Ch.7
You and Shining Armor arrive at the castle to find everypony else already in the throne room. Shining Armor runs up to Princess Cadence, while you walk over to Dash and Fluttershy. "There were four of them, i got one before they arrived with a throwing knife, but i had to kill the other three in front of Shining. And i told him that you two as well as Applejack have some fighting talents as well, you know, just in case he needs a strong fighter in an emergency. I didn't tell him anything other then that and i made him promise not to tell anypony what happened." Dash looks worried, but Fluttershy mearly nods and mutters 'good work'. You look for a place you and Dash could go to talk without fear of being overheard. You lead her to a corner. "They were Templar's, i found this symbol on one of there necks." You say, handing over the iconic Templar red cross. She looks confused. "You had time in between the fighting and heading here to search a body and remove a necklace?" You look at her, making sure she gets what your about to say, so you don't have to actually say it. "No. Lets just say i separated it from her while she was alive." Dashs eyes go wide. "You did that with that tiny dagger?" She says not knowing you had both your wing blades on you even now. You lift up a fold of cloth just far enough for her to see the curvitchure of the folded wing blade. "Not just a dagger." She smiles as she notices it. "We trained you well. rule number three, always be prepared for anything." You both smile at each other before returning to the rest of the crowd. Twilight, being the organizer she is, starts telling the elements to go out and talk to everypony and try to find out as much about what happened as they can. You tell the three assassins to do what she says, then head out to find the headquarters of the three hundred assassins Princess Luna sent into the city. And since Fluttershy was going to be busy assisting Twilight, she also put you in charge of them all. When you arrive at the hotel near the center of the city where the squad commanders were staying, and where they had set up HQ, you call all ten of them together. "Ok, this is the battle plan. Princess Cadence is currently keeping all the templars at bay, for now, i want three of you to be patrolling the shield at all times. Three of you will spread out through the city and keep an eye on things, acting as a police force if necessary. Three of you will be off duty, but ready if we need you. The last one will be a surplus unit and will deploy wherever help is requested. We will rotate every 8 hours. The rotation will be, patrol, police, rest in that order. The surplus unit will be changed every Twenty Four hours. IS that clear." "YES SIR" They all shout and jump to there stations to start deploying there forces. They all had a unicorn next to them that could teleport any messages to another unicorn pony in each squad. For the sake of anonomousness, only the patrolling ponys would be in their assassin robes with all there weapons on. The policing forces would only have concealed weapons, while the resting and surplus ponys would be un robed and disarmed, but could be fully armed in a matter of minutes. With the preparations complete and your orders spreading through the ranks, you head back to the castle to let the other assasins know what was going on. You arrive at the base of castle just as everypony splits up and starts searching the city. You decide to fly to the shield and see how the patrol's were being set up. When you land your confronted by two fully robed assassins. "This is a restricted area, please return to the city." You roll your eyes and show them the small badge Luna gave to you. They immediately jump to attention apologizing. You ignore them and head for one of the three communication unicorns. "Have my orders come through yet?" He nods at you and hands you the paper for your approval. You nod, handing it back. As you walk away, a pegasis calls out your name. You recognize him immediately, it was an old friend from Cloudsdale. Sudden Gale, your old friend. "Gale, what are you doing here?" He runs up to you "Im the leader of squad 3, what are YOU doing here. The last time i saw you was flight school, and as far as i knew you had no idea the Brotherhoof even existed." You look shocked. "You've been in the brotherhoof since flight school?" '' No" he chuckles. "but i started training right after. How about you, i've been in this long and i only made it to squad leader so far. How does somepony like you make it to regional commander." You tell him about how you joined, and about how you made it to regional commander. You tell him about you and Dash and about your past human life and Tec. He just sits and listens in amazement. As you finish telling him your story, he tells you hes about to leave on patrol. "I don't make my guys do anything that i dont, so i gave myself a patrol." You decide to follow him on his patrol as he starts telling you about his life. After a few minutes of walking and talking, you start to notice that the shield is flickering. "Hey Gale, how long has the shield been like that?" "Like what?" You point it out to him. He shrugs and says, "I dont know, i dont remember it doing that earlier." Just then the shield vanished, revealing twenty ponys dressed in all black. You jump into the air pulling Gale with you shouting ''TEMPLAIRS" A unicorn within earshot immediately