“Commander, we’re here.” Spear said. I paused looking at Lilly, she had grown a little and was asleep on my lap, they had extended the train tracks to go from the factory to the military base. It allowed for faster action to needed areas.

“Yeah, I know.” I picked up Lilly setting her on Trixie’s back. We walked outside of the train to a rather surprising sight.

“SALUTE!” A soldier in gold armor shouted, lines of soldiers saluted me as I walked outside. While ten thousand wasn’t that impressive, it was still a lot of pony to have in one place so well organized. I smiled a little bit.

“Seffron.” Applejack said coming over to me in red and gold armor.

“Applejack.” She smiled having four stars on her shoulder.

“At ease.” She said to another pony. The lines of pony stopped saluting. “Come with me we have a lot to discuss.”

“Trixie go with Lilly and do something, I don’t know how long this will last.” She nodded leaving. “Is everything alright? You seem to be doing fine.”

“No deaths, we’ve been rather lucky I assume, the details you’ve given us have been spot on, and the estimates within your guesses. There have been a few things that you didn’t include but those were just blow back.”

“Yeah, like with the Oaka.”

“Exactly.”

“So why’d you call me, the guns can’t be that much of a problem.”

“Well I don’t know how to use the damn things, no one else seems to be able to get them to work, so yeah.”

“Oh.”

“And you had a gold star next to Ice Mares, I assumed they were bad.”

“They try to cover Equestria in snow forever, not any less than any other creature, but they are one of the big stepping stones to worse things.”

“Well after the Gone Sands I imagine they must be pretty bad.”

“Considerably worse if we were just fighting them, the gone sands can be attacked from the ground, the air mare control the clouds so they are considerably harder because ground forces don’t work against them.” Like many creatures the Ice Mares could sense the Lich growing in power, but that was one detail to be left alone, no one needed to know that these creatures were awakening from the Lich’s power leaking out.

“That’s not good, we still haven’t received our battalion from Clouds Dale yet, we only have a few dozen Pegasi on standby, only one is a medic.”

“That’s fine, you’ve set up the cloud shredder right?”

“Yeah.”

“Just use that, if they don’t have clouds around them then they die from the heat of the sun, so it’s not that hard with it, we found it the hard way, every old pony died from them, got too cold for them to live.”

“Granny would be mad.”

“I bet, but I had a star there because it requires heavy weapons or is required that I be there to assist you. Like Losive Day or the desert pony, they both are extremely powerful and have to be dealt with in a certain way, though, the Desert Pony is another matter, anyway, it doesn’t matter.”

“I haven’t checked the list for them, how far away are they?”

“We have those two, the Green bog, Jergen Nots, then about five more gold star ones this year alone. Remember we have years of battling ahead of us, the Lich is a few years away, then we have a ton more after that if we survive the Lich coming back, that is if I can’t kill him before he wakes up.”

“That’s good to know.”

“How’s Dash?”

“She’s pissed, you never came back.” I laughed.

“Completely forgot.”

“She got away from me after a few days, she’s in the clouds watching, I think.”

“I assume Pinkie was with you?”

“She teleported in and out on occasion, we have a more standby relationship.” I had nearly killed Pinkie after she told me that she loved me, we were now on a feed only relationship till further notice.

“So Big Mac.” I stopped and she stopped as well looking at me. “Are you alright?” I stared at her for a moment. She didn’t know, but he wouldn’t be stupid enough to tell her that he was a dead bringer.

“What about him?”

“You know something I don’t?”

“He visited me a few times with Fluttershy, they seem to be getting along great.”

“Yeah.” She eyed me and we kept walking going to a small building and going to the third floor. She sat down opening a few reports. “Ah why I brought you here was the guns, then the Ice Mares, oh I needed you to sign this.” She passed me a contract in a folder.

“What’s this?” I looked at it.

“A contract, Celestia is having all soldiers sign military contracts after a few left without notice, you need to sign it.” I looked it over.

“No.” I put it back onto her desk.

“I don’t think you got me, you will sign it.”

“I’m not a soldier, I’m not in battle anymore, I don’t need to sign a waiver if I get killed in battle because I won’t be in battle. I make you weapons, it’s not actionable to sue.” She sighed looking out the window.

