//------------------------------//
// The Heart of the Storm 
// Story: Ages of Darkness 
// by Dracoraun 
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	Not everything was as it is now. Not everything was wrong. Now, however, everything is falling apart. They all died, leaving us to fend for ourselves. Our blood will be spilt for sure, our hearts will bleed for our losses, our hearts will soar for the victories which seem to not exist at times, and come easily at others. My understanding of the situation the ponies have been thrust into is the same for others. All that is known that the word possession is just a term for something that can be taken away. I am just a pegasus. I am not an alicorn, and all the hope we have for another day or another night are the promises and stories of surviving alicorns. I am just a pegasus, I do not have the power an alicorn had. I am only blessed by the lost ones that I have my wings.
The thud of Fleet Hoof's hooves echoed throughout the dark corridor. His Pseudo Herd, or PH, silently crept across this abandoned castle which seemed to, at one point, have been a place of meeting for the race of the alicorn. One of the six in his PH glanced over to him, pushing his blue and yellow mane off of his eyes. His name is Lighthart. His fur is colored the same as the walls, a dark grey, which makes him harder to spot whilst wearing a helmet. This was a recon mission, which meant none of us wore any armor, so his blue hair with a yellow streak stood out. His Cutie Mark stood out as well in contrast to his fur. It was a pole-arm with a green circle around it. He then looked at Fleet Hoof with his wild, light green eyes.
"Did you hear that?" He said
"Hm?" One of the six referred as Shadow Bane, our leader, grunted
"Wait, listen"
All that could be heard was silence
Suddenly, one of the PH members known as Battle Soul eyes lit up and he revealed his wings, with a loud clinking sound and revealed the blades attached to his feathers, and assumed a fighting stance.
"Something's there." Battle Soul said in a low voice
Fleet Hoof reached his hoof over to the blades which was attached to his girdle and slid them over his hoof, so that the blades ran up his entire leg with the bladed side pointing to his hind side, and he slipped on his weighted boots over his hind legs for a heavier kick.
"Hay, Bane, mind tossing me my pole axe?" Lighthart said
Shadow bane nodded and unfolded a weapon  from his bag and tossed it over to lighthart, who caught it in his mouth, and then used his hooves to tie a strap around his torso, and slipped the pole-axe between the strap and his body. The pole end was pointed in front of him almost like a lance, and he reared up, then twisted his mid section in a slight angle and snapped his body forward with a powerful lunge, cutting a marble column clean in two.
"Quit showing off, lighthart" Selene, a unicorn who used powerful time magic, said. Her purple eyes glistened,
"Unless, of course, you want me to freeze you again"
Lighthart flinched, but then tried to cover it up by stamping is right hoof
"Yeah, right. as if I'd let you this time." He stated in his defense
Shadow Bane put his leather bracers around each of his legs, then tested out the hidden knife in all of them, and then said, before putting his bladed bit in his mouth, "Silence you two. We need to get the drop on these creatures."
Phenix, the sixth member of the PH, opened his eyes.
"They approach." He said calmly
Fleet Hoof looked around the gathering hall for any tactical positions. There were three doors, however, one of them was blocked off by rubble. The walls were dark grey, and had columns running up every eight or ten hooves. The room itself was at least one hundred fifty by two hundred hooves. The roof was extremely high, going up to sixty hooves. Fleet Hoof saw, on the roof, that Battle Soul was clinging to there, waiting. Phenix was preparing his spells by the doorways, and Lighthart was standing on a column, tapping his hooves impatiently.
"Are you SURE they're coming?" He said impatiently
"Of course," Fleet Hoof stated "This would be a major waste of time if not"
Fleet Hoof looked over at selene, and into her icy blue eyes which would send shivers down the back of one who did not know her as they did. He then glanced at her Cutie Mark, which was an hourglass intersected by an infinity symbol. His attention sharply shifted to the task at hoof, and he took a position above the first door, thinking that the Shadowed would come from there first. he heard a high-pitched squeal coming from the second door, and he know the death chargers were here. They were nasty creatures with blades attached to long arms, and they stood upright, they also had a sick habit of taking off ponies' heads. Fleet Hoof saw Phenix use his magic, and lit up the doorway with fire right as the Death Chargers came through, burning them to death.
Then, from that moment on, time seemed to slow to Fleet Hoof as he dropped down from his position below the roof with his forelegs sticking in front of me. The back sides of each of his fore legs slide past a Charger, cutting it into thirds and in one smooth motion,  he hit the ground with a loud thud, his hind legs sticking up. In that same motion, before the blood of the Charger could even hit the floor, he turned sharply on his right hoof, then used the motion he had while falling to kick a charger with his hind legs, launching him a good twenty hooves in the air. he quickly took off after it, falling almost all the way onto his back before shooting at a nearly seventy-five degree angle, and he let his right hoof guide the way, as he slashed open the charger while it was still in mid air.
