Author's Notes:

So this chapter is a bit darker than the last and Zecora is in it, I tried but I just couldn't get anything to rhyme so I gave her dialogue that doesn't rhyme, I did manage keep her in character though.

"Hey, so how's that suit o' armor coming?" Applejack leaned against the open door of the barn while the cool air of early morning fell over her. She looked over the forge that Sam was currently using.

It had taken longer then she had anticipated but with Mac's help they managed to get the forge up and running and just like they agreed Sam had started working immediately. That was two weeks ago now and the armor looked like it was coming along fine and the weapons he was making were finally taking shape.

Straightening up from his position over the forge he turned his head to Applejack,"Its actually coming along well, I'm making sure that it's high quality so it'll take a bit longer to make than lower quality armor but it's worth it." He nodded looking over his work,"I gotta thank you for still paying me while I do this too."

"Well if your as good as you say you are and that armor meets ma' standards of quality then my investment will of been a good one." She shrugged,"I trust ya though so that helps your case."

He smiled in response,"So you know I'm making the Armor to my specifications right?" Sam leaned back down and continued working,"I only knew my size and all so I hope that's okay."

"Yeah it'll be fine, fact that's how we'all test its quality!" Applejack stated, Sam looked up with his eyebrow raised,"You can wear it and we'll all hit you to see just how it is."

Sam let out a sigh that lead into a laugh,"Well that is one way to test out armor."

Applejack nodded with a humorous grin,"Yeah it is, I also got ta' ask bout the sword and stuff that your making too."

"Well what about the weapons?" He asked while working on the breastplate.

"Are they forming up nicely? Are they strong and all that?"

"Yeah the sword blade is doing good, the heater shield I'm making is doing pretty good I'm happy with the way the metal has formed," He pointed over to the shield shaped piece of metal leaned up against the forge,"And finally the pike I'm making has a good strong tip to it."

"Glad to hear that, especially since yer putting so much time into this project." She stepped away from the door,"I've got to get to work, can't wait to see the finished project."

"Yeah, see you later AJ."

He worked hard and put all his focus into what he was doing so to get the metal just right and before he knew it, it was midday. So Samuel stopped for lunch.

He sat outside underneath the shade of a nearby tree, reading a book on the griffon diamond dog war and dutifully ate at the grapes he had brought that day. In the middle of a bite he heard the distinctive flap of Pegasus wings.

"Ah great." He knew from just the flap of her wings that it was Rainbow dash.

He and Rainbow Dash had never really seen eye to eye, her brash and egotistical personality had caused more than a few fights between the two. The first time he met her she told him that she thought he was a bald ape that shouldn't be here and just how barbaric it was that he ate meat. He knew she was friends with a griffon, Twilight had told him the story and that let him know that she didn't have a problem with meat eaters but with him.

"You know," Dash landed in front of Sam," I really don't see why Applejack keeps a pet like you on her farm,"she snickered and crossed her arms over her belly, she was in full wonderbolts uniform,"I mean I understand that animals belong on a farm but generally they're useful."

He snorted and stood up carefully resting his book on the ground,"You see Rainbow I am useful, unlike a a certain blue Pegasus who's only good for parlor tricks in the air," he waved his hands in the air mockingly," I actually work."

Rainbow's smirk disappeared, in its place came a frown,"So what, are you saying that the wonder bolts who do the these "parlor" tricks are useless?"

"Well yeah, technically they aren't useful, they just do tricks, but their tricks are entertaining where as yours are somewhat boring." Sam stated in a matter of fact tone.

She growled quietly in anger her nostrils flaring,"I should beat the shit out of you for saying that," she uncrossed her arms and took a step towards him her eyes narrow and wings jittery.

Taking a deep breath Sam shook his head, he didn't want to fight with her right now,"What are you even here for Rainbow? I know it's not to stand there just so you can insult and threaten me all day."

She stared him in the eyes for a couple of seconds before huffing and letting her shoulders drop,"I came by to see Applejack and ask her if she could sell apple pie at the next wonderbolts event, Soarin really likes Apple family pies."

"There you go, why couldn't you have just asked me instead of fighting with me?" He asked incredulously.

She shrugged,"I just don't like barbaric aliens that could stab me in the back at any time I guess." She retorted.

Sighing, Sam shook his head,"She's in the southern part of the orchard where the trees are more spread out, you can't miss her."

Without replying she turned and took off for Applejack. Once again shaking his head Sam packed up his food, marked his place he was at in the book and returned to work, he had a suit of armor to finish.

