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

Agony.
And lots of it.
Shining Armour groaned, turned his head slightly and attempted to flutter open his eyes but the pain it caused was too intense and he dropped his head back to the soaking green ground. All around him ponies and Changelings still danced in vicious combat against a blurry dark backdrop. A few combatants from either side, Shining Armour couldn't tell which, stumbled over him but largely left his form untouched in it's agony.

Thankfully, Chrysalis's aim had waned with time and the spell had only struck him fully in the right side instead of his entire body as it was meant too. From the pain that lanced up his entire side, he was quite sure that at least three of his ribs were broken, his right rear leg fractured at the hip joint and his coat reduced to nothing more but a mass of bruises.
The sounds of battle were muted to his ears, largely covered by a peculiar high ringing pitch that pervaded everything, covering the clangs, curses and screams that formed a whirlpool of noise all around him. He could feel blood trickling from his mouth, taste it's metallic tang.

Pushing through the pain, he finally managed to open his eyes and look at where he was.
He lay on his bruised side in the mud and blood and corpses at the bottom of the marble steps, the blast had thrown him well clear of Chrysalis, who still hadn't moved from the top of the steps, a dark silhouette against the brighter slick mahogany of the Grand Hall doors. His helmet had come off during the blast and now lay as a dented ruin some few feet in front of him.

Shining Armour groaned and let his gaze be drawn around him, at the whirlwind of dusk-grey hooves and armor shod hooves that danced around him, as if they were evading failure.
His ears pricked up and his attention was drawn to a familiar curse yelled out nearby, avoiding turning his head too much from the fiery needles that lanced up it, he looked in the direction the curse had come from. 

He watched, horrified, as Fleet Foot, the Fleet Foot that had stood out in the rain and wielded a lance or short sword like the devil himself, the same Fleet Foot whose talent for war seemed to be unmeasurable, was dragged too the ground by a group of snarling Changelings and set upon by ragged jaws and heavy stomping hooves. He didn't scream once, or even yell out in pain as his blood splurted out and covered the Changelings, whipping them into an even greater frenzy. In fact, Shining Armour could have sworn that he sighed as the life left his eyes.
"Fleet...." Shining Armour slurred through a pain wracked jaw, "Don't leave me...."

Another agonized cry alerted him and he swung his head in the other direction to find himself almost nose-to-nose with Feather Quill as the pegasus stumbled and dropped to his knees. Blood poured down half his face from a head wound that was thankfully covered by his mane, also soaked red. One eye was swollen shut by a huge bruise on his cheek from where he had been evidently punched by a Changeling. 
"Captain...." Feather murmured, his breath coming in ragged gasps that trickled blood from his mouth with every intake of air.

Shining Armour strained his neck, pain flaring up his jaw, to look at the full extent of Feather's injuries. They were horrible. Feather's back and flank were a mess of ragged cuts and vividly purple-blue bruises. One of his legs was broken, twisted at an impossible angle and far beyond use and his wings were torn to the bone, some of the creamy brown feathers stuck to his back by the gore.

Ironically, and astoundingly so, his favorite and personal quill was still tucked behind his ear, as if he planned to get up at any moment and begin writing about his day, starting 'I love you...' to his mare, Paper Page in Ponyville.
Feather's next blood filled cough of air carried with it the beginnings of a death rattle deep in his throat. 
"I see it Captain," he said, his voice barely a whisper above the din of the war raging around them.

"Feather, keep your eyes on me...." Shining Armour managed to whisper back, tears beginning to form in his eyes. Feather Quill, the Feather Quill that Shining Armour had seen face down entire legions and plan the best strategies anypony had ever seen, ignored him and picked up his sabre with his mouth and slammed it into the ground, sinking it a hoofwidth into the blood softened dirt and grass.
"Justified." he whispered with finality, and then slumped to the ground with glazed eyes, dead.

Shining Armour fought to hold back tears as much as he could surrounded by the corpses that had once been his friends and comrades, friends and comrades that had stood by him through thick and thin and all the horrors of war.
His eyes closed in regret and the tears began to drip freely from his eyelids, salty spots that carried with them all his sorrow, to forever seed the ground with the horrible experiences that had transpired in this war. Feather Quill's last word still rang in his ears, Justified, a whisper that was curiously louder than anything else, followed by everything he had said to Feather, awash with his own thoughts.
"That's what we fight for-"
"Do you have somepony you love?"
"-what justifies this war."
"I'm rather tentative..."
"Safety for everypony in Equestria."
"Nothing seems-"
He hoped his sister was safe.

