Axton held a few books up in his claws as the drake leaned against the wall. All the while Misty rummaged through her locker between the class periods. Levitating out the notebooks she needed for the upcoming class, the mare slid them in to her satchel, locked up, and turned her attention to the drake.

“There we are, shall we?” she began trotting down the hall, Axe close in tow, “our report’s finished in this book, already proof read and everything… now we just have to see if this Sub will even ask for the work.”

“Or forget about it like last time?” the drake started to chuckle for a moment, as the mare subtly bumped her flank against his hip.

“Him forgetting about the work just proves his incompetence as an educator,” she stuck her nose up in the air, maintaining the posh manner that her mother tried to instill in her, “… I just hope Mister Knight isn’t gone for the whole school year…”

Having known the mare for the last several years, whether it be in school, or even meeting her out in town like they did. The drake picked up on all her subtle cues and mannerisms, then again, dropping ones’ head nearly to the floor with a pout wasn’t all that subtle.

“Easy there, sweetheart,” he rested a calm claw across the small of her back, “he can’t be gone forever, he’d miss us all too much… especially Onyxs’ gimmicks.” That comment at least brought a grin to the mares’ face, and with that much satisfying him. Axton pushed the door open for them as he held it for the mare.

“Thank you, Axe,” she winked up at him.

“Anytime, doll face,” he returned the gesture.

“Well aren’t you two just touching…” and one colt broke the moment.

From that voice alone, the two forgot about each other for a time and turned their attention to that of another. Right there, sitting calmly on his stool, was their teacher, Iron Knight. Legs crossed with one another, which to this day none of them understood how he could balance himself like that. A smile across his face, just as much as the rest of the class had. While even in his words, it sounded like nothing had changed in the slightest from the day he left… even with the several bandages they could see on him, and the obvious lack of a horn for the most part.

“Judging by the heavy blush that the two of you have,” he analyzed the pair, hushing any questions they had, “would I be right to assume you just came from the bleachers by the fields?”

Shaking their heads, if only to dispel the idea going though Irons’ mind, the two fessed up. “No Mister Knight,” Misty answered first, “we just didn’t know when you were going to return… we’re a little surprised.”

“Besides, we were at the fields yesterday… Misty here had to grab something from her locker, otherwise we might’ve been,” Axe followed up, receiving a playful shove from the mare as they made their way to their seats. As several of the students even started to snicker and rave at the drakes’ words. Before it spread through the class, raising the endorphins in the room two fold.

Iron had missed this.

All of it.

Even for the best workshop he could ask for, all the money in the country, or the supplies he could only dream of. Nothing of it compared to the pride he got while teaching those that he found before him once again. After what seemed like a life time of being gone.

“Glad to hear you two have finally came in the lime light,” he nodded to them simply, pushing the matter no further. Adopting a grin, that all of them came to either love or hate, Iron stared them all down, “That said… playtime’s over, and I’m back in business, so please turn to-”

One hoof shot up, silencing the colt where he sat. Gesturing to the colt, Onyx dropped the hoof as he almost got up out of his chair, “Wait a second… Sir,” he maintained at least the respect that Iron asked, “you leave for the better part of the school year, we get stuck with probably the poorest excuse of a substitute that the district could drag out from under a rock,” the many heads nodding confirmed Irons’ silent fear. Them being taught, by one with a personality inclined to a loaf of bread.

“All we hear is multiple rumors floating about of where you’ve been summoned to, and what you were doing. Then one day you just randomly pop back in to the class, act like nothing’s changed, and glass it over with a ‘playtimes’ over’…” he stared down the unicorn, just as much as Iron had them all, “With respect, sir… that shit don’t fly…”

Iron sat there motionless, and more impressively, wordless for a few minutes as they all waited to hear what he had to say. Granted, walking up to the Abby this morning in his condition nearly put the mare in shock. Though she’s a tough nut, and could handle the surprise, the mare would hear about his debacle in time. Then again, his students wanted to know now, and whether he wanted to tell them or not. They weren’t going to take No for an answer.

“Whelp… let me ask this first,” he waited for Onyx to take a seat, “what kind of rumors did you hear?”

“You were enlisted in the army.”

“Princess Grace had personally taken you away.”

“You had died somewhere in the Gryphon Kingdom!” another student shouted out last, as they all answered at the same time.

