Operation: Falling Leaf

Whitetail Woods

May 5th, 1058 A.B.

6:30 PM

        Upon our orders, our teams moved inside the woods, unfazed by the strange screeching we had just heard, which Rider had ruled off as, “probably just a bird.” Rider and I positioned ourselves in the middle of our units as the mission entered it’s opening minutes. Soon, however, our forward operatives suddenly stopped.

        “What’s going on?” Wind Rider asked, his tone unusually serious.

        Moon Glare was the only one who responded. He raised his right foreleg and pointed at a misshapen form lying on the ground in front of them. Even without seeing what it was, the terrible stench that I could now smell in the air told me what it was...

        “A body,” I said out loud.

        Lying up against a tree was the corpse of a gray pegasus stallion... at least it looked like it; it was maimed beyond description. In all my years as a LUNA operative, I had never seen a body so... ripped apart as this. I literally could not begin to describe it. If I hadn’t seen similar corpses before, I almost certainly would have lost my lunch.

        Wind Rider pushed aside the stallions in front of him. He stepped up to the body and kneeled at it, closely inspecting it. After a few seconds, he turned his head to me. I could see that stone cold look in his eyes, that look he only had when he knew we were about to step into the proverbial meat grinder. Although the body looked like it literally had gone through one.

        “It’s one of the missing LUNA operatives,” he simply said.

        Snapping myself out of my trance, I stepped closer to the body, allowing me to partially make out some details. One of the Night Panthers, Black Bolt, snapped out of his trance and stepped forward as well. “No... no, it can’t be! That was my brother!”

        Wind Rider looked at him, the look in his eyes softening.

“What was his name?” he asked.

“Gray Wing, sir,” Black Bolt shakily replied, sniffling slightly.

Wind Rider turned back to the body, reached towards the neck (or what was left of it), and retrieved the fallen soldier’s dog tags, though there was only one tag left. It was bent, scratched, and the chain was severed in half. Wind Rider stood up and held the tag out to Black Bolt. The black pegasus took it in his own hoof, though not letting go of Rider’s; he was clearly holding back tears.

“I’m sorry, but there’s nothing we can do for him now,” Wind Rider calmly stated as he gently released his hoof. “We’ll have to mourn him later.”

Shutting out my surroundings, I leaned in closer to the corpse to begin inspections of the wounds. Multiple large lacerations ran the length of the body- some still oozed blood, as if the body had recently been moved, while the others had begun to dry up. From the evidence present on and around the body, I drew the conclusion that the corpse had been killed- no- mutilated days previous to our discovery of it. Looking over the corpse one last time, I could see that Gray Wing did not suffer very long. It was definitely a very quick death.

“Any idea what could’ve killed him?” Wind Rider asked me.

“None at all. I’ve never seen anything like this,” I responded, rising from the crouching position I had observed the body from. “What do you think?”

Wind Rider grunted. “Well, I don’t know of any creature or sapient that could’ve possibly done that much damage, unless there were several of them,” he said as he ran his hoof through his cyan mane.

Looking around, I could see that Wind Rider had ordered everypony to spread out and form a perimeter. In my close inspection of the body, it seemed I had failed to notice the actions of the rest of the group.

“You done there?” Wind Rider asked me.

“Yeah.”

        “Razor Team, on me!” he rallied his stallions.

        “Night Panthers, gather ‘round!” I called to mine.

“Prepare yourself, boys, this mission just became absolutely crucial. We’re not leaving until we find who or what did this,” Wind Rider addressed everypony, his stone cold look once again appeared in his eyes.

The two combined teams chorused their agreement, although they did it quietly, as not to disturb whatever it was that did this. This would be so much simpler if we knew of any creature that had enough malice to do this.

“Razor Team, re-form formation, move out,” Wind Rider ordered.

Following his example, I turned back to my troops. “Night Panthers, Skirmish Formation, move up,” I ordered quickly.

And forward we pushed, deeper into Whitetail Woods. As we moved inward, the image of the corpse still disturbed me. The more I contemplated it, the more I began to realize, no one creature or being could’ve mutilated that body the way it was. That pegasus hadn’t been killed, he had been destroyed. His body was shredded like a piece of meat from a gryphon slaughterhouse (they were particularly known for grinding their meat). My best guess was that multiple sapients or creatures were responsible for this, but what? Or who?

Depths of Whitetail Woods,

May 6th, 1058 A.B.

00:15 AM

“What was that?” Wind Rider suddenly asked, his eyes darting to the side.

“What was what? I didn’t hear anything,” I replied.

“I thought I saw something glowing,” he spoke after a long pause.

“I didn’t see anything,” I silently chastised myself. LUNA agents were supposed to be elite assassins, meaning we had to train our senses to become more acute than average.

“Think we should set up base-camp somewhere nearby? It’s 2400.”

        I promptly checked the position of the moon. “That’s a good idea. Alright Night Panthers, we’re setting up camp! Fan out!” My team quickly spread out and formed a perimeter around a nearby clearing, Wind Rider ordered Razor Team to do the same.

Using a small clearing, we made a small circle, removing our rucksacks and laying out our sleeping bags. After serving ourselves an impromptu dinner of some of the food we had brought with us, Wind Rider and I chose the watchponies from both of our teams to keep guard as the rest of us would rest up for what was sure to be a grueling mission ahead of us.

“Hawkeye and Knock Out, stay on watch. Take an hour shift, then wake up Diamond Cutter and White Knight to take the next one,” Wind Rider ordered.  “Just standard procedure, but I definitely don’t want whatever might be in here to sneak up on us.”

The pegasus and earth pony stallions near simultaneously replied with a “yes, sir!”.

