Soarin could barely see through the darkened canopy of Hollowed Shades’ forest. This wasn’t exactly a good thing, considering that he was following after Starry and trying to avoid looking stupid by running into a tree.
“So… Where exactly are we heading to?” Soarin asked.
Starry swerved around another trunk, “You’ll see. Trust me, it’ll be fun.”
“I wasn’t aware that training could be fun.” Soarin’s eyes were slowly adjusting to the darkness the farther they trotted. “What are we working on, anyway?”
“Stealth training.” Starry said simply, “And it’ll be simple. A little game of hide and seek.”
Soarin’s mouth tightened. “I doubt it’ll be that easy. Who will I be hiding from, and will they have darts?”
He heard Starry chuckle, “A team of night guard trainees, and no.”
“Phew…” Soarin hung his head. “That sounds like a game of Guards and Convicts. I’m usually okay at that.”
“Whatever it’s called, you’ll still have to deal with it.” Starry chuckled as they arrived in the center of the forest. Above them were dimly lit huts that hung from the trees. Awaiting them were a crowd of thestrals of varying ages - from tiny colts and fillies to elderly stallions and mares.
At the sight of Starry, a thestral mare smirked and turned to the gathered crowd, “And here we have our lucky volunteer; our quarry for this momentous tradition! Soarin!”
“Wh-what?” Soarin blinked at Starry.
“Oh, look at that.” Starry giggled innocently, “The whole town’s in on the game, it seems. Best that you don’t get caught, sweetheart~”
Soarin swallowed, “Oh… joy.”
“Listen up!” An elder thestral mare yelled over the cheers of the gathered crowd, “Here’s how this works, fillies and gentlecolts: This pegasus is the town’s quarry, and all of us must work as a unit to bring him in. There will be no brawls, only takedowns and handmade traps are allowed. We have an hour to bring down our quarry here, who will be hiding and running from us. The rules are that we all have to stay in the forest - no hiding in homes or structures that aren’t natural.”
Starry leaned in to mutter into Soarin’s ear, “You’d better not rely on darkness alone to cloak you; thestrals can see through it.”
“...I’ll keep that in mind,” Soarin muttered.
“Now, Soarin! You’ll have a five-minute headstart while the hunters prepare their traps. Thank you, and good luck. GO!”
Soarin leaped to his feet, bolting blindly into the forest.
Starry chuckled to herself as she watched him disappear into the underbrush.
Captain Aurora Glitz trotted up to her, “Will you be joining us too, Starry?”
“I think that’d be unfair to everyone involved, ma'am~” Starry tittered.
“Oh? That’s some confidence from the pretty mare I took down so easily last year~” Aurora winked at her.
Starry tried to hide the small blush on her face, “You got a lucky shot.”
“Perhaps I did.” Aurora swished her tail, “The question is, will this year’s quarry be comically easy?”
Starry shrugged, “He’s quite the wildcard, from what I’ve heard. Who knows?” She stared off into the dark forest, “We’ll just have to see how this goes.”
Deep within said forest, Soarin had finally finished running on his hooves, coming to a realization that his hoofprints would be a dead giveaway to the hunters.
He then opted to run in an ovular path around the same clump of trees before launching himself into the air. He flew a few feet to gain some altitude before immediately changing directions and pointing his path back towards the town. To his chagrin, he noted that the thestrals had already started their hunt, and he hadn’t really done much in the way of hiding. The longer he stayed in the air, the more obvious he would be. So, as a sort of last resort, Soarin clung to a tree and quieted his breathing.
‘That didn’t feel like five minutes.’ Soarin’s eyes narrowed as he watched the thestral foals immediately begin to follow the hoofprints he had left for them.
“Search the treeline.” Aurora commanded the older thestrals of the town, “He’ll be hiding where the leaf cover is thickest."
Soarin scowled, tucking his tail under his body. As much as it hurt to pull it so tightly, Soarin knew that night vision of any type could only see shades instead of colors. With the starkly contrasting colors of his tail and his coat, he’d be seen immediately if he didn’t at least try to hide it.
To his satisfaction, the older thestrals flew right over his hiding spot, focusing more on the thicker treeline and going down from there. Just as Aurora had said they would. That left Soarin to his next decision: go while he had a gap of time, or stay in his spot and gamble on whether or not it was good enough to conceal him until they moved on.
Soarin’s answer to his own question was pretty immediate. He backed out of his hiding spot, glancing around to make sure no one was around to watch him do so. However, he paid more attention to his surroundings than to himself. His foot caught his own tail, causing him to lose balance and plummet down a few branches. By the time he looked up, several slitted pair of eyes were rapidly searching the area for him. Their heads had snapped toward him in sync, and their large ears were alert.
