The Price of Freedom

Authors Note: This is chapter 8 of "The Price of Freedom", I hope you guys like it

Big Thanks to Gear Switch (A.K.A Neon Scythe) and NightfallTheDragon for being my betas.

Disclaimer: (I hate this with a burning passion) I don't own My Little Pony, Hasbro does.

Chapter 8: Voice of the Soul

At the Escaflowne mountains...

"Well shall we start climbing?" asked Hunter, to our Warrior Princess.

"Yes let's get a move on before something bad happens." stated Luna.

At that moment a Crystal Wraith, hired by the king of the Shadow Wraiths, apperied with one thing on it's mind, to kill Princess Luna. It's fangs were made of the hardest crystal and razor sharp as well, it then charged the Warrior Princess fangs bared, ready to end her life. But before it could sink it's fangs into her Hunter pushed her out of the way he then took the full blow of the attack.

"NO!" Luna screamed, worried about losing the one pony that could make her life better.

"I-I'll be f-fine." Hunter choked out, between shallow breaths.

Before the Crystal Wraith could do anymore damage, Hunter pulled out ine of his Kukri and impaled the Crystal Wraith in it's heart, and ending it's life then and there.

"Y-you ne-need t-to complete y-your mi-mission." Hunter stated, while he was slowly bleeding out from the wound he got.

"I am not leaving you here." the Princess of the Night stated, her voice not wavering.

"Wha-what ca-can yo-you do to save m-me?" Hunter asked, while the world around him was slowly fading to black.

"I can heal you." the dark blue mare stated simply.

At that moment her horn started to glow in her ice blue aura, she then touched her horn to his wound.

"There that should do it." Luna stated, to nopony specific.

"Thank you..... hey Luna?" Hunter asked

"Yes Hunter?" the Warrior Princess asked.

"Can I tell you something?" Hunter asked, the dark blue mare.

"Sure." Luna said. "Is he about to tell me what I think he is?" Luna thought to herself.

"Luna... I...I... I Love You." Hunter stated, while hoping that his feelings will be returned.

Outside the ruins of Ponyville...

Twilight had roughly looked through the Everfree for any sign of the missing "Princess Luna", deciding whether she was hopefully okay or in desperate need for help of the ongoing and attacking Shadow Wraith's. Seeking past mossy trees and prickly thorn bushes, even having to surpass certain minorities of hives of wasps or nearby territories of the bad-breathed Timberwolves. For whatever sake of looking for what might be the last hope to ending this barely raging war, it had to be done fast or this problem will get to neighboring nations

"Shining Armor, how did you even get out of the Crystal Empire anyway? Teleporting? Transportation? What?" Rainbow Dash eargerly asked, looking as spiffy as ever with her rainbow colored mane and her bold scarlet eyes, though some cuts and bruises seemed to shade along the sides and legs of her lean body. She was currently above the whole party with Fluttershy, both keeping a stern eye out for any of the wretched shadows.

Shining Armor shook his head left and right, "A bit of transportation..... Me and Cadance had to go by hoof for a long distance until we were picked up by one of my trasnport teams to take us to Ponyville where me and Cadance knew there would be the same issue there with these shadow things. I can't believe how things come by so fast, not even a hint would be shown in the slightest cracks of existence. If only we would've know sooner, the Crystal Heart could have kept the shadows out of the Empire and me and Cadance would probably then make it a safe zone." He looked up to the dark skies with very few clouds, one though covering about a thirds of a full moon. Stars twinkling mystically, shining down the beautiful white and orchid-like light. A few fireflies mindlessly flying around in random directions, slowly flickering their glowing tails of a bright yellow shine down.

Cadance on the other hoof looked ashamed and depressed, "If only......we could've saved them." She said with hopeless tone, "If only we would've known sooner." She kept a gloomy expression as she spoke, pretending to be in a somewhat good mood when everything was best to be not good. "You expect any worth living through a nightmare you didn't see coming?" She said coldly.

Everypony looked astonished from the princess' despaired mood, "What has gotten into ya Cadance? Yer as down as a mouse that doesn' have any cheese." Applejack curiously asked, keeping a steady lookout like everypony else for Luna as her and the group traveled deeper and deeper into the forest, hearing a faint sound of cracking twigs and buzzing of multiple insects. The howls of Timberwolves sent shivers down all their spiness repeatedly one after another howled out gracefully at the moon.

