//------------------------------//
// Chapter 8 
// Story: The Necromancer's Forces 
// by InTheNavy 
//------------------------------//

Fluttershy was awoken by Bradley's movments, as he left the bed he shook the entire frame. He pulled his watch out of his breat pocket and peered at the time. He let out a small gasp and turned to her.
“The sun moves in a strange way here, why is that?”
“Uh... Strange way?”
“It stays still all day and only moves for a few moments.”
“Oh, Celestia moves it for us.”
“Has she ever been tardy?”
“Tardy?”
“Late.”
“No. I've never seen or heard about her being off of time.”
“Well, shit. That means that something is keeping her busy, and we can only guess what.”
“What do you mean?”
“The sun was supposed to rise three hours ago.”
Fluttershy froze out of the fear of Bradley's implications. Was it possible that the castle had fallen? Could Celestia and Luna have been defeated?
“I'm going to wake the others, you can sleep in if you like. If you're still woried about sleeping alone, I'm going to be outside, nothing will get into this home.”
With that he pulled his boots on and threw his vest on, the small pockets full of metal objects clinking as he walked down the stairs to awake the others. He found Rarity sleeping on a bed in one of the side rooms, and Applejack and Big Mack shared another. He peered in through the door to the pair's room, and he noted that one of them stirred when the old door creaked.
“Anyone up?” he wispered, deciding that everyone to be awake wasn't needed
“I am.” a gruff male voice replied. There was still a bit of bad blood between Bradley and Big Mack.
“Well c'mon. Let's go find breakfast. I'm all out of IMPs.” he prounounced the last word as eye-em-pees, not imps.
The two prepared for their journey outside and quickly left. After exiting the cottage Bradley looked around, still straing to see in the moonlight.
“Isn't it a bit early to get up?” asked Big Mack
“No, it's eight in the morning. The sun is a bit delayed today
“Oh.”
“Today has been cancelled, return to bed.” Bradley joked, a common saying that the troops would yell at him whenever he tried to wake them early.
“What do you think of going in those woods? The trees look different than all of the others, maybe there will be food there?”
“That's Everfree forest. That's where the creatures came from.”
“Okay. We'll go the other way, unless you feel like a good scrap?”
“No, I'm fine.” the tone that Big Mack replied in made Bradley crack a smile.
The two followed the path back to Ponyville, as they walked bradley grabbed a hanging branch from a tree and pulled his knife and began to sharpen the stick.
“Why would you use a weapon to make another? What is the use of two?” asked Big Mack, watching Bradley's dark form as he shaped the stick.
“This one offers a lot more range, as I can throw it and not have to care about retrieving it.”
“Ah. But wouldn't that be useless against the skeletons?”
“It would, but I intend to catch some food with it, not fight.”
“If you do that, you'll piss off Fluttershy.”
“Ah, crap.” replied Bradley, not wishing to insult his host immediatley. He tossed the stick aside, and continued down the road.
“There will still be food stocks in town, if you don't mind fighting or avoiding a few of the patrols?” asked Big Mack, it was Bradley's decision, as Big Mack could not fight them effectivley.
“Food I can eat?”
“What can you eat?”
“Meat, Vegetables, Fruit and Grains. But the vegetables that you eat are too coarse for me to eat, I need more protein.”
“What about apples?”
“I can eat those, but I couldn't life off of them.”
“Grain?”
“Yeah. Grain would be good, it has all of the junk I need in it.”
“Then we can either head to my farm and grab a wagon full of apples, or go to the bakery.”
“Ah, so you're a farmer?”
“Eyup.”
“I grew up on a farm in the middle of the country. How big is the farm?”
“About a thousand trees.”
“Ah. That's cool.”
“Impressed?” commented Big Mack
“Yeah, for manual labour that's a huge farm. But it's tiny by human standards. We build machines that work for us. My father's farm was over a thousand acres.”
“How bis is an acre?”
“A thousand acres is about four square kilometres. So we would have just walked across it by now.”
“That's huge! How many trees?”
“My father grew corn and potatoes.”
“Ah. Potatoes are a pain in the flank to harvest though.”
“Not with the help of specialised machines, they pull them right out of the ground, moving faster than I could run. If we return things to normal, I'll give you a design for one before I leave.”
“Where you came from, did you run your father's farm?”
“No. I joined the military at the age of eighteen, and I graduated military college at the age of twenty-two, that was three years ago.”
