Many ponies played their part in creating the Equestria we know and love, one of them is Starry Night, guildmaster of the Knights of Night, and this is part of his story.
In Canterlot Castle there is a place called the Hall of Heroes. In it, the lifesize carvings of the greatest ponies that ever live stand for all to see, and remember how just a few ponies shaped Equestria the glorious nation it is today. From the six ponies that unified the three tribes during the first Hearth's Warming Eve, to the greatest magus that ever lived Starswirl the Bearded, and even Starry Night, guildmaster of the Knights of Night, to name only a few.
Through the empty halls of Canterlot Castle, two Nightwatch Night Guards were making their rounds.
One was a young unicorn stallion whose enchanted armor turned his natural mustard coat grey, though his light blue mane was unchanged Next to him walked a much older unicorn, whose coat, just like his partners, was grey, but his mane and tail remained their natural light purple color, as did his eyes.
Tonight was the first time they patrolled that side of the castle, and their route took them through the Hall of Heroes. The greatest ponies in equestrian history had their statues built there. Entire books were written about each and every last one of them.
As they walked past the greats, the younger guardpony, bored by the monotony of his job, started reading the names that were engraved on golden plaquest.
“Chancellor Puddinghead, Smart Cookie, Princess Platinum, Clover the Clever, Commander Hurricane and Private Pansy, Starswirl the Bearded, Guildmaster Starry Night...” he stopped in front of the statue of the pony known as Starry Night.
“Starry Night: Guildmaster of the Knights of Night. Knights of Night?” he asked himself. “Hey Sarge, did you ever hear of the Knights of the the Night?”
“What a stupid question,” the other unicorn said as he walked towards his partener. “All those in the Nightwatch should know that name! What do they teach you kids at the Facility these days?!” he asked, referring to the Nightwatch Training Facility.
“Umm...”
“Who was your history professor anyway?”
“Umm... I believe it was Staff Sergeant Zeal,” the younger unicorn answered.
“Zeal? Well that explains everything. Okay kid, let’s get on with our rounds and I will tell you all about the Knights of Night and of Guildmaster Starry Night.”
Discord was one of the greatest evils that ever terrorised Equestria; he unleashed plagues onto the world, killed countless, exterminated entire races and generally made every creature’s life miserable until two alicorn sisters imprisoned him in living stone.
For all the evils he did, there was one good thing that he had going on.
He was terrifying.
No living creature dared to go against him, or do anything that might bring it to his attention.
But with him gone there was nothing to keep the rest of the beasts in check. Most monstrosities could describe the years following his imprisonment as nothing short of a buffet. The strong prayed on the weak, and the numbers of almost all carnivorous beasts were growing at an alarming rate.
There were those who stood against them, most powerful of whom were the very same two alicorn sisters that defeated Discord. While there were only a few beasts that had even the slightest of chance against even one of them, the world was big, and threats aplenty, and there were only two of them, so most living beings were left to fend for themselves.
They tried their best, but there was little they could do. In order to protect as many as they could the sisters parted ways. Celestia, the eldest, flew around the world helping whomever she could and only rested during the night, while Luna, the youngest, took it upon herself to protect those who slept.
One night, almost ten years after the sisters parted, while flying over the unified pony kingdom that will one day be known as Equestria, Luna spots a group of ponies running from a ravenous hydra.
Her first thought was to fire a magical bolt of lightning at the beast, killing it in an instant, but even the slight chance of her missing and accidently hitting the ponies was enough to make her follow another course of action. She flies as fast as she can towards the hydra planning to tackle the beast.
Before she reaches the beast, magical lightning bolts, numbering in the dozens hit the it and stop her dead in her tracks. Several waves of javelins and arrows came flying at it afterwards, forcing the now injured monstrosity to turn tail and run away.
A small army of, unicorns, pegasi and earth ponies came into Luna’s view. She was surprised that all of them were shouting her name, but what made it even more weirder was the addition of the word “princess” in front of her name.
“Princess Luna,” one of the pegasi bowed in front of the alicorn as she landed next to them. “I am Commander Hurricane of the Royal Guard. Your sister has asked us to escort you to the castle.”
“Why pray tell do you keep addressing me as princess?” Luna asked the pegasi. “I am neither of royal birth, or wed to royalty.”
Commander Hurricane was baffled by the alicorns question, but quickly realised that she did not know what had happened two years ago.
“Your highness, if you would follow us back to the castle, all your questions will be answered.”
“Very well,” Luna told the commander. “Lead the way.”
“You heard her majesty! Move out!” he ordered the troops.
The pegasi took to the air and flew away while the earth ponies and unicorns followed them.
During their hour long flight to the castle Commander Hurricane informed Luna what had happened while she was away. Two years ago her sister, Celestia, was asked by the nation’s ruling families to become their protector. At first Celestia did not accept, telling them that it was her duty to protect all living being, not just ponies, but after a couple of days of negotiation, she reluctantly agreed. In exchange for her services, she, and her family will become pony royalty and she will rule as Queen, until all threats to the nation were dealt with.
That very same year she hoof picked the best soldiers of all the three pony armies and created a new fighting force, the Royal Guard, whose sole purpose was to protect the countries citizens from any danger that might arise.
Commander Hurricane briefed Princess Luna during their flight to the marble castle that once was the capital of the unicorn nation, city that was forced upon Queen Celestia when she became ruler.
While Luna and Hurricane walked down the narrow stone corridors that lead to the throne room, the princess could not help but notice how much the golden armor the pony guards wore, contrasted with the grey stone background.
The massive wooden doors to the throne room were pushed open by two of the largest earth pony stallion she ever saw. The large arched windows allowed the moonlight to shine in, but most of the room was lit up by her sisters magic.
“Luna!” Celestia exclaimed as she rose from her stone throne and headed towards her sister.
“I missed you so much dear sister,” Luna told her as the two alicorns nuzzled, much to the embarrassment of Commander Hurricane and the rest of the Guards that were in the room with them.
“So... Queen Celestia?” Luna asked with a smile on her face. “Mother always said that she saw greatness in your future.”
Celestia giggled.
“I am sorry to disappoint her, but I will not be Queen for long,” her face showed sadness.
“What do you mean?!” Luna asked, surprised by her sisters statement. Her surprise was shared by the other ponies in the room.
“Well you see Luna,” Celestia said with a smile on her face, “we cannot both be queens. It would just be confusing.”
Both of them laughed, Commander Hurricane joined them shortly after, as did the rest of the guards.
Years passed, and the sisters, with the help of the Royal Guard, slowly bring peace to the nation now known as the Diarchy of Equestria, or just Equestria. With their subjects now safe from harm, they lend their aid to other nations. Most welcome them with open arms or hooves while others took care of the threats themselves, rejecting their aid, for reasons such as pride or national sovereignty.
The armies of the Three Tribes were disbanded, leaving the safety of Equestria in the more than capable hooves of the Royal Guard.
Following the sisters defeat of Discord, and the subsequent wars against the countless predators that roamed freely, the map of the world was redrawn.
The first true nation to emerge from the chaos was Equestria, it had born during the first winter when three of the largest pony tribes joined together. After the coronation of Queen Celestia many more tribes joined the nation, equines, cattle, goats and donkeys almost the entirety of the nation's populace.
For all intensive purposes Equestria was the world.
No other nation even compared. It had almost a quarter of the worlds population, had a monopoly on trade, produced over three quarters of the raw materials and manufactured goods, and for a long period of time was the sole weather producer. As far of technology went, they were over a century ahead of the rest.
To the west were the Buffalo Nations; hundreds of small, nomadic tribes, stretched out over an enormous area, with no centralised form of government. To the north were griffin and hippogriff tribes, constantly fighting among themselves for what little resources the mountainous area they inhabited had to offer. To the east were the dragon lands, an entire region rich with gems and precious metals, which the dragons kept all to themselves. While to the south lay the Great Forest. A vast unexplored stretch of land, that no pony ever managed to return from. Pegasus explorers flew for days but still could not see its end. The forest covered everything, from once flat grasslands, to the peaks of mountains, to the rivers and lakes, all was covered by green.
There were other nations on other continents, but Equestria’s relations with them were limited at best.
One day after returning from a visit from one of the bordering griffin kingdom Celestia saw a Royal Guard soldier rushing towards her. To the princesses surprise his coat was green, and not white as the rest of the Guards. Magically enchanted armors were issued almost two years before, and only those from the furthest outpost would not have received them yet.
“My Queen! My Queen,” the Guard yelled, before crashing and sliding to the alicorns hooves.
“Giant army,” he talked while gasping for breath. “South... Great Forest... Coming to...” he passed out.
The princess picked the exhausted Guard in her magical aura, and flew him to the castle’s medical ward.
“Physician!” Celestia yelled as she bursted in. “This pony requires immediate medical attention!”
“Yes your highness! Right away.”
The unicorn physician took the pony in his own magical aura and levitated him to a bed. The assistants removed his armor and examined him. The Guard suffered from severe dehydration, exhaustion and tearing of the muscles around the wings.
The princess was informed that it seemed that the pony had been flying for about a week without rest, food or water. Two days later a second pegasus arrived, and brought with him the same information.
They were part of one of the southern outposts the Royal Guard set up to protect the pony settlers that were colonising the area. They reported that every settlement south of their camp was completely destroyed by a giant swarm of giant bugs, their numbers so great that “they darkened the sky,” according to the Guard.
Princess Luna ordered the entire castle garrison and every Royal Guard Station to head south. The main force would take two weeks to reach the area on hoof, so, despite her sister’s protests, she split her forces. She would lead a pegasus vanguard, a thousand strong, to the battle and try to delay the enemy until the rest of the Royal Guard showed up, all ten thousands unicorns and earth ponies.
Orders were also sent to the Northern Station to bring all troops to the capital and prepare a second wave that will be lead by Celestia herself.
Before Luna and the vanguard departed Celestia talked to her sister in private.
“Luna, it is crucial that you make it back alive. No matter what.”
“Are you asking me to abandon them if the battle cannot be won?!”
“Yes I am,” Celestia told her sister. “The Elements are useless without the both of us. And if the threat is as great as we believe we might need to use them. Do you understand?”
“Yes sister.”
“Promise me Luna, promise me that no matter what you must do you will make it back alive. If not for me than for our ponies.”
“I promise sister,” Luna said with a heavy heart as she flew away. She really didn’t feel comfortable knowing that if things will get to dangerous for her she will have to run away and leave her subject to their fates.
Luna gathered the vanguard, a thousand Royal Guard pegasi soldiers, and lead them south.
Marching there will take them two weeks, and only a week by air, but if they were to stand any fighting chance they would have to have at least two days of rest, so almost three weeks have passed since the first Guard left for the castle and the vanguard reached the southern area.
Luna had no idea what to expect. With intelligence three weeks old, barely one battalion under her command, all of which were pegasi, no unicorn artillery, no medical support, reinforcements almost a week away, and going against an army of whose numbers were unknown, race was unknown, abilities were unknown, tactics and strategies were unknown, going against such a force with such little information was foolish at best, suicidal at worst.
But Luna had little real choice in the matter. The enemy invaded their country, and had to be stopped before they advance to far, or at least delayed until the rest of the Royal Guard arrived.
Luna and the vanguard slowed down during the last day so they would use the cover of darkness when they attacked, they also flew low so that the enemy would not spot them too early, but something felt odd. The Great Forest should have been visible by now, but neither Luna nor any of the pegasi that flew beside her saw nothing. They flew all through the night but still no army, and no forest.
When Celestia finally rose the sun, they were shocked by what they saw.
Around them, stretching as far as the eye could see was a vast wasteland. Luna flew higher to get a better view of the area. Everything that was not solid stone was gone, the entire forest was gone, all the outposts and settlements were gone, everything was gone, only a few scattered mountains pierced the flat landscape.
“What has happened here?” Luna asked herself, unable to comprehend what had happened to everything.
“Guards! Groups of fours! Fan out and search for... anything! Be back in two days!”
“You heard the lady,” a commander repeated her order. “Teams of four, back in two. Move out!”
The Royal Guard pegasi compiled and flew in every direction in search for anything that would provide even the smallest hint of what had happened. Two days later all teams but one returned, and none of them had anything to report.
“Which team is missing?” Luna asked an officer.
“Thirty two my lady,” the officer replayed. “They headed that way,” he pointed towards the horizon.
Luna did not waste a moment. As soon as she saw where the pony was pointing she immediately took off and flew in that direction.
“You three, with me,” the officer picked three of the closest soldiers and headed after the princess.
Luna flew for a full day and night, but saw nothing along the way, just flat, windswept, cracked ground. She hovered in place at dawn and looked around for a place where the team could have gone off two, the only thing for miles a small cliff, so she headed towards it.
A small crack was visible in its side and Luna flew down to investigate. She lit up her horn and struggled to move through the narrow tunnel. It was narrow enough that her large frame made it hard for her to move, but wide enough that it would not pose a problem for an average size pegasus, even one wearing armor. Thankfully the tunnel was short, barely a few feet long and led to a large cave. Three Royal Guard pegasi followed her closely.
Upon entering the cave she let a little more magic flow into her horn, and illuminated the entire room.
“One, two, three, four, five... eleven, twelve,” Luna quickly counted.
Twelve golden-armored pegasi, with blue manes and white coats lay dead on the cave floor, on top of two dozen more Royal Guard ponies whose armor did not bear the colour altering enchantments. Luna walked past them and headed to the truly odd thing in the room, a door.
In the other end of the room stood a reinforced wooden door, scratch marks, magical burn marks as well as swords cuts covered it, there were even small green blood patches were visible, some of which were still fresh and wet. She grabbed the iron ring that served as the door’s handle, and pulled. The door did not budge, so she took a step back and grabbed the entire thing in her magical aura and pulled it out of the cave wall, frame and all.
No sooner as she did, that a high pitch cry could be heard as well as a shout and Luna was forced to drop it and move out of the way as a pony charged her and tried to cut her head off. The princess dodged the attack and quickly caught the assailant in her magical aura. The three Royal Guards that came with her reacted as fast as they could and surrounded the captive.
Luna and the Guards took a closer look at the pony. She was a young unicorn mare, wearing an unenchanted Royal Guard suit of armor two sizes too big for her. Her eyes were red from lack of sleep, twitching violently, and darting from one pony to another. Her breathing was shallow, her entire body was shaking violently and was covered in sweat. The pony was constantly struggling to break free from Luna’s grip, screaming for her life.
The princess drained the air from the ponies prison causing her to pass out, before giving her to the Guards, who tied her up and placed an inhibitor ring on her horn.
The mare had been silenced, yet the high pitch cry was still echoing through the cave. Luna entered the small chamber from where the mare came from. She looked around and saw that it was a small armory, there was probably a Royal Guard camp outside the cave. Inside a suit of armor, wrapped in blue capes a little foal was crying.
His coat was blue like the night sky, his mane was even darker, his eyes were golden like the armor that he struggled to get out off, and his horn was nothing more than a little bump on his forehead. Luna took the little foal out of his shell, and held him close as she got the feeling that something did not seem right.
Luna was quickly proven right when a blade pierced her side.
While shielding the little unicorn she let out a violent burst of raw magical energies pushing the assailant away, the she turned to face it. Great was her surprise when she saw who stabbed her.
The Guards that came with her were dead, as was the mare, and some of the ones she thought were dead now pointed their weapons towards the princess. As she looked at them Luna could see their injuries disappearing from their bodies, their eyes turning teal and fangs growing out of their mouth. They fired barrage of green lightning bolts towards her, and then charged her.
Luna’s eyes glowed white and the room filled with blinding blue light. When the light cleared nothing was left in the room except for the foal, Luna, and pony shaped shadows on the walls.
Luna placed the little pony on her back and squeezed through the thin crack and upon exiting the side of the cliff, she stretched her wings and took off, heading towards the rest of the vanguard.
The spent the next day trying to ignore the heartbreaking screams of the hungry infant.
After a day of non stop flying Luna the vanguard camp was finally in sight, she expected many questions from the officers about the fate of the ponies that went with her, and even more about the crying infant she had on her back.
Nopony asked her anything as there was nopony left to ask.
By the time she reached the camp, whatever possessed the ponies from the cave to turn against their brethren had already reached and taken the lives of all the Royal Guard soldiers she brought with her from Equestria.
“Not in darkest day of Discord’s reign had I ever had to fear the dead rising and killing the living,” Luna told to herself as she walked through the camp.
She took a quick look around the camp for any survivors, but couldn’t find any. Normally she would have obliterated the entire camp just to be sure no potential enemies were still laying around, but she was exhausted after the days she spent searching for the missing team and her prompt disposal of the enemies took its toll on her magical supplies. The night was still a while away, and she needed all her strength if she was going to raise the moon.
After taking a few ration packs, and dissolving them in water she tried to feed the foal, all the type paying careful attention to her surrounding so she would not be taken by surprise again.
