Chapter 5: The Green Knight
Many who had heard the legend and rumors of the Green Knight, wondered who he really was or who he was working for.
They all knew, however, that he was not with the British, nor the German or Italian troops. He was fighting those who caused trouble, and helping those in need.
As the children had suspected, he was from Equestria.
The Green Knight was a unicorn by the name of Fletcher Fray, an Eternal Knight of Princess Luna, princess of the night in Equestria.
Born in the city of Stutegart in the country of Farmany, he was of very noble blood. His father was an excellent archer and caring ruler, and his mother, wise and tender-hearted, doing much for those under their domain. Fletcher Fray had inherited his father’s bow skills and strong sense of wrong and right, while his caring, friendly side came from his mother.
Having gotten his Cutie Mark at the age of 11, he quickly got as skilled as his father with his bow. Unfortunately, he lost his parents the same day but that filled him with determination to help others not to have the same or familiar fates like he had.
When he had joined the Eternal Knights and fought in the Civil War, he leaded his soldiers with care for their lives like his father did, having a strong sense of principles that helped to choose what target was a worthy foe or a needless kill.
After Dinky vanished, he volunteered to get her back. Luna had also selected him for this task. He still remembered it.
“I understand your concern, but we don't know where exactly she is, or how dangerous it could be. That's why I will send Fletcher Fray out for this task. He has experience in that field and can master almost anything.”
“I promise you Ms. Hooves, I will get your daughter back safe and sound, you have my word. For me, it is not only a matter of honor, but also something very personal.” He had said to Dinky’s mother and father.
It was very personal for him for a reason. Back in the civil war, there was a filly he and his fellow Knights cared for, it got killed in a terrible event, despite their attempts to save it. It hadn’t even got it’s Cutie Mark. That memory never leaved his head, and he wanted to make sure that no other filly would suffer the same fate. He had sworn it to himself the day it happened.
There was also a second reason why he did this. Dinky and her family had suffered from terrible things too much already, and whenever he saw the young unicorn from a distance, her smile and happiness warmed his heart, sometimes reminded him of himself when he was her age.
At such, he was determinated to prevent that Derpy and Doctor Hooves would lose her, he had seen the grief of parents losing their child already, too many times.
Still, the loss of his parents belonged in the past, he never looked back. Even in death, they and the friends and comrades he had lost over the years were in his heart, supporting him to the end, always by his side.
“I will keep my promise, you will return home safe and sound, Dinky.” Fletcher spoke to himself as he walked through the desert, the sun shining down on him.
He was used to the heat in the Desert, he had did a classified operation in Appleloosa once and the clothes Patch had made for him were suiting perfectly.
At first when arriving, he was disoriented and very exhausted.
It was all Fletcher could do not to collapse.
Every nerve in his legs felt numb, his hooves jittering on the ground, shaking up the sand. It hurt to move his neck, having seemingly stiffened over hours. His eyes blurred, his mane stood on end. He could smell smoke and taste copper.
For a moment he was certain he hadn't come through alive.
Fighting not to retch, his last meal welling up inside his throat, he stood up, shut his eyes tight and reopened them.
Everything about him resembled the deserts of Northern Africa, looking strangely similar to the dunes of Antelopia or Camaala.
Groaning loudly and stretching his back and forelegs like a great cat, he gathered his senses and set about searching as soon as he found his hooves again.
He silently promised himself.
“Soon as this is over, I'm taking up meditation again.”
It was not the first time he has been on earth, some time ago, he landed in a different timeline due a failed portal spell. Then he helped a filly that was, like Dinky, separated from her home.
A memory that made him determined to find Dinky. Of course, he didn’t travel aimlessly. He followed the trail that the spell had left, it tracked Dinky wherever she was.
He also carried some supplies in his saddlebag bread and water, even an Eternal Knight couldn’t fight with an empty stomach and as it was very hot in the desert terrain, about 4 liters of water were necessary everyday to counter the loss through sweat.
But Fletcher was born with an interest in exploration, so he had a lot of experience when it came to travel. He knew he could find additional sources of water by watching for bends on a dry streambed and digging along the concave bank. There was often water below the surface. And he could watch for the flight of birds, particularly at dawn and dusk as birds circled waterholes.
He had read once that if he should run out of food, he should keep an eye for the Desert Gourd, a vine that runs along the ground. He could chew its moisture rich shoots and eat the flowers and fruits should food and water unavailable.
He had never eaten a Desert Gourd before, so he wondered how it would taste.
As he came to a hill he noticed smoke in the distance. “I should take a look at that.”
Using binoculars, he saw something he didn’t like. Some men in tan colored uniforms with red armbands holding civilians at gunpoint, torching what looked like a palace, while an officer without an armband argued with the officer that was apparently in charge of this.
