//------------------------------//
// Part One 
// Story: Never Forgotten. 
// by Xeroed_In 
//------------------------------//

As the first few silvery drops of noonday rain began to plop onto his nose, Shining Armour looked up at the darkening sky, slowly turning from midday blue to stagnant gray, and snorted.
"Fleet. If you would?"
The brown unicorn with the red mane behind Shining Armour, Lieutenant Fleet Foot, jumped up from his nearby game of chess and snapped a salute.
"Aye, Captain."

Fleet Foot squeezed his eyes shut tight and channeled magic into his horn, surrounding it with a pulsating red aura. The thickening rainfall momentarily shone umber as Fleet Foot put his own special brand of unicorn magic into effect, a shimmering, glass-like shield big enough to shelter five full grown stallions projected up and expanded over Shining Armour's head, stopping the rain before it could destroy his maps. "Thank you Fleet Foot, if you want you can shift your game under here."
"It's 'kay Captain, we're good out here." he said, sitting back down on his flanks, ignoring his opponent's grumbles and the fact that his pawns were nearing a drowning point. 

Shining Armour smirked at Fleet Foot's diligence and unseemly manners, but then turned back to the maps as his strategic commander, a pegasus called Feather Quill, tapped the table with the nib end of a quill, directing Shining Armour's attention to the largest map in the middle of the table. 
"As I was saying, sir, if we take the catacombs-"
"Then we end up channeled into easy targets as we leave. Then we end up dead."
"Not if we have the PegaCorps in the sky running a tight perimeter-"

Shining Armour shook his head, blew a lock of his longish blue and lighter blue hair out of his eyes, then used a puff of magic to tuck it back into the bandanna that circled his brow, emblazoned with the Royal Guard's crest. 
"Too risky. You know each and everyone of those Changeling bastards can fly. The PegaCorps would be outnumbered a bajilion to one. There's no way we can use the catacombs"

Silence fell over the table, silence except for a light clicking noise as Feather Quill tapped his quill against the tabletop in agitation. A crash from outside jolted the both of them and they turned around in time to see Fleet Foot's opponent stomp off to the tents, splashing through the deepening puddles, and leave Fleet Foot sitting in the mud, dripping wet with the remnants of his chess set scattered around him. Shining Armour watched as Fleet stood, gathered his pieces into his saddlebags and swaggered over underneath the shield, grinning all the while.
"I was winning," he said as he slowly drip dried, "He didn't like it."

Shining Armour liked Fleet Foot's warped sense of humor, and even more his ability to look upon any situation with nonchalance. Plus he was a damn good fighter with a lance and a brilliant snap-strategist, this making him ideal for his position as a lieutenant.

"Cracked the code yet Captain?" Fleet asked with a smile, magically running a proffered towel down his body before he wrung it out and shook himself vigorously, making his coat stand on end in a comically puffed up state. A memory flared in Shining Armour's mind and he gasped, "I believe I have," and he used his own flickering blue magic to pull a piece of faded, tightly rolled parchment and place it on the table, unrolling it and weighing the corner with a few of Fleet's chess pieces, nicked out of his saddlebags. It was a crudely drawn something from bygone days, the midnight ink faded to gray and the parchment desecrated by fold-marks. 

Feather Quill raised an eyebrow at the undecipherable piece of information, "And this is?"
"An old, old, old memory. It's a map of the surrounding Canterlot area that Twilight and I drew when we were younger."
Feather Quill and Fleet Foot scrutinized the paper for a while longer until the scratchy lines finally came into focus and they could pick out trees, castles, houses, pathways and a cute little Twilight and Shining Armour giving each other a hug down in the bottom corner. 
Fleet and Feather resisted the urge to mockingly coo.