The baby was violently rejecting the foul tasting concussion when a shriek could be heard echoing through the camp. As if on command almost half of the Guard pegasi rose up and attacked the alicorn. Luna sighed, and fought them, all the time trying to feed the ration to the foal. She had little luck with either.
Five hundred trained pegasi warriors would have been nothing more than an intense exercise for the alicorn. However, they were faster, stronger, more agile that she expected them to be, and they did not fight like they were trained to. Even worse was that Luna could have sworn that she saw some of them use magic. Her injury and the unicorn foal she had to keep safe did not make things any easier.
The battle was dragging on for much longer that she wanted, and she was not killing them fast enough. She was never in any real danger herself, but if the battle would have continued for much longer, she would not have enough magic left for the extenuating task of raising the moon and uttering in the night. Worst still was that the longer the battle went on, the greater the risk of something happening to the foal was.
“Thank you sister,” Luna said as back in the capital Celestia rose the moon.
With the power of the celestial body flowing through her body Luna made short work of the aggressors, but not before one got in a lucky shot, a small green lightning bolt which passed through the shield that protected them and hit the foal in the back of the head.
The little pony let out a soul-piercing cry, Luna strengthened the magical barrier, and quickly dealt with the rest of the blue-eyed abominations. The blast was not that strong, and would have caused a normal pony only a minor injury. However the pony in question was a foal, and the blast did a lot more damaged than it should.
Luna looked at the wound and was horrified by what she saw. The pony’s mane was entirely gone, as was most of his scalp, and he was fastly bleeding to death. The tiny unicorn needed medical attention, and fast, but the nearest settlement was a few days away, and there was no way he would make it until then, no matter how fast Luna flew.
Luna, unlike Celestia, was never any good at using healing spells, in fact most of the time she ended up doing more bad than good, but desperate times called for desperate measures, and there was really nothing else she could do, so Luna channeled her magic into the foal, and focused on the injury.
First she focused on stopping the bleeding and cauterizing the wound. Luna had to stop mid process when she realised that if the wound was cauterised the regeneration process would take longer, so she had to undo a good part of the work she did. More and more magic flowed from Luna into the unicorn foal’s body, and his wound slowly healed.
With great effort, Luna managed not only stop the bleeding, but succeeded in forcing the regeneration of the little pony’s scalp, even if she wasted much of magical reserves in doing so.
With the foal now out of immediate danger, and sleeping soundly, Luna placed him on her back and flew off towards to meet the rest of the Royal Guard. Flying north, she left the barren wastelands in a matter of hours and flew over green plains and forest, as well as over clear blue rivers and lakes for the two days, it was a welcomed change of scenery.
The army of ten thousand white ponies, wearing shining golden armor were easily spotted from the air.
“The princess!” one of the soldiers yelled as he saw the dark blue alicorn coming towards them. “The princess is coming!”
Luna landed right in the middle of them and immediately called for a meeting of the highest ranking officers, and a map of the region to be brought to her.
“I want all this region to be cleared of forest. I want fortifications build every five to ten miles all across this area. I want signal fires in each and every last one of them. And I want nothing and no one to pass cross this line,” Luna drew an imaginary line with her hoof across most of Equestrians southern border.
“Your majesty,” one of the captains talked, “what has happened?”
“The Great Forest is gone. This entire area is a wasteland,” Luna pointed towards the green area of the map that had the words Great Forest written upon it. “We should also get our maps updated.”
“Princess, what has happened?” another captain asked.
“I do not know. Not since the reign of Discord have I seen destruction of that magnitude.” A cold shiver ran down the spines of all those who still remembered how the world was like before the sisters imprisoned him.
“Now get to work, and no matter what... or who,” Luna added, “comes from that place, you will not let it pass. Do you understand?”
“Yes ma’am!” they all responded.
“Good, now send word to my sister that her aid is no longer required and that she should send the Royal Guard back to the northern border. Also I will be leaving for a couple of days, and I will expect a status report by the time I get back.”
“Of course your highness.”
Luna did not believe that the threat had passed, but she would not send more ponies into the barren land located to the south, where they would most likely be slawter by some unknown force or entity and reanimated as blue-eyed undead abominations. So she choose what she believed of being the best course of action, quarantine.
The ten thousand Royal Guard unicorns and earth ponies would start guarding and quickly fortifying Equestria’s new southern border, and would be later joined by pegasi reinforcement as well as by specialised carpenters and masons to help construct and maintain new proper fortifications.
The soldiers went to work cutting down the nearby patches of forest and erecting crude fortifications, surrounded by palisade walls. while Luna flew towards Lilyblue, the nearest town where she had pressing matters to attend to.
The southern lands of Equestria had been ruled by the unicorn tribe, settlements were few and far apart, most of which were nothing more than summer residences of the royal families or of wealthy lords and ladies, as well as some additional buildings that housed their servants.
For two days Luna flew towards the nearest real city. The place was old, build next to a small mountain, with tall buildings clumped together behind tall walls, narrow streets, and a predominant unicorn population.
Many ponies had lost their lives, their homes, and everything they had in the years following the defeat of Discord. For them as princess of Equestria, Luna founded the Southern Star, a government organization that helped the poor, the homeless, the sick, the elderly, the crippled and orphaned. It was the second largest organisation in the country, second only to the Royal Guard, and in every town, all over Equestria, there was at least one free clinic, workhouse, home, or asylum.
Luna landed in front of that town's Southern Star orphanage and walked in the building. A bell rang as the door opened.
“Welcomed to the Southern Star,” a female voice said from a backroom, “please take a seat, I’ll be with you in a moment.”
An light pink earth pony mare, with a white mane and a white heart with a band aid on it as a cutie mark, walked into the room.
“Sorry about that I was just...” The pony stopped dead in her tracks.
“Princess!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”
“I have come to drop this little one off,” Luna said as her horn lid up and she levitated the little unicorn foal towards the pink earth pony. “His parents were settlers from down south, and...”
“Say no more princess,” the mare interrupted her. “Everypony here has lost their family, I assure you he will be taken care off. Do you happen to know the little one’s name?”
“His name... No I fear that his mother died before she told us.”
“I see. Would you like to name him?”
“Starry. Starry Night,” Luna answered without giving it much thought.
“Hello there, little Starry,” the mare cooed the sleeping pony.
“I will leave him in your care miss...”
“Sister,” the mare replied. “Sister Loveheart, your majesty.”
“Sister Loveheart, please take care of him,” Luna said as she left the Southern Star orphanage, and went to oversee the construction of the fortifications.
The nurse took the foal, and after the initial shock she had when she saw the burn marks that covered his head, she bathed him, gave him clothes to wear, fed him, took him upstairs to her room and placed him in a makeshift crib next to two other sleeping foals.
In a new home, and with a new name, Starry Nights life began anew.
In the southern part of Equestria, a little over two weeks away from the capital city, stood the little city of Lilyblue, named after the exotic plant that only grew in the region. Built by the unicorn tribe during the reign of Discord the city was everything one would expect it to be, old, crowded, with narrow streets, and tall buildings, on the outskirts, contrasting heavily with the large open areas filled with flower gardens, fountains and elaborate mansions that housed the elites and nobles.
Through its narrow streets three little ponies were running for their lives.
“Hurry!” a little unicorn colt with a black tail, dark blue coat, wearing a black bandana on his head and a heavily patched up cape on his back, yelled at his two friends.
“We are!” another colt yelled back at him. He was a pegasus, a little larger than the other two, with a much lighter blue coat and fiery red mane. Just like his friend he wore a similar black bandana and cape, his was however in a much better condition.
Trailing behind them, wearing only the cape, was a pegasus filly. She was by far the smallest of the group, her coat was a pale-yellow and her mane and tail were light green in color.
“Wait up!” she yelled.
“Stop running! We just want to play!” Two smelly, soaking wet, young earth pony stallions were running after the group, with the intent of giving the three a good beating.
“We are not falling for that again!” the unicorn colt said as he took a sharp turn down an alleyway, his friends following his lead.
The alleyway lead to a flight of stairs on the sides of which various merchants set up shops, and were selling everything from fresh produce, and freshly cooked food, too expensive fabrics, dyes, carpets, clothing and jewelry.
“Starry!” the pegasus colt yelled at his friend. “Rack!”
“I see it, Foggy,” he replied.
In front of them The unicorns horn glew blue and he grabbed a stone in his magical aura. The stone flew towards the wheel of a clothes rack and snapped it off, causing the entire thing to fall into the narrow street. The owners rushed to pick up their wares, just in time to block the path for the two bullies, the little ponies having passed easily between the merchants.
“Nice shot,” the filly told her friend as the trio put some more distance between them and the two stallions.
“Thanks Petal,” Starry turned his head to reply to the filly, proud of his action.
He did not see when, from a side street, two ponies appeared in front of them.
“Watch out!” the unicorn colt, Foggy yelled out to Starry.
The little unicorn didn’t had the time to turn his head when he knocked into the brown earth pony stallion, knocking the both of them off their hooves and causing his bandana to fall off.
“Are you alright?” the other pony, a blue mare with a silver mane, asked the colt. She smiled warmly at him as she stretched out her hoof to help the little pony up.
“I’m fine,” Starry said knocking the mare’s hoof away and getting up on his own.
“Aren’t you going to ask me if I’m alright?” the bown stallion asked his companion.
“No,” she promptly shut him down with a much more serious expression on her face. “Now get up, we have a job to do.”
“Fine.” The stallion jumped to his feet.
“I can’t believe how much you take all the fun out of this,” he told the mare as the two went on their way.
“And I can’t believe you forgot where you parked it,” the blue mare replied.
“I did not forget! It is that it is not where I left it.”
“Whatever you say.”
The kids watched the two bickering as they disappeared into the city.
The filly picked up Starry’s bandana from the ground and hoofed it over to him.
“Thanks,” he quickly grabbed it and tied it around his head making sure that none of the scars he had on his scalp were visible.
Foggy looked up at the sky and saw a few grey clouds being moved together.
“Come on you two,” the other colt said as he took a couple of steps away from them. “Sister Lovehearth will be angry with us if we are late again.”
“Yeah, and we are in enough trouble as it is,” the filly added.
“Hey!” Starry protested. “They had it coming.”
“You dumped sewer water on them!” Foggy yelled at him. “In front of the entire school!”
“They called Petal damaged!”
“Well, I sort of am,” the filly said holding her head down.
“No, you aren't!” both the colts yelled at her.
“And neither am I,” Starry added.
No sooner has the unicorn colt snapped at Petal did the first drops of rain started falling. The three ran back to the place they called home, the Southern Star Orphanage, where they would receive a scolding.
Three wet and freezing ponies entered the Southern Star Orphanage, and hoped to be greeted by the warm and caring smile of pink, white-maned earth pony that took care of them, Sister Lovehearth.
While it was that very same mare that greeted them when they entered her expression was anything but warm and caring.
“Do you have any idea how much trouble the three of you are?” Sister Lovehearth scolded them.
“A lot?” Starry asked mustering the largest puppy dog eyes he could. The other two follow his lead.
The mare sighed. “Do you honestly think that still works on me?”
The three little ponies hung their head down in defeat.
“What were you thinking pulling a stunt like that on your brothers? I thought I raised you better than that, but I guess I was wrong,” she sighed again.
“We’re sorry,” the three said in unison.
“You should be. I am very disappointed by you all, especially by you, Fogtome.”
“Foggy,” the pegasus colt mumbled as the other two snickered.
“I heard that. Why in Luna’s name did you let Starry talk you into this again.”
“They called Petal damaged!” Foggy told the mare as he raised his head. “And...”
“Let me guess, you knights have to stick together? Yeah, I’ve heard that all before.”She turned towards Petal.
“Is that true Cory?” the mare asked looking at Petal. “Did they actually say that about you?
She nodded before mumbling “name’s Petal.”
“The five of you used to get along so well,” she sighed again. “I’ll have a talk with them. Now you three get out of those drenched clothes, and go wipe yourselves dry.”
“Yes, Sister,” they said as they walked upstairs.
“And hurry up, supper will be ready in half an hour.”
“Yes, Sister.”
The stairs were old, as was the rest of the building, and the steps squeaked as they stepped on them, grabbing the attention of the rest of their “family.” Their brothers and sisters could not help but peek out of their rooms just to see in what trouble the famous Knights got themselves into.
“Hey,” one of them called out, “did they really call her damaged?”
“Where did you get the water from?”
“Did you throw the bucket too?”
And many more questions were asked during their short walk towards the bathroom. No matter how much Starry wanted to brag, or at least explain his plan and tell them how he managed to accomplish it, experience told him that the less everypony knew, the smaller his punishment will be, so he kept his plan to himself.
A small group of colts and fillies was slowly forming around them. The door to the bathroom creaked open, the three entered, and quickly closed the door behind them.
The room was large, it had to be to accommodate the dozen or so ponies that called this place home. One of the three sinks was dripping, a few toilets were clogged up, the pipes were rusty, and there were five wooden tubs filled, and equally as many buckets with bedsheets, pillow casings, and even a few clothes were left to soak until tomorrow. Above them three clotheslines were filled with laundry left to dry in there, since there was no where else left for Sister Lovehearth to hang them. Also in the room, along side from all the washed, or soon to be washed laundry, were also two large, but oddly enough not very smelly, piles of unwashed laundry.
“I hate it when this happens,” Foggy said as he removed his bandana and cape, threw them in a pile and stretched out his wings. After flapping them a few times and lifting himself a few inches from the flooring he was forced to land or else risk getting tangled up in one of the bed sheets that hangs above them.
Starry was listening at the door, hoping to overhear a few of the questions his brothers and sisters had for him.
“Yeah, me too,” Petal told Foggy as she too removed her cape and stretched out her one wing. Foggy could not help but stare at the way the stump moved, just like if the rest of the wing was still there.
“You are doing that again,” she told him.
“Sorry,” he quickly apologised and turned away so that Petal could not see how red in the cheeks he was. He walked over to a pile laundry and pulled out two pillow cases that looked at least not as dirty as the rest.
“Here,” he said crumpling one of them and throwing it to Petal.
“Thanks,” the mare replied as she wiped her head with it, before moving on to the rest of her body.
“We should head down, dinner should be ready soon.”
“What about Starry?” she asked as the both of them looked at their friend who was still wearing his cape and bandana, and listening at the door.
“Leave him,” Foggy told her as he headed towards the door. “He’s probably thinking how he’s going to get us in trouble tomorrow. Aren’t you?” he asked Starry.
“Aaa!” Starry jumped, startled by his friend voice.
“Told you.”
Petal let out a giggle as she threw her makeshift tower at the unicorn colt.
Foggy opened the door just as the sound of a bell echoed through the building.
“Dinner is ready,” Sister Lovehearth yelled from downstairs.
Foggy and Petal left the room and trotted downstairs to get a good seat at the table leaving Starry alone in bathroom, his mind still preoccupied with thinking about what they were going to do tomorrow. This all changed when his stomach decided to make itself heard.
Now realising how hungry he actually was, Starry took the pillow casing Petal threw at him and wiped himself dry before throwing it back into the pile and running towards where the food was. Before he reached the stairs he heard a high pitch filly scream, and rushed towards the dining room.
“Slate Fogtome!” Starry could hear Sister Lovehearth yelling out his friend's name, “go to your room this instant!”
Starry continued running and only stopped when he saw Foggy heading walking towards him. The pegasus colt had a cheeky smile on his face, and a large lump in the middle of his forehead.
“What happened?!” Starry asked staring at the lump.
“I’ll tell you later,” Foggy replied as he walked passed him, and headed upstairs towards their room the smile on his face not fading for a moment.
As he entered the room he could see his family eagerly devouring that their meals.
At the end of table was Sister Loveheart place, right next to the large pot that held that night’s dinner, but the chair was empty. Starry looked around the room searching for their caretaker. He saw the other ponies standing at the table, scarfing down their dinner of mashed potatoes and hot bread buns, while Sister Loveheart was holding a blood soaked handkerchief at the nose of a young stallion. Starry immediately recognised him as one of the two stallions that picked on Petal earlier that day. He picked up a plate and headed towards the pot.
“You’re late,” the mare yelled at him.
“Sorry,” Starry quickly said as he stopped dead in his tracks.
“Hold it like this,” she told the stallion and went to give the colt his meal.
A decent size side of mashed potatoes and a still warm bun was given to him by Sister Loveheart, and Starry searched for an empty place at the table. He found Foggy’s place, the one next to Petal, to be empty and a plate of food spilled on the floor nearby.
“What happened?” Starry asked Petal as he sat down.
Petal did not reply. She just tipped her head to the side, telling Starry to look at Sister Loveheart. Talking at the table was forbidden and the mare seemed a little angry that night. Starry got the hint and began eating. The filly finished her dinner, said her thanks and went upstairs to their room.
