Honor Above All Else

by Honored Service

Brilliancy is a Curse

Honor Above All Else
Chapter 28
By Honored Service
Pre-read By TheDarkAngel

The group of ponies stepped off of the train and onto the battered remains of the station. Twilight stood in front of her friends with her mouth agape at the destruction that had occurred to the once peaceful town. Building and homes were destroyed, rumble and debris scattered around everywhere. Ponies were running to and from tents, some of them had their coats stained with red. Near the edge of the tents were several black blankets covering lumpy shapes.

A soft sob escaped the timid yellow Pegasus as she absorbed the surrounding area. She began trotting off towards the nearest tent. “Girls…I'm…I'm going to try and help somehow.” Fluttershy sobbed again as she pushed aside the tent flap and entered the medical station.

The group continued to move through the destruction of the town towards the center of the wreckage, town hall. As they neared closer they began to see piles of dead shadows. Some of them were massive dead creatures with horrifying looking tentacles sprawled out behind them.

“What in tarnation are these things?” Applejack asked as Rainbow Dash hovered close to one of the stacks of bodies. All of a sudden there was a groan and a shadow human emerged from behind the pile, one of its arms completely cut off at the shoulder, it began hobbling its way towards the girls.

The girls turned to run, but there was a noise from behind them. They turned around to see Princess Luna standing over the body, wielding two swords in her magical grasp, a shiny blue diamond sword and a golden sword that sparked with magical electric energy.

“Princess Luna!” The girls all gasped at once and ran to the princess as she sheathed the swords into the cloth scabbards hanging off of her sides.

“Girls, what are you doing back here!?” Luna nearly yelled at the scared ponies, but was careful to not shock them. “You were instructed to stay safe with the other evacuated ponies in Appleloosa.”

“Look Princess,” Rainbow Dash puffed out her chest and flew to the princess of the night, “we wanted to stay put but we couldn’t just leave our friends to do all the work without some support.”

At the mention of friends, all the ponies looked around expectantly to see a human land nearby and make a witty remark or a lame pun. But nothing happened.

“Princess?” Pinkie Pie, lacking energy, slowly walked up to the princess. “Princess Luna, where is Honored?”

Luna didn’t say anything. She merely turned around and started making her way towards the city of tents being used as a field hospital. “Come little ponies, let’s go get cleaned up.”

Solemnly, the girls followed behind the princess, but not before Twilight looked to the ground and saw a few brass casings scattered around next to a pool of drying red blood. A tattered piece of cloth was attached to a chunk of golden armor near the gruesome pool. The cloth had a pattern of light greens and tans in a square pattern. She only knew of one creature to use that cloth.

Luna began telling the Elements about the battle that had occurred less than two hours before. The sheer attacking force of the shadows that had easily numbered into the thousands, the gallant fight the guards fought holding the town from the invasion force, and of course about the heroic and a bit stupid actions of a certain human warrior.

“Well where is the darling little brute?” Rarity asked as the group entered the circumference of the tents. “I feel we should have seen the human running around bragging about how many evil creatures he slayed today.” Rarity and the girls gave a light laugh, but stopped immediately when they saw the look of pain on Luna’s face.

“Johnson is okay, isn’t he Princess?” Twilight looked up to Luna, who simply lowered her head.

“No.”

Each of the ponies gave the same reaction; a gasp, followed by a long, pregnant, pause.

“What…what happened to him?” Applejack was the first to break the silence.

“He was fighting one of those shadow warriors,” Luna nodded towards the corpse of the large tentacle blade monster, “and was stabbed through both lungs and his stomach. And yet, he continued to fight on. It wasn't until a shadow kicked the blade deeper through his stomach, cutting into his diaphragm that he began to…” Luna stopped talking and took a deep breath, looking up into the sky, “that’s when he began to die.”

The silence returned until Pinkie Pie exploded into tears. Rarity moved over and wrapped a hoof around her friend’s neck and pulled her into a hug. Applejack removed her hat and covered her face while Rainbow Dash slowly drifted to the ground, to stunned to stay afloat. Twilight merely just looked at Luna.

