Tales of the Battle Foals

by Sirdubya

Moving Forward

Shadow Shroud would have simply donned her disguise dress, but it was getting dark enough to where she was comfortable sneaking around in her cloak. As she jumped and snuck between patches of darkness, Shroud observed the activities of the city. She occasionally peered through windows and listened through walls of houses for any possible disputes between foals and their parents that would warrant the attention of her and her comrades. Foals that still had yet to go home were also observed from afar. During that time, Shadow Shroud searched for a suitable store to purchase the water bottles she’d promised. So far, nothing. As with any place they’d been, the worst that she observed was generic stuff such as cleaning their rooms, missing absent parents, discipline, and so on. Nothing she saw or heard particularly grabbed her attention…..except one little thing.

While atop a building, Shadow Shroud observed two mares standing in front of a house on a street that looked as though it had been memorialized. They stood there as though they were offering a prayer to it. Interested, Shadow Shroud jumped down into an adjacent alleyway, flipped into her dress, and trotted towards the house. Bouquets were arranged very elegantly around two pictures. One was a picture of a mare, and the other depicted a stallion. In between the pictures was a little doll just big enough for a toddler sitting there as if to wait for a little foal to play with it. It’s beady eyes yearned for the innocent love of a child.

“Excuse me? What is this place?” Shadow Shroud asked the mares, putting on her sweet filly persona.

The mares glanced over at her in surprise. They didn’t expect to see her there. “You don’t know, darling? Well…..this did happen quite a few years ago; you probably wouldn’t remember.” One of them said.

“There was a little family that lived here about 7 or 8 years ago. They never left their house much or really talked to anypony, but one day, they just seemed to vanish. They didn’t come out of their house at all. The next day, the same thing happened. We all got kind of worried, so we had the police go into their house after they couldn’t get them to answer the door, and they just found murdered!” the other explained.

This caught Shadow Shroud off guard. “Murdered!?” she said.

“I’m afraid so. What’s worse was that they found a room that belonged to an apparent daughter that they had that we never knew about, but there was no trace of the filly herself. No trace of the killer was found either! He or she could still be out there!”

“That doll was sitting on the filly’s bed all tattered and not completely sewn, so we assumed that it was her favorite toy. Based on the other kinds of toys she had and the children’s books, she must have been no older than…..oh 3 or 4, I’d imagine.”

“And she was just…..gone? No trace whatsoever?” Shroud asked. The mares shook their heads. “Oh dear…..Well, I should be getting home. Thanks for the….story.”

One of the mares creased a little smile. “Goodnight, sweetie.” She said. The two went back to paying their respects as Shadow Shroud walked off.

Just down the street, she spotted a little convenience store. She trotted over, and went in to purchase the water bottles. She found a little six-pack of bottles that was at a discounted price of 4 bits, so she bought that instead. She used the last bit that she had leftover to buy a small pack of wheat jerky- a good little snack for a long trip for the team to share. The clerk thought nothing of her as she went about her business, and left. Once she determined that the coast was clear, she quietly leapt into a dark to reassume her cloak. Before she could however, she was suddenly grabbed from behind with somepony’s arm covering her mouth!

“Ya picked a bad night to go on a stroll, little girl!” a stallion growled. She looked behind her to see that it was indeed a stallion trying to mug her. Thinking quickly, Shadow Shroud bit into his arm that covered her mouth quite forcefully. “Nrgh! Why you little…..you just made worse for yourself!” He pulled knife with his free hoof! Shroud continued to bite down as she detracted one of her wristblades, lowered her arm, and thrust it up into the stallion’s grabbing arm. The blade pierced all the way through his arm as it came out the other side. “AAH!” the stallion tried not to scream too loudly so as to not draw attention to himself despite his agony. He let go of Shadow Shroud and dropped his knife from the sudden spike of pain.