“I thank the Princess Luna for the food I ate,” Starry said as he finished his supper and went to his room, picking up a bun as Sister Loveheart was busy cleaning the table.
He rushed upstairs and headed straight for his room.
The door barely opened because of all the stuff that was cramped inside. Not only was the room small, but it was shared by four ponies; there were four beds, two nightstands, placed between the beds, a single closet that mostly held spare bedding and blankets, and a single table on which was placed the only light source a simple candlestick. The room had windows, but barely any light could enter because of the tall building built across the street from the orphanage.
One colt was sleeping, and on the table the candle was burning. Next to it was an open book, and Foggy helping Petal with her Equestrian homework: she had to read an edited version of a griffin story about a talking spider and a pig, and did not get it at all.
“Catch,” Starry said as he threw the bread roll towards Foggy.
“So what happened, you wanted to become an unicorn or something?” he asked laughing at the lump on Foggy’s forehead.
“Or something,” he replied as he took a bite out of the bun.
“So, are you going to tell me about it?” Starry asked as he jumped onto his bed.
“Later,” Foggy told him. “After Petal finishes her homework.”
“We’ve got homework?”
Foggy facehoofed.
“It doesn’t matter, I’ll just copy Petal’s.”
“Uh,” Foggy groaned, “you’re hopeless.”
Three hours or four candles later Petal was done with her homework, the candle was blown out and they all went to bed, leaving Starry to copy his homework sometime tomorrow before Equestrian class started.
“So are you going to tell me now?” Starry was getting more and more curious about what happened during dinner.
“He did something stupid and I did something. He got a bloody nose and I got send to bed.”
“Oh come on, tell me everything,” Starry begged.
“It’s really nothing that great.”
“That guy tripped Petal, she spilled her food, Foggy headbutted him, Sister Loveheart only saw Foggy, the end,” their fourth roommate said annoyed that he was not able to sleep. “Now shut up and go to sleep.”
They were silent for a few minutes before Starry spoke again.
“That’s really not like you Foggy,” he whispered to his friend. “You’re the last pony I expected to pick a fight with the older colt.”
“SHUT UP!” their roommate yelled at them. “Shut up or I swear to Luna that I will get out of bed and beat you to a pulp.”
“Sorry,” the two colts said in unison before finally shutting up and going to sleep.
Chapter 10: A typical morning for the Knight of Night
Chapter 10: A typical morning for the Knight of Night
The next morning passed quickly and was uneventful. They got up, went to the bathroom, ate breakfast and picked up their bandanas and capes before heading to school. There, their teacher caught Starry copying Petal’s homework and had both of them stay after class and gave them extra homework that they had to do in front of the teacher.
An hour and a half after school was dismissed they exited the classroom and found Foggy waiting for them outside the schoolhouse.
“Took you long enough. What did she have you do?” Foggy asked them.
“We had to write two pages explaining why the spider helped the pig,” Petal told him.
“It was just so boring,” Starry complained.
“You find everything boring,” Foggy said.
Starry shrugged, and Petal giggled.
“Here,” Foggy gave Petal her bandana. “I found it in that brush.”
“Thanks,” she replied putting the bandana on her head.
“So Starry, what do you want to do today?” Foggy asked as Starry took the lead and a headed down a narrow street, the two little pegasi following him.
“Same thing we do everyday Foggy, go on an adventure,” Starry joked.
“I know that!” Foggy yelled at him, not finding the joke funny.
“Okay, okay calm down, jeez, it was a joke.”
“A bad one if you ask me,” Petal said.
“I agree,” Foggy added. “So where are you taking us anyway?”
“The barracks.”
“The barracks?” the two said together, surprised by the location.
“Are you crazy?” Petal went on. “Don’t you remember how much trouble we got into the last time we went there?”
“This time will be different,” Starry reassured her.
“That’s what you said last time! And the time before that!”
“And don’t forget when they caught us in the armory,” Foggy added.
“Don’t remind me. I couldn’t sit down for a whole week.”
“There was also that time when you stole that sword and Sister Loveheart almost had a heart attack.”
“Hey! I found that sword!” Starry defended himself. “Anyway... This time it will be different. It really will.”
“So what’s the plan?” Froggy asked, hoping they will not get in too much trouble.
“There is this rumor that there are secret passages and hidden rooms all over the city, and every day two guards go underground and never return,” Starry said, trying to sound ominous.
“That’s just stupid,” Foggy quickly told him.
“No it isn’t!” Starry objected. “And no one is forcing you to come along.”
“Maybe I won’t!”
“Calm down!” Petal yelled at them. “Both of you!”
“Foggy, do you want to come?” she asked in a calm voice.
“Yes,” he admitted.
“Then lets go.”
They made their way through the outer regions of the city and entered the center area. The tightly packed together buildings and narrow streets gave way to large flower gardens, with water fountains, surrounding large mansions or lavish and exotic shops.
Their patched capes and bandanas made the three ponies stand out among the crowd, and everypony was staring at them as pass by. They did not mind, especially Petal and Starry who were used to ponies staring at them. They passed through the gardens, and headed straight for the Royal Guard barracks.
The military district came into sight. It was separated from the rest of the city by an inner wall that surrounded the entire district and stretched outwards until it reached the outer wall, only two gates connected it to the rest of the world, one in the outer wall, and two that lead to the rest of the city. The three ponies were standing in front of one of these gates.
“What now?” Foggy asked after almost an hour of waiting.
“We wait,” Starry replied. “We wait for the Guards to exit through the gate and head to one of the entrances to the underground.”
“What if they exit through the other gate?” Petal asked.
Starry turned his head towards her and frowned.
“Hey look,” Foggy said grabbing the attention of the other two.
The gate opened and two Royal Guard unicorns exited the district. Their horns were glowing and a large basket that seemed to be filled with small glass jars, all of which empty, floated between them surrounded by a bright blue aura.
“Let’s go after them,” Starry told their friends and the three of them followed the Guards as they headed into the other parts of the city.
They were keeping their distance so that the Guards would not notice them, but close enough to not lose sight of them. A couple of times the Guards stopped and doubled back having the feeling that they were being followed, but unfortunately for them the three ponies knew the area all too well and caught on to the unicorn’s intentions.
Eventually having wasted enough time and convinced that they were not followed the Guards headed straight for their destination, an abandoned two story house that was in a severe state of disrepair, much like everything in that part of the city.
“Hidden in plain sight,” Starry said as the other two ponies looked at him with confused expressions on their faces.
“What is he talking about?” Petal asked Foggy.
The colt shrugged.
When the guards reached the buildings front door they left the basked on the ground and one of them levitated the large cast iron padlock that held the door close.
Foggy tried to stop Starry from going any closer but the little unicorn wanted to see what the soldiers were doing.
“You are going to get us caught,” Foggy whispered to him. Starry did not completely ignore his friend’s warning and opted instead to circled around the Guards, while still keeping his distance.
The lock made a loud clanking sound as it opened and the guards entered, taking the basket of jars with them and closing the door behind them. A bright blue aura surrounded the padlock and it was placed back in its place, clicking shut.
Starry was the first to run towards the building.
“Well I guess that’s it,” Foggy said as he and Petal walked towards his friend.
“Hmm... Maybe not,” Starry mumbled as he lifted himself on his hind legs and looked inside the keyhole of the large cast iron padlock.
“What?” Foggy asked as he and Petal were looking through the windows and seeing nothing but wooden boards.
“This lock,” Starry tapped it a couple of times. “I think I can open it.”
“How?!” Foggy asked him. “You don’t have the key!”
“I don’t think I need it.”
“Since when did you learn to pick locks?” Petal asked as she walked towards her unicorn friend.
“I think this is a magical lock. We learned about them at magical kindergarten.”
Petal and Foggy looked at each other, shrugged then back at Starry.
“Well? Can you?” the both asked.
Starry’s horn lit up and his blue aura surrounded the padlock. He started moving the many delicate pieces that were inside the lock. It was just like an elaborate puzzle... and he sucked at puzzles.
Initially a lock consisted of a mechanical fastening device that was released by a physical object, commonly known as a key. But as technology advanced new types of locks came into existence.
The first to be widely used were the combination locks, either on their own or in addition with a classical lock, they were significantly better than the classical ones because they require both a key and and the input of a numerical value, both these types of locks were available to any of the three pony tribes. However, the unicorns also had a third type of lock, this one also could be used alongside the other two models but the most basic variant was simply called a magical lock.
On the outside the lock that held the door close, the lock that Starry wanted to get open looks just like any other padlock, it even had a dummy keyhole, but the real difference was on the inside. While a traditional lock have a series of pins, be theme spring loaded or not depending on the model, when the key is inserted the the pins are aligned and offer no resistance against the twisting movement of the key and the subsequent movement of the latch. But the the magical one was nothing like his non magical counterpart.
At its core it was nothing more than a puzzle, a very complicated puzzle, with thousands of moving parts, each shaped more oddly then the last. Some could be moved on their own while others caused a chain reaction that reshaped the entire layout. The worst part was that the entire mechanism was hidden, so either one knew the layout inside out, or had a diagram or drawing of the insides he would basically be forced to rely on the touchy feely approached or just hope to get lucky.
Starry concentrated on opening the magical lock, this was his first time actually seeing, let alone using, one of them. The first few minutes were intense, with Petal and Foggy holding their breaths as to not disturb him, yet now, almost two hours later he was still trying to figure out how the pieces fitted together and interacted with each other, and his two friends were almost asleep.
With his frustration growing, and no real progress whatsoever Starry finally admitted to himself that there was no way he was going to find the right way to open the lock today, but there were more than one way to get a lock open. Sparks flew from Starry’s horn as he put more and more magic into his telekinesis spell.
Sweat was forming on the colts face and the intensity and the prolonged casting of the spell was starting to cause him discomfort. He closed his eyes as he focused even harder on opening the magical padlock thought brute force alone. Every piece that could be moved was being moved, and Starry hoped that he would get the position right eventually.
A cold breeze ran across his sweaty body and Starry could feel his cape and bandana flapping in the wind. The back of his head started feeling hot as did the base of his horn. The discomfort was turning into pain, and he could feel his knees starting to give.
Petal and Foggy had awakened and were now taking cover behind a nearby cart.
Starry kept channeling the spell and the lock was starting to vibrate from the rapid movement of the mechanical parts, The pieces of metal that made up the locking mechanism were constantly rubbing against each other at increasingly higher speeds. The oils that lubrifier them have long since evaporated from movement and heat was building up. Even if Starry could not see it, many of the pieces inside were now glowing red hot as they constantly rubbed against other pieces or against the casing or static parts.
“Just open already!” Starry yelled out in frustration.
Blue sparks were coming out of the unicorn’s horn almost as fast as red ones were coming out of the padlocks keyhole, and despite the blue aura that surrounded it, the entire lock was now glowing red hot.
“Just a little more...” Starry said to himself as he put all he got in opening the lock, but the lock remained closed.
“DAMN IT!” he yelled as he fell to his knees, Foggy and Petal rushing to his side.
“Are you alright?” Foggy asked as he helped Starry back on his hooves.
“You gave us quite the scare,” Petal added as she helped him from falling back down again.
“I’m fine,” Starry reassured them. “I hate that lock.”
“Well maybe we can find another way in. Let’s go get something to drink, I am so thirsty.”
“Drink? Petal you are a genius!” Starry said as he pushed his friends away and looked around.
“I am?” Petal asked Foggy. The colt just shrugged. “What are you looking for anyway?”
“That!” Starry exclaimed as he saw a puddle in the street gutter.
His horn started flowing again and he started wobbling. The two pegasi quickly came to his sides to make sure he can put his “plan” into action. Starry focused his magic on the small puddle and lifted the water with a mix of a the telekinesis and simple force field spell, encasing it in a magical bubble.
He slowly moved the water bubble from above where the puddle had been, to above the lock, and let it fall onto the red hot piece of metal. The water sipped throughout the small space between the shackle and the padlock’s body and onto the delicate mechanism inside.
The sudden change in temperature caused some of the thinner pieces of metal to give out and the lock opened with a few metallic snaps.
Starry smiled proudly as he levitated the still hot lock out of the way and the three of them entered the building.
After hours of attempting to enter the building, Starry, Petal and Foggy were underwhelmed when they first saw what was on the inside, nothing.
The door opened to reveal a small room, barely big enough to fit a single bed and a few extra small pieces of furniture. But there were none. The ceiling was so low that a tall stallion would have hit his head just by walking inside, the walls were crooked and the wallpaper was crumbling. three of the walls were bare only the front one had any windows, and even those were boarded. While the stone floor was covered by inches of dust. The room looked and felt like nopony entered in ages.
“What?!” they all asked, surprised by what they saw.
Starry lit up his horn so they would have more light and the ponies walked all over the room, feeling the walls, looking for a secret door, a hidden passage or anything that could have explained where the two guards disappeared, but found nothing. The walls were solid, and the only thing they saw on the floor were their hoofprints.
“Oh, come on!” Foggy yelled out of frustration stumping his hoof. “We waited for hours and this is what we got?!” he stumped his hoof again.
“Foggy why don’t you check the ceiling,” Petal asked of him.
“Why would there anything be up there?” Starry asked looking up. “They are not pegasi.”
“Do you have any other ideas?”
“No,” he admitted.
Foggy stretched out his wings and started flapping them. Starry and Petal felt the air moving as the pegasi took off.
Foggy searched all over the ceiling, tapping it, listening for a hollowed out spot, and looking for a hidden switch, but again, found nothing.
“Nothing,” he said as he flapped his wings more slowly before landing next to his friends. “It’s like they vanished into thin air.”
“Maybe they teleported away,” Petal tried to explain why there was no sign of them anyway.
Starry sat down on the stone floor and took a moment to think about it, the other two did the same. He looked at the ceiling, nothing. He looked at the walls, nothing, just crumbling plaster. He looked at the floor, noting, just dust and their hoofprints.
“Wait a minute, dust?” Starry asked himself.
“Dust?!” he asked again, this time outloud grabbing the attention of his friends. “Dust!”
“Dust?” Foggy was surprised by what Starry said. “What about the dust?”
“It’s here,” Starry replied.
“Yeah, so what?”
“It shouldn’t be here...” he tried to explain. “Not anymore.”
Foggy and Petal were not following Starry’s thinking.
“Foggy, wave your wings and clear the dust!”
“I don’t see how that...”
“Just do it!” Starry interrupted him.
“Uh,” Foggy grunted as he stretched out his wings and began flapping moving the air in order to blow away the dust, but no matter how much he tried the dust would not move.
“That’s enough,” Starry told him as he lit up his horn. A bright flash of light filled the room, blinding all inside.
“Why did you do that!?” Petal and Foggy yelled at Starry, while they were rubbing their eyes, trying to recover from the blast.
“Look!”
“We can’t!” they both yelled at him.
“Oh, right.”
A little later when their vision returned to them, Foggy and Petal were able to see why Starry did what he did. The dust was gone and in the middle of the floor a wooden door was visible.
“How did we miss that?” they asked Starry.
“It was hidden by the dust,” he explained as his horn lit up once more and the door swung open revealing a stone stairway heading down beneath the building.
“But why couldn’t I blow it away?”
“It was never there. It was an illusion, now come on, let’s go,” Starry told them as he let his horn light up the passageway, as they descended down the stairs.
Step by step they went deeper down the staircase. To their disappointment there was nothing down there except for stone ceiling, stone walls, and stone flooring, all bathed in a blue light coming from Starry’s horn.
“This is the worst adventure we ever went on,” Foggy complained. “First we waited for you to pick a lock, then we got into an empty room...”
Starry shushed him. “Look,” he said as the tunnel they were walking through seemed to be ended.
“I don’t see...” Petal placed her hoof in his mouth, also shushing him.
“Listen,” she whispered.
Echoing through the tunnel, two voices could be heard. At first they seemed to be so far away that nothing but two mumbling sounds could be heard. The three little ponies listen closely and headed towards the origin of the sounds. They walked through winding passageways, cross deep chasms on narrow stone bridges and continued venturing deeper into the underground.
The voices were getting louder and clearer, but the echo was still preventing them from making out any actual words.
“What is that?” Foggy asked as something caught his eye.
The object that grabbed the colt’s attention was a small blue orchid, similar to the one that grew everywhere in the city above.
“What is this doing down here?” Petal asked as she walked towards the flower.
She reached out to pick it up, but before she could grab the flower the three ponies were startled by a loud, high pitched, shrieking noise that echoed throughout the entire cave. They screamed and placed their hooves on their ears trying to drown out as much as the painful sound as possible. It only lasted for a moment before the shrieking was covered by the another, even louder sound, and this one was getting louder with each passing moment.
Starry and Foggy squinted their eyes trying to get a better look down the tunnel, while Petal had her eyes closed and hooves pressed against her ears.
