Chapter 9
Spike led Charles outside of Ponyville to a rocky area just west of the town to a mountain with a cave entrance, there were two diamond dogs wearing crude looking metal armor, a simple chest guard and a helmet, guarding it. Spike and Charles were hiding behind a big rock a few feet away from the cave, Charles was peeking around the side of the rock to analyze the situation. “Only two guards, no sweat.” He whispered.
“So what now?” Spike asked, also in a whisper.
Charles brought his head back to behind the rock and looked to Spike, continuing to speak in a hushed tone. “Now you go back to Ponyville where it’s safe while I take care of this.”
Spike got a little worried at Charles’s plan. “No way, I’m coming with you, you can’t go in there alone, there’s no telling how many of those diamond dogs there are.”
“And what help could you be Spike, your just a baby dragon, you’ll only get in the way. It’s too dangerous for you, so just go back to town where it’s safe and I’ll come back later with Rarity. NO BUTS.” Charles said with authority.
Spike answered in a defeated tone. “All right, but please be careful.”
“I’ll be fine, I can handle a few mangy mongrels.” Spike then headed back to town to leave Charles to do the heroics. Charles took out his badge and pinned it on the upper left side of his chest. He removed his staff from his back, holding it in his right hand, and made his black armor appear, his badge still in its pace, looking as if it were part of his armor. Charles came out from around the rock and stepped in full view of the two dog guards. “In the name of the royal guard of Ponyville, I hear by order you to release the pony you have taken captive.” He stated as he pointed one end of his staff at the guards and spread out his wings.
The guards looked at each other in confusion, then back at Charles and started to laugh. One of them spoke. “HA HA HA, is this some kind of joke, what are you, some kind of hairless winged monkey? HA HA HA HA!”
This made Charles scowl at them. “This is no joke, you have taken a citizen of Ponyville and I am here to get her back, if you fail to comply, you WILL be sorry, now let her go or else!”
The other guard responded. “Fat chance creature, that pony is ours now.” The two guards then charged towards Charles. He took a fighting stance with his staff in both hands and his left side prominent. The two guards drew closer and closer, once they were just a few feet away, they leapt at him. Charles waited at the last second and used his wings to jump up, he then came back down on the backs of the diamond dogs with both his feet, forcing them to slam into the ground. The two let out a loud grunt of pain upon impact. Charles jumped back off them and landed in front of them. He reached down and picked one up by the throat. “Now, where is the pony Rarity?” He asked as he glared into the dog’s eyes.
The dog didn’t answer, instead, put two fingers to his mouth and gave out a loud whistle. Charles looked at the dog with a confused expression, then it quickly disappeared and he slammed the dog back into the ground, knocking him out. He then turned to the other dog and slammed one end of his staff into the dog’s head to knock him out as well. “Lousy mutts.” Charles muttered. Charles then turned his attention to the cave entrance, he was about to go in but soon started hearing a rumbling coming from the cave. A whole mess of diamond dogs came charging out towards him. “All right then, let’s do this.” Charles took on the same stance he took earlier and readied himself for combat.
Before the hoard of dogs reached him though, a large shadow washed over him, he looked up and saw a massive wolf beast fly overhead and landed in front of him, the wolf charged head first into the mess of dogs and started to tear into them. It was wearing the same kind of armor as Lt Shadow Fang had on, it used its massive claws to rip and tear them apart, slashing and swinging at them and sending a few of them flying off to the sides as well. It was letting off fierce growls and grunts as it fought. Charles only watched in horror and awe at the scene.
In what seemed like minutes, but was actually only a few seconds, the surviving diamond dogs were sent running and screaming in fear back into the cave. The wolf beast stood as tall as Charles on all fours. It had black fur and red eyes that were now staring at Charles. To his surprise, the wolf stood up on its hind legs and towered over Charles. Charles readied himself for a fight with the beast, only to be surprised again when it spoke in a low growling voice. “You were fool for coming here alone. Did you honestly think you could do this alone, you should have alerted the rest of us of this! I SHOULD KILL YOU FOR YOUR IDIOCY!” The beast shouted.
“Lt. Shadow Fang, that’s enough, change back now!” Came Lightning Thrash’s voice. Charles looked behind him and saw all the guards there. He turned back around and saw the wolf beast now on all fours again. It started to shrink down a bit. It’s black fur started to turn white, it’s claws shrunk in and turned to hooves, it’s long canine snout also started to shrink. Eventually, the wolf beasty was gone and Lt. Shadow Fang was now standing in its place, panting and glaring.
“I’LL KILL YOU FOR YOUR IDIOCY!” Shadow Fang called, he leapt at Charles but was suddenly held back by Lt.’s Carbon and Storm Chaser. “Let me go, I’ll kill you!”