Shroud managed to avoid getting his blood on her dress as she slipped away from him, quickly retracting her blade so that he didn’t see it. She turned around, and glared at him as he clutched his gushing hoof. “You picked a bad time to cross me!” she growled. She leapt with cat-like agility, and struck the back of his neck, knocking him out cold. She flipped back into her cloak, and donned her mask. Just before she made her exit with her groceries, she did the stallion one last little favor. “HEEELLLP!! POLICE!!” she screamed. She quickly jumped to the rooftops just before a passerby that heard her rushed into the alleyway, and discovered the unconscious mugger. He quickly got help as Shadow Shroud calmly observed the scene for a few moments before deciding to return to her friends. “Congratulations, sir. You’ll live to see another day.” She hissed.

*****

As Shadow Shroud made her way through the grass, she took the time to wipe off the blood that her blade accumulated. Night had fallen, and she had only Luna’s moon to guide her back to her friends. She was disappointed that she couldn’t find anything, but felt a little better when the smell of freshly cooked seaweed massaged her nose.

“Hey, you’re back! Just in time too! Find anything? Any trouble?” Fire Fight said as he handed her some seaweed.

“I’m afraid I had about as much luck as Air Slash did in Baltimare. I searched all over, even in the farmlands, but it seems this place is blessed to have no considerable conflicts with their foals.” Shroud answered. “But thankfully I didn’t encounter any other real issues.”

“Aww….Well, I guess that’s still a good thing though. I mean…. No lost foals means no uncertain futures right?” Spiral Galaxy said.

“Word. Yo, ain’t Manehatten just up dis beach too? Y’all ‘member any lost foals when you was d’here, homie?” Turf War asked Fire Fight.

“Nope. I was the only one of our kind there. No point in going there.” Fire Fight answered. “Why don’t we go back to the ruined castle? We haven’t been back since we left for Detrot.”

“Agreed. I’ve….been concerned about my garden anyway.” Shroud replied. She turned to the other foals. “We can settle all of you there, and plan our next move.”

“Sounds good to me. It’ll be nice to finally have an actual home than just camping in random places.” Spiral said.

“Ah sure am curious to see this place where y’all settled.” Kickback commented.

“If this castle’s forge is still usable, I could make the rest of us some armor should there be ready materials.” Air Slash said.

“I’m sure Fire Fight could reignite it for you. It didn’t seem so crumbled that it was unusable.” Shroud said. “As for materials….you might have to melt down some of the old weapons and armor for metal. Hunting the local beasts for leather and such would be easy.”

“I’m pretty sure I could muster that much heat. I’ll just have to be careful not to start a big fire.” Fire Fight said.

Air Slash nodded approvingly. “Good. So….we’ll just hike there?”

“Actually, when I passed by the train station, which is on the opposite side of the outskirts from us, I noticed that one of the mid-morning trains is leaving for Ponyville tomorrow. Let’s finish our food, and go camp closer to there so we can ready ourselves.” Shroud explained.

“Now hol’ up, homegirl. Y’all ‘member the last time we was on a train? We almost got caught, and had to bounce. No reason why we can’t just hoof it from he’e.” Turf War said.

Spiral looked down in guilt at the memory of her nearly getting them caught. “Sorry about that, guys.” She muttered.

“It wasn’t your fault, Spiral. That barista simply wised up to a suspicious figure like myself. If we all stay in the caboose this time, we won’t risk drawing any attention.” Shroud said.

“Even if we got weapons and all that funny stuff?” Kickback asked.

Shroud thought for a moment after hearing that. “Well….it was a problem enough when Turf War still had his junk weapons the last time…..hmm……”

“Why don’t we wait until there’s a night train for Ponyville? Did you see anything like that on the schedule?” Spiral suggested.

“I’d have to check again, but that would be preferable.” Shroud replied.

“A’ight. Wed do dat.” Turf War said.

“Yeah. Let’s eat first. Maybe on the way, we’ll gather more stuff. If we have to resort to just seaweed for a while, then that’s fine. At least we’ll have something to eat.” Fire Fight said.

“Indeed.” Air Slash said. He slurped on some of his cooked seaweed. “It’s quite delectable.”

They all sat down around their little fire, and finished their dinner. Once they did, Fire Fight put it out, and they grabbed their things before setting off. Air Slash dived back into the ocean, and harvested much more seaweed to take for the trip. Shadow Shroud handed them their new water bottles; Kickback thanked her anyway despite him having fairly sufficient water. They managed to find some edible herbs along the way, but not a whole lot given the damage done to the soil’s fertility.

