Earl's eyelids slowly inched open as he was awaken by a knocking against the door to Twilight's room. He quickly looked around for a moment and noticed his foreleg around Twilight, holding her close as she nuzzled his chest.

"What in the FUCK?!" He shouted as he jumped up from the bed, terrified.

Twilight was quickly jolted awake from the sudden obscene outburst and looked around the room worriedly.

"Earl, what's going on?" She asked, trying to rub the tired out of her eyes.

"What's going on in there?!" A voice asked from the other side of the door.

The purple mare's expression quickly changed to puzzled.

"Shining?" She asked, surprised

"Shining?!" Earl asked, more worried than surprised.

Twilight glanced towards Earl as she held the same puzzled expression.

"Yeah, my brother." She said, slightly hushed.

"I know!" Earl replied, his tone changing to hushed as well.

"Something wrong?"

"Oh, I don't know, I just don't think the captain of the royal freakin' guard would like it too much if he found me in bed with his little sister."

"You were just sleeping-"

"It's different, he's a guy and.... whatever, what is he doing here?"

"I don't know."

Earl glanced up towards the door as Shining opened it and walked in.

"Twi, is everything OK? I heard shouting." Shining asked from the other side of the door.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Twilight said with a smile as she crawled out of the bed.

Shining noticed she had just woken up and quickly glanced to an unknown gray unicorn.

"Who is this?" Shining asked without breaking his gaze.

"That's Earl, he's a good friend of mine." She replied walking over to her older brother.

"Earl? The Earl that talked to Celestia last night?!" Shining asked worriedly.

Twilight nodded and raised an eyebrow.

"Why, is there a-"

Before she could finish, Shining Armor quickly bowed.

"It's a pleasure to meet you sir, Celestia briefed me on the situation last night."

"Sir?" Earl asked raising an eyebrow.

"Well of course," Shining said returning to his hooves. "Princess Celestia has required that I treat you with the utmost respect for this mission."

"This mission?"

Twilight's heart immediately dropped and a terrified expression shot across her face. Shining quickly noticed.

"Something wrong Twilly?" He asked.

"I'll be right back." Twilight said before darting out of the room.

Earl was stone-faced.

Why would she....? he thought.

The grey unicorn's eyes went wide as he made the realization.

"You're here for the mission in the Everfree, aren't you?"

Shining Armor quickly saluted him.

"That is correct." He said, holding his salute.

"Aww... shit." Earl replied running out of the door.

"What? Is that bad?" Shining asked.

Just before Earl had left the room, he spun around and glanced towards Shining.

"No, it's fine, glad to be working with you." He said.

Shining nodded as Earl slipped out of the door frame. A few seconds later, however, the grey unicorn peeked his head back into the room.

"and you can drop all of the 'respect' stuff, we're cool."

"I hate that shit anyway." Shining said as he walked out of the room.

Both quickly shared a laugh and sprinted down the hallway after Twilight.

Earl was the second pony to make it into the throne room and heard Twilight talking to the princess.

"You're sending my brother to do something as dangerous as this?!" She yelled.

Earl shook his head and decided to let them have their moment. He turned back and saw Shining running towards the throne room as well.

"Woah, woah. Let's let them have a second." He said as he stepped in the way.

"What?" the white unicorn asked.

"We should let them just talk for a second. I need to uhh... brief you some more anyway."

Shining shrugged and started walking the other direction.

"If you say so." he said as Earl caught up with him.

"Let's head back to Twilight's room." Earl said.

As the two reached the room, Earl looked around nervously and shut the door.

"Alright, so I've got a question. How do you normally deal with a threat around here?"

"Subdue the suspect."

"Subdue?"

"Disarm, put in custody, ect."

"Oh, OK, well the zom- ZEDS, can't be disarmed alright?"

Shining raised an eyebrow.

"What do you mean."

"They have to be killed."

"Killed?"

"Disemboweled, Beheaded, burnt, stabbed, shot, etc."

"Why would we kill them?"

"Because, they don't stop. They don't stop attacking until they are dead."

"Are you serious?" Shining asked, his expression changed to shocked.

"Dead serious. They'll try and eat you too."

"What?!"

"I'm not joking Shines, it's a real problem, but if we don't deal with it, there's going to be serious hell going on here."

"How do you know all of this?"

"I've uhh... studied them before, I know a lot about them."

Shining aimed his head to the floor, he was speechless.

"Uhh, OK. Thanks for the heads up." The white unicorn said, glancing towards Earl.

"No problem."

Shining quickly realized something.

"Is that why Twilight-?"

"Yeah..."

"Shit... she's gonna be worried sick!"

"It's alright, you'll be fine." Earl said, taking his leave from the room.

"How can you be sure?" Shining Armor asked.

Earl stopped walking.

"I'm a professional zed-killer."

With that he left the room, feeling like a complete badass.

A few hours later, the three were on a train, making their way back to Ponyville. Twilight caught up with her brother for most of the ride, leaving Earl to think about the violent moments he was going to have to face over the next few days. After a while, Shining broke away from Twilight for a moment and approached Earl.

"Hey, dude." The white unicorn said, getting Earl's attention.

Dude? Earl thought.

"Yeah, what's up?" The grey pony replied

"How do you expect we do this with just two ponies?"

"What do you mean?"

"If we're taking on an entire zed army, shouldn't we have at least one more member of our group?"

"That makes a lot of sense actually."

It made a lot of sense that Shining made sense, that was part of his job.

"Who did you have in mind?" Earl asked.

"That I don't know yet, we should look when we get back to Ponyville."

"Agreed." Earl glanced back to Twilight. "How's she holding up?"

Shining glanced at his younger sister as well.

"She's better. Still worried about me, but better."

"Mind if I talk to her for a second?"

"Yeah that's fine."

Earl nodded and hopped up from his seat.

"Twi?" He asked, nearing the purple unicorn's seat.

She quickly looked up and Earl noticed the sadness in her eyes.

"Hey." She said looking back down.

Earl sat down next to her and put his hoof over her shoulder.

"What's up?" He said.

"I'm worried about my brother..."

"I told you I'd take care of this, that means I'll take care of him too."

Twilight remained silent.

"I can't have my brother die... I just can't."

"Twilight, he's not going to die. If anypony is dying out there, it's going to be me."

The purple unicorn looked up and met his eyes.

"I don't want you to die either! If you haven't noticed I actually care about you a lot!"

He hadn't noticed.

Earl's face turned a slight red as Twilight wrapped her hooves around him and hugged him tightly.

"Uhh... I care about you a lot too." He said awkwardly.

Twilight broke the hug and sunk down yet again, the sadness still visible.

"Thanks...." She said softly.

Earl nodded and got up from his seat. He could faintly hear the conductor yell from a few cars down.

We'll be arriving in Ponyville in about ten minutes. Ten minutes ladies and gentlecolts.