“What is a college?”
“It's an academy.”
“What do they teach at human academies, if you don't have magic?”
“Mostly math and science, but there are degrees in art.”
“What did you take?”
“I have a bachelor's in electrical engineering, and a lot of on the job training with ballistics.”
“Electrical?”
“Human magic.”
The idle conversation carried on as the two approached town, there were no skeletons present, so they walked down the main street. Bradley peered around every corner, convinced that they were walking into a trap. Eventually they came up to the bakery, and Bradley walked up to the door, signalling for Big Mack to stay still. He slid his hand around the seams of the door, once convinced that it was not booby trapped, he tried the handle.
The handle jiggled nut did not yield to Bradley's touch, it was locked. He looked at Big Mack, his expression was obvious, even in the light of the moon, Bradley was allowed to break down the door. Big Mack sat down, waiting to laugh at Bradley, who would be unable to buck the door open. Bradley took a few steps back, and rubbed his shoulder, and charged the door. With an immense crack, the door splintered, but did not open. Bradley stepped back, raised his knee to his chest, and spartan kicked the door. Snapping, the two halves of the door sailed backwards into the bakers, clattering to a stop before the counter.
Bradley turned to face Big Mack, with a smug look on his face. Big Mack's expression was clear, it said 'You got lucky'. He followed Bradley through the door frame, and started to look around inside of the dimly lit house. Bradley reached into his vest and pulled out a tube, and upon snapping it with his hands, it began to glow red.
“Chem-lights. Usefull if you don't want to be spotted.”
They began to look around the deserted shop, pulling open cabinets and drawers until Big Mack found the sacks of flour. He called to Bradely, who came over to inspect the sacks that sat in the bottom of the cabinet.
“Flour?”
“Eyup.”
“Good. How many can you carry?”
“Probably three?”
“Okay, I'll carry three as-well.”
“Eyup.”
Bradley returned to peering around the shop, looking for anything else that would be of use in their struggle. He opened the door to the next room, and upon opening it, he saw a flash of what appeared to be pink.
“Chimmy chongas!” someone screamed in the night, and Bradley crumpeled to the floor, a searing pain spreading through his groin as Pinkie Pie bucked him in the crotch. He rolled himself over, to face his attacker while he still remained on the floor. She stood over his form, he was writing in pain. She giggled as she thought the intruder was so easily defeated, but Bradely was not out of the fight yet. He reached up and grabbed her foreleg. With another feat of strenght, he hoised himself into the air, lifting Pinkie Pie with him.
Her feet unable to contact the ground, and Bradley holding her at arms length, too far to strike him again, she was out of the fight. He turned to show his new prize to Big Mack, who was now standing at attention.
“Is she friendly?” he asked between pained gasps for air.
“Hiya Big Mack! What are you doing here? Who is this? Did you hear me yell?”
“Eyup.”
Bradley lowered Pinkie to the ground, setting her down as gently as he could, and she turned to face him.
“Hiya, I'm Pinkie Pie! What's your name? What is that vest you are wearing? Why are you wearing a helmet? I only wear a helmet when I'm doing something dangerous. Are you doing something dangerous? What's your name?”
“Bradley.”
Pinkie continued to fire salvo after salvo of questions at bradley, and he only replied to few.
“We should get going. I'd rather not stay here. Are you coming with us?”
“Um... Where are you going, who is there.”
Bradley turned to Big Mack, giving an expression that showed that he wanted him to answer this question.
“Fluttershy's cottage. And Fluttershy, Rarity, and AJ are there.”
“Okaysy!” Pinkie cried, hopping out the door of the bakery. As Bradley lifted his alloted bags of flour, he hear a shrill scream eminate from outside. He dropped the bags of flour, the bottom one bursting from the shock. He ran out the front door, and he saw Pinkie surrounded by a large group of the skeletal enemies.
Bradley yelled as lous as he could, hoping to draw their attention from the pink pony. Most of the group turned to face him, as be raced back into the house. He returned a moment later with the bottom half of the door, putting his arm through the handle and grabbing a twisted piece of the hinge, he had made himself a sheild.
The skeletal remains charged him, pointing their pikes up as they did so. Bradley crouched in the doorway, lowering himself so his sheild covered most of his form. He braced for impact as the wave of skeletal remains his blockade. After a moment it was over, his boots had dug into the ground, and the majority of the pikes were stuck into the wooden door. He rose, pulling one of the pikes, which was a small spear compared to his size, and he used it to snap or dislodge the remaining pikes in his sheild.