casts an alarm spell loud enough to be herd in the city HQ. You and Gale dive at the ponys and start attacking them. You are both surrounded almost immediately. You start slashing with your hidden dagger and Gale starts hacking with his wing blades. You take a hit in your side from a throwing knife. Gale gets his wing sliced wide open and looses the use of it. You both start succumbing to shear numbers when you hear a scream from the back of the group. You look over to see three other assassins hacking their way to you. In the distance you hear someone yell "ASSASSINS COVER" all five of you hit the ground and cover yourselves with whatever you could. Just then the whole world explodes and ponys go flying everywhere. When you stand up you see Dash taking on the last 5 Templairs. You rush over as she dispatches two. You tackle one and drive your dagger deep into his heart. Fluttershy comes flying out of nowhere and kills one with a slice of her wing blades. Gale jumps on the last one and pumbles him to death, caving his skull in with his hooves. You survey the carnage and see that the bodies have been thrown out from a center point. That explosion must have been Dash making a Sonic Rainboom mear feet above the ground. You look at everyone, making sure there not to seriously hurt. The only one who seems to be injured is Gale, but the unicorn who sounded the alarm comes running up and starts healing his wing. You look at your self. Your covered in blood, especaly your left side. Your covered in ALOT of blood on your side. You start feeling weak as you realize Gale wasn't to only pony injured. You grab the throwing knife thats buried deep in your side and pull. You scream in pain as Dash runs over to you. You collapse to the ground just as she gets to you. She starts screaming for a medic. The last thing you see is Dash beating on your chest and leaning down to kiss you, then everything goes black.
You wake up in a hospital once again and the first thought that pops into your head is 'this is a bad habit to get into'. You look around, realizing this isnt the ponyville hospital. Then memories of the battle start coming back. You had been injured by a throwing knife and had been bleeding very badly, bad enough for Dash to call for a medic. you start to wonder why she was beating on your chest when she comes running up to your bed and nearly chokes you out. As soon as you can breath again you start talking. "Dash, what happened. The last thing i remember is you hitting me and screaming for a medic.'' She looks like shes about to start crying. "You were dead. Your heart wasn't beating and you weren't breathing. You were like that all the way here, Twilight came running as soon as she heard. She hit you with lightning a few times and your heart started again. I kept giving you CPR though because you still wouldn't breath. Blue i told you never to do that to me again." She starts sobbing as the rest of the gang walk in. Applejack and Sun walk up to her and hold her. Gale walks in with his wing in a sling. "So the hero is awake. I guess i owe you my life. If you hadn't come along with me i would have never been able to fight them all off, i might not have even been able to raise an alarm before they got me." You look at him and realize that if he hadn't decided to check on squad three, his best friend in the world would be dead. You get up, wincing in pain, and walk over to him. You grab him in a hug and whisper in his ear. "If i hadn't been there, i would have killed every one of them AND their emperor, just to avenge you. I want you at my side from now on Im promoting you onto my staff of commanders. The commander in charge of squad three was asked to report back Canterlot. As soon as you can, move your second in command up to squad leader and move your personal belongings to the HQ. And don't worry, well still see plenty of action." He smiles, throws a salute, and leaves to report the news to his squad. You turn back to the others. "How long have i been out?" Dash answers "A few hours" You walk over to her and grab her up in a hug. "As soon as this is over, were getting married. That way i can never leave you." You give her a kiss, then turn to Twilight. "Have you discovered anything?" She nods. "We need th find the Crystal Empires center of power, the Crystal Heart. Once we find that and place it at the center of the castle, we wont need Cadences shield anymore." You remember that Princess Cadence was in charge of the shield, as Shining Armors magic seemed to have no effect on the evil Emperor. "Why did her shield drop." "Shes been maintaining that shield for three days now, she hasn't gotten any sleep and almost all her energy is gone. I don't think she can keep it up much longer." You think for a few moments. "Ill be right back" You run off to the throne room of the castle, where Cadence was sitting you bow. "Your magisty, i need a favor from you. I need you to spend all your energy on the shield for at least an hour. Right before your powers fail you, send Twilight out to find me. I will be in the hotel across the street." She only nods, saving as much of her energy as she can. You bow as you back out. You run back to Twilight. "Twilight, i need you to spend every second with Cadence. As soon as she says she cant hold her shield any longer, teleport into the hotel accost the street from the castle. I will be in the dining hall. While your waiting find out any you