Chapter 2: A New Dawn
Twilight paced anxiously around her library as she waited for the return letter from the princess.
“Twilight, you’re gonna wear a hole into the floor if you keep up this—” A gust of fire carrying a scroll interrupted the tiny dragon. Spike grabbed the letter between coughs and handed it to Twilight. “I hate this system, you know?”
“I know, Spike, but it is the fastest way for communication between myself and the Princesses.” Twilight opened the letter.
Dear Twilight Sparkle. A contingent of Royal Guard are en route to Ponyville. The Captain will brief you on the coming assignment. I want you to have the Elements of Harmony ready for action, just in case. Best of luck, Princess Celestia of Equestria.
Twilight looked out to the rising sun. “If the Princesses received the letter and acted upon it immediately, which I know they would have, then that means that the Guard would have been readied one hour after words... on a seven hour flight from Canterlot... That means that I only have thirty minutes to gather the other Elements!” Twilight, noticing the time, decided she needed to find Rainbow Dash and get her help.
“Spike, watch the library!” Twilight yelled as she galloped out the front door, leaving a bewildered Spike to ponder just what was going through that mares head. Seeing as she had the time while she galloped to her cyan friends cloud home, she decided to do some more math. Rainbow lives four minutes away from the library. If I can get to Rainbow Dash, she can fly to Sweet Apple Acres and get Aj while I get Pinkie Pie. She lives seven minutes away from the library. So if I—
Twilight pulled up short, staring at the empty space ahead where Rainbow’s house had been floating yesterday afternoon. “Oh no...oh no no no, tell me she didn’t move it again…” She glanced around frantically, then spied a white tuft peeking out from behind the edge of a nearby house. Her fore legs trembled as she bounded forward again, the relief flooding her system.
A cyan blurr came into Twilight’s vision and by the time she noticed, she was already participating in a jumble of hooves that Rainbow Dash had created.
“Twilight, watch where you’re going. Some of us have to practice for the Wonderbolts.”
“No time for practice, Rainbow! Princess Celestia needs us to gather the Elements. Go get Applejack while I... Oh no. I didn’t finish the calculations!” Twilight began to feel sweat beading on her brow.
“Twilight, what are you worrying about now? It can’t be that important.” Rainbow’s reply was blunt and like always, drew a confused glance out of Twilight.
“Not important?” Twilight could feel her voice rising. “If I don’t map out the fastest route to each of our friends’ homes, we won’t be making the most efficient use of the time we need to prepare for the—” Rainbow’s hoof stopped Twilight’s ranting.
“Twilight, I’ll just go get Applejack and Fluttershy, because they live the furthest away, then you can get Pinkie Pie and Rarity. Easy as that.” Rainbow slowly removed her hoof from Twilight’s muzzle and the purple coated mare took a deep breath.
“Wow, Rainbow. I guess we could do that.” Twilight exhaled and looked back to her friend, a new passion for the quest filling her eyes. “Go get AJ and Fluttershy, then meet me at the library.”
“You got it Twi.”
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Captain Golden Sword led his flight team through the clouds surrounding Ponyville. Gather forces, check. Equip arms and armour, check. Fly to Ponyville, check. Meet Twilight Sparkle. Maybe I can get one of my subordinates to do it. He quickly cut his train of thought before he decided someone else should do his job for him. Meet Twilight Sparkle, deal with whatever it is she’s complaining about, go home, get dinner. Sounds like a good day to me.
The library was in sight now, so Captain Sword gave the signal for his platoon to start their descent to the ground. Captain Sword noted that not a single pony was in the main roundabout. He trotted to the door, listening to the muffled sounds of his iron shoes on the Ponyville dirt, enjoying the silence. All good things need to end...
The Captain raised his fore hoof to knock on the door, closing his eyes to prepare himself for a meeting he did not want to partake in. He moved his hoof forward, and kept going forward, until he fell flat on his face, a pink pony waiting where the door was moments ago. But... The door. I didn’t even hear it op—
Sniggering from Sub-Lieutenant Midnight Arrow stopped his train of thought. “Lieutenant. I know I don’t hear you laughing.” The rumbling of Sword’s voice caused Sub-Lieutenant Arrow’s mouth to shut instantly as the Captain stood up. “Now then, Where is Twiligh—”
The Captain was cut off this time by a diminutive green and purple dragon. “Twilight’s upstairs. I’ll go get her.” The dragon’s tone clearly portrayed his boredom.
Don’t prostrate the little bugger. He’s just a kid.
“Alright,” Twilight’s voice stopped his further thoughts. “if everypony could just have a seat around the table.” Captain Sword sat at the seat Twilight had motioned to. “I believe the good Captain here has some news for us.” Twilight's scowl betrayed her happy tone.
“Right. Yesterday it was reported by Twilight Spark—”
“I saw some unnatural weather phenomena.” Captain Sword could feel his scowl growing.
“Thank you, Miss Sparkle. Now, as I was saying, The Princesses have called us here—”
Rainbow was the first to interrupt this time. “Wait a minute, buddy, who’s ‘us’?”
