When the time finally came to leave the Quetzal Empire behind, it seemed as though the people were sad to see us go. That and somewhat confused. Empress Narin explained to her people that I would be returning to the New Dominion in order to continue to govern it, which was a reasonable explanation of why I wouldn't be staying with her, implying that she had beaten me but not actually saying it, in order to continue the ruse that really just simplified our entire stay. Priestess Karin gave us a small prayer before we left, and we began our journey home.

Oh, and I still had fluffy, dark pink clouds billowing around me. I idly wondered if it looked like I was leaving a trail, like airplanes do. We stopped a few times on the return journey. Each time we did, I took out some blank scrolls I had kept with me and began to write in them. After all, I did promise Celestia and Luna a book.

Ruminations On The Art of War
By Griffin North
(Information sourced from "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu)

Dear Princess Celestia, you wanted a book on how to not be an idiot, so I'm writing you one. I'm letting Twilight have it first so she can make it a proper book.

Sun Tzu was a general of the nation of China over 2500 years ago, (Yes yes, I know, we humans and our war, we've had a rather long time to get good at it haven't we?) and still remains the most influential text regarding warfare, since the premises contained within are effective regardless of time or technology. Since the original work is rather long and I cannot possibly remember all of it, I will be abridging it and providing an explanation of the more useful quotes, as well as my own interpretations and applications to not just warfare, but to everyday life.

Warfare is important to a nation. It is a matter of life and death, so study it. (Basically, you cannot always avoid conflict so it is better to know how to deal with it and prepare yourself. All things in life, no matter how mundane, can be thought of as a 'battle' or competition. Rainbow Dash exemplifies this particularly well.) Have a strong bond with your people. They will serve wholeheartedly if you are known to be a capable leader, and they don't have to fear betrayal. Know 'heaven' and 'ground' which is to say the weather, the seasons, the terrain, basically, the battlefield. Know your 'general' your commanders, and know your 'law' the chain of command. This applies to real life, using the example of a restaurant. You own a restaurant. You need to know it's placement in the city, if it is likely to get customers, if it is downwind from a garbage dump, nobody will want to eat there. Know your head chef and restaurant manager. If they're good, keep them, if they're incompetent or corrupt, the restaurant will fail. Know who is in charge and what each person's responsibility is.

When doing battle, seek quick victory. Prolonged combat is wasteful, inefficient, and tiring. If you must fight, crush your enemy. If you're playing sports, try to score early and get a significant lead, this will demoralize the opponent while forcing them to be on the offensive. It's always harder to catch up than it is to gain an early advantage. And always, ALWAYS make sure your 'warriors' are properly supplied. If they're soldiers, give them the best weapons and armor you can. If they're cooks, give them kitchen knives, cutting boards, ovens, and proper ingredients. If it's a sports team, give them the best sporting equipment you can afford. (Always keep proper budgeting and resource management in mind.) A soldier without any weapons or armor is not a soldier, they are dead and their life was wasted. The best chef cannot prepare a proper meal if their ingredients are rotten, and a team cannot play well if their equipment is worn out.

I continued writing another dozen such pieces of advice. If you know yourself and your enemy, you win, if you know yourself but not your enemy, each win is also a loss, (partly because your victory was inefficient, but also because your enemy may not have necessarily been your enemy, and could have been made an ally) if you know neither yourself nor the enemy, you will lose, and other such things, which explains why the first thing I did when Tirek showed up was fall back to a defensible position for preparations and reconnaissance.Again, I couldn't possibly remember all of it but I took the pieces I found most useful or most interesting, including many that were based on common sense, provided explanations for them, and applications to regular life.

The remainder of the journey was uneventful. As we crossed over the jungle, I found myself somewhat hopeful that a net would shoot up from below, snag the lot of us, and when we reached the ground we'd be greeted by Nadenes smiling face but sadly fate just didn't have that in mind.

On arriving home on Signal there was, miraculously, nothing waiting to be done. No crowd of eager combatants, no political strife that needed to be solved so that precedent could be set, no issue that needed my input. I could just stay home and write my book, live my life. About a week of this passed before Phalanx approached me again.

"Aha! Prepare yourself devil! Today, I challenge you!" He twirled his spear in a flourish.

"Ah, good. I was getting a little bored. Let's go."

"Right now?" He asked.

"Yeah, sure, right now. Arena should be empty. I checked the notice board and nothing was scheduled for today." I replied.

"Alright then." I changed to my human form.

We both stood in the arena, face to face, about halfway across the floor from each other.

"Whenever you're ready."

"Why do you choose to fight as a human, and not as a griffin?" Phalanx asked.

"As far as I know, you can't fly. Also, your weapon is a spear. Hard to block, easy to dodge. Agility will suit me better for this fight." I nodded to him and he took up a combat stance, turning his one side towards me, holding his spear over his head. He leaped and in a flash he was next to me, striking out with his weapon.

