//------------------------------//
// Punishment 
// Story: Outlaws of Alacann 
// by QTXAdsy 
//------------------------------//


Chapter 1


Punishment


The dark cold waters of the ocean crashed against the rocks of the Alaccan shoreline that cold night. The nights themselves had been more colder than normal and it’s was nearly into the months of Spring, however, the cold nights were in fact the best way of describing the mood of the population of Alaccan. It had been many months now since the Alaccans faced the might of the now well-known Red Hooves of Celestia, Princess Celestia’s secret service built for warfare and the protection of Equestria and the provenance state of Farachan, the state for whom the Red Hooves were fighting for it’s territory dispute. To many neutrals during this war, the Red Hooves’ fighting skills seemed to match them alongside the likes of gods; they were unlike anything the world had seen before.

The last time the two sides faced each other; the Red Hooves had routed the Alaccans to point that the Alaccan population were so traumatized by it that they could’ve been shocked into surrender had it not been for their tyrant leader’s sheer strong force of will, Lord Ares. 

In the Alaccan capital city of Astu, the tyrant himself watched the waves crashing against the rocks and pondering his next attack. Ares was a green unicorn stallion in his early thirties and surprisingly quite young to be a leader of a country. His horn was sharper than that of normal unicorns (almost like a sword in many ways), many of his people believed it to be the amount of times he’d been exposing himself to magic. The tip of his muzzle was that of a jet-black colour that blended itself on to his dark green fur, as well as having matching black hooves. His mane and tail were both quite bushy in appearance and was mostly light orange with some streaks of white in them. He also had a neatly trimmed moustache that matched with a small goatee that hung under his chin. His eyes were that of a strange bright red that whenever he felt angered by something, many could swear that they’d seem to glow. Finally, for his cutie mark, his was that of a purple shield with two swords crossed over, his skill with the power to commander his people.

For what seemed like a lifetime, Ares sat on his chair staring down on the crashing waves below his palace. He knew that his current commanders for the Alaccan army had been useless in his eyes. Even though the rest of the world seemed amazed by how strong the Red Hooves were, Ares knew that Celestia’s warriors were nothing more than a bunch of young adults whom had barely reached adulthood with several elder stallions within their ranks. The tyrant was totally convinced that had it not been for his commanding officers then it would’ve been quite likely that this war would be over and Farachan would be part of Alaccan. 

On the first battle they faced with Celestia’s stallions in red, his army had been defeated in large numbers that seemed so terrible to anyone, but for him, it was so unexpected of the loss that he couldn’t help but smile at the ludicrously of their loss.

The one victory they seem to have was quite clearly a fluke in his eyes, and that had been his request too for them! And they had been so close to capturing Coltfast, only for the Red Hooves to destroy their forces with only twenty miles to go. For Ares, that loss was the finally straw; he had had enough with those commanders, and was preparing for their punishment service at dawn. 

Even though it was only twenty minutes to six in the morning, he felt determined to chastise those commanders to the point were he couldn’t sleep. Commanders? To him, calling them that seem to pain him, they were more like clowns that acting as his blades of war. 

Just then, a knock came at the door. Ares was broken out of his thoughts and turned round to look at the door.

“Come in,” He said in his comforting yet uneasy voice.

The door slowly opened to reveal a young twenty something like Earth pony stallion, one of his servants, who gave his a salute to greet him.

“My lord,” he began. “The crowds are already starting to gather along with the army, should we tell them to leave until then?”

The tyrant didn’t say anything and remained expressionless for a while. Then he smiled and walked over to the young nervous stallion. “No dear boy,” he replied calmly. “We can see that everyone else couldn’t wait to see this moment, all our failures is purely all on them…for what was suppose to be a quick and painless war has been dragged on for far too long…and now they must pay the consequences for their actions.” 

“But sir,” the servant duly replied. “I’m scarred that we’ll lose this war…what will happen to us if they win and when Celestia decides to punish us all?”

Even though Ares may have seemed as a ruthless person who’d sacrifice anything to win the war, he had a massive love for his people from the likes of the poor, the rich and his servants. He placed a comforting hoof on the young stallion’s shoulder. “Do not fear young colt. We will win this war. I already have two new commanders that even though they have only just made it into those ranks, they are far better than those gutless bastards.” 

A small smile crept onto the young stallion’s lips. “Thank you…let’s win this.” 

The tyrant smiled and nodded. “Good. Now would you please tell the crowds that have already arrived to remain…it seems that we have to bring forward the ceremony to be a bit earlier.” 

“Yes lord,” And the young stallion quickly left Ares and hurried on down the corridor. 

Ares looked back out the window once more, soon it would be dawn and the ill-fated commanders would all face their castigation. Ah yes, today was going to be one that Ares was going to enjoy very much.


XXX


The palace gardens was cramped full of Alaccan citizens, all of which waiting to see what their leader had in store for the commanders. Many of the Alaccan army kept many of the citizens back from the centre of the gardens, which was to be the location of where the events would be taken place, as in tradition of other similar proceedings from years gone by. 