“What the...” Starry began to say as he saw something moving in the darkness, but was promptly interrupted by Foggy.
“Move!” he yelled as he pushed Petal to the side of the tunnel, slamming the filly against the stone wall. He did the same with Starry, before jumping out of the way of two galloping stallions.
The three watched in horror as two armored stallions unicorns ran past them, screaming as loud as they could. They white coat dyed red.
“We should get out of here,” Foggy quickly said, fearful that whatever the Guards were running for was now far away.
“STARRY!” he yelled as he saw the colt running the opposite direction, before giving chase, with Petal besides him.
They ran after Starry for a good minute or two before they found him staring into a crater.
“We need to get out of here!” Foggy said gasping for breath.
“Look.” Starry pointed down the crater.
Petal and Foggy looked towards where Starry was pointing, and they saw what grabbed the colts attention. The crater was about twenty feet deep and span for a great deal more, and every single inch of it was covered in blue orchids similar to the one Petal almost picked up earlier.
As they stared at the flower bed a creature came into view and was heading towards them. All that the three ponies could do was to stared at it.
Most of it’s body was covered in white fur, from the tip of its snout to the end of its clawed legs. The creatures upper arms were three if not four times larger than its legs, and ended in three equally long digits, with a thin membrane running between them, down the side of its body and ending at the tip of its legs creating two large, membranous wings that if it wasn't for the fact that they reflected the light form Starry’s horn would have been completely invisible to the naked eye. The creature also had huge ears compared to the size of its head, and an equally large nose. It mouth was filled with long sharp fangs and it seemed to be constantly screaming as it flew towards them, but it had no eyes.
It headed straight for Petal, and while the two other ponies were just staring, sunk its claws into the helpless pony’s... ear, the monstrosity being roughly the size of her hoof. Starry and Foggy could not help by laugh as they looked at how much Petal was struggling to get the overgrown mosquitto off her ear.
“Stop laughing,” she snapped at them. “Stop laughing and help me.”
“Can you believe this little thing scared off the guards,” Foggy said drying the tears from his eyes.
“You guys...”
“I don’t know Foggy, they seemed in pretty bad shape,” Starry told him.
“Guys...”
“You would catch me running away from a little bat when I become a Guard.”
“Me neither.”
“GUYS!” Petal yelled at her friends. Her voice echoed through the chamber and was amplified several times, before heading echoing down a tunnel.
“What?!” the two colts asked at once.
“Nothing,” she replied since the little bat had let go of her ear when she yelled.
Before any of them had time to say anything else they heard the same ear-popping high pitched shriek from early, it was coming from above them. Starry put forced more magic in his horn and he managed to light up the entire room.
“Guys,” Petal said as the three of them were looking up and seeing that the ceiling was white, and moving.
“Yes Petal?” the colts asked her, mesmerised by what they saw.
“I think we should get out of here. Now.”
Another shriek came from above and a few small bats flew towards them.
“RUN!” Petal yelled as the rest of the bats detached themselves from the ceiling and were heading towards them, fangs and claws at the ready.
The three ponies screamed all the time the bats were giving chase.
Foggy took the leaded and was the first up the stairs, slamming into the first door, while Starry did the same for the other. As he did so, daylight bursted into the room, and a part of it went down the staircase. The bats shrieked again when the light touched their body, and the ponies took this opportunity to close the floor door.
While Petal stood on the door Starry and Foggy headed outside and searched for something heavy.
“Hurry!” Petal yelled as she tried to calm down. The fact that only a simple door stood between her and countless albino bats was not helping her do so. The colts returned a few minutes later with a barrel filled with rainwater, which they placed on top of the door.
The three of them left the house, closed the door behind them and put the broken lock back.
“I think we shouldn’t tell anypony we were in there,” Starry told the other two as they headed back to the orphanage.
They both agreed and all of them were walking back home as the sun was starting to set.
After their regular scolding from Sister Lovehearth, a cold shower, since the hot water ran out awhile ago, dinner, chickpeas and dill, the three of them went to bed.
“I don’t think I will join,” Petal told them out of nowhere.
“Why not?!” the both of them asked, as they got up from their beds and walked over to Petals.
“Because...” Petal placed her pillow on her face to hide her embarrassment and mumbled the rest.
Starry looked at Foggy, he looked back and they both shrugged.
“Come on Petal,” Starry said, “you can tell us.”
“Because of my...”
“Your what?” Starry asked, before turning to Foggy. “Her what?”
“I think she doesn’t want to join because of her wing.”
“Is that true Petal?” Starry asked her.
“Aha,” they thought that was what she said, it was hard for them to be sure because of the pillow that muffled her voice.
“Well I can see how that would be a problem,” Starry said right as Foggy slapped him over the head.
“But you could always join the infantry just like any earth pony,” Foggy slapped him again.
Petal removed the pillow from her face and she was glad that it was so dark in the room so that they could not see her bloodshot, watery eyes. “Thank you.”
Foggy had to wait an entire year for Petal and Starry to be of age, but now all three ponies have already signed the papers, and were reporting for their first day of basic training, taking the first steps in becoming members of the Royal Guard.
Basic training was two months of unarmed training followed by four of weapon training, after which the recruits finish basic training and could chose to work in law enforcement, or go carrer, meaning that they had six more months of specialised training at the Royal Guard Academy, where depending on their preferences and the recommendation of their drill sergeant and other officers they could be assigned to administration, engineers, command, rd, medical, logistics, ro the infantry, for ponies of all tribes, artillery was unicorn only, while the air force and recon was pegasi only. But before they could even think about that, Starry, Petal, and Foggy first had to get through boot camp.
The southern region of Equestria had witness a population boom since the fortifications were built under the direct order of Princess Luna, that served to protect the kingdom from the unknown threats that lay to the south in the region now known as the Badlands, the name was not particularly original, but it perfectly described the dry and for the most part lifeless area. Many villages had been founded to accommodate the families of the Royal Guards that served there, as well as additional personal, shopkeepers, and various crafts ponies. But despite all of that, it still was the region with the lowest population density in the whole of Equestria.
Minutes before Celestia rose the sun and signaled the start of a new day Starry, Petal, and Foggy stood in attention alongside twenty-seven other ponies. In front of them walked an old pegasus stallion, wearing the enchanted Royal Guard chestpiece, and with a cyan badge in the shape of a shield on his chest with the words “THIS WE’LL DEFEND” engraved on it. He also wore a campaign hat on his head, and examined each and everyone of them.
“This just had to happen to me, what a bunch of worthless maggots...” the pegasus talked to himself before turning to face the recruits.
“I drill sergeant Clashing Lance your new instructor. From now on you will only speak when spoken too, and the first and last words out of your mouth shall be Sir, do you maggots understand?” sergeant Lance said as the sun rose from behind him blinding some of the recruits.
“Sir, yes Sir,” the recruits said.
“I can’t hear you!”
“Sir, yes Sir!” they yelled.
“If you survive me you will become strong, you will become a weapon, but until then you are nothing. Do you understand?”
“Sir, yes Sir.”
“LOUDER!” he yelled at them.
“Sir, yes Sir!” they yelled back at him.
“What are you?!”
“Sir, nothing Sir!”
“You may not like me now, but you will grow to hate me. And the more you hate me the more you try to do whatever it takes to get me off your back. I do not care if you have wings, a horn or nothing between your legs, to me you are all equal. Equally worthless. Every single last one of you is worthless. Do you understand?”
“Sir, yes Sir!”
“I swear to Celestia that if ever have to tell any of you maggots to speak up, none of you will be geting any sleep tonight!” he yelled at them.
“SIR, YES SIR!” they yelled at him as loud as they could.
“What are you?!”
“SIR, WORTHLESS, SIR!”
A recruit coughed, the drill sergeant heard him and he walked towards him, all the other recruits following him with their eyes.
“Do I make you sick maggot!?” he shouted in the recruit’s face.
“No Sir, no you don’t!” the recruit nervously answered.
“No pony alive should be this retarded! What the buck did I say the first and last words out of your bucking mouth should be?!”
“Sir!”
“And?!” the instructor asked, as his spit hit the private in the face.
“Sir, and Sir! Sir!”
Another one let out a laugh. The pegasus sergeant walked to him and looked him in the eyes before punching him in the face, knocking him to the grown.
“The buck do you find so funny?! Answer me!” He yelled at him before kicking him in the stomach.
“Sir, nothing Sir!”
“Then why the buck were you laughing?! Now get up!”
The pony struggled to picked himself up and stand in attention.
“Do you think I am being too tough?” sergeant Lance asked a recruit. “Well do you?!” he asked again when the recruit failed to reply.
“Sir, no Sir!”
“Do you think I am being unfair?”
“Sir, no Sir!”
“Do you miss your mommy?” he asked Starry.
“Sir, I do not know, Sir!”
“You do not know? And why is that?”
“Sir, because she died when I was a foal Sir!”
“Well I am bucking sorry to hear that. Would you like to join her?”
“Sir, no Sir!”
“Then shut the buck up! Do you understand me recruit?”
Starry did not answer.
“Great. Now,” he talked to everypony, “anytime you think I am being too tough, anytime you think I am being unfair, anytime you miss your mommy... QUIT! Nopony is forcing any of you to be here and waste my time! Do you maggots understand me?”
“Sir, yes Sir!”
“I doubt any of you are worth the crap on my hooves. Anypony of you wants to prove me wrong?”
“Anypony of you has what it take to take a crack at me?” drill sergeant Lance asked the recruits.
They look at each other doing their best not to move their head.
“Come on you maggots, I don’t have all day!”
“Sir, I guess I do, sir!” a large earth pony mare said.
“Well... It’s usually a stallion who goes first, and I say to him that he’s got a pair, but I am pleasantly impressed by you. Now get your flank over here.”
The recruit ran from her position in the formation and stood in front of the drill sergeant. She was almost twice his size, yet she was the one that seemed to be wary of the fight ahead.
“Name?” he asked of her.
“Sir, Gem sir. Quartz Gem sir!”
“And what do you stand for Gem?”
“Sir?”
“What is your mark and what does it mean to you?” the sergeant clarified.
“Sir, my cutie mark is of a quartz crystal sir. I was a crystal farmer before joining sir.”
“A hard working pony. I guess you think that all the years you spent working with rocks made you strong? Am I right?”
“Sir, I think so sir!”
“Well come and prove it!”
The mare charged, using her superior size and weight, as well as her increased earth pony strength to knock the aged pegasus out in one swipe. The drill sergeant dodged the initial blow, and with a single hit to the jaw knocked out the inexperienced recruit.
“Just because you are bigger, doesn’t mean you are stronger. Never underestimate the advantages of training and real experience. Anypony else?”
“Sir, I would like to have a go. Sir.”
“Well recruit come on up,” sergeant Lance asked the pegasus that though he would do better.
Starry could see his light blue coat and fiery red mane as the pegasus stallion walked pass him.
“Name?” the sergeant asked of him.
“Sir, Slate Fogtome, “Foggy” sir,” the pegasus told the instructor.
“Foggy? What kind of a foal’s name is that?”
The pegasus did not reply.
“Well recruit Slate, what the buck do you stand for?” the drill sergeant asked looking at the blueish-grey blob that was on the pony’s thigh.
“Sir, mist sir, and I had no occupation. Sir!”
“A freeloader huh? Well then lazzyass, come at me!”
Slate dashed towards the instructor using his wings to increase his speed. The sergeant took a swing at him, but Slate pushed down with his wings and went underneath the attack. With another flap of his wings he pushed up and headbutted the older pegassus straight in the face, breaking his nose, and lips.
The smirk he had on his face quickly vanished when the instructor grabbed his head with his hooves, and returned the favor. The attack not only broke his nose, lips, knocked out a few of his teeth, and knocked the pony out, it also came close to breaking his entire jaw.
“Now this is what I am talking about,” sergeant Lance told the rest of the recruits with a small smile on his face as he let the unconscious pony fall.
“Medic!” he added, almost like an afterthought.
“Don’t ever let you guard down!” he yelled out as the medics took Slate away to get him patched up.
“Next!”
“Sir!” a pale-yellow pegasus mare with a light green tail and mane said and took a step forward.
“Name,” the instructor said as he waved for her to come over.
“Cory “Petal” Rivea sir. Morning glory flower as a cutie mark sir. I had no previous occupation sir.”
The instructor looked at the mare’s cutie mark and saw her missing wing.
“Another one with a stupid nickname. Don’t think I will take it easy on you cause you are a cripple.”
Starry grinded his teeth as the instructor called his friend a cripple.
Cory attacked him, sergeant Lance took a swing at her, she immediately flapped her left wind and dodged the attack, but did not have enough time to react to the pegasus left hook. The blow hit her in the neck and she fell to her knees coughing violently.
“Your attack couldn’t have been any more obvious if you yelled it for all to hear. Now get up!”
“Sir!” Starry said grabbing the instructors attention.
“Come on,” the instructor said as Starry and Cory exchanged places.
“Sir, are we allowed to use magic sir?”
The instructor looked at the bald unicorn that stood in front of him, the rest of the recruits did the same, only their gazes were fixed on the pony’s thigh.
“Magic?! There is always that one unicorn supremacist in the group. Well then, mighty magus, would you be so kind as to share your name with a nearly pegasus?”
“Sir, Starry Night sir!”
“Well, magus, let me guess your; special talent is magic?”
“Sir, no sir!”
“Then what?”
“Sir, nothing sir!”
“Nothing?” sergeant Lance asked, genuinely surprised by the pony’s answer. He tilted his head to take a better look at the pony’s cutie mark.
“By Celestia’s hairy teats, we’ve got a blankflank on our hooves! Hey everypony take a look!” he yelled as loud as he could grabbing the attention of other personal. “You are the largest blankflank I ever saw.”
“Okay blankflank, show us what you can do.”
“With pleasure sir,” Starry said with a smile on his face.
The unicorn spread his front legs, lowered his head, pointed his horn towards the pegasus and brace himself, Cory shut her eyes and held them as closed as she could.
Starry’s horn was surrounded by his dark blue magical aura and a bright flash of light bursted out from it blinding the instructor and causing all the recruits to scream in pain. The light cleared shortly after and everypony could see the blurry image of a smoking pegasus as it laid on the floor.
Starry was panting heavily, as the flash of light and the subsequent magical attack took alot out of him.
The instructor got up. His armor crumbled and fell off his body, dispelling the glamour enchantments that changed color of his coat, mane and tail. Not that it made any difference now. The stallions coat was gone, leaving only his blistered red and pink skin, while his mane and tail were completely burned away as were a good chunk of his feathers.
“I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!” the naked pony yelled almost foaming at the mouth. “I AM GOING TO KILL YOU, YOU LITTLE PIECE OF...”
“Stand down sergeant!” an armored pegasus pony ordered as he flew in, his blue cape fluttering in the wind as he landed between the enrage pegasus and the exhausted unicorn.
“But sir!” the sergeant tried protesting, but stopped when he saw the pegasus glaring at him. “Yes sir!”
“What were you thinking!? Allowing a recruit to use magic before he was tested?”
“Sir, nothing like this happened before, sir.”
“Now take the recruits to their quarters, and after you are done with them you are to do twenty laps around the entire base. And you to report to medical after. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, sergeant major sir!”
Starry let out a week laugh.
“And you are to join him!” the officer said to Starry.
“Sir yes sir...” Starry managed to say still panting.
“Carry on sergeant,” the officer said as he flew off.
“You heard him maggots!” the drill sergeant yelled. The fact that he was bald, naked and pink did not make his voice sound any less intimidating.
After the first day, followed two months, two months of the same routine.
First Call was two hours before sunrise, where the recruits would wake up, make their beds, and hit the showers. Physical training was next, almost two hours of “light” exercises, followed by half an hour for breakfast, before the real training began and lasted till midday when they would break for lunch. After they ate they would resume the physical training until dinner was served at five. From five until when Luna decided to put them out of their misery they were at the mercy of drill sergeant Lance, and mercy and patience were something he was severely lacking. They would have half an hour of personal time in which they could catch up on their duties write letters, do laundry, shower or just relax, before lights-out.
After two months of marching, obstacles courses, and hoof to hoof combat all the recruits, Starry, Slate and Cory included were glad that they were finally able to pick up a weapon and start weapon training.
There were the general weapons that all ponies learned to used, like daggers, knives, swords, spears, bows and javelins. But there were tribe specific weapons such as the pegasus halberd, the earth pony axe, mace and war hammer or the unicorn throwing knife. Of course there was nothing to stop a pony wielding a weapon from that was generally used by the members of another tribe, as was the case of Cory who became quite the talented knife thrower, even going as far as earning the nickname “The Queen of Blades.” But regardless of what weapon a pony chose to specialise in there were three weapons they needed to know how to use, the sword, the spear and a range weapon, be it the bow, the javelin or the throwing knife.
