• Published 10th Jan 2013
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Letters from North Everfree - FriscoPony



A story told from the perspective a soldier in the Royal Guard on the front lines of the Dark Pony War

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Chapter 1

I can still remember the sights and smells of when we first arrived in the camp. The sky as blue as the ocean surf; and the clouds dotted the sky in a way where it was almost a parade. It was peaceful, and beautiful, and quiet, a lot of things that I had never expected that the northern forest could be. One thing was for sure though; I was in the right place at the wrong time. I and a group of other pegasi pulled into Camp Eclipse as part of the 43rd Pegasus division of the Royal Guard. The train wasn’t the same candy trains like they use now-a-days. The engine was the color of hardened blue steel and spat out black smoke and steam everywhere like a dragon had just taken a drink of water while breathing fire. The coaches were a color of Pullman green and the train was filled with at least two pegasi per seat. I consider myself lucky that I had a seat to myself on the train as I could stretch out my hooves and relax without having to worry about accidentally crushing another pony’s wing. At last me and all of the other pegasi were allowed off of the train to the sounds of orders boomed from the sergeants.

“We don’t have all day fillies!” they called out to us, “Get your uniforms, gear and weapon as soon as you step through the main building! Welcome to Camp Eclipse!”

I had never heard of ponies being handed weapons other than spears. You never see any pony with some kind of gun, despite the cannons that I have seen before used by the Royal Guard. Next to magic, those cannons can provide serious damage if aimed in the right place. They may look small, but if that’s the type of damage that those cannons can do, I hated to be on the receiving end of the artillery pieces. Artillery pieces were similar to cannons, except they looked like something hydraulic, and the shell when it left the barrel was hurled towards the enemy, and exploded on impact leaving a massive crater for a fairly small shell (the shells were about as long as an adult stallion, and they were about a hoof in diameter), but none-the-less the artillery and armored division were a force to be reckoned with.

I looked around what was basically my new home away from home in Camp Eclipse. When I walked out of the train station, I looked up to see a giant wooden watchtower with searchlights and two stallions looking out from the top of the crow’s nest anxiously. I never really understood what the whole situation was, or why I was here. When I was walking around my home of Manehattan, I still remember looking at the posters for the first time. They had a picture of 3 royal guards all in a row, with their hooves raised high saluting Equestria’s flag. They had a faded image of Celestia as a watermark with a serious look on his face. In the background as well were the towers of Canterlot which were clearly defined due to their varying tower shapes. In stencil letters below the 3 guards read, “The princess needs your help, enlist now.” They were all over town on every corner of every street, even inside of the skyscrapers. It was as if a situation in Equestria was direly serious and everypony was needed to help, including me. So lo and behold, here I was in a strange place, far away from home, having no idea what to expect, I was just happy that I was serving the princess.

The barracks were crowded as pegasi grabbed their uniforms, helmets, gear, saddle bags, assault rifles and pistols respectively. I had never seen weapons like these in the Royal Guard, as whenever there was a major event, they always had spears. “This must be truly serious,” I thought to myself as I grabbed my assault rifle from the sergeant.

“You are to report to the mess hall for a briefing at 1200 hours private!” boomed the sergeant in my face. He then gave me a slip of paper with a number on it and the word Charlie on it as well. “The number and cosign Charlie tells you where your new home away from home is private! It also tells you which squad you belong to! You have an hour before briefing private, don’t be late, ya got that?!” he said walking into my face.

“Yes sir!” I said as I put my helmet and began my trot towards the door. “Well this is going to be fun,” I thought to myself.

When I finally got outside and got a chance to stretch my legs, I took a breath of the fresh forest air. The benefit to living in the forest is that there is always a fresh breath of air with your name on it, and no pony can take that away from you. I actually liked it and began whistling a little tune to myself as I looked at the tent fronts as they had numbers and designations on them. The alpha tents were located closest to the mess hall and the infirmary, as most of the alpha company was made up of commanders and drill sergeants. The beta’s were located on the opposite side of the alpha’s as they were mostly drill sergeants and some high ranking soldiers, none of them higher than lance corporal though.

