And they shall know no fear

by Naroe_Clan

Chapter 3: happenings and histories

After squeezing back out of the storage closet I return to my wandering through the palace. After wandering for another hour and not seeing another living being, I'm pretty sure that I'm lost in some sort of magical labyrinth intended to trap anyone with a brain.

“That would be the fifth left turn down an identical hallway in a row. Stanley's narrator would be proud, I'm sure...” I growl after the aforementioned infuriatingly illogical hallway.

I round the sixth left turn and see the hallway continue off into the distance for several miles before being shrouded by fog.

I give the hallway a deadpan glare, mumble “Screw this friggin razza-frazzin...” and begin expanding my consciousness yet again.

I look through the immaterium and see that I have actually been walking this entire way due to some dimensional trickery and am not through some illusion as I suspected. Probably a magical intruder trap. Figures that I'd stumble into one of those as quickly as I did.

After flipping off the universe and the luck that I have within it, I start looking around for a way out. Flying through the walls around me with my mental self, I find that I'm surprisingly close to the royal throne room. I figure that that's actually rather perfect.

I look at the lines of power again and spot the one linking my mental and physical forms, and start pulling my body to where my mental self is through the immaterium.

---

Iron Wall has been the captain of the royal guard for as long as anypony can remember. She is a tough, over-muscled, grizzled old veteran who takes care of the ponies under her command by figuratively beating how to do things right into them.

So she's basically the stereotypical tough commander trope ponyified.

However, at the moment, instead of yelling orders or signing papers or such, she's standing next to princess Celestia's throne as per standard operating procedure for the princess being foalnapped. Nopony knows why there's a procedure for the princess being foalnapped, but it just so happens that there is, so everypony in the palace is following it to the letter if only to keep from panicking.

Iron Wall is contemplating whether that's actually the point of the procedure when her musings are interrupted by a hole in the universe opening up in the middle of the throne room and a giant, armored, bipedal figure popping out of it.

She should honestly be shocked by all of this happening at all, but instead she is shocked by just why it is happening now. The princess has disappeared, the night has lasted much longer than it should've by a couple hours, and now he shows up...

---

I look around after my teleportation, fascinated by how the throne room looks outside of the cartoon. It's honestly rather remarkable, but I'm interrupted by a only vaguely feminine voice growling out “Chaplain.”

I spin around and see a grey-furred, black-maned earth pony standing next to the throne, facehoofing. I stand there staring for a whole minute before breathing out “Bastion...?”

She finishes trying to rub away her headache before responding with “Iron Wall now, but that's beside the point. Why are you here? Or more, how are you here? You were petrified.”

I continue staring and simply respond with “Luna released me.”

Iron Wall looks confused at that for a moment before looking much more thoughtful and muttering “So the foalnapper...”

I nod and say “Yep. But that should be dealt with shortly. I'm still wondering just how you're here.”

“I'm sure you'll learn soon one way or another. You always had a knack for figuring things out.”

I laugh heartily. “I have a knack for a lot of things. Breaking stuff, figuring things out, reading minds, getting close to insubordination without actually crossing any lines...good times.”

Iron Wall smiles at that. “Indeed they were.” Then her expression becomes dark and sad as she says “But they were a long time ago, and you still haven't been pardoned for what happened. However, my duty at the moment is to be right here until such a time as the princess relieves me of duty, and so any old acquaintances or beings that I would normally have to arrest that happen to pass by should probably just move along before that happens.”

I stare at her for a few seconds longer before saying sadly “I thank you for your service, guardspony.” Before leaving, I salute her and say “Goodbye, brother.” as I send out my mental probe.

---

Instead of leaving my body behind, I pull it into the immaterium to wait for me as I find a location to teleport to.

Looking into the material world around the royal palace, I see that the sun has just risen, and so I decide that I should probably just head to the old sisters' castle in order to get things done with quickly however they go.

---

“SISTER?!” had just been exclaimed by six voices as my mind found the castle. I pick a spot in the shadows of the decrepit room to teleport to in order to be properly dramatic with my arrival. I listen to what's going on with only vague attention as I focus on making my arrival invisible. Let's just say I like theatrics.

