In a forest covered in thin snow, many miles from the Crystal Empire, there is a group of soldiers dressed in red and white metal armor. They had greaves, breastplates, and helmets, protecting their heads. All of them had a dragon symbol on their crests on their breasts. They were searching the woods thoroughly around them. All had spears grasped in their magic as their professional eyes carefully looked around every tree, the branches, bushes, and next to a creek. The sun was beginning to set, but their general wants to search no matter how much light there is. One brown, buffy looking unicorn met up with a light grey pegasus mare.
“Any signs found yet, Lieutenant?” he asked in a gruff voice.
“No, not yet,” replied the mare, “We’re surveying everywhere we can.”
“We need to move faster,” said the stallion, “You know the general wants success from highly trained soldiers.”
The pegasus saluted and rejoined some pegasi in the air and they flew in multiple directions to search the area. The buffy unicorn continued to search the woods and came upon a clearing. No creature around as far as he could tell, the towering trees didn’t look damaged by anything. They had to find the signs found inside their boundaries to find-
“Attention!” a voice shouted from behind the unicorn. Immediately the stallion straightened up and saluted.
“General Hong, sir!” he said.
Then, an older looking unicorn, about the height of Big McIntosh, but not as buff stepped out. He has a dark orange coat, a longer horn, a black mane with gray mixed in, a mustache and a goatee. He had the same armor on, but there was some armor covering his sides to protect his other vital areas. He had the same dragon symbol on his breastplate, some silver horseshoes and he had a sword in its sheath on his right side. His piercing blue eyes glared right into the soldier’s soul.
“I’ve heard there hasn’t been any success looking for the tracks,” he said in a mean tone, “You know what I expect of my soldiers.”
The tough-looking unicorn began shaking a little, “W-We’re trying, and-”
“You’ve been trying for hours!” Hong shouted, causing the soldier to topple over. “I’ve hired you to whip my soldiers into shape! You know what happened to my last captain of the guard!”
“Y-yes sir!” the captain stuttered out, getting back on his hooves, “I do know!”
“Do you want to end up like him?!”
“No, sir!”
“Do you want to be the best captain the city has known?!”
“Yes, sir!”
“Then get moving now!”
“Yes sir!” the captain began searching faster.
The general watched him with glaring eyes. He began thinking of what caused him and his squad to come out this far from home. It was a day that began like any other day, then ponies began screaming as they saw something that alerted some soldiers in the area.
He went out all armored up and they found nothing but large pawprints that led into the direction of Equestria. They had been following the pawprints for days now and they’ve recently vanished.
“Sir!” the captain called, “I’ve found them!” Hong ran over to see what the captain had found and indeed it was the large pawprints he was just thinking of.
“Good work, Captain,” he said. He whistled loudly before waiting a minute before all of his squad came and lined up, saluting to their general.
“The tracks head to the east! We’ll continue before we have to rest for the night! Then we have to alert the ruler of this land know of what we’re dealing with!” he announced, “Somepony carry the white flag to let them know we’re not here to start any fights!”
“Yes sir!” they replied.
“Good! Now move out!”
With that, all of them began trotting and Hong followed them with a determined look in his eyes.
While the land seemed peaceful and many ponies went to and fro in various places, in the middle of a large forest with a field next to it is having unexpected intruders within it. The forest wasn’t as large or as dangerous as the Everfree, but ponies tend to leave it be because there have been environmental ponies standing up for it and protecting it from being bulldozed, and it’s being considered to one day be a national forest for the land of Equestria.
A medium-sized snake slithers along a large branch close to the ground, sticking its tongue out to find its food. As it continued its hunt, it stopped to look around at its surroundings. Wait, was that movement? Yes! A few mice scurry along the forest floor, one would be a perfect meal for this hungry snake. Going into stealth mode, the snake slithered off its branch to...
BAM!
A large pawprint slammed right on top of the snake, killing it instantly! The mice scurried away while the predator lifted the snake up to look at it. It’s a muscular lioness, she had bronze armor on with a gold star in the middle of her chest plate and had a symbol of the same lion found on the medallion Mystic had picked up. The lioness had a predatory look in her eyes as she smirked, happy to have caught some dinner. She placed the snake in a small bag, turned around and began walking back to camp.
This lioness’s name is Leandra, the toughest and most aggressive of all of the lionesses and even surpassing some lions in the pride. She’s very loyal to her pride and the crown.
