The man had been following the guards for quite a while now. It was actually quite easy to follow them as they talking quite loudly to each other.

"Jesus a fricking child could follow these guys, if they actually manage get this poacher then ill be shocked" the man thought. Suddenly a howl erupted from the innards of the forest.

"Timberwolves!" He heard the guard that was named Rosemary yell.

"Timber wolves, the fuck"... "Maybe the color of their fur is why their called that" the man thought after thinking for a second.

"Hold formation guys!" a fourth voice commanded.

"Right Sharp!" The guard Sword yelled. Suddenly however several more howls filled the air around them.

"It's a whole pack!" the third unidentified voice said.

"Shit, we're in trouble then" Rosemary stated.

The man began to realize that he needed to help them fight off the pack or risk losing his ticket back to civilization, but when he got closer to them and peaked over a bush he almost had a mini heart attack. There standing right in front of him were four fucking horses in golden armor standing off against wolves made of fucking wood? The man immediately got into cover behind the bush to contemplate what he just saw.

"Okay what the fuck, no what in the fuck did I just actually see" he panicked.

After a few moments a bright flash of pink light caught his attention, he peeked over the bush once again just in time to see a pink horse with a red mane shoot another beam of pink light at one of the wolves disintegrating it into a small pile of twigs.

"Nice shot Rosemary" Sword said.

"Thanks Sword" she replied. Suddenly the pile of twigs began to shake and to the man's amazement with a flash of light it reformed back into a wolf.

"Okay what in the actual fuck is going on" the man thought. He was completely perplexed.

"This isn't good, Flash try and see if you can- ahh!" Rosemary yelled as one of the wolves pounced on her from behind when she let her guard down to speak. However she was able to hold it off from killing her.

"Rose-oof!" Sword yelled as he too was pounced from behind as he made the same mistake. The man could now see that the two remaining horses we're being cornered by about 10 wolves. Realizing that they we're going to be killed unless he did something he raised his machine gun and immediately opened fire striking down the wolves in about 6 seconds.

The look of shock on the horse's faces was almost comical as they watched the bullets from the man's gun tear into the Timberwolves. They howled in pain from the bullets and then collapsed into small piles of twigs once again. The horses then quickly got back up and began frantically looking around for what brought down the wolves so easily, the human however was not so keen to reveal himself to them.

"What in Celestia" he heard Sword say.

"H-Hello" Flash said after a few moments. The man was now finally able to get a decent look at them. Rosemary was pink with red hair and had a horn on her head, Sword was white with blonde hair, Flash was orange with dark blue hair and had wings, and Sharp was light blue with dark blue hair.

"What the hell am I looking at" he thought.

"Hello" Flash said again.

"A-Anyone out there" Rosemary followed up, but only silence followed.

"That's it, by the order of Princess Celestia's Royal Guard I am ordering you to make yourself known!" Sword yelled. The human didn't say anything or move an inch.

"Who the hell is Princess Celestia" he pondered. However since he was so deep in thought he didn't notice that a Timber Wolf had avoided detection by himself and the guards, it silently crept up behind the human and then pounced.

"Do you guys think that it might have been the forest?" Flash asked.

"No idea, but we should-ahh" Rosemary began but was cut off.

"That came over there!" Sword yelled. The four ponies then immediately burst through the foliage and we're shocked at what they saw. There, right in front of them was the strangest creature they had ever seen. It was bipedal, had hands, was wearing clothes that let it easily blend in with the foliage around it, and was in the process of kicking the living shit out of a Timberwolf. To their amazement they witnessed the creature body slam the wolf to the ground after it jumped on it's back, then grab its neck and jab a knife into the wood and disassemble it piece by piece. The wolf made horrible, pain filled screeches as it was literally disassembled right in front of them. About 15 seconds later all that remained of the wolf was a pile of sticks. The four ponies were amazed.

"Whoa" Flash said."

"Amazing" Sharp stated.

"How did you do that?" Sword asked.

"Wo-wow" Rosemary stared.

The creature's head perked up and it turned around to face them. A mask covered it's face, but the ponies could see it's eyes which were a cold brown. The creature instantly got into a defensive stance which made the ponies back up a bit. However after a few moments it lowered it's guard. Eventually Rosemary was able to get out of her initial shock and say something.

"He-hello... my name is Rosemary, w-what's yours?" she asked. The human didn't respond.

"Are-are you ok?" Sharp followed. Silence.

Realizing he had dropped his gun when the wolf attacked him and since he did not want these horses to have access to a machine gun the human slowly bent down to retrieve it, once he accomplished this he looked at the ponies again. He could see from their body language that they we're curious about him, as well as scared. The same went for the man, although he was more curious then scared. If he was scared of anything right now it would be that fact that four fucking horses we're talking to him and were wearing armor. Not knowing what to do next he just began to slowly back up into the forest. When Rosemary stepped forward a few steps he raised his gun and aimed it at her and she instantly stopped.