Fletcher knew who the armband-wearing men were, he had overheard conversations. Those were members of the Waffen-SS, generally known as the elite forces of the German military, who had a reputation for brutality.
“Not on my watch, pal.” The green unicorn took aim with his bow, the SS squad in his sight.
He exhaled and fired, his arrows rarely missed - scoring headshots on the entire SS squad. The Wehrmacht soldiers were unharmed.
With a smile Fletcher watched as the Wehrmacht officer looked into the direction his arrows had come from with a light, scared expression before ordering his men to put the fires out and free the prisoners, then left with his troops.
Then he looked for a way down, looting the bodies for anything useful. While he preferred his bow over any other long range weapon, it took a lot of magic when firing powerful or very long shots, limiting his magic abilities to basic spells like levitation until regenerated, which could take some time. So firearms could balance it out.
He took the Luger pistol from the officer he had taken out, admiring the toggle-lock action, which used a jointed arm to lock, as opposed to the slide actions of almost every other semi-automatic pistol. During his travel, he had made himself a holster, should he use a sidearm. “Now I get why the allied soldiers love to have it as trophy. The toggle-lock action is unique.”
He put the ammo in his saddlebag, also taking a MP40 from one of the bodies and a scoped K98 from a SS sniper, the former for close range, the latter for sniping when he couldn’t use magic and his bow.
“MP40, standard SMG for the German troops, low rate of fire but easy to control. Ammo shouldn’t be a problem for me. And the K98, standard rifle for them, low rate of fire but that shouldn’t be a problem for me. I must admit when it comes to quality, they’re best.”
As he shouldered both weapons he mumbled, “Guess listening to Wagensroll when he talked about human history and weapon pays off. Never thought I would need that.”
Quickly taking a sip of his canteen, he carried on to the east, where the tracking spell showed Dinky’s last known position.
He traveled until the sun was setting, the sky showed it’s beautiful red-orange color, also signaling that the Green Knight should find a good place to rest for the night.
He found it at a small Oasis, making a campfire and watching at the sun until it was no longer visible. He enjoyed every second of it.
Fletcher briefly admired the stars before getting comfortable in his sleeping bag and falling asleep.
He woke up in the middle of the night by a strange movement he couldn’t identify. Looking around, he couldn’t see anything, except for something small in the distance.
Lighting up his horn, he saw a small filly in the distance. “Dinky? Is that you?” He asked, he couldn’t see if it was really her in the darkness.
Suddenly, fires flamed up all around him, he startled for a second, trying to figure out what was happening. Then dark, almost crazy laughter echoed. Fletcher froze in fear as he recognized it. “No…this can’t be…”
“It is said that foals are the embodiment of innocence. And what better act of innocence is there...than punishing the guilty?” the voice echoed.
Dinky stepped into view.
“I am a holy servant of the sacred sun. I am a flame of justice that burns away the night's evil.
Celestia demands victory.
All victory demands sacrifice.
All pleasure demands pain.
All forgiveness demands punishment.
All harmony demands power.” She said this totally unemotionally with a completely blank, dead-eyed look on her face, explosives strapped across her body.
“D-dinky? No...” Fletcher stared in shock and disbelief as she came closer through a path that opened through the fire while he was still trapped.
“Thus is justice delivered unto the unrighteous and unholy.
Thus are the flames of Celestia's sun appeased with the final screams of the heretics.
We burn their tainted flesh, we boil their tainted blood, we steal their tainted breath and banish their tainted souls eternally to oblivion.” She was now only a few meters away from him.
“Dinky, snap out of it!” Fletcher pleaded slightly in panic.
“Now we adorn ourselves in bronze and glass, our fires burning bright for the world to see.
Life and Death mean naught. Only the fire is real.
We live, we die, we live again. Reborn as a flame of justice.
I live and die for the Celestia. For Solomon. For the flames.”
In the moment she had reached him, he covered himself from the explosion, a powerful blast of white and flames.
The unicorn gasped, breathing heavily with cold sweat on his face as he awoke from this nightmare, looking around.
Fletcher took a deep breath of relief. “Just a dream…” The campfire had died long ago, only the sounds of crickets filled the quiet and peaceful night.
“Maybe, I should ask Princess Luna about this when I’m back, she’s the princess of dreams after all.” With a sigh, he fell asleep again.
Solomon. That name still sent a sharp sting through Fletcher's very core to this day.
It was by his hoof that the Lunar Republic's advance was ended, nearly wiped from the face of Central Equestria.
To Canterlot and most of the cities and villages that flew Celestia's banner, he was their champion, their saviour, sometimes revered greater even than their own Princess.