~

Bone claw was in the main hall of his new hideout, he had a scar going down at an angle on his face and he wore makeshift metal plates tied into his clothes as armor. He sat perched on a rock chair shaped somewhat like a throne that overlooked the entirety of the hall. In his hand he twiddled with the razor sharp bones he'd used like knives and watched his men rape one of the mares they had managed to kidnap. Her name was Jewel Stand or something along those lines but that didn't matter, what mattered was how profitable she would be after they'd fully broken her in.

Each pony they kidnapped had no friends and either no family or no contact with their family, they were ponies that wouldn't be noticed when they disappeared. Once here they suffered a fate worse than death, the stallions are made into slave workers for the diamond dogs and forced to work in the mines digging gems for them until someone decided to make a bid on them. The mares, they were turned into sex slaves. The dogs quite enjoyed "breaking them in" and once they were ready they would be sold to the highest bidding buyer.

They had buyers contacting them for their merchandise from all over, Griffonstone, Yakistan hell they even had a contact in Canterlot and all of them were wealthy. Which was good, it meant that the initial price was high and the bids just took it higher. This alongside what they were digging up in the mines was a nice growing operation that made more and more money everyday. This move had been a good decision on Bone's part.

After killing Rock Smasher back in the crystal kingdom he had taken his pack over, that left only him in the area since he had killed tunnel digger and taken his pack too. For a while it was nice. He was making a lot of money off the crystal ponies after all they are rare and a broken in crystal slave? Even rarer. But eventually the crystal ponies got wise to the fact that some of them were disappearing and unlike most other diamond dogs Bone Claw was smart. He knew not to mess with the might of prince Shining Armor's crystal guards. So he moved.

There had been a few places he looked at before considering ponyville. Appleoosa was the first, isolated and vulnerable but the population wasn't to big and they would of been noticed quickly. Canterlot was his second choice, it housed a large population of very valuable ponies that didn't give a rats ass about each other. It would have been perfect if not for the fact that there weren't any good places to house his men there, the caverns the changeling had used were now heavily guarded. Finally even if they had found a good hideout what would happen if they got caught in the heart of the royal guard? They would be wiped out faster than they could react.

When he came to ponyville he realized just what a lucky find they had come across, a good sized town filled with ponies that were valuable, a huge place to hideout and there were barely any guards. Sure the Mane six was here and Bone was wise enough to know not to take them on but there was a better chance they could escape from them than say the entire royal guard.

Although he was aware of the fact that the princess Twilight knew of they're presence here. He learned this through the ponies he had recently paid off to tell him what was going on in town and who was a good candidate for kidnapping. This Twilight was a smart one, she managed to connect his crew to the crystal kingdom but she didn't have any proof of it so she couldn't act on it.

Because of that knew he had to keep low but recently he'd been working out a plan to get rich over the past couple days and this plan might bring more attention than he'd like but if they could get away with it...

"Red!" Bone barked out across the room his booming voice penetrating the shouts of the other dogs.

Seconds later a smaller diamond dog appeared before him his fur a tell tale red,"Yes Bone sir?" He bowed slightly showing off the proper amount of respect.

"Get the raid team together I wish to speak with them in the planning room." He snarled as he got up.

"Of course sir, right away!" Red scurried off to find the team.

Fifteen minutes later six different dogs stood in a smaller room, around a circular stone. On the stone was a crude map of ponyville.

"Alright then," Bone looked at his team and smiled,"How much do you hounds want to be rich?" He asked intertwining both hands behind his back.

"It's our only goal sir!" Each one responded in tandem.

"That's good, but tell me," he leaned over the map,"Are you driven enough to go after an element of harmony?"

The dogs looked at each for unsure of what to do but eventually they gave in, all of them turned back to him and nodded.

"Very well then, there's a certain Rainbow Pegasus who might be worth quite a bit..."

~

It had been three weeks since Sam had began his project and finally all the work he had put into it was about to come to light. In fact he was working on the last bit of it all now and there was only one thing left that he needed to make.

He stood outside over a picnic table with some measurements on paper.

"You are Samuel yes?" A strong feminine voice called out from behind Sam.

Turning around He was greeted with the sight of the zebra Zecora, she was taller than most mares he'd met so far as tall as he was and wore less clothes than most other mares. All she had on was a brown hood that concealed her face well, a brown animal hide bra and what looked like short shorts made of the same material as the bra,"Yeah I'm Sam, your Zecora right?"