As the sun rose further into the sky and brought more light out on the world, the public waited impertinently for Lord Ares to arrive, many chanting his name and cursing the commanders who had yet to turn up. 

After what felt like ten minutes to many, the trumpets sounded and a servant of Ares, a Pegasus stallion, hovered above the air with a scroll in his hooves. Quickly, everypony looked up at the Pegasus. 

“Here, here!” Cried the Pegasus stallion. “All welcome our lord of Alaccan…Lord Ares!”

The trumpets’ song was overwhelmed by the sound of the cheers and cries of the crowd as they greeted their leader. Walking down a long purple carpet with guards on either side keeping the excited crowd back, Ares calmly walked, dressed in his royal purple armour with his sword by his side. 

Even as he reached the centre of the garden, the crowd kept cheering for him non-stop, eventually though, Ares raised his hoof to silence the public. Ah yes, Ares had his people all wrapped round his hoof; they’d do almost anything for him. 

“Thank you, thank you all for coming mares and gentlecolts,” Ares greeted them. “As we all know, our fortunes in this war have been in our favour and many great soldiers all have been lost to them…” He growled slightly on that last word as he could see the ponies all around him looking depressed over what Ares had been saying. 

Ares then smiled. “Alas my friends…from this day forward, our luck will change for I have already brought in new commanders for our army and with their help, we shall win more battles and this war!”

A roar of approval could be heard from all around, Ares knew they need something cheer about. “But!” He cried out to silence them. “But you may ask yourselves…who was to blame for our losses…The Red Hooves, Celestia or perhaps something unknown? No, blame those commanders of ours. Their useless tactics has seen many brave stallions all die at the hooves of those damn Red Hooves. Now they face their punishment.” 

He paused and looked back at the purple carpet to the large open doors. “Bring forth the prisoners!” 

At first their was silence, then two Alaccan guards led out four stallions out in chains, all with their ranks of their muddy army stripped from them, these were the ex-commanders. 

Then suddenly the crowd jeered at them and started throwing rotten fruit and vegetables at them. There was no way out for them and their fate lay within Ares’ hooves. Soon as they made it to the centre of the gardens and being forced to bow to Ares, the jeering and rotten fruit being thrown was stopped. For a while, all was silent as the four commanders kneeled there nervously all awaiting their fate. They’d rather die on a battlefield rather than be here. 

“So…” Ares began, his tone now icy that made the commanders all the more terrified of what was to happen next. “I simply don’t know where to start. I order for this war to be over within a few days…NOT A FEW MONTHS AND US ON THE RUN FROM THEM!!!”

His sudden outburst made many in the audience, especially the four commanders all shaking like crazy, to jump back in fright. “With that, the blood of many of the fallen troops’ families is on your hooves…” Ares then looked over to a pack of twenty guards standing nearby. He nodded at them to come closer before casting his gazed down at the shamed stallions. “As you know, in the event of the most horrendous crime to our nation, I would order you to be sentence the island of Dunall, where you shall be left to die in shame.” 

The four commanders all knew exactly what Dunall was...the nightmare of Alaccan. Dunall was in fact a small rocky island about the size of a small street just forty miles of the southern coast of Alaccan, an island with no vegetation, no shade, no beaches. Just…nothing. The worst sentence that a citizen of Alaccan could face was being sent out there, where with only just one bottle of water, they’d be left to die slowly from starvation.

Ares then kept a smirk on his face as he glanced over to several of the guards standing nearby and motioned for four of them of come over. “However, despite this being such a crime against our people,” Ares continued now looking down at the fearful commanders, “I have made an exception…you will not be going to Dunall.”

Many members of the audience gasped at this, even many of the emotionless soldiers were stunned at what their leader had said. The commanders on the other hoof looked at each other in amazement, a mixture of relief and fear was felt between them. The fact they weren’t going to Dunall despite the odds, but what was it that Lord Ares had instead for them? 

The green unicorn leader held his dangerous smile as he scanned them. “Your failure to even win, no, even take down a single Red Hoof was utterly laughable that you don’t even deserve to go to those rocks. I have this idea in mind for you instead…” 

He paused as he looked over to the four soldiers standing nearby awaiting their orders. “Please step forward now,” he ordered as the small quadruple squad moved to stand in front of each of the terrified commanders. “Draw swords and the flats beat them to death!”

And with that, the soldiers followed their instructions and began thrashing the screaming commanders relentlessly. The sound of bones crunching and fainting screams of the now dying commanders was all music to Ares’ ears, as the audience could only watch in stunned silence, all of which never thought they’d be seeing this. The screams of death seem to last for about two minutes before the screams became silent, and bodies, limp. 

They were gone.

There lying in pools of their own blood that stained the paving floor, the four commanders’ bodies had been so brutally beaten that it was nearly impossible to tell if they were even ponies. 

However, the tyrant himself only smiled at the sight before him. There in that bloody shambles, army and his people all soon realised how much Ares meant to win this war. The war was far from over…the tides of war, were about to change.