A swishing sound passed through everyponies ears, making them form a circle and readying for an attack of another shadow. They were right unsurprisingly, about three normal sized shadows appeared swiftly and charged at anypony closest to them. Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie were the three closest to the three attacking shadows, growling loudly and then rushing in a swerving pattern at the targeted ponies, spreading their arms out to reveal their dreadful and gruesome looking claws.

They were about six feet away from taking down their pray and Pinkie Pie, also unsurprisingly, swung out her party cannon and it was loaded with explosive confetti, very unexplainable if you ask me. Anyways, Pinkie smiled deviously with a mean look in her eyes, "This always makes me smile when there's any involvement of pain."She pulled the string attached to the cannon and the shadow was bursted square in the chest with the confetti that sticked onto it making it laugh out as it regained balance and looked jokingly to the still smiling pink mare. "Huh, could have sworn I packed gunpowder in these confetti shards."

*BOOM!!*

Ths shadow was no longer in front of Pinkie Pie and was apposedly in pieces, scattered shadow parts were thrown onto trees and bushes, the sound was spreaded with the same. Pinkie Pie laughed quickly and spoke normally. "There it was, like a sticky bomb. Now that was fun either way." She bounced up and down joyfully as her party cannon was also out of sight, being unaware of the two remaining shadows approaching Rarity and Fluttershy.

Fluttershy squeaked and cowered under her long, curled pink mane, just begging herself for it to end quickly and unpainfully, leaving Shining Armor who happened to be standing next to her, to fight by himself against it. He lit his horn and shot out a magic blast to the shadows face, a direct shot. It flew about ten feet and shook its head to recover from the blow. The dark masquerade got back up and dove into the ground, like how King Sombra performed it, slithering through the ground like a snake towards Fluttershy again.

Fluttershy thought it was over and peeked through her mane, bad idea. The Shadow Wraith was a few feet in front of her and Shining Armor shot another magic blast at it, this time it missed. It creeped swiftly closer to the yellow pegasus, showing its bare sharp teeth as it looked satisfied to finally capture its prey. The shy pegasus screamed out then that same scream was cut short.........

Meanwhile, at the Escaflowne Mountains...

Luna blushed and her dark cheeks filled with red as she stared deeply at her stallion protector, wanting to tell him she felt the same exact way. So she approached him until her face was mere inches from his, "I-I......L-L-Love you t-too." She most eargerly wanted to say instead she stuttered a bit which made her think to herself, "Not how I wanted to tell him, but its a start." She let her mane to continuously flow with that combo of a dark, maquerading purple and clack mystique color.

Hunter stared with glee at the Princess of the Night, yelling inside himself that he was accepted by the mare he considered to himself, "Love at first sight." He had nothing to respond with but to himself, "Wow, this is....this is...." His thoughts were shaken when another shadow darted from out of nowhere, its prime target Luna, "Luna look out!" He warned out screaming majesticaly, getting and instant magical grip on his Kukris, hurling one with a massive force at its chest.

Hitting the shadows chest dead center, it shrieked out in agonizing pain as it collapsed to the floor, grabbing hold of the blade and trying mercifully to pull it out of its chest, making the pain much worse that it screamed out louder as it continued to desperately yank the Kukri out.

Hunter trotted up to meet face to face with the fallen Wraith, "Not to my mare." He said coldly, he let loose his magical grip and held the Kukri in his hoof, "See you in hell you grieving bastard." And stabbed the shadow in between the black-socketed eyes, a small splash of blood landed on the ground and on the warriors face. He pulled out the two blades with his magic and looked to the appealing princess, "Now where were we?" Hunter panted, his head feeling a little shaken at the way Luna suddenly changed her expression, from a small cute smile to a devious one.

"We were in the middle of you standing still with an excited expression under your blank expression." Luna replied sweetly, trotting to wind up a mere foot away from her protector. Her and Hunter kept a clean smile at eachother, leaning their heads closer until their noses touched, a bliss of happiness surging through both minds, Luna was the first to lean just a bit more until her lips pressed on the warriors, turning her head sideways as hed did as well, closing their eyes peacefully, everything seemed to turn in a whole new direction for the two. What will become of them?

Authors note: Well I'm back I hope you guys like this chapter. The clop scene will be a different story altogether.

As usual, constructive criticism is always welcomed, rate, review, and enjoy. As per usual fashion.

"May Your Lucky Stars Always Smile Down Upon Thee."

-Lunas' Eternal Protector