Enlisted

by The_Last_Centurion

Chapter 1

This story is a fan-fiction of MLP:FiM. I don't own any of it. It belongs to Hasbro, etc, etc.
Don't sue. Seriously. That would be so uncouth.

Chapter 1

Today, I am dying.

I look up to the dark, stormy sky, feeling the numbness spread through my body from my lower extremities as I see a flaming contrail blaze through the night sky. I feel a mix of tears and pain and so, so much lost effort as I strain to keep the mountain of Canterlot in place. I can feel the stone claiming my body as my magic works on the mountain, bounding it to the earth once again, just as it is doing to my being. I hear a whisper-Butterscotch’s cry-and I am pulled back to reality by an angry scream from Dagger. I hear Grey howl and feel the earth shake from one of Nova’s magical blasts. I let one last tear mix with the rain before I start to feel the stone creeping up to my face.

I know this is the end.

Yet, no story can start at the end.

This one starts months earlier, neigh, years earlier. In fact, it started before I was born. But this is my story…

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“Mr. Steelhooves! GET OUT OF MY CLASSROOM NOW!” screamed the angry teacher as I gave her sinister smile and got up, gently smacking her with my tail as I passed by, eliciting a snicker from the rest of the class.

“HOW DARE YOU!” she screamed, her horn igniting and sending ripples of magical power into the air. “JUST BECAUSE YOU…”

“Shut up, would you?” I cut her off, flashing my magic-won’t-save-you glare, her horn loosing illumination. “I’m leaving and you know better than to point that thing in my direction.” I said pointing to her horn. “We both know who would win in a duel.” I shook my head and left the room in scared silence, knowing that the whole room knew who they were bucking with:

Alder Branch Steelhooves, strongest *junior* Earth Mage in all of Equestria and part of the family that owned the Ponyville Academy of Alternate Magicks, the school that I currently resided in; the school that just had one of its professors kick me out of her class. I laughed, thinking about how the teacher, a Dr. Burst, PhD in transmodial magic and avid hater of my in-class antics, would squirm later today, thinking over what she had done.

As I walked down the hall and into the main corridor of the Academy’s unicorn magic wing, I stopped by a marble pillar. I tapped on the pillar with a hoof and my magic opened up a small crevice that held a pack of cigarettes. I grabbed one in my mouth, closed the crevice again, and then went over to one of the many magician’s lights (a floating fireball that would illuminate only) and I put the cigarette in, focusing all of my magic on the tip, making the illumination magic react and light my smoke. I smiled as I walked away puffing on my cigarette, knowing today started pretty nicely.

First, I had woken up late, missing two classes. Then I went and ate breakfast in Ponyville square at my favorite, and oldest restaurant in all of Ponyville, Sugarcube Corner. After that, I took a walk around Ponyville pond, and then walked in on Dr. Burst’s class late. I stayed in the class for about ten minutes (a new record, I believe) and then got kicked out. This left plenty of time for me to do whatever I wanted. However, as I walked out of the hall and into the center of the Academy, I felt a small twinge of regret.

The center of the Academy is a large, open courtyard that has a fountain in the middle dedicated to unity of all species and forms of magic, as was the motto of the school. However, at the forefront stood my ancestors and founders of the Academy, Crimson Moon Steelhooves and Twilight Sparkle Steelhooves. I remembered countless talks from my parents, my dad an ambassador and my mother the mayor of Las Pegasas, about how my actions marred what my ancestors fought, lived, and believed in. It definitely didn’t help that my ancestors were just as famous as my parents, Crimson Moon being the General of the Lunar Battalion (Princess Luna’s personal guard) and Twilight Sparkle being Princess Celestia’s person student, turned Princess.

Yet, my twinge of regret turned to bitterness as I walked toward the fountain. “Buck them all.” I said under my breath, taking a deep drag on my cigarette, blowing smoke out at the fountain, pissed that the smoke would do nothing to it, just like all my attempts to please my family. That was part of the reason they sent me here.

