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The next morning, I woke up before AJ for once. I was pleasently surprised.
"Huh. Well, might as well take a walk..." I muttered, sliding out of bed and getting dressed. Once done, I left the room as quietly as possible after scribbling a note for AJ, telling her where I went. I put the note on her face, so she wouldn't miss it. What surprised me in the hallway was a Princess. Not Cadence or Celestia, but a tired looking Luna.
"Greetings, Mark." She said, before yawning.
"Aren't you tired? Go to sleep." I said. She looked guilty about something, and glanced in the direction of Duffy's room.
"I will, but I have something to discuss with you first." She said, and beckoned me to follow. I shrugged and complied, matching her stride with my own. As I walked, I noted that I needed to get my uniform repaired, and decided to ask this of Rarity.
'Now, what does she want to talk about?' I thought, rubbing my chin in thought. She answered my unspoken question several seconds later.
"I have to tell you something about the other human." She said, causing me to look at her.
"Yes, Luna?" I rose my eyebrow.
"I... Might have brought him here by accident..." She said sheepishly, looking down.
"Thought that only Dawn could do that." I said, mildly surprised.
"I was asleep at the time. My powers amplify during the night and in my dreams." She explained.
"Well, at least he's another United States Marine Corps soldier. I won't feel as lonely now, with another soldier to talk with. Even if he tends to stay away from others..." I said, muttering the last part to myself.
"You mean, you're not angry at me?" She asked, surprised. I stopped and looked at her in her teal eyes.
"No, lass. If anything, I'm glad. You brought a dead soldier of my country here, in a land full of relative peace. He'll stick out like a white man in a black bar, but that's besides the point." She didn't get the reference. I'm pretty sure anyone else besides Duffy will, except for Dawn.
'Well, I can make as many racist jokes as I want to, but it's not funny if nobody gets it.' I thought, rolling my eyes internally.
"Anyway, if you bring anyone else into this country, make sure to tell me or Dawn first. Celestia would probably just kill them with extreme prejudice." I said. Luna smiled at me.
"Thank you for understanding." She said, before giving me a hug. I'll admit, I was surprised as hell to react. That, and the fact that I was holding most of her weight upon my body, it took all that I could to keep standing. I managed to get an arm around her, and awkwardly patted her back.
"You're welcome, Lulu." I said, making up the nickname on the spot. What happened next was so far into the left field that I was frozen in place.
"Auntie Lulu!" A colt screamed as he galloped towards us. What really killed my mind at the scene was that it was a mini Red Dawn. He had exactly the same colors, mane style, and was a fucking Alicorn to boot.
"Must you do this?" Luna asked, while I just stood there, frozen in place. The colt grinned evilly when he saw my facial expression.
"Wake the fuck up, Mark." He said, using words that children shouldn't know.
"How...?" I stammered, looking at him.
"This is actually my real form. I used a very tricky spell when Luna was Nightmare Moon, and for doing so, I ended up in a colt's body." He explained.
"You look smaller than Applebloom." I observed, rubbing my chin after regaining my wit.
"Don't remind me..." He muttered, frowning.
"So, what's with you being a stallion yesterday?" I asked, waving my hand around.
"He uses that form for important occasions. Queen Chrysalis was one of them." Luna interjected, looking around. "I might as well go and sleep... I'll see you two later, maybe?"
"Bye Auntie Lulu!" Dawn chirped with a retarded grin.
"Bye Auntie Lulu!" I said in the same tone, but got hit with a hoof for it. Damn, hooves hurt like hell. After I finished coughing up a storm, Dawn looked up at me with a blank expression.
"Don't do that again. Celestia and Luna barely tolerate me for it, because it's extremely hard to call them by their name when they're around. Something about this form pegged them as 'Auntie' in my head. Won't bloody go away for another 98 years or so. Anyway, I need to sleep, too. Bloody generals wanting to go attack Chrysalis..." He said before trotting off, leaving me alone in the hallway. That is, until Lyra literally popped out of nowhere, similar as to how Pinkie did when she rose forth from the ground at the picnic.
I managed to keep myself from screaming, but I never knew that I could jump backwards more than a few feet. Lyra giggled to herself before trotting over to me.
"I never knew that humans could jump like that!" She said excitedly, bouncing up and down in a way that reminded me a little of Applebloom.