“When I left him in the medical tent, the doctors were doing everything they could to try and fix him, but… they… they just don’t think there is anything they can do for him. The damage to his major organs was too intense. They gave him just a couple of hours to live.” Luna sighed and made her way towards a medium sized tenet tucked behind the train station. “Let’s see if he is still with us so you may say good bye.”

Luna gently nudged the tent flap to the side and held it aside for the Elements so they could enter the dim interior. Cots and small bunks were arranged in rows throughout the tent, moaning guards covered most of them.

Luna made her way towards a back section of the tent that had a curtain pulled around a large surgery table. A long shadow was flickering onto the curtain from on top of the table. Twilight was the first to move aside the curtain and step into the operating area.

The ground was sticky with drying thick red blood. The stench of the fluid made Twilight gag slightly as she looked at the operating table. A long black blanket was covering something. Something long. Something too big to be a pony.

Twilight fell back onto her haunches and stared at the blanket covered corpse. Soon her friends filed in next to her. Applejack wrapped a fore leg around Twilight’s neck and pulled her into a comforting hug, while Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Fluttershy joined around her. They all slowly released their pent up tears and openly wept for the lost human.

Luna approached the group of mares and gasped as she entered the room. She covered her open mouth with a hoof as she just stared in shock at the body lying on the table.

The human had seemed like he was always on top of the world. Nothing could bring him down. Sure he had come close to death before, but he always bounced back, ten times better than before. But now…now the body was laid out before them under the blanket.

The little human was dead.

Luna sighed and lowered her hoof back to the ground. She felt a pressure on her side, and turned her head to see a tall bipedal creature leaning against her, staring at the operating table. The human had his arms crossed over his chest and was looking confused.

“What are we crying at?” Honored Service asked before being flung across the room by an angry alicorn.

I ducked my way through the thick forest, chasing after the floating light. The dark woods were only illuminated if I stayed close enough to the floating light.

“Why they say don’t follow the light is beyond me!” I yelled as I hoped over a branch and continued chasing the hovering orb. It was hard to remember anything. It felt like my sole purpose in life was to just reach the light. The pretty light.

“Honored.”

I stopped and looked around. I knew the voice. I knew I had heard it before, but I couldn't remember who said it.

“Honored.”

I spun around and found myself sitting on some marble steps leading up to a giant castle. “Wait, I was just in a creepy forest.” I looked around to see the briefs glimpse of something orange flash behind a wall. I got up and ran to the wall trying to chase down whatever it was.

“Honored!” I rounded the wall to see a pony. A red pony with an orange mane and tall staring at me from the other side of the gardens we were in.

“Wait, what happened to the castle?” I looked around and saw now it was just me and this mystery mare alone in some fancy looking garden.

“Just let go Honored.” The mare cooed to me while beckoning me closer towards her. I slowly began walking towards her, like something was pulling me towards her and I had no idea why.

“Just let go and accept this.”

“Accept what?” I asked slowly. I was starting to feel very sleepy. Very tired and sleepy. My arms and legs felt as if they were filled with lead as I struggled to keep going.

“HONORED!” A new voice screamed at me from nowhere. I jerked my head only to be blinded for a moment and when my eyesight returned, the garden was replaced by a city on fire. Green and black flames licked at buildings and trees. Smoke rose and blacked out the sun while horribly nightmarish creatures roamed freely throughout the destruction. Tall monsters with tentacles crashed through buildings as I turned to look back at the red and orange mare.

She was gone, replaced by a tall horned and winged pony with fire blowing in the wind as a mane. She laughed and bared her fangs at me. “Just accept this!”

“HONORED!” For a brief flicker of a second, the evil looking alicorn flashed to pearly white alicorn with a flowing pastel rainbow mane. “Honored snap out of it! Follow the light!”

I jerked away from the evil alicorn and saw the floating orb next to me. I reached out and pulled the burning hot ball of energy to my chest and held onto it for dear life as shadow humans, shadow warriors, and Day Terror closed around me, all chanting the same thing, “Accept this.”