Not waiting for them to find him, Soarin immediately took off. He could only hope that his speed could be used to his advantage to get ahead of the crowd. However, his escape flight rustled the leaves of every tree he passed.
“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” A chorus of screeches echoed around him, honing in on him and making his ears ring. The sudden loss of hearing disoriented Soarin, but his flight pattern stayed consistent despite this. Behind him, the town had honed in on his location. Nearly in perfect sync, the thestrals created a cloud of fangs and bodies that were slowly closing the gap between themselves and their quarry.
Soarin made the mistake of looking behind him. In the dim light, he could see at least 50 pairs of slitted, glowing eyes coming closer to him. They were all screeching at him, filling the forest with their disorienting sounds.
Deciding not to continue staring at the terrifying wave of eyes on him, Soarin focused on how he’d get out of this mess with his skin still intact. He swerved suddenly between two trees, feeling confident that the two-pony gap would slow down the horde a little.
It didn’t.
‘Oookay, plan two!’ Soarin dove closer to the ground, only allowing the thestrals to get closer. His ears stung as the screeching only grew louder, almost right next to him now. If they got any closer; he’d be done for, for sure.
It was time for another gamble.
Ahead, Soarin spied a rope set up on the ground. He flew right over the obvious trap with ease, but pulled on it with his back hoof, setting it off. A hoof-made net trap fired off above him but narrowly missed him. Instead, the trap fired off as the middle of the horde of thestrals flew over it, trapping at least twenty of them, and causing the few bringing up the rear to halt in their flight path to avoid slamming into it.
Soarin pumped his front leg with a smirk, noting how much quieter the horde had suddenly gotten. Now, it was the case of disappearing quietly somehow.
His answer came in the form of a wetlands area toward the edge of the forest. It took little convincing on his part to dive straight into the biggest body of water that he could find. His dive made noise, but the darkness of the water made it difficult for the horde to tell where exactly he’d gone.
Aurora glanced over the water, growling to herself, “Spread out and find him! He has to come up eventually!” The remains of Aurora’s forces fanned out over the lake, scanning the shoreline for the pegasus.
Soarin, meanwhile, had already surfaced. Hoping that his mane would help to disguise the slight ripples through the water’s surface from a bird’s eye view, he climbed up onto the roots of a tree on the side of the water, leaving no trace of his hoofprints in the sandy soil. Soarin was still sopping wet from dunking himself in the water, and his limbs screamed silently with each painful throb. He was running out of endurance thanks to Stratus’s training yesterday, and he knew it. His time was running short, and he had no idea if the hour had passed or not. He let himself rest for only a moment in the tree, allowing for his coat to dry out drip by drip.
Even with his coat dry, Soarin was too heavy to take to the air again. That left him with the only option available: try to gain some distance by walking, even if it left an obvious trail to follow. He hopped from branch to root, root to fallen log, fallen log to rock, and on for as long as possible. By the time that he ran out of items to hop to, he’d already cleared quite a distance from the water. He focused on what he could hear around him in the darkness. Even the thestrals had the slightest wing beat to their nearly silent flying, and Soarin figured that he could get a step ahead of them if he focused.
All of Soarin’s focusing seemed to be a little too intense, however, as he stepped right into a net hidden with leaf cover. Adrenaline shot through him as he went from a nice, quiet jaunt in the darkness of the forest to suddenly have his hooves swept up from under him. He swung back and forth upside down in a rope net similar to the one he had trapped the thestrals in.
‘...Great.’ Soarin sighed internally as he peered through the darkness. ‘...Maybe they won’t find me here until the hour’s up?’
There was a movement under him, and a sudden, tiny gasp filled the air. “It’s him~! Eeeee-!” The voice of a filly thestral was suddenly cut off. Soarin blinked in confusion.
“Shh! Shh! No! I wanna bring him into town together!” Another filly whispered harshly, “Everyone will be sooo impressed!”
“Ooohhh, okay!”
Soarin was suddenly dropped from his suspension to the ground, knocking the wind from his chest.
“Whoops!” One of the thestral fillies squeaked, “S-Sorry Mr!” She came to land in front of him, and Soarin could just barely make her out as she began to drag the net in the direction of town. Looking behind him, he saw the other filly pushing him from behind. Between the two of them, they actually managed to drag Soarin effectively. Naturally, that meant that Soarin was hit by every rock and stump along the way.
“OW! Okay, okay, can you let me out?!” Soarin asked, “You won, I’ll just walk with you to town! Promise!”
“HA! No way!” One of the fillies huffed, “You’ll just fly off the minute we let you out!” She turned to her friend, “Don’t listen to him, Moongaze, just keep pulling!”