can about the whereabouts of the crystal heart. Everypony else listen to twilight. She will tell you where to look." You bid them good luck and take off for the HQ. When you arrive you gather your commanders together. "Were going to fight." They all stare, waiting for an explanation "Were going to set up all our assassins and were going to fight when the shield comes down. We need to buy Twilight and the others time to find the crystal heart. As soon as they place it in the center of the empire the crystal will drive out all who wish ill. I will be sending the Princesses a request for immediate reinforcements. Till they arrive we need to send scouts out of the shield to find where the enemy is." With that you call a unicorn forward to send the message requesting a message be sent to all assassins calling them to arms at the crystal empire immediately. Within minutes you all heard a ding and you all reach up and tap your communicators, but they automatically start playing before anyone touches them, as is procedure in an emergency. "Attention all assassins, both active and non active. A state of utmost emergency exists. All assassins MUST report to the Crystal Empire immediately. Be prepared to fight a war. A Templar army is moving on the empire as we speak. The Shield protecting it is failing. As soon as it fails the city will be attacked. That is all." After the message finishes you start drawing out a plan on some paper. After you hand it around the commanders disperse to distribute orders. You pull Sudden Gale aside. "Leave the center scouting spot open, you and i will be taking that." He nods and walks away. You call for a unicorn. "Stay here, your waiting for a purple unicorn, she will teleport into this room. If she tells you the shield is about to collapse go to the roof and sound an alarm loud enough to hear through the empire. Then send me a message telling me the same thing." the unicorn nods and steps into a corner of the room to wait. You ask her to send a message to the throne room where twilight is. The message reads 'going out on scouting run. leaving a pegasis waiting for you. tell her when the shield is about to collapse. she will be in a corner of the room i told you to tp to.' Then you head for the area you told Gale you would meet him. When he arrives, you both head for the shield. "So what will we do when we find the enemy?" you shrug. "We give the order for a tactical retreat back to the shield. Then all we can do is wait." You walk on for a few more minutes until you come to the shield. You both step through, and immediately take cover on the other side. You both move up covering each other, until you reach the end of cover. You spot a glare of light through the blizzard. You motion for Gale to follow you as you move towards it. You stop when you get to a ridge. What you see nearly stops your heart again. You do a rough estimate and come up with over two thousand templairs. You tell Gale to get back to the HQ and warn all the other commanders. When you turn to leave you fing yourself face to face with a Templar guard. In a flash hes on you, slashing with a dagger. You block with your wingblades and stab with your hidden blade strapped to your front hooves. You score a hit in his chest but he shrugs it off. He slashes with dagger and succeeds in scratching your cheek. You stab at him with your right hidden blade. You bury it deep into the side of his head, ending his resistance. You hear an alarm sound at the camp, you take to skys and make it back past the shield. You tap your communicator. "Emergency message, All assassins scouting outside the shield fall back. the enemy camp has been located and is now actively searching for scouts." You know using the Emergency message command sends the message to every assassin in Equestria, but you don't have the time to message every one of your commanders. "Message, Princess Luna, I have found the Templar camp. There are over two thousand templars. We currently have only three hundred assassins at the moment. We need every bit of speed for the reinforcements." As you land outside the HQ, you see a teleportation flash from the roof. You cover your ears, knowing whats coming next. The unicorn sounds an alarm loud enough to be heard all the way back at the Templar camp. You run inside just in time to catch Twilight. Shes preparing to teleport when you walk in and call her name. "Have you found the crystal heart yet?" She shrugs. "I haven't yet but i think i know where it is." she teleports away as your communicator dings. "Commander, the shield is about to collapse." You run to the commanders table. "Its time to put the plan into action. Reinforcements haven't shown up yet but hopefully they will be here soon." The commanders send word to the squads to activate their previous orders. You run back outside and fly to the assembly area. Fluttershy and Dash meet you as you land and you can see Applejack in the distance. Gale lands beside you. "The orders have gone out, they will arrive any second." Assassins start landing all around you, rallying around their leader. You take flight and survey the collection. Most of the assassins in the city are already gathered and those that arnt are flying or running to the assembly area. As soon as everypony has arrived you land at the head of the group and start walking towards the shield. When you arrive you tell a unicorn to send word to the throne room to release the shield. You fly up in front of the group, "This is it. We are going to war. We are vastly outnumbered, but we must defend the Crystal Empire to the last pony. We must give Twilight as much time as we can to find the Crystal Heart. I was hoping that reinforcements would arrive before we had to face the enemy, but we have no choice but to face them alone." You land as the shield thins and dissolves, leaving nothing but the white of the blizzard between you and the enemy. You wait five minutes before a scout comes running out of the blizzard. He has been wounded badly and can barely stand, but he still delivers his report before collapsing. 