"Six months... Six months, three weeks, two days... and two hours... I've been here for a quarter of a year, and still nothing is out of place... well... except for the rising hostilities with Minotaurus and Equestria, I quickly rose through the ranks... even surpassing Moon Shimmer due to how easy it was for me to get through everything they sent at me. Practicing with the TMD helped me feel less fatigue when using my abilities, except for aging living creatures... they wouldn't let me practice that for obvious reasons... But aging objects and moving them still only requires minimal effort, I noticed that I could control the force of a pulse... using less or more energy depending on how damaging I wanted the effect to be, I even began working with a way to make it effect specific things instead of areas in order to keep allies from getting hurt."

"...'Why am I explaining all of this to you?' you may ask. It is because I've already accepted the fact that I might be insane, so holding a one sided conversation with an audience that may or may not be there is the only way to pass time on a long sky-chariot trip without looking over the side and wishing I was on the ground already."

Renko chuckled as he finished thinking, he couldn't help thinking he was crazy after everything he went through, but everything stopped as he noticed that the chariot was losing altitude. His entire squad was being sent to reinforce Ponyville's defenses in the case that any confrontation may escalate into a small war with Equestria against Minotaurus, they were divided evenly among three chariots, his corps was composed entirely of unicorns that specialized in defensive combat magic. Moon Shimmer tossed a glance at his CO before the chariots touched down.

They all filed out of the chariots and Renko gave the 'ok' for the pegusai to return to canterlot after some rest. Renko shouldered the rifle that he had custom ordered the parts for, his mind drifted back to when he had ordered them, Shining Armor had been surprised about how accurately Renko remembered the parts of the weapon.

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"Captain Armor, I need to ask you a favor..." Renko said to his CO as they happened to be walking down the same corridor, he had been meaning to ask the captian about it but he hadn't been able to find the time, now he and the captain were able to talk a bit more casually as they walked.

"What is it Sergeant?" Shining had asked him, even if it was a little gruff.

"I understand that the guards use swords and spears to fight with... but I was trained in the methods of using rifles... as I have begun hearing rumors that the griffons use." Renko watched as the Captain gave him a look that told him to continue explaining.

"There is a type of rifle that I'm very accustomed to, as I had to build it, take it apart, and rebuild it until I could build one in my sleep." Shining actually let a small laugh out since he had recently began to understand a few of Renko's jokes. "It's called an M16 assault rifle, I can have all of the mechanical specs to you by this afternoon, all I would need is the parts and I could assemble it myself. It would certainly give us an advantage should the minotaurs decide to actually attack us." Shining explained that he was willing to give the idea sme thought and agreed as long as Renko got him all the specs he needed for the parts. It took a week before all the parts had arrived, and only a minute before Renko had them all in their proper place, the only thing he lacked was ammunition at the time.

They had extrapolated the design of the Centurion's bullets with a few of the crystals that were close to the entrance of the Canterlot Crystal Mines. It stunned Renko how similar the crystals were to E99 energy... As if they were a far more concentrated and stable version of E99. Within days he had a fully built M16A4 with plenty of ammo to go with it.

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Renko stopped in one of the two taverns that were in the town, The Bucking Mare, he placed his bag at his feet and took out a portable chess set that he had bought several weeks prior to his deployment. He had gone so far as to teach Moon Shimmer how to play, and in the few weeks that they had been playing, he quickly showed Renko that he was an equal as far as strategy games went. Renko's gaze drifted to a charcoal-grey unicorn stallion that walked in as he finished his thought, the unicorn smiled a mischievious smile and trotted over to him, Renko spoke as soon as the unicorn was mere feet from him.

"Speak of the devil and he shall appear... I was just about to set up a game of chess... wanna play?" Moon Shimmer gave a mock thoughtful look before taking a seat opposite him, they both only ordered water when the waitress came around, both of them began a greatly contested game of wits and strategy as she left. More than half of the pieces had already been removed from the board by the time the waitress had come back, every time one of them would move the other would make a move to counter the other's advance, all that was left was a few pawns, both kings, both queens, and one knight each. The battle raged all over the board as each would get the other's king in check before either would move their king into a more defensible position, neither one let emotions give away any amount of uneasyness, it was as if it were a battle being raged by two masters in the art of war. As Renko said 'Check' for what felt like the thirtieth time in a minute Moon Shimmer pondered his next move, his king was surrounded on every exit, Renko had his king backed against a wall. Before he could form the levitation spell to forfeit the game though, there was a few loud screams from outside and a sick squishing sound, Renko and the rest of the guards were outside in seconds... and most of the ponies that now saw the scene before them threatened to be sick with what they saw.

A petit aquamarine pegasus mare with a yellow mane lay on the street before them with her throat slashed open, Renko sighed as he knew he could do nothing for the dying mare, and next to her, sobbing uncontrollably, was a light-brown earth mare with a matching mane. Renko cautiously walked over to the brown mare and asked what happened, it was difficult, but not impossible, to understand her through the sobs.

