Chapter 10 – Into Darkness
A short ways into the forest, the party encounter one terrormonger and several changelings. The Wonderbolts feed fear to the terrormonger, making it a long and difficult battle. Applejack is critically wounded; four of the Wonderbolts take her to Zecora’s for treatment. The other Wonderbolts pretend to be hurt so they can also go home. Rainbow Dash quits.
Chapter 11 - Rebirth
The Wonderbolts leave, Dash confesses her deception, and Twilight convinces Shining Armor to give her another chance.
Storm dreams Shining Armor’s proposal to Cadance at the Grand Galloping Gala which was badly botched by the commotion Twilight’s friends caused, which Shining Armor interpreted as a changeling attack. Storm wakes up and can hear terrormongers approaching the burrow from a distance, drawn by Cadnce’s fear that Shining Armor has lost his mind. He tells her the memory, Cadance relaxes and the terrormongers overshoot the burrow.
Rainbow Dash feels elated after quitting the Wonderbolts. Shining Armor takes them to an unoccupied outpost where they find a suit of armor and weapons for Rainbow Dash. Shining Armor mentions that most Ranger tours are very short, and staying too long in the forest tends to result in violent insanity within three months. Rainbow Dash explains how she met Storm and, in return, Shining Armor agrees to say how he knows him.
Chapter 12 – Tales of the past
Shining Armor joined the Royal Guard at eighteen. At twenty he was made a Ranger and given elite training where he was partnered with Storm who was two years younger than him, had already been a Ranger for “some time.” Storm refused to speak of his past, and threatened to kill Shining Armor when he pressed the issue.
Shining Armor and Storm were never close, and Shining Armor theorizes that volunteering for the body swap was because Shining Armor saved Storm’s life in the last major battle of the forest; Forest Jaws. When asked about the battle; Shining Armor tells them about a heroic Ranger Pegasus mare with a silver coat and golden mane named Denorious with a cutie-mark for a ray of light breaking through black clouds.
Rainbow Dash is aghast when Shining Armor says Denorious had a wing power more than 20% faster that Dash’s record. Twilight tries to comfort her, but is then horrified when Shining Armor says Denorious had a higher IQ then Twilight.
Denorious grew up in a corrupt and crime-ridden part of Manehatten, became a Jr Sheriff and was approached by the Rangers after she dismantled a syndicate that “foalnapped fillies from the bottom rungs of society and sold them as 'toys' to depraved stallions.”
Denorious was the only commander able to lead the Rangers in large, coordinated attacks, by using her sonic boom which was one of the only sounds that the Terrormongers could not replicate. Shining Armor describes how Denorious turned the tide of Forest Jaws and saved Equestria.
After the battle, Denorious was promoted and the Rangers advanced rapidly for six months; until Denorious went alone to try and rescue a lost band of Rangers and was captured by nine powerful terrormongers who tortured her for six days.
By the time she was rescued, Denorious was nearly brain-dead. The Rangers took her to Celestia who was able to look into her mind and saw ‘memories’ of the entire world dying gruesome deaths only to be resurrected so they could die even more painfully.
The only help that Celestia could offer was to block all of Denorious’s memories, true and false, and let her start life over. The mental block would be weak however; any reminder of her past life could bring the false memories back in an instant, permanently destroying her mind. Every Ranger is forced to swear, on penalty of death, to never attempt to contact Denorious for any reason.
Although her sanity was restored, Denorious lost her cutie-mark when she lost her memory, she was blinded in one eye and suffered irreversible brain and neurological damage, destroying her intelligence and making complex motor difficult. The last thing Shining Armor ever heard of Denorious was that she had become a mail-mare and began calling herself Derpy.
Chapter 13 – Side effects
Shining Armor re-dreams the nightmare about killing Twilight – he is deeply disturbed.
A band of Rangers find the rescue party and challenge Shining Armor, believing he’s Storm. Storm broke his oath in making contact with Denorious (Derpy). They say Derpy remembered her false set of memories the night after she saw Storm and committed suicide. Word is spreading, and any other band of Rangers that sees Shining Armor will kill him, thinking he’s Storm, believing he killed Derpy.
Rainbow Dash counters these claims; she saw Derpy the day after she supposedly died, when Derpy interrupted the Wonderbolts to tell her she’d lost her mail. The Rangers retracts his demand to kill Shining Armor.
Shining Armor explains about the body swap and the plight of Storm and Cadance. The other Rangers will spread the word about the rescue mission and say that Storm has moved his position to be even deeper in the forest than Shining Armor first thought.
The Rangers say that, five years ago, Storm’s younger sister was killed by Manticores and Storm hasn’t left the forest since, yet hasn’t gone insane. They also say that Storm has an uncanny ability to predict enemy movements, causing some Rangers to believe he can see the future. Shining Armor remembers his dreams of killing Twilight; he begs her to go home, she refuses.