Through the barrage of pain, both physical and mental torture, he dimly heard Chrysalis addressing everypony present on the battlefield.
"Drop your weapons, and I will allow you to live!" The lie was evident in her voice, but nopony would have heard it clearly, "Surrender to me, and you will leave!"
Shining Armour wanted to yell out to his legions from where he lay, "No, don't listen! Fight to the bitter end!", but it was either the intense pain or the sorrow that tore at his heart that stopped him, slumping him to the ground with tears still rolling down his cheeks, and he stayed silent.
'What's the point?' he asked himself mentally, 'We've already lost.'

Someponie's hoof clipped his nose and he opened his eyes on reflex, each orb rolling in it's pit. When his vision had cleared he found himself staring into the dull but still shiny blade of Feather's sabre, still stuck quivering in the dirt in front of his face like a beacon of reverence, and stared at the reflection in it's surface.
But it wasn't his reflection staring back.

Reflected on the surface was every good memory he had of his sister Twilight and wife Cadence, the images dancing around the steel in a roiling display of color. His eyes widened as he took in the preternatural sights and everything slowed around him as his mind was picked apart by this epiphany.
There was his and Twilight's childhood, the purple and white coats dancing in perfect harmony.
There was his first kiss with Cadence, the blush vivid on her pink cheeks.
There was the discovery of the secret path, Twilight held tight in his comforting embrace.
There was his wedding with Cadence, a sonic rainboom splitting the heavens above them.
But most of all, there was his sister.

Shining Armour watched her study, watched her play, watched her cry, laugh, scream, yell, blush, hug, write and listen as the solid th-thump, th-thump, th-thump of his heart drowned out everything but the sweet laughter of his dear sister and wife that echoed in his ears.
His sister.
His Twilight Sparkle.
Twilight.
Twily.

He hoped his sister was safe. 
For a single flashing moment, Shining Armour thought of what Chrysalis would do to Twilight if she took all of Equestria, and that thought made him sick, made him angry. 
"No..." he whispered, anger adding a low tenebre to his voice. The sights and sounds that came from the cold steel in front of his nose gave him strength, newfound courage, and urged him to press on. 
"NO!" he yelled, more to himself than anypony else.

He planted his feet in the blood soaked grass, first his front then his back, and levered himself to his feet, ignoring the fiery pain that ripped up his side. Once on his feet he reached out with iron fisted magic and took his sabre in grip, stopped, and then picked up Feather Quill's sabre as well, twisting and twirling them around each other in a blur of metal. He set his gaze on the distant form of Queen Chrysalis at the top of the marble steps, setting firm to memory her grotesque disjointed carapace, insectile wings, and that warped and twisted horn that he so wished to rip from her head.
His face twisted into a grimace of incomparable anger and he shot forward to the nearest group of Changelings that stood in his way, twirling his dual blades in a fearsome dance.
Nothing would stop him.

Nothing could stop him. 
Shining Armour plowed into the first group of Changelings, dropped his shoulder and charged the one on his left, then swayed and slammed into the one on his right, sending it flying with an audible crack of breaking bone. For a third time, he heaved his weight to the left and crushed another Changeling underfoot, ignoring the pain from his side, pain that was now irrelevant.

A fourth Changeling attacked him, hissing in vengeance for it's slain brothers or sisters. Without breaking stride, Shining Armour hacked one of it's legs off in a spray of blood and then cleaved it's head in two as he swept past, the skull open to the first rays of sunshine crawling over the streets.

More Changelings. The first few were cut down with quick and brutal strokes, the last had it's head scissored from it's shoulders when Shining Armour swept his blades together in front of him, steel over steel. 
He jumped at the next instant and bucked a Changeling hard in the head, crushing it's skull in a green splatter as he soared over, then cut the two flying adjacent to him down with simultaneous lines of flashing steel, the blades singing with bloodlust and revenge. 

Chrysalis had opened the doors to the Grand Hall and was entering those chambers when she once again heard the familiar roar of one extremely angry, and violently inclined, pony whom she had believed dead. 
"Impossible..." she turned back to the sea of corpses, both Changeling and pony soldiers, to see the zig-zagging white blur that was Shining Armour plowing through anypony that tried to stop him, blades twirling around his body so fast that the blazing tips seemed to carve lines of light straight into the air. 

