Violence is merely a means to an end

Yet if violence is your only means

Does that make you evil?

Chapter 4

The Red Dawn

Coming out of sleep, was a harsh and an entirely terrible experience. Volaren was not a morning person in anyponies opinion. This abruptly changed when he noticed how calm and quite it was. Adrenaline rushing, muscles tensed, eyesight became sharper, sounds became crisper. Every sense that he had at his disposal was being used to the max. They screamed that something was wrong, completely wrong. There were no sounds, no movements. No birds chirping in the trees, no bunnies running in the brush or any animals. And no bugs buzzed in the air. The immediate area was devoid of all fauna. All that drifted around was the tangible scent of rotting meat in the air, unwashed bodies, and bespoke of utter evil.

Volaren’s ear twitched. The sound of a twig snapping. Quickly and silently, Volaren ran into the tree line making no more sound than a ghost. He had none of his heavy armor that he had worn in his previous life available to him. Only his blade. Slung loosely over his right shoulder gray waited for the inevitable combat that waited for them in the near future.

Ever so slowly Daring awoke to the sound of voices. Blinking her tired eyes, shapes began to form. Looking around the only thing missing to what she thought was a glorious morning was that her master was not present.

“Master? Where did you go?” Daring spoke aloud hoping to get her masters attention if he was nearby.

Silence, no more voices or noise of any kind. The forest, even though it was evil had once teemed with life. Concentrating she heard nothing no animals. Slowly standing she looked around the clearing for signs of her master in which direction he had gone. After a few moments with no clues, she heard the voices again.

“Shutz up.” A loud slap could be heard echoing through the forest. Daring winced at the sudden hurtful sound.

The same voice that had said shut up, spoke again. “We patrolz cuz da big bosses sees so. So shutz yur mouf ad getz mobings.”

“But butz Mysis feetziz hurz!” a third whingind voice broke over the other the other voices. A small scuffle and another slap was heard.

“Shutz up! I wotz telz u agin! Ad if u dontz I makz surz use endz upz in ta biggins pot tonight!”

At this point, Daring was horrified. What manner of creature would threaten another with feeding it to another much larger creature was her first thought. She began to back away from the direction of the voices in the forest. Shuddering at the idea of herself being cannibalistically eaten by ponies. Shaking her head to clear the images out she stepped on a twig.
Hearing a grunt of surprise Daring looked up to see what had made the noise. At the far end of the clearing from between the bushes came the four ugliest creatures daring had ever seen.

Standing as tall as her, the four beasts were reptilian in nature yet looked like they were crossed with the ugliest dog possible. They were bipedal. Upon their shoulders were ragged animal skins or destroyed clothing, while three out of the four had small bits of metal which she assumed was meant to be armor. The smallest of them was wearing a pot on his head as a helmet of sorts. The scales that showed underneath there clothing and what armor were an unhealthy green color. Each of the reptile dog things carried a spear that was comically tall for them. Standing at almost twice the height of the tallest one.

The biggest one, and the one obviously in charge shouted a garbled and broken command in a language that she couldn’t understand. All four monsters leveled out their spears towards her and began to charge.

Daring was frozen in place with fear. All the thoughts that raced through her mind were of escape. Yet her legs refused to respond. They felt to her as if they had turned into granite pillars. Unmoving and yet they felt weak, she knew that they would give out any moment. The fear that ran through her mind had locked her in place.

Before the creatures had even made it a quarter of the distance to her a shout rang through the clearing stopping all action by the monsters.

Stunned speechless the beasts watched as an angry gray stallion burst through the bushes. Before they could do anything he had quickly closed the gap between them. Brandishing a massive blade, all four of them were caught on the flat of the blade, and tossed into the forest beyond. The stallion charged into the forest after them. Tearing through the underbrush like an angry bull.

Daring watched helplessly as she recognized her master. He was fighting once again, he has fighting for her sake. She listened to the sounds of battle. All she heard was the cries for help, as one by one they fell silent. The blade of her master only sang out three times. Not knowing if a fourth would song would come, she waited.

In the silence that followed, the actions that her master had just done became clear to her. Even thou he had done it in the forest where she couldn’t see. He had killed them. No mercy, no remorse, not even guilt. All it was, cold, calculated strikes to end the threat against her.

She turned her head away as her master came through the brush into the clearing.

Volaren was quickly and quietly searching the forest for the invaders he had heard earlier. He wanted, no he needed to find the enemy before they found daring. It wasn’t easy. Even the forest itself was against him. It tried and almost successfully led him of course.

