“Got ‘em. Two Shadows moving up, left flank.” Quick Flurry whispered to the pony crouched beside him in the destroyed storefront window leading to Saddle Company’s hiding spot. “We should get Battle Plan to get up here and hit ‘em with some arrows before they find us, Blade.” Flurry looked up from his telescope that was propped up against a brick. His yellow coat was matted with sweat and his short cropped orange and red mane was caked in dirt, well the part that wasn't burnt off was.

Quick Flurry adjusted his one wing against his side and sighed. He had a phantom itch where his old wing had been.

“Hang in there buddy,” Short Blade laid a comforting hoof on Quick’s back, “Honored got the message and I'm positive he’s on the way as we speak.” The light orange unicorn turned his head and looked back out onto the destroyed city of Canterlot.

He blinked quickly trying to locate the two roaming shadows that had just been wandering through the devastation.

“Blade, check this out.” A dumbstruck Quick Flurry held up the telescope to his superior officer while staring off into the distance.

“What?” Short Blade lifted the telescope to his eye and focused it onto the two shadows advancing towards their position. Soon those two were joined by six more, then ten more. Within a minute a group of at least twenty-three shadows was heading directly at the group’s hidden position. Or well not so hidden now.

“Dear Celestia. Get Battle and Hammer up here. This is it.” Short Blade gulped and prayed for protection for his friends and fellow guards.

Quick flurry skidded around the falling building and dove down a broken sewer pipe that dropped off into a small cavern inside the gem mines. “Get up you two! This is the big one!” He turned tail and paused laughing to himself. “Not in a gay way!” He bolted back up the same pipe, as fast as lightening towards the surface.

From behind a flipped over mattress, a sage colored unicorn with a nearly clean shaved silver mane trotted out. The once skinny and jumpy guard was now built as solid as Short Blade, but still was nothing to compare to the earth pony that lumbered out from behind him. Hammer Strike was still the same massive hulking giant of a guard.

Battle Plan ran to the pipe, but stopped just shy of it to grab his quiver and long bow propped up against the opening. “Let’s go Hammer. It’s a great day for some fun.” The unicorn shot the earth pony a sad smile and disappeared up the pipe.

“Sure. Fun.” Hammer mumbled out. Sweat and dust coated his blue coat while his dark blue mane was caked in dried blood.

“Fun.” Hammer leaned over and picked up a giant steel hammer in his mouth and strapped it across his back. He lumbered towards the pipe and squeezed himself through the opening.

Once outside, the remaining four members of Saddle Company stood together looking at the battle field before them, the shadows getting closer and closer to their lightly defended position. Battle Plan drew an arrow from his quiver and loaded it into a notch in his bow. He pulled the string taught and took aim.

“Wait for it.” Everypony tensed as the demon shadows grew steadily closer to the group.

“What the Tartarus?” Short Blade jerked the telescope closer to the group of shadows. He watched as the ranks began to disperse and break off in every direction and then fold in on themselves, as if fighting one of their own. “You guys are seeing this, right?”

One of the dark human shaped creatures leapt vertically in the air, drawing a blade from its back; blue lightning arching off the blade as it came down into the center of the group. Through the telescope, Short Blade watched as the body of a shadow was launched across the wreckage filled street and smashed into a wall.

“Hey let me see!” Quick Flurry yanked the telescope free and watched as another shadow seemingly teleported itself up onto a pile of bricks overlooking a section of the street and rained some kind of rapid firing lightning from a shape in its arms down onto ten other shadows. A loud popping filled the air as the shadows collapsed all around the pile of bricks.

“I want a turn.” Battle Plan levitated the telescope over to his eye line and peered down the street. The shadow got closer, and soon armor covering the creature began to reflect the burning light of the city. It rammed a blade through two shadows and then lopped of their heads with a quick slash from another sword that seemed to sparkle like it was crafted of diamonds.

“It’s Honored, you buffoons,” Hammer Strike grumbled out before snagging the telescope out of Battle Plan’s aurora and pointing it at the charging human. He watched as the human sheathed both lethal blades and drew two shapes similar the weapon he carried on his hip. These two pistols had extra-long thick barrels attached to their ends.

The Honor Guard ran forward through the remaining lines of shadows, dividing them into two lines. As he ran, he held his arms out at ninety degrees and the shadows began to drop without a sound as he passed by them. The last shadow, with horns protruding out of its head moved in front of Honored’s path. The human tucked and rolled and came out in a flying kick straight at the Shadow Champion. Both steel toed combat boots impacted the shadow’s chest and sent it reeling backwards. The human sprinted after the shadow and jumped onto its chest as it tried to stand up. Honored shoved both barrels of his pistols into the shadow’s face and squeezed the triggers rapidly; silent pops and hissing filled the air until two clicks were heard.