Fire Fight glanced over at Kickback. “Sorry your first couple of searches with us had to come up short, Kickback…” he said.

Kickback tipped his hat. “Nuttin’ to feel sorry for, sheriff. Ah reckon it’s a mighty fine thing we stumbled upon that Gene Splice varmint when we did. It wasn’t all bad.” He said.

“Man….Dis been one crazy trip, y’all. What next, d’ho? Are we gonna run into his brova who……I don’t know, maybe he put his brain in like a panther, or somethin’? Dat be whack!” Turf War commented.

“Yes. I probably should have harvested some skin….scales?....from his creatures to reinforce the armor I’ll forge whence we arrive…..home, I suppose.” Air Slash said.

“Those little pests pale in comparison to some of the beasts in the Everfree forest in terms of both ferocity and quality of the materials to be collected from them, Air Slash. Besides, it’s a much more available resource anyway.” Shadow Shroud said.

Air Slash chuckled. “I suppose I can only take your word for it, huh, Shadow Shroud?”

“That is correct.” Shroud replied sassily. It was nice to see these two actually hold a conversation.

All was not too positive however. Just off on the horizon was Fire Fight’s old home of Manehatten. All of his recent memories there were anything but happy. He didn’t express this as he wanted to put it all out of his mind. Not only that, but the fact that two searches in a row had resulted in failure disheartened the fiery colt. His mission to rescue foals that suffered had slowed considerably, and that meant more time for whoever they were destined to rescue suffer. All he could do was keep going with his team.

Fire Fight suddenly broke out of thought when he felt somepony tap his shoulder. He glanced over to see Shadow Shroud smiling at him. “If it makes feel any better, I’d be happy to make a second sweep tomorrow depending on the circumstances with the train. Evening really wasn’t the best time to search.” She said.

“Indeed. You really should have waited until daytime. Perhaps I can aid you by making an aerial sweep?” Air Slash said.

“That would be very helpful. We could cover more ground that way anyway. What say you, leader?” Shroud asked Fire Fight.

Fire Fight was caught off guard by Shroud suddenly calling him ‘leader’, yet it felt…..good! The way she said it sounded like she was trying to boost his confidence, which worked. Fire Fight held his head high again, and smiled back. “Yeah. You sure you don’t want me to come too?” he said.

“It would remain best that you didn’t. You don’t have the aerial mobility that Air Slash has to move quickly in case of emergency.” Shroud replied.

“True, true. Actually, you know what? Let Air Slash search by himself again. We kinda need you to prepare us to….<ahem>….board.” Fire Fight said.

Shroud deviously giggled. “Oh, but of course. I'll still at least check the train schedule. I'd have to ask Air Slash to wait for that information before embarking.”

“You’ll hear no complaints from me.” Air Slash said.

Fire Fight nodded. “Ok, guys. Let’s get going.” He said. With some doubt cleared from his mind, the fiery colt led his comrades further and further towards their destinies.

Comments

[KingJoltik]

There was a little family that lived her about 7 or 8 years ago.

The family lived in a person? Interesting...

Oh, and that's not creepy at all. A family that got murdered and their daughter went missing? I'm guessing that this won't come up again at any point.

[Sirdubya]

7856181 Fixed it!

[KingJoltik]

7856198 Wait...they weren't living inside someone? Huh...I had no idea.

[Sirdubya]

7856199 lol!

[KingJoltik]

7856232 Hey! Stop laughing! I was serous!

[Zum1UDontNo]

So the daughter is the killer. No, don't try to deny it. Don't try to convince me otherwise. My plot-point senses are tingling.

[StarzGecko]

The last chapter or two that mad Pony was saying something about an experiment that ran away. I wonder if we'll see him or her?

[Draskos]

Just occured to me that the suspicious pony was only such because of her response to them asking if her parents had sent her to get them food in the middle of the night as if it was a horrible thing to do to a child? Is it? My mother did that type of stuff all the time with my siblings and I so I just kind of see it as normal.

[TheAbsoluteRadiance]

9771205
It's pretty normal. It's how independence is taught to children, a simple task -getting food- in a very safe environment -a moving closed train with lot of adults to keep sight of the kid-.