Traditionally, everypony in my family went to school here and then went on to do great things like become an ambassador or a mayor, or a bucking General. But not me. But that was cool by me, because everypony in my family knew one simple and brutal fact: I was the family’s black sheep, but I was also the strongest in the family. My magic, core earth pony magic with some control over the other elements, was the purest and most powerful of all my family members, even my unicorn and pegasi cousins that were in the military. But the best part about me knowing this was that I knew that they knew. More importantly, I knew they were jealous, and I loved it when they knew I wouldn’t be doing a damn thing for them, like following what the family did traditionally. I smirked and walked away from the school, towards the only place I ever really called home.

The ancient library/tree house had stood in Ponyville ever since the happy little town was founded, but it became more than that as Twilight Sparkle had made it her home so many generations ago. Eventually, my ancestors had grown it outwards, making it bigger as it became the original Academy. However, the Princesses both were keeping an interested eye on the Academy and soon it had funding and became the large schooling complex that I had just left. The library was on the outskirts of the Academy, but it still served Ponyville as their day to day library. I opened up the back door and went in, feeling better already.

“What’s up?” I heard a voice call from the library desk as I entered through the back door and into the kitchen, which in turn connected into the main library.

“Just got kicked out of class again, Dagger.” I answered back to my dragon friend, and also apprentice of the great Spike, Emissary of Equestria to the Dragon Mountains. He had been my best friend since, well, forever. He grew up with me and was more of a family to me than my real one was.

“Seriously?” I heard him say with a sigh as I heard his distinct claw-steps. “You’ve really got to work on that attitude.” He said, entering the kitchen.

Dagger was smaller than me by a head, and his dull-white scales seemed to shine while his ice-blue eyes glared at me from behind a pair of spectacles. Dagger was many years older than I was, but was considered just out of adolescent in Dragon-age. He was my bigger brother, and still is, even if he was smaller than me most of the time. Yet, this was just so he could fit into most pony-dwellings. If he let himself change into the size he should have been, he would have destroyed the library.

“Why?” I asked him bitterly. “Why should I change anything about myself? Both the professors and I know I am stronger and smarter than them. Not one of them has even been able to come relatively close to me in a duel.”

Dagger sighed and massaged the bridge of his nose, his icy blue spines drooping over his face, making him look like a Neighpon-ese manga character. “You know Al, one day you will meet somepony stronger than you. Then you won’t be able to just rely on your affinity with magic and your stubborn smarts.” He said as he glared at me, fatherly.

“Someday, you’re going to need something more than the magic you know.”

“Oh yeah?” I answered testily. “And what magic would that be?”

“The magic of Friendship.” Dagger said seriously.

I just laughed and went through the library to the stairs, leaving Dagger sighing downstairs. Little did I know, that his words would become the truth not in a not too distant future.

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Miles away, in a small town, or more aptly a village, something sinister was going on. This village, Rain Scar, was nestled in the foothills of the Macintosh Hills and currently was sound asleep. Its villagers, most miners or metallurgists and few of the unicorn or pegasi race, were plumb tuckered out after a day of hard work, as was the norm. But tonight, tonight something was wrong.

Princess Luna, Queen of the Night, Raiser of the Moon, Sister of Princess Celestia, and Goddess of the Dreaming, spread her wings and flew through the sleeping ponies’ consciences, feeling an uneasiness she had never felt. For some strange reason, this village was in peril. She could feel each and every pony’s consciousness, but she could not enter them or give them dreams as she normally could. With her immense magical powers, she tried to enter each mind, but to no avail. She found each one locked off with a strong and dark shield, one that the sleeping ponies below were not mindful of. Yet, Luna started to panic. This could only be the doings of another pony, but one that had enough magic to resist the powerful barrage presented by one of the Princesses?

To find out what was going on, she knew what she must do. She must send out the Lunar Battalion…

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Puck Unit spread out across the dark, hilly ground and shared some silent hoof gestures between flashes of lighting and claps of thunder. Captain Butterscotch snarled at the stormy skies, wondering if Nova and Sunburst are alright, and Grey whispers carnivorously in her ear.

“Third house on the right.” His voice says, barely a whisper, his fangs making more noise than his voice. “Scroll thought he saw some light come from there. And Midas says this is definitely unicorn magic.”

“Good job.” Butterscotch whispers back with an appreciative nod. “Tell them to take point and put up a strong shield. We don’t know what this unicorn is capable of…” she said, still in disbelief of what Princess Luna told them.

