happened yet. And that's not even counting the spell slingers that had broken in.

There were three of them; two unicorns and one zebra. The unicorns had large scar tissue surrounding where their cutie marks had been and I distantly remembered acid baths being a suitable punishment for ponies. I had to stifle a wince. I still didn't understand the system behind the marks on Zebras, but as far as I could tell it was a highly complex tattoo. Pony cutie marks? That was magic showing talent. If that was removed how would you look at yourself?

Would it be considered a desecration of the mind as well as the body? Were cutie marks an expression of permanency of their talent in the craft or did removing the magic mark remove the knack?

More importantly, did that make it easier to brainwash ponies?

I filed it into the back of my mind to look into. It might be a suitable punishment for criminals.

I snapped back to reality, the magic users were gone. I opened the door. Little piles of ash littered the ground. The remnants of fallen members of my Flock. "You won't be forgotten." I said loudly, pretending to charismatically declare my intent for revenge. The truth was that I didn't even know their names.

Luckily, Floyd was alive. He smiled at me. "It's good to have a caring leader." I guess I was doing something right. I walked over to the ash piled and looked through their satchels. I pulled out a better ruby than the one I had and an emerald.

Boss crawled out from under her desk. "What the Hell was that?"

I had never agreed more with a dog. "I have no idea. I thought is was an assassination attempt but why didn't they try to finish the job?"

She stood straight up and flipped the desk. I narrowly dodged the flying desk. Taped to the bottom of the desk were two straight swords of more than usable condition. They were maybe two feet in length each.

Of course, if I were lying to you I would tell you that I instantly knew how to use the sword and that I went and kicked some magic tail and then everything was happy smiley.

Truth is, I haven't been in a fight in my life. Back on Earth, I made fights between other people and dodged fights by simply not being there.

So when Boss ripped both of the swords free of the tape and brandished them to dual wield, I let her do so without a word. She appeared to be proficient enough with them and I figured she wasn't going to kill me quite yet.

She growled and looked at us all. "They are trying to stop the fires!"

I blinked at her. "Isn't that what you were trying to do?"

She rolled her eyes. "Do you really want those magic bastards to get a hold of all those slaves?"

I shook my head and stood up. "I'll help as best I can. FLOCK. Prepare for battle." My group took up defensive positions at my side and we walked out with the swordsdog in tow.

We raced down the tunnels and passed by many a blood stain and ash pile. We caught sight of the zebra that had attacked us lying against the wall and bleeding out. He had been stabbed and then clearly left to die.

"Help me." He rasped. I looked at him and grabbed his neck between my two front hooves.

"Anybody have any idea why I shouldn't kill him?"

Boss moved to speak up and I snapped his neck. He fell to the ground. I kicked his body over. "Why did you...?" She muttered.

"I'll feel guilty for it later. We have another two unicorns to kill." I said. It was true that I would feel guilty. In hind sight, I should've drained him of information and then killed him. I would've been more prepared for later.

Canary nodded at me.

Floyd caught the nod and smiled. "As long as you regret it."

Boss shook her head. "You are going to be the death of me." She glared over at me.

It was more than a subtle hint that she understood how little I valued her life than a simple joke. It was hint that she understood I would not hesitate to put her down when it benefited me.

It was another example of me underestimating the intelligence of other beings. That sort of mistake would kill me in the long run.

No. That sort of mistake would leave me with my guts spilled out and Canary ruling my islands.

I merely shrugged in response to her and like I've said before, quadrupedal shrugging is weird. "Maybe so."

She bounded down the tunnel and I was close behind her, my flock following. I already had a topaz in my mouth to prepare the barrier.

The rest of the way passed in a blur of smooth rock and occasional side passage ways. The rest of the trip to the fire was only a few minutes and the rock around us was gradually getting hotter. By the time we were within sight distance of a collapsed portion of the ceiling with a large coal vein visibly on fire through more cracks, it was almost a sauna.

The two unicorns had more than a hundred lumbering bodies around them and both of their horns were glowing a pale blue color. And as I watched the two savages the temperature of the room dropped and I realized the horrid truth.

They had killed most of the workers and had brought their bodies back to life.

There was a virtual legion of undead ponies between us and the unicorns.

"FOR FREEDOM!" And of course the stupid dog dove in the midst of them and began slashing and generally hacking the undead to pieces. Bits of bone and gore erupted every which way. Turns out my future adversary was a good swordsdog.

I was not a dog nor was I good at the sword. In fact, I had no method of attack that all but guaranteed my safety.

And then the unicorns turned to us and everything went to hell.

The Flock scattered and ran up the tunnel like cowards. The zombies slowly started to reform, albeit at a slower rate and looking far more decayed.

And finally the fire in that particular coal vein winked out of existence.

So there I was, the only being on my side was a damn dog and I was facing the undead hordes plus two apparent super unicorns. What did I do? I stood my ground.

Ok. I was more paralyzed by fear. The point of the matter was that I hadn't fled.

And then the unicorns looked at me and if I hadn't already used to bathroom earlier I would have wet myself. Their eyes were filled with fire and their glares were filled with poison. And then their horns glowed red and I barely had the sense of mind to bring up the barrier. And then the air was shattered by an immense ringing noise.

The cavern shook slightly and I was forced to drop the spell. A few tiny rocks fell down from the tunnel ceiling and bounced off of my head. It would have been comedic if I wasn't about to die.

I was already mostly drained from the few seconds of maintaining that spell. I took in slow breathed, my heart pounding.

The dog that I had sworn vengeance continued to keep killing the undead, the blades slowly dulling further and further until they were of as little use as kitchen knives.

And then another spell was cast at me and I reflected it straight up as well. And the bell chime hit me again and my ears ached and every pore felt like it was fire and my breath got shallower. It took all I had not to run for it and leave Boss to her death. And my knees locked in place.

And that was when I decided that I did not like combat.

Another spell went through the air at me and I reflected it again and while the bell chime echoed through the tunnel I collapsed on the ground..

My dreams of my empire collapsed from my mind.

Who was I kidding? I was just some guy from another universe/planet who just happened to get sent here. I couldn't rule this fight, let alone this island. What was the point in trying to fight? My mind was willing but my body was weak.

I was weak. Helpless. Pathetic.

They cast one more spell at me and I summoned what little remained of my will power up to deflect it. It shot straight up and the tunnel rumbled ominously. And the bell toll didn't stop. It sounded like church bells ringing for someone. Did the bells toll for me?

And then there was a scream and then the rocks started falling and they were falling on me and then something hit me and then there was nothing but darkness.

Darkness and breathing.