“That’s enough Shadow Fang, snap out of it!” Carbon said through grunts as he struggled to keep Shadow fang under control.
Soon, Shadow Fang clenched his eyes shut and seemed to calm down a bit, his body became relaxed. “Lt. are you all right now?” Storm Chaser asked.
Shadow Fang opened his eyes and responded through pants. “I’m….fine now….you can….release me.” The two Lt.’s released Shadow Fang hesitantly.
Charles looked on confused, then remembered about what he was told of Lt. Shadow Fang being a were wolf. The captain came up to his side to speak. “Another side effect of his werewolfism, the longer he stays in his wolf form, the longer he’ll act psychotic, the reason the super soldier project he was a part of was scrapped. Mind telling me why you didn’t come and inform me of the trouble here private Charles?”
Charles stood at attention to begin to explain. “Sir, I was here at the time and figured that I could handle this on my own. There’s no telling what those dogs are doing to Rarity in there and I figured it would be best to act as fast as possible. But, how did you find out about this?”
“Spike informed me, he was worried about you and came to tell me what happened. YOU should have come to me first before coming here to rescue her yourself.”
“I figured I could handle it on my own sir. It’s just a few diamond dogs.” Charles said.
“It doesn’t matter how many you think there are, you don’t know their numbers, as a member of the royal guard, you are part of a team. We work together, NOT alone. Understand.”
“Yes sir.”
A new voice spoke up. “Now that that’s out of the way, I believe there is a pony we need to rescue.” An earth pony wearing a full body suit that was grey, his entire head was visible, so his coat, mane, and tail could be seen. His coat was an olive drab color and his mane and tail was black with hints of grey. On his right foreleg, he had a crossbow attached. His rear left leg was replaced with a steel prosthetic leg. He had a southern accent. He came up to Charles and introduced himself. “I am Master Sgt. Fuse, EOD specialist. That’s Explosives and Ordinance Disposal. It’s nice to meet you Charles.”
“Like wise sir.” Charles responded.
Captain Lightning Thrash then got every pony’s attention. “All right, listen up, we’ve got a pony being held prisoner by a group of diamond dogs, we are to go in there, find her and get her out, failure is not an option. Any questions?” No response. “All right then,2nd Lt Carbon, you will take the lead and use your eye’s to help us navigate the tunnels in there. I will follow close behind, followed by Master Sgt. Fuse, then the other Lt.’s and finally the rest of you bring up the rear in no particular order. Let’s move.” With that, Carbon then took the lead and the others followed in to the cave.
Upon entering, Carbon lit up his horn and his eyes began to glow a light green color, like this, Carbon was able to see in the dark. Charles was in the back with privates Black Cloud, Dusk Fang and Dawn Fang. He was still carrying his staff in his right hand. Dusk fang was the first to speak up. “So Charles, how come you didn’t come to us and let us know what was going on?”
Dawn Fang then came in. “Yeah, it would have been fun to take on those diamond dogs.”
Charles began to explain. “I’m just not much of a team player, I’ve only ever had to look out for myself pretty much all my life. I was never able to count on anyone but myself.”
Storm Chaser then came in from ahead. “Well you’d better get used to it private Charles, your part of the Ponyville royal guard now, and we work as a team, even Lt. Shadow Fang knows that.”
As they walked, the tunnel seemed to start to light up a bit with a soft light blue glow. Lt. Carbon had to stop, thus causing the others to stop as well. He had to deactivate his night vision spell to see clearly. He spoke up and addressed the group. “Looks like the rest of the underground area here has some florescent plant life, we should be able to see fine the rest of the way.” They continued on then and soon came to a large cavernous area. It was huge and well lit up with glowing mushrooms lining the cavern walls.
“Well, this will be a problem, which way now?” Storm Chaser asked out loud upon seeing different tunnels laid out before them from the open area.
Stunner spoke up. Relax Storm, we’ll figure this out, right captain?”
Before captain Lightning Thrash could answer, a rumbling was heard. A huge number of diamond dogs emerged from each of the tunnels and soon had the group surrounded, a single diamond dog in what looked like scale armor stepped forward from the others and addressed the group. “You are trespassing on diamond dog territory, leave now or die!”
Captain Thrash answered. “I am Captain Lightning Thrash of the Ponyville royal guard, you have taken a citizen of Ponyville and we are here to retrieve her, I ask that you return her to us now so we can end this peacefully.”
The dog responded. “Pony is too valuable to us, she is good gem hunter, we no release her, you go now.”
Lt. Shadow Fang then spoke up. “Looks like we do this hard way.”