I hear Pinkie have her little crying fit and say “Hey, you know what this calls for?” and I respond with “Probably a party if I had to guess.” And lean nonchalantly against a pillar in the corner of the room.

Everypony in the room swings around at that, and I raise an eyebrow inside my helmet as all of the mane six scream “AAAAAH A MONSTER!” in perfect unison.

Luna looks surprised at my arrival, unconsciously backing away slightly.

Celestia immediately lights up her horn and creates a golden shield around all of the ponies around her while she calmly walks forward to stand in between them and me.

She stares at me for several seconds, ignoring Twilight starting to pound on the shield and scream “No, princess! We can fight it too!”

She remains very calm, almost emotionless, as she asks me “Why are you here?”

“I'm wanting to know what's going to happen to me now. As I remember, my sentence was to be a lot longer than a thousand years, but I really don't want to be petrified again.”

Celestia remains unreadable as she stares at me for another several seconds. She drops the shield behind herself as she says “In my name, and by the laws of Equestria, I banish Chaplain from our land for the remainder of his criminal sentence. He has two days in which to leave before the law will require his arrest.”

I see a flicker of sadness get through Celestia's mask of control as I nod in acceptance of her statement. Luna isn't even trying to hide her sadness at what's happening, and the mane six are all looking immensely confused by whatever's happening in front of them.

Twilight raises her hoof and haltingly asks “Um...wha-what's going on, princess?”

Celestia turns towards her student and says “I'll tell you and your new friends when we get back to Ponyville.”

I stand straight and say “In accordance with your royal decree, I will leave your lands. Good day your highnesses.”

I then pull myself without ceremony into the immaterium and sit there for a long while, thinking.

---

The walk back to Ponyville proved actually quite boring, especially since nopony wanted to break the silence that covered the group.

Once all eight ponies got back to Ponyville, they were swarmed by every pony in the town asking questions and exclaiming how glad they are that Princess Celestia's back. It takes a good hour of explanations and excuses before the group sits down in the library tree.

Celestia sighs before saying “This is a very sad story, and parts of it also considered a state secret, so if anypony doesn't want to hear it please leave now.”

She looks around and sees that everypony looks determined to hear what she has to say. It makes her proud.

---

“Well, the story begins one and a half thousand years ago. Me and my sister were worried for Equestria, since the griffons and the minotaurs had formed an alliance during a time when every nation of the world was wary of all the others. They have always been warlike, and they fought all those around them, and we knew that they would eventually attack us if only because we had some resource they wanted or possibly just because they wanted to fight. The royal guard was even stronger then than it is now, but we would not have stood a chance against them if they attacked us.

They had even started gathering their forces when the creature you saw today walked out of the everfree forest. He introduced himself as Chaplain, and without us even asking he offered his help defending our land. He brought advanced machines of unknown origin and his own skill at fighting, and it was not very long before the griffons and minotaurs attacked and he showed us just what he was capable of. He attacked them mercilessly, killing every single soldier in their army before they could even fight back. He was very...efficient.

We were scared, but we knew that he was not bloodthirsty since he never killed any of the camp followers of the army. There was barely a scratch on the cooks and porters and families that followed them. They all fled and returned home, panicked but still very much alive. It took less than a year before the griffon-minotaur alliance fell apart once they heard what had happened. None of their leaders wanted to take the chance of having to face Chaplain ever again.

Even though he did such a terrible act, Chaplain spent the next several years atoning for his actions, finding the families of every soldier he killed and sending their families all the help he could. Some of those families are still wealthy from all that they received. After all this, he became a permanent part of our guard. There were still some enemies who wanted to attack Equestria, but Chaplain simply stood on our borders in their way and they all turned back. He didn't need to fight another living creature for a very long time, but he still defended us by simply being there.

After four hundred years of this, he came to us and told us he was scared. His unique powers had shown him something terrible that he was sure that he couldn't fight alone. He told us that he had been working on a way to make ponies who could fight like he could, and he told us some of his history so that we might allow him to do what he thought was necessary. That history is a whole other story, but he took three ponies, a unicorn, a pegasus and an earth pony and trained them.