“We know about the extra supplies you been sneaking off with.”

“Are you suggesting I’m stealing anything?” She looked at me with a frown.

“Well the supplies you’re given are to protect Equestria, not fill your own pocket with coin.” I chuckled. “I’m serious, we need to know where those weapons have gone, if you sold them that could seriously hurt every pony.”

“I haven’t sold anything, there’s a little something called testing.” She paused. “I have to send weapons to be tested, fitted, cleaned and ready for your soldiers. You can’t honestly tell me you expect me to be doing this alone do you?”

“Who are you working with?”

“None of your business, you get the weapons in the end, what I do to make sure they work is my business. If you got a problem with me I'll stop making you weapons, and deliver what I have left. You can’t hope to reverse engineer the weapons, not even in your wildest dreams. The concepts have too large of a gap between what you think you know, and what I know.”

“I'll tell Celestia.”

“What? I’m having weapons tested? Maybe you’ve forgotten who you’re talking to.” I growled lightly and she moved back a little.

“Are you threatening me?”

“That’s it I’m leaving.” I got up and she got up stumbling falling to the ground.

“Wait!” I walked out of the building and headed back for the train. Soldiers looked at me a little uneased at my frown. “STOP!” She shouted. I looked at her but kept walking.

“Nope, I’m not a soldier, nor am I a citizen of this nation, you can’t draft me into the military either, so I’m leaving.” She ran in front of me. “What? Are you going to stop me? Or is there something else you want to insult me with?”

“I didn’t insult you none! You’re being unreasonable.”

“Applejack, I’m not a soldier any more, you’ve only hit the front lines for a few months, try hundreds of years, and then tell me if you’re tired.” She blocked me again. “Applejack you are no match against me.”

“You want to bet?” Her guns moved pointing at me, I growled. “Hey they moved!” I stopped and rubbed my temple. “Now then, how did I move them?” I sighed grabbing her and pulling her close. “HEY!”

“Shut up!” I connected a strap around her neck and she choked a little. “You need this on you, no wonder it isn’t working.” I let go of her and the arms started moving easily and her eyes went wide.

“Whoa.” She fired them and she jumped startled by the sound.

“I’m going to kill you.” I growled making the ground ruble. She looked at me and I had holes in my right side.

“Wait a minute.” My side healed and she started backing up. “I didn’t mean that, you can’t blame me for that!” She turned to run and I grabbed her trail. “Wait I didn’t mean to, let me go!”

“Nope.” I dragged her back into her building and threw her across her desk hitting the wall, she didn’t feel it from the armor.

“Wait!” I went around the desk and she was on her back. Her guns were pointed at me aiming badly. “Darn things! Move how I want!” I grabbed her pulling her to my face. “Wait please I didn’t mean to!”

“You shot me! Five time!”

“I didn’t mean to, please wait.”

“Give me one reason not to kill you, or.” I pulled a gun off her side and pointed it under her armor at her heart. “I’m going to kill you.” She gulped.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry to.” I moved the gun going lower.

“Whoa now!”

“Give me a reason not to pull this trigger.”

“You would have to kill a lot of pony.”

“And?”

“I’m sorry okay, I didn’t realize it could do that or worked like that, please, please don’t shoot me, I’m not lying.”

“Not a reason, that’s an excuse.” I moved the gun a little and fired making her close her eyes. She peeked at me for a moment. “You’re an idiot, what the hell were you thinking? I trained you better than this!”

“What?”

“You treated me like some pony you idiot! You always treat me like an enemy general, never some pony you recruited. You just let me drag you into your office and almost kill you, and you didn’t think for a second to call your soldiers to help you?!”

“I-I.”

“Think before you act, talking is half the battle, if you can talk an enemy into peace it is always better than going to war and risking lives. Now then give me a reason not to shoot you right now and kill you.”

“SOME.” I shot again making her flinch.

“GIVE ME REASON!” I shouted.

“Please, stop.” She asked on the edge of tears

“Why? What’s stopping me from throwing you down and raping you, ripping you limb from limb, and throwing your head to your soldiers as I do the same to them? They can’t defend themselves right now, you can’t either, so what now!”