“Things seem to be going as planned,” she muttered, “Everylion is doing their part, but some idiot rookies have nearly blown our cover! Why did they even come?!”
She growled in annoyance, hating them for almost blowing their cover, they know what happens to lions like them, don’t they? Execution of course. Leandra’s always believed to push herself beyond her limits no matter what the cost is, even if it’s at other creatures’ expenses, and nothing’s stopped her since.
Leandra entered the camp that’s been set up after successfully infiltrating the border with no issues. Definitely foolish of them not to guard it as the pride does theirs. Gazing around the camp, Leandra caught a view of some tents made up, a place in the middle to sit down, some lions playing a game at a table, a couple of lionesses training with one another by fighting, a couple more lionesses were eating a freshly killed deer as a meal. One smaller lion came over to get some too, but the females growled at him causing him to run off in fear. These lions weren’t smaller as seen in Equestria, no, these lions are larger and meaner looking. Some of her kind caught sight of Leandra and stepped back in fear from her. She kept her look hard, walking proudly amongst them.
“That was my shield there!” a voice cried.
“No, mine has these scratches on it! You recently made another one, remember?” another voice argued.
Snarling, Leandra turned to the right to see a couple of young male lions arguing with one another and both are holding shields.
“That’s what you want me to think you nimwad!” the first one argued.
“What?!” the second roared, “How dare you! You’re a turd in the wind!”
“Oh, that’s it!” the first lion leapt at the second lion and they both began fighting one another, swiping claws and eyes full of fury. As they fought, some other lions just looked and rolled their eyes. Leandra stomped over to them.
“All right!” she growled, “Break it up you two incompetent baboons!”
The two lions stopped fighting, faced her and pointed at one another, “He started it!”
“I don’t care if it was started by a hyena, antelope or if it was just the wind that caused you to get in a fury, we don’t need this kind of behavior while on this mission!” Leandra got right into their faces, “You got that? Or do you want to answer to the King?”
The two young lion’s eyes widened in fear, “N-No! No, we don’t!”
“Good! Now, what do you say?!”
The two lions turned to one another.
“I’m sorry I called you a nimwad and tried to accuse you for taking my shield,” the first lion said.
“A-And I’m sorry I called you a turd in the wind,” the second apologized.
“Good,” Leandra said in a simple tone, “Now get to the track and run fifty laps! Both of you will carry one of you on their back and the next will go!”
“Y-Yes ma’am!” they both stammered out, clearly not wanting to do that but with Leandra’s authority matching that of the Captain and the King, they scampered off. Leandra rolled her eyes, knowing the two idiots were just saying apologies to satisfy her without really feeling sorry for what they did. A major factor is because they’ve fought five times for petty reasons in the last nine days.
Not deterred from where she’s heading, Leandra started making her way to a cave that’s been modified with some golden lion decorations and a four-star plaque on the cave’s right side. Taking another glance around, Leandra saw some more lions training and another sharpening spears.
We’ve got to do our best to be discreet, she thought. This land has somewhat more defense and guard systems than what we’d thought, plus there’re a lot of ponies around.” She smirked to herself. Nothing that General Amra and I can’t handle for the King to get things ready for his arrival sometime after we're done conquering.
Then she heard a whooshing sound, her ears perked up and she looked to her left to see a blur of a lion that had headed into camp. When there was a brief glow, the lion turned back to normal. He breathed a bit as Leandra’s look hardened and she stomped over to him.
The lion looked to see Leandra.
“You are late!” she roared.
“I-I know!” the lion stammered out, “But...”
“Do you know you could’ve jeopardized our entire operation?!”
“Y-Yes but I wasn’t followed and I handled things so we’d remain discreet!”
Leandra got right in his face, “Did you now? Or did you let a flower pot fall onto a pony and knock her out?”
The lion’s eyes widened in horror as Leandra continued, “One of our vultures told us you framed the pony for a crime she didn’t commit and you didn’t end her right then and there! Why?!”
“I just thought she’d keep quiet and being framed will keep us...”
“But not forever!” Leandra roared again, she turned to some lionesses walking over, “Take him away and have him executed right after he describes the pony so we’d have no witnesses! Report back to Amra and I!”
“Right away, Miss Leandra!” the two lionesses said in unison.
The lion protested in fear as the two lionesses seized him and Leandra watched with a cold expression. She turned back to the cave, honestly as feared, powerful and resourceful lions and lionesses can be, some can be very incompetent and dimwitted, which she does her best to keep them in line.