The skeletons, now mising their mane weapon, drew their short swords. Bradley hald up his sheild and rushed to closest ghoul, slapping the sword our of the way with his door and drving the pike through the skeleton's chest. It fell to the ground, and he curb stomped it's head in.
He looked up and quickly summed up the situation, there were eight of the acolytes left, exluding the one he had just finished off. By now they had all drawn their weapons, and they began to circle him, realizing that he was undefeatable from the front. Bradley threw his spear at the skeleton that was circling aroun behind him. The spear made contact with its skull, and the skull splintered and fractured, but the attack alone did not kill the skeleton.
He turned to Big Mack, who was standing in the doorway. “The alley.” he ordered, tilting his head to the alley to his right. Pinkie noted this, and ran to the alley, whith Big Mack behind her. Bradley backed himself into the alley. Here the skeletons could not surround him as easily as the main street. He held fast behind his sheild, as the skeletal remains entered the valley after him. Unable to attack around the sheild, the ghouls began to push on Bradley's sheild, hoping for him to stumble or fall back under their force. Bradley began to slide back under to force of the eight ghouls. The alley was a dead end, with another building coming up beind them. Bradley slid, slowly, backwards, compressing Pinkie and Big Mack behind him. He came up the the back wall, and then he began to yell.
“Gory, gory what a hell of a way to die!”
With his war cry, he struck the door with his remaining arm, and began to force his way back out of the alley. Big Mack and Pinkie watched as he practically threw the eight attackers, unable to escape the onslaught of his shield. They each, in turn, stumbled beneath the sheild, and were crushed under the weight of Bradley's sheild and his boots. Bradley let out a scream as a white hot pain went through his leg, as the remains of foe, at his feet, thrust his sword into Bradley's calf. He stomped on its skull, shards bouncing off of the walls of the alley. 
Bradley emerged from the alley, blood matting his leg. All but two of the ghould had been defeated, the remaining two began to run away. With a huff, Bradley threw his sheild, and it collided with the back of one of the two fleeing skeletons. The force of the impact cut the retreating ghoul in half, bones fragmenting and breaking under the weight and force of the heavy door.
Pinkie Pie and Big Mack emerged from the alley as Bradley sat down in the middle of the street to inspect his leg.
“Fuck. I won't be able to carry the bags of flour now. But I think I can make it back to the cottage.”
“Okay. If we can find a cart, I can carry more.” commented Big Mack, he contined “and If you get tired or your leg hurts to much I can try and carry you in the cart.”
“Thanks for the offer Mack, but I'll try and make a crutch before we start the trip back.”
“Oh! Oh! I know!” commented Pinkie. “There was a cart behind Twilight's house!”
“How far is that?” queried Bradley
“Just up the road.”
The three walked down the road, with bradley limping. They came up to the old tree-home, and found the cart behind. As they inspected the cart to deep whether or not the cart would be able to make the return trip, Bradley stood up.
“I can hear more of them.”
“Let's get inside.” commented Big Mack
This time, the door was not locked, Twilight had left it ajar when she had fled the town. The three entered the house. They sat, silently, in the darkness as they heard the partol go by. Out of boredom, bradley checked his watch, the illuminated screen read that it was five minutes past ten, although the moon was still up and the sun was nowhere to be seen.
He stood up and began to pace around the library, eyeing the books on the shelves.
“Nothing about mathematics? Science? Engineering?”
“Nope. Twilight mostly reads fiction or books about magic.” commented Pinkie Pie
“Ah.”
He pulled a book labeled 'Intro into Magic' off of the shelf, and began to flip through the worn pages. He peered at the text for a while, and stowed to book in has pack. He turned to see Big Mack staring at him.
“Know thy enemy, and what not.”
“Eyup.”
“At least there are no books on engineering, then the could see right through my tricks!” commented Bradley, chuckling to himself. The joke was lost on the other two.
“It seems that the patrol has left, maybe we should continue on?”
“Eyup.”
The three cautiously exited the house, led by Bradley. He carried himself down the street, peering at all the shop signs. He stopped in front of a building that had a hammer on the sign.
“Is this a workshop?”
“That's the town carpenter's shop.”
