Snails stood stock still in the centre of his bedroom. It was a typical bedroom of a typical teenage male. It was filthy. There were clothes, in various stages of uncleanliness, hanging everywhere. A few dirty dishes remained - he had never gotten around to taking them back into the kitchen. Bad science-fiction novels, comic books, car magazines and the like were cluttered about here and there. There was a little thirteen inch television that he had gotten at a garage sale. It didn’t get any channels, but he had hooked up an old video game console that he had dragged out of a box in the garage, and the cartridges were scattered everywhere. His walls were covered with posters of his favourite musicians, or at least the ones that had been his favourite a couple of years ago, and he had never gotten around to taking them down. There was a also clock, a dart board, and a calendar with lots of hot chicks in it. They were all in bikinis, of course. Sometimes his mom still came into his room, so he kept the porn magazine stuffed under his mattress where she would never find it.
Snails couldn’t remember why he had come into his room in the first place. He must have come in to get something, but now he couldn’t remember what it was. Then he couldn’t remember coming in at all. Had he just woken up in his bed? The light coming through the Venetian blinds suggested late afternoon. Then again, it was the weekend and he was prone to sleeping in for a very long time. He had this weird, fuzzy feeling of uncertainty, as if he were in a dream.
“Hello, Snails,” Princess Celestia whispered into his ear.
“Uh, huh, huh, hi!” he grinned a sheepish dumb grin and blushed.
Celestia was standing behind him. She reached her long arms around his chest and hugged him close. “My goodness, Snails. You’ve grown so much since the last time I saw you. You’re almost as tall as I am.”
“Huh. Yeah. This one time? Like a couple summers ago? I grew like eight inches in three months. I had these really bad growing pains. And I got these stretch marks on my back. The doctor said it was because my skin wasn’t growing as fast as my spine was.”
“Well, Snails, you’re just about all grown up. A real man.”
“Yeah.”
“It takes a lot of responsibility to be a man, Snails.”
“Uh huh.”
“I’m sure you’re going to be a good man, Snails. You’ll do what’s right. You’re so tall. And so handsome. I bet the girls are just falling all over you, aren’t they?”
“Actually, I just got a girlfriend.”
“Really? Well, I’m not surprised. Is she pretty? Is she prettier than I am?” Celestia asked. She started to kiss his neck.
“Uh... huh huh uh... um...”
“It’s OK, sweetheart. You don’t have to answer that. It’s OK if you think your girlfriend is prettier than I am. That’s the way it should be.”
“Um. So. Sometimes? The guys at school make fun of the way she looks. And they make fun of me because of the way she looks. I don’t believe them though. I think she’s real pretty. I keep telling her that. I think she’s sad about it, and I don’t think she believes me when I tell her she’s pretty, but it makes her happy when I say it, so I keep saying it anyway.”
“Mmm, you’re such a nice, bright young man. Do you remember when you first saw her? Not the first time you met, but the time you first saw her and knew that you loved her?”
Of course Snails remembered. It was the single most vivid memory in his adolescent brain. He thought about it all the time. He couldn’t concentrate in class because he would always be thinking about that day. Sometimes even when he was with Twist he became distracted by the memory.
“Yeah,” he answered simply.
“Do you remember her bathing in that pool? Can you remember how the sight took your breath away?
“Yeah.”
“Remember how pale her skin looked? You could see her clearly, even though she was swimming underwater. That curly red hair of hers flowed like a mermaid’s hair, didn’t it? She had a lot of freckles, didn’t see? She even had freckles on that little round butt of hers. Remember?”
“Uh huh.”
Celestia was pressing her large breasts into his back. Snails became aware that he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Neither was she. He could feel her nipples growing hard on his skin. He could feel his own dick in his pyjama bottoms getting hard. He felt a wave of embarrassment as she talked. She was, after all, the princess. He didn’t want to look dumb in front of the princess.
“And when she stepped out of that pool onto the rock you were standing on? Remember how she looked then? The water was dripping off her little round breasts. Remember how sweet she tasted the first time she kissed you?”
“Yeah.”
Celestia ran her fingers down his belly. Her finger tips slid underneath the waistband of his pyjama bottoms. Snails breathed in deeply, in both surprise and pleasure. She wrapped her fingers around his rock hard shaft.
“My goodness,” she whispered into his other ear. “You’re a man already, aren’t you?” She started to stroke him. “Remember, Snails? Remember the first time she put her mouth on you? Remember the first time you put it inside of her? In the water?”
“Oh god,” he moaned.
She started to jerk him off faster.
“The second time you made love to her? When you went over to her house? Her parents were away, Snails. You did it on her bed. It was the first time you were ever in her room, and she let you put it in her. Remember? You made love for an hour. It was in the middle of the day, and it was so hot you had to open the window. You were on top of her. She spread her legs for you. The whole hour you lasted, both your bodies were wet with sweat. You made her cum, Snails. You made her happy.”