Dusk Fang then responded. “Just the way I like it.” The twins then drew their swords. Followed by Shadow Fang, then Storm Chaser took his sword out, and all the others followed. Black Cloud got his flamethrower at the ready as well.
Captain Lightning Thrash started barking orders. “Black Cloud, provide air support with your fire, Fuse, you provide artillery assistance with your explosive crossbow. Every pony else, CHARGE!”
Black cloud took to the air and let loose with his flamethrower. He flew over the battle field and set dogs ablaze, being careful not to burn his allies. He fired a continuous stream of flames, reducing those unfortunate enough to get hit by them to a burning mass of flesh. The dogs tried throwing spears at him. Black cloud saw the spears coming, he was able to avoid their bad aim or burn the spears to ashes before they reached him. He then switched to firing orbs of flame from his device, each orb he fired resulted in an explosion of flames that burned the dogs to the bone.
Down below, the twins were working together expertly, they would switch between defending one while the other delivered a killing strike with their swords, as they did, their swords let off a kind of flame that was colored similar to the gems imbedded in their swords. One seemed to burn the enemy while the other froze the dogs and shattered them to pieces. Dusk Fang jumped over his brother while Dawn Fang rolled under and both struck with their swords at two dogs, then they got back to back and crossed their swords together, creating a swirling vortex of fire and ice. It spread out around them and burned or froze the dogs close to them. They continued with their strategy of one blocking while the other struck.
Fuse hung back and fired his crossbow bolts at the enemies from afar, each shot he made resulted in the bolts exploding upon impact with the ground or, to the misfortune of its victim, a diamond dog, either way, numerous dogs were being taken out from a distance by Fuse.
Carbon was making full use of his daggers, he took hold of his knives with his magic and threw them at dogs that tried to get near him, one charged at him and he took hold of one of his knives in his magic grasp and flung it with ease, landing it right into the dog’s head. Another came from the side, and Carbon threw another, landing it in the dogs chest. Carbon was able to retrieve his knives so he would always have something to throw. He then had all six of his knives floating around him in a perfect circle around him and flung them in all directions, taking out the dogs around him, he brought them back to him and readied them for more flinging. He got them in another circle, but this time in a vertical fashion with the points at an angle, he made it spin with such speed making a kind of buzz saw, he sent it forward and had it slice any dog in its path in half.
Shadow Fang had his twin weapons in his hoofs as he fought. He managed to expertly dodge or block attacks while countering and killing the enemies around him. A dog tried for a down strike with a spear, Shadow crossed his blades to block it, he forced the spear up and did a cross slash with his blades, slicing the dog in half along its waist. Then did a quick turn and slice to another dog that tried to sneak up behind him, he slashed at two more on his side and killed them. He was fighting almost as ferociously as when he was in his wolf form. Not a single move he made was wasted, he kept up fluid but fierce motions as he fought.
Stunner was fairing just as well. No dog stood a chance against him. He was using his magic to manipulate his sword around him to counter and kill any diamond dog foolish enough to fight him. Multiple dogs surrounded him, Stunner got his sword ready and swiped it in a circle around him so fast, he managed to slice off their heads. He flung his sword into the chest of another dog and drew it back just in time to stab it into another dog behind him. He brought it around again and sliced at another dog on his side. Another dog tried to get the drop on him by jumping at him. Stunner saw this and grasped the dog in his magical grasp, he then sent his sword right through the foolish mutt.
Charles, sticking to his no kill policy, was using his staff to disarm and knock out any diamond dogs that challenged him. He jabbed his staff at a diamond dog in the face and knocked it out. He swung it around in a circle to catch another dog in the side of the face and sent it flying backwards. A dog thrust its spear at Charles, he swung his staff up to redirect it and continued the momentum until the other end of his staff was facing the dog’s face and thrust it forward. Then Charles flared out his wings, he jumped up, brought his staff over his head, and fell to the ground and slammed his staff down, creating a shock wave that sent any dogs nearby flying. Charles then jumped back again and started hitting each of the dogs with his staff to knock them out. He knocked one so hard it was sent flying into other dogs and knocked them down. He twirled his staff around and threw it, using his magic to keep it spinning and knocking it into other dogs like a boomerang, he called it back and twirled it above his back as he bent over, came back up and swept it around him, taking out more dogs around him.
Storm Chaser was busy with his own dogs as well. A dog thrust his spear at Storm, Strom blocked with his sword and forced the spear upwards and out of the dogs hand, Storm then swiped his sword down and cut off the dog’s arm, the dog cried out in pain as it fell over. Two more dogs tried to double team him, he just gave his wings a mighty flap to kick up dust and blinded them, he then took the opportunity of their blindness to finish them off by cutting off their heads with his big sword. Another came up behind him and tried to stab him in the back. Storm jumped up and landed behind the dog instead and stabbed him in the neck. The dog fell down dead.