During this time they also learned how the armors worked, especially the glamour enchantments that actually changed the color of a pony’s coat, mane and tail and not just cast an illusion spell, meaning that as long as they wore the armor their tales did not just look blue, they were blue. And if they ever were cut while they wore the suits the falling hair would remain blue, but there was a catch, the armors needed to be recharged. Every night a unicorn recruit would go to the armory and pour magic into the cyan gem that the armors had embedded in the middle of their chest pieces. This was the dreaded Armor Duty, a unicorns worst nightmare; except for the drill sergeant, that is.
After the drill sergeant finished with the recruits for the day and before lights-out was called, in the small window of peace called personal time, the recruits were expected to take their armors to the armory. The weapons they would keep in order to get more intimate with them.
Inside the wooden-walled longhouse that served as the units barracks each and every last recruit stood in front of their straw beds, firmly grasping their weapon with their hooves.
“Tonight,” drill sergeant Lance spoke to them as he walked in front of them, “tonight all of you take an important step forward. No more will you be worthless maggots, tonight every single last one of you is promoted to meatbags. Congratulation to you all.”
He stopped in front of Starry and stared at the unicorn.
“Except you! As far as I am concern you will always be a worthless maggot in my book.”
“Sir, yes sir!”
“Tonight you meatbags will sleep with your weapon!” the drill sergeant went on as he continued to walk among the recruits.
“Starting tonight you will be married to your blade, this weapon of steel and wood! And you will be faithful to it.”
He stopped in front of the room’s door and turned to look at all of them.
“Prepare to mount!” he yelled and the recruits moved to the right side of the bed.
“Mount!” When the order came all of them got on top of their beds, still holding the weapons in their hooves.
“Sing!”
Every single recruit started reciting the chant they were made to recite during their long marches.
“This is my weapon, there are many like it, but this one is mine. My weapon is my best friend, my family, my life. I must master it as I master my body and my fate. Without me my weapon is useless, without my weapon I am useless. My weapon will not leave my side. Its fate and mine are forever tied. I will swing my weapon true, I will cut my enemy. I will kill him before he kills me. I will. I will never lift my weapon against my brothers and sisters. I won’t. A soldier is only as strong as the ponies next to him, for them I will be strong. I will be strong for my brothers. I will be strong for my sisters. I will.”
They chanted their chant and now were silently waiting for the sergeant to start reciting the Guards Oath.
“Before the princesses,” sergeant Lance started and the rest of them joined in.
“Before the princesses, before Celestia and Luna, this we swear. Our weapons and our bodies are the defenders of Equestria. We are those who protect our friends, we are Celestia's shield. We are those who strike down our enemies, we are Luna’s sword. We are Royal Guard. And we will not falter in our mission. We will not rest until there are no enemies left, only peace. This we swear before the princesses, before Celestia and Luna. We are Royal Guard, now and forever!”
“Now and forever!” sergeant Lance repeated. “Goodnight meatbags.”
With a flap of his wing the drill sergeant blew out all the candles that lit up the place and lights-out had officially began.
“Starry! Armor Duty!”
“Sir, yes sir!” Starry Night jumped out of his bed, weapon still clenched in his hoof and ran towards the sergeant who escorted him to the armory where he would have to refilled all the magical armors for the entire camp.
There a lot of things that can be bad for a recruit during basic training, but nothing is worst than the hatred of the drill instructor .
Given that it is his job to make every recruits life as miserable as possible, and train them, one can only imagine what he can do to a pony that managed to get under his skin. Since the incident on day one, drill sergeant Clashing Lance made it his sole mission in life to be the bane of Starry Night’s existence.
If an exercise had to be done, Starry Night would have to do finish it twice as fast, or resist twice as long, or carry twice as much. If he failed he would be punished. If anypony else failed, Starry Night would share in his punishment. If something needed to be done, he would be the first to volunteer, whether he wanted to or not.
Guard Duty? Starry Night knew he had the shift that will caused him the most lack of sleep.
KP Duty? Starry Night knew that he was the first one the sergeant would “suggest.”
Latrine Duty? Starry Night knew every the weight and feel of every last barrel he had to dispose of.
Armory duty? Starry Night knew that he had two exhausting hours every single night, right after lights-out, to look forward to.
Fire Watch Duty? The same as Guard Duty, the more sleep lost the better.
And yet the drill sergeant never pushed him hard enough to break him. He just bent him until he was snapping, then let him go, before bending him again.
Aside from combat and physical exercise, weapon and armor training, basic survival skills were taught during training. While equestria’s population was over three quarters rural, there were many ponies that did not possess even the most basic survival skills.
For these ponies the instructor would explain everything from what wild fruits were safe to eat, to how to build a shelter or make a proper latrine, to something as simple as chopping down a tree and starting a fire without magic or flint.
One day, during basic survival training drill sergeant Lance took the thirty recruits, out on a march to a nearby forest where he would teach them the proper way to cut down trees, make and collect firewood and get a fire going.
After almost three hours of marching, lunch, and a some more marching the platoon reached their destination, and the instructor taught them how to use axes, picks and sledgehammers.
Regardless of what tool they were using all the recruits had to practice their swings. There were two problems though. Standing orders said that many of the trees there were not to be cut, for ecological reasons. A team was sent the day before to prepare logs that the recruits would practice their swings on, and only one or two trees were marked to be cut by the instructor, for demonstration purposes.
Everypony had the proper tools, but even after cutting the two trees down there were still not enough logs for everypony to practice on, so they were forced to do it in turns, and all were forced to do it, even those a pony worked as lumberjack before joining.
As the sergeant searched for more logs, or knocked down trees for the recruits to use he came across a dead birch tree. And since the reasoning for not cutting trees down were enviromental, he thought that cutting down an already dead tree would not conflict with the order.
Birch trees don't die like most trees. Most trees die, weaken, sometimes split, and then fall over. A dead birch will break off above a point and lose its branches, but the trunk will remain.
Birches also have a funny kind of bark that works well for tinder, or even paper. The stuff's remarkably rugged, many layers thick, and holds up much better than the rest of the tree after it dies. But their insides are a fairly light wood that decomposes pretty quickly after it dies, the paper-like bark remains, but the wood inside turns into this wet, buggy, dusty pulp.
The drill sergeant measured the tree with his eyes, walked around it to find the best place to start chopping so that when the tree fell it would not hit many neighboring trees. He grasped his axe firmly and was lining up to chop it down when the ex-lumberjack pony happened to see what he was going and spoke to the sergeant.
"Sergeant, you don't want to do that," the recruit warned him.
"Shut up, Private, I know what I'm doing," the sergeant replied ticked off by the recruit.
He took a swing, and the axe just kind of destroyed the trunk in a violent explosion of damp, rotten sawdust. The sergeant stood there, blinking and coughing, in this cloud of rancid dust for a minute before looking at the private and saying.
"You knew that would happen, didn't you?" With a clearly visible expression of anger hidden underneath all the sawdust.
“Starry! You and mister know it all will carry all the axes back to camp!”
“Sir yes sir!” Starry Knight said from a couple of feet away, dropping the sticks he had been fiddling with while waiting for his turn to come. While the other pony just stood there and looked in confusion at the angry sergeant.
Carrying fourteen extra axes for miles was not by any stretch of the mind the worst thing Starry had to endure at the hooves of drill sergeant Lance.
That night, after finishing Armor Duty, two hours after lights out, Starry finally dragged his tired husk into bed. With his weapon of choice, his sword, placed beside him, Starry pulled his covers above his head, and let a little light flow from the tip of his horn. He reached under his pillow he pulled out a book that and opened it at a folder page.
“… the breast. The large fleshy mass in the...” Starry only managed to get a few words read when a loud banging sound was heard coming from the outside. He immediately turned the light from his horn off and slid the book below his pillow, pushing it all the way until it fell in between the straw matters and the bed frame.
“Wake up meatbags!” the drill sergeant yelled while banging a wooden club against an iron pan. A unicorn instructor walked behind him and used his magic to light all the candles in the room. “Surprised inspection time!”
The recruits jumped to their feet and rushed to the front of their beds, opened their footlockers and awaited for the inspection. He picked up five ponies at random and take a quick look through their stuff searching for contraband. Of course that was only an excuse the real reason for the inspection is to get the soldiers ready for the next week of the training which included among other things learning how to deal with sleep deprivation and hunger.
Five ponies lockers were searched and nothing was found.
“Private Night,” the sergeant said with a smile on his face as he started rampaging through his locker, tossing everything out as he conducted his “search.” When he could not find nothing he moved onto his bed, something he did not do to the other ponies whose belongings he searched.
First he threw away the standard issue white blanket with a blue stripe, then came the white sheets followed by pillow. Starry was just about to let out a sigh of relief when sergeant Lance flipped his matters off the bed frame, causing it and the book he had stashed away to fly a onto the neighboring bed.
“What have we here?” the sergeant asked as he picked up the book. “Pegasus Pony Anatomy,” he read the book’s title out loud.
Noticing the folded corner bookmark the instructor quickly opened it there to see what warranted the pony’s attention. He opened the book and saw a two page spread of a female pegasus, her wings stretched up, and the various muscle groups highlighted.
“Well, well, well, looks like I interrupted you before you got to the good parts,” the instructor said as he browsed to the rest of the book searching for more pictures and drawings.
“Do you know what this is?” he asked gently at first before getting into Starry’s face and yelling “DO YOU?” at him.
“Sir, a book sir!”
“A book? No this is not a book, this is contraband. And do you know what we do to ponies who are in the possession of set contraband?”
“Sir, no sir!”
“We punish them!” he said with a smile on his face. “But I am a merciful stallion and I am going to let you chose. Permanent Latrine Duty, or ten lashes with.”
“You have till morning to decided. The rest of you back to bed!”
As the drill sergeant flapped his wings to put out the lights, Starry Night gave his response.
“Latrine Duty sir!”
“Next week is all bean week,” the general said as he slammed the doors behind him.
Private’s Starry Night military experience has been everything but stellar, and all because a little incided on the first day of camp.
During a day a recruit has a combined total of one and a half hours to eat his, or hers, breakfast, lunch and dinner, one hour of personal time, another one for morning activities and seven hours of sleep. The rest of the day, all thirteen and a half hours is dedicated to training the recruits body.
Starry already had lost two hours of sleep time because of Armor Duty, but the Latrine Duty was the thing that really tired him out. Everyday day a wooden outhouse had to be dismantled, the barrel that held the waste dug out, dragged outside the compound, and shoveled up carts which deliver it to a composting station. It was a tiring, smelly and messy, three, sometimes four hour long, two pony job, but it was not very mentally intensive. And neither was Armor Duty, but the monotony of the process was more tiring to the mind than the most intensive lecture.
And of course, at the end of the day, the privates that took part in any of these activities were expected to perform just as well as the rest, so the drill instructors made sure none of the recruits fell behind on their training.
It had been a few weeks since drill sergeant Lance found the anatomy book in Starry’s bed during a “random” search, and once again the private was busy refilling the armors magical reserves during Armor Duty.
The armory was the only stone building in the entire compound, even the officers quarters were made out of wood. At it’s core it was nothing that a small, windowless room, filled to the brink with weapons and golden suits of armor belonging to every recruit in the camp and also every non-unicorn instructor or officer. There were hundreds enchanted suits of armor, each with a magical gem in the middle of their chestpiece, and all in the need of recharging.
The only ponies allowed to be awake after lights out were the two Fire Watch ponies assigned to each barrack, the ponies that were on Guard Duty, and of course the unicorn in on Armor Duty. Everypony had a job to do, and there was no interaction between them, except in the case of a fire or an intruder, neither had happened not once since Starry started training.
A knock was heard outside the armory’s lock door.
“Who goes there?” Starry asked jumping to his feet and grabbing his trusted sword.
“It’s me,” a female voice whispered through the door.
Starry rushed to the door, removed the lock, grabbed the pony and pulled her in, and quickly closing the door before any of the guards would see her. He placed her ear on the door and listened if anypony was coming towards them, or if anypony sounded the alarm.
A few minutes later, convinced that nopony saw her, let let out a sigh of relief and turned towards the mare.
“Did you bring them?” Starry asked the earth pony mare with a quartz crystal cutie mark by the name of Gem.
“I must say this was by far the most specific order I ever heard in my life.”
“Did you, or did you not bring them?” Starry asked impatiently.
“I have, but it proved to be a lot more difficult than I initially thought.”
“How much?”
“Three,” the mare said with a smile on her face.
“Three? Are you insane!?” Starry yelled outraged by the price.
“Keep your voice down, and three Fire.”
“Three and three!?” he said emphasizing on the second three.
“Yes, take it or leave it.”
“I will give you two and one,” Starry tried negotiating.
“Ha,” she laughed at his offer. “Good luck finding somepony else with my connections. Three and three or I am out of here.”
“Two and two and I won’t tell the the sarge you went AWOL.”
“You wouldn't dare!” she snapped at him. “I did it for you, you ungrateful little piece of...”
“Two and two and one dessert,” Starry interrupted her with his final offer.
“I am so going to get you back for this, Starry,” she said tossing him a small, brown burlap bag.
“Good luck with that,” Starry told her while he was looking inside the bag and smiling. “Thanks Gem.”
“Whatever,” Gem said as she listen at the door for the patrol to pass, before exiting the room and sneaking back in the barracks before anypony noticed she was gone.
Starry locked the door behind the pony and hid the bag deep in the back of the room, under a pile of rusted discarded weapons.
“Just two weeks Kitchen Duty, two weeks Fire Duty, and one week without dessert for these? Totally worth it,” he said to himself as he continued his job of filling the armor’s gems with magic.
Basic training was two months of unarmed training followed by four more of weapon training, this is how long a recruit is told camp will last. Intentionally left out of the briefing was “Day One Seventy-six,” otherwise known as “Day Seven of the Week of Pain.”
One week before training was officially done was the appropriately named the “Week of Pain,” six days of the worst, most exhausting and pain provoking exams any member of the Royal Guard had to endure. And after six days of nothing but suffering came the shocking “Day Seven.”A whole day, twenty-four hours of rest and relaxations.
A recruit could eat, sleep, spend the whole day in the showers if he so desired, or even leave the base, although the nearest town was eight hours away, and whomever was not present or drunk the next morning would be up to his ears in trouble.
And that day was finally here.
“I’ve made it!” and “Finally!” were the words that could be heard all through the camp. Every recruit was shouting them or something similar as soon as they woke up, whenever they felt like it.
Starry, Cory and Slate woke up early in order to get as much as they could out of the day and were leaning against the barracks wall, watching the sun rise.
“I think I will go to town,” Slate said kicking a small pebble.
“It’s eight hours away,” Cory reminded him, “you are going to waste a lot of your day.”
“I can make it in six.” Slate flapped his wings a few times, took a few steps forward and stretched out. “But I think it would be more fun if the three of us headed there together.”
“Nah, you go. We would just slow you down,” Cory said, her head hanging down.
Slate’s ears fell. “Sorry, I didn’t mean...”
“It’s okay,” the pegasus mare told him with a fake smile on her face. “It really is.”
She walked besides him.
“Go, find a cute mare, have fun,” she whispered in his ear. Turning Slate’s face bright-red, from his usual light-blue, and causing his wings to pop up. Cory giggled and Starry was lucky he was leaning against the building or else there would have been nothing holding him up. His stomach was now hurting from how hard he was laughing at his friend.
“I...” Slate said, his voice trembling from his embarrassment. “I will be off now. Bye.”
And with that said he took of heading for the nearest town where he planned to have some fun, and hopefully come back to base before First Call, the next day.
“Well I guess I would be going now,” Cory said as she started walking away from Starry.
“Wait!” Starry yelled, and ran after her. “You’ve got plans for today?”
“I was hoping to take a shower and sleep the day away,” she admitted. “Why? You had something else in mind?”
“Actually I did,” Starry said with a cheeky smile on his face. “I was hoping we could do something special today.”
Cory raised an eyebrow.
“Think of it as an adventure. Curious yet?”
“Hmm... I don’t know Starry. The past week was rough for me.”
“Come on Cory,” Starry insisted. “I promise you won’t regret it. It will be like old times.”
“Really, this is the best you could come up with?”
“Surprisingly, yes. Did it work?” he asked with a sheepish smile on his face.
“You’re hopeless,” she said sighing and shaking her head, with a small smile on her lips.
“So it’s a yes?” Starry asked, his eyes brightening.
“Sure, why not. But I’m still taking that shower first.”
“Great... I mean sure, no problem. Meet me in front of the armory when you are done being wet.”
Cory tilted her head to the side and stared at him. When Starry realised how poorly his word choice was, he turned red. Cory just bursted into laughter and headed back to the showers, while Starry went to the armory, smiling and skipping, joyful and excited as a school filly.
Almost two hours Starry spent nervously pacing around the building, waiting for Cory to show up.
