Rise of Firefly Teaser 2 · 2:31pm Oct 17th, 2015
For readers of Five Star Service and especially Feathered Heart, I offer up this excerpt of the latest chapter of Before the Storm: The Rise of Firefly, which draws heavily on Feathered Heart lore. Set seven hundred years in Equestria's past, this is the story of the Pony/Gryphon War told through the eyes of Firefly, Rainbow Dash's ancestor and founder of the Wonderbolts. She is the character referenced in the last Five Star Service chapter when Five Stars and Delta visit the Wonderbolts museum, and this is her story as well.
Warning: mild gore ahead.
I had to learn the hard way that there are two lines in life that once you cross, you can never go back. One was pleasurable, the other decidedly not. The latter happened long before the former for me, and marked a loss of innocence that only those ponies who have experienced it themselves can understand.
Growing up, I understood none of this. All I knew was that I enjoyed fighting. That I liked to duel. That I loved the adrenaline rush of combat, wouldst even later learn I thrived on it. Even as a filly I sensed I had been born for battle, that a warrior was what I was meant to be. So I eagerly devoured old military stories. I studied all the fighting manuals I could. I looked with admiration on the exploits of pegasi heroes both past and present, like Commander Hurricane or Captain Typhoon.
And yet, through it all there was something important that escaped me. An act and duty I wouldst one day be called upon to perform. It was a day when I would finally answer the dreaded question that Windshear had put to me…
The day that naive young filly finally learned what it was to be a warrior, and the terrible price that must be paid.
We took flight at 2335 hours, scarcely eight minutes after the alarms had sounded—I was gratified by the rapid reaction of the base, at least. The town of Gallop was seventy-five miles away from Outpost Epsilon, and the Gryphons had a head start on us. But whilst they had stamina, we had speed, and we closed the distance quickly; within forty minutes the town lights were in sight. I wasn’t sure whether or not to be relieved by that; on the one hoof it meant the town had not been hit yet, on the other they were completely unaware the gryphons were coming.
And how could they NOT? My brow furrowed. Methinks if we were alerted, they had to have been as well…
Something wasn’t right. Ordering my squads to alight and rest on a nearby hill that overlooked the town, I swooped in and found the town of Gallop… not on alert, but readying for the holidays, the pubs open and earth ponies and a few unicorns bustling about despite the late hour. Here and there was some caroling, a pegasi weather team was assembling snow clouds overhead without a care in the world, whilst the town militia base had barely any activity at all, shut down in anticipation of Hearths Warming.
Normally, I wouldst present myself at the front gate, but there was no time. I blasted right through the perimeter—the base was so lax that even the anti-intrusion enchantments had not been kept powered—and, finding the messages and mail office, I burst in through a window to find… a single earth pony sentry standing low watch, though ‘standing’ was a very generous term given he was sleeping on duty. His uniform tunic was unbuttoned and he himself was snoring softly as he lounged back in his chair, his hind hooves propped on his desk and forehooves hanging limply to the sides, a spilled mug of cider nog having fallen from one. “Corporal!” I barked, startling him awake, causing him to lose his balance and fall backwards to the floor.
“What? Who?” he focused with some difficulty on the surprising sight of a mare in silver and red Guardspony armor wearing a blue-and-white Aerial Corps wingblade harness. “Oh, wow. Nice costume, filly, but methinks Nightmare Night was two months ago…”
The narrowing of my eyes gave him pause. “I am Sergeant Firefly of the Royal Guard, you brainless twit! Who is your commanding officer?” I demanded to know. “Why are you not on alert? Did you not receive word of a Gryphon attack?”
The stallion stared at me like I was crazy. “Lady, what are you talking about? What word? What attack?”
Sensing I was getting nowhere, I scanned the magical communications gems arrayed behind him. The alert gem was dark; there were no message scrolls waiting beside the dragonfire gems either. He may have been a buffoon, but he was telling the truth; they’d received no word of any intrusion or attack and ’twas beyond belief that word had gotten to us but not to them. Impossible, even. “No attack? Then why were we…?”
A trickle of fear went down my back. In that moment I knew what had happened, and what the real target was. “They’re not hitting here,” I whispered, a huge pit forming in my stomach. “They’re hitting…”
“Ma’am?”
Without bothering to reply, I shot back up into the sky and found Fell Flight. “It’s a trick!” I told her frantically. “Methinks they sent false messages to our alert and dragonfire gems!”
“How?” Fell Flight asked, visibly skeptical in the moonlight. “Their communication magic is supposed to be unbreachable. And if ’tis a trick, to what end? If they’re not coming here, then where…?” Her eyes went wide as the only possible answer hit her even before I spoke my next words.
