Chapter 45: Gettin' Back

A subtly spicy scent filled the human's nostrils as he gradually returned from his peaceful slumber. A faint and warm breath gently blew on his face. He opened his eyes to see the serene face of a certain sky blue pegasus mere inches from his own. James would have liked to stay just like that all day, but from the amount of light coming in through the windows he estimated it to be about seven in the morning. Unfortunately for him, it was time to get up.

Gently and carefully, he extricated himself from the tangle of limbs and pulled himself from bed, taking care not to wake his companion. As soon as he moved, he regretted it as several spots on his body where he had been struck the previous night began to painfully scream at him in anger the moment he moved. Quietly, James extracted his last clean set of clothes, getting dressed and sneaking out the door. Walking towards the stairway to the secret vault, he grabbed one of the palace staff that was trotting by and politely requested that some breakfast be sent to his room.

In good time, James descended the stairs and was admitted through the tall standing doors into the vast underground chamber. Stepping quickly through the wide passageways and to the section of the vault that housed the small dungeon, the human arrived at the cell containing the new addition to his collection of acquaintances. Though, he was a little bit surprised when he found not only Celestia, but also Twilight waiting for him as well.

"Good morning Commander, I trust you slept well?" Celestia asked of him.

"Yes ma'am. Better than I have in a while. If I may ask, what is Twilight doing here?"

"As my protegé, she has certain privileges as well as being instrumental in smuggling our guest out of the palace undetected."

James addressed the unicorn directly, "Twilight, do you know what's in there?" He asked, gesturing to the cell behind her.

"A potentially hostile being that I'm about to disguise as a pile of Rarity's luggage and help transport all the way back to Ponyville?" Was her immediate answer.

James was a little astonished at her understanding of the situation, "Yes, absolutely. So, we're ready to proceed then?"

"Yes Commander," Celestia replied, "ready when you are."

"Outstanding. Let me just go notify my pilot and I'll send someone down to notify you we're ready to on load. But first..."

Stepping past the two of them, James took the key from the guard and entered the cell. As he did so, Garth looked up from where he had been sitting and stood up straight as the human walked in.

"Garth, we're about to perform spell to disguise you so we can get you out of here safely. You are not to resist or take hostile action against any anyone unless I authorize it, understand?"

"Yes Ahrhati Khot."

"Good. Now let me introduce you to the one casting the spell, Miss Twilight Sparkle. She is a friend of mine, so please treat her with respect." James looked over his shoulder to the door, "Twilight, please come in here!"

The purple unicorn apprehensively trotted into the cell and stood next to James who began introductions, "Garth, this is Twilight, my friend. Twilight, this is Garth."

The flaxen black haired warrior bowed to the scholarly pony, "A friend of Ahrhati Khot is a friend to me, your enemies are now mine, may they drown in an ever deepening pool of their own blood."

"Heh heh heh, he's quite charming..." Twilight said uneasily, shying away slightly.

"Yeah, we're gonna have to work on that... Any way, you ready Twilight?"

"Yes, I think so, but I would like to explain to him what I'm doing first."

"Go right ahead..." James told her, taking a few steps back.

With caution, Twilight approached the hulking green mottled being, "Garth, was it? What I am about to do is place a couple spells on your body. The first will put you into a deep sleep, the second will cause you to appear to be a large bundle of baggage, is this ok with you?"

"I do whatever Ahrhati Khot wills." Came his gravely reply.

A little befuddled at the warrior's answer, Twilight turned to James, "Who is 'ahrhati khot'?"

"It's a little complicated, I'll explain later. By the way, he means 'yes'."

"Ok, well here goes..."

Her horn flared up in its characteristic liquid purple aura, soon engulfing the Lotkin warrior in front of her. Garth looked at his chest and limbs, an expression of restrained alarm growing on his gnarled face. Then all at once, his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he fell gently to the dirty floor. James would have thought he was dead were it not for the slight rise and fall of Garth's chest. Then with a sudden flash, his body was replaced with a pile of dark pink bags all tied up together. Next to James, Twilight began panting from the toll the the spells had exacted on her and stood unsteadily on her hooves.

"Hey Twilight, Are you all right?"

"Yes, *pant* I'm fine. It's just that *pant* an illusion spell like this one *pant* is really difficult."

James walked up to the luggage and hesitantly ran a hand over it, only to find that it really felt like a bunch of luggage.

"Wow. Great Job."

The purple librarian had finally caught her breath now, "Thank you, I'm quite proud of that one. I'll make sure this gets delivered to your airship. For now, I think you have a certain somepony to go wake up."

James looked at her, astounded, "How did you know? You ain't spying on me, are you?" He asked jokingly.

With a giggle, Twilight replied, "No, silly. Last night Rainbow Dash showed up looking for you. I didn't know where you were at the time so I just directed her to your room. I hope that didn't bother you."

"No, I'm actually glad you did. You're a good friend Twi', thanks."

"My pleasure! Now scoot, I have it from here."

"Alright, I'll see you in a bit."

James rushed into the passageway, eager to return to his room, but was intercepted by Celestia before he could even get to the main chamber of the vault.

"James, a word with you please."

"Yes ma'am, how can I be of service?"

"I would just like to remind you of your responsibilities regarding this matter. You are not to allow any harm to come to Ponyville because of this creature you are now harboring."

"You know I wouldn't dare let that happen. It's the only home I have now."

"I just wanted to be sure. On another note, how are you feeling since last night?"

"A lot better now, thank you. Again, I apologize for my actions, what I did was wrong."

"It's ok, I understand. Luna informed me of the condition you were in when we met here last night. How is your progress going, by the way?" She asked in a motherly tone.