Captain Lightning Thrash fought his way through the diamond dogs to the commander of the dogs. This dog was slightly bigger than the others. This one had a big sword that needed to be held with both of its hands. Lightning Thrash called out to the dog. “Surrender diamond dog, you don’t stand a chance against the royal guard!”
The commanding dog glared at Thrasher. “We no give up pony, pony is too valuable to dogs, you no get her back!” As the dog spoke, he raised his sword above his head, on the last word, he swung it down to try and cleave Thrash in half, but Thrash was too quick. Lightning Thrash dodged right and swung his sword at the dog, the dog blocked it with his own sword. They broke their lock and stepped back from each other. Thrash took a flying leap at the dog to try and strike him down, the dog brought his sword above his head horizontally to block. The swords clashed again, resulting in sparks. Lightning flew back and landed on the ground. He used his wings to propel himself forward at the dog, hoping to impale him with his speed. The dog swung his sword down to try and cut the captain in half again. Thrash managed to maneuver to the side to avoid the strike and jabbed his sword with such force, it pierced the dogs armor and went right into his gut. The dog cried out in pain, Thrash drew his sword from the dog’s chest, the dog stumbled back and fell over dead.
The battle didn’t take long to end after that, soon, every last diamond dog in the area was now dead, at least those that fought against the older members of the guard, the ones that Charles fought lay unconscious or groaning in pain. The soldiers all regrouped at the center of the area. The captain then spoke up. “Well done men, we made quick work of those dogs.”
1st Lt. Shadow Fang felt the need to comment on Charles’s choice to not kill. “Hmph, why did you not kill dogs private Charles, they are enemy.”
“I just didn’t see the point in it as long as they are no longer able to fight back, Sir.” Charles responded.
“They wouldn’t be able to fight back at all if they were dead, what do you think they will do once they can get back up?”
“Trust me sir, they won’t be getting up anytime soon. We’ll be long gone by the time they recover.”
Sgt. Fuse then stepped in. “That’s enough you two, let’s not get into a fight about this. Charles, I can understand you not wanting to kill, but you will have to take a life eventually, in this line of work, it will happen where you’ll have to kill a trouble maker. There are some ponies in this world that would rather die than go to a prison or do whatever it takes to get what they want. I suggest you suck it up and be ready to kill.”
Charles looked away with a solemn expression. “Yes sir.”
The captain then spoke up. “Looks like we may have to split up here then to find Rarity, we’ll each take a tunnel and rondevous back here in an hour. Once we meet back, report your findings.”
“Yes sir.” They all responded together. Before they could start to split up, the ground under Charles’s feet suddenly opened up and Charles fell through a hole. Before any of the officers there could react, it closed up behind him, preventing any soldier from following him.
Charles fell through darkness as he slid down the hole, within minutes, he soon emerged into another large cavern, he was able to stop himself from hitting the hard floor by using his wings. He came to a landing and looked around, this cavern also had bright luminescent plants lining the walls. Charles then looked straight ahead, only to be greeted with more diamond dogs. Behind them was what looked like a large prison cell, and in it was Rarity.
Rarity called out to him. “CHARLES! You came for me!”
Charles answered back. “Don’t worry Rarity, I’m here to get you home!”
One dog stepped forward from the crowd. This one was the usual height of a diamond dog, he had on a golden crown with many gems embedded in it. He wore a red velvet cape with white trim and was holding a wooden dark brown staff with a big white diamond on it. “Greetings creature, I am glad you could come. I am King Cerberus, ruler of diamond dogs.”
“Just the mutt I wanted to see.” Charles stated. “Listen here you mangy mongrel, you have taken a citizen of Ponyville and I am here to take her back, release her immediately or else!”
“I did not bring you here to make threats creature, I brought you here to add you to my collection, you are a new species and would like to add you to my personal collection of oddities, will you surrender or is this going to be difficult?” The king asked.
“I am NOT an item to be added to a collection you lousy flea bitten canine! I will not ask again, let Rarity go or I’ll take a newspaper to your sorry but!”
The king did not like this, he scowled at Charles. “That does it, BRUTUS, come forward!” Another diamond dog stepped forward, this one had scale armor as well and was wearing a gold medallion with a small white pearl at the center. “Brutus, kill creature.”
The dog stepped further from the crowd and stopped. Suddenly, the pearl on the medallion started to glow, the dog started to grow in incredible size, it let out grunts as its body grew larger and larger, soon the dog had grown gigantic, it let out a monstrous roar at Charles as it took hold of a giant two handed sword from off its back.
“Oh my god.” Charles was put off by this a bit but didn’t show it, he got his staff ready for the fight of his life.