“She did not forget. She is just taking her time. She couldn’t have forgotten this fast. Maybe the hot water ran out. She knows where the armory is. Maybe she fell asleep. Maybe she fell asleep in the shower. Maybe she fell... and hit her head. I should go check on her. I should...” Starry kept talking to himself, and had almost convinced himself that Cory was laying dead in the shower her neck slices and head missing, when the very same pony came up to him.
“Sorry I took so long,” Cory said as she stopped in front of him. “Somepony forgot to attach the cold water hose and it took us forever to figure it out.”
“No problem, I hardly even noticed.” Cory could see right through his lie, but did not call him out on in. A giggle however escaped her. “So what are you planning for this great adventure?”
“Oh you are going to love it, I guarantee it.”
Starry Night’s horn lit up, and he focused his magic to open the lock door of the armory.
“What are you doing?” Cory asked him, panicking. “We are not allowed to be in here.”
“Relax Cory, I know what I’m doing,” Starry tried to reassure her. “Besides the drill sergeant is already sleeping soundly with a rather large bottle of wine.”
“How do you know?”
“KP duty. I saw when the crate was brought in.”
The lock gave in to Starry’s thinkering and the pony opened the door.
“Which one is yours?” Starry asked as he was heading deeper into the room.
“This one,” she replied pointing towards a suit of armor with holes in its side to accommodate the pegasus wings, or wing as was the case.
“Put it on,” he said while he was busy searching for something amidst a pile of rusted weapons. “Helmet too.”
“Starry, what are you planning?” Cory asked, worried that their adventure involved her wearing armor.
“Like I said it is a surprise. Now where did I put...”
A pile of rusted spears fell on top of Starry, hitting him in the head a couple of times, and causing a few bruises on his back.
“Oww,” he said as he lifted himself up and pushed the spears of him. “Oh there you are!”
His horn glew once more and he levitated a small, brown burlap bag, before turning towards Cory.
“Why are you smiling?” she asked a little scared when she saw the large grin on Starry’s face.
“You will see. Now lets go.”
“Where to?”
“There is a little grove about an hour’s walk from here.”
“And why do you need to go there, dressed like this?” she asked putting her helmet on.
“Starry, for your sake, I sure hope the surprise is worth making me walk all this way on my only day off. And in full armor no less,” Cory told Starry, annoyed that she was wasting her precious time walking, when she could be doing more important things like sleeping, or finding other ways to relax.
“We are almost there. Look!” Starry said pointing towards a small forest that was visible in the distance.
A few minutes later they reached the grove, and passed right through it, stopping only when the entire thing was between them and the camp. They were now standing in an open field that stretched for miles, the only thing that stood out was a small pond.
“Okay, Starry we are here. Now what?” Cory asked starting to lose her patience.
“Stand still for a bit.”
Starry’s horn glew and his blue aura surrounded the star-shape, cyan gem that provided power to the armors enchantments, and pulled it out of its slot.
“What are you doing!” Cory yelled at him. “Do you want to get me kicked out of the Guard!?”
The enchantments were gone, and Cory body returned to her natural colors. Her white coat turned yellow, and her blue mane and tail were again light green.
“Relax,” Starry tried to reassure her, “I know what I am doing.”
Inside the small bag he brought with him he placed the cyan star he removed from the armor, and pulled out an oddly shaped transparent gem. Half of it was in the form of a five point star, while the other half was ovoid shaped. Starry levitated it towards Cory and placed it where the previous gem was. It fit perfectly. Now instead of a flat cyan star, on the pony’s chest was an half of a transparent egg-shaped gem, that did nothing.
“Was something supposed to happen?” Cory asked tapping the gem.
“Don’t do that!” Starry yelled at her when he saw what she was doing. Cory immediately stopped tapping the gem.
“Just give me a second.”
Starry walked towards Cory, lowered his head, and touched the gem with the tip of his horn. He did the same thing he did every night on Armor Duty, he let his magic flowed from him into the crystal.
“Closed your eyes.” Cory listened to him.
When he pulled his horn away a blinding flash of blue light came out of the gem, it lasted only for a second before fading away.
Cory and Starry were now staring at the gem. At first it looked just the same, but in a matter of seconds a small purple blob seemed to float inside it.
“What the...”
“Wait for it,” Cory interrupted her.
The blob moved through the crystalline structure of the gem as if it was moving through water, and it was growing, and spreading. Soon the entirety of it became purple, and the part of it was darkening. A few minutes later the the process finished and in the center of the ponies golden armor now stood a purple ovoid shaped gem with a thin, black, vertical line down the the middle, from the front it almost looked like the eye of a dragon, or of a cat.
“Okay...” Cory said not very impressed by the whole light show. “Now what?”
“Now this!” Starry yelled as he fired a small bolt of magic straight at the gem.
Again it let out a burst of light, only this time Cory did not have her eyes close. The sudden flash startled the pony, and, acting on instinct she raised her wing. It was a basic flight or fight response, as a pegasus with his wings spread seemed a much larger opponent, the position also allowed for a swifter take off, with just a single flap of the wings the pegasus would be airbone, well out of range of any potential assailant.
“You could have warned me!” she told Starry as she was rubbing her eyes, and lowering her wing.
Despite her vision being blurry, she could still see the large smile on the excited unicorn that stood in front of her.
“What?” she asked him.
“It worked!” he replied, barely stopping himself from jumping up and down.
“If your plan was to blind me, then yes it worked!” Cory said annoyed that she was still having troubles seeing.
Starry walked beside her and put his hoof around her neck. “Come on, let’s get some water on your face. It will help you get over it faster.”
“I don’t thin...”
“Trust me,” he interrupted her again.
“I swear to Celestia, if this turns out to be some sort of prank...”
“Trust me.”
He lead the mare to the small pound, removed her helmet, and took a few steps back while she washed her face. The water did not help her recover faster from the flash, but that was never his intention. By now her eyes recovered on her own, and her vision was more or less fine.
“Lift your wing!” Starry yelled from a few feet away.
“Why?”
“Just do it and look in the water!”
“Fine, but after that you better explain to me what’s going... on...”
Just like Starry asked of her, Cory lifted her wing in high in the air. Her back muscles tensed just as her pectoral relaxed, at the same time the biceps relaxed and the triceps contracted, as did the forearm muscle and the pegasus held her wing stretched out her wing.
Looking back at her from the waters of the pond was her reflection. They looked the same, both wore the same golden armor, with a purple cat-eye-like gem in the middle of their chestpiece, both their manes were white, their coats light pink, as were the feathers on their wings. Only that the the reflection had something that she did not.
From the stump of her right wing a new wing seemed to have grew. The muscles were for the most part the same, only longer, as were most of the bones, but the things that was the most different was her “hand.” Her digits, all four out of five of them at least, were dozens of times longer, stretching out to the tips of her wings, thinner too. While the actual wing had no feathers at all, all it had was a thin membrane that stretched between the ponies digits and connected to her side, leaving the tips of the digits exposed, like claws. The wings were colored the same as the gem she had on her chest, black for where the bones and muscles were, and shades of purple for the membrane.
After the initial moment of shock passed, Cory turned her head to her right and looked to see if she too had the extra appendage, she did. As soon as she realised that it was not just some trick of the lick or a messed up reflection she did what any sane pony would have done when he would see a new limb suddenly present on his body, panic.
Cory pressed her wings tightly against her body and started running aimlessly, screaming as hard as she could. Starry grabbed Cory in his telekinetic field and held the hysterical pegasus trapped until she could be talked to. It took her almost an hour to calm down.
“Are you done?” Starry asked removing his hooves from his ears.
“Yes,” Cory said, embarrassed by the scene she made.
“Good.” He lowered the pony to ground and released her from the magical prison.
“Starry, what is this?”
“A wing,” he answered bluntly.
“I can see that but why do I have it?”
“Because of the gem. You see I altered the spell that changes the color of your mane to change the shape of your wing.”
“But I don’t...” she paused “I guess I didn’t have a wing.”
“Well you did have something or the spell wouldn’t have worked.”
“You meant to tell me that this is actually my wing? Made from my flesh and blood?”
“Not quite. It is mostly made out of magic.”
“I don’t follow.”
“You remember seeing Princess Celestia?”
“Umm...”
“It was a few years ago, the day Foggy stole the cookies from the kitchen...”
“And stole the milk! Yes I remember, we went afterwards and saw the Princess passing through town. Yes I remember her now.”
“Do you remember how her mane looked?”
“It looked like it was a pink bed sheet flapping in the wind.”
Starry laughed at the unusual, yet surprisingly accurate comparison.
“Well your wing is made out of the same stuff as her mane.”
“Oh I see,” she moved her wing a few times. “This is a nice illusion.”
“Flap harder,” Starry encouraged her.
Cory flapped her wing faster, but she had to stop shortly after because she was losing her balance.
“It’s real!” she cried out, her eyes opened wide in amazement.
“More or less. But real enough to move the air and allow you to...”
“FLY!” Cory exclaimed. “I can fly?”
“Well you could, if you tried and practiced.”
Cory wasn’t paying attention to him anymore, all she could think of was that after all these years, she would finally be able to fly.
She lifted both her wings as high as she could, bent her knees, and pushed her wings down, at the same time she pushed up with her legs, and lifted herself off the ground. Like a little filly at her first day of flight camp, she wobbled, and fell after only a few seconds, but it did not matter. For those few seconds she flew. For the first time in her life she flew, and if she was to say that it only felt amazing she feared that celestia herself would descend from the sky and beat her up for saying such a big lie. Nothing even came close to the pleasure she felt for those few seconds, nothing.
Starry sat down on the grass and looked as his friend spent hours getting used to the wing, learning to fly on her own, and loving every moment of it.
If not for a cold breeze that blew into Starry’s face, he would have stayed there the entire night looking as Cory’s flying was progressing in leaps and bounds. But the breeze came, and he was now aware of his surroundings.
The sun was long since gone, while the moon and the stars were the only things that provided any light to the entire area, but it was enough for him to see Cory do a double loop, taking a nose dive and pulling up at the last second, before landing softly next to him.
Starry looked at the mare standing next to him, her thin, sweat covered pale coat, sparkled in the moonlight and despite her heavy breathing, the wide smile on her face was simply contagious. Exhausted after hours of lying, Cory folded her wings, sat down on the grass next to Starry and let her head rest on his shoulder, as her smell filled the stallions nose.
Another breeze passes by and Cory shivers and pushes herself closer to Starry. Cold sweat dripping from her body and onto his, causing the hairs on the stallions back to stand up. His heart was now beating faster, his breathing was getting shallower, and there was only one thing was on his mind at that moment.
Starry leans his head against hers, and for a while they stand like that.
Cory gently stretched her wings and playfully taps Starry in the side. He lifts his head, and Cory turns hers upward, and looks directly in his golden eyes. A moment the two are lost in the others eyes, and slowly Starry lowers his face. Steam came out of their mouths as their lips parted, and for the first time the two kissed.
It only last for a moment, neither of the two sure if they should go on.
Taking a deep breath, Starry grabbs Cory’s head between his hooves and pulls her in for a second. Cory does not resist. She places her own hooves around his neck and also pulls him closer. The two lovers kiss again, all worries and angst seemed to fade away, as their lips pressed against each others and their tongues dance. Cory gently bites down on his lower lip and pulls it for a bit as she moves her head backwards, before letting go.
Starry whole body shakes, as he feels the tip of her wings slowly moving alongside his spine, from the base of his neck, between his shoulders, down his lower back before stopping right above his hip. He leans forward and quickly kisses her on the lips, then on her cheek, then continuing down her neck, down to her should.
“Oooh...” she lets out a loud moan as Starry touches a sensitive spot with his lips.
Again and again Starr kisses that part as his hooves move down the pegasus golden armor, down to her exposed thighs.
“Mmm!” she bites down on his shoulder as he grabs her flank and squeezed them.
Starry pulls away and takes a moment to look at her. Cory’s mouth hangs open, steam coming out as he breathes heavily, sweat dripping down her face, and her eyes glowing brighter than any star.
His hooves quickly move to her side, unstrapping her armor and tossing it aside. The enchantment vanishes but none of them have the time to notice.
No sooner that the armor is out of the way Starry finds himself pulled closer by Cory.
“Cory, I love you,” Starry managed two say between two kisses.
“I do to,” Cory replied a few seconds later.
His hooves rubs the back of her head, as he pushed her on her back, Cory pulling him ontop of her. Both of them wishing that their night would last forever. Only the moon and the stars were around to the two sweaty ponies expressing their love for each other.
Exhausted and drained after a tiring, but also very enjoyable night the two of them stood side by side, Cory resting her head against his neck, and wrapping her wing on his back as the two lovers tried to keep their sweaty bodies warm. They were looking towards the east, awaiting the moment when Celestia would rise the sun, and they would be assured that what happened last night was more than a wonderfull dream.
“Thank you,” Cory said as she nuzzled against Starry’s neck. “Thank you for giving me the chance to fly.”
“You’re saying it like you will never fly again,” Starry replied as he leaned his head towards her.
“You meant...”
“Huh?” he turned to look at her.
“You meant its permanent?” Cory asked her eyes filling up with tears.
“Of course. What did you think, that this was a one time thing?”
Cory’s reply was short and to the point, a long and passionately kiss that took the stallion by surprise.
“When do you think it would be best to tell Slate about us?” she asked after releasing Starry lips from her own.
“Soon, I am sure he would be happy for us.”
“Let’s tell him as soon as he... gets back...”
Both their eyes widen in terror as they remembered that they still a week of training ahead of them. Together they turned towards the east and saw the sky starting to turn red, the sun was rising, and they were both still naked, sweaty and over an hour away from camp.
They turned to look at eachother for reassurance but all they could see was terror, pure terror written on their faces.
“Sarge is going to kill us!” Cory shouted as she searched for the pieces of armor they so hastily discarded last night.
“He is going to kill me twice!” Starry replied as he searched for the small bag that he seemed to have lost in last night's excitement. With a little extra light from his horn they managed to find the bad and every piece of the armor.
Before even the last belt was tightened the enchantment took its effect and reformed the bat like wing that replaced Cory’s right wing stump.
She just flapped it a couple of times for good measure and was about to take of, when a bolt of magic from Starry’s horn hit the purple gem and the wing faded.
“Why did you do that?” she angrily asked.
“Because I want to live! And if the sergeant find out I have been tampering with a privates armor he is going to have my horn cut off.”
“Don’t worry, after we finish training I can let the spell run full time. But until then...” His horn lit up again and he replaced the purple cat-eye-like gem with the regular cyan star one that he took out of the bag.
“Well come on, we have less than an hour to make it back to base.”
The two started galloping as fast as they could, hoping to reach the base before First Call, or at least before the drill sergeant wakes up from his night of drinking. Starry ran in front, while Cory kept falling behind because of the added weight of the armor. In an attempt to make her run just a little bit faster he carried her helmet. It was not much, but every second counted.
“Starry...” she said as the two passed through the grove. “Congrats.”
“For what?” he asked not knowing what she was congratulating him on.
“On getting your mark.”
Starry slowed down as Cory passed him. He turned his head and looked at his tigh. On it were ten white stars, a thin white line connecting them, six of which were clustered together, and an eleven star located next to it, the line not joining it to the rest of them.
Despite his name being Starry Night, astronomy was never something he found particularly interesting, but yet the constellation seemed familiar.
Running as fast as he could to catch up to Cory he started listing the constellation that came to mind, hoping to find the one defined him.
“Crux,” was the first he thought of and the only one he ever cared about.
Cory came into sight.
“Aries, Taurus, Leo, Pisces, Cancer, Scorpio, Ursa and Canis, both Major and Minor.” The star beasts that Luna banished to the night sky right after the fall of Discord.
He was gaining on her.
“Pheonix and Pegasus.” Two of the newest constellations she added her celestial canvas after she got her pet phoenix.
“Monocerus!” he yelled out, when he was besides Cory, startling the mare.
“What!?” she asked, surprised by the pony’s sudden outburst.
“Monocerus! The unicorn! That is what my cutie mark is!” Saying it out loud made him realised just what his cutie mark said about him.
“Uh,” he grunted. “This must be the most vague mark in the world.”
Cory laughed as the two continued running towards the base, the sun slowly rising, and First Call getting nearer.
Day One Seventy-six, has been a great day for Slate, Starry and Cory.
Just as he said Slate made the flight to the nearest town in under six hours, drank every single bit he had, which was not much to begin with, met a cute mare that was in the mood for some fun. He even made it back to camp during the night, and caught about two hours of sleep before First Call.
Cory and Starry not only did have a little adventure of her own, but each of them got something they never thought they will get.
Most young ponies get their marks during their school years, and only a few late bloomers a few years after, but only donkeys, mules, sheep, goats and cows were the only adults that did not have their marks, and only because their races never got them. Starry was a stallion, a young stallion, but a stallion nonetheless, and he did not managed to get his mark, and nopony knew why. Most thought it was some kind of new disease, and alongside him being an orphan and his lack of mane, ostracized him even further. A great weight was lifted from his chest that glorious morning when Cory told him to look at his flank.