“Is this a test?”

“WHAT NOW!” I fired a few more times.

“Um, I don’t know!” I sighed dropping her and the gun.

“I’m leaving, I’ve wasted my time on you, if you can’t even answer that simple question then I’m gone, you’ll never see me again.”

“Wait, please I'll do anything.” I stopped then looked at her and she covered her mouth realizing what she just said.

“Seriously, did you just seriously say that to me?”

“Please I called you here because I need your help, not to get you mad at me, we left on an off note, I’m sorry. Please I need you to help me lead, this army is too large for three lieutenants and a lowly trained general, a few months is nowhere close to the training I need, I need help, please, I'll do anything.”

“Finally.”

“What?”

“I was wondering when you were going to say it.”

“You knew?”

“Of course I knew! I watched every single one of your battles from the clouds, you don’t honestly think I would leave you alone, I wiped out a ton of the enemy behind the scenes, you don’t think I would let you have all the fun would you?” She paused.

“That explains the reports, but you could’ve told me.”

“Of course not, if you didn’t pass this test I was going to remove you from being a general, rather by force or by telling you to leave.” She stared at me. “You’ve let the burden of being a leader get to you. You’ve gotten sloppy and need more training, but I needed you to ask for help, a leader which is unable to ask for help from allies is not a leader!”

“I’m sorry, please help me.”

“Good, now then, go tell every single one to put on the strap, if the neck armor isn’t properly attached it won’t connect to your mind. Then meet me on the shooting range, I'll explain to a lieutenant which will then explain it to the rest of the army.”

“Alright.” She ran out of the room and I sighed. Applejack was a great leader, but she had been allowing her pride to cloud her judgment. She had nearly gotten pony killed because of it, and I would need her name to hold meaning to scare off monsters.

I went out to the gun range, it was quite large, about five hundred pony could be using it at once. It also acted as a bomb range, and grenade range. I picked up an assault rifle from a box and put on a clip.

The guns were made so any pony could pick them up and use them, hooking them onto the armor was just a plus. Also the clips could be hooked to a stream of bullets instead of just one single clip, so pony could set a box on their back and not run out of ammo easily.

I looked around as soldiers filled up the shooting range behind the small wall that I was walking on. Applejack came over to me with Spear and Epee. All the pony were moving the guns and arms now.

“That was a stupid little thing! I swear.” Epee said moving his arms around using them to write on paper with. “These things are beautiful, now I can walk and write at the same time, this is wonderful!”

“Commander.” Applejack said with a sorry look on her face.

“Hello every pony.” I said and my voice echoed. Screens of me appeared in the sky allowing them all to see me. The rows of pony were five hundred long and twenty wide so they were reasonably close to me. “Applejack come here.”

“Yes?” She asked coming over to me on the wall.

“Do all of you have the strap on correctly?” I pointed at her strap and dozens of pony redid them. “Good, now then, once you have that on you’ll be able to use your guns correctly and easily. They are an extension of you, they were made so you don’t have to know how to really use them to be able to use them. Applejack, hook the gun on your back freeing your robotic hand and shake mine.” She struggled a little bit, but got it and shook my hand smiling as she realized how to control it.

“Yay.” She paused blushing as her voice echoed and ponies started to chuckle a little and she gave them a look shutting them up.

“Now then they aren’t hard to use, but you need to be able to aim them. Wink with one eye and an aiming glass will come down. Applejack, wink.” She did and a small green glass went over one of her eyes. “Now then point one of the guns.” Her eyes went wide.

“Whoa.” Several pony did the same.

“The glass will zoom in a certain distance, it has a red dot which aims where your pointing the gun and where the bullets will hit. If it is dark out, then it’ll use night vision and allow you to see in even pitch black, in that case it’ll go over both your eyes.”

“Is there more?” Applejack asked excited.

“Yes, if there is poison gas, no air or anything that you’ll need to get ready for, say mask and one will go over your face. Then the glass will come down giving you basic information about your body. Life status, you don’t always notice your missing a limb. It tells you if you need to drink, eat or other body functions. You forget in battle too easily, so pay attention to them, and you’ll live.”

“Mask.” Applejack said and her helmet covered her face completely.