Bradley walked in through the door, which was wide open. He returned after a few minutes with a board, a piece of cloth was draped over one end, and he used it as a crutch. They carried on down the street, Big Mack pulling the cart behind.  Bradley inquired as to what each of the shops were, and he made note of all of them. He seemed particularly interested in the blacksmith's shop.
When the cart was laden full of flour, the three set off on their return trip. The trip was long for Big Mack and Bradley, both laiden down. Eventually they were able to make it to Fluttershy's cottage, avoiding a few patrols in the process. Pinkie hopped in the door, and Big Mack and Bradley heard her, along with Fluttershy and Applejack, scream in delight as she was reunited with her friends. Big Mack parked the cart close to the front of the door, and he began to carry in the flour.
Bradley limped in past Big Mack, and the three ponies inside gasped as they saw his wound. The bleeding had been stopped by a quick wrap, but his pant leg was covered in matted blood, he stated that it looked much worse than it was. After they fussed over him for a bit, they turned their attention to the food.
“Finally, I'm tired of grass and hay every day.” commented Applejack
With the transfer complete, Big Mack pushed the cart behind the cottage, and returned inside, where Bradley was tending to his wounds. After cleaning the would, he pulled a brown bottle from his kit. He placed a cloth in his mouth, and poured the contents onto his wound. The mixture was foul smelling and abrasive on the eyes, it foamed up when it contacted the wound. Bradley screamed in discomfort, biting the towel with his eyes watering. After a moment he recomposed himself, and he wrapped the wound in a special cloth that he had retrieved from a pack with a red cross on it.
He reached for his pack and withdrew his new book, with the ponies starting to make something to eat with the new provisions. Big Mack sat down on the large arm chair, peering outside towards the moon. By now it was around one in the afternoon, but the sun still lay dormant. He began to worry as to the princesses safety.
Bradley put down his book, and stumbled towards the window. He had heard something coming, but he couldn't place what it was. He moved the curtains aside, and peered out the glass pane.
“Everyone get in the back room! Put something heavy against the door and don't come out until I tell you too!”
The ponies followed his order as Bradley braced himself against the door, he prepared for anotehr confrontation.
A loud banging was heard at the door, and bradley braced himself against the frame. He clicked the lock and wrenched the door open, but he did not expect what he found.
“Blue? Is that you?”
“H... Help me....”
“Hey! Open the door! Come quick!” Bradley yelled, signalling for the others to come out of hiding.
Bradley lifted the pegasus off of the ground, and brought her to the table in the middle of the room. He placed her on the table, and flicked a switch on his helmet. A light came to life on the side of his helmet, which he had not taken off yet. He peered over the pony; she had an arrow protruding from her flank, just a few inches from her cutie mark. He looked her in the eyes.
“This is going to hurt, but it will make you better.”
She nodded in acceptance, she couldn't object to this strange creatures remedies. Fluttershy was the first out of hiding, and she screamed as she saw Rainbow Dash's wound. Bradley grabbed the bag with the red cross on it and returned to Rainbow.
“Here,” he said, holding his glove in front of her mouth “bit on this, it will distract you from the pain.” She bit the glove, and recoiled for a moment. He held his hand on her flank, and grabbed the shaft of the arrow with another, he pulled, and Rainbow cried as the arrow dislodged itself from her flank. Blood started to dribble from the wound, but Bradley pushed the wound shut, and grabbed the brown bottle from before. He cautiously poured the peroxide on the wound, holding Rainbow down as she bucked and screamed into the glove, tears coming from her eyes. He pulled a small container with a spout from the bag; using one hand to hold the wound closed, he applied the substance to the wound. He retrieved a canister from the bag and sprayed the substance, which hardened like rock in an instant.
“Gotta love krazy glue.” he commented “The wound is fairly small, I doubt that it will scar.”
“Fairly small?” Rainbow cried “I'd like to see you take a wound like that!”
She turned to her friends, and made a brave face to show that she was okay. Bradley sighed and lifted his shirt, and Rainbow gasped as she saw his wounds, he had seven of the wounds that she now had. He lowerd his shirt and raised his leg, the legging of his pants were now cut away.
“Sword stab.”
“Oh” commented Rainbow Dash, realizing that her injury was small compaired to the wounds of Bradley. She got off of the table, with her friends watching, and tested her leg. Bradley's first aid was immaculent, she could barely feel the wound, and her walking was not impeded.
“Now. Tell us what teh hell happened at the castle.” asked Bradley, curious as to why the sun had not risen.