Sweet Pink Sunset

by Annon56

Old Acquaintance

"What in Equestria just happened!" Boa exclaimed.

"That was not normal Ursa behaviour." Arrow said while shaking his head.

"That Ursa was definitely under the influence of a spell." Forest added.

"Exactly, and the last time I have checked, the Ursa do not go far away from their caves in the daylight either." Arrow complied.

Jokey stood on his hind legs and began dusting off his shirt, "Now you see, Arrow, if you had done that triple backflip like I said then none of this would have happened," he pointed to the negligible 'bump' of the hill that Arrow formed and got back on all fours. "Now we got ourselves a mess," he added.

Boa shot him a glare, "you seriously have the guts to joke around about what just happened? Haven t your parents ever taught you what it means to be responsible and when to take things seriously?"

"Boa, babe, listen, to be honest I'm as freaked out here as the next pony but there s always a time for jokes," he proudly stated.

"What did you just call me? I have half a mind to just-"

Boa suddenly went silent, her eyes widened just as Forest's and Arrow's eyes did and they all bowed down.

Jokey snickered to himself and gave a toothy grin, "alright! Finally you guys realise my brilliance, but seriously you flatter me too much now, simple words are enough-"

"Bow down you foal!" Boa hissed at him while keeping her head down.

"Huh? What was that, Bo?" Jokey's grin faded as he turned around, his eyes widened as he saw that Princess Luna was standing behind him to his left.

"Holy mother of Luna! I-I mean wait, you are Luna so uh, what I-I meant was- I mean-" Jokey whimpered and gave up on finding a proper term and bowed down to the holy presence that stood before him. Luna gazed at the odd unicorn then giggled silently.

"Arise courageous ones, although I owe you all an apology, my arrival to your aid should have been earlier," Luna stated as the defenders stood up again.

"No worries your highness, we managed to fend off the Ursa... but at such a high cost to the land." The defenders looked out at the field, the hill had been severely torn apart as most trees across the field have been wiped out. They then looked back viewing the crater on the short cliff that made a path all the way to the entrance between the outskirts and Ponyville that was caused by the beam.

The two royal pegasi guards came from around the other side of the cliff holding up the third guard. "We have an injured!" One of the guards yelled out as they carefully rushed to Luna.

"Agh! My wing!" the injured pegasus groaned. Blood seemed to have been dripping down from where his wing used supposed to be, but it did not match the amount of blood that covered his side going down to his stomach. Luna and the defenders could tell he had already lost a lot of blood. The burn mark surrounding the wing area was pitch black and showed strange markings, could it have been star dust?

The defenders rushed in to help the limping guards and the one winged pegasus. Luna calmly followed them.

"One of you must alert my sister that the catastrophe hath ended," Luna commanded as she looked at the two fully winged guards.

"I shall go on ahead your highness, but what about our companion?" one of the guards asked.

"I ask thee not to worry, I shall cast a miracle healing spell on the warrior," she returned to the guard. He nodded and took off making haste to the top of the shield.

"Come forth royal guard, I shall heal thee," the royal guard gently shook himself off the grip of the others and made a contemptuously woeful attempt to get to her. Luna brought herself closer to him, she could see he felt shame as he looked down, she smiled and told him to ease himself.

Luna's horn began to glow a vivid neon green colour, the aura formed a trail to the burn mark on the pegasus. The pitch black stain slowly began to dissolve, the blood on his coat was also fading away. The wing bone began to rebuild itself out of thin air, part by part, then a blood flow was generated across the wing of bone, flesh began to build on top of the bone, layering perfectly into shape, skin formed on top of the flesh and finally the fur and feathers surrounded the skin. The pegasus was fully winged again.

The guard could not believe what he had just seen, his comrade looked as shocked as him, the defenders tried to analyse what they have just witnessed.

'Miracle healing spell, huh? Words can't describe...' Forest thought to himself.

'His wing is back... There s no scar or burn or anything... he's one hundred per cent okay again...' Boa mused.

"Thank you Princess Luna, you have saved my life and my career, I am forever in you debt," the healed pegasus stated, as he almost lost balance.

