Knights of the Everfree

by Lightning Shaker

Prologue

Knights

of the Everfree

Prologue:

Lightning Shaker grinned as he prepared to storm the gates of the castle; his fair princess was waiting for him inside, guarded by the meanest, nastiest of nasties ever thought up by evil. His armor shone brightly in the darkness of the clouds that surrounded the castle, the occasional lightning strike the only thing that provided any real light aside from the torches dimly lighting the path to the drawbridge. It was locked in its closed position as the evil king of the black dragons sealed himself inside, knowing Lightning was drawing close.

Lightning’s face was grim as he readied his charge, his blue coat dampened by the rain and his white mane sticking to his face. His cutie mark – a flaming sword – shown prominently, the rain not darkening it, for it was his symbol of strength. Lightning Shaker charged the castle, letting out a roar of rage as he flew across the chasm surrounding it. He saw his opening in a window and smashed through it, landing easily on the cold stone floor.

The knightly pony saw he was surrounded by many enemies, monsters and skeletons of ponies – some with wings, some with horns and some Earth ponies. He grinned at let forth a mighty roar which broke apart the skeletons and caused the monsters to shrink back in fear. To Lightning Shaker’s shock, the skeletons reformed, bolstering the courage of the nearby monsters. The skeletons of the unicorn ponies’ horns started to glow with an eerie dark light.

Just as he thought all might be lost, a familiar loud shout erupted from behind the nearest door. The door exploded in a flurry of shrapnel of splintered wood, metal fragments from the hinges, and bits of stone from the walls. The shrapnel flew in to the skeleton ponies and monsters, distracting them and stopping the spells from being cast as they all looked to the door that had been bucked to bits. On the other side stood an Earth pony, Dream Dasher. His red coat and metal armor made him look ominous; especially the helmet that added two horns to the stallion’s head. He now used these horns to charge into the fray attacking the nearest of the unicorn skeletons, laughing the entire time.

Not one to be outdone, Lightning rocketed to the air, attacking the pegasus skeletons flying above. A series of bucks brought down most of the pegasus guards and Lightning quickly moved toward the earth pony skeletons to start clearing them out. Meanwhile, his friend Dream Dasher was alternating between bucking and head butting with his horned helmet. It didn’t take long for the remaining monsters to be cleaned up; the two ponies panting from the exertion, they looked at each other and grinned. The two had been friends for many years and knew how to communicate without words.

The two stallions made their way up the stairs. The princess was close now; all they had to do was beat a dragon. How hard could that be? As they rounded the corner at the top of the stairs. There he was – the biggest, meanest black dragon in the world, his lair filled with the gems and treasures he’d been collecting for centuries. He saw the two ponies and howled in rage. “Stay away” he yelled, breathing fire at the two. Lightning dodged by flying up in the air; the ceiling in the room was quite high, so he had no trouble with this. Dream Dasher charged forward, yelling something about the ‘Pink Ones’, paying no heed to the fire the dragon was breathing at him.

Lightning Shaker and Dream Dasher both attacked the dragon, bucking it with their legs. The dragon tried to fight back, its black claws swinging, its tail whipping and its breath spewing out in great green flames. Eventually, however, the two ponies prevailed in the end, standing over the beaten remains of the great black dragon. Dream Dasher decided to go check out the dragon’s pile of treasures, but all Lightning was interested in was the princess. He couldn’t see her or a cell of any sort but he did see a large curtain. He went to pull it back, when Dream Dasher shouted, “Hey, Lightning!” He looked back at his friend, figuring he must have found something. He flew over to his friend, who smiled at him and shouted, “Lightning Shaker, you up, man?!”

~Lightning opened his eyes to the bright light of a sunny day~

Lightning stirred, looking confused as Dream Dasher shouted for him once again. 'Oh, it was just a dream. Of course.' The young colt roused from his sleeping spot on the cloud, looked down at the earth pony, and sighed. “Man, you just ruined a great dream. What do you want?”

Dream Dasher frowned, his brown eyes narrowing on the pegasus above him. “I just was wondering if you wanted to go into the Everfree forest with me today. I heard there are some ruins that Cloudy saw and I want to explore them! Besides, why dream when we can have the adventure ourselves?”

Lightning sighed again. The irony of what his colt friend said was not lost on him. He flew down off his cloud, doing a quick flyby of the earth pony to stretch his wings before he landed. Lightning laughed as he looked at Dream Dasher, his shaggy mane looked even worse after the wind from his flight messed it up. “Alright, let’s go then. Maybe it’ll be just as cool as my dream.”

“You had an awesome dream? Dream Dasher asked, his eyes brightening with anticipation. “Fill me in on the juicy details."

“Sure. We have a ways to go before we get there anyway.” Lightning Shaker said, grinning.

The two colts gave each other a quick brohoof before starting off to find adventure.

Author's Note:

Edited by Opacare Stellata, I'm diggin' the title

Comments

[Mixer]

I like how this looks without even reading anything