'The templair army is on its way.' A unicorn runs up to him and carries him to the hospital tent they set up in the back. You yell for everypony to ready themselves. After a moment, you see a huge shadow walk out of the blizard. Hes dressed in all black except his head, which is uncovered. More and more shadows form out of the white behind him. Wanting to gain the upper hand you shout and charge the leader. Dash jumps skyward and Applejack and Fluttershy flank you. Every other assasin starts running at the huge army ahead of you. Just before you reach the leader, you see a sky blue streak right above the leader, followed by a rainbow explosion. As the leader goes flying you jump straight up, using your powerful wings to add as much force as you can muster, and crash into him midair knocking what little breath he had left out of him. Before he could react you slice his throte, spraying yourself with his blood in the process. You land in the clear area where Dash made her sonic rainboom. Shes standing in the middle daring anyone to attack. You stand with your back to her and pull out your dagger with your mouth. You make sure your hidden blades slide out without sticking and that your wing blades are strapped on tight. A wave of templairs swoop towards you as Fluttershy, Applejack, Sudden Gale, and three other ponys run up to the two of you. You form a circle as the templairs attack. You slash and stab and kick for all your worth, but your slowly overwhelmed. You take multiple cuts across your chest and face. The others all have minor injuries as well, except for Dash. She seems to be slowing down and stumbling alot. You fight your way over to her, but before you can get to her she takes a dagger through her wing. She screams as the dagger slices through most of her wing on its way out. You shout at the others to cover you as you jump to her side. "Dash, stay with me. Don't you dare leave me." She smiles at you, "Blue, ive always loved you. Ever since flight school ive loved you." You catch her as she feints. You look around, most of your friends are covered head to hoof in blood by now. At least half of your assassins have fallen or are to injured to fight. There seems to be no end to the templairs. Your friends seem to be out of energy and are beginning to succumb to the endless tide of templairs. You place Dash down onto the ground and lay beside her, prepared to die, when you hear a trumpet in the distance, then another and another. Everypony there stops fighting and turns to the blizzard. Out of the whiteout comes a familiar looking shadow. As she steps clear of the snow, you realize its noneother than Wind Storm. She stares at the crowd for a moment then yells, "Any one of you ponys thinks you can take me? HAVE AT IT!" She charges the templairs, who almost all turn to attack her. Right before they reach her, first ten, then thirty, then one hundred drop dead in their tracks. All the templairs freeze as more trumpets sound all around the sky. Two thousand assassins, royal guards, Lunar guards, and the ECS Venture, loaded down with Marines armed with throwing knives, lances, spears, and bows, come flying and sprinting out of the blizzard. They fall upon the enemy in a flash of weaponry and steel. They push the enemy back away from you and those under your command. They push them back to the blizzard, but they cant seem to push them out of the empire. You think the battle has reached a stalemate, when you here another trumpet sound from the city this time. You look over your shoulder to see Princesses Celestia, Luna, and Shining Armor galaping towards the battle. They start firing spells at the crowd of templairs and drive them back almost into the whiteout. Shining Armor casts a shield spell around the survivors and Celestia and Luna combine their powers to make a small sun inside the shield for just an instant, but long enough to incinerate every last enemy. With the battle over, you lay your head back onto Rainbow Dash, listening to her feint heartbeat. A medic unicorn walks over to you, but you just push him away. He starts to protest but Luna walks over to him and shakes her head. She lifts you both up and flys you to the hospial. Once you get there, she convinces you to leave her side long enough for a medic to heal the veins and arteries in her wing and bandage the rest up. She tells you that Dash lost alot of blood, and there was no way to replace it. If she makes it through the next few days then a medic could finish healing Dash's wing, but to do it now would be using energy Dash doesn't have. You only nod and crawl into her bed and lay next to her, listening to her still feint heartbeat. Over the next few hours heart pulse seemed to only get worse. You eventually fall asleep listening to her heart.