Shining Armour plucked Feather's personal quill out from behind his ear and proceeded to draw circles and routes on the map, dictating as he went.
"You see, this is a well hidden passage through the foliage to the east of the Castle. Excellent cover from above and a clear view ahead. We use this route to enter the city and regroup in the courtyard, past where that Changeling bitch will have her main guard force posted."
Feather Quill blinked in surprise and rubbed his jaw in thought, "Yes, yes it would work. And under the cover of dark we would be-"
"-undetectable. Exactly." Shining Armour clapped Feather on the back and slipped the quill back into the cleft between his head and ear. "Fleet!"
The pony in question looked up from the map, "Orders Captain?"
"I want a better drawn map handed to each Second Lieutenant, and orders for the soldiers to be ready to mobilize at the dawn of the third day."
"Yessir!" Fleet scurried away as the rain ran out of force and became a light mist; he subsequently dropped the shield over Shining Armour, leaving him and Feather feeling the cooling touch of the surrounding fog.

A moment passed and Feather spoke again. "Captain, I must admit, I'm rather....tentative about this next phase. It's so hard to remember what we're fighting for, it's just nothing seems to justify this war any more."
Shining Armour paused, then, "Do you have a very special somepony?" he said, using a term from the past.
"A what?"
"Is there somepony you love?"
Impossible as it seemed, the same Feather Quill who Shining Armour had seen face down entire legions without fear, blushed a deep crimson and began to paw at the ground with his hooves.
"Er...uhm...yes, I do. Her name is Paper Page. She lives in Ponyville."

Shining Armour took his strategic commander by the shoulders and looked into his eyes, "That is what justifies this war. The safety of Paper Page, the safety of everypony in Equestria. That is what we fight for."
Feather Quill set his face and nodded sagely.
"Get some rest."
Feather nodded again, stepped back and saluted his captain, then trotted off to the cooking area and the smell of food, the promise of a hearty dinner.
Shining Armour smiled as his gaze drifted around the campsite in the hills, drifting until it locked onto the war-ravaged spires of Canterlot Castle in the distance, cast in a fading orange sunset backdrop. Fighting for the safety of everypony in Equestria.
He hoped that his sister was safe.

Shining Armour was polishing off his dinner, a relatively bland concoction of slow-cooked lettuce leaves and mulberries, using a wooden spoon to scrape the mushy green and purple remains off the side of the flat bowl. "Mmmmm, scrumptious." He said to no pony in particular, his tongue almost dripping with sarcasm. The demure orange light from a dozen or so flickering, crackling fires around the camp cast ghastly shadows in the trees and shrubbery around them, each pony turned into a nightmare of ghoulish standards with each movement parodied onto the environment.
"Smoke and mirrors," Shining snorted.

Other ponies were also finishing off their food, the customary eating silence beginning to lapse into a general hubbub rising into the air as the full ponies traded their empty bowls for light music, laughter and conversation with their buddies. A soldier pony, each and every one of them, with the exception of a few hundred stallions from local villages that had agreed to help fight, for their families sake. Fiercely loyal, and devastating in battle, each and every pony was different, but Shining would still gladly have them by his side. No pony else had their determination, their expertise at being the expanded Royal Canterlot Army.

Shining Armour felt his eyelids begin to droop as the soft music reached him, a ballad from the days before the war. He smiled at the memories it brought to the fore of his mind, memories that had been shared with his beloved Cadence and his sister Twilight Sparkle.
He hoped that she was safe.

Just as he drifted off, a fierce rustling and thumping echoed from the right of his camp, the sound of angered gasps and half-muttered curses that would shrivel the ears of anypony following soon after. The sea of soldiers parted before Shining Armour to allow through two figures struggling with a large, writhing potato sack. The two ponies that Shining Armour recognized were twins from the encampment, Fog and Cloud Slasher were their names. They were breathless, huffing and puffing misty vapor from their nostrils in exertion. They were also injured, both twins sporting minor cuts all over their fronts and forehooves. 

Shining Armour stared in disbelief. Who could have done this? 
"What in the name of Celestia happened?" 
Neither of the twins gave an answer, just a hurried salute and then both began to point hurriedly at the potato sack, which wriggled even harder in their stoic grip. Shining Armour yelled for a medic to attend to the twin's minor injuries and then signaled two of the more burly unicorn soldiers to hold the bag in luminescent green and blue inescapable magic.
Shining Armour approached the wriggling sack, which stopped wriggling as he drew within a few metres, almost as if whatever it contained knew he was there.