"A... A monster... appeared... out of nowhere... And attacked before... Either of us... Knew what happened..." Any further information the mare had was lost among another round of sobs. Renko slowly knelt down and placed his rifle beside him as he placed a hand on her shoulder, her bloodshot green eyes met his and he couldn't bring himself to say anything that could help.

Out of his peripheral vision he saw something he had hoped to never see again after he left Katorga-12, a faint blue outline with two hovering blue-white lights for eyes made its way toward them. It was too close for him to dodge, but he used the hand that was on the mare's shoulder to move her out of the way... unfortunately that hand also had his TMD on it so he couldn't slow down the creature as it blinked into existence. Only one thought passed through his mind as the creature's claw caught him in the chest and sent him sprawling.

"...Fucking Zeks..."

The next thing that Renko saw as the impact of the blow knocked the wind out of him and sent him flying was dirt as he fell to the ground facedown. He struggled to bring his head up and he was shocked at what he saw, the blue, deformed, human-looking creature had its hands out in front of it as if it were holding something. Mere miliseconds later a red metal barrel blinked into existence in the creature's grasp, it raised the barrel above its head and prepared to throw it, hesitating for only a split-second when one of Renko's soldiers ordered the creature to drop the barrel. Without concern for its own safety it threw the barrel, but Renko had managed to recover from the blow and made a reflexive counterattack. As the barrel sailed through the air the metal began to corrode and shrink with rust in a blue light until it was barely anything but a large, rusty paperweight levitating in front of Renko's outstreached hand. The creature, thinking that it now had an opening in Renko's defenses, charged forward at a speed that nopony thought it could haul it's deformed bulk. Renko chuckled inwardly as the remains of the oil drum fell and he had a clear line of sight to the Zek, in a flash of blue light the creature became outlined in an orange glow as it seemed to move in incredibly-slow motion. Renko walked purposefully over to the creature, drawing his Centurion as he walked, and brought the barrel of his handgun to the creature's temple and spoke.

"I. Hate. Zeks!" he said, placing emphasis on each word before pulling the trigger, the familiar report of the gunshot echoed through the street and the creature seemed to recoil back from the bullet in the same slow motion for a few seconds before returning to normal speed and crumpling to the ground. He was breathing hard from the exertion that he had so quickly placed his body under in such a short time but he refused to take a knee, he watched the creature crumble to dust with the killer's look that his soldiers had heard about but hadn't seen, even some of his own guards flinched a little at the anger radiating from the stare. Renko now understood why he was here... and he was furious.

"I thought I destroyed the singularity? I thought that all the Reverts died when the Singularity exploded?! How can there possibly be reverts here when there is no evidence of human life other than me on this planet!?" Each thought only fueled his anger, much to the point where his soldiers didn't dare speak in his presence, even Moon Shimmer was intimidated by the human. Renko had managed to overhear a conversation between two guards who hadn't noticed him yet, and he felt a small stab of regret as he heard their words.

"...the look he was giving that thing after it died... I'm surprised that the Princess didn't send a letter asking who could've been shedding so much anger, I was standing ten feet from the guy and I felt like he was going to tear my head off..." The guard had clasped his front hooves over his mouth as he finally noticed Renko. All three of them stood in an uncomfortable silence, each waiting for somepony to break it first, but the lower ranking guards didn't dare break the silence purely out of fear of punishment. Renko gave a single sigh before he gave his orders.

"I have already informed the other squads in the area, but I want everyone to be combat ready in less than a moment's notice, and I want all unicorns who are decent spellcasters to work on maintaining an anti-teleportation spell around the town. Do I make myself clear?" Both of the guards straightened and saluted with a nod before taking off to join the other squads. Renko didn't bother to turn around before speaking to what seemed to just be the air around him.

"I know you're there Corporal... I do believe we still have a game of chess to finish..."

Moon Shimmer stepped out from around the corner of the building behind Renko and replied.

"...In all honesty, we both know that you won that round..." Moon's face was contorted into a grimace as he spoke, feeling pity for the Sergeant.

"There were still too many casualties... I was played for a fool for most of the battle... And when I got checked, I pulled a move that was far too risky under normal circumstances... and was even more under that circumstance. It just happened to work." Moon trotted slowly up to Renko and explained something.

"Sometimes it takes risks to win battles, casualties happen...however undesireable, but it takes true will to win a battle when the odds are stacked against you." He quickly turned and began walking off to his post, but was stopped after a few feet by Renko.

"Thank you... this will only be more painful the longer this war draws on." Moon gave him a knowing smile before replying.

"I was simply talking about chess... but the term certainly does apply to most things in life..." Without another word he turned and walked off to his post, leaving Renko alone on the street with only his thoughts to accompany him in the fading light. He wished he could d something other than just stand there and feel miserable, but he didn't even know the mare's name, he knew that when he got to the military barracks that were set up in Ponyville he would have a lot of explaining to do for Twilight. He had no idea who he'd actually be talking to when he got there.