I jerked up from my unconscious sleep to come face to face with a very startled doctor and nurse, both of whom were wearing scrubs and face masks. They both just looked at me in utter shock. I looked down to see my chest was cut open and I could easily see my lungs, heart, stomach and everything else inside of me functioning just fine.

“Sup.” Was all I could say before both ponies fell backwards, passed out from shock.

So here I was lying on the operating table, where apparently I was being operated on and I came to while said operation was being performed.

“God, I'm a badass!” I said. I looked around for some needled and thread, I may as well go ahead and finish sewing myself up while I'm just laying here. I was in the process of finding the required medical equipment when my chest began to feel…well, how can I put this scientifically…tingly.

I heard the familiar chiming that I have come to associate with magic being used, and looked down to see my chest glowing in a blood red haze. The color of my magic that I now possessed. “Oh. My. God.” I watched in awe as my own body began to heal itself up like it was no big deal.

Jumping down from the table I strode out through the medical tent, while smiling and waving to all the ponies that just stared at me.

“That’s right ponies, drink it up. I totally didn't get stabbed like a billion times and then wake up in the middle of surgery. I'm amazing, I know.” I finished waving and walked behind the remains of a slightly blown in half building. I let my guard drop and a collapsed to the ground.

“Note to self, after healing my entire chest, I will not have very much energy left to do some much needed ego stroking.” I laid my head back and closed my eyes.

“I told you, Doctor.”

“You never said he would become a magical human warrior wielding the magic of a possible new Element, while remaining none the wiser as to where the other new ones could be!” The brown stallion straightened his bow tie and huffed at the walleyed Pegasus he was sharing the hill overlooking Ponyville with.

“No I said that he would be alright.” The mare stopped and though for a moment. “New Elements?”

“So maybe I did a little more poking around in the future or what not.” The Doctor began walking towards the blue police box.

“Where are we going?” Derpy called after the Doctor, racing to catch up.

“I’ll show you these new Elements. Besides, I was wrong about that human. He seems to not be the cause of everything that happened in Canterlot. He should be fine on his own for a little while anyway.”

Both ponies entered the TARDIS and slowly faded out to another point in time or and space.

I slowly came back to reality feeling a lot less tired. I looked around hoping all the destruction I had just seen and all the killing I had committed had been a part of a very strange nightmare, but unfortunately I was wrong. I woke up seeing destroyed buildings and dead shadows everywhere.

I pushed myself up and patted down the remains of my clothes. My entire armored chest piece was missing, along with one thigh guard and my right shoulder guard. Everything else was stained with blood and shadow gore. I must look somewhat horrifying.

“It would probably be a good idea to go make sure those two ponies are okay.” I walked back towards the medical tent where I had woken up in to check up on the two medical ponies. I mean having your patient spring up and be fine would be kind of a shock.

Stepping into the tent I found the two ponies right away. “Hey, sorry about scaring you too.” I put on my nicest face, which was hard considering I reeked of death, and kneeled down to their eye level. “Anything I can do to help around here until I can talk to the Princess?”

After the initial shock had faded, I began helping the ponies around the medical tent. From cleaning up tables and tools, to simply telling stories to the wounded guards who were lying on the cots, I was actually enjoying helping the ponies without shooting a gun or stabbing something with my knife.

“Excuse me Honored?” I looked up from the wounded guard to the mare nurse with the light blue coat and dark purple mane that I had caused to faint.

“Yes, Nurse Healthy?” I smiled and stood up.

“Could you please put all of those wash rags on the operating table?” The nurse pointed to the large pile of bloody rags that were lying around the operating table.

“Sure thing.” I began scooping up the rags and depositing them on the table in a long pile. As I finished collecting the rags, I noticed that having a large pile of bloody scraps of cloth on a table was very depressing, so I reached over and grabbed a blanket and threw it over the pile, hiding the rags from view.

“Much better.” I said while walking towards the tent flap, “Where can I score some grub around this slightly destroyed town?”

I took another bite out of the loaf of bread I found lying on the ground next to the bakery window. After cutting off the part of the loaf that was coated in dried shadow blood, it was ready to be eaten. And boy was it good! I headed back towards the medical tent to see if Luna had stopped by yet or if anything else needed to be done. Now that the battle was over, we had to clean up and get Ponyville ready for its citizens to return.