He was a fearsome sight, coat covered in cuts and bruises, blood steadily dripping from his mouth and his eyes gleamed with an intensity that bordered on madness.
"CHRYSALIS!!! I'M COMING FOR YOU!!!" he screamed at the top of his lungs, his throat raw and burning, the rage that it entitled burning up from his very core.
Chrysalis had no answer, shocked as she was, and so with her supply of magic all but exhausted and no real hoof-to-hoof combat skills, turned tail and fled into the dark corridors of Canterlot Castle as if Death himself was riding the Royal Captain towards her.

The chase through Canterlot's creamy marble guts was tense and near fruitless, the only sounds being Shining Armour's snorts of derisive anger, Chrysalis's hurried gasps as she ran, and the occasional crash as one of them ran into something not seen in the half dark. The shadows were slats on the floor, split seconds of illumination that freeze framed their frightful expressions into the memoric atmosphere of Canterlot Castle. Anypony that came here in the future would be able to stand there, breathe deep, and feel the intensity that rebounded of every wall, every plinth around them. 

The chase seemed to last an eternity, every second that a hoofstep resounded off the walls stretched into the void of time. To Shining Armour he felt nothing as he ran, to Chrysalis, she felt her life begin to flash across her eyes as she rounded corners and dashed frantically up staircases, moving ever deeper into the Castle.

Chrysalis thought that she had escaped Shining Armour, his loud huffing faded into the distance and all she could hear was her own hoof beats against the pristine tiled floors. Smiling wickedly to herself she rounded another set of staircases and ran through the first open door on her right.

She was greeted by a round room with a huge stained glass window directly opposite the door, black and grey slate covered the walls. There was an equally circular bed to her immediate right, the blankets strewn over the floor, evidence that whoever's room this was, they had left in a hurry. Chrysalis's confusion over the owner was resolved by her spotting a pillow nearby on the floor, a plush lump of wool, endowed with a familiar midnight-blue moon and stars. 
Chrysalis was in Princess Luna's room at the very top of Canterlot Castle, and there was no way out except through the door.

Sweat beading upon her brow, she turned to leave and was greeted by the heart stopping visage of Shining Armour standing low in the door frame, blocking any escape.
Dead end.

Shining Armour stalked towards her, taking quick calculated steps that thumped on the intricate carpet floor, Chrysalis slowly edged backwards. She tried pleading with him.
"Look, Shining," she said and gestured good will with her forehooves, "it doesn't have to be this way."
"Yes it does."
"We're both survivors, you see. You from this war, me from the our first encounter. We harmonise through battle, we could be a team."
"No we can't."
"You could be my King."
"No I couldn't."
Pleading and enticements weren't working, and Shining Armour came even closer to her. She began backing up faster, shuffling over the carpet.
"My magic knows no limits, has no bounds. What do you want the most. I can get it for you."

This one stopped Shining Armour in his track, made him stand up a little straighter with wide eyes and his swords dropped an inch as he contemplated. He nickered softly and when he next spoke, it was with an edge to his voice that was like barbed wire, callous and mocking.
"I want Cadence back. Can you bring back the dead? Can you?"

Chrysalis stopped, caught her breath in her throat, then smiled, seeing her future ahead of her, a future that she would survive. Her fate may have been sealed by what Shining Armour was asking, but she knew how to avoid it if she played her cards right.
She released her breath, curled her mouth into a sick, twisted smile and adopted an air of nonchalance, playing the part of unsuspecting arrogance.
"You know I enjoyed killing her? Hearing her scream your name as I tore her wings in two, it was like...music to my ears."
She could see Shining Armour visibly seethe in front of her, his muscles bunching into hard knots as she recounted the aspects of Princess Cadence's demise.
"How she writhed when her horn snapped off. Crack! Just like that. The blood that poured onto the ground was sweet with the promise of a broken heart. Yours."
Shining Armour was shaking now, the tears of his broken heart pouring freely onto the carpet. He took a step forward with a solid thump and his swords snapped back up to aim at her face, promising only death.

Chrysalis continued, her voice becoming a sibilant whisper that just hissed into Shining Armour's ears. "You ask if I can bring your poor pink slut back to life. I can't and I wouldn't. Unless you bow to me. Bow to me and you might see her again."
Shining Armour howled in rage and slammed both his sabres into the ground point first so that they stuck there quivering and charged forwards, 

"I WILL NOT BOW, BITCH!!!"

Chrysalis had been goading Shining Armour the whole time and crouched ready to dodge his attack as he dashed across the carpet at astonishing speed, howling all the while. He leapt forward at the last moment with a burst from his powerful legs and Chrysalis twitched to the side, laughing maniacally at the fate that awaited him. 
What she hadn't bet on though, was that Shining Armour's aim had not waned with time. He smiled a grim smile to himself and tapped his foot against the floor, changed his angle and impacted squarely with Chrysalis in her midriff, her carapace cracking under such force.

