//------------------------------// // Ch 22 // Story: Fractured Soul // by JollyRogue //------------------------------// I sped through town looking for the source of the trumpets. I made twist and turns around corners until finally I was halted by a gathering of ponies. I followed the groups gaze and looked at the small group that addressed the crowd. "-ere is no need to be worried. We are only here for a war game, and any noises you here should just be attributed to said game. Now please carry on with your day!" A gold helmeted, white stallion said to the crowd. The crowd was hesitant to leave, but soon I was the only pony left in the yard besides the group that had originally addressed the crowd. I cautiously made my way up towards them, eying and evaluating each of them. There were five ponies, all wore armor. Four sets of gold and one of silver. Two were unicorns, one was an earth pony, one was a Pegasus, and the last looked similar to a pegasus but he had bat wings. I stopped as I stood in front of the unicorn who had just addressed the crown. He was fairly old, and his eye's looked like they had experienced too much, seen too many terrible things. "And who exactly might a runt like you be!?" He asked in deep crackly voice. I brought my hoof to my head in a salute. "I am the one the Princesses asked to tag along with you, sir!" I said in a serious tone. He glanced over me, studying me with a careful eye. He let out a grunt of disapproval before he said, "Fine, just don't slow us down!" He then turned to the four behind him, "Men let's move out, we have a job to do so hustle!" He started marching, and his men followed behind. None were actually enthused in the march. The two winged cavalry members were even sluggishly flying in the air. I followed behind the group, just right under the flying cavalry. The bat winged pony in the silver armor looked down at me and smiled. "So what makes you so special that the Princesses wanted you to come along?" He asked with a mischievous smile. I looked up at him and smiled. "Good looks, amazing fashion skills, metal appendage, the usual." I said to him jokingly. My response caused him to chuckle. He lowered himself down and offered his hoof. "You're okay in my book, names Lunar Pallet." He said. I quickly shook his hoof and continued walking. "It's nice to meet you, my name's Jason." I responded. He paced himself so he was in front of me while flying backwards. "It's nice to meet you, but before we continue our conversation..." He paused as he reached under his armor. "What do you think of this!?" He had pulled out a picture and held it up to my eye's. It was a picture of an orange mare holding a small dark red bat filly in her arms. "They are my pride and joy. My lovely wife Grassy Hills, and my adorable daughter Elysium!" I looked up to the winged guardsman, who had a look of total happiness on his face. "You have a, uh, lovely family." I responded unsure. He let out a happy almost inaudible squeal, then proceeded to do a few back flips through the air. The Pegasus that had been flying beside me leaned closer to me. "Oh man, you're never going to hear the end of this. He will talk your ear off about his family. When we formed this party together he nearly bit the privates ear off talking about his family, literally." He gestured to the Earth pony who was in front of us. I gave a slight chuckle and looked up at Lunar, who had moved on to doing cartwheels. "But you can't blame the Lieutenant, he is a great guy.” I looked back down from Lunar to look at the pegasus instead, “And you are?” “Oh yeah, where are my manners?” The pegasus chuckled, “The name's Gale.” “Nice to meet you.” I shook Gale's hoof quickly as well and we continued on. I then walked up to the pony Gale had been referring to. "Hey the name's Jason. What's yours?" I asked, looking over the rather small armor clad pony before me. He jumped at my question, but kept eye contact with me, his quivering almost unnoticeable in his armor. "I'm, um, um, I'm Quake." He said in a hushed voice. His armor rattled quietly as he quivered. He certainly lived up to his name. "Hey, there's no need to be worried, I'm not going to bite you." I reassured the quaking pony. "Oh it's not you, really! It's just this is the first battle I've been in. Guess I've got stage fright." "Ah you have nothing to worry about. If things get hairy you can just hide behind me and I'll protect ya!" Quake smiled weakly at me. I smiled back at him, but something wrapped itself around my neck. "Oh you two becoming friends huh?" The voice of Lunar asked. I looked behind me and saw his hooves wrapped around Quake and I. "So tell me you two, just how adorable is my little Elysium!?" *** We spent the next hour walking into the dark forest and idly chit chatting among ourselves. I had learned that the other members of our group were called Rook, and the grumpy one from earlier was Major Valiant Light. Our little back group just laughed and joked while the two serious unicorns lead the way. It wasn't that much longer before they had stopped us. "Our intelligence suggest that in this vicinity our target is lurking. Our mission is to observe and pass whether they are dangerous or not, and if we can eliminate them. Now the Princesses told us to escort this 'civilian' with us, but I fail to see their reason." Valiant said to the group. He stared daggers at me. "I'm not just some lowly 'civilian', and besides I have information on the threat." I explained to Valiant. His face was unchanged, but he said, "Go on." I nodded and took in a deep breath. I explained what had happened the previous night. How Fluttershy and I had been attacked. I finished off explaining how the threats were reanimated by my soul. Valiant's face remained unchanged through the entire conversation. "Is that all?" I looked at him surprised and nodded my head. "Good now we must be careful past this point. If what he said was true, there could be hundreds of them out there! Now men let's march!" I looked up at the old Major and smiled. Our party slowly followed behind, somehow finding a renewed vigor. I looked to my left at Quake who had put on a brave face, but he was still shaking in his armor. I was about to say something to comfort him, when I noticed a moving shadow out of the corner of my eye. Before I could say a word, four skeletons were on top of Quake, and they were trying to drag him away. I rushed towards him, smacking any