“Yes.”
“You love her very much, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Snails gasped. Celestia slid her other hand in, and grabbed a hold of his balls. Snails grunted with delight.
“You would do anything for her.”
“Yes.”
“You would defend her.”
“Oh god, yes.”
“Would you defend her with your life?”
“Yes.”
She pulled his pyjama bottoms off of his waist and let them fall to the floor. She returned to the handjob. Now he could look down and watch. She jerked his whole shaft with her right hand, while kneading his balls with her left. He was close to cumming. Her hands felt so good.
“What if something happened to her?” Celestia asked.
“What?”
“What if somebody tried to hurt her?”
“What? Who?”
“Can you imagine that, Snails? Can you imagine somebody raping her? Or killing her? Can you imagine somebody beating her up?”
“No!”
“Can you imagine how badly she would cry with somebody punching her in the face? Can her hear her screams? She’s calling for your help, Snails.”
“No! Stop.”
She squeezed his nuts. Snails started to cum. He couldn’t help himself. He couldn’t have stopped if he had wanted to. The pleasure was intense, despite the terrible images she was putting into his head. His seed went spraying all over as she shook him.
“Oh my,” she whispered. “What a man you are,” the last few white drops fell out on her fingers as she massaged his head. “You love me too, don’t you, Snails?”
“Yes.”
“You’d protect me too, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Would you die for me?”
“Yes.”
“Would you fight for me?”
“I would.”
“Would you join Equestria’s armies for me?”
“I... I’m too young. I don’t even have a drivers license yet.”
“Don’t worry about that, Snails. Nobody will ask you. You’re such a big man. No one will ever stop you from protecting me. Because if they can hurt me, Snails, they can hurt anybody. She would be defenceless. I’m your princess, your sovereign. If I fall, nothing will stand in their way from hurting her. They would hurt her so bad, Snails. They would probably even kill her.”
“No!” Snails screamed. He sat straight up in bed. It took him a few seconds to realize he had been dreaming the whole thing. His breathing was ragged. He was covered in sweat. His bed, his sheets, they were all soaking wet. He found the inside of his pyjama bottoms were sticky with semen.
He tore them off, wiped himself clean, and got dressed. He was still shaking from the vividness of the nightmare. Snails looked at the clock. It was just past eight in the morning. Normally he never would have gotten up at such an hour during the weekend, but he couldn’t have gotten back to sleep if he had tried.
Snails left his room. He wanted to give Twist a call, just to hear the sound of her sweet, silly voice. She probably wouldn’t understand why he was calling, she was probably still asleep herself, but he didn’t care.
He got as far as the living room. His parents were there. Both were sitting on the couch, watching the television. That in itself was also unusual for a Saturday morning. The news was on. It was the latest breaking news. An emergency. Snails took one last look at the faces of his parents. It was clear that they were upset.
Snails didn’t ask them what was wrong. It didn’t seem right. Instead he sat down, unnoticed, and watched for himself. At first it wasn’t really clear what was happening. Then he saw the footage. It was only a few seconds of footage, but the news kept looping it over and over again.
It was the princess. She had been hurt. It didn’t even look like her. Snails didn’t recognize her at first, and when he did he gasped in horror. The news showed the scene of her leaving the hospital. She was quickly leaving the hospital doors and was being rushed into the waiting limo by her guards, while dozens of paparazzi snapped their photos.
She looked like she had been hurt real bad. One eye was swollen shut and bruised, purple turning to black. One of her lips was big and swollen, and there were stitches where it had been cut open. Her normally strange and perfect hair was now limp and mussed. Some of it looked like it had been charred off. There were red, raw patches around her face and neck, as if her skin itself had also been burned. Princess Celestia had always looked so perfect and youthful. Now she was broken. She looked so old and tired now. She was his princess, his sovereign. She had been victimized. And if she could be victimized, Snails realized, anybody could be victimized. Even Twist.
Snail’s parents sat there for hours. The news slowly trickled in as they kept repeating the old stuff. The news confirmed the princess had been beaten and violated. They confirmed it had been a terrorist attack. It had been foreign terrorists. Equestria had been attacked by foreigners. A special session of Parliament was about to convene. The princess herself had taken to her bed and would remain in seclusion indefinitely. Pundits were calling for blood.
Eventually his parents turned to the chair where he had sat, but Snails was already long gone. He had simply put on his shoes and walked out the front door. He walked down his little suburban street, and turned to go downtown. Others were coming out of their houses. Some were teenage boys like him, some even younger than him. Most were older, grown. In their late teens or twenties, old enough to shave. All of them had that strange, blank, determined look on their faces. They had all shared the same dream.
The group of young, fit men swelled into a mob. The mob marched into the centre of Ponyville and formed into a line. The line lead through the doors of the local recruitment office.
Equestria was going to war.

Next Chapter: 4: Duty Bound Estimated time remaining: 6 Hours, 35 Minutes