“Don’t you see?” I made a sweeping motion with my hoof, trying to bite back the fear and panic threatening to overcome me. “’Twas all a ruse! They were just trying to draw the bulk of us away! They’re not raiding Gallop, they’re attacking EPSILON!”
The hour that followed was the longest and most harrowing of my life.
I wanted to head back immediately, but I dared not without first getting the word out. Realizing that the dragonfire gems could not be trusted, I wrote a series of hasty notes in the militia base communications office, personally (and quite rudely) rousting the drunken commander and ordering his ponies to stand to.
Gathering up my scattered squads, I dispatched several couriers to make the long flight to Outpost Delta and Division HQ to let them know what was happening. Then, leaving a full squad behind to brace the town defenses just in case, I flew with the remaining fifty Corps pegasi of my command back towards Epsilon in platoon echelon-V formation, one squad up front and two held back and higher up on the wings.
My instinct was to rush back, and before basic I might have just charged in headlong. But Sundiver’s training and bitter lessons of lost duels had taught me tactical sense and I knew we had to approach carefully lest we fly into an ambush. As I flew at the head of the formation, I couldn’t help but wonder… wouldst the outpost still be there? Was the raid already finished and would we arrive to find all the defenders dead? And if so, would it not be my fault? Should I not have left more pegasi behind to defend the base?
“Recriminations can wait, Commander,” Fell Flight noticed my brooding, the veteran SFC snapping me out of my worried thoughts. “Focus on the battle to come. We’ll be on top to the base in minutes and we need to know what we’re up against. We should reconnoiter first.”
“Aye,” I forced my fears from my head and concentrated on the task at hoof, going forward with Blindside’s squad as scouts and leaving the two veteran squads in reserve with Fell Flight. We circled west, hiding in the cloud bank and approached low through the canyon, finally closing within a mile to find…
There was a pitched battle underway, and appeared to have been for some time, raucous gryphon cries mixing with defiant shouts from inside the outpost. The outpost was afire in places, the two squads of Aerial Corps pegasi I’d left behind defending it to the last. The weather team I’d left behind was still active as well, if the bolts of lightning were any indication, but as I got closer I realized they were not the source—in the center of the small storm was a single figure, a stave-wielding eagless surrounded by a glowing spherical shield, electricity crackling around her as she gathered up magical energy for another strike on the stubborn defenders…
A Mage Gryphon!
Whilst she wielded her arcane magic to bring lethal bolts down on the base repeatedly, setting fresh fires and slowly bringing the structure down, her compatriots tried to gain entry to the lower levels where the remaining defenders had holed up. My heart clenched as I found the ground around the base littered with the bodies of several fallen ponies and at least a dozen dead gryphons—though badly outnumbered, the defenders had given a very good account of themselves.
Judging by the secondhoof armor and attire they were wearing, ’twas the same raider group as before. It looked for all the world to me like another capture raid gone wrong and now, incensed at their losses, they had simply upgraded their orders from kidnap to kill. They seemed determined to wipe out the stubborn resistance, earth-gryphons pounding on doors and walls with war hammers to gain entry to the barracks and headquarters bunkers and as I watched, one struggling unicorn healer stallion was pulled out and run through, screaming his last as his life’s blood spilled free.
My guts clenched at the wanton murder of a male—far worse, a male under my command. My teeth clenched and hooves shook. Time was short, and I had no idea how long the survivors had or even how many were left. All my doubts and fears fled in the face of such barbarity, and I swore I wouldst not fail in my duty now!
Instead of blinding me like it had so many time in the past, my rage gave me new clarity. “Corporal Blindside! Take two flights and circle around from the northwest! They won’t expect an attack from the Gryphon side! Await my signal, then take down the orbiting gryphons from high to low, one flight per gryphon. Private Shrike!” I didn’t wait for her acknowledgement before addressing her third flight leader, the only stallion in her squad, who looked like he was trying very hard to be brave, tears welling in his eyes as he had seen his friend and fellow stallion slain. “Report back to Fell Flight and tell her to converge her squads from two directions, wait for my red signal flare and then attack at once! Tell her we do not go in piecemeal, we strike en masse and wipe these mass-murdering chickenhawks out!” I resorted to the ugly slur for the first time.
“Aye-aye! And you ma’am?” Blindside said, fear and determination in her voice. She was scared—so was I—but determined to do her duty.
Another magical lightning strike emphasized my next words, my voice ice cold and jaw set. “I will take out the mage.”
What happens next? You'll have to read to find out. 
And fear not... Five Star Service is not being neglected for this. I'll be working on it next.
Have some mood setting music to go with it!
Give it a try, folks. It's a really good read that doesn't at all feel its length. Firefly is a bad-ass mare back in medieval times, during a dark time in Equestrian history, learning what war is like and learning the lessons of battle the hard way — rather then just Mary Suei-ing her way through it. It's realistic, action-packed and all around fun.