Chapter 14 - Crown of Roses
Storm dreams another of Shining Armor’s memories where Twilight is trying, very unsubtly, to pair him with Cadance. Storm enjoys the ‘dates’ and believes Cadance does too, but knows that Cadance’s parents would never approve of his lack of wealth, status or royalty but -
“While it was totally inappropriate for Storm to ask Cadance out on a date, for Twily to set them up in an 'awkward' situation and for the two of them to 'humor her' was acceptable.
It was a delicate game of tricking Twily into tricking them to spend time together, and then pretending to pretend to like each other. It could never last, and it could cost both of them dearly when they were found out, but so long as their love lives were being dictated to them by a nine year old filly, everything would be fine.”
Storm wakes up, tries to remember where he was when Shining Armor was ‘not dating’ Cadance. He and Silver’s adoptive father Straight Hack had just died after a long, wasting illness, leaving them ‘orphans for the second time’. Victimized in fraudulent court proceedings, they’re cheated out of their inheritance and left with nothing. Rather than returning to living on the streets, they resolve to find the Rangers, which Straight Hack had once been a member of.
Storm’s realizes he’d crying and Cadance is wiping his tears away. He wonders why he’d tried to remember his past when it was, “so much easier to just be Shining Armor.”
Chapter 15 – Don’t get stressed
Storm dreams about Shining Armor going to his friend’s house to retrieve Twilight’s books after his friend’s younger brother stole them hoping Twilight would, “stop being such a ‘know it all.” Shining Armor speaks to his friend, who easily retrieves Twilight’s books and promises to talk to his brother about teasing Twilight. Shining Armor leaves, thinking about how, “He was a good big brother, sticking up for Twily all the time.”
Storm remembers when he was eleven, and killed two drunken teenage colts who had tried to rape Silver, who had been eight. Storm feuds over the similarities between his and Shining Armor’s lives, and relationships with their little sisters, except Shining Armor’s life had always been easier and better. He remembers that he used to hate Shining Armor but admits to himself that it had been out of envy.
Shining Armor sends Twilight’s Pyromite back towards Ponyville with a message, but won’t discuss it with Twilight or Dash. The party makes camp; Rainbow Dash is keeping watch, thinking about Storm when Shining Armor wakes up screaming Twilight’s name after another nightmare, then tries to pass it off as testing Twilight’s combat readiness. He relives Dash from watch duty and begins pacing and muttering to himself; Dash notes that he’s acting like Twilight does when she’s panicking about something.
Chapter 16 – Daughter of the sea
Cadance feeds Storm a good meal, and he begins to appreciate her company. Trying to ‘jog his memory’, Cadance tells him about her past. There are hundreds of alicorns, but the vast majority are mortal with average magical and flying ability. However There are however, six cosmetic forces that require an alicorn to steward them, if one steward dies another will take their place and will gain immortality and a boost to their magic of about 600-900 MQ.
Cadance’s mother, Searis, is the half-sister of Celestia and Luna, and steward of the oceans; ruling from her capital on Oatlantis. Searis has extreme difficulty letting go of the past; goes to great lengths to make Oatlantis resemble a long-past golden age, and regularly re-marries stallions who remind her of her first husband, with Cadance and Blueblood’s father being husband number fourteen.
Searis knows that her golden days is still slipping away from her, and so for the last several centuries has slowly been becoming more unstable and depressed. Since her royalty has been the only thing that’s been consistent with her throughout the centuries, Searis clings to it desperately; and has become fiercely class-conscious, haughty, and borderline tyrannical over her stagnating country.
When Cadance was a filly; she secretly began attending a proletariat music club with her nurse, but kept her identity hidden. When she was found out, her nurse was fired and replaced with a strict bodyguard Ashaw, her friends rejected her out of fear, and the music club moved, though Cadance still doesn’t know if they were ordered to or if they did it themselves to avoid trouble.
After this Cadance became highly rebellion for a while and tried to cause trouble for her mother however she could; until she reluctantly admitted that her rebellion was accomplishing nothing but hurting herself, her mother, and the people she was angry at her mother for not caring about.
Cadance visited Canterlot and was amazed at Celestia’s benevolence. At Cadance’s request, Celestia convinced Searis to allow Cadance to remain in Canterlot. For a while Cadance tried to draw Equestrian investment into Oatlantis’ economy, but few companies would tolerate Searis’s stringent restrictions, and so now Cadance believes the best way to help Oatlantis ponies is to make migration as easy as possible.
Storm ‘remembers’ by himself that Cadance does a lot of volunteer work at hospitals. Storm asks her what her cutie-mark means but she says she wants him to remember that for himself. He asks for a hint and she moves to kiss him but he reluctantly turns away.