With all the rumors coming at him at once, Iron just wondered how things got out this fast in a small town like this. Then he remembered one crucial fact, this was a high school… news spreads like wild fire here.

Holding up a single hoof, the class silenced themselves far faster than he ever remembered. “Okay first of all… No, I wasn’t a solider, I just built suits of armor… kinda. Secondly, yes and no, Grace came to get me, but it was to convince me to help.”

“You mean, Princess Grace?” Ash asked, picking up the use of her actual name.

“No… the other one,” Iron diverted away from a story that would have had all the girls in his class going googly eyed, “And lastly… well I obviously didn’t die,” he pointed out to his still very breathing form, “Though I did come close to it a few times.”

At that last statement, all their eyes went wide, and only one gryphon found the courage to really say anything further. Syllia raised up her claw, and Iron already picked up on the steady tear that held itself in her eye, from just the thought of losing her favorite teacher. “So… then what did you do?” she asked cautiously.

“Hehe… you wouldn’t believe me if I told you…” he watched their minds try to figure out how much they could handle.

Before one finally had an answer, “Try us,” Onyx said.

“Went to be an artisan, ended up being a spy, which soon turned to soldier. Went to war with a king, and a chieftain… ended up killing both, in one way or another,” Iron caught his breath, as he proudly rubbed his hoof against his chest, “learned quite a bit about some new tech, learned even more about some new friends. Met two mares along the way, one trying to kill me from time to time, and one probably wanting me dead at several points… became the death of one, and probably saved the nation,” the colt stood up from his stool, and waltzed over to his desk with more pep in his step then they had seen usually, “then decided to come back to work.”

Blank expressions.

Blank expressions everywhere.

From all that he listed, to just come back to being a run of the mill teacher. Not a single student knew what to say to something like that, as the colt had single hoofed ripped the words out of their mouths.

Except for one.

“Bullshit…” Onyx, ever the stubborn one, disagreed.

Though with his words, Iron just shrugged his shoulders, “Believe me, or not… that’s your choice, either way I kept up on my word and told you what I had been up to,” he picked up his personal notebook for the class and started flipping through the pages. “All that said… please turn to-”

Yet another disruption, this time in the form of a scroll, appeared before the colt. He may not be able to reply to them, but messages sent by enchantments can still make their way to the individual no problem. That much at least brought a smile to his face, as an ever larger one started to appear as he noticed the seal on the parchment.

Ripping it open, it unrolled as the colt instantly found himself lost in the words. Skimming through them slowly, Iron couldn’t tell, but each of his students were making note of the subtle changes in a stallion that all of them liked to think they knew rather well. From the blood rushing to his own cheeks, to the giddiness in his hoof as it fidgeted back and forth. To even the simple twitching of his eye brows. They all saw a different side of the colt, one that they couldn’t quite place.

Though one student picked up on something many of them don’t, from her position right in front of his desk. A small zebra mare peered closer at the parchment, noticing the seal instantly, and especially what’s placed right next to it.

“Excuse me, if I may, but I believe I have something to say,” she brought Iron back to their attention, as the mare called it out to the class, “this letter has two seals, of which it bares, one of the crown… and one of a mare?”

Flipping it back over the instant he finished reading the last line, Iron looked closer next to the seal, and just like the youngling said. Right there next to the seal of the crown, was a simple pressed mark, of lip stick.

‘You sly little filly…’ Iron started to chuckle at the nuance, while the rest of them remained oblivious.

“Is it possible that our teacher, a fare Knight,” the zebra leaned in a little closer to him, reading his own expressions as her species always seemed to do, “has found a female, for which he will fight?”

Unable to wipe the stupid grin off his face, Iron opened up his drawer and slid the scroll neatly inside, before he turned back to them. “That class, is a story for another day…” he closed the drawer, looking at the letter before it disappeared from view, “… now… where were we?”

The satchel on his back hit the ground with a thud, as the several pounds of paperwork weighed it down and reminded the colt he was in for a long weekend. Almost an entire year, almost a whole year of ungraded papers and reports he had to do before the end of the school year. “I’m going to kill that substitute…” Iron groaned to himself, as he dragged the satchel over to his couch, and propped it up against the edge.

Granted, some Subs were actually very astute at their job, heck they were nearly teachers themselves. That said, a lot that he’s run in to at least were nothing more than young adults that thought it would give them a quick paycheck.