It took a long time of strenuous training before he declared them ready for the next step. They went into massive machines where their bodies were altered. It took weeks before they exited the machines. When they did, they were stronger and faster and tougher. They could run through all the walls of a stone building, come out the other side and continue running. Chaplain trained them harder than ever, making them into warriors like he was.

It took an even longer time before he said that they were finally done. He gave them something that he hadn't even given us. He gave them his technology. He gave them suits of armor which made them even stronger, faster, tougher. He even gave them some of the weapons that he himself used. He called them and himself battle-brothers, even though two were mares, because in his words they were now equals in every way that mattered for their duties.

Everything went well for another century as he watched his battle-brothers grow, making sure that they were the best he could make them and that they were true to their duties. He had even begun gathering more applicants to become new battle-brothers when the troubles started. The unicorn of the group had grown restless and distraught. Even though he had been told and prepared for what would happen with his long life, he was devastated by the loss of his family due to age.

The unicorn went down dark paths. Chaplain tried to help him to see that what he was doing would lead him astray, but he would not listen. When he went into powerful necromantic magics to try to bring back what he had lost, we knew that he had become truly mad. We went to confront him, and he was so angered by us that he went on a rampage. He killed many ponies and enslaved even more before me and Luna confronted him and finally stopped him.

Even though the unicorn was no more, the ponies of Equestria had been damaged by his actions. They were so very afraid, and they called for all those like him to be destroyed so that they wouldn't be a threat any longer. Chaplain was devastated by what had happened, and willingly submitted himself to whatever punishment was in store for him due to the crimes of his former battle-brother. He was convicted of every crime that was committed and he was sentenced to spend his time encased in stone. And so me and Luna were forced to use our magic to petrify him.

And now, after a thousand years, he was released by princess Luna here earlier today. And that, my little ponies, is the story of Chaplain.”

---

All the ponies sitting around the royal sisters are staring at Celestia in shock as she stares sadly at the ground in front of her. Luna is leaning against her sister, staring at the same patch of ground.

Twilight breaks the deafening silence with a quiet “Wow.” which seems to be a signal for everypony to start asking questions all at once. This makes Celestia chuckle and say “that's enough for today, my little ponies. Me and Luna need to return to Canterlot. There is still a lot to do now that she has returned.”

After goodbyes are said and the sisters have left, the six friends all sit in silence around the table in the library, lost in thought. They each slowly say their own goodbyes and head home until it is just Twilight sitting alone.

She walks to the window and looks out at the beautiful morning around her, not quite seeing it as she thinks.

I thought that I needed friends. I guess that there are those that need them a whole lot more than I ever did. Good luck, Chaplain. Wherever you are.

Comments

[Grankuwaga]

i.imgur.com/Zw7f8d8.jpg
^Larger version of cover also awesome chapter can't wait to see whats next
^Also is this how he looks? Cause that must have been some top tier cosplay

[Naroe_Clan]

6013977 I actually have the larger version, but when posting it the site wanted me to crop it a bit. or something like that.
Also, if this: http://www.litewavemedia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/2754-Warhammer-Logo.jpg is a thing, then having a chaplain isn't unreasonable. definitely would be top-tier though.

6014338

[paladinwolf]

hey... think I found of pic of this guy :)
s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/92/67/08/9267085657426e59b1d870be8a2b2883.jpg

[SeventhBrony]

Yeah, that's about right for the ponies and tia

[Bronzer]

6138827

Turning on the ones who had saved and protected them? The ponies ignoring the fact that it was one pony driven mad by the loss of his family? The ponies ignoring the fact that all of the others of his kind fought against him and saved them all?

Yeah, that does sound like them. Sometimes, the ponies can be wretched little shits.

[Hoppa_21]

The princesses are not really fair here. I mean, all the ponies who protested against him are long dead, so why shouldn't he start a new life in Equestria?

[Zwei]

So did the princesses also confront the other two "battle brother" and destroy them or were they freed when Chaplin was encased in stone?

[Cozybro]

6849676
Did you forget the leader of the guard? Chaplain called her "Battle-Brother."