Cory, was a pegasus. When she was younger an accident took her parents away from her, as well as her wing, and for a young pegasus, there is nothing worse than knowing you would never be able to fly. And yet, on Day One Seventy-six, for the first time in her life she flew. She was not carried by another pegasus, she did not ride a sky chariot, she flew with her own two wings. It did not matter for her that one of them looked like it was ripped from a giant bat, it did not matter that her and the wing’s colors were nothing alike, it did not matter that it was made from either, all it matters was that she could use it, and she could fly. It saddened her that she could not use it or show it to anypony, especially to Slate, but graduation was only a week away, and after that there would be nothing that would have stopped her from flying ever again.
For six months the intensity of the training constantly increased. Day by day the recruits were expected to become stronger, faster, more agile, and more disciplined. This process will peak during The Week of Pain, when after six long months of growing, the time came for the weeds to be plucked out. Only twenty-one of the thirty recruits that were in their platoon, passed, with two more quitting, their wills completely broken by the trial, and did not want ever to have anything to do with the Guards.
All three of them passed. Slate was among the firsts of his platoon, Cory scoring above average, and Starry barely passing, in no small part due to the fact that the drill sergeant’s opinion was worth half their final score. But all that mattered was that they all passed, and the following week went by as a breeze. Most of it consisted of ceremony drills and “light” exercise, all done in preparation for the Graduation Ceremony.
“Congratulations to all of you,” drill sergeant Lance said to the remaining nineteen members of the platoon.
Everypony was standing in attention as the sergeant spoke. All were dressed in armor, had their swords at their side, spears in their hooves, held exactly two inches from their shoulders, ceremonial blue cape on their back, and weapon of choice somewhere on their body, hidden from sight. The suits of armour had been checked and rechecked, and checked again for any scratch, dent, speck or dent, their gems charged, and checked by a senior unicorn officer. All had to be perfect because attending their graduation ceremony would be no other than Princess Luna herself.
“Tomorrow will be the greatest day of my life, because tomorrow will be the last day when I have to put up with you. After tomorrow you will be some other pony’s headache. Now... Right, FACE!”
The entire platoon executes a ninety degree turn to their right.
“We’ve got a full day’s march ahead of us, and I don’t want a bunch of smelly meatbags with me. Platoon! Route Step, Forward MARCH!” he ordered and everypony started walking forwards at their own pace.
Along with them from the training camp departed other platoons all heading for the assigned destination, the city of Lilyblue.
Eight hours of marching, followed by an hour for dinner. Then eight more hours of marching, and one for lunch. And they could sleep for two whole hours. Six hours of marching through the night, breakfast and the city was only a few more hours away.
Nopony remembers who created the original armor enchantment spell, but every Guard that had to perform in a parade hated him for having the foresight to make the armor hide the bags under a pony’s eyes, as well as any other signs of sleep deprivation. No matter how tired a pony was, how much time he went without sleep, if he could contain his yawning, nopony could distinguish him from one that just woke up after a full nights sleep in the most comfortable of beds.
Despite the presence of the Princess nothing really changed about the ceremony. The recruits would march, stand in formation, present arms, and do a choreographed drill they had been practicing for the past week, recite the oath, salute and be dismissed. Normally they would return to their barracks pick up their stuff, and be shipped out to the recruitment center they signed up with, where they would be asked if they wanted proceed with a military career and go to the Royal Guard Academy, be hired as a security guard or be put in the reserves. No pony ever choose the reserves but it was still an option.
The outer gates of Lilyblue’s military district open, and the platoons marched in. The trio’s eyes darted from building to building wondering if anything had changed since they were gone. Only six months have passed, but six months of military camp seemed a lot longer. For the most part the military sector looked the same as the rest of the town, old buildings, crammed together, narrow streets passing separating them. Nothing was changed, nothing above ground at least. There only thing that was different from when they left was that there were many more storm drains and sewer lids. Apparently the city’s sewer system received a major upgrade.
“All right meatbags, fall in!” the drill sergeant ordered and the privates closed formation.
The three ponies were standing in front of one of these gates. Ponies from other platoons were brought in to fill for the missing ponies until they formed a five by five square.
“Just as we practiced. Platoon, Forward MARCH!” The recruits rested their spears on their shoulders and the drummers started beating their drums.
The platoons marched one after another, all in sync, all to the rhythm set by the drummers. From the military district, they passed through the inner gate, and onto the central square where a crowd of ponies were eagerly awaiting to see the military parade. From an elevated platform decorated with blue orchids and yellow and white ribbons, Princess Luna stood next to the mayor of Lilyblue and his assistant. Two Royal Guard making sure nopony bothered them.
“Platoon HALT,” drill sergeant Lance yelled at them. At the exact same time, the drill instructors of each other platoons did the same.
“Right, FACE,” they ordered and all the recruits turned to the right so that they would all be facing the princess.
“Present arms.” The instructors called out, signaling the start of the exercise.
While the recruits were busy performing for the crowd, a small filly made its way up the ramp that lead to the platform.
“Hey you,” one of the guards said as he grabbed the filly. “You are not allowed to be here.”
“But I wanted to see the princess,” the filly said with a teary face.
“Sorry little one.”
“Awww...” the filly said disapointed.
“Guard, what seems to be the problem?” Luna asked the Guard, as she looked at the little pony he had in his hooves.
“I just wanted to give a flower to the Princess...” The filly’s eyes were wide and teary, and she had a small blue orchid in her hooves.
“Let her pass,” Luna told the guard.
“Yes Princess.”
Luna lowered her head to the the filly’s level and she walked up to her and placed the flower behind her ear, before letting out a large toothy smile and running away. The princess chuckled and returned to her spot overlooking the exercise.
“It does smells beautiful,” she remarked before turning to the mayor. “Was this also part of your plan to gain my favor?”
“Princess, I would never resort to such despicable tactics to impress your highness,” the mayor said before turning to his assistant and whispering, “make a note of this.”
The exercise lasted only a little while longer after the filly placed the flower in Luna’s made.
The exercise ended, and the ponies were now standing in attendance as the ones that scored the highest marks during the Week of Pain, were called forward to be awarded their medals, Slate was among them.
The sun was high in the sky, a few clouds here and there, and Princess Luna, would be the one that to put the medals around their necks. She stopped in front of each of them and an aid would read the privates accomplishments before Luna would give them the medals, offer a salute and congratulate them on their accomplishments. None of the medal wore actually worth anything, but they did came with the advance to private two, if any of them chose to go career.
“Congratulation,” Luna said to the last pony after she place the medal around his neck.
“Thank you Princess,” the private replied, just like the rest of them did.
“About face,” they were ordered after Luna started walking away from them.
Before the officer could order them to return back to formation the crowd gasp as Luna wobbled and fell to her knees.
The Royal Guards rushed to the princesses side, but were taken down by green bolts of lightning coming from the crowd. The wind blew, the sky darkened a pony screamed, and chaos ensued.
The townsfolk were running away, and the Royal Guards tried to stop them from leaving the area, not wanting to lose the assassins. The top cadets took defensive position around the princess and were looking around for the source of the attacks.
“STAY IN FORMATION!” an instructor yelled at the privates, the rest of them relaying the order to their respective platoons.
The Guards were unable to stop the crowd from pushing through and soon the civilians were spread all over the city running towards their homes.
Four Royal Guards unicorns came running into the central square and headed straight for the princess.
“MOVE ASIDE!” they yelled at the privates that surrounded the Luna. “WE NEED TO GET THE PRINCESS AWAY FROM HERE!”
Two of them picked the princess up, putting her hooves around their necks.
“What is going on?” Slate ask as the two unicorns were dragging the princess away.
“Stand aside private!” the Guard ordered. “The Princess is in danger and we are wasting time!”
“But sir...” Slate went on, but another unicorn tugged on his cape and hit him in the face, knocking him to the ground.
“STAND ASIDE PRIVATE!” he yelled at Slate as the other two unicorns left with the princess.
“Yes sir,” Slate said, wiping the blood from his broken nose.
“You, take care of the recruits while I go and deal with the princess,” he told the other unicorn.
“Yes sir!” the unicorn replied, offering a quick salute and heading towards the platoon located the closest to the middle.
“You, back to formation!” he told Slate before running to catch up with the other two.
“Instructors to me! Instructors to me!” the Guard yelled as he headed towards the middle.
The wind picked up again, and the clouds were blocking most of the sunlight.
“Sir! What is going on here? Is the Princess allright?” drill sergeant Lance asked as he, and the rest of the instructors surrounded the Guard, all of them wondering what has happened to the princess.
“She is being taken care of,” the Guard reassured them. “But there are more pressing matters you need to be aware off...” A small quake that could be felt all through the city interrupted him.
He took a deep breath and let out a deafening shriek. The loud noise made the instructors ears bleed, and they screamed in pain. A second tremor was felt.
“For the Queen of Queens!” were the last words he said before his body exploded in a giant ball of green flames, that engulfed and incinerated all that stood near him.
A third tremor happened, this one much larger than the rest, and the ground beneath the city square collapsed, taking the recruits down with it. The pegasus quickly reacted taking off, some picking up other ponies as they saved themselves from the fall. A few unicorns with good reaction times managed to raise barriers around themselves and some of the ponies around them.
A deep crater now appeared where the square had been only moments later, swallowing up most of the privates. The armors offered some protection, but still almost half of the ponies that fell in either died or were buried deep under tons of earth and stone.
Barriers started dispelling and the survivors started making their way out of the rubble.
“Cory!” Starry yelled as he looked around for the mare. “Cory!”
“Starry!” a voice called out to him from above.
Starry turned his head upwards and saw Cory dangling from Slate’s forelegs. The two pegasi descended into the pit and as soon as Cory’s legs touched the ground she ran into his embrace.
“Thank Celestia, you are safe,” the both of them said, as they squeezed each other tighter, before kissing. Another loud shriek was heard.
“Knock it off you two!” Slate yelled at them as his eyes were focused on the sides of the crater.
The earth was starting to give way and tunnel mouths were opening.
“Arm yourselves,” Slate yelled out as he grabbed a spear from the ground and held it tight.
Cory and Starry listened to their friend’s orders and pulled out their swords. Starry holding his in his magic while Cory held hers in her mouth. They let their capes fall and prepared for a fight, the rest of the recruits did the same.
A plethora of shrieks came from the tunnels just before hundreds of bats came out and attacked the unarmed pegasi above. Their fur and wings was covered in blue spots, their fangs and claws were longer and they could be best described as anger filled, ravenous beasts.
As the bats attacked the pegasi the went straight for the kill, either tearing off their wings, slicing their neck, or ripping off their entire head, none of them survived.
“HUDDLE UP! UNICORNS AT THE CENTER! NOW!” Foggy ordered and the soldiers gathered in small groups, formed around the unicorns. “HORNS UP AND FIRE AT WILL!”
Every unicorn lifted his horn towards the sky and started firing blue magic bolts, three or four bolts were needed before a single bat fell. As if somepony gave an order half the bats fanned out throughout the city, while the other half attacked the soldiers.
As soon as they were close enough the Guards strike them down with the spears and swords, not allowing a single one to get close to the unicorns. But the creatures were relentless, and before long the ponies found themselves surrounded on all sides by a veritable wall of dead and dying bats. The wall was so high in some places that the ponies were forced to break formation and climbed onto it just so they would not be burried alive.
“Keep it up!” Slate urged the rest of them.
“Look!” a soldier pointed out towards the edges of the crater. “Reinforcements!”
Standing above them were two groups of eight Royal Guard unicorns, their horns glowing green. Without saying a word the ponies fired long continuous beams and completely obliterated two formations. The ponies didn’t even have time to scream before their lifeless husks fell to the ground. Two more beams were fired.
“SCATTER!” Slate called out, but it was too late. A third group was exterminated and a beam was coming straight for them.
Immediately Starry raised a barrier, and blocked the attack. He fell to the ground and the barrier fell.
“SCATTER!” Slate yell again and this time the ponies listened.
The ponies fanned out but that only made them easy prey for the bats, who swooped down and sank their claws in the ponies backs, lifting them up.
“TUNNELS!”
Cory and Slate picked up Starry and dragged them down a nearby tunnel. The rest of the ponies did the same. Inside the tunnels they would be surrounded. On one side were the bats that landed, while on the other were the bats that were heading for the surface.
The two pegasi took positions on the other side of Starry and held off the two advancing groups. Anypony who entered a whole alone never came out.
“The Princess...” Starry muttered, as Cory withdrew her sword from a bat’s neck.
“What about her?” Slate asked as he sliced at another one.
“The guards that took her, they were like the one that killed the Sarge.”
“We need to go after her!” Cory said as she stabbed a bat, forcing it to back away.
“Slate, can you carve a path in the sky?”
“I can’t carry you and fight them off!” he said, dispatching another one.
“You won't need to...” Starry’s horn glew and from beneath his armor he pulled out a small bag, inside the bag were two oddly shaped gems, both of them looking like purple cats eyes.
“You made two of them?” Cory took a peek and saw the gems.
“I was afraid you would break the first,” Starry said as he removed the cyan, star shaped gem from his chest piece.
“What are you two talking about?!” Slate asked after dealing with another bat.
A burst of blue light came out of the hole the two pegasi and one unicorn were staying in, followed by three ponies that took of in the sky.
Slate was first, sword in mouth, clearing a path for the other two. Closeby was Cory, her mismatched wings did not slow her down one bit. After them, more shambling than flying was Starry, the joints of his wings were glowing blue, as was his horn.
“Hurry up!” Slate yelled at him as he took down a bat.
“Hey cut me some slack, this the first time I did anything more than hover!” Every word he spoke made him wobble.
“Great plan! Luna will be half way across Equestria by the time you learn how to use those things!” Another bat fell from Slate’s blade, and one from Cory’s.
“He’s right!” she told Starry.
“Just give me a moment!” he replied as he fought to get a rhythm down.
A bat flew towards him and was about to grab the winged unicorn when a dagger came flying by his head, striking the bat in the chest and taking him down.
“Thanks Cory!” Starry said without even looking how threw the dagger.
He knew how wings worked, he even had hours of practice hovering when he was alone in the armory, and it only took him a couple of minutes to get used to actually flying. Cory and Slate defending him all that time.
Surprisingly enough most of the bats completely ignored them, some even flying by only inches away and just moving on.
The ponies on the ground were not as fortunate. After the bats took care of the remaining soldiers from the tunnels they focused their attention towards the rest of the city’s populace. The ponies that were running in the streets were the easiest to kill, without any armor, and no combat training they were nothing more that loud, moving prey for the bats. Among the three pony tribes there in nothing more helpless than a unicorn whose mind is clouded by terror.
No pony was safe nowhere. If they could the bats tore the roofs of houses, if not they would break through the windows, screams would be heard coming from the inside, followed by silence, and then the bat would exit the home, a little redder than it was before he went in.
And the ones that even showed the smallest sign of aggression towards any of the three ponies were quickly dealt with by Cory and Slate.
After Starry finally fly at least as fast as he could run, they were off to save the princess. While captor had almost an hour head start on them, they knew that the unicorns were traveling on hoof, and they were also carrying quite the heavy load, although nopony would ever tell that to the princess. They should have caught up to them in about an hour.
Slate carved a path for them, striking down every every single bat that was within hoofreach, but none of them even seemed to notice them.
“There!” Cory yelled out as she spotted the princesses distinctive ethereal mane.
“We see them,” Slate and Starry acknowledged and all of them dove onto the three unicorn guards that were lugging the unconscious alicorn down an alleyway.
They had the element of surprise on their side, and they knew how to use it. Only Slate knew how to attack from above, but all of them knew how to kill an unsuspecting enemy from behind. Slate and Cory went for the slice their necks, while Starry aimed to stab the pony in its side, gutting him.
They attacked and the enemy did not even noticed as the blades ran across their necks or was thrusted in his side. Starry moved from behind the unicorn and when he was close enough, and with a though the sword headed for the pony’s exposed side, the tip of the blade touched the pony’s skin and broke in half. At the very same time Cory’s and Slade’s blades slipped harmlessly across the other two unicorns necks.
They dropped the princess, turned, hissed and fired magical green bolts at the pegasi. Luckily their armor took the brunt of the blast and the two were knocked to the ground, and suffered light burns across their chest, neck and forelegs. Starry’s unicorn just bucked the wind out of him.
The Royal Guard unicorn turned and fired, but Starry let out a burst of light, blinding his opponent and causing his attack to be fired wildly into the sky, incinerating a few bats along its way.
