Chapter 2
Whitetail Woods
Leaves rustled beneath the hoves of the three travelers as they made their way deeper into the forest, the morning left a thick layer of fog in between the trees severely limiting visibility.
"Are you sure we're still on track?" Rainbow asked as she pushed her way through the underbrush. "Not following the roads isn't exactly the fastest way to travel."
"Yes, I'm sure we're going the right way and you know as well as I do that if we took a road the chance of being caught would be way too high," Twilight responded to the grumbling pegasus, Rainbow had agreed to avoid flying unless it was absolutely necessary to lower the chances of getting caught even further.
Rainbow sighed as she was bored out of her mind, they had been walking through whitetail for two days now and the energetic pegasus was having trouble with too much bottled up energy. "Can't we just go for a run or something?" She asked.
Twilight rolled her eyes at the request as it wasn't the first time the pegasus had asked, "Who's going to take Scootaloo if we do run off."
Rainbow huffed, "One of us can just take her on one of our backs." She argued.
"We're already carrying food and other equipment, we can't afford being tired if we have to run from either pegasi legionaries or unicorn knights." Twilight explained as she had on all other occasions Rainbow had asked.
"I know, I know. The forest is just so incredibly boring!" Rainbow said looking back at the filly that was dragging her hooves after the two adults, "You keeping up okay Scoots?" Dash asked.
"Yup! Never better!" The filly reacted happily, she hadn't been grumpy for the entirety of the trip and had managed to keep up with the elder two ponies.
Twilight suddenly stopped dead in her tracks, her ears swiveling as she picked up a sound.
"Get down!" She whispered, the two pegasi also dropping on their stomach.
"Is that singing?" Rainbow whispered to Twilight as she also heard what Twilight had heard.
"I think so." Twilight answered as the pegasus snuck forward towards the location where the singing was coming from. "Rainbow get back here!" Ordered the pegasus as she kept creeping forward, Rainbow ignored the unicorn and got close enough to be able to hear what was being sung.
Lullay moon princess, goodnight sister mine
And rest now in moonlight's embrace
Twilight and Scootaloo crept up beside Rainbow as she now had a visual on the pony who was singing: A pony sitting on her flank next to a small pool of water covered in a thick brown cloak, a slightly sharpened white horn sticking through the cloak
Bear up my lullaby, winds of the earth
Through cloud, and through sky, and through space
Carry the peace and the coolness of night
And carry my sorrow in kind
Twilight listened closely to the text as she tried to stay hidden within the underbrush, the other two ponies doing the same.
Luna, you're loved so much more than you know
May troubles be far from your mind
And forgive me for being so blind
Scootaloo accidentally managed to snap a twig as she moved a bit to get a better view, the cloaked pony swiftly turning to look at where the sound came from and running off into the thick fog of the forest.
"Ponyfeathers!" Rainbow swore, "Squirt, get on my back!" She told the little filly.
"You had to sneak closer didn't you!" Twilight said as she too got up from her lying position, "Follow me!"
The two ran off in the direction they were walking in before, "So you're going to tell me that you weren't curious as to what you were hearing!" Rainbow shouted at Twilight, who was running in front of her.
"Yes I was curious but I wasn't about to risk our cover to hear a SONG!" Twilight shouted back, above the two running ponies two shadows started trailing them. Scootaloo was the first to notice them as she wasn't arguing like the other two were, "Uhm, Dash, Twilight?" She said, trying to draw attention to herself.
"Come on, it can't be that bad. By the time she finds someone to report to we'll be somewhere in ponyville!" Dash shouted back at the Unicorn. Scootaloo saw the two shadows growing rapidly, "GIRLS!" She said Trying harder to get the two's attention.
"WHAT!" The elder pegasus and unicorn simultaneously replied as two armoured pegasi broke through the forest roof and smashed down in front of the running ponies. Twilight turned herself to the two assailants and lit her horn, firing a concentrated beam of light into the two pegasuses eyes nullifying their element of surprise. Extending the blade on her foreleg she charged the first pegasus who hadn't recovered from the bright flash of light and plunged the blade into his lightly armoured neck, she hadn't become a lieutenant by sitting on her flank all day.
The second pegasus had recovered by that point and extended his own blade, slashing down at Twilight. The unicorn parried the blade but her lack of skill with leg-mounted weapons was painfully apparent. Rainbow had put Scootaloo into a small bush and also ran towards the pegasus legionnaire, "Hey, YOU!" She shouted as she extended her own blade, thrusting it forward. The pegasus batted the blade aside but in doing so left himself open to an attack from Twilight, the unicorn slashing at the supporting foreleg. Rainbow followed up by stabbing her blade deep into the unarmored side of the pegasus.
The two victorious ponies let out a few ragged breaths as they wiped off the blood from their blades. Rainbow walked up to the copses and pulled a primary feather from both the right wings of the fallen pegasi and carefully put them in her saddlebag. "May you find peace in the heavens above." She said as she closed their eyes.
Twilight meanwhile was rummaging through the saddlebag of one of the fallen pegasi looking for supplies, finding a few bandages and some food. "Dash, How long until more pegasi will be sent out to investigate?" Twilight asked Rainbow who had walked over to Scootaloo to calm her down.
"Depending on how far they were through their patrol? Most likely an hour, less than thirty minutes if we're extremely unlucky." Rainbow responded while loading Scootaloo on her back, "But there's also the chance that they'll assume they ran into a unicorn patrol. That would be the best outcome because that would mean they will take longer to respond and most likely in force."
"Then we should get moving, Ponyville should only be a couple of hours away from here," Twilight said as she secured her saddlebags. Rainbow half-acknowledged what Twilight said while she kept looking at the corpses.