To the Republic however, he was the true nightmare incarnate, burning a swathe of terror and carnage through the realm, seeing every stallion, mare and foal under Luna's cause as nothing more than traitors deserving nothing more than total annihilation.
His fires had consumed all in his path, his chief weapons were his cunning, ruthlessness and sheer raw power.
Until the day his zeal grew too great even for those who loved him.
Fletcher had crossed him on more than one occasion.
It rarely ended well for him and those beside him fared far worse.
He shook his head at the memory.
So few friends escaped the flames.
Fletcher slept peaceful for the rest of the night, breakfasting in the morning, as he was an early riser.
He enjoyed the sunrise before moving on. The spell still led him east.
While the rifle had a weight of 4kg, the MP40 3.97 kg and the Luger pistol a weight of 871 grams, making 8.84 kg in total, was not a problem for him at all, he was used to carrying heavy equipment from the civil war.
As yesterday, it was a hot day, the heat hardly bearable, but Fletcher saw it serenely.
“Well, I used to train with my father even in such hot days and enjoyed some cool Applemilk after that - good times, good times.” He smiled at the memory. “Better than to train on cold days, I can still remember how the arrows were literally frozen on the targets. I wonder how Dinky tolerates the heat.” A feminine scream of help tore him out of his thoughts and he wasted no time to respond to it.
Coming to a hilltop, he discovered what seemed to be a British camp, some soldiers were chasing a young Arab woman into a trench, one of them pinned her down on the ground.
Fletcher knew exactly what they intended. “Oh no, you don’t!” In a swift motion, the stallion had his bow drawn, the harassers in his sight.
Exhaling, the arrows flew towards their targets, all headshots.
Satisfied, the Green Knight watched as a young soldier gently helped the woman up before looking into the unicorn’s direction with a scared expression before getting back on his post.
“Quite the gentleman I see.” Fletcher commented before moving on himself.
The rest of the march was quiet, only sand as far as the eye could see, he took regular breaks in the shade, drinking some water.
In the evening, he made a campfire at another small oasis, refilling his canteen, watching the sunset, cleaning his firearms.
“Too bad I can’t take them back to Equestria, would look nice in my trophy room. If I had one.” One of the Eternal Knight's vows was that they never bring foreign weapons to Equestria or Equestrian weapons (Other than their own) to foreign lands.
Watching the sunset and stars once again, he yawned and settled down to rest beneath a rocky outcrop.
A bad smell entered his nose, causing him to wake up. “'What the hay is that?” He covered his nose, noticing that some kind of gas covered the area, it was more like a thick cloud of cyan mist.
This looks familiar…where have I seen it before?
He tried to remember, but his mind couldn’t get any answer.
He walked through it, trying to find an answer, the mist blocked his view like a sandstorm.
Suddenly, he spotted Dinky in the distance, having her back turned to him.
“Dinky! Are you okay?” He called out but she didn’t react.
He was about to walk up to her to check if she was hurt, as something forced him to stop moving, like he was frozen.
“What the…”
“You look well-rested, Eternal Knight.” An echoing voice spoke to him, he knew it from somewhere but he couldn’t remember where. And there was nobody here, safe for Dinky.
“…My, my, how you’ve changed. You became a volunteer for little tasks as that? Well, I’m sure you’ll see the bigger picture eventually. If you get out of here alive.”
As the voice said this, Dinky turned around, facing him. She had deathly pale skin, whitened pupils, blackening around her eyes and mouth, slight sores near the neck, enlarged veins, and several small blue orbs emitting from her head.
“Rest in peace this time.” The voice added before Dinky broke out into a sprint, knocking him down, trying to feast upon him.
He struggled against it. “Dinky, don’t!” He pleaded before she went for his throat.
“NO!” He yelled at the top of his lungs as he woke up, his breathing rapid.
He rubbed his head. “Two nightmares in a row can’t be good. I should definitely ask Luna about this when I get back.” With that, he fell asleep again.
The next day, a small sandstorm blocked his view, as it cleared, he saw something that made him freeze on the spot in shock. “Dear Luna…”
At first, he thought he had found a graveyard, bodies of dead soldiers everywhere, some beheaded, their heads pierced on spears. Then, he noticed it wasn’t a graveyard, it was a massacred camp with bodies hung up, tortured and put through horrors he had never seen before. Yet, it was still somehow familiar to him as he saw one body hung up on a wall, his chest open, the heart missing. He was placed on a symbol, due the body blocking Fletcher’s view, he couldn’t see what it was exactly.
Whatever that was, it’s brutal and strong. This is Butchery…No, more than Butchery.
“I sense something, a presence I've not felt since...”
“Hey, isn’t that the Green Knight?” Fletcher heard a voice in the distance.
“I better get out of here.” He fled the scene quickly.
“What could have caused this?” He wondered.