"Thou hath risked his trying to save his comrades, you are worthy of holding thy title as a royal guard. Be sure to rest, you still have some blood to recover. Now do any of thee require healing?" Luna asked as she turned her head to the defenders. It was that moment they realised that their costumes were in bad condition. Boa's knight costume had cracks and scratches all over it, Jokey, Arrow and Forest's costumes were ripped and stretched out, Forest realised his hat was missing. He looked around but there was no sign of the jester hat anywhere.

"I'm feeling fine, just some bruises that s all," Jokey replied.

"I am also in that state, I do not require healing either, thank you for your kind offer Princess," Arrow replied.

"I'm okay," Boa added.

Forest made a thorough check by wiggling and shaking his head, "yeh, just some minor pains, I'll live."

A pulsating sound was heard from behind them, they turned around and saw that the shield slowly began to disappear.

"Let us tread to the town centre, my sister and I have an important message for all the residents of Ponyville," Luna stated, and so, the group made their way up the small cliff and began galloping to Ponyville's town centre.

x

Up in the sky, a long flat cloud floated still, just about a hundred and fifty meters away from the watch point and directly above the trees bordering the Everfree forest.

"I'm going to uncloak us now, Kanthon," a grim yet omnipotent voice stated.

"Right..." another sharp and shady voice replied.

The two hosts of the voices began to uncloak on the cloud, a slightly elderly stallion unicorn and a male zebra were revealed in the open sky on the cloud as they looked down at the Luna and the group hasting towards the town centre.

"I still think the Ursa was tad bit too much," the unicorn pointed out while directing his dark blue eyes with dagger like pupils at the zebra.

"Come now Surgio, they managed to rub off the spell on it, at least we got a good taste of what they can do." The zebra called Kanthon remarked.

"That mare, the red haired one, she seems to have a unique ability as an earth pony, looks like the half-blood means something after all... seeing as though your mother was an earth pony as well." Surgio said, as he looked at the zebra.

"Although our abilities are different, they are both uniquely linked to the earth; I should keep a closer eye on her, and that stallion too, the one who can reshape terrain..." Kanthon replied as he looked at Surgio with his olive green pupil-less eyes.

"Indeed, we didn't get to see as much as we hoped from Forest though, but I could sense a lot of potential from him, he has grown well."

"Yes, and that odd one with the mismatching tail and mane, well he showed just about as much as Forest did if you ask me."

"Now, now, Kanthon, do not underestimate our opponents so soon."

"Whatever you say, Surgio" Kanthon paused and looked down at his hooves, "I can feel the cloud spell fading."

"No worries my friend, I'll levitate us to the ground." Surgio gathered up a slightly transparent yellow magical aura around his horn and formed a bubble of the same colour around Kanthon and himself. The bubble sank through the cloud taking them down to the Everfree forest. As they landed, the bubble disappeared and they made their way into an empty dark cave.

"What exactly are we going to do in here, Surgio?" The zebra questioned the stallion who seemed to be the leader.

"I'm going to use the hologram transmission spell so we can pay Ponyville a little visit of course, it is part of the plan after all." Surgio replied in a boastful manner.

"You were serious about that?"

"Of course, we need to give them all the reason we can for them to advance their skills even further. You know what we must do."

"Right, whatever, let's just get this over with." the zebra said, sounding unwilling and annoyed to go with the idea.

The unicorn shook his head while cocking and eye brow with his eyes closed. They both sat down, closing their eyes as Surgio began to gather up magical particles to surround them both in a vivid colour of tropic purple.

Luna and the group finally got to the centre of town, it was quite chaotic, everypony was freaking out, asking questions to each other that they could not answer or were just afraid to ask Celestia herself, it was a cocktail of worried voices. Forest looked around trying to spot a pink chef until a voice uttered his name from behind him.

"Forest!" Pinkamena shouted in relief, he turned around to receive what was almost a glomp, but he managed to catch her as he stood on his hind legs.

"Are you okay! Your costume is all torn up and I thought something might have happened after that loud boom! I mean did you hear it 'cause I did and man was it loud! Everypony and I mean everypony went nuts and..."