“Let’s see here,” I said to myself as I walked along the seemingly endless rows of tents, “Charlie 7, Charlie 8, ah here it is!” At last I stopped in front of a tent with a 9 and Charlie at the top of the tent. It was identical to all of the other tents as every tent, except the infirmary and the colonel’s tent, was the same identical shape and color. “Well maybe I can talk to my squad mates about possibly thinking of a unique way to identify our tent and not get confused with another.”

I walked in and found an empty cot where no pony had placed their stuff, and immediately claimed it as my own. I finally got a chance to put my weapon in its rack respectively, my helmet on its hook, and finally got to unpack my saddle bags to see what they had inside. The saddle bag was a brownish hint of green, as well as my uniform and helmet. I wasn’t complaining about it, but it was quite dull. “I guess you give up a fancy life when you join the Royal Guard,” I said as I lay down alone in my cot.

“Ain’t that the truth,” said a voice from one of the other cots.

I quickly looked up from my cot and looked around the tent to see who said that, but no pony was there. “Who said that?” I asked a little shaken by the voice.

Just then a light blue Pegasus with a navy blue mane popped out from underneath one of the cots. “I did,” he said with a smile on his face. “The name is Soarin,” he said enthusiastically. “I’m from cloudsdale, which is about an hour away from here to the north.” He then got up and began to straighten his cot so he could get ready for the briefing. “What’s your name?” he asked looking at me.

“My name is Ace,” I said stretching out my hoof. “I’m from Manehattan, pleasure to meet you.”

Soarin then got up, and grabbed my hoof giving it a firm shake. “Pleasure is mine,” he said. “Why don’t you have the accent like all other ponies from Manehattan?”

I merely shrugged; “I never really did have the accent like other ponies form Manehattan,” I said. “I guess some get it, and some don’t.” I began to unpack my saddle bags as Soarin still wanted to talk.

“Well I guess I understand,” he said. “I’m not from Manehattan so I wouldn’t know for sure.” He finished fixing his cot, and trotted over to me. “You’re going to like the members of our squad,” he said. “There’s another stallion, and then there are two mares.”

I was fairly surprised by this. “Mares in the royal guard?” I asked confused, “For as long as I can remember, I’ve never seen a mare in the royal guard before.”

Soarin smiled, “Well for one thing, it’s probably because you’re not looking hard enough. They’re there.” Sure enough, I found out that Soarin was right as mare voices could be heard getting closer to the tent entrance. “See?” he said, “That’s them now most likely.”

“What are their names?”

“Spitfire and Aqua Star,” he said. “The one to watch out for is Spitfire.”

“Why’s that?” I asked a little more concerned.

“I used to go to flight school with her,” Soarin said with a concerned look on his face. “She’s an extremely impressive flyer but for all of that flight in her wing, she has a fiery attitude, especially when she’s mad.”

Sure enough, I didn’t know that I was about to experience some of this firsthand. The tent flap then flew wide open to two mares. One was a golden mare with two shades of fire orange in her mane. Her tail also embraced her name as her hair looked like it was a blazing inferno that had burned everything in its path, but it was beautiful in a way that flowed in the wind. The other mare was a light teal with white and blue hair. I didn’t really have any problem identifying who was who; it was actually kind of obvious.

“You owe me big time!” she said. “You bumped me into the sergeant and made him drop his coffee!” roared Aqua Star at Spitfire.
Spitfire merely laughed, “Oh please, don’t be such a cry filly.” She then walked over to her cot, which just so happened to be right next to mine. It was almost a play on words, but at first, I thought it was kind of strange, and I felt a little uneasy as well. She quickly grabbed her uniform, and then turned and looked at me. She was a little confused, but at the same time I think she was happy to have company because her corner was rather lonely in the tent. “And you are?” she asked looking at me with a curious intent.
“Ace,” he said. “I just arrived on the 1030 train from Manehattan. I presume that you’re Spitfire?” I said hoping that I didn’t get the two confused. I stretched out my hoof.
“You presume correctly,” she said smiling at me. “As you know already,” she began “my name is Spitfire. I’m from cloudsdale, and so is that crazy stallion over there that you’ve already met.”
“I’m not crazy!” called Soarin as he munched down a pie.
“Anyway, as you can see, he really likes pies,” she continued. “He even has an emergency pie just in case something happens to the first pie.”
Aqua star then cut in. “What am I, chopped pony?” she asked with an attitude in her pose.