Reaching down in to the bag though, Iron pulled out but one parchment. The same scroll he got in class, as he confirmed one thing. “… Six o-clock,” he noted, looking up to his own clock on the wall, “hmm… about an hour and a half.”

Carrying the scroll up to his room, Iron plopped it on to the dresser, as the colt himself made way to the shower. It had been a long day, and considering he rolled back to his home late last night. The stallion was overdue for a shower; the least he could do was make himself presentable.

Rubbing his hooves through his mane and across his coat. Iron still felt the tinge of pain shooting to his mind at every broken bone or burn he sustained, all of which will just remind him of his little adventure for many weeks to come. While the scars that follow, will be there to jog his memory for years. Though with himself satisfied with the grime and dirt from the day scrubbed out, the colt made stepped on to the mat.

Concentrating his mind, Iron prepared to do something he had done hundreds of times before. A simple drying spell. The energy formed, he released it… then Iron leapt back as the back fire sucker punched him straight in the skull. Rubbing his temple from the overload, he reminded himself of another injury he hadn’t had to deal with for quite some time.

“Ugh… this is gonna be weird getting used to again,” he placed a gentle hoof over the nub from his horn that remained, as the colt opted for a towel instead.

Cleaned, dried, and refreshed. Iron walked back in to his bedroom, and immediately went over to his bags. Having not even cared to put any of his stuff away from his time gone, he might as well do it now while the energy was still in him. The armor he could set up and deal with later, for now something else had gathered in his mind.

Rummaging through the small bag, he dumped the contents out on the desk, as the loose papers scattered across the surface. All old designs, making up prosthetic limbs, each one better than the last, as he could personally attest to. The mare had quite a talent after all. She understood machines and how they worked better than many of those Iron had met in the fields. Yet at the same time, she didn’t just understand the ones of their time, but made new ones of her own.

Most of which would bring about death and destruction yes, however, many of them could also do so much good for those that have been injured. Sifting through the pile, Iron found one such design. A pair of wings, canvas flaps, with a light brass frame on them for support and structure. While all across them, he could see the holes cut out for where the charged gems would be placed to bring the objects to life, at the will of the user. It was something he could make, something that would help his friend. Even if Free may not want ones that could shoot rockets, or were fire proof, Iron would get him off the ground at least.

“Now… how to work from this?” he asked himself, pushing some of the other designs off to the side as he focused on the wings.

However, with that motion, something else got his attention. A small clank of something hitting the floor, drew the colts’ attention away from the designs, and he looked down to see but one thing. A piece of paper, folded up over itself. Unfolding it, Iron felt his heart clench in his chest, not just from what the paper was, but also what it contained.

Nothing more than a family photo. A single Pegasus mare, held her earth pony daughter in her hooves as the little filly smiled with delight, while a unicorn beamed at the lovely family that was his own. An image he had seen before, many months ago. Yet what drew his attention, was what remained folded in the crimps of the paper.

A bolt.

A bronze bolt.

Worn down from years of use, reshaped and threaded at the hooves of a skilled artisan such as himself, and one that had a past to it he personally never knew of. It was a memento that he been given, something just to remind him of who he had faced. Iron admired the craftsmanship that was put in to the piece, probably even more so than the one that had actually created the thing.

“Your family would have been proud of you,” He whispered to the simple hunk of metal, “no matter what you may have done, they would have been proud… like any parents would their kin.”

As if it was a family heirloom, Iron held it close to his chest, before he placed it neatly on the dresser. Along with the picture next to it, as a simple keepsake. “I don’t know what had happened to you, for you to hold such a grudge… Bronze,” he spoke as if the bolt was still attached to the mare, “but perhaps the next time you show face… if you’re still out there, your gift won’t bare so much malice.”

Gathering the remains of the notes he had taken, Iron slid them in to his own desk, as he looked down at his watch. Deciding it was time, he looked himself over once more in the mirror for good measure. Before his eyes fell to the bolt yet again.

Dipping his head down at the object, the colt showed at least in parting that much respect for the fellow engineer. She may have been trying to kill him more than half the time, and Bronze may have basically attempted to wipe three nations off the face of the planet. Yet, in some way shape or form, something had created the mare in to the monster that she became. Bronze wasn’t born that way, but something had happened to rip the smile off that young fillies’ face.

“Where ever you may find yourself, take care out there… Miss Bolt,” with those final words, Iron headed for the door.