"It's going. Yesterday was the first time in a while I've had an.... episode. The girls have been a great help. Maybe soon it won't happen anymore. Hopefully." James said, downcast.

"Just keep working on it. Remember, you have an astounding group of dedicated friends to help you."

James looked back over his shoulder to the open cell door far down the corridor, "Don't I know it..." Suddenly remembering what he was doing and looked at his iPod. 0748. "Uh, please excuse me ma'am, I have something important to do."

"Of course."

With that, he took of down the passageway, through the main chamber and up the towering spiral stair. As soon as he reached the top, he made a mad dash for his quarters and was happy when he saw one of the palace staff exiting quietly, silently closing the door behind her. It meant that maybe, Dash would still be asleep and he would get the chance to wake her himself.

Soundlessly, he cracked the door open and peered inside, seeing the tell tale lump still under the covers on the bed. In the corner of the room, near the doors to the balcony, a tray sat on the table, loaded with all sorts of fruits, hash browns and to his delight, waffles, all complemented with a small pitcher of orange juice.

Careful not to be noisy, James stepped softly across the room and made for the side of the bed Dash was still laying on and sat down next to her. For a second, he just watched her serene and tranquil form, enjoying the moment. Then, with some regret, he reached forward a hand and began to gently shake her shoulder.

"Dash, Dash it's time to get up." He whispered quietly.

No response.

"Dash, wake up, there's breakfast." He shook a little harder.

The pegasus stirred and for a moment, James believed he had succeeded, but she instead rolled over away from him and went back to sleep.

"Dash." James said a bit louder, "Dash!"

Suddenly she sat up, "Wha- huh?"

"Good morning sleeping beauty, rest well?"

The colorfully maned mare groggily looked around for the source of her disturbance with bleary rose hued eyes before locking in on the human.

"Oh, James, good morning..." she said with a yawn, "When did you get in?"

"Pretty late last night. It was a busy day. What about yourself? I gotta say, it was a real nice surprise to back to bed with you in it."

"Yeah, i finished up with the weather patrol yesterday and decided to come see you. I got here at about eleven."

"You know you could have just waited until later today when I went home." James chuckled.

"Yeah, but I didn't want to wait."

"Well, you gotta be hungry from that flight. Why don't you come have breakfast with me?"

"Sounds good!"

Dash threw the off the covers and hopped out of bed to Join James as he sat down at the table. James poured them both glasses of orange juice and began to divvy up the food onto a couple of plates. There they sat, eating and drinking. Dash would tell James all about her experiences the past few days while James remained mostly quiet about his. Especially when the subject of his bruises came up, which he attributed to a training mishap, which was only half truth. A few days ago there had been a training mishap, but of course that wasn't the source of his injury. Then, a subject James had entirely wished to avoid arose.

"Oh yeah, and Twilight said that you have something you needed to talk to me about, what's up?"

James was dreading this conversation, but he had been putting it off for far too long now. So with a deep breath and a mental brace, James began to explain what they had found deep in the forest at clearing where they had first met, and the consequences of it.

"...and if Twilight can't find a way to reverse it or at least permanently contain it then...."

"What? Then what?" Dash asked anxiously.

"I might have to go away, to leave..." He put gently, not elaborating on what he meant by that.

"What do you mean you might have to leave!? Why!?" She exclaimed angrily.

"Now don't worry. If I do have to go, it wouldn't be for a while. Right now, Twilight is exploring every possible avenue for a solution. We'll work through this, ok?"

"Ok..."

"Ok."

There was a knock at the door, "Commander, your presence is requested at the docks."

James looked at Dash, "We'll talk more about it later, right now we have to go catch our ride."

They quickly finished breakfast and checked to make sure James was all packed up and ready to leave. Satisfied he hadn't forgot anything, he hefted his pack and stepped out into the corridor, momentarily holding the door open for Dash as she followed close behind. Then together they walked down the passageway to the grand foyer. In quick stride, they exited out into the courtyard and through the front gate. However, instead of peeling away to the docks, James made a detour to the Canterlot Hospital, he wanted to at least check in on Captain Alister and his two teammates.

When he tried to gain access, the hospital staff informed him that all three were sleeping and it was best they not be disturbed. James asked if he could at least see how they were, the staff obliged and led him up to the room they were being kept in. In three beds rested the stallions. All had casts on various limbs, the pegasus even had both wings wrapped up, but none looked too worse for wear. The nurse on duty told him that they'd all be up and about again in just a few weeks and sent the human on his way.

Glad that they would all be all right, James hurried down at a quick clip to the docks with RD at his side. They entered the docks and trod over to the small airship set on the end of the wide pier between two of its significantly larger cousins. In front of the Clipper's side sliding door sat five mares, three stallions and an enormous pile of Rarity's luggage.

"Everyone ready to go?" James asked them.

All replied in the affirmative.

"Awesome. Hey guys, where's Myst?" The human asked his teammates.

"I'm in here!" Came the pilot's voice from the engine compartment.

"She went in to make room for all the bags and ended up staying to tweak the engine. Again." Sparks told him.

"Ah shut up, half the time you can't keep your own hooves off my engine!" Myst snarkily replied.

Her comment caused the girls to break out in a mass of giggles as Sparks shrank back in embarrassment.

"Ho ho! What's that all about buddy?" James asked his pal.

"Nunya!" Sparks said as he bounded into the Clipper, "Let's go already, I wanna go home and sleep in my own bed tonight."

"Alright, alright. Looks like our chief engineer is getting cranky, everybody load 'em up!" James ordered while trying to stifle a laugh.

They all helped in loading all the bags into the Clipper, except for a small portion of Rarity's which Twilight insisted on loading herself. Then they all hopped in and took their seats as the engine spun up and Myst began her final checks. Within moments, they were finally in the air and on their way home.