She headed into the cave where she saw a larger lion with a dark brown mane, he had golden armor on with a four-star plaque on his chest piece. His cape fluttered a bit behind him as he stood up.
“Did we have another one mess up?” he asked.
“Yes General Amra, framed a pony for a crime instead of killing her on the spot, and it took him far too long to find us at the meeting place,” Leandra explained.
“He knew to come here right? We’ve been here for a few days.”
“Yes, but it seems he might’ve gotten lost or lost the map.”
General Amra sighed, “Why can’t we get everylion to get with the picture here?”
“You tell me, General.”
“I don’t know,” replied Amra.
“Since that’s taken care of, we’ve got some business to discuss about our stakeouts and scouting,” Leandra said, walking over and sitting on a large flat rock.
“Oh, yes,” said Amra. Leandra pulled out the snake she’d killed earlier.
“And here’s a little snack for you,” she said.
“Thanks very much,” replied Amra, taking the snake and then biting its head off. He spat it out and began eating the body. “So, what have you got?”
“Well the vultures saw a massive city built on a mountain in the distance, an Empire made of crystals to the north, and there’re several other major cities.”
“Any weaknesses you can find yet?”
“We think we can get around behind the large mountain containing the big city, and there’s quite a bit of forest on the way there. But there are some large rivers and a lake we need to avoid,” Leandra explained.
“Interesting, I think we can also try another route past a little village next to a forest larger and thicker than this one,” said Amra, finishing off his snake, “We can try the side of the mountain as well. There’re surprisingly fewer ponies than on the east or west coasts as the vulture scouts told me.”
“Good to know the vultures are not causing attention, if so, not much attention then.”
“Yes,” said Amra, “I just hope the others can pull through.”
Leandra rolled her eyes, “Honestly, Amra, with all due respect sometimes you’re a little soft on them, I know how to keep them in line, don’t I?”
“I do know, but I’ve been general long before you were a teen.”
“Survival of the fittest, Amra.”
Amra nodded, “And I agree with that.” He rubbed his chin, “So, we’ll send out another small party out later tonight to that mountain to deter what our next move is.” He smiled evilly, “If there’s an opening, we’ll be sure to catch them off guard like the sneaky, resilient lions we are.”
Leandra returned the sinister smile, “And I’ll make sure the vultures and group scour the area hard. Very very hard.”
“Good. Very good.”
Then, they heard some stones rumbling. They turned and saw four stones aglow with red magic. Their eyes widened as Amra got up and slammed his paw in front of them. Leandra joined his side.
The magic shot upwards and formed a circle of swirling red magic. Both bowed before it as a much larger lion, sitting on a throne came into view.
Wait, this lion has a bipedal-animal like body, in a golden robe and has a gold crown on him. His mane is brownish red, he has scars on his rough-looking face, amber eyes and a slight growth of white hair from his chin.
“King Clawdius,” Amra greeted, “Good afternoon, Your Highness.”
“Good afternoon, Your Highness,” Leandra greeted.
The werelion sighed as he contained his hard look, “Have you got any news for me yet?”
“We’re working on a plan to take a large city of gold and white on a large mountain, Your Highness,” replied Amra, “We’re sending out some vultures and a team to check it out thoroughly tonight.”
“Get them to it as soon as possible,” Clawdius growled, “I’m tired of ruling over this desolate and harsh place. I need to expand my kingdom’s borders!”
“And you will have your rule expanded, we’ll have the city conquered within 48 hours, you’ll see,” Amra insisted.
Clawdius leaned forward, his gaze making his two subjects tense up but maintain their professional looks.
“Remember, if you all fail this, there will be dire consequences, I’ve gotten you into this pride. I can take you out. Fail me on this and you’ll be broken and have your remains scattered all across Oogundaa,” he threatened.
“It won’t be a problem, sire,” replied Amra.
“Good. Just make sure you stay with the program and if any other lions or lionesses make things difficult, kill them,” Clawdius leaned back into his throne.
“Yes sire,” Leandra said without hesitation, Amra nodded, feeling some concern for the others but he said “Yes sire” as well.
“Now, get going, you have 48 hours to take the city,” said Clawdius before he hung up the call.
Amra turned to Leandra, “Make sure that we all have enough magic to get us there fast and undetected.”
“Right away.”
What the Pride doesn’t know, is from the executed lion outside the camp, a small bit of dark purple magic seeped out of his dead eyes.