Storm finds himself hoping that Shining Armor won’t come back; allowing Storm to assume his identity. His thoughts on Cadance begin to mirror the thoughts Shining Armor once had about her.
Chapter 17 – Pain, Lies and False Hope pt 1
Shining Armor takes Twilight’s watch, letting her sleep in. Twilight is worried about him.
In a flashback; Storm and Silver Thorn are sleeping in a field, and are attacked by wild dogs. Storm drives them off, but Silver is badly hurt. Storm breaks into a nearby house, looking for medical supplies, and is caught by Straight Hack who tends both foals, and offers to let them stay with him just for a little while until Silver heals. Storm doesn’t trust him due to past experiences with ‘helpful strangers’, made worse by the fact that Straight Hack’s cutie-mark is a ‘gigantic knife’ (sword), but believes Silver will probably die without the help, and so reluctantly accepts.
Twilight tries to do a ‘follow up’ for Shining Armor’s condition after the body swap to which Shining Armor sarcastically complies, insisting that he’s fine. She asks if he’s been having nightmares, but he refuses to discuss it. Twilight backs off, and considers their parents, who both worked, “doing something important in the Restricted Archives, which Twilight never learned the details of.”
Chapter 18 - Pain Lies and false hope part 2
Storm and Silver enjoy their time with Straight Hack. Storm expects Straight Hack just wants healthy foals for whatever he’s planning to do to them, and plans to run away as soon as Silver is able, but leaving is steadily postponed. Straight Hack begins teaching the foals self-defense.
Shining Armor remembers coming back from his first tour in the forest, shell-shocked after what he’d seen, and finds Cadence crying because she was thinking about one colt she’d visited in the hospital who, after an accident which was his own fault, might never play sport again. Shining Armor decides he can never tell her of the Forest.
Storm and Silver come to trust Straight Hack, and tell him about growing up in a mining town in a desert, just outside Equestria’s border, allowing ‘the company’ to cut corners on safety and workers rights. When Storm was ten and Silver was seven, the mine caves in, killing both their parents and the town; the company pulls out, leaving the survivors to fend for themselves.
A group of Storm’s friends go to an orphanage in Trottingham, and send back a letter saying it’s nice there and that Storm and Silver should come. When they get there; the matron insisted that their friends had never been there, but seemed very eager for new children. Storm and Silver run away, permanently mistrusting ‘the system’ and so avoid any sort of charity or government assistance. They survive by scavenging, stealing and begging until they meet Straight Hack.
Straight Hack adopts the foals, and they live happily.
Chapter 19– In case I go crazy
As the rescue party makes camp, Twilight offers to take first watch so Shining Armor can sleep. Shining Armor refuses, saying he will watch the entire night, and doesn’t plan to sleep again until they return to Canterlot; at least two more days. They argue; Shining Armor knocks Twilight and Rainbow Dash unconscious.
The next day, Twilight and Rainbow Dash separate, contrary to Shining Armor’s orders and end up fighting, each believing the other is a changeling. Rainbow Dash is about to kill Twilight when Shining Armor appears, pulls them apart, reveals them both to be ponies, casts some fireballs into the tree-line and recklessly chases after the retreating shout of a terrormonger.
Twilight chases after Shining Armor and finds him covered in blood and torn armor, surrounded by enemy corpses. When he sees her he throws her to the ground and yells that if she disobeys him again he will kill her himself. A moment later he realizes what he said and tries to apologize; Twilight is angry and terrified.
Storm dreams another date Twilight set up between Shining Armor and Cadance. Eventually, they are in Shining Armor’s bedroom; his parents gone and Twilight asleep. Cadance initiates sex but Shining Armor believes they’d regret it later if they had sex outside of marriage. Cadance suggests eloping to Los Pegasus; Shining Armor offers a counter plan; he notes his rapid rise in the Royal Guard, and believes that in five or six years, he might have enough rank that Searis would let them get married legitimately, and Cadance agrees to wait. That flashback had been thirteen years ago.
In the present day, Storm wonders what his life would have been like if he had eloped with Cadance thirteen years ago, before remembering that he’s not Shining Armor, but can’t immediately remember who he really is.
He talks to Cadance, and tells her the truth about the forest, Rangers, and Terrormongers; Cadance takes it well and the two of them kiss. Storm remembers that Cadance’s special talent is a memory spell that makes someone remember the time when they were most in love; he asks her to cast it on him and Cadance agrees. The memory spell cannot comprehend Storm having two sets of memories so – “One set of memories would become his only memories while the other one would be locked away forever; and joy engulfed him when he realized that he got to decide.
He chose the life he wanted.”