She nodded flashing him a smile from under her hood,"Applebloom told me that if I could find it you would pay for cloth material that was light but thick." She held out her hands revealing a package that was concealed behind her back,"If so I have found and brought just the material that fits your needs."

Taking a step towards her Sam nodded,"Yeah I did ask Applebloom to see if you could do that for me, how much do you want for it?" He stopped in front of her and gave a friendly smile.

"I require no compensation for this the only thing I ask of you is to show me what you will do with it." She held out the package to him which he in turn took p.

"Alright if that's what you want then come over here." He motioned with his hand for her to follow.

As they made they're way into the barn he began explaining,"I'm making a suit of armor from my world." He stopped and waved his hand over the pieces of plate and chain mail scattered over the barn.

She raised an eyebrow and turned to him,"Why are you making armor?"

"If I can AJ said it'll prove to her that I know what I'm doing and she'll pay me more than my usual pay to fix and make her tools."

She hummed in understanding,"Then if you're making armor, why do you need this cloth?"

"Well," he began explaining,"There are parts to human armor that don't exist in this world. That cloth for example I'm going to use to make a padding for my upper body and legs, then I put on this here," He lifted up the chainmail cuirass and let it clink loudly,"This also doesn't exist here but what I do is put this over the cloth and now cuts from swords and arrow heads can't pierce through as easily." He then waved his hand towards the plate pieces,"That coupled with these plates and I'd be able to stop to most of the conventional weapons in this world, as long as I take care of it at least."

"That with your magic immunity would be dangerous." She agreed.

"Wait, how did you know about that?!" He asked swiftly in a concerned tone.

She let out a small laugh at his reaction,"I too am good friends with Twilight Sparkle and to me she entrusts information that I would not let public." She waved her hand in a dismissive manner,"I would never tell anyone that, after all I know how scared ponies can get over odd things."

"Oh okay, I guess that's not to bad then."

"No it is not, you needn't worry about it at all." She smiled assuringly and placed a hand on his shoulder,"Though I must admit with all I've heard about you from Twilight and Applebloom I cannot say that I'm not curious about you."

"Oh well... what do you want to know about?" Sam asked.

"Come let us sit outside at the table." She slid her arm down his shoulder and grabbed his elbow, leading him outside she sat herself down at the table and pulled him down next to her. She pulled her hood off giving Sam a look at her face and her hair which was generally straight hung down and looked more like the way other mares did their hair except shorter. She was fairly attractive to him.

"So uh..." he trailed off.

She smiled brightly at him,"I'd like to know about your world, at least what Twilight hasn't told me."

He talked with her for a long time about his world and what he knew about it, especially the history.

"So this Charlemagne, I can only hope I am pronouncing that correctly, he was called a barbarian by everyone else of his time yet he was the only one that made any advancements in education?"

He nodded,"Yeah kind of ironic isn't it?"

"Quite ironic." She agreed with a slight smile.

"Say we've talked about my world a lot, what about where your from huh? What's your home like?" Sam asked his curiosity peaked.

She looked down at the ground a small grimace on her face,"I... should probably get back to my hut, there are some potions I need to brew." Standing up she stretched her back and grunted.

He knew he'd done something wrong by the face she made,"I-I'm sorry if I upset you Zecora I didn't mean to."

"No, no it's okay I do actually need to get back," she pulled her hood over her head and began walking away,"Thanks for the talk Samuel, we should do it again you are interesting."

He sighed and watched her walk off of the farm and when she was gone he looked over to the barn,"Well I'm almost done no reason to stop now." And with that he went back to work.

~

It was done. A set of armor complete with a sword, shield and pike were finally done after four weeks of work. Sam looked over his work with pride.

"This is some nice work Sam." Mac said as he appreciated the craftsmanship laid on the table below him.

They stood in the living room of the apple family house, it was the end of the day and everyone was crowded around the table and inspecting the humans handy work in the light of the evening.

"How much does this weigh? I mean how do you move in all this?" Applebloom asked looking up to Sam from across the table.

"Well the armor is somewhere between forty five to fifty five pounds and that's less than the gear than a fireman-er pony carries."

"Really?" Applejack asked a surprised expression adorning her freckled face.

"Yeah, now the sword is about two pounds and the shield around ten, we include the pike which is somewhere around five pounds that mean tat all in all its around sixty two to seventy two pounds of gear. Still three Pounds less than a firepony's gear!"

