//------------------------------// // 26 - Wolfkin // Story: Storm Of Secrets // by Beware The Carpenter //------------------------------// “I met Storm right after I first became a Ranger.” Shining Armor was saying “I had just passed initiation as a Royal Guard, and was hoof-picked to go with a team of Guards to receive special training in the Everfree Forest. As Twilight knows, I joined the Royal Guards right out of high school, barely over the legal age limit of eighteen. I finished a three year training course in two years by taking every extra class I could so I was used to being the youngest cadet around and fully expected to be the youngest Ranger; then I met Storm. He was two years younger than me, and had already been a Ranger for some time. I don't know how or when he became a Ranger, or what he was before then, the amount of scars he already had and the fact he thought it was strange I'd never killed anyone before, was enough to tell me that it wasn't anything good. I asked him several times about his past and each time he refused to tell me. If I ever pressed the issue, he became angry, which I learned very early on was a dangerous thing to do. One Ranger told me that his mother was pregnant with him when she got lost in the forest and was attacked by a terrormonger whose illusions made her go into labor, causing Storm to be born on the battlefield. The Ranger said that as his mother lay dying from blood loss, Storm was rescued and then raised by a pack of timber wolfs, before being found and tamed by Zecora and that he now hunts the terrormongers out of vengeance for his murdered mother. Needless to say I'm certain the Ranger was joking, though at the time it almost seemed plausible. I asked several more Rangers where Storm came from but none of them seemed to know. I asked Zecora who advised that I should respect Storm's privacy if I wanted to earn his trust. Eventually Storm found out that I was asking about him and said if he wanted me to know about his life he would have told me, and made some very definite implications about what would happen to me if I kept digging; I haven't brought the matter up since. Now, if I had the chance to find out where Storm is really from, I don't think I'd want to know. I know he mentioned having a younger sister, but I don't think I ever met her.” “Sounds like you two got off to a pretty rocky start?” mused Twilight. “That would be putting it lightly.” “So why did you keep spending time together?” “Wasn't our choice; we were paired as training partners and weren’t allowed to swap (not that anyone would swap with me if they could). My first tour to the forest was for purely training purposes and lasted two months before being rotated back to Canterlot. I spent most of that time training with Storm and by the end of it we had figured out some sort of crud friendship. I rotated back several more times over the next couple years and each time I was again partnered with Storm, first for more training, then for real missions as we got older. I was better at all forms of magic except teleporting, he was better with blades and close combat. Together; we were a powerful team.” Twilight smiled “It's good to hear you worked things out eventually. I'm guessing you two ended up being pretty close since he was willing to do the body swap with you.” Shining Armor shook his head, “I think it's his way of thanking me for saving his life.” “You saved him?” asked Rainbow in surprise. “It was one of the last times we met, after that I got rotated back to Canterlot and on my next tour was assigned to a different partner. So I think, in his mind, this makes us even.” “Can you tell us about it?” asked Twilight. “It was at Forest Jaws,” after receiving blank looks from Twilight and Rainbow Dash, realization snapped back to Shining Armor. “Right, raw recruits” he murmured. “Roughly every twenty to twenty-five years, the terrormongers mass an army capable of cutting through the dragon walls; and the thousand endless skirmishes cumulate into a single bloodbath. The last time this happened was about ten years ago, and is known as Forest Jaws.” “We had recently suffered heavy casualties in our skirmishes and the terrormongers took the opportunity to mass their forces for an all out attack. We tried to gather our forces, but failed to recognize some changeling infiltrators and so rendezvoused in a dozen different places. By the time we figured this out, it was too late to gather more than half our troops. We were hopelessly outnumbered; and knew we were doomed unless we could get an Ursa Major. “Ursa Major!” laughed Rainbow Dash, “You've tamed Ursa Majors!” “Not quite; we're barely the size of insects compared to them; but long ago we learned that large teams of Rangers, working together, could create music, lights, and smells that would draw them where we wanted. It's the most difficult craft a Ranger can learn and also the most important. Ursas do not engage in the fighting, if they did they would probably destroy both armies, but if we can get one onto the field, their presence changes everything. The mind of an ursa major is centuries old, but contains nothing but basic animal instincts. Their minds are too large to be deceived or corrupted by even the most powerful of necromancer spells, but simple enough that they can be read easily. The Rangers have developed a spell, which one unicorn can use on a large group of Rangers, which will telepathically piggyback their minds onto that of the ursa. Those under the influence of the spell will see and feel the same as the Ursa does. Their minds become immune to the terrormonger illusions and, as ursas have nothing to fear from any creature of the forest, the fear of the Rangers will dissipate; starving the terrormongers of useful energies and leaving them almost powerless. We made our stand between the first and second dragon walls, and dispersed two dozen of our best Ursa handlers west towards to the only Ursa Major in the area. The terrormongers could have overrun us immediately if they were willing to sustain heavy casualties, but they were waiting for the sun to go down as their illusions are easier to create when natural shadows are already prevalent. Our bid was that we would get the Ursa before the sun went down and then launch our own attack; their bid was that we wouldn't get the Ursa in time and they would slaughter us throughout the night. While the main camp prepared its defenses, small teams of Rangers were posted as sentries to provide advanced warning against attacks; Storm and I were one such team. I don't know where the chain broke, but somewhere along the line, one of the teams was killed without raising the alarm and without our flanks covered, Storm and I were attacked, without warning, on three sides. Storm took a blow to the head and was knocked unconscious; I threw him on my back and after some dead enemies, a few teleports, and a lot of luck, managed to get us both back to the camp. Zecora was there, and within a few minutes had him back on his hooves.” Rainbow couldn't tell if Shining Armor was just thinking, or if he had really reached the end of his story, having told how he saved Storm. She waited for him to start again but after a few moments of watching him stare off into space lost her patience, “and then the Ursa herders got back with the Ursa Major and you smashed the terrormongers. Right?” “Nope” said Shining Armor somewhat absent mindedly, “The terrormongers had set up an ambush for the herders outside of the Ursa Major’s cave. The herders were slaughtered with the exception of one pegasus who escaped back to the camp, to tell us we were all doomed.” Shining Armor went back to his thinking and Rainbow started feeling annoyed. “I'm guessing you won the battle?” “You guess correctly.” “How, did you win the battle?” Shining Armor stopped looking off into space and refocused on the mares, “There's something important that I should have told you about before I started this story.” “What's that?” asked Twilight eagerly. “It wasn't a 'what,' that saved us at Forest Jaws;" said Shining Armor slowly, "It was a 'who'."