“So rats?” Applejack asked as we sat on the docks of Vanhoover.

“Yep, huge rats, they aren’t that much of a problem, we just have to get rid of the drivers and the rats will die. You see the race is made so if the drivers get knocked off then they lose the race, and so the rats don’t go nuts, they are connected to the rat’s hearts. I’m pretty sure there will only be five, but I’m not sure if they would’ve changed the rules.”

“Rules?”

“Yeah, I once took part in it. It’s crazy fun, but after the attack they moved the race, and it no longer hurt any pony, we just have to knock out all of the drivers. If any of them escape back into the sea, we’ll have to deal with it again in a year.”

“Ya failed the first time?”

“Yep, and there were twenty the second time. So we can’t afford to mess this up, five of them is bad enough, they ripped from the west to the east coast from here, and we barely stopped them from escaping a second time.”

“So how long?” Dash asked with a few ropes around her. She could feel her wings just fine, but I didn’t want her trying just yet.

“Long enough that if you don’t get your butt back into my tent I'll whip you.” She blushed and Applejack looked at me. “That’s right, you heard me.” I pulled out a whip and her eyes went wide running back into my tent. She peeked out and I threw the whip at her going between her legs making her yip.

“She like that?” Applejack asked with a grin.

“Don’t know, but I'll find out if she doesn’t stay in there.”

“So how’s the factory?”

“I can’t use it till the forge is done, I make all the main parts there, the factory is more about putting it together than anything.”

“It’s still a week or two away ain’t it?”

“Yeah, the two week mark was a few days ago when the factory was finished, they said it would take two months to do it, but we have about nine days before the one month mark. So I’m fine, I mean after Los Pegasus we got a bunch of recruits and plenty of funding along with armor and weapons. We all have decent armor and swords.”

“Great isn’t it?” Bouclier asked and we looked at him. “We now have an army of almost five thousand, recruits just flooded our recruitment centers.” I chucked smiling.

“Welcome to the front lines First Lieutenant Bouclier.” He grinned. He had been moved to right below Applejack in ranking.

Spear and Epee were now training recruits with a claw full of soldiers. They proved less than battle worthy during the goblin battle, they both nearly died during it several times, more than any other soldier, as well as nearly breaking the battle formation.

“Thanks commander.”

“I’m not a commander.” He sat down next to me.

“You are to us, you’ve saved us in every battle, one way or another, and before you say Applejack, we respect and agree she is the general, but you’re still a commander. We would run right into hell if you asked.” I frowned, I had accidentally explained what hell was, and it became a thing ponies actually thought about now, and were scared of.

“We’ll be doing that later.”

“What?” Applejack asked.

“Oh the Lich, he lives in hell, we’ll be going there to permanently kill him. So yes I will be asking you to do that.”

“Oh, then that’s good.” He said a little nervous.

“I’m only screwing with you.” He laughed relieved. “No the Lich’s domain is much worse than hell. At least when you’re in hell you know you’re dead, with the Lich you don’t know.” He stared at me and I fell back looking at the sky.

“He’s kidding right?”

“Don’t think he is.” Applejack replied a little scared herself. “Pushing that aside, how is the check list?”

“Green across the board,” Bouclier said. “We have all pony moved, stores reinforced and traps at the ready enough for ten of them. We’ll be able to do this without very much collateral damage to the city, and with no injury to civilian pony.

“Oh I almost forgot.” I got up surprising them. I jogged to my tent and Dash hurried onto her bed sitting down as if she hadn’t moved looking away. “Yeah you know what you did, if I see you outside this tent for any reason.” I went up to her ear, whispering to her. “I'll really whip you.” She bit her lip enjoying the thought. I kissed her and picked up a box going back outside to Applejack and Bouclier.

“What’s that?” Applejack asked. I opened it showing gem bullets.

“These are gem bullets.” I handed one to each of them and they looked at them. “They have black pounder inside the metal casing, and then a small detonator cap on the bottom. If you hit the bottom then the gem will be launched at high speeds. Once it imbeds in something, it explodes, but I have a spell so it’ll only work against a target you want it to.”

“So what happens if we hit a pony we don’t want to hurt?” Bouclier asked.

“The bullet will evaporate before it hits, and no harm will happen. Now it will hit a wall if you carelessly fire, but you’ll never have to worry about hitting another pony, unless within two Applejacks lengths. The magic needs time to work.”

“That’s neat, but how do we use it?”

“A gun, it connects to your armor here.” I pressed his side. “Then using your mind, magic and an arm that is hooked on there. You can aim and fire it. So if you’re hiding behind a wall you think what you want to happen, and then it’ll do it. Once you try it you’ll be able to easily use it.”

“Sweet.” Applejack said.

