The Beginning (Revised version)
Equestria lay in ruins, everything was destroyed after the fight with Tirek. Only a small rebel force, led by Princess Celestia remained in hiding. While Luna, Cadence, and Twilight had been killed along with most of the population of Equestria.
"We have to do something!" shouted Shining Armor. "We can't just sit around here any longer! We have to take back some of our land!”
Celestia had never gotten her magic back after Twilight died, and now she was very weak . " We don’t have the strength or the numbers to do anything against Tirek." Her head lowered, she realized that she was using too much of her strength.
Shining Armor went to support her, “ What are we suppose to do now, your majesty?" He was serious, the other ponies realized that he would never sit around when it comes to a major battle. But they would obey his every command no matter what.
"I do not know, but we can't lose to Tirek”, she said weakly. "Take me to my chambers please." Shining nodded and took her back to her room. "Thank you." She looked up at him, "I can't stop you Shining Armor from doing your duty, do what you must can”.
"Yes, your majesty." he went out of her room and down to the headquarters. He went to the radio and called to the rest of the guards, "Men, we are going to attack the gargoyle base that's at the far end of the river." There were murmurs of shock throughout the room. "If any are too weak, I need one of you to let me know." After a few minutes, 5 ponies zoomed from the current location they were in and headed into the headquarters.
"Ok then here's the plan, when Shining gives the signal we follow”,they replied to each other and then headed out.
Shining and his troops had made it to the outpost and were gearing up for the attack. He had 40 stallions with him to help him face against the 100 stone gargoyles in there. “This could be harder than I thought”, he said to himself. He saw a shadow in the distance and realized it was one of the gargoyles and quickly cast a concealing spell... only he had no magic. "There in the sky!” a unicorn guard said to his captain.
“Yes, what is it?” The other guards looked up and saw the scout as it flew about 100 feet away. Their armor was already covered in dirt, so it was not easily noticeable. The enemy still had not noticed them, but right as it was about to enter the outpost. It looked at them and just stared for a second. Shining signaled a guard to take his bow and he nodded and quickly obeyed. He made sure his shot would make the aim. He shot the arrow into the air, the gargoyle screeched with fury. When it was busy focusing on the stallion, the arrow hit it in the neck and It fell to the ground writhing in pain. They looked around and saw Shining signaling them say that it was clear, and started to advance when the doors of the outpost opened and out came against beast.
" Watch out!" yelled Shining as the ranged beast growled. They started running at it with their swords drawn. It howled at them and charged swinging it's clawed hands at the guards in rage. It tore right through the first guard that was running, leaving only his own severed body on the ground. The guard screaming in pain, was then flung to the side as remainings of his blood sprayed everywhere. He laid there motionless, with the others leaving him behind. It then smashed the next guards head into the ground with a sickening crack. Blood began pooling under the monsters clawed fist.
One of the guards was able stab his sword into the beasts arm only seeming to anger it more. He screamed in pain and tore through his body, ripping him in half. Shining watched, horrified at what had just happened, having one one of his guards dying before his eyes angered him.
The beast killed almost half of his men when he finally said "Get out of here, go!” The monster was about to run for his life when he didn’t noticed that he was only a few feet when a flaming arrow flew out of no where and hit one of his eyes causing it to rear up clutching its face. A hooded stallion with wings was wearing a dark robe, ran out of the shadows and shot a crossbow that was attached to his arm. He aimed his arrow at the beast’s leg, hitting it with a good aim. The beast was enraged at this, and it stood up on his hind legs and when he was about to crush the crush him, a chain flew around the beasts neck pulling it backwards. Two more more hooded figures came out of the shadows, one of them were holding chains and the other had a spear.The mysterious figure thre the spear aiming for the beast’s chest. The first flew up and took the spear out of its chest and with all of his strength, he threw it into the monsters head, which then went through its eye and out the back of its head. The remaining pieces of flesh fell from the beast as it still lay motionless.
The first man yelled at the group in a loud voice, "Go back to your outpost,NOW!" As soon as they started running, hoards of gargoyles started pouring out of the open doors, and seeing the fate of their commander. They saw the same three shadows before striking the gargoyles with their weapons.
Shining and his men made it back weary and heartbroken. They took a lot of hard work battling the beast. In doing so, they lost over half of their group. Only 17 remained of the 40 had already set out.
Shining went to tell Celestia what had happened, but when he got there he saw blood all over everything and found her in a corner dead. He ran to her and started weeping. The last and first of the alicorn princesses dead. How did this happen? He looked at her body and saw a note. "Don't provoke my rule." Tirek, I should have known. He stood in anger at how stupid he had been, then a thought crossed his mind, "Who where those people?" They had come out of nowhere in the shadows and killed that monster like it was easy. And they still had their powers! How?! He had so many questions that he needed answers. As he pondered this, he went back to the main room to find three cloaked figures sitting there. Were they the three that had killed the beast? Two males and two female? But there were only one last time, he thought to himself.
"Who are you?" he asked. They did not respond at first,then one of then stood up.
"We are demon hunters." answered the stallion. "We have come to help you, should you accept it."
Shining thought about this and asked,"Why do you want to help us? We have never even heard of you." The man did not respond again. He just stood there showing his weapons. He had black wings, a black outfit, his weapons were a crossbow folded together under his cloak and a hidden blade on the other with several knives and a hook wire. The other male was a dark blue dragon with black ear fins and was roughly the same height with no wings, wore a visor that would scare even a skeleton and had the same kind of outfit, and had a boot knife with dual axes and daggers. The first mare was a unicorn and she was about 5"7, wearing the same, she had hidden blades on both arms and a bow on her back, and the last one was also a mare and was just a bit smaller then the other one, only she had no visible weapons. He had never seen such an odd group before. "What your names?”
"I am Flaming Shadow. This is Nove Blaze." He said gesturing to the drake ."And this is Bonnie and jewel the navigator", motions to the unicorn then the navigator mare. We were going to take out one of Tirek's high officers, that is till you went and made things difficult."
Shining was very curious now. "Well, I'm sorry." He looked at the female and the male that fought alongside them and then back at the leader. "Would you still be willing to do it? I will pay you, and you may stay here if you like."
They looked at each other then back at Shining. "We accept your offer, but you need to stay out of our way. We will not stay here for long. And every time you have a contract let us know. You can find us at the edge of Ponyville." After he said that they got up and walked out of the room and back to the gargoyles castle.