The human rose to his feet to stare directly into the lens of a telescope held by Hammer Strike.

The earth pony slowly lowered the telescope and stared at the human coated in black blood before him. The rest of Saddle Company just stared in awe at the guard that had wiped out the attacking shadows.

I smiled at the four ponies that were staring back at me. I slowly slid my silenced Glocks into their holsters and rubbed the back of my neck. “So… I got your message –“

I was knocked backwards by a blur of yellow. Quick Flurry bounced up and down on my chest, knocking the wind out of me, as well as crushing my insides. “Boom! Did you see that? Sling, sling, sling, those shadows dropped like wheat stalks in the fall. And did you hear those pistol things? Because I sure didn't, super stealthy! I mean, man oh man, and talk about making an entrance!” Quick Flurry looked down at me. “So, how you doing, human?”

I pushed the pegasus off of my chest and sat up. The rest of Saddle Company joined around me. “Thanks Honored. That would have been our final fight.” Short Blade extended a hoof to me. I grasped his hoof and shook it.

“No problem. It’s what I do.” I stood up and moved around just as Covert appeared next to me.

“LOOK OUT, HONORED!” Battle Plan yelled, letting an arrow lose from his bow directly at Covert. I quickly snapped around and slammed my gauntlet into the shaft of the arrow, sending it flying into a lamppost across the street.

“No! He’s a friend!” I stood in front of my shadow and waved my hands. “This is Covert and he is a good guy. He’s fighting with us.” I held my pose as the rest of the ponies remained ready to fight. “Please, just trust me.”

“That’s what you said about Nightmare.” Hammer Strike said slowly, not easing his stance where his hammer was held high in the air by a hoof.

Ouch. That one cut me right down. I forgot that really this whole war, all the death, was my fault. All because I had let something gain my trust. “No. He’s been fighting by my side and hasn't failed me yet.” Slowly the ponies began to let up their defensive stances. “Thank you.”

“But I'm watching you, buster.” Quick Flurry said motioning to Covert with a hoof and flapping his one wing to the side.

“Fair enough, uni-wing.” Covert shot back. Quick jerked back, but then broke into a fit of laughter.

“He’s got spunk! I like it! Another!” He shouted back. Covert and I fell into line and followed the ponies back towards their makeshift camp bellow the streets of Canterlot in the gem mines.

“Okay, knock it off, you two.” I looked back at the shadow and lopsided pegasus who were still fake arguing with each other. We found ourselves in an underground cavern about the size of a small basement. The ponies unloaded their gear and began lounging around on rocks and makeshift chairs. I stood up and walked to the center of the room where a small fire was lit on some old wooden boxes.

“So, Honored,” Short Blade walked over to me and sat on his haunches, looking up, “when’s the rest of the backup arriving?”

I smiled and reached into one of the many pockets lining my combat uniform. I pulled out a small glass cube and smashed it onto the floor of the cavern. A wisp of green flames burst forth and flew out of the very pipe we had come in through. “In about twenty minutes. Let me break the plan down for you.”

“Luna?” Twilight called as she cautiously poked her head into the alicorn’s tent.

“Please, enter, young Twilight. How can I help you?” Luna was sitting at her desk scribbling furiously on a scroll. She barley looked up as Twilight approached her holding a piece of parchment. It was a torn shard of paper from the map in the command tent.

Luna stopped and looked down at the paper. Twilight slowly pushed the ripped section in front of Luna. “Would you please explain your reasoning behind these?”

Luna looked down to the piece of paper laid in front of her. It was the same section that had The Elements of Sanctuary on it, but Twilight had used a reverse appearance spell and the earlier notes the alicorn had made were now visible. The list of which ponies should hold the Elements was now fully viewable.

Luna let out a breath and opened the bottom draw on her desk. She lit up her horn and a bottle of Appleoosa hard apple whiskey floated out. Luna unscrewed the top and took a long drag from it. Twilight looked at the princess with a questioning glance. Luna simply levitated the bottle towards the bookish unicorn.

“Um, no thanks. I’m um not much of a drinker, but once Honored gets back you should ask him.” Twilight smiled.

“So, Twilight, you want me to explain these Elements of Sanctuary to you. These things, these weapons that I know even less about compared to the Elements of Harmony?” Luna took another pull from the bottle. Twilight nodded her head furiously.