“Yep, you can use two of them if you’re skilled enough, but every pony will have two on their armor, unless a sniper, or heavy. Also the arms can be modified to give a pony four extra hands to do anything they want, four extra is normally the limit for most.”

“Hands?” Bouclier asked looking at his hooves. I held up my hand to him.

“It looks like this, it has four claws on it to allow for gripping, also craving, page turning and any number of tasks. While my claws aren’t better for some things, I can slice your throat out with them, so it’s better for war.”

“Sounds good to me, I wouldn’t mind having hands then.”

“Also I can do this.” I reached over tickling Applejack and she pushed me away laughing.

“Hey! Don’t do that.” Applejack said and I chuckled. Bouclier looked away chuckling himself.

“I really want claws now.” Applejack rolled her eyes smiling.

“So you missing any pony?” Applejack asked.

“Me?” Bouclier asked.

“Ya, I know about this one here.” She pushed me and I smiled. “What about cha, I don’t think we’ve talked much.” He smiled.

“I don’t have any pony waiting on me if that’s what you mean, my parents passed some time ago, joined the military so I wouldn’t starve. They didn’t leave me much, only enough for a few months of food really. Never made friends or dated any pony, was always moving around too much to do that. That’s my life in a nut shell.”

“That’s terrible.” I said and they looked at me chuckling.

“What?” Applejack said.

“You’re supposed to lie to that question,” I said smiling. “Make something up, that either makes us all teary eyed or roll our eyes because it’s clearly a lie. That’s the beautiful thing that we can do during battle times, and it’s fun, because while we’re on the battlefield we don’t have to worry about the ones we love far away. Here we stand protecting them, and here we save them for the nightmare we fight.” They both chuckled.

“Still the commander.” Bouclier said and I laughed.

“Been in battle far too much, if you don’t keep your soldiers fed and ready, you lose them before the battle even starts. The desire to protect is the strongest, because it shows love, trust, a way of life, a principal. Whenever talking to your troops, you show that to them, and they will follow you to their grave.”

“Yes commander.”

“Now then Bouclier, tell us about yourself.” Both Applejack and Bouclier laughed.

“Well sir, well.” An alarm went off and we all got up. I put the bullets back into the box and throwing it into my tent landing into my bed chest.

“General.” A radio pony said running up to us.

“Yes?” Applejack asked.

“We got a signal from a coastal boat, the rats are five minutes out from their estimate speeds, and there are eight of them. They will be coming on land right next to this dock, they do not appear to know or have noticed the water mines. Their escape route has been cut off completely.”

“Good, stay with us.” I said and they looked at me surprised.

“Why commander?” He asked.

“Do you have hold of team one?”

“Team one do you copy?”

“Team one leader responding, is it time?”

“Say, green lit.”

“Team one leader, you are green lit.”

“Roger.”

“What’s that about?” Bouclier asked.

“Team one is my fall back plan,” I said looking out to the sea. “There was one major flaw that we can do nothing about.”

“What’s that?” Applejack asked.

“Sewers.” They all paused looking down. “If they fell into them, we wouldn’t have enough soldiers to cover all the exits, so I have them ready to flood them completely along with every single home and business. I would rather have a water damage than let a single one get away.”

“That’s a little sick.” The radio pony said.

“I know, but let’s hope they don’t fall into them with their weight, five of the traps have to be after sewer drops, and we can’t move them, or the rat racers will realize it’s a trap and climb over buildings, it would probably collapse a few.”

“So then we hope.” Applejack said and I nodded.

“What’s happening?” Dash asked still inside my tent. She as hovering at the door not wanting to come out, but wanting to.

“Four minutes.” The radio pony said.

“Four minutes.” I yelled over to her.

“Come on, let me out, I won’t do anything!”

“Nope, that’s the safest spot in the city.” They all looked at me a bit confused.

“Why is that?” Bouclier asked.

“It’s on fermented ground, the rats will choke to death if they pass over it once, the rats will naturally avoid the area, but I could only spell a small area. There were several places they could have come, this place was lucky considering.”

“Okay.” Applejack said. We stared out and the minutes went by rather quickly, then they came within sight and they stared shocked, even though they knew the size. The rats were still over fourteen yards tall, massive things, with a small pack on their backs.

“Remember we need only one of them to live, the rest can be taken care of however you all want.” They nodded and Applejack ran away with Bouclier. “Tell all units, rats have made land fall.”

“All units, rats have made land fall! I repeat, rats have made land fall!” The rats made the ground tremble as they touched the beach. Seven of them ran into the city and the final one slowed down, and I shared eye contact with the rat driver.

I grinned and he frowned, as he followed the other. This was the first time they had come to Equestria, in fact they had no idea that it was even here, they came back another time because we had interrupted the race, but the second time we stopped them.

“Commander, rats one through four have been taken down, five and six are trapped, and seven is still moving toward a trap.”

“Good.” He pressed his ear piece.