“Shadow Flight, Moon Glare, you do the same,” I ordered my stallions. “Get --- and --- when you’re done.”

With the orders given and carried out, the rest of the expedition went to sleep. It would probably be a hard night getting to sleep, considering the...  scene from earlier. Wind Rider and I opted to stay awake for a bit and talk.

“Still don’t have any clue what killed that stallion?” Rider asked.

I shook my head. “At this point, could be anything. A sick, demented pony, a forest creature, anything. Besides, Whitetail Woods is supposed to be pretty calm and peaceful, according to intel.”

“Who would’ve thought we’d be on a ponyhunt in the woods traditionally used for Ponyville’s Running of the Leaves,” Wind Rider chuckled.

“I hope whatever’s in here doesn’t get to that town,” I replied.

 “If it comes to that, Razor Team and I will do what we do best.”

“And that is?” I rhetorically asked, already knowing what Rider would say next.

“Slice ‘n dice.”

I smirked, hearing Razor Team’s motto.

“Still, we’ve got to stay on the tips of our hooves for this mission,” I replied. “Whatever’s in these woods...”

“Don’t worry, we’ll chew them up.”

“I will never understand how you can stay confident like that in times like this.”

Wind Rider shrugged. “For me, it comes with time, and the fact that I’ve survived Tartarus and high water more times than I could care to count.”

I smiled. Our first mission together in months, but he was still the Wind Rider I knew. “Goodnight, Rider.”

He did not reply. “Rider?” I sat up to see that he was staring off to the side, ‘the look’ in his eyes again. “What?”

“Did you see that?”

“See what?”

“Hey, did any of you see that?” Wind Rider spoke up to the ponies on guard duty.

“Wind Rider, what are you talking about?” I asked, sitting up as well.

“I swear I saw something glowing again.”

“I didn’t see a thing, sir,” White Knight reported to Wind Rider. The other stallions followed suit with variations of the same basic answer.

“Where was it?” I asked him.

        “Right over there,” he pointed his hoof in the said direction.

        I swiftly slipped out from my sleeping bag, wing blades at the ready. Wind Rider followed in a similar fashion, grabbing his crossbow.

“Razor Team, on your hooves!” The white pegasus quietly commanded.

“Night Panthers, form up!”

Every stallion scrambled to their hooves upon our orders, almost purely on instinct.

“Dragonfly, Crimson Star, on me!” Wind Rider ordered before snapping his head to me. “We’ll investigate, stay here, I’ll signal you when clear.”

“Roger, stay frosty,” I whispered.

“Let’s move,” Wind Rider whispered to his small reconnaissance team before silently moving into the brush of the forest, Dragonfly and Crimson Star following suit.

They quickly disappeared from my eyesight due to the darkness. As I stood there, I noticed something slightly cover part of the moon. After a few moments, it disappeared again. ‘That’s weird,’ I thought to myself as it happened again and again, with more of the moonlight being blocked each time until a fog denser than any other I’d encountered blotted out all of the moonlight and wove through the trees.

“What the heck is that?” I thought out loud.

        At this point, the other operatives all began noticing the fog as well, silently whispering among themselves.

        “Sir, I don’t recall any reports of fog in the area,” Moon Glare whispered to me.

        “Strange,” I said, half to myself. Our task force had reviewed Ponyville’s Weather Team schedule before we arrived in the woods, as it was imperative that this black operation stayed black; there was no job scheduled for this area.

“This isn’t right.” I turned my head to Glare. “Check it out.”

Moon Glare thrusted his body upward into the air, using as little wind power as he could so as not to make noise. I kept my eyes locked on his figure as he ascended toward the fog.

He landed softly a moment later. “Just fog sir. Continue with the mission?” he asked.

        “Affirmative, but keep your eyes and ears open. You never know what might be just around the corner,” I replied. “Especially with visibility reduced with this fog.”

        At that moment, Wind Rider, Diamond Cutter, and Crimson Star returned to the group.

        “Anything?” I whispered to Rider.

        “No, whatever it was high-tailed it.”

        “You don’t suppose there’s something following us, do you?”

        Wind Rider bowed his head, obviously contemplating my words. “Well, it’s too early to jump to conclusions, but given our current situation...”

        “I think our best option would be to remain on guard,” I finished.

        “Agreed.”

Depths of Whitetail Woods

May 6th, 1058 A.B.

3:10 AM

After a practically restless three hour sleep, Wind Rider was promptly on his hooves, giving everypony our wake up call.  “Everypony up, now!”  

        Of course, Wind Rider was generous enough to give his team a little time to wake up... exactly three seconds. Everypony moved swiftly to repack their sleeping bags and ready their gear, a quick bite from each of our MRE’s and we were on the move. It wasn’t long at all until Rider noticed our anomaly.

        “Aegis? How long has that fog been there?” he asked.

        “Since last night.”

        Rider looked back up at the fog, a bewildered expression on his face. “That can’t be right. That’s not on the- ”

        “We know.”

        “Something’s not right here.”

        I shrugged. “Well, it’s not doing anything to slow us down, just normal fog.”

        “But where did it come from?”

        “I don’t know, but it’s not a priority. We could move it if we need to.”

        “Call me paranoid, but I think something’s up.”

        “Well what do you want to do about it?”

        “Well... if it’s not stopping us, I guess there’s no point in moving it. Still, I’ve got a bad feeling.”

        “That’s why I’m glad you’re on our side,” I smirked. Rider had that soldier’s intuition that served a mission well.

        Before we knew it, the sun had risen above dawn. We had been trekking into these woods from 0300 to 0700 hours.