*** You look at your new wife. Her hair is down to her sholders and shes in the most beautyfull blue dress. You look down at her hand in yours, and saw her engagement ring. It was a small cloud and rainbow colored lighting bolt. You had picked it out for her after getting the idea from something she had said years earlier. She had told you how when she was a child, she saw the most beautyfull lightinig bolt ever. The weather station had called it a freak storm cloud. Noone had ever heard of a single white cloud with several bolts of lightning, each a slightly diffrent hue, just floating around on a warm sunny day. Ever sence she saw that, she had been in love with both lightning and rainbows. You kiss her hand and she smiles. You look into her eyes, her stunning light rose colored eyes.***
You wake up suddenly, remembering the dream, the ring that was the exact shape of Dash's cutie mark. The color of her eyes, the same exact color as Dash's eyes. The smile, the same smile you've seen on Dash's face so many times. It was then that you realize that although Kamoto had killed your human wife moments before the bomb went off, her soul had somehow survived and had planted it's self into this then newborn filly. While you know that she isn't your human wife, you at least take comfort that your human wife was at least at peace. You listen to her heartbeat, surprised to hear it slightly louder then before. You fall back to sleep with a smile on your face, knowing she was going to make it.
You wake up hearing voices. You look over to see Twilight talking to Applejack and Sunshine, "He has been asleep for a day and a half now. Im starting to get worried." Aw well don't you worry sugercube. He'll be alright. It was a tough battle, especially for him. Yall just watch, he'll be right as rain soon enough." Applejack always knew what to say to calm Twilight down. Just then Midnight walks over to the small group. "Well, ive been monitoring Dash's vitals and i do believe shes going to wake up very soon. As for Blue, hes awake right now." You curse Midnight under your breath, she always liked ruining your fun. You get up from the bed saying hi to everypony. "Come on Midnight, its not often i get to hear how much my friends care about me." She just shrugs and smiles. You walk over to them to talk. After a few minutes, Fluttershy walks in to see how you and Dash were doing and to ask Twilight and Sunshine if she could talk to them privately. Midnight goes back into the office and you go back to Dash's bed and lay down again. After a few minutes you hear her pulse quicken and she mumbles your name. You lean over and kiss her as her eyes open. You smile as she looks around confused. You cant help but wonder if you looked like this when you woke up in the hospital. She looks back at you and smiles. She nuzzles you and lays her head back down. You nuzzle her back and snuggle up to her. "What happened Blue. The last thing i remember is the battle, I was looking up at you and you were covered in blood. Were you hurt?" You just nuzzle her again. "Shhhh. Dont worry about it. Everyponys fine, you need your rest." She slowly falls back to sleep. Midnight walks out of the office and looks at you. You wave her over. "She woke up and started asking questions but i got her to go back to sleep." She smiles and nods at you, then walks out of your curten and over to the other patients. A few hours later she wakes up again and turns towards you. You open your eyes and smile. "Good morning sleepy head. Its about time you woke up." "How long have i been out?" "O nothing too bad. Just Three Days." She giggles and snuggles up to you again. Twilight walks in with Midnight, followed by Applejack and Sunshine. Twilight walks up to the bed. "Welcome back to the world Dash." She looks up at Twilight and smiles. "Hi Twilight. Did you find the Heart?" She smiles and nods. "Ok. That's good. Is the empire safe.?" again she just nods. this time dropping her smile for just a second. Dash looks around at everypony. Sunshine looks like shes about to cry. Dash looks worried. "Whats wrong." Sun turns around and runs. Applejack runs after her. Twilight and Midnight watch them leave. You start getting worried as well. You get up and stare at Midnight and Twilight. "Ok, somepony had better tell me whats going on before i have to force it out." Midnight walks over to Dash but turns and faces you. "I managed to fix most of the damage to her wing but it will be a few months before we know if she'll ever be able to fly again. If she does ever fly again, i don't know if she'll ever go faster then a strong wind." You stare at her and walk over to Dash. She starts tearing up. You lay your head across her head. "Dash don't cry. Its ok im here." You start to tear up as well. You turn back to Midnight. "Why did this happen?" She shakes her head. "It was just extreamly bad luck. The dagger that cut her wing on the way out cut every muscle and tendon she uses to fly. I could only do so much. Now all we can do is wait to see if everything heals right." You go back and lay down next to Dash, who was now crying quietly. You put your leg over her and look back at the two unicorns. "Thank you, for everything." You hold her and comfort her. Eventual she calms down and falls back to sleep.