“Okay well for one thing,” the alicorn sipped at the bottle, “damn this is good. Okay first thing you should know is that I’ve only ever seen one of these Elements of Sanctuary. And that was on the ancient human Shieldstrong, the leader of the ancient human protector force and first member of the Equestrian Honor Guard way far back.” Luna turned the bottle over in her hoof and looked at with watery eyes. “He wore a huge blade on his waist. Somewhere between three and four feet long. It hand a beautiful handle that curved around the hand protecting it and tapering down into a lethal point. The hilt. Oh, that hilt. The hilt is where the actual Element rested, the Element of Protection. It was a deep green, five pointed star that glowed with a faint eerie light, but it was gorgeous.” Luna paused and walked over to her bed before collapsing in it, the bottle of alcohol not leaving her magical grasp as she cradled it next to her.

“And the blade, well the blade was a long sharp wicked thing. It was powered by the Element to never be broken, and to break anything it touched. That was the Sword of Protection.” Luna turned towards the sound of a quill scratching against parchment. Twilight was hurriedly writing every detail down.

“And I'm sure with your smart little mind, you could guess that I believe the brave and courageous –hicc – human Honored Service to be the future wielder of the Protection. I mean come on –hicc – he says the word ‘protection’ like in every sentence.” Luna’s words began to gain a slight slur as she downed another fourth of the bottle. “But that’s why I like him.
He’s always there when you need him. You see the way he pulls through in just the nick of time. Why I bet this whole thing will be over in a matter of days thanks to him–hicc – oh that’s another thing. Those stupid puns. Are they really needed? Twilight?”

“Yes, your highness?” Twilight was trying to hide her face behind her parchment. The Princess may have not realized it, but the more she talked about the human, the redder her face had become.

“Do you think Honored still loves Fast Skies?” Luna drank the rest of the bottle and threw it aside. She then levitated another bottle out of the desk. But before she could open it, Twilight snagged it out of the air and pulled it away from the drunken alicorn.

“No gimme.” Luna whined, stretching her hooves forward trying to reach the floating bottle. “Come on. As your –hicc – royal deity I command you to –hicc –“

Luna’s head crashed back onto her pillow and was out like a light. Twilight giggled to herself and teleported the bottle to Applejack’s tent. “I should probably just use my best educated guess on the rest of these.” With Luna gone for the night, Twilight looked over the list and began to write her own ideas on why the ponies and human were chosen for their respected Elements.

Elements of Sanctuary

Protection- Honored Service (Lives for protecting all those around him. Not afraid to sacrifice himself for the better of others.)

Stealth- ~~Fast Skies~~ Covert (An Element doesn’t disagree on species so why not entities? Covert shows amazing ability to simply vanish and reappear. Stealthy)

Control- Stand Bold (I don’t know much personally about this pegasus but he was able to secure a crew for an airship and have it running in only a few days. He shows incredible control over ponies. More research is need on him personally.)

Strength- Hammer Strike (A fellow guard with Honored, seems to be incredibly strong, duh, and firm in his decisions)

Steadfast- Quick Flurry (Basically a combat version of the Element of Loyalty. Quick Flurry acts like Pinkie Pie while having the spunk of Rainbow Dash, must keep them separated at all costs. He has stuck by Honored’s side since day one of training, and in the gem recording he gave up a wing to save a fellow friend.)

Wit- Battle Plan (I like this Element the most; it seems like Magic if any. Battle is smart and quick thinking along with being wise for his age in adulthood. I should speak with him more personally.)

The Elements of Sanctuary are relatively unknown minus the description of the Sword of Protection. Maybe Luna knows more but will have to wait till she awakes from her… um… drunken slumber to inquire more.

“Twilight!” Spike jumped up and down on the bed trying to awake the sleeping unicorn. “Twilight! The signal! I got the signal from Honored!” Twilight lurched out of bed, sending Spike across the tent that was covered with books.

“When did it come?!” Twilight gasped and threw open the tent flap and looked outside. The sun was just beginning to rise over the castle in the distance.

“Alright crew! Listen up! This is the big one! I'm talking the mother of all missions for our ship.” Sergeant Stand Bold walked in front of his crew that was formed up outside of the tethered airship. “We will go in, moving fast and punching hard. Once reaching Honored’s position we will drop the Royal Guards and then provide very close air support. DEATH!”

“Dismissed!” Stand Bold turned around and wiped a tear from his eye. “I promised myself I wouldn’t cry. Promise broken.”

“And here I was thinking you were cool.” A rough feminine voice said from beside the Royal Guard. Sergeant Bold whipped around to come face to face with Rainbow Dash. “Crying? Seriously?” She said with a smirk.