Mac continued to look it over carefully in the slow manner that he was known for,"Ah think this is enough to show that he knows what he's doing ain't it AJ?" He asked leaning forward and placing his hands on the table to support himself.

"Yeah, this is some great work Sam, next time something needs fixing round' here I'll pay ya for your help instead of paying for new tools at a shop that's trying to scam me fer tools that'll break within the month." She nodded and patted her hand on his shoulder.

"You done good boy," Granny smiled,"But we don't have place or use for what ya made so I think you should keep it, after all it fits ya right?" Sam nodded,"Then ya might need it some time." She concluded.

"I guess Twilight wouldn't mind if I stored it all in the castle, in fact now that I think about it she'd probably want to study it."

Applejack nodded,"I guarantee ya she will look over with a fine tooth comb."

"Say you gonna need any help carrying this Sam?" Mac asked.

"Well it's not that heavy, but it would be awkward to carry all of it so yeah, I could use some help." He smiled appreciatively at Mac,"Thanks."

"Yeah well," Mac straightened up and grabbed the armor,"Thank me when we get there, grab them weapons and we'll get a move on."

Picking up what he needed Sam gave his goodbyes and set off with Mac.

"Tomorrow is Saturday, how bout' you start taking weekends off."

"What, really?"

"Well yeah we only need ya to work weekends when we're in the thick of the harvesting season," He explained,"Fact' we usually don't work weekends either, except Applejack, she likes to sell apples locally sometimes."

"Well I guess if you tell them that I'm not coming in tomorrow then sure I'll take the day off, don't know what I'll do though."

"There's a lot you can do," Entering town they saw the townsponies Either going home or shutting down their businesses.

"I mean there's tha' sugar cube corner, they make a good milkshake, that's always a nice thing." Mac wracked his brain for other things to do,"You could go swimming at the lake and I'm certain Twilight probably has something for you to do if you can't find anything you want to do."

"I'm sure I'll find something to do."

They continued to talk about what activities were available in town all the way to the castle and by the time they got there the sun had set. Sam opened the door and showed Mac the way to his room where they set down all the gear on his bed.

"Thanks for helping, I'll find a place for all this later so dont worry about it." Sam smiled and put his hands on his hips,"Do you need me to show you the way back out of the castle? I don't mind if you do the castle can be like a maze."

Mac shook his head,"Nah I remember the way back, I'll see ya later Sam." Patting the man on his shoulder he turned and exited the room.

Putting his arms up and over his head Sam stretched and grunted when he hit the right spot. Looking over his room he thought about what he could do now, after all he wasn't to tired.

His bed was against the middle of the left side wall, next to it was a night stand that had a lamp and a couple books on top. In front of the bed was his closet, which wasn't very populated all he had was some different colored t-shirts, a couple pairs of jeans and at the bottom he had three pairs of shoes, one of which was on his feet right now. At the end of the room was a balcony that overlooked the western side of ponyville, he'd asked for a room with a balcony and Twilight had been nice enough to give him one.

Sighing through his nose he decided he would go see if Twilight wanted to hang out. He went and checked on the study where they had talked about the diamond dogs and where a majority of his crash course on Equestrian culture had taken place. She wasn't there so she must be in her room he concluded, making his way up the castle stair he found her room and opened the door. Not there either. Maybe she was still in the throne room?

Retracing his steps down the stairs to the main level of the castle, when he entered the throne room Twilight stood hunched over the cutie map and muttering to herself. He still didn't like the name for it.

"You okay Twi?" He asked walking in to the room.

Twilight looked up from the map just long enough to see who it was before looking back down,"Hi Sam, what do you want?" Her tone slightly venomous.

Reaching the other side of the map he frowned at her,"I'm sorry if I'm interrupting something I just wanted to see what you were doing."

Sighing she stood up and rubbed a hand over the bridge of her nose as if to relieve some unseen tension,"I'm sorry Sam I've just been working on something that requires a lot of focus and attention is all, it's been really stressful because if I'm wrong then I've wasted two weeks of time on nothing," his wings fluttered in frustration,"but if I'm right..."

"What are you working on that's so important?" Sam asked raising an eyebrow.

"You want to know?" She asked looking him with an equally raised eyebrow.

"Well, yeah I'm kind of curious now." He relplied bringing his arms up and across his chest.

She smiled pleased that someone would listen,"Well I've been looking into some odd things that have been going on over the past couple of weeks," she waved her arm motioning for him to come over to her,"There's been multiple mysterious disappearances over the past month, each of them oddly similar."