“Rat seven turned around! It destroyed a five story high building and is coming back this way.”

“Tell the water teams to get ready.”

“Water teams, one rat is on its way, get ready, I repeat, water teams get ready!” Boats moved into place and the rat came back jumping into the water instead of turning toward us because of the tent.

Yelling filled the air from the angry driver. The rat went out to sea and a few water mines exploded ripping the insides of the rat open and killing the driver. I sighed turning back to the city.

“How many drivers do we have?”

“Driver count requested.” He nodded as they talked to him.

“All dead commander, it would seem the charges were too powerful for the rats to handle. Rat eight is the only one still alive, it has stopped some way from its trap. It doesn’t seem to be moving.”

“Tell them to standby, I'll be taking the driver, we can’t afford to kill him.” He nodded and I shot into the air. I flew for a little and landed onto a building looking down at the giant rat and the driver on top looking at a map confused. I landed next to him and he looked at me.

“What in the world!” He shouted and I grabbed his collar breaking it off. The large rat yelled in pain as it’s heart was cut in half falling to the ground dead. “MY RAT!” He screamed and I grabbed him.

“Yeah, also all the racers are dead. You’re the last one left, we killed all your rats and the drivers by accident, so I need you to go back and tell them not to come back through here. You will convince them not to.” I pulled him close to me. “Swear on your rat colony’s life.” He gulped scared.

“I swear on my colony.”

“Good, now then.” I grabbed him and flew into the air going back to the docks. A boat came over to us and docked. “That boat will have food, water, some money and star maps to allow you to get back to your colony to tell them. If you fail me, ask the goblins what they know of the country known as Equestria, and they will tell you who we are.” He nodded getting onto the boat.

“Enjoy your trip.” One of the soldiers said smiling and the rat gave him an odd look. The rat driver got onto the boat and started to sail it away.

“Hey.” Bouclier said coming over to me.

“Hey.”

“Um, so clean up.” I laughed a little.

“Did we put the traps down correctly?”

“Um, for five of them, and the water one.” I sighed. I was starting to hate cleaning up, the goblins were hard but easy at the same time. While most of the bodies were evaporated, we had a ton of bodies that made the wall, and there were tens of thousands of them. It took us three days just to pick up all the pieces, setting them on a manageable tarp to let me bury.

“I’m on it.” I grunted walking into a clearing and changing form into my real form, then flying over to each of the traps picking up a tarp and flying it to a large grave. I dumped the bodies into the hole. I did that with all the others using a large net for the one in the water, and boats went around cleaning up the waters. I landed in the city for the last one and went forward hitting buildings with my wings.

“WATCH OUT!” A soldier pony shouted too late and I bent down growling making him fall back scared.

“A bit late to tell me I won’t fit, don’t you think?!” He nodded. “And I’m not deaf you idiot, I have better hearing than you.”

I looked at the building and sighed realizing I just wouldn’t fit, not with my wings. If I shrunk down I wouldn’t be able to fly it out, and lifting it to get a rope around it was out of the question. The thing looked half rotted away as is, and I didn’t want to rip off its head spilling the guts.

“Fine mess we’re in.” Applejack said and I shrunk down to my normal form.

“That is the one spot I can’t get to, and I don’t think we can afford these buildings to get destroy, can we?”

“Nope, rebuilding funds are pretty low.” I sighed, we had just done a huge amount of damage saving other cities, that it was becoming more of a hassle to not damage things than actually save the cities.

“I suppose we could leave it and let the city deal with it.”

“They city won’t be happy about dat, one of dem rats destroyed a building, remember.” I sighed. “We would probably have ta pay to clean it up.”

“I don’t know.”

“Can’t ya, you know, magic lift the thing out?”

“Can you carry four times your weight?”

“Nope.”

“Then no.”

“What about trying’ a rope?” I chuckled a little grimly and she sighed knowing that it would rip, the sides were already bulging.

“How about we tell them we didn’t do it?”

“I ain’t gonna lie if that’s what yer asking’ me ta do.” I grunted a little. “We’ll use a rope, if it turns bad, well then, we’ll piece it out.”

“Alright.” I sat down with Applejack and they hooked up ropes around it, I would have to drag it onto the tarp, just its body length, but easier said than done. I changed form and grabbed ropes. “Are you all ready, keep close watch.”

“Go for it.” Applejack said and I pulled slowly, it made ripping sound as I dragged it making me frown.

“IT’S RIPPING!” A soldier shouted and I gave a quick tug sending ninety percent of it onto the trap, leaving a few organs on the street. A nasty stench filled the air making me cover my noise.

“That’s sick!” A soldier shouted throwing up.

“Good thing you have an empty stomach,” Applejack said. “Because now you can start moving the inners onto the tarp with the rest of it.” The soldiers put on masks cleaning up the guts and I flew the trap to the grave site just dropping it in with a loud splat.