With a flap of his wings Starry picked himself up, and fired a beam of his own. It was thin and concentrated and it went straight through the pony’s head, killing it in an instant. He caught a glimpse of green blood flowing from its head, as he turned towards the other two. He cast the same spell, creating the same thin beam of ethereal magic, and with a flick of his head, he swiped it like one would a blade and beheaded on of the unicorns while cutting the other’s head in half. Both their corpses fell to the ground.
First he checked on his friends to see if they were alive, then he went over to the princess. She had no injuries anywhere on her body, and any spell the unicorns might have placed on her should have vanished when they were killed, and yet she was still unconscious.
“There has to be a reason why...” Starry started saying but was interrupted when Cory told him to take a look at something. Starry let go of the still unconscious body of princess Luna and went to see why they called out to him, her head hitting the hard cobblestone street with a loud thud.
She and Slate were looking at the dead bodies, searching for anything they might have had on them when they found a few strange things.
“Their skin, is hard, like armor...” Cory pointed out as she ran her hoof on one of the dead stallion’s coat.
“And their armor, it’s like it is attached to their body.” Slate added when he tried to lift the armor, but ended up lifting the entire corpse.
“And their...” Cory breakfast was trying to come back.
“Their brains, I am no expert, but this in not how a pony’s brain should look like.”
The normal two-lobed, pear-shaped, pink brain, of a pony that should have been covered in red blood vessels was nowhere to be found, instead all they could see inside the pony’s, if it really was a pony, opened head were a bunch of ganglions connected by thin tissue, all bathed in a gel like, green goo, that had long since spilled on the street.
“I don’t think that’s a pony,” Cory said trying to keep her lunch in.
“I think so too,” Slate agreed.
“Me too,” Starry also.
“As do I.”
The three turned to see the princess starting to come to her senses and get up.
“Princess!” the three of them yelled, overjoyed to see the alicorn feeling better.
“Wretched thing.” Luna raised her hoof and forced it down onto the the blue orchid squashing it under her hoof, and smashing part of the street as she did so.
Luna’s horn glew and she picked up the severed unicorn head. After levitating it closer to her, she lifted their eyelids and saw nothing but a empty teal eyes, no iris, no nothing, just an endless teal.
“Ghouls,” she told the three as she discarded the head.
“Ghouls?” the other three asked, never hearing the words before.
“The undead. I meat a group of them a couple of years back in the area you now call the Badlands. They are formidable foes, much stronger and tougher than when they were alive. They are abominations that killed hundreds and...” She was interrupted by a lonely bat that thought it had what it took to make a meal out of an alicorn.
Luna broke his spine with a swipe of the hoof.
“What has happened here?” she asked the three soldiers, who were still trying to wrap their head against the notion that they were fighting against the undead.
“YOU WILL TELL ME WHAT HAS HAPPENED HERE?!” Luna asked them again, this time with a voice that made the ground shake.
“Giant bats, slaughtered everyone, few survivors, trapped in tunnels, probably dead by now,” Slate gave the most minimal report he will ever give in his life.
“We need to get to them. Can any of you still fly?” Luna asked them as she stretched out her wings.
“Yes,” all three of them replied.
“Take me to these tunnels, our first priority should be saving the lives of those trapped inside. Come on.” With a flap of her wing she lifted herself up the ground, and the three followed her head.
“Which way?” Luna asked as they joined her.
“That way,” Starry pointed towards the town square.
“Move aside,” Luna said as her horn began glowing. She pointed it in the direction Starry pointed towards and let out a wide blast. It did not only clear the way, it almost took out all the bats in that direction. “Let’s go.”
They fly towards the crater, princess Luna leading the way smiting every single creature that even came within her line of sight. They flew as fast as they could, and wasted no time, but by the time they reached their destination all that was left of the recruits were being devoured by the bats.
Luna let out another large burst of magic and incinerated everything that was inside the crater, before landing in its middle.
“Are there any other survivors you know of?” she asked as the three ponies landed next to her,
“No, we think that these were the last of them.”
Luna sighed and a tear rolled down her cheeks as her eyes became ghostly white, and her horn glew intensely. A few drops of sweat could be seen from place to place on her body, whatever she was doing required a lot of magic, as well as a lot of concentration, and Starry knew that.
“Okay Knights, its time to protect the princess,” he said with a smile on his face as he picked up a sword.
“It’s been ages since somepony called us that.” Slate picked one up himself but stealthed it, choosing instead a spear.
“I kind of missed it.” Cory too picked up a blade.
“It did have a nice ring to it, the Knight of Night,” she said as the three took up defensive positions around the alicorn and prepared themselves for a fight.
From the caves more bats emerged, and the sky above was filled with the ones from the rest of the city, no doubt drawn to the prospect of fresh food.
“It’s been fun,” Slate told them, knowing that the three of them had no chance against so many foes.
“Hey Slate...”
“Yeah Starry?”
“Me and Cory are together now, and we thought you should know.”
“That great, and I couldn’t be happier for you two. But you honestly believe that now was the best time to be telling me?!” Slate asked while holding the weapon tight and waiting for the bats to make their move.
“Well... I guess my timing is a little bit off,” Starry admitted, while he too fastened his grip on the weapon.
“You know what Starry, if the three of us make it out of here alive, I will be naming your first foal. Got it?”
“Ask Cory,” Starry quickly replied.
The three of them laughed.
“Sure,” Cory said with a smile on her face as the bats were slowly creeping closer. “Just don’t name him something stupid, like Foggy.”
“Deal,” Slate said, but his words did not reach his friend ears as everything around them disappeared into a deep blue light. Then nothing.
Nothing for hundreds of feet. No bats, no tunnels, no buildings, no streets, no city, nothing but a flat dirt bed.
Luna fell to the ground, exhausted and drained of her magical powers, as the three ponies rush to her side.
“I think she will be fine,” Starry told the others after taking a brief look at the princess.
Cory tapped his shoulder and pointed upwards. The clouds were gone, the sky was clear, and the moon was shining brightly.
“It can’t be that late already!” Slate yelled as he realised that, judging from the moons position more than twelve hours passed since the battle started.
“I think today the night came a little early,” Starry joked. It took them awhile to realize what he meant.
“So... how long have you two been together?” Slate asked them, striking up a conversation that would last the entire time Luna slept.
For the first time in ages Luna woke up like any other pony, bright and early in the morning, and it felt good.
“Good... morning. My, that does feel odd,” Luna greeted the sleep deprived ponies that stood guard over her for the entirety of the prolonged night.
“Good morning your highness,” the three of them replied as they rose and stood in attention.
“What are your names?”
“Private two, Slate Fogtome, Ma’am,” Slate saluted and introduced himself, the other two followed his example.
“Private Cory Rivea, Ma’am.”
“Private Starry Night, Ma’am.”
“Starry Night?!” Luna asked, surprised by the pony’s name. She took a closer look at him, he had the same golden eyes, the same blue coat, and dark blue tail, and as far as she could tell he was without his mane.
“In light of recent events, some positions became vacant. Would any of you wish to become my personal guards?”
“Yes Ma’am,” the three of them answered in unison.
“Excellent, I will have the paperwork done when we return to the capital.” Luna stretched her wings and back, before taking off and hovering a few feet above the ground. “Come on, we need to find where the ghouls entered in Equestria, and check if any of the forts have been compromised.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” they all replied and joined her.
“You can call me Luna. And Starry, I love your wings, they suit you,” she said with a smile on her face before heading off to the nearest fort in Equestria’s souther border, with the two pegasi and one unicorn flying besides her.
As Celestia's sun was slowly lowered and the night began, the cadets tried to stand in attention, but their excitement proved to be much too difficult to contain. It was not everyday one stood in the presence of one of the greats, let alone two.
Two dark silhouette appeared on the high above the horizon, and they starting talking among themselves about the two ponies that were honoring them with their presence.
“Silence!” one of the instructors yelled at them. “Show some respect.”
The two ponies landed and after flapping their wings a few times, folded them and began their inspection.
“Atten Hut!” the officer ordered, and the cadets snapped their rear hooves hot ether and stared blankly in front of them.
As the two ponies walked in front of them, they could not help but run their eyes over their bodies, committing every small detail to memory. From their enchanted purple and black armor, with a dark purple gem in the middle of the chestpiece that resembled a cat’s eye. Armor that turned their coat grey, tail dark purple , eyes yellow, with the dagger shape iris that was the trademark of all Knight’s officers.
One was a beautiful pegasus mare, her mane cut short, and turned purple by the magics that also changed her feathery wings turned into slick and glossy-leathered versions of themselves. She wore a thin golden ring around her neck, with a gem similar to the one she wore on her armor. It said, for all to hear: “Sorry guys, I’m taken.”
Walking besides her was a stallion, dressed in the same armor, wearing the same neck ring, minus the cat-eye-like gem, with the same color coat, eyes and having the same bat like wings. Unlike his companion, alongside the wings the pony also had a unicorn's horn in the middle of his forehead, and a flowing ethereal mane, both of which, alongside with his close relation with Princess Luna led to rumors of the pony being related with the alicorn.
The two ponies walked up and down the rows of young recruits inspecting them, while not saying a single word. When finished they headed to the from and the stallion spoke in a loud and commanding voice.
“Who are you?!”
“I am a Knight of Night!” each of the recruit answer.
“No you are not. None of you are. Every single last one of you is nothing. No, you are worst than nothing. But some of you may amount to something... Someday... Maybe. But until then you are nothing. Now recite your oath and get out of my face.”
“Before the princess...” the instructors started and the rest of them joined in.
“Before the Princess of the Night, this I swear. I swear to be the one who will strike down her enemies, I am Luna’s sword. No harm shall come to her, or to Equestria, as long as my hearts beats in my chest. I am her Knight, and she holds my fate in her hooves. She will do with me as she wishes. If she wishes me to fight, I will fight. If she wishes me to die, I will die. If she wishes me to kill, I will kill. I will kill my enemies, I will kill my friends, I will kill my brothers, my sisters, my father, my mother, myself. I will kill them all, if she wishes me to. I will not fear no judgment, no shame, no remorse, I will follow her orders, for she is the future of Equestria. I am a Knight of Night, and I will not rest. This I swear before the Princess of the Night, before Princess Luna. I am a Knight of Night, now and forever!”
“Now and forever!” the two ponies standing in front of them repeated.
“Now and forever!” a third voice said from behind them, as pegasus landed next to them. The recruits stared at him for the whole time. Wearing a full body suit, the parts that covered his head and hooves were colored black, and the rest was dull-purple, with yellow lightning bolts separating the parts, and a white, winged pony skull where his cutie mark should have been, everypony recognised the fiery-red maned stallion.
“Slate!” the winged unicorn exclaimed when he heard the voice, before turning and shaking the pony’s hoof.
“Guildmaster Night, please address me by my proper title, if you please.” “
“Very well, Captain.”
“Damn right Captain, I work my flank off to get this title.”
“Stop acting like little colts, the recruits are watching.”
“Well excuse me, Special Operation Expert Rivea,” Starry said jokingly. Cory glared at him.
After taking a few steps backwards and clearing his throat, Guildmaster Night dismissed the recruits and the three took off heading to Starry and Cory’s home.
“Pathetic, the whole lot of them,” Starry said as they continued on their way.
“Come on Starry, drop the tough pony act,” Slate told, knowing how he truly was all too well. “Tell us what you really thought of them.”
“They showed promise. And it seems there are a lot more pegasi than ever.”
“If this keeps up, we might make you take responsibility and train them yourself,” Cory said looking at Slate.
“No thank you. I have my hoofs full with the ones Luna brings me.”
“Oh come on. It can’t be that bad, how many are there anyway? Four? Five a year?” Starry asked.
“More, than enough. I have no idea where she finds them, but she brings me only the freaks.”
Starry and Cory glared at him.
“Don’t give me that look, you have no idea what some of them can doo! Buck, only last week she brought me three ponies thats scared me senseless.”
“Really?” Cory asked skeptical. “Scared you senseless? What did they do? Fly fast? Make a little breeze?”
“Well lets see... Two of them were tween, hottest pair of mares I ever so, there were so hot that they could turn their manes into flames.” Cory and Starry’s jaws drop.
“While the thirds was a blond stallion that could summon storm clouds at will.”
“I thought all pegasi can create clouds,” Starry said looking at Cory for confirmation, she nodded.
“Yes, but none that big. Heck, five ponies could hide in it. I’ve tried. And if he wants to he can also make them precharged, and a bolt from a cloud that big can kill a pony.”
“And these were only the ones more magically inclined, a few weeks ago I had to say no to a mare that could break stone with her bare hooves. And the week before that...”
“We get it, you deal with scary ponies,” Starry concluded. “Now come one, lets pick up the pace.”
The moon rose and the stars were beginning to appear in the sky when the three ponies were able to see their destination.
In the distance, surrounded by green meadows and flower beds, with stood the fortified capital of Equestria, place of Royal Castle, residence of the Royal Pony Sisters, and home to Cory and Starry.
The three ponies flew above the tiled rooftops of the city and headed straight for the castle. Two Knights opened the main gate and as they landed servants flocked to them to help them remove their armors.
Now free from the metal clothing, they walked through the stone and marble corridors and headed for their dining room. Slate just pulled back the part of the suit that covered his head.
With the armors off them their body altering magics faded. Their coats, tails and mane returned to their normal colors. When starry’s armor was removed, his wings were taken with it, while one of Cory’s returned to her normal pegasus form, while the other remained the same.
“Why do you insist on wearing that even when you are at home?” Slate asked Starry, but he did not reply. Turning towards Cory he could see the mare sigh.
Two guards stood in attention as they walked by and as they entered the room dinner was just being brought in. Cucumber salad with black-eyed pea, freshly baked bread, various cheeses and wine, all were being brought in by servants and placed at one end of the table, the closest to the fireplace in which a large fire burned.
Aside from the roaring fire, a pair grand chandeliers hang above the twelve-pony dining table, and tens of large, wall mounted candles lit up the room marble room. Starry sat at the end of the table, his back to the fireplace while Cory took the place to his right.
“Starry, I think I got the short end of the stick,” Slate said taking his seat to Starry’s left.
“You get to live in the capital, your every need being taken care of by an army of servants, and lets not forget a lovely wife. What more can a stallion ask for? All you need is the sound of little hooves, and your life would be perfect.”
“About that...” Cory said as both stallions turned towards her.
“When did you found out?” Slate asked, while Starry just stood there and stared at Cory, his mouth held ajar. The spell that created his mane vanishing, leaving his scarr covered scalp exposed.
“The physician told me this morning, but I guess you could say I knew for a while.”
“Huh? What do you mean?” Slate wanted to know what she was trying to say.
“Well about a month ago while I was visiting Luna, her friend... You know the one, the dark-grey, blue maned unicorn that alway seems to be by her side.”
“You mean Blue Blume?” Slate asked.
“Yes Blublu, that’s the one. So about a month ago while I was visiting Luna, Blublu congratulated me. When I asked for what she just smiled and told me I will find out soon.”
“Do you think she knew?”
“I don’t know, maybe.”
“I still want to name him.”
“Him?” Cory asked. “How do you know it will be a colt?”
“Call it intuition,” Slate said holding out his wineglass as a servant filled it. “To your and the foals health.” The two clinked their glasses while Starry stood there stupefied.
“I think you broke him,” he said looking at Starry and taking a sip of wine from his glass, Cory let out a short laugh.
“I really hope...” he paused as he noticed something hanging above the fireplace. “He still has that?!”
Above the fireplace a silvery-blue sword hanged, the blade glowing softly. It’s hilt was long. Long enough that no one would have thought that it was made for a pony to wield. The grip was crimson, with light blue metallic rings, and a pommel of the same colour. Despite its long grip its cross-guard was short and thick, and it seemed to have a second cross-guard, two metallic spikes pointing away from the wielder. The blade was thick and about three times the size of the hilt.
“Luna told him to have it destroyed!” Slate yelled, slamming his hoof in the table.
“I know!” Cory replied.
“Then why is hanging on the wall?!”
“Because I couldn’t destroy it,” Starry finally talked, the sudden shouting waking him up.
“Couldn’t or wouldn’t?!” Slate asked.
“Couldn’t!” Starry yelled at him, his ethereal mane reappeared, bursting out of his head. “And I don’t want to talk about it any further. Got it, Captain?”
“You’re honestly pulling rank on me?! Really?”
“Yes, I am!”
“Calm down!” Cory yelled at them. “The both of you!”
They both stood down and continued eating their dinner, and not a word was spoken between Slate and Starry for about ten more months, when a little purple foal with a bright yellow mane and tail, brought the two friends back together.
Just as he asked, Slate got to name the foal, and the little unicorn filly would bear the name Petal “Nightie” Nightshade. Daughter of Guildmaster Starry Night and Special Operation Expert Cory Rivea of the Knight of Night, niece of Captain Slate Fogtome of the Shadowbolts, and niece of Princess Luna Equestris, Diarc of Equestria.