I had almost forgotten that I hadn’t firmly introduced myself to aqua star just yet. “Sorry about that,” I said trotting over to her. “My name is Ace, as you probably can already guess,” I said stretching out his hoof. Aqua star merely knocked my hoof away with an attitude.

“Humph!” she said turning tail towards me. “I’m Aqua Star, the squad medic. You better show more respect. I may save your life one day.”

“Don’t be such a wise pony!” called Spitfire from her cot, “you don’t revive us when you can, Blitz will have your head, and then he’ll save some for me. She said polishing her small pin.

“Who’s Blitz?” I asked curiously.

Spitfire then walked over to me with a sympathetic look in her eyes. “Blitz is the squad leader,” she said. “You won’t see him most times except if it’s a briefing or if we have to go out in the line of duty.” She then picked up her cadet hat and dusted it off, while I still had questions.

“Line of duty?” I asked. “Against what?”

“You’ll find out at the briefing,” Spitfire said.
~~~

“All in line!” called the sergeants from the front of the mess hall. “This is an urgent issue, and must be taken care as soon as possible.”

The whole mess hall suddenly went silent as the colonel began walking into the center of attention. I still remember seeing him, he had an officer’s uniform, tie and buttoned shirt. He was a white alicorn, no ties to Celestia whatsoever. He had a mane and tail that were two shades green, and he had teal eyes. It was Cloud Storm; I’ll never forget the first time that I heard him speak. “Thank you for being here everypony,” he began. He then took of his hat in perspective, revealing his messy mane. “I’m sorry that we’ve kept all of this a secret from you. The reason why you are all seeing things that are not traditionally related to the royal guard service, but they are kept behind locks and key for such an occasion like this.”

With a mighty heave of magic, Cloud Storm revealed a giant image of Canterlot. He then zoomed in further to the image. It was soon revealed that Celestia was not alone. There standing with her were two of her sisters, Princess Marina who controlled the oceans, and Princess Terra, who controls the seasons. They appeared to be in great pain as Celestia continued to tend to them. Terra had a large gash slightly above her left wing, while Marina had a scar close to her horn.

“About a month ago,” began Cloud Storm, “Marina and Terra appeared to Celestia in much worse condition than this. When Celestia asked them what happened, they told her that they had been dethroned from power by King Inferno and King Typhoon. They demanded that Celestia step down, or else she would face the burning of her empire and subjects before her very eyes. In that response, she has called for the Royal Guard to prepare to invade from here, north of the Everfree forest. That’s why you are all here at base camp headquarters. We fear that this is as real as it gets, as Marine and Terra combined have twice the size of an army as the Royal Guard, so we are in a hurry. This brings us to where you are today.”

I was stunned to hear the news; it was unbelievable to think that someone could dethrone the princesses from their power over their land. I almost wanted to raise my hooves in an uproar. I looked at Spitfire, and I could see the determination in her eyes; I had never seen anything like it before.

“Now,” called Cloud Storm to the others, “We have been given our first mission briefing from the generals further south of us. Apparently the two countries of Marina and Reigns, where King typhoon and King Inferno have taken over, are beginning their assault about 15 miles to the north of here and are using every last pony they have to invade. Our division, as well as 22nd Pegasus division, the 32nd unicorn artillery, and the 54th armored division are to halt the advance as much as we can to bring their advance to a standstill. The 54th armored division and the 22nd Pegasus division are already there preparing for the advance. We have been asked to be there as soon as possible, so tomorrow we begin the flight to the north at 0600 hours. Bring your gear and be ready for a fight.”

“Yes sir!” roared the cadets waving their hooves in the air. “Invading Equestria huh? We’ll stop them dead in their tracks.”

I could only look at so many of the angry hooves roaring through the air, as I knew this meant war, in more ways than one. We were going to defend our home god damnit, for Celestia, for Equestria, for the whole World. Spitfire looked at me with fury in her eyes. I knew that we were both thinking the same thing; there was no doubt in my mind.

“Ready to kick some flank?” she said with a serious smile.

“I’m ready to do more than that,” I said. “I’m ready to save the world if I have to.”

“You mean if we have to right?” she said smiling.

I couldn’t help but smile as well. “Right,” I replied.