"I know you're there, Shining Armour," a sibilant hiss drifted from the bag, "why don't we play peek-a-boo?"
Shining Armour yanked the potato sack of the creature with a quick jerk of his head, and then stared mortified at the Changeling it revealed beneath, held tight by shackles made of magic. A panicked gasp arose from the crowd, quickly replaced by a disbelieving mutter. 
A Changeling, the enemy, had made it into the camp?

Shining Armour quickly wiped the surprise from his face and sprung into action. The curving saber at his flank flew from it's scabbard, yanked out by angry magic, and planted it's tip squarely at the squirming creatures throat.
"How many of you are there?"
"Thousands."
"It meant in the immediate vicinity, you vile creature! Tell me!' he pushed the hungry tip a centimeter through the creature's throat carapace and vivid green blood began to drip down it's length.
"Can't. That's called treason..." the Changeling hissed, flashing it's canine filled mouth in a gesture that was part-smile, part-grimace.

Shining Armour growled aloud in anger and drew his sword away from the repulsive creature's throat. It smiled again.
"It's a good thing your precious Cadence isn't here to see you be a coward..."
Shining Armour knew the thing was baiting him, and shouldn't have acted, but fury filled his vision at the jibe, and he acted out of spite anyway. He howled in anger and then there was a long telekinetic swing and the Changeling's head rolled from it's shoulder's, decapitated. A fountain of toxic-green blood splurted from the ragged hole left behind and coated the body beneath, strong smelling and thick to the touch. Many of the crowd shied back as the deluge formed a growing puddle on the ground, the viscera poisoning the grass where it splattered.

Shining Armour turned away, huffing and regretting his temper.This was bad. Who knew how many Changelings had been watching, how many had already flown to Canterlot Castle to inform Queen Chrysalis of the position of their encampment? This was bad, because if their position had been given away then everypony present was instantly in danger.
Feather Quill must have realized their fate too and trotted over to the Captain's side with concern etched all over his features.
"What do we do now?" he whispered.
Shining Armour ground his teeth together in frustration, and snorted again, thinking desperately of the words he could say to make this all better. Everypony was in danger. Everypony was always in danger. 
Fleet Foot stepped up as well, "Captain, the men are waiting. What do we do?"
Shining Armour's temper not fully depleted, rounded on Fleet with blazing eyes. 
"I don't know what to bucking do!" 

Those words rung through the air and he instantly regretted them. He was making himself look weak. Silence descended on the camp, many of the soldiers desperately trying to forget the events that had transpired tonight. Fleet Foot had cringed from the unexpected outburst from his captain, and now hung his head in defeat as he mulled over the full consequences of the Changeling's appearance. Changeling meant spy. Spy meant information. Information, and dangerous stuff at that, meant a full scale Changeling attack on their camp. That was if they stayed here, and it was far too late to relocate.

Shining Armour took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Breathe in, breathe out. He opened them to see the staring and expectant faces of his legions. Alright, decision time.
"Fleet!" he barked and the unicorn's ears perked up.
"Orders, Captain?"
Shining Armour stood straighter and slid his sabre back out of it's scabbard, raising it into the air to attract the attention of everypony. His very posture exuded an air of courage, conscience and determination. His next words went out to all his soldiers, not just Fleet Foot or Feather Quill.
"We can assume that the Changelings know we are here. But that won't change a damn thing! We will still take Canterlot back. We will still ensure the safety of all that is good in Equestria. Your orders were to wait for the third day, but those orders have changed!"
He thrust his sabre into the air, the gleaming tip glinting wickedly in the rising moonlight, and stabbed the cool night atmosphere. 
"We strike before the Changelings can! We march now! Tonight, we strike for all Equestria!
AND IN THE NAME OF CELESTIA, WE WILL SHOW NO MERCY!!!"

The sea of half-armored ponies roared their approval, no longer caring for quiet, no longer caring for staying hidden. The idea of adrenaline filled combat pulsed strong between each of the assembled ponies, filling them with courage. They were ready. 
Shining Armour nodded to Fleet and Feather, and they saluted and went off to prepare the other Second Lieutenants and their respective factions. Shining Armour, battle pride throbbing through his core, thrust his sword has high as his magic would allow and the tremendous roar went up a notch as each and everypony saluted their leader.
Everypony would be safe.
He hoped his sister was safe.