Soarin decided not to push further, simply slumping over, defeated. By two foals. ‘This is embarrassing…’
After getting the net caught a few times, impeding the progress of the fillies’ march, Soarin was finally dragged successfully into their camp.
Starry stared at him, stunned. Then, her face melted into a highly forced neutral expression before she simply lost it, and doubled over, laughing.
Soarin had the odd feeling that he’d never live this one down. It was a repeat of the Clipper incident, only worse. More so that when the elderly mare stopped the timer, she called out to the forest, “THE THESTRALS OF HOLLOW SHADES HAVE WON!”
Which meant, more or less, that Soarin had failed his stealth training.
He was let out of the net, and the elderly mare smiled as she gestured to a table neatly stacked with plates of cooked fish and fruits of all kinds.
Starry rested her wing on him reassuringly, “Eat up. You deserve it.” Soarin sighed, trodding over to the table and helping himself to the fruit.
Meanwhile, Aurora landed in the square, followed by the crowd of cheering thestrals, ready to follow Soarin’s example and dig into the feast prepared for them.
She trotted up to Starry, “Looks like we win again, toots~” Aurora smirked, “And it didn’t take me getting on top of you this time.”
Starry countered rather casually, “No, it just took two fillies to achieve. Didn’t you have him already cornered? What happened there, sweetheart~?”
Aurora blushed, “Wha-I-fillies?!” Her eyes widened, “R-Really?!”
“You must’ve been thinking about me too much.” Starry teased, “I know, I’m very distracting.”
“I-uh-those two got lucky!” Aurora insisted, turning away and quickly joining the festivities, “Are you coming or not?”
“Save me a spot~ I have to take a few notes.” Starry tittered. She jotted down some notes on what had happened before joining the table of thestrals and Soarin.
After the meal, Starry and Soarin made their way back to base.
“Now, come on, did I fail?” Soarin asked Starry as they walked. “The only reason I got caught was that I was exhausted from everything Stratus put me through yesterday.”
“Honestly? I don’t know.” Starry shrugged. “That’s up to Stratus in the end. When we get back, I’ll tell him anything you tell me. I’m not sure how much the actual time that you stayed hidden matters.”
“Didn’t you have to do this?” Soarin asked her.
“Last year. It was my stealth training assignment too.” Starry nodded. “Was kinda fun, until I was piledrived by a few dozen mares at the end!” She laughed to herself.
“What was your time?” Soarin asked.
“58 minutes. They just barely beat me.”
“That other mare sure acted as if she took you down single-handedly…” Soarin said, “Did she piledrive you first or something?”
“You could… say that. She has a thing for me, I think.” Starry chuckled, her tail swishing back and forth as they trotted along.
“Do you have a thing for her, too?”
“Kinda, yeah. Though I’d never tell her that.” Starry said, head held high, “Flirting and teasing her is fun, but I’m not really ready for a commitment like that yet.”
Soarin slowed his pace a little, “So thaaaat’s why you turned Charger down!”
“Duh.” Starry shook her head with a smile, “I thought I made it pretty obvious tonight, Soar.”
“It just didn’t click… I’m tired, okay?!”
Starry snickered as they arrived at the entrance to the bunker. They made their way inside, and she immediately headed to her quarters to write up a report on Soarin’s day. Hopefully, it’d be good enough for Stratus’s liking, but it had too many working parts for a quick judgment on Starry’s part. She’d heard the warning screeches start already at 22 minutes in, and that didn’t bode well for Soarin’s assessment of stealth. They’d just have to see.
Starry saluted as she walked into Stratus’s office. “I have the report on Soarin’s stealth training ready, sir!”
“Good.” Stratus barely looked up from the files that he was currently going through, “Leave it on my desk and I’ll get to it, Skies. Dismissed.”
Starry didn’t flinch at Stratus’s attitude, but she knew by now that a distracted Stratus never boded good things for the team. Nevertheless, she didn’t question her superior. She placed the report on his desk as asked and made herself scarce at once.
As the door shut, Stratus put down the file he had been looking at and pulled over the report. A small smirk crossed over his face as he read the day’s antics that Starry had put Soarin through.
“Taken down by a pair of fillies. Ouch.” Other than that blunder, however, Stratus was fairly satisfied with the results of the day. ‘56 minutes isn’t terrible, especially after getting spotted so early on.’ Stratus raised an eyebrow as he glanced over the report another time, ‘He’ll need some work, but it isn’t impossible. Nightshade will be pleased.’
With a nod, he pushed away the report and focused again on the file in front of him. A diagram of one of the Storm King’s armored airships lay before him, and he did his best to study every nuance and weak spot he could feasibly see. He decided rather quickly that he needed to hand out copies to the others, even Soarin. “...Wouldn’t be a bad final test.” Stratus muttered to himself, “That dictator could go for an ego blow or two.”