“It was… gun powder. Got right in my eye.” The pegasus’ coat was turning deep red.

“Sure. Well I just wanted to wish you good luck. And all that.” Rainbow shuffled her hoof in the dirt before jumping forward and planting a kiss on Sergeant Stand Bold’s cheek. “Goodluckbye!” She zoomed off leaving the guard blushing and holding a hoof to his kissed cheek. He turned around to see his crew gawking and making kissy faces at him from along the gun ports of the airship.

“Clear left.” Short Blade jumped from around a corner in the underground tunnels winding underneath Canterlot.

“Clear right.” I responded at the same time, covering the right side of the tunnel. Together the ponies, Covert, and I crept through the dark caverns. We were going to establish a landing zone for the Royal Guards at the Canterlot central market square and then push up to the castle, eliminating any shadows along the way and hopefully force Day Terror from her hiding place within the safety of the castle walls.

“Moving.” I barked the order behind to the ponies holding position to my rear. Covert materialized next to me and nodded.

Together we moved forward to a large cavern that was directly beneath the market. A single ladder ran straight up to the street. Seemed a little…unsafe to have a fifty foot drop directly under the most frequently visited place in the city, but then again I wasn’t the engineer that decided to build a city on the side of a freaking mountain.

“Okay, Covert, you head up first and secure the hatch. Make sure nothing is waiting for us. Stealth only. No SAW right now.”

I spoke quietly and calmly to the shadow. This is the part of the mission where several things could go wrong. Being discovered before the guard showed up would make everything a lot harder. The worst thing would be for a fight to break out in the caverns where our only exit was now an opening in the cavern ceiling fifty feet up.

Covert dipped his head down and vanished, reappearing next to the ladder. He shimmed up it as fast as he could, jumping up two rungs at a time. He reached the top and placed an arm on the hatch and pushed it up and over.

The rusty hatch echoed through the tunnels and out into the market place. For several tense seconds nopony moved. No sound followed the loud screeching.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” The loud screaming spilt through the tunnels and caverns as the blood curling sound of shadows reached our ears.

“Oh, fuck me.” I jerked both silenced pistols from their holsters and cocked them. This plan was going downhill fast. The first shadow darted out from a cavern to the right. It locked eyes with me and opened its mouth to unleash another wicked howl.

An arrow sprouted from its throat, black blood squirting out from the puncture wound. The shadow toppled backwards, collapsing back into dark void of the cavern. “Good shot, Battle.” I said nodding to the unicorn. He smiled and readied another arrow as the soft sound of feet striking rock filled the air. “Hang on everypony, it’s about to get messy.”

Covert finished pushing the hatch aside and slid out across the pavement. Covert absorbed the still dark shadows around him and focused on the stall across the street. Blinking, the shadow found himself now behind it. Then the scream sounded out. “Human.” Covert looked back to the ladder, but knew he had a job to do here. He had to keep this area secure till the ponies and human emerged from the caverns and more guards joined them from the flying airship.

A loud thud filled the quiet market as Covert looked to its source. A Shadow Warrior was making its slow way into the market.
And it was heading straight for the ladder. “No.” Covert focused on his hands and his shadow M249 SAW formed from the darkness around him. The shadow took aim at the lumbering demon’s head and began to depress the trigger, “Oh right… stealth.”

Suddenly a massive explosion shook the earth as smoke rose out of the hole leading into the caverns. “I see the whole being stealthy thing is gone.” Still for the personal challenge, Covert disappeared into the shadows and reappeared behind the still moving Warrior. It paused and turned around to see nothing. As the great big monster turned back around to seal the hole, a single Shadow Human stood before it. Two double pronged swords leapt forth from the shadow’s hands and it jumped into the air, heading directly towards the Shadows Warrior’s head.

The warrior growled and let the tentacle blades on it back shoot forward to intercept the assailant. Covert seemingly dispersed himself around the tentacles and landed both blades directly into the chest of the Shadow Warrior. He ran along the shadow’s chest, dragging his sword-arms along with him until he had made a complete revolution around the warrior.

The creature stopped moving as its abdomen separated from its chest, sliding apart and onto the ground.

Covert rolled to the ground and vanished into a puff of shadow and took up an over watch position guarding the hatch to the cavern, silently praying that his human and ponies would exit the death trap below.

I yanked the grenade out of my pocket and pulled the pin off. I flipped the spoon to the side and hurled the exploding ball at the cavern that was full of shadows charging directly at us. The grenade bounced off the ceiling and rolled down the slight incline stopping just as the shadows ran over it.