I went back to Applejack which had gone back to the docks. She looked at me as I landed changing size and jumping into a large tub of clean water making it steam. She jumped in with me relaxing.

“Sharing a bath with me is daring in my book.” She chuckled.

“Hold it big boy, I’m covered in sick, my trap got really messy, got covered in it. So excuse me for not caring.” I chuckled moving back a little.

“Can I come out now?” Dash asked.

“Yep, dangers over.” Applejack said. Dash came out coming over to us.

“Is that clean?”

“Was when we got in.” I said chuckling. I snapped my claws cleaning the water and Applejack. “And it is now.” She got in and I pulled her closer to me. “A nice hot bath will do us all wonders. Soldier go tell every pony to go wash off, we’re done for the day.”

“Yes commander.” He ran off. I picked up a large blue gem and threw it landing into the ocean. The water cleared up making the red tide go away. One thing that would kill pony later on was blood tide.

“Why doesn’t this make me feel clean?” Applejack asked.

“I know, the grime just doesn’t come off nicely, also Applejack, how are you?”

“Whatcha mean?”

“Well I noticed you haven’t exactly been going back to your farm, you hired two pony to replace you didn’t you?”

“Yep, making enough from this, that I can afford to hire. Big Mac’s real happy about not being alone in his duties.”

“That’s good, and what about you Dash?”

“Me, oh I’m fine.”

“You alright at home and everything?”

“I just live on a cloud alone, I don’t have any family, so yeah. I mean Scootaloo is about as close to family that I have left. Dad’s off somewhere, don’t really talk much to him anymore, just drifted I guess.”

“How’s Scootaloo?”

“Good, she’s wanting me to come by more, but I’m not leaving you guys. I’m needed out here more, I couldn’t stand to think if you died because you needed me, and I wasn’t here to help you fight.”

“You do realize you could go nuts for a while, you can’t help us till I’m sure you’re wings are better.”

“Still.” She looked away a little. I pulled her closer to me and she blushed.

“So ya two, are together?” Applejack asked and Dash blushed pushing away.

“No-no, just, close.” I chuckled.

“Applejack do you have a special pony?” She blushed a little looking away from me.

“None of yer business.” I chuckled lightly.

“Actually it is.” She looked at me. “I need to know if it’s one of the soldiers or if you’re not dating at all. You’re a commander, you can’t have a personal relationship with any of the soldiers of lower ranking, unless I know about it. If you did and you didn’t tell me, it might cause you to make bad judgment calls because you love them.”

“Oh,” she said as if she was kicked. “No, I haven’t. I’m still single.”

“Why?”

“I haven’t found a special pony, takes a special type of stallion to join my family, we don’t just marry from love, we marry depending on how good they’d be. We ain’t ever married a weak pony.”

“Ever marry in family?”

“Excuse me?”

“Honest question.”

“Na, we don’t do that, causes too many family problems. I’ve seen a clan break up over an in family marriage, didn’t end well for no pony. They lost everything in a nasty divorce, we always marry out of family because of that.”

“Ever tried Big Mac? Or is he just for style?” She frowned.

“Listen here, I'll have you know that’s disgusting, I will not let you suggest such things about my family. Anymore and I'll take it as insult to my family honor.” I smiled.

“Sorry.”

“That you be.” She nodded satisfied. She fell deeper in the water and then growled getting out. “I need to go check on the soldiers.” She didn’t bother drying off, she was rather pissed now.

“I think you pissed her off.” Dash said.

“I know, did it on purpose.”

“Why’d you do that?”

“I’m not going to be here much longer once the foundry is finished. I'll be too busy making weapons, bullets, and other things to be on the battlefield with her. I need her to dislike me so she doesn’t miss me.” She paused staring at me.

“What? That’s messed up!”

“What?”

“That’s not even funny, you shouldn’t make some pony dislike you just so they won’t miss you. That’s really messed up, why did you even think that was a good idea?”

“Look at you, all uppity all a sudden. I never told you that you could leave the tent, now did I?” I pulled her close kissing her.

“Whoa, whoa, calm down there, we, only did that a few times, and each of them were bad judgment calls.” I went down the water and she grabbed me as I ate her out. While I wasn’t a water dragon, I could easily swim and hold my breath for a very long time. She finished rather easily and I went up kissing her.

“Do you still think it was bad judgment?”

“Fun bad judgment.” She said smiling and I chuckled.

“Really now.”

“Yep.”

“Then you should go get ready to leave, we won’t be staying here much longer.” She got out and I slapped her on her ass making her turn around smiling mad. “Hey don’t think that you can get passed me waving that in the air, and not expect a slap on the ass.” She rolled her eyes chuckling.

We finished up clean up and started home. I had updated trains considerably and now they could go much faster, further and carry more.