As Fleet Hoof was in mid-air, a Blade, a creature that walked on two legs and wielded a sword, was about to slash at him. he closed his eyes and braced for what was about to come, as he could not slow down my momentum, and he was in reversed position. But instead of the pain he expected, he felt a warm spray of blood on his face. His eyes then shot open, and he saw the end of a pole-arm going clear through the neck of the creature. He landed, then tried to rub the blood off of his fur.
"Okay, lighthart, that's gross" Fleet Hoof grumbled
"You're welcome" He said, then turned and charged at another Blade running through the doorway. Fleet Hoof looked over to his right, and he saw the air around a Charger start to simmer, then completely combust. The charger squealed extremely loudly, then fell down, dead. He  saw Phenix's horn with red energy around it, and he was surrounded by Blades. Then, in a ring around him, fire shot up in a blazing inferno that made the air around it dance. The blades skin was the first to melt off in the extreme heat, and around the wavering edges of the fire, Fleet Hoof could see Phenix's red eyes glisten. A loud roar snapped Fleet Hoof back to attention to my battle and he dodge a sword to his right, then wrapped his front legs around a Blade's throat, cutting it's jugular. He then turned around and bucked it in the face, breaking it's jaw. The blood from its throat then splattered on Fleet Hoof's face, the crimson red contrasting completely from the light-blue color of my fur.
Fleet Hoof was suddenly enveloped in a white magic that washed over him. He could hear his heart, beating louder and louder. The enemies seemed to go slower and slower. He could feel the spirits of the lost ones flow through him. He knew this was Selene's magic, and time was his. One second, Fleet Hoof was at a Blade. The Blade was then without legs. Then, he is at a charger, and in a quick movement, both it's arms were severed. he flew from one enemy to the next, feeling the flow of time slow, watching blood splatter slowly. A second was a minute, an hour was a year, and in after an eternity of killing,  the spell was over. He stood, covered in blood, as four chargers and five blades behind him seemed to fall into pieces.
The screech of a Charger marked it for death. He still felt the call of the lost ones as he blocked it's attempt to kill him and sliced it open in the same movement. His blades bit the flesh of the charger once again and his hind legs broke the legs of one behind him. He would slice into enemies from the sky with his forelegs, and would crush any coming to help with a powerful buck. He could see Battle Soul flying past enemies and cutting them in two with his wings in rapid succession, often leaving a trail of blood sucked by a vacuum caused by his great speed, creating a blood trail to follow him. Shadow Bane bucked an enemy in the face, revealing his hidden blades on his hind legs, stabbing into each eye of a Blade with extreme force. With the blades on his hind legs embedded into the skull of the Blade, he would then stamp his hooves down on top of it's face, exploding it's skull. He used the bladed bit in his mouth to cut the throat of a Charger in suit to help the fallen Blade.Then Phenix launched a steady stream of fire from his horn with as much heat to even melt the walls behind it, completely incinerating any enemy in the way. Selene would move faster then she could be hit, and slow down enemies a great amount. Using the great advantage provided by this, she would use a majestic dagger held in her mouth to cut the throats of the enemies in blurs, where in reality she probably wasn't using more energy then as to trot across the room. The screeches of dying chargers and the shouts of wounded blades echoed throughout the corridors.
As quickly as it began, it was over.  The floor was dyed a crimson color from the spilt blood, and the smell of singed flesh wafted strong. Fleet Hoof stood there, his mane splattered with blood. His yellow eyes burned with the flames of battle. His blue fur on his legs were soaked with blood, none of it was his own. He looked for the other members of his PH, and they were all still recuperating from the aftershocks of the battle, but nopony was hurt.
"We're just lucky there wasn't a giga-" Lighthart started, and before he could finish, one of the walls crashed down, revealing the eyes of a monstrosity that no PH ever wishes to face. A Giga Shade, a dragon of evil and darkness. The rest of the PH were preparing for combat, And Fleet Hoof set his shoulder, in preparation to attack. They could not beat this particular enemy, and they knew it, but they had only needed to hold out for a little while.
Right before the members of the PH charged, a strong quake reverberated from the ground below them , knocking Fleet Hoof off his hooves. He felt the ground begin to crack, and he could hear Shadow Bane shouting something off to his left, but Fleet Hoof could not make it out. Suddenly, the ground below them collapsed completely, and they found ourselves falling. His wings snapped open, and he attempted to fly, but as he started to fly, a large rock appeared right above him and Battle Soul, hitting Battle Soul entirely and damaging Fleet Hoof's right wing. His wing was not going working after that. He was spiraling out of control, attempting to regain control, but the next thing that he would remember was a flash of a ledge in front of him, and then darkness.