“Honored.” I heard my name being called from the tent. But it sounded sad. As I got closer, I heard more sobbing joining together and a startled gasp.

“The fuck?” I whispered to myself before making my way into the tent and towards the sound of crying. Inside of the operating area, I found the main six and Princess Luna all crying. Oh right, the body shaped pile of rags covered with the blanket.

Guess I could have seen this one coming from a mile away. So I did the only thing I could think of doing. I sighed and leaned against the Princess of the night and smiled up at her, “What are we all crying at?”

I held the ice pack up to my bleeding skull. “And that’s why Luna threw me through the tent and into the demolished building behind us.” I grimaced as the ice pack was pushed back into place by Twilight, who was equally upset with me. How was this my fault?

Sure I didn’t really die, well I did for like thirty minutes, but I guess I could have told them in a nicer way I wasn’t dead, rather than just come up and ask a question.

“So I see y’all didn’t listen to me and stay put in Appleloosa.” I gave them all a deadpan stare but smiled, “I would have done the same thing. I'm proud of you girls.” I removed the ice pack from my head and laid it on the table next to me. “I'm going to go on a walk. I need to sort some things out.”

“I'm glad you're safe.” Luna said to me as I made my way from the tent. I paused at the tent flap and looked back at the group of multicolored ponies.

“Yeah. Me too.”

I walked at a slow pace through the rumble of the town. Guard ponies moved debris into barricades throughout the town, trying to get some kind of protection made around the simple town. But I wasn’t here to offer them help with that, I had my eyes set on a patch of land tucked behind a small pond on the outskirts of Ponyville.

I reached the patch of flat land and walked towards the farthest corner of the property. Slowly I approached the patch of still freshly moved earth. A simple tall rock was stuck in the ground at the head of the newly dug grave.

“Hey Sky.” I smiled weakly at the rock. “I did it. I stopped the first wave of Day Terror’s plan.” I wiped my eye with a dirty and scarred hand as I looked down at the dirt.

“All these ponies I saved really owe you. If it wasn’t for you, well hell this fight would already be over. I'm… I'm just sorry I wasn’t quick enough. I wasn’t strong enough. I could have saved you if I was just a little better.”

I dropped to my knees at the end of the grave. I placed my head in my hands and let out one long sob. “You deserved more than this. You deserved a wonderful life, not what you had. You should have grown old Sky. You should have had more to do, not just throw your life away protecting some strange human.”

“She did what she wanted to do.” I jerked my head around and stared at the intruder. I quickly rubbed my eyes dry.

“Stupid ashes from the fires, keeps getting in my eyes.” Luna just looked at me with sad eyes.

I sighed and went back to staring at the grave. “Did she do the right thing?”

“Why do you insist on torturing yourself over her death, Honored?” Luna reached over and picked my head up in her hoof.

“She gave her life to protect you. Doesn’t that say how much she cared about you?”

“Yes.” I squeaked out. I could feel my emotional barrier beginning to break.

“Then honor her sacrifice the way she would want you too. Do you think that would be sobbing around?” Luna asked me with a faint smile.

“No.” I said while wiping my nose on a tattered sleeve on my ACU blouse.

“She would want you to kick some shadow flank!”

“Yeah.” I stood up and drew my knife from my belt. I walked over to the improvised grave stone and knelt down. I began using the magically sharpened blade to engrave my message onto Sky’s tombstone.

I stood up and sheathed the blade, “Let’s get back into town, I can explain what the griffon said on the way back.”

.

“And that’s what the griffon said. A massive army is going to basically just wash down from the entire mountain and overrun Ponyville.” I checked the city behind us and saw the magical fires were still blazing all over Canterlot. “An army to put the one we just fought to shame. An army that even I can’t beat…not without some kind of…devious way to win.”

“I know that look Honored.” I kept my grin plastered on my face as Luna smiled too. “So tell me what trick do you have up your sleeve?”

“A great one.” I jerked my thumb towards the massive dam tucked in the cliffs of the mountains far behind Ponyville. “Something that will wash them away.”