Around one in the morning, each member of Puck Unit was visited by a haggard Princess Luna in their dreams. She quickly told them of what was happening in Rain Scar and that she needed her battalion to go and take care of this for her. Not only was she stopped from the Dreaming, which meant the unicorn must have been awake and doing this purposely, but she also needed to keep the Dreaming in balance, which she could not do if her magic was not focused. Therefore, Captain Butterscotch (an earth pony, one of the strongest and smartest to come out of the Lunar University), her Lieutenant, Grey Tail (a timberwolf of the northern tribes), and the other eight members of Puck Unit had to quickly and quietly teleport all the way from Canterlot to the Macintosh Hills minutes after they awoke and were dressed for a mission. Luckily, Princess Luna helped in the teleporting aspect, leaving the Unit’s three unicorns fresh to use magic at their will.

The Unit snuck up the street on their Captain’s order, holding at the door of the third house, indeed seeing an eerie purple light emanating from behind the shutters of its windows. Butterscotch nodded to her earth mage, Scroll, and her Identification mage, Midas, and they opened the door, their magical shield and earthen shield ready to deflect any attacking magic. However, none came. They started to go into the house, but the hairs on the back of Butterscotch’s neck rose, she instinctively stepped back and screamed out to the rest of her unit.

“GET BACK!” she yelled, her soldiers jumping back, as a wall of purple magic blasted out of the doorway, setting the doorframe aflame. Butterscotch sighed as she saw everypony alright, all eight of them…Her eyes shot back to the doorway and she saw the charred shadows of Scroll and Midas blasted into the ground, her body numbing as she realized they had reacted too late.

However, her lieutenant scared off her numbness as he snarled and ran into the house in anger at the loss of his friends.

“Grey!” she called to him, panicking and looking over at the rest of her assembled Unit. “IN THE HOUSE! LET’S GO!” she screamed as she ran in.

The small doorway barely accommodated all of them, but as soon as they entered the purple-lit house, they easily fit, for the house was millions of times larger on the inside. Somehow, its volume and space had been distorted by the eerie magic being performed on the inside. In fact, the house was so large on the inside, that it housed a myriad of biomes, the Unit entering into a large forested area, but following Grey’s tracks across a tundra, a beach, a grassland, two hills, and up a mountain which was bright with purple energy at the top. The tired team wearily made it to the summit, only to find Grey staring at a young, scared-looking unicorn. Grey was immobile and his eyes shined with the same eerie purple light that the whole house did.

“Who are you? I am the Mountain King.” The unicorn said quickly, his frizzy and unkempt red mane twitching as he spoke quickly.

Butterscotch took one look at his purple mane, blue coat, and his cracked eyes, one black, one white, and both with deep purple irises, just like the color of the magic. She quickly realized that this unicorn was not only very powerful, but also very crazy.

“My name is Butterscotch, Captain of Puck Unit…” she started softly, trying to calm the crazed unicorn.

“Ha!” he laughed. “That sounds like ‘buck!’”

“Heh, yeah, it does.” Butterscotch said easingly. “Now what’s your name?”

“I said my name was Mountain King.” He said with a snarl, his voice being enhanced and echoed by the powerful magic he was producing.

“Oh, sorry.” Butterscotch said quickly, a drop of sweat running down her face as the magic ebbed back. “Are you ok, Mountain King?”

He smiled and sighed. “Isn’t this lovely? So much better than that other world.”

“What do you mean?” Butterscotch asked, her eyes narrowing.

“We’re all in your minds. This is the world I’ve created and I want to share it with everypony…” he said as magic started to pulse faster and faster out of his body.

Butterscotch frowned and took action. She charged at the young unicorn and tackled him, sending him to the ground and watching as Grey fell down similarly, the purple glow dimming from his eyes. However, Butterscotch had too much on her own hooves to see if her teammate was alright. Even though he had been tackled, the Mountain King emitted more and more magic, Butterscotch realizing that he was charging up to teleport away.

“HE’S TRYING TO TELEPORT! LOCK ON HIM!” she screamed over the magical static, alerting the remaining unicorns and a groggy Grey to location lock onto the Mountain King. It was too late to stop him from teleporting, but they could still follow him and take him down wherever he landed.

Or so Butterscotch hoped…