"How so?" Sam asked moving beside her.

She pointed at eight marked points on the map,"These are where the ponies have disappeared, there's no similarity there but correlation is in the ponies themselves. Each week two ponies have disappeared and every time it's the same. A stallion and a mare both disappearing within two days of each other on the same days, Tuesday and Friday." She reached over and pulled a stack of eight papers each with a picture and details on the missing ponies,"So far eight have gone missing, each one of them with similar lives, not many friends if any and with no family or no contact with family." She turned her head to Sam with a concerned expression,"And Zecora has reported that every night somepony has gone missing she thinks she sees diamond dogs moving through the forest in the dark. You see the correlations in what I've found right?"

He nodded looking from her face to the map,"Yeah I do and you know I can't help but remember what you told me about the new diamond dogs in the area and how you suspect they were the pony traffickers from the crystal kingdom." He nodded and looked back to her face.

She had an excited smile,"You do too?! I've tried telling other ponies about this for weeks but they didn't believe me and told me to focus more on actual princess duties but you, you do believe me!" She pumped her fists in excitement,"Oh I know this is a serious matter and I shouldn't be happy but I can't believe that you believe me!"

Sam tried to keep a serious face but couldn't help it and start laughing at her antics,"Y-Yeah," his laughter died down enough to speak,"I-It is a serious matter and we need to treat it as such but without a little humor here and there we'd be nothing but robots."

She nodded with a smile,"That is very true."

"So what do you want to do about this?" He asked the serious tone of the conversation returning.

She sighed and walked over to her throne, sitting down she looked at him and chuckled darkly,"There's no proof of what's happening, Zecora simply seeing something at night and our speculation? That's not proof. If we attacked this group of diamond dogs for no reason, if we do the possibility of a repeat from the griffon-diamond dog war."

"But if you do nothing this will continue." Sam's tone was slightly exasperated.

"And risk a war? No I can't do that, I am being forced to choose the lesser of two evils right now Sam," She had a pained expression on her face,"Don't make it any more difficult for me than already is, please."

"So you'd let innocent ponies get sold into slavery without a care because your scared of a war?!"

"No I am scared for the entirety of Equestria Sam! If I do this then the problem is not only mine but Celestia's and Luna's as well." Her hands tensed on the the throne's chair arms,"Celestia damnit I don't want this Sam but have not her choices!"

"I know you don't want it, which is why you need to fight them!" He raised his hands up in a pleading motion,"Please for the sake of the ponies here contact Celestia, organize an army of royal guards and drive the dogs out! Isn't it better that more ponies should die defending themselves from evil rather than less dying so as to spare themselves the trouble of fighting against evil!"

She simply stared at him eyes narrowing with her,"Samuel, I think of you as a friend but if you keep pushing this I will have to ask you to leave my court."

His eyes widened at her pseudo threat, his arms lowered and his mouth remained open in disbelief of her decision,"If-if you don't do anything than it'll never stop, it's like-like with the bully at school when we were kids. All it takes is a good punch and they won't bully you anymore."

"But what if they do continue hmm? What if because we retaliated they don't stop bullying us till there is no us left?"

Huffing Sam shook his head,"I'm going to bed,ill see you in the morning." Turning around he walked to the door. Before leaving the room he stopped with his hand on the door handle and turned his head to the side,"You know you are doing a good job as princess, what with thinking of nothing but keeping your people safe but sometimes that means making some sacrifices."

Before she could anwser he left the door closing with an echo. She sighed and placed her head in her hands,"I'm sorry Sam..."

~

Rainbow woke with a start. It was dark and crickets were chirping, looking around she realized where she was, the Everfree forest. She had been practicing a new trick all day, she hadn't had much time to herself lately what with all the wonderbolts business, so when she did get time she spent it either napping, drinking apple cider or practing new tricks she comes up with.

She had spent all day over the Everfree practicing, she'd grown tired after a couple hours and decided to nap. With no clouds in the sky she settled for the next best thing a tree branch. Though at some point she must have fallen off because now she was lying on the ground yawning, she sat up and stretched. Her back popped a few times then she lifted herself up.

Smacking her lips she sniffed and looked around. The sun was down, yet the trees around her only made it darker, she couldn't help but feel something was off. She raised an eyebrow and looked behind herself trying to find what was off. She would of, had it not been for the club hitting her over the head, noticed that the crickets had stopped chirping.