“That’s creepy isn’t it?” A mare soldier asked.

“Very, but only you can see the information so don’t worry.” A few soldiers chuckled and I went over to Applejack. “Now then, your armor is made to protect you.” I fired a pistol round inches from her helmet hitting it, knocking her back a little. “Even at close range the rounds won’t break through, you’ll feel it though.”

“Son of a basket!” Applejack yelled in pain.

“Of course if you’re unarmored you’ll die. So keep your armor on at all times, take it off and you get shot, it’s your own damn fault. Also that was because you shot me five time, that hurt.”

“Sorry.”

“You have a range of one field before you need to aim higher than the dot, if that’s what you plan, say snipe, it will change the red dot to a cross with markings telling you how you should aim depending on how far an object is.” I opened fire making pony shutter and I looked around. “It is loud, get used to it!”

“No, it’s not that,” a soldier said. “That was on speaker.” I chuckled.

“Woops.” I laughed. A few grunts and curses could be heard. “Anyway don’t worry about shooting into the air, the bullets fall harmlessly back down, even if they hit you, they don’t hurt you rather your unarmored or not. If they lose enough energy they won't stick and therefore won’t explode.”

“What about this?” A soldier asked holding up a sniper rifle.

“Any pony which scores a fifty or higher will be allowed to become a sniper, any pony which wants to become a heavy and scores a fifty on endurance may do so. Also any pony that wants to become an assault, if they score a fifty on speed may do so. Now then start practicing, I’m sure you all have work to do. One hundred rounds and then go back, aim for the targets down range.”

I jumped off the wall, then walked away and Applejack ran over to me. I chuckled and she rolled her eyes.

“That hurt.”

“I know, at least you have armor on.” I growled and she sighed.

“I said I was sorry.”

“Yeah, sorry about shooting you, don’t hurt any less does it?” She rolled her eyes. “Well I’m going to go, now that you know how to use them, you can train your soldiers and be plenty ready for.” I stepped to the side as an arrow went by my neck. I turned seeing a small ground devil with an bow. It had two legs, arms, a belly, horns on its head and an arrow tail twitching behind it.

“What the heck is that?” Applejack asked.

“A ground devil, small one, they aren’t normally dangerous. That one is about as tall as a goblin, but not the most dangerous thing.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well.” I caught an arrow. “Caught it! HA!” I shouted mocking it. “They have no armor and stay in small packs, they live rather long lives and are delicious, even to pony.”

“What?”

“They’re made of grass and other weed that are really tasty, perfect for spice. They start out as small gems like treasure goblins, but they are created in the wild so they don’t gain a lot of power like the treasure goblin and they can’t do magic.”

“Why is it attacking you?”

“Don’t know, we couldn’t be disturbing its home, we’re shooting into a hill, and they don’t live near forest normally.”

“Why is that?”

“They live in the desert sands. Now if it was.” I caught another arrow. “HA you can’t hit me! Now if it was a fire devil, water or air devil then we would be in trouble. Each can control their elements, ground devils are by far the easiest to deal with. They are slow and get pissed really easily, but really physically strong, oh look.” It started to stomp around on the ground mad. “Cute little things.”

“Oh, so why is it here?”

“Don’t know, they don’t speak a language. They stay together because it offers a bit of protection, but not much.” We both paused as the ground trembled. I looked up as a huge fire devil came out of the forest being easily two trees high.

“Oh that’s so not good.” It roared at me and pulled out a huge bow and arrow.

“That’s massive!” I pushed her out of the way as an on fire tree arrow shot at me missing me barely and getting embedded in the ground behind me.

“Not fair!” I shouted and the ground devil danced around happy. I pulled up my gun and opened fire taking out its eyes which reformed easily. I jumped out of the way of another fire arrow and then started shooting at the gem core, but the gem absorbed my gem bullets. “Oh that’s really not fair you know!” I dropped the gun catching the next large arrow.

“Are you alright?” Applejack asked.

“HA!” I shouted. “I caught it!” I held it up and the big one started to stomp around as well. “You see if you can beat them at their game they get so mad that they die.” The ground devil exploded sending rocks all over the place and leaving a hoof sized brown power gem on the ground.