'Fast, but I can keep up.'

I let myself fall backwards, bending at the knees but keeping my feet planted on the ground, matrix style, as he passed over top of me and landed behind. I threw my hands towards the ground and, with a bit of magic, pushed away from the floor. I misjudged the force needed and went soaring into the air myself.

Phalanx changed up his style, pulling his spear in close to his body and then, without a word, leaped off the ground again, this time up to meet me, 20 feet in the air.

"Heh, you can cast without speaking. You do it mentally. That's good." I took note of the faint green glow surrounding his body as I started to fall. As I landed, I gave another burst of force out through my feet to kill my momentum, then a second burst to propel me forward as Phalanx came crashing down on the spot I was just in, kicking up loads of dust. He seemed to take a moment to recover as he began looking around, trying to see through the dust, a move I punished with a pulse of energy that slammed him into the far wall of the arena.

"Rule one, if you lose sight of your enemy, move. Doesn't matter where, but standing still thinking about it only makes you an easy target. If you don't see them, move anywhere you don't see them, and then change your direction in case a shot is coming at you from behind until you catch sight of them again. Your opponent can't run around you faster than you can rotate yourself." Phalanx growled and wiped his mouth, a small bit of blood dripping from biting his lip.

"Grr.... I will have to remember that." To his credit, he took the hit rather well and was back on his feet, rushing at me again. He kicked up dust behind him as he moved towards me. I stepped to the side, but he was prepared for that, changing his direction at the last moment. I was prepared for his preparation and used that moment to jump over him, to which he grabbed my leg and slammed me into the ground. I laid on the ground, with his spear pointed at my neck.

"Rule two." He said. "Never try the same trick twice."

I used my magic to knock his spear to the side, then flung myself to a standing position, headbutting him right on the nose. One of his teeth fell out onto the arena floor as he was knocked flat on his ass. I wiped a bit of blood from a cut above my left eye.

"Who said it was the same trick?" I held my hand up horizontally, in front of my face.

"Heh." As he moved to stand up, I thrust my hand downwards and a wave of force likewise struck Phalanx, pressing him flat against the ground as though he were being crushed by a pane of glass.

"Do you yield?" He barely managed to nod. I released him and helped him to stand. He took a few minutes to regain his breath.

"Perhaps you'll do better next time."

The next day, Phalanx stopped me again, this time in the market square.

"There you are, fiend! I, Phalanx, challenge you!"

"Sure, let me just drop off these groceries."

This time around, a few people showed up to watch. Not many, since it was on really short notice, but some. This match ended much the same way as the last one. The next few weeks passed as such. I'd wake up, eat breakfast, head out to town to busy myself with something or other, get challenge by Phalanx, beat him to the point of exhaustion, have lunch, help with some minor managerial duties, spend time with Gilda and Seth, then write my book before going to bed. The thing about Phalanx is that bit by bit, little by little, he started lasting longer and longer in his bouts against me. To be totally honest, I think he was having fun. I can't lie, I was having fun too. More and more people started coming out to see us fight as well. It started to become a popular event. Citizens started gambling on if he would win, how long he would last, how many hits he would manage to land on me, etc.

It had been some time before Queen Chrysalis flew over from the hive island for a visit. She welcomed me home, even though I had already been home for a while, but she just hadn't had the time to come and see me. Not entirely sure what she was busy with, I didn't pry. Also, I had begun to keep my aura in. Sure, the flowing joy fog was nice but it was starting to distract people. People who were at work would start slacking off, staring at the sky, going for a fly, dancing in the streets. Sure, it sounds nice, but when you have work to do it can become a real problem, so I had been building it up for a few days before Chryssie arrived. When she showed up, I let her have the full load.

She was absolutely euphoric.

She grabbed hold of my aura and started cramming it into her face. She swallowed hard, then her head lolled about on her shoulders, her eyes rolled back in their sockets before squeezing them shut, then let out a sigh.

"Uuuugh... so goooood." Her legs gave out under her, so she started using her wings instead. We sat and chit chat for a while, she asked me how my trip to the Quetzal Empire was, and then she went on her way again.

Time passed and as autumn rolled around, I finished my book. Well, it wasn't really a 'book' yet, more like a collection of papers that you'd print a book from, which was someone elses job.

"Well Gilda, I'm going to go bring this to Twilight so she can make a few copies. I'll be back in two or three days."

"Oh no, we're going with. Besides, we should probably stop by Manehatten and visit Maria at her restaurant."

"Yeah... we should. Alright, lets pack up." Given how much we travel, we'd all become rather accustomed to packing, so it didn't take us long before we set out again. More time spent in uneventful travel. It was slow going. Partially because we weren't actually in any particular rush, partially because the air was starting to get colder, and partially because we were intentionally going slow so Seth could keep up. Seeing my little boy flying just made me so proud. Eventually, we did reach the giant crystal tree that was Twilight's home now.

"Knock knock!" I rapped on the door.

"Spiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiike. Can you get the door?" The sounds of little scurrying feet scraping across glass as he ran towards the door. It seemed to be taking him a while to get there. Can't blame him, castle is big.

"Oh, her voice sounded like it was coming from the third floor. Let's just use the window." We flew up and settled ourselves down on one of the big crystal branches. I looked in the window to see Twilight stuck in a book, then knocked on the window. She turned to look at me, saw me waving a tied bundle of papers, then dropped it.

Twilight gasped, teleported outside, directly beneath the spot where I had dropped the book. Spike opened the door to see her laying on the ground, on her belly, clutching my manuscript to stop it from falling into the dirt.

"Real funny Twilight. Real funny." Spike groaned. She let out a nervous laugh at having made her assistant go down all those flights of stairs to open the door, only to have it be her on the other side. Spike just rolled his eyes and went back to his own business.

"Seriously Griffin. Who just drops a book in the dirt?!?"

"Seriously Twilight, who makes their assistant run down three flights of stairs when they can teleport themselves and be there instantly and for massively less effort?"

"Hi Toilet Sparkle!" Seth chimed in, acting completely innocent. Gilda said nothing, keeping a perfectly straight face. I swear I could hear Twilights gears grinding. Or maybe it was her teeth.

"Anyway, I promised you a book. So, here's a book. Its a book based on another book. The first book is a much better book, but I was going from memory so this will have to do."

Twilight spent a long time reading it, when she should have been copying it so no accidents could happen to it and she could make a proper book of it, but she just couldn't bare to put it down.

"This Sun Tzu had a.... unique... way of looking at the world." Twilight remarked at one point while reading it.

"Not really." I replied. "To be honest it's very logical. The whole point is to know what you have, what the task requires, and to complete the task in the most efficient way, all while knowing the cost and benefit of each method. If you think of everything like it's a battle, then you can apply these strategies to everything. In fact, this would be a very good book for Rainbow Dash to read. She likely already knows a lot of this. The only reason you think Sun Tzu's point of view is unique is because to most ponies, it's completely foreign. That's just a cultural difference between your people and mine."

Griffin, I've been meaning to ask... what is human television like?

"Huh? Why do you ask?" I replied.

"Well, we have photography and reel players, but those machines are normally only used to give instructional video. The idea of using that kind of thing for entertainment hasn't really come up. Of course, a long time ago you had told me that you watched our world on television, so I became interested in what other kinds of entertainment there are."

"I dunno about that, I mean, considering the production values... it'd leave a lot up to the imagination, most of Equestria already thinks I'm nuts, I don't really want to go acting like a crazy person." I cringed at the thought.

"Oh it'll be fine. We'll just do a private showing, besides, it can't be all that bad, can it?"

"... you have no idea. Alright, fine, I'll go along with it, but you asked for it. We'll do it like a play, and I'll get the others involved. Gimme some time to come up with a script, costumes and the like. We'll do it at the old castle in the Everfree."

After the play was finished, and Aoi had crawled away to mope in a corner, I thought I'd grant a further explanation.

"Well, that's the 'Anime' style, which is a unique invention of Aoi's culture. It's somewhat similar to the comic books Spike reads. Power Ponies would probably be an anime. There's more genres in anime of course, since 'Anime' is short for 'Japanese animation', so it can contain anything from romance to horror to giant robots that fight aliens, but anime is the only media style that has THIS kind of story in it, which is what it's most commonly known for, so that's why I did that kind of story for the play. Some are good, some are bad, some are just downright strange, and most are incredibly cheesy."

In any case, since we've been kind of slumming it at Twilight's for the past three weeks..." Twilight shot me a glare. "Hey, you were the one who INSISTED we do this, only makes sense that you provide our accommodations." I turned back to the other princesses. "We're kind of eager to get on with our lives. Still, this was nice... kind of reminds me of when we used to do shows."

"Yeah, same." Gilda added. "Just more proof that you're a weirdo Griff."

"Yeah, but I'm your weirdo." I replied. Seth stuck out his tongue and made vomiting noises. "In any case, we're headed to Manehatten next. There's an old friend we need to reconnect with."

Author's Notes:

*GASP*

FINALLY, new chapter! The thing about getting a new computer is when you have three or four YEARS worth of games that you bought during summer and winter sales, and you couldn't play ANY of them, when you suddenly CAN, pretty much everything else gets put on the shelf.

Fallout 4 has me going crazy for ashtrays. I need more friggin ceramic! How am I supposed to build an army of killer death robots without ceramic?

Seriously, get Mr.Handy legs for mobility, Mr.Handy torso so you can attack 3 buzz saws to deal with close range attackers, replace 2 of the eyes with left and right sentry arms and attach auto-lasers. Never fight anything again because unless it's a deathclaw, it's dead pretty much instantly. Why would I bother shooting when Codsworth has unlimited ammo? All my xp is from quests now.