They both flew backwards with the impact across the embroidered carpet, there was a moment of pressure as Chrysalis felt the stained glass window against her back, then nothing as the windows cracked, shattered and they were through, the sound of shattering glass replaced with the howls of a rushing wind. They flew out into the clear morning air, surrounded in a chaotic cloud of multicolored shards that glistened with rainbows as the first few rays of morning sunshine shot through them. They hovered for a single, terrifying moment at the end of their arc, then tipped in slow motion and fell.
Far, far, far, above the roiling battle below that carpeted the ground.

Chrysalis screamed as she fell. This was not how she wanted to die, falling in the grip of her mortal enemy, the biggest thorn in her side for approximately 4 years. She screamed with every ounce of her voice, willing herself desperately back to the marble steps where she had been safe from any of the fighting. Moments, snapshots from her life began to flash before her green, insectile eyes, causing her to writhe even more furiously in Shining Armour's iron-like grip. She wasn't ready for this. 

She screamed as the glow of the marble steps began to creep into her peripheral vision, a promise of hard, unforgiving and cold death. More snapshots,
Her first attack on Princess Cadence, she seemed to watch from afar as her memory self smacked the Princess on the back of the head and carried her limp body off to the crystal caverns.
The sunset that she flew towards as the concussive force of Shining Armour and Princess Cadence's love fueled blast pushed her with irresistible force towards the outskirts of the Everfree Forest.
The shame she felt after that defeat, then the blood filled demise of Cadence, Memory-Chrysalis reveling in the sadistic glory and laughing as Cadence desperately tried to call for Shining Armour.
Then, Shining Armour's face, grimacing and filled with retribution, eyes closed in acceptance of fate. She realized the face she was staring at was the present, still locked in his iron-embrace, and she screamed even louder.

They fell together in a parody approximate of a lovers embrace, entwined together as the rushing wind whipped through their manes and tore at their coats, battering their bodies as they tumbled towards the ground.
Shining Armour closed his eyes and released a breath full of acceptance, a breath that he had been holding since he first realized what he had to do to end Chrysalis's reign of tyranny, and subsequently tackled her from the window. 
That done he allowed his life to flash before his dark eyelids. He could hear the rush of wind against his ears, feeling it ripping through his mane. He could also hear Chrysalis screaming in terror, right in front of his face, a high-pitched like a banshee, of someone who wasn't ready for death.
I'm ready. I win.

Cadence.
Twilight.
All the good memories he had of their time together sifted across his memory and then cast themselves into the air behind Shining Armour, everything that he had gained from this world was given back to the beyond, to become anything they wanted to be. All that was left were Twilight and Cadence's smiles, forever burned into his mind.

He finally opened his eyes into the nightmarish visage of the tyrant Queen Chrysalis, still screaming with a wide maw of needle-bone teeth. Shining Armour felt her mosquito thin wings flutter uselessly against the inside of his forelegs as she tried to free them to get away. Shining Armour only held on tighter. No getting away this time.
He closed his eyes again as he saw the first glimpses of the marble and grass ground rushing towards them.
I win. Here I come Cadence....

And as they fell, through rushing air and the first few rays of morning sunshine that surrounded them in a beautiful, almost holy, golden shroud, Shining Armour allowed himself to relax and his mouth became a smile because he knew, finally knew, that his sister would be safe.



-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Moon's Day the 13th, at approximately 2:00 am SET (Standard Equus Time), The Captain of the Royal Canterlot Army, Shining Armour led what would be his last, and most ferocious charge into enemy territory. Leading a force of some 1200 of his own soldiers, 400 of recruited village stallions, he plunged headlong into the 6,000 strong army of Changelings occupying Canterlot, under the control of the vicious Queen Chrysalis.
There were no survivors. 
Despite the heavy losses, it was this battle that cemented the victory of ponykind over the Changeling oppressors. With the main Changeling force decimated and scattered after the demise of their ruler, it was only another day until Canterlot was reclaimed, another few weeks until Equestria was back under celestial control. 
Shining Armour had brought his country to victory. 
He was a hero.
Through the way he bolstered his men, to the way he would not bow, to his valiant sacrifice to end Queen Chrysalis's tyrannical reign; these were the cold, hard facts.
But as all times passes, those Facts became Fiction,
and that Fiction became Stories,
but those Stories, they became Legend....