“That’s kind of stupid.”

“No, they are tasty, those rocks are salt. Good for a tasty meal.” The fire devil shot another arrow and I dropped the old one catching the new one. The fire devil exploded sending red weeds all over the place. A large red around my size was in the middle. I went over to the brown one and tossed it into my mouth eating it.

“Does it taste good?”

“Yep.” I went over to the red one and shrank it and tossed it to Applejack. “They taste great, the red one was aged pretty well.” She licked it and spit making me laugh. “Give that to Spike, he’ll love it.”

“I'll make sure he gets it.” She put it away. “So will you help me?”

“Of course, the next battle is tomorrow, I’m going with you if you don’t shoot me again that is.”

“You need to sign that or I can’t allow you to do that.” I padded her on the head.

“I already did a while ago, I was actually the one that suggested it to Celestia, it’s on file already.”

“You ain’t lying right?”

“You don’t believe me?” We stopped in front of her office.

“Nope.”

“Check it out, you’ll find it.”

“Now for that training?”

“Very well.” We spent the rest of the day training her, before heading north to where the battle would take place.

Applejack shifted a little uncomfortably in front of me in the small icy trench. The soldiers easily took to the guns so they were now fully armed, but that didn’t make Applejack feel any more comfortable with me staring at her.

“Stop staring at me.” She said looking at me clearly staring at her plot, she had a nice one, and I could see through her decency barrier.

“I told, I’m training you, not that it’ll matter for this battle, with them all knowing how to use the new weapons systems they should be able to mow down the mole rats easily, and their armor won’t hold against our weapons.”

“Still.” I went to her ear.

“Or maybe I should be training you in more privet matters.” She blushed.

“Now don’t go all nuts on me on the eve of battle.” I chuckled pulling her closer to me and she turned red.

“Incoming, one minute out.” A pony voice said over the radio. They all now knew about the ear pieces in their armor, so they could talk to each other easily and there was no longer just one radio pony.

“Roger.” Applejack said and her guns moved aiming. She was easily able to be a sniper or heavy if she wanted, but assault was more her style. I looked up at pony sized mole rats in heavy armor, holding swords, were running rather fast.

“Look at that, beautiful sight.” She eyed me for a second.

“Open fire once in range.” She said.

A few seconds past and they opened fire ripping apart the mole rat army in seconds. The hundred thousand soldiers fell to the ground dying in less than ten seconds. Their armor was useless and they weren’t even close to reaching us.

Silence filled the air and I looked around. Every single pony was silent and standing perfectly still. I padded Applejack on the shoulder and she jumped a little looking at me. I chuckled lightly getting out of the trench.

“Congratulations.” I said over the radio shocking the two thousand soldiers that we had brought to the battle. That was over kill, just five would have worked here. “You all have just mowed down your first army with bullets. Time for clean up.” Pony looked at me with confused and still shock ridden expressions, no pony was moving.

“CLEAN UP!” Applejack ordered and every pony snapped out of it rushing to clean up the mole rat army. She looked at me. “This don’t feel like a victory.”

“They were invading from the north west, remember we’ve not had to leave Equestria, we’re the ones being invaded.” Of course that was for good reason, Equestria was like a bomb ready to go off with the Lich sleeping on the trigger.

“Right, right, I didn’t think of that.” She looked away. “I need to go clean up for a while.” She got out of the trench and I sighed. This wasn’t a good sign, but at this point, I wasn’t sure how much more time I would have.

This world was so much unlike mine that it made me cringe. After all the soldiers learned the guns, Applejack had them patrol the cities in groups of five. They responded to any threat now, just a few of them could handle major events in my world like they were nothing, it made me realize just how petty my life had been.

Things like the Ice Mares, Losive Day, or anything else was just mowed down almost too easily, and other than telling where troops should go, Applejack had nothing she needed to do for them. Battle tactics were overkill now, and I enjoyed it.

I let a few years slip away easily, and the Lich Disciples were moving finally, but several of their members had already been gunned down before they could even speak. The Lich was the last threat on the list, before I could start taking over, and readying for the Darkness coming to consume this world.

Author's Notes:

Time jumps are fun!!!