"Woah easy I don't want to hurt you" she stated.

"Yeah we only want to know who you are" Sword reaffirmed.

"As well as thank you for saving us" Sharp added. The man could tell he was older than the other 3 horses.

"Can you understand us?" Flash asked. The man just began backing up again and began to run away. He quickly turned around, burst through the foliage, and was gone in a matter of seconds.

"What in the name of Tartarus was that?" Sword asked.

"I have no idea Sword" Rosemary replied.

"Same" Flash added.

"Do you guys think that we should report this to Princess Celestia, or do you think she'll just rub it off as another creature from the Everfree" Rosemary asked.

"I don't know to be honest" Sharp answered her.

"Actually she'll definitely want to know more about a creature that can down an entire pack of timber wolves in under 6 seconds, I can guarantee that" he added.

"That and the fact that he only attacked the wolves and not us unlike a normal creature from this forest which would have just gone in and made it a free for all. This will definitely be an interesting story in the barracks tonight" Rosemary said.

"Alright then fuck the poacher, lets head back" Sword said.

"Agreed" Flash added"

With the sight of the castle coming into view the human breathed a sigh of relief, he was safe now. He had been running for nearly 20 minutes after his encounter with those horses. He sprinted into the courtyard of the castle, nearly breaking the doors off their hinges by opening them in his panic, and then slamming them shut. He then collapsed onto the ground and began to try to calm himself down. It was safe to say that he was not on Earth anymore since last he checked talking horses did not exist there. This left two logical options, either he was in a coma or he was dead.

"Okay just calm down, just calm down, being in a panic will not help me in the slightest. Now how do I figure out where in the holy manner of hell I am and how do I get home" he thought. However despite his best efforts the man could not figure out anything that would benefit him in this situation. Then he spied something, something he had completely missed from his adventures the previous night. There in the right pocket of his pants from his uniform that signified he was the leader of the U.S. was his phone. The human felt like an idiot for forgetting about this precious device for so long but nonetheless quickly pulled it out. He hoped that using the internet he could figure out where was but those hopes we're quickly dashed when he realized that he had no service.

"Fuck, well I guess that confirms the Wi-Fi situation. Unless the afterlife doesn't have internet access then I don't know where the hell I am" he thought.

Another howl from one of those Timberwolves got him to look up and out of a window, the sun was beginning to set. This did not bode well for the human as he had not found a food source. He decided to take an inventory of his food and water supplies. He had 2 more full cups of water remaining in his water bottle and 3 MRE packs, so he had 3 more days to find food or he would starve to death. Looking at his supplies made him realize just how unorganized he was as well. If this was Iran his commanding officer would have disciplined him by now for sure. Plus the main room of the castle wasn't the safest place to sleep, especially if something broke in. So the man decided that he would move his stuff into one of the bedrooms upstairs.

He choose a room with a nice balcony (for surveillance reasons). It actually wasn't all that run-down, which could suggest that someone was actively using it. But the human put those thoughts aside for now, they currently weren't important. What was important was his survival. Another pleasant surprise about the room was that it still actually had furniture which had been hidden in a closet which was why he had missed it before, however it had seen better days. After a hour and a half he had fixed the furniture in the room to his liking, he had a nice bed complete with sheets (which weren't infested with mold or bugs surprisingly), a door was at the rooms entrance with French doors for the balcony, a coffee table with chairs around it, a desk with another chair, a dresser for his uniform, a mirror, he even had a fireplace and what looked like a bathroom directly connected to the room as well. All in all he considered it to be quite a nice little set up.

Now that he had a chance too he took out and opened one of his 3 MRE packs and began to eat it's contents on the balcony. As he ate he stared up at the night sky and looked up at the stars, suddenly he got an idea. He immediately got up and raced to the library he had discovered last night and found what he was looking for instantly, a telescope. With his prize in hand he raced back to his room. Once he got there he set up the telescope which took a while thanks to it being very old. However once this was complete he could now complete his objective, finding the constellations. Among many of the things he had done after the war and taking power was studying space which he had always been very interested in. If he had not gone into the military then he may have actually become an astronaut. He was also very quick to learn the location of and memorize the many constellations. If he could find one of them that would confirm he was still on Earth, or at least close to it if he was on another planet, and if that was true and he was lucky enough to be in the northern hemisphere he could locate the north star where he could then locate his position on Earth. However he would need a sextant for that.

After a few more minutes he was able to locate the constellation of Leo The Lion which meant that the planet Jupiter... "Is just underneath, haha" he stated.

"So I am still on Earth then, but that doesn't explain those horses or the manticore" he thought.

However with how late it was he decided to just get some sleep for the night and worry about it in the morning. He took the telescope and chair he had been using inside and shut the doors. He then got undressed, climbed into his bed, and fell asleep.