Captain Gold waited for someone else to point out the obvious, but when nopony did, he started again. “I meant the oth—”
Pinkie’s voice was added to the fray in her usual jovial manner. “He means the other guards silly! Oh, I’m sorry, did I interrupt you?”
Sword’s eye twitched. As he opened his mouth again to speak, he held his breath, waiting. For two seconds he sat there, mouth askew, waiting for somepony to say something. When none rose to the challenge, he exhaled, readying his speech. “The Princesses have ordered me to escort you all to the location of th—”
“Wait, that’s what the Princess wanted the Elements for? To go into the Everfree Forest?” Fluttershy’s meek voice stopped the captain again. “But... there are scary things in the forest... like dragons... and shadows!”
The Captain did a double take. Did she really just say ‘shadows’? “Um... Yes. We will be going to the Everfree. Yes, you will be under guard, Yes, we will investigate things, No there will be no party.” Before the pink pony could inhale enough air for a retort, the Captain had continued. “You will all follow us, without talking, or asking questions, or any general shenanigans. Let’s go.”
Pinkie leaned to Dash, “Wow, what a big bully. He totally interrupted me.”
Golden Sword gritted his teeth as he rose. Oh how I hate this aspect of my job.
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Taylor and Gruebel stood watch outside the makeshift tent area, Taylor watching the bodies, Gruebel watching the forest. Stivers and Gallivan were asleep inside the tent with Thompson, and were sleeping like babies because of their combat experience. Gallivan could not only see, but feel the eyes of hungry predators lurking in the forest, watching his every move. Waiting.
Thompson was sleeping inside the makeshift shelter so he had nothing to fear. Taylor and Gruebel, however, did not handle it as well. Sure Taylor was a vet with over 3000 flying hours under his belt, but he had never been shot down, never had to survive the smell of cooked, dead flesh. It was only because of his experience and training did he manage to not shoot anything that moved. The same thing could not be said for Gruebel. More than once he let loose a shot of in the direction of a howl or the angry glare of the forest’s eyes.
Taylor sat down near the startled Private, “Listen here son, I know that you have never seen active duty before. I’ve never been on the ground behind enemy lines before, so this is as new to me as it is you, but you gotta keep a cool head out here otherwise you won’t survive. You can’t keep shooting at anything that moves for two reasons, one being that gunfire is loud and every time you fire, you not only give away our position, you scare the piss out of me.” He followed the last comment up with a half-hearted smile.
Gruebel looked at his flight leader with tired eyes, “And the other reason, Sir?”
“I’m something that moves,” Taylor held the smirk.
The young trainee pilot stared at his flight leader for a moment before managing a small smile of his own. “Yes Sir, sorry Sir.”
“It’s alright son, now holster that pistol. You're still making me nervous waving that thing around. Save your ammo, you never know when you’ll need it. I just wish we could see past those clouds though. You know, its strange. There are no clouds off that way,” Taylor pointed off to the left towards the moon, “but above us and towards the right, it's thicker than chowder.” Gruebel nodded dumbly, his face scrunched in thought.
“Why haven’t 81 and 3 come back for us Sir?”
“Good question Gruebel. I assume that they don’t want to be hit by flak, but judging by the lack of anything hostile in the area, I seriously doubt that we are in hostile territory. And besides, those explosions did not look like flak.” Taylor looked to the tent where Stivers was asleep. “Maybe 81 and 3 hit the mountain?”
Gruebel’s face adopted a look of solum acceptance as he thought about his fellow marines aboard FT-81. “I hope they made it.”
“You were in the Reserves, right Gruebel?”
“Yah. Wanted to join the war like my dad, but I was too young. Jumped at the first chance I got though.” Gruebel said, looking to the ground.
Noticing the turn of conversation, Taylor decided to steer the conversation to a more recent time. “So, if you’re a Marine, why are you in the air with us flyboys?” Gruebel’s face regained some of its cheer at the topic shift, making Taylor smile inwardly.
“Well, we were all part of a cross field training initiative. You know, find out if any of us were talented at flying. I mostly just operated the radio... It’s what I did in the Marines too.”
“Huh.” Taylor placed his hand on the back of the aspiring pilot. “This your first real flight?” Gruebel’s gaze returned to the ground, giving Taylor his answer. “Well, looks like we did a bang up job on this one, huh?”
“Sir, I’m not sure if—” Gruebel was interrupted by the sound of an approaching growl coming from a nearby bush.
Taylor had a baffled look on his face as he turned to face the creature. “Dear. Sweet. God. What is that?”
A/N First off, Thank you all for your continued support. And a huge thanks to The three people who answered the call in the first 30 minutes.
Special thanks to:
Disciple4323
The IrishBrony http://www.fimfiction.net/user/theirishbrony
and Dave Morris http://www.fimfiction.net/user/DMoFL71
These three people encouraged me to write this chapter for you guys. So here it is. My apology.
I no longer need your emails everybody. Thank you.
Enjoy
—GoldenArbiter