"I didn't either, lass..." I muttered while looking around, before putting my back to the wall and sliding down until I was sitting. She sat down next to me in a very similar position.
'Isn't that fucking uncomfortable for her? I mean, she's a fucking Unicorn!' I thought, but didn't say anything. I suddenly found my body craving something that I haven't consumed in a while.
"Hey, Lyra. Do you ponies have a drink called coffee?" I asked, also wishing for a cigarette. She looked at me, confused.
"No. Why?" Well, damn. There went my morning cup of joe for the rest of my new life.
"It's nothing, lass." I sighed. She frowned at my reply but didn't say anything, for the moment.
"Well, do you want to go get breakfast?" Lyra asked.
"Yea, I'll go get AJ and we can amble around this bloody castle until lunch time." I said, getting to my feet with a groan. We quickly picked up Applejack, quite literally on my part, and did as I commented before; wander around the fucklarge castle while looking for the kitchen.
"Um, could'ja let me down, Sugarcube?" Applejack asked once she woke up, slung over my shoulder as comfortably as I could get her. I stopped, bent down, and let her slide off.
"Now, could you help us find the kitchen? We're bloody hungry." I asked, waving at Lyra and myself. AJ narrowed her eyes when she saw Lyra, but nodded and led us in the direction in which we were going. Along the way, we ran into Rarity.
"Oh my! What ever happened to your uniform?!" Rarity gasped, recoiling a little at the state of said uniform.
"I'm surprised you didn't notice yesterday. I got into two fights, one with a Changeling and the other with Lyra, Colgate, and the other original bridesmaid." I explained. "And I spent an unknown amount of time in a cave, coating myself and Princess Cadence with dust." She seemed to shudder at the mention of dust, but I ignored her.
"Well... I could take it and repair it, if you'd like." Rarity offered.
"Seems fine with me." I said. She waited several moments, holding out a hoof. "OH! You want to do it now?"
"Yes, Mark." She replied, keeping her hoof stretched. I sighed and stripped to my skivvies, putting everything except the sword over her hoof. "Everything, please." I didn't understand, until I noticed that she meant my underwear too.
"Hell no! I'm uncomfortable enough as it is without the rest of my clothes!" I exclaimed, backing up. The three seemed confused as hell, and voiced as much.
'...Sigh...' I thought, decided to give them a crash-course in human anatomy, and dropped my boxers. The reactions that were created hit my expectations right on the dot. All three blushed deeply, while Lyra and AJ had an unusually predator-like grin on their faces.
"On second thought...You can keep that on..." Rarity coughed after a second. I complied, slipping my boxers back on rather quickly.
"Incoming!" Dawn shouted from nowhere, as something crashed through the window and plowed into me, sending me and the unknown assaultant to the ground.
"What in tarnation!" Applejack shouted as something pooled around the pair of us, and it felt oddly familiar.
"Parachute?" Was all that came out of my mouth as I groaned and pushed the body off of me, trying my damnest to get out of the parachute. Then the realization of what, exactly, smashed into me hit me like a brick.
"Ugh..." Another human groaned, opening his eyes. I'm pretty sure he was in shock, and from what he saw I couldn't blame him. Two oddly colored unicorns, an orange earth pony, and an almost naked man were staring down at him. He promptly passed out, right there on the rug.
From what I could tell by his appearance was that he was a US Army paratrooper, 101st Airborne Division when I noted the patch on his suit. He was about 5'10", looked 22, and had a small blood spot on his forehead, with a small indent that made me thing that he was sniped while dropping in somewhere. Spread around us was a rifle, a pistol, and two grenades (which would've gone off by now if the pin was accidentally pulled).
"Grab those weapons, Lyra. I'll drag him into the nearest bedroom and make sure his condition's stable. Rarity, go with Applejack and get a lot of food; if I'm right, he's going to be very bloody hungry." I said, snapping into my serious mode at the drop of a hat. Without waiting for any vocal agreements, I wrapped my arms around the soldier's chest from behind and started dragging him, being careful of the parachute.
"Ah'll be right back, sugarcube!" AJ exclaimed as her and Rarity ran off, while Lyra picked up the fallen weapons in a dull yellow aura. I kicked open the nearest door, which was probably a bad thing because I made a certain purple unicorn jump out of bed in fright and almost lost half of my hair to a laser.
Author's Note: And this is the third soldier to come to Equestria.