Chunks of shadows rained all over the place as the cavern shook from the impact of the grenade. “Well forget stealth at this point! Just stay alive!” I called out and fired my pistols into the shadows emerging from the opposite cavern.

The pistols coughed their muffled sounds as the .45 slugs ripped into the dark magic flesh of the shadows. Next to me Battle Plan sent arrow after arrow perfectly into head, neck, or chest of shadows. Quick Flurry was ducking and weaving his way quickly through the front line of the shadows, slicing away at their legs and stomachs with a short sword. He was still just as fast, but I found it hard to watch him. He would use his only wing to quickly dodge to the left, but that’s all it was good for, just propelling him to the side very quickly.

The hammer of Hammer Strike's crashed down onto the skull of a shadow. His swings were deadly and accurate, but slow. Short Blade stood behind Hammer Strike, keeping any quickly advancing shadows off his back. The two worked wonderfully guarding and attacking.

“Battle Plan listen up, we are getting trapped down here. The fighting needs to happen up there,” I jerked a pistol up towards the early morning light that was beginning to shine down from the hole in the ceiling, “Get up the ladder.”

“That’s an order; now get up the ladder NOW!” I yelled at him, holstering the Glocks and drawing my Berretta and Zappy the electrified sword. I fired a blast of magic into a shadow and lopped of its head with a clean cut from the blade that sent a few arcs of sparks into the air. “Quick, get over here! Short, Hammer, you too. We need to get out of here! This place is a death trap.”

More and more shadows were charging forth from the caverns. They were all rushing forward to attack one central spot. The ladder. Quick Flurry sheathed his sword and leapt over my head and onto the rungs of the ladder and scurried up towards the surface where Battle Plan had just reached the exit.

“I swear that pony is part squirrel.” Short Blade laughed as another shadow collapsed into the rocky floor of the cavern from his blade.

“Yea.” Hammer strike added. He grunted as he swung his hammer to the side, knocking three shadows down at the same time before spinning around and dropping his rear hooves into their skulls, crushing two of them and then whipping back around to plant the hammer into the third’s head.

“Hammer, you’re next.” I stepped up to cover Hammer’s spot as the large earth pony slowly began to pull himself up the ladder.

“Yes?” I asked while planting the sword into a shadow’s chest and firing the pistol into its face, sending the shadow backwards off the sword.

“Easy. You do.” I smiled and jerked the sword up towards the opening. “Get moving.”

“No can do, Lt. You get up there. I got your back.” Short looked at me with big sad eyes. I had seen those eyes before. They had belonged to a dying mare lying in my lap.

“No. Short, I need you to make it through this. The ponies up there,” I pointed back to ceiling as a burst of red magic from my pistol ripped through the face of a shadow, “Saddle needs you buddy.”

“Honored you need to reach the surface and you need somepony to cover you.” Short Blade blocked a slash from a shadow and thrusted his blade into the shadow’s open neck. “Go. I’ll be right behind you.”

“Okay, but you better stay on my ass!” I yelled as I pulled the pony guard close for a quick hug. I let go and gave him a salute and took off up the ladder leaping forwards two rungs at a time. I was nearing the top and the sound of combat ceased below me. I looked down to see Short Blade standing directly below the ladder looking up at me.

The three shadows jumped at him from all sides. I watched in horror as time seemed to slow down. Each blade sliced easily through Short Blade’s armor and flesh. Red blood began to stain his orange coat as he looked up to me. He pulled something dark green and round from beneath his hoof. I felt at the pocket behind my back where my grenades rested. The little bugger had snagged one when I gave him a hug.

“It’s been an honor, Honored!” Short Blade yelled up at me before bursting into laughter. A shadow began climbing the ladder but the flash and explosion consumed all the shadows gathered around the dying unicorn.

“No.” I whispered again. My voice lost in my throat as something pulled me up from the ladder. I fell backwards as Hammer Strike kicked the hatch shut on the hole leading to the grave of Short Blade. “No.”

“NO! I’ve gotten another one of my friends killed! Who will be next? You? Quick? Maybe Battle. Who the fuck knows?!” I screamed into the morning sky.

“Honored, Short Blade got to choose how he died. He saved you and all of us. I hope to be as lucky as him and know that my death would save somepony.” Battle Plan laid a hoof on my shoulder. “Please we need to set up a perimeter and wait for Fast Skies, the ship should be here soon.”

Covert walked up to me and laid a hand on my back. “Human, it should make you feel good knowing you have friends willing to lay down their lives to save you.”

“But it doesn’t.” I looked down as one tear landed on the cracked pavement in between the gore stained combat boots. “None should die for my sake.”

Honor Above All Else

by Honored Service

Rally Point