"What are you waiting for, Rainbow? We've got to move!" Twilight said as Rainbow stalled further. "We should burn them," Rainbow replied, her eyes tearing a bit. "Their souls will be trapped in their bodies if we don't."
Twilight realized the pegasus was having a religious internal conflict about what to do at that moment and stepped closer to her companion, "They'll have proper services when other pegasi find them but we don't have the time." She said putting a hoof on Dash's shoulder, she may not have known about pegasi custom but they could not stay there.
"Y-Yeah, you're right." Dash stuttered as she pulled her gaze away from the corpses, "Let's go."
The three ponies were lying in the underbrush on the edge of the forest, the trio had tracked deeper into the unicorn territory to prevent them from being found by the pegasi. The village in front of them was nothing short of a slum as it consisted out of cobbled-together materials.
"How many ponies live in there?" Scootaloo asked as she seemed to be disgusted with the settlement.
"Estimates put it at five-thousand" Twilight answered, also covering her nose slightly as the smell coming from the village reeked. "I don't know the exact number as Earthponies aren't exactly seen as citizens by Canterlot."
"This is even worse than what pegasi do to Earthpony villages and cities under our control," Dash said as she surveyed Ponyville, comparing it to her mental image of Maresaw.
Surveying further Twilight saw an apple orchard stretching out towards what she assumed to be the Everfree forest. The village itself had a central building with a clock tower while the rest of the town bloomed out from there, "Look over there." Dash said pointing at an abandoned cottage close to the edge of the Everfree made out of a tree. "We can take shelter there until I can get a cloak to go into the village itself."
Twilight looked Rainbow, "What do you mean 'I' ?" Twilight asked annoyed at the pegasus.
"Face it Twi, that head-spike is a dead giveaway in an Earthpony village. While I can just cover my wings with a cloak and walk around." Rainbow argued, Twilight lighting up her horn making it fade out of existence as if it wasn't even there.
"Or you could do that" Rainbow said as Twilight was smirking at her.
"Let's go take a look at that cottage," Twilight said while sneaking back into the forest. The three made their way through the edge of the forest, they spotted a few unicorns patrolling the edge of town but none seemed to go near to the abandoned cottage to Twilight's relief.
Getting as close to the house as they possibly could they made a quick sprint to the cottage, the back door was hanging over on its hinges and opened without much trouble. The inside was a dusty mess, any furniture that had stood in there had been removed or stolen long ago. Moving up to the first floor over squeaking stairs they found a similar sight to the first floor but the closet contained a couple of brown rags they could fashion cloaks out of.
The first floor also gave a good vantage point the group could use to keep an eye on any guards that might come and check up on the cottage. "We should go pick a few apples in that orchard tonight to add to our supplies," Rainbow said while she rummaged through her saddlebag.
"We should also try to find some rope and something to make a tent out of in the village itself." Twilight said as she screwed around with the rags, "Rainbow, come over here." She said, the pegasus stepping closer to allow Twilight to put one of the rags around her. "That should work." She said as she tied the cloth together, hiding Rainbow's wings completely.
"Yup, now we just wait until darkness." Rainbow said as she lay down against one of the bags and closed her eyes, "Might as well sleep for a bit if we're going to be up tonight."
Twilight shrugged and lay down next to her while Scootaloo pushed herself between the two. Comfortably waiting until the night would fall upon them.
"So, are you finally going to tell us what our target means to you, Captain?" Swift Star asked, the light blue mare's helmet was lying behind her as she was lazily drawing something on a piece of parchment.
Shining Armor huffed, levitating his helmet on his bed as he sat down next to his makeshift desk, "Why? You know what her name, rank, cutiemark, mane and fur-color are and what her favorite breakfast is." He replied reading through some reports lying on his desk.
"That's just the thing, Cap." Comet Flash, an orange unicorn, said from his position lazily leaning against a set of boxes while chewing on a reed. "How in Tartarus would you know what her favorite bucking breakfast is."
Shining groaned, he cared for his subordinates a lot but they were annoying as Tartarus. "If you needed to know I would have told you, now if you two could get off your flanks and do some productive work we might be able to catch her!"
Swift Star raised an eyebrow at the wording Shining used, "What do you mean catch? Aren't we just going to kill the bitch when we find her?" She asked.
"I'M NOT JUST GOING TO KILL MY SISTER!" Shining finally shouted as he brought his hooves down on his desk, cracking the wooden board. He sat back down as he now had the full attention of his subordinates, "I don't know what that pegasus told her to turn her against us but I intend to ask her personally."
"Damn, Cap. You know you can trust us with crap like that right?" Comet said, giving a friendly knock on the shoulder of his superior.
"Yeah, I know. It's just that these orders come right from the top." Shining said as he picked up a report again, he opened up his mouth to say something else but something in the report caught his eyes. "Guys, look at this." He showed the report to his companions.
"Two dead pegasi in Whitetail? What's so suspicious about that? We whack a couple of those chickens in that forest every day." Swift Star said as she finished scanning the report.
"Yes, but we didn't kill these two and when we found them they had wounds consistent with blades, not spears." Shining continued, a grin forming on his face. "So it's friendly fire?" Comet guessed, Swift Star shaking her head as she saw where this was going. "Pegasi don't do friendly fire." She said as she levitated her pencil over to the map, Marking the location where the bodies had been found.
"But we do know about two fleeing ponies who stole a set of them from the ones we captured." Shining continued as he took his own pencil and drew a straight line from where the encampment had been to where the bodies had been found, "Going south wouldn't make sense as they know we'd have too many patrols looking for them there."
Comet levitated a third pencil to the map as he continued the line, "So if they went west instead to avoid a high concentration of unicorns they might have run into, let's say, two pegasi on their way to their first destination."
Shining raised up the map and smiled as he looked at the line,
"Ladies and gentlecolts, we're going to Ponyville."