Forest hugged Pinkie Pie tightly and pecked her on her cheek, "I'm fine, I'm just glad you re okay as well," Pinkie Pie closed her eyes and wrapped herself around him.

Luna walked up to Celestia giving her a nod confirming that everyone is in the area, Celestia nodded back, "Residents of Ponyville, I ask you all to remain calm and hear us out, for what we are about to tell you may be disturbing news to most of you."

Everypony went silent and directed their attention to the two Princesses, tension was rising.

"My sister Luna, has detected an imbalance with a certain creature of the night, an Ursa Major," the ponies began whispering amongst each other in urgency.

"Please remain calm," said Luna, the ponies went silent again, "due to this unlikely event, thy gracious festival must be cancelled, as preparations for security are required."

"What! Cancelled!" Pinkamena exclaimed, everypony began to feel dispirited, until a sudden static noise which was caused by some strangely looking particles that were vividly vibrating and soon absorbed each other forming one big purple ball. It divided itself into two parts and with that done, formed two bodies, slowly taking shape and changing colour to match the users. Surgio and Kanthon had successfully transfered their holograms directly in front of everyone in the town centre. It was shockingly silent; everypony was staring at the transitioning holograms of Surgio and Kanthon.

"Hello Ponyville!" Surgio gave a sudden outburst startling most of the ponies, "we are terribly sorry for causing such a fuss but allow me to ease the tension by letting you know the cause of the attack, you see, we summoned the Ursa Major to simply test out what we were going up against." He continued.

"It was you who dared to put so many lives in danger? What did you hope to achieve in this reckless act?" Celestia questioned the dark maroon unicorn in anger.

Surgio glanced over at the princess, "To show you we are serious of course, what else?" he said as he proudly stuck his head up.

"Doth thou not realise the hologram spell that thy hath casted seems to be a cowardly step if you had wished to show us how serious you were." Luna added.

"You expect us to step into Ponyville and have our plans crushed before us?" he chuckled darkly, "oh princess, where would my wits be if I had taken a silly step like that? I mean, we would never think of going head-on against one of the two most powerful beings on this world, beings who are just over a thousand years ahead of us in magic. The very idea would be so foolish," he stated as he walked up to Forest, "isn't that right Forest?" Surgio asked him as he narrowed his eyes at him while giving a side smile.

Forest squinted his eyes at the nefarious looking stallion, "you seem vaguely familiar... have we met?"

"Indeed we have, or at least a long time ago, quite long actually, but of course I didn't expect you to remember me anyway, you were awfully young at that time." Surgio stated, Forest looked back to find that all his friends were looking him, they seemed surprised as they saw a strange resemblance between Forest and Surgio, their mane's almost matched, except Surgio's mane was dark brownish-red with grey lining.

The pupil-less zebra made eye contact with Jokey, the two were staring at each other looking, quite irritated about the subject. Jokey examined Kanthon's slicked back light green mane and light green tail which looked like a shrub, as Kanthon examined the mismatching and strangely colour co-ordinated unicorn. It was a staring contest of the odd looking stallions.

'Why is he looking at me like that? That s just really annoying.' Jokey pondered, as they both gave a nasty frown to each other.

"What are you looking at, freak?" Kanthon rudely said to Jokey.

"Freak? I was about to ask you the same thing, olive eyes." Jokey replied.

"What was that?"

"So you re not blind, but your deaf now, huh?" Jokey said while giving the zebra a victorious grin.

"You little foal, if I were really here you wouldn t have the guts to-" Kanthon was interrupted as Surgio overtook his voice.

"Well then, let s get directly to the point shall we? You see Forest, you have something I need, something that belongs to the Thundertred family to be exact."

Forest turned to Surgio with and angered expression on his face, "I don't know what you re talking about, now how do you know my name? And what exactly do you know of my family?"

"Plenty, my dear boy, but why don't you ask the princesses right next to you. You'll find that what they know can be quite... shocking."