His continuing search was brought to an abrupt halt when he heard voices from behind him. Cursing his lack of attentiveness he turned around and ran towards the voices. Recognizing the slurred speech, he knew that the kobolds were right on top of Daring’s position. Running as quickly as possible, he covered the short distance back to camp.
Bursting out of the underbrush, he saw four kobolds with spears making a pitiful attempt at a charge. The fact that they were attempting to charge pissed him of even more.

Pulling in as much air as possible and with all the violence that his body possessed he screamed at his newfound enemies.

Drawing gray as he charged them. He shifted it so that he caught all four along the flat of the blade. Flinging them into the forest and out of view of Daring.

Catching a small glimpse of her. She was standing there frozen. Feeling a pang of quilt, he continued his charge into the forest. Drawing closer to his enemy.

As he came into the stretch of forest, the first thing he saw, was just off the ground a kobold had slammed into a tree. Thrashing wildly, the unfortunate creatures had been impaled through his midsection by a fairly large branch. Counting him removed from combat, Volaren continued looking for the kobolds. He saw that they had fared better. Landing in a jumbled pile with only bruises to show.

The kobolds did not stay down for long. The nearest kobold was the first to recover. Charging at Volaren spear outstretched. Standing on two hooves Volaren caught and deflected the spear with the flat of his blade. It skittered harmlessly past his snout into open air.

Switching grips on his weapon, Volaren took a single step forward. Brandishing his weapon low to the ground. Gray was swung in a horizontal arc. To him true defense was his offense. Kill first, kill again and when the killing is done there is none left to hurt you. Even if he blocked with his blade everything he did was an offenses technique. It colored all his thoughts as he swung. It was no longer combat, all that was happening was a one sided massacre of helpless kobolds.
Grunting with effort, Volaren continued his long horizontal sweep. Even with no technique behind the strike the effects were devastating. With the power he applied, the moment gray came in contact with its victim, instead of simply slicing through cleanly, the midsection of the kobold was completely obliterated. All that was left was a gore strewn paste and several bone fragments lodged into trees.

Quickly changing into a new stance. Volaren crouched behind his blade. A small sound of metal hitting metal was heard. The flat of his blade had stopped a thrown spear from the enemy just few feet away. Turning the cutting edge towards his opponent, he ran him down. Just before they collided, Volaren planted a hoof into the ground using it as a pivot point, swung gray, in a vertical arc. Catching the second kobold in the groin cutting up through the heart and out the shoulder.

Elated at the kill, he was caught off-guard in his moment of triumph. A sharp pain had brought him back to the present. Hissing in pain he looked down at his hip. A crude spear had barely cut him. It was a superficial wound. Looking in anger, the kobold holding the spear had a sheepish grin on his face as if he had defeated his opponent. Growling as much as he could, Volaren struck out with the hilt of his weapon. Knocking the kobold back a few step, dislodging the spear as well.

Crouching down again, holding the blade flat as the ground. He struck forwards, piercing the kobold in the midsection. Lifting the kobold high above his head. With a final swing, he threw the body at the one still struggling feebly in the tree. Crushing its head and snapping the spine of the one that was thrown.

Now that the immediate threat was dead Volaren listened for others that might be in the area. After a minute of no sounds. He was satisfied that this was the only patrol in this area. Before he left, he wiped gray off with the only fur coat to survive that was on the nearest kobolds body.

Unhurriedly Volaren went back through the bush that led to the clearing, where he and daring had stayed the night before. As he came through the bush he saw daring look away from him. She was on the verge of crying. Even thou he had killed outside of her sight. She still knew what had happened.

“Shhh, don’t cry. You are safe. You will always be safe when you are with me. I will never let anything hurt you.” He was whispering so that only she could hear.

At this daring started to sob uncontrollably. She had been in danger before, but never like this. They truly wanted to kill her. Not just have her out of there way.

Volaren stroked her mane whispered small words of encouragement. Slowly daring stopped crying. She knew why he did it. Yet it was still so alien to her. Death, murder and killing to save another were concepts she had never fully grasped. Even now, everypony around would have a hard time with this fact.

When she was done crying Volaren pulled away. Holding her chin he looked in her eyes.

“My precious student, you are like a daughter to me. Yet this world’s balance has been corrupted. Evil forces want to tip all the scales into their favor. And they will pillage, rape and murder anypony that stands in their way.”

He let go of her chin yet she still kept eye contact. Speaking softly she said “I know master, Princess Celestia has sent me on many adventures to find something that would be able to stem the tide of evil. Yet for all my work I have found nothing. No artifacts of power that would help.”

At this Volaren let out a loud, humorous laugh. “My sweet daring. You were there when I awoke. I am the Gray paladin. I am awake to restore the balance, and believe me I will.”

Turning towards the direction the kobolds had come from Volaren only had a few final words for this morning.

Redemptions Price

by ferrosxlupus

The Red Dawn