Chapter One: Calm Before the Storm
Prologue
Equestria…A world where gods reside in heaven, the dead in the underworld and where ponies, griffons and various other races struggle for dominance over the earth. This once great nation has been shattered and split into six separate groups each with their own goals and ambitions. If my memory is correct then this conflict all started ten years during the late stages of my adolescence. I haven’t been keeping up the time since the war started and have rarely been interested in anything else. After it was discovered that Princesses Celestia and Luna had no powers over the sun and moon war broke out against the mane six, which was the name given to the group of ponies who were closest with to the princesses. From what I know, not one of them had known about the princess’s deception and were devastated by this new found revelation. Shortly after this discovery, Princess Cadence and her husband Shining Armor took up the role of being the legitimate rulers of Equestia.
Shortly after the crown was taken up, the mane six split up for reasons I don’t… really care about or I don’t find interesting enough to pursue the knowledge of, but they all ended up creating their own fractions where they all fight for whatever dream they want coming to life. Archmagister Twilight Sparkle formed House Moon and Star, Supreme Commander Applejack formed House Earthborn, Mistress Rarity formed House Whitegold, Lady Fluttershy formed House Everfree, and Pinkie pie…well Pinkie pie died after being forced into taking part in an alicorn transformation attempted by Twilight, so instead of her forming a forming a fraction, a strange cult called the Cult Of Laughter appeared instead. From what my now dead sources told me the leader of the cult is High Prophet Cranky Doodle, but many of us find that to be impossible since he should have died a long time ago to a deadly disease that I can’t remember.
Yep! For ten REALLY long years, this country has gone to shit. I have no qualms or quarrels with the other groups but I think I speak for everyone who doesn’t find this war entertaining that I wish one of the sides just gain an advantage and win, but judging by how evenly matched everypony is, I don’t see that happening anytime soon.
So this is where I come into the picture. You see I’m a mercenary. I work for a group known as The Nervana. It’s a mercenary group that sells its members to highest bidder for as long as they keep paying us. Though I’m a new member into the group I’m not new to this war, and I’ve have been participating in it since day one. So my influence carries pretty high within the group. Despite fighting with these clowns on a weekly basis the only one I actually trust is my best friend Wrathful Fang, a Pegasus who can be seen as being hot blooded and stubborn, but when the time comes for it he’s the only one worth trusting.
Today’s job was suppose to be relatively easy. The Town of Golden Pines which isn’t rulled by Earthborn but is still in it’s territory, has been the victim of a few attacks by House Moon and Star during the last few days. Not wanting to lost any valuable assets Supreme Commander Applejack hired us to assist the townfolks and a few of their soldiers in repelling the attack for House Moon and Stars next attack. We also get a bonus if we can deal as much damage as we can to their forces before they begin to flee. That is assuming that we’ll win.
Before the battle I did a headcount of all the ponies within Golden Pines that actually has military experience. We only had about a hundred Ponies-at-arms and fifty Battle Buckers. I found it funny that despite having the largest army, the Earthborn didn’t want to spare us a few more diverse soldiers so we can actually have a fighting chance against them.
The Nervana mercenaries are famous for their small, but elite number of soldiers. We only brought six hundred troops with us, hoping that we were going to be up against only a small number of enemy troops. I mean all we had to do was just defend against a small number of highly trained unicorns with superior technology. So yeah, there’s no way anything could go wrong right? That wasn’t a rhetorical question, the answer is yes. Things can always go wrong.
Nervana Base Camp Outside Golden Pines
August 3rd to August 4th, 10th year ATD
It was night time. From what the scouts had said, It was going to take House Moon and Star one more day to get here. Judging by how far they were from us already they were most likely going to arrive early next morning. You could pretty much feel the anticipation in the camp. Many of us had come to enjoy being mercenaries. We were by far making the most money since we were an important factor during this war, and with the right set of mercs you could find yourself causing some serious damage to the enemy while losing little to none of your own assets, but of course this can make us, somewhat of a loose cannon. We can be hired by one faction to fight against another and without the faction that hired us knowing that we were secretly working against them for the other faction. That’s why some of the groups like to think twice about using us.
Like everyone else in the camp at the time, I was also eager to kill some enemies. I was up sharpening some of my weapons while gleefully thinking about what tomorrow was going to be like. I was only interrupted by the sound of someone entering my tent.
“Zealous! I knew you would still be up. I see you’re sharpening all your weapons for tomorrow. That’s good because from what I heard we’re going to be out numbered three to one.” My good friend Wrath said with a hint of excitement lingering within his voice.
I stopped what I was doing and looked at the stallion with eyes that show excitement as well a bit of fear in them. “Three to one huh? I don’t know if I like those odds.” I said while checking out my dagger to see if it was sharp enough.
“Well, it looks like I’m going to be winning this bet.” He said trying to get me interested, since I didn’t know what he was talking about.
“What bet?” I ask curiously.
“The boss and I made a bet to see who could kill the most enemies. Seeing as you’re about to back out of the bet since we’re fighting unicorns, the hundred bit prize money is as good as mine.” He said finishing with a sinister laugh that made me look at him funny. Me being a unicorn I wasn’t really fond of butchering my own kind just because of some bet that I was dragged into, but every now and then I’d feel more heartless than usual.
“Count me in.” I said confident that I would win this bet.
“Whoa, really? Are you sure man? Because I don’t want you waking up in the night screaming you ass off because you keep having dreams about that day you brutally murdered your own kind.” He said in a sarcastic tone that sounds as if he was going to burst in a fit of laughter at any moment.
“Shut up. You’re acting as if I haven’t killed a unicorn before. I kill them all the time, remember?”
“Yeah, but you’ve never killed them in this magnitude. Haha! I can’t wait until tomorrow.” He said pumping himself up for the battle. “It’s going to be glorious!” he said in an almost singing like voice, which made me chuckle. After a small talk about what our battle strategies were going to be, Fang later left with a smile on his face, leaving me without one. I thought about what he said and thought hard. Eight years ago before of the war started I wouldn’t have even dreamed about killing another living being, especially pony. This made me think about what change my moral code, so quickly. The more I thought about the less enthusiastic about tomorrow’s battle.