Forest looked back at Princess Celestia and Princess Luna in a confused manner, they did not make any eye contact with him whatsoever but just kept watching Surgio, 'They know something about my family?' he thought, and then turned back to Surgio.

"And who is this charming young chef you so proudly stand next to?" Surgio turned his head, while smiling, at Pinkie Pie. Gummy burst out of her chef s hat making an attempt to attack the hologram, and of course, went right through him almost face planted against the ground, he crawled back to Pinkamena and climbed up on to her back. Surgio stepped up a bit closer to her, but was stopped in his tracks as Forest came in between them; he was giving Surgio quite an unwelcoming look.

"My, my, I see...Goodness, you really have grown into a fine stallion haven't you? You have your fathers coat and your mothers eyes, they would have been so proud of you." Forest's eyes widened at Surgio's remark.

Forest felt rage building up within him at what he had just heard, "wait a minute, what do you know about my parents! Who the hell are you!" he exclaimed.

Surgio then turned around walking away from Forest, "well I'd would love to stay and chat but we have matters to attend to," Surgio stated he looked back at them, his red cloak wavering away from his face revealing his black suit as well, similar to the one Kanthon was wearing, "Expect us." he said hissingly as he gave an evil grin.

"Wait!" Forest ran up to the holograms, but they vanished into thin air. Their visit was over, for now.

Forest skidded against the ground, he looked down and breathed heavily. "Damn it!" he shouted out as he stomped the ground with his front hoof and looked back down again. He could hear the silent gossips of some of the ponies behind him, it bothered him to think they would have suspicions towards him. 'They know better than that... right?' he thought to himself, but was also relieved that his friends and lover did not judge him as he turned back and saw that they were already walking towards him. Pinkamena, Twilight, Big Macintosh and his sister Applejack.

"Well, that was...unexpected." Applejack began.

"Eeyup." Big Macintosh added.

"Are you ok, Forest?" Twilight asked. Twilight and Pinkie Pie both know how Forest felt about strangers asking about his parents the most, especially when it had been done the way Surgio did it.

Forest removed his low spirited expression and immediately sprang out with a cheerful smile, "yeah sure, everything s ok." he stated, Pinkamena's worrying expression faded into a small smile as she made eye contact with Forest.

"You sure about that, Orange? Whoever that unicorn was, he sure had a lot of nerve to bring up your old folks like that." Big Macintosh complied.

"He said he's fine, Macintosh, no need to pry the situation now..." Applejack remarked to her bulky brother.

"All I'm sayin' is that if you wanna talk about it, we're here for you," Macintosh added as he gave him a neighbourly grin.

Forest nodded to Macintosh. Arrow came up from behind Applejack, "I am sorry to interrupt your conversation, but Princess Celestia has summoned us to speak with her in private," he said as he looked at Forest, "The rest of you must go to Princess Luna as she's gathering the required ponies to begin making preparations."

"So it looks like we've got something crazy happening," Twilight said and then heaved a sigh, "looks like there are other twisted minds out there like Discord. Well I guess we should get going."

"Eeyup," Big Macintosh said. Applejack, Twilight and himself then turned back to meet Luna's orders. "See you later, Orange." He said to Forest as they walked away.

"Sure thing." He replied. Pinkamena went up to him and pecked him on his cheek, they smiled at each other and she then turned to follow the others, but Forest noticed that something was bothering her, that she seemed down about something and he knew what it was.

"Forest, shall we move on?" Arrow uttered, bringing Forest away from his thoughts.

"Right." The two made way to Celestia, Jokey and Boa were already with her, watching the two as they got them.

"I would first like to congratulate you all with fending off the Ursa Major, it was indeed unexpected and unfortunate but you have proved you are worthy of being the defenders of Ponyville, now, do any of you know of a place where we can speak in private?" Celestia asked the four defenders.

"There s a training field that we often go to due south-east from here." Forest replied immediately looking very serious, whatever it is Celestia knew about his family, he wanted to know every detail and was not going to let this moment slip by.

"Very well, let us go there, lead the way." Celestia returned to the defenders.

The defenders went ahead with Princess Celestia following them as two royal guards accompanied her.