skeleton I could away from him. A slight tremble traveled up my leg and I noticed the pile of skeletons was shaking. Before I could question it the four fell apart at the joints, leaving a scared looking Quake and a piles of bones in their place. I rushed over to him and pulled him out of the remains, one of the heads was gnawing on his armor, but fell off when he stood off. I looked over at the others. Lunar and Gale were leading a group of skeletons into each other, which caused a mess of bones. Rook and Valiant were using their magic to take down one skeleton after the other. I smiled and looked at Quake. "Stay by my side, and back me up!" I said to the cowering pony. He looked at me with terrified eyes, but he weakly smiled and nodded. I looked at a group of skeletons that was trying to sneak up on us. Before they could get any closer I yelled, "Puri Aurgentus Contum Pugnus! I didn't know what this spell did but I tried it nonetheless. I felt a slight tingling on my front hooves and I looked down. Silver boots covered the bottom of my hooves. I lifted one up and felt no noticeable difference in weight. Then I noticed a single metallic chain that was attached to the front of each boot. The chain went upwards, I followed it's trail and gasped when I noticed a giant gold sheet of floating metal that attached to the chain. I looked curiously at the gold sheet, pondering what its use would be. I saw a similar one mere inches away from the first, attached with a chain that led down towards my other hoof. Then I looked over to where the group of skeletons had been. The sheet of metal seemed to follow my gaze, and it flew past me, towards the group of skeletons. It made contact with one, giving off a dull *thunk* as it hit one. I smiled at how weak these skeletons actually were, and the pure luck I had in choosing spells. I continued battering the group into submission, until all had effectively been turned into piles of bone. I brought the sheet closer towards myself, and I glanced over it. It was nearly as tall as I was, and if I held it in front of me it could guard my entire body. I looked closer and noticed that it was at least a few inches thick. Being made of gold this thing must have weighed a ton. Then I realized what this actually was, a shield. No sooner had I realized that it was a shield. I had noticed more skeletal ponies approaching Quake and I. Without hesitation I stomped towards them, shields ready to bash some skulls in. *** Not much time seemed to pass, but we took out every last skeleton. I looked at the shields that still floated above my head, then towards a slightly happy Quake. During the fight all of us were constantly beating down skeletons, even Quake got a few hits in. I smiled at him and looked to my left where Valiant and Rook stood, gasping for air. The silent moments after the battle seemed to tick away, the Major broke the silence. "How do we kill these things?" "Leave them to me!" I raised my metal hoof high in the air, the chain attached to my hoof gave a quick jingle at the motion. With out any hesitation the flames from each individual skull jumped out and bounded towards my hoof, quicker then the last few times. The fire quickly spread over my hoof. "I may be a little weak after this!" I warned. I smiled at their reactions, knowing full well how I looked at that moment. My smile faded and was replaced by a look of pain as the fire spread onto my flesh. I was about to scream, but I heard a light chuckle from farther in the woods, and a voice followed it. "Oh Jason, my Master and I were counting on you being weak. It makes it so much easier to do, this!" I held back the pain I was facing and looked forward. Three solemn ponies walked through the darkness of the forest. The only visible feature other than their outline was their eyes. They glowed with a deep purplish glow.The fire proceeded down my midsection, and I doubled over from the pain, and my vision blurred. I heard Gale say, "You think changing their eyes up will make the difference?" I looked up and saw Gale fly closer to one of the skeletons. The skeleton looked up at Gale and jumped through the air, tackling Gale out of the air and on to the ground. My vision blurred again, and I slumped onto the ground. A deep chuckle resonated from the woods. "No, these are a little stronger than those other skeletons, and they also have a unique trick up their sleeves." The mysterious voice said, its cocky tone pissing me off through my blurry vision. My vision cleared and I looked up to where Gale was laying. The skeleton had ignited itself with the purple fire that was in its eyes and it fell apart, bones still ignited. The bones fell on top of Gale, the sound of sizzling meat emanated from where the bones touched. Gale let loose a wave of blood curdling screams as the bones fell on him. The fire on the bones intensified as they made contact with Gale, making him invisible behind a veil of purple flames, but not dulling the sounds of his screams. I felt the flames around my own body dissipate, a sure sign my pain would stop. Gale stopped screaming, and the flames around him dimmed down. Gale stood up, seemingly unphased by the fire. He stepped closer and through a beam of light that had wiggled its way through the massive alcove of trees we saw what had happened. The fire had left his body alone, but the bones now rested upon his body, the skull rested upon his head. Its eye's still burned intensely. I looked at his face, his eye's were glazed over. "Gale?" Quake asked unsurely. The mysterious voice broke out into a manically laughter. "Gale is no more than a puppet for me to control!" As if on cue the other two skeletons walked up on either side of Gale. "And soon two more of you will be as well!" The other two skeletons broke into a full sprint and proceeded to split off. One went after Rook and Valiant. The other made its way towards me and Quake. I laid there helpless and in pain, the flames still receding from my body. I could only watch as the skeleton made its way towards a now terrified Quake, his eyes screamed murder, and his legs gave out. Leaving him a crumpled mess as the purple flamed villain sprinted at him. Then I wished that if my legs weren't going to work, that my eyes wouldn't work either. These skeletons didn't scare me, but the look on Quake's face. The thought of what might happen to him in only a few seconds. That filled me with terror beyond imagining.