Enlisted

Chapters

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6

Chapter 1

This story is a fan-fiction of MLP:FiM. I don't own any of it. It belongs to Hasbro, etc, etc.
Don't sue. Seriously. That would be so uncouth.

Chapter 1

Today, I am dying.

I look up to the dark, stormy sky, feeling the numbness spread through my body from my lower extremities as I see a flaming contrail blaze through the night sky. I feel a mix of tears and pain and so, so much lost effort as I strain to keep the mountain of Canterlot in place. I can feel the stone claiming my body as my magic works on the mountain, bounding it to the earth once again, just as it is doing to my being. I hear a whisper-Butterscotch’s cry-and I am pulled back to reality by an angry scream from Dagger. I hear Grey howl and feel the earth shake from one of Nova’s magical blasts. I let one last tear mix with the rain before I start to feel the stone creeping up to my face.

I know this is the end.

Yet, no story can start at the end.

This one starts months earlier, neigh, years earlier. In fact, it started before I was born. But this is my story…

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“Mr. Steelhooves! GET OUT OF MY CLASSROOM NOW!” screamed the angry teacher as I gave her sinister smile and got up, gently smacking her with my tail as I passed by, eliciting a snicker from the rest of the class.

“HOW DARE YOU!” she screamed, her horn igniting and sending ripples of magical power into the air. “JUST BECAUSE YOU…”

“Shut up, would you?” I cut her off, flashing my magic-won’t-save-you glare, her horn loosing illumination. “I’m leaving and you know better than to point that thing in my direction.” I said pointing to her horn. “We both know who would win in a duel.” I shook my head and left the room in scared silence, knowing that the whole room knew who they were bucking with:

Alder Branch Steelhooves, strongest *junior* Earth Mage in all of Equestria and part of the family that owned the Ponyville Academy of Alternate Magicks, the school that I currently resided in; the school that just had one of its professors kick me out of her class. I laughed, thinking about how the teacher, a Dr. Burst, PhD in transmodial magic and avid hater of my in-class antics, would squirm later today, thinking over what she had done.

As I walked down the hall and into the main corridor of the Academy’s unicorn magic wing, I stopped by a marble pillar. I tapped on the pillar with a hoof and my magic opened up a small crevice that held a pack of cigarettes. I grabbed one in my mouth, closed the crevice again, and then went over to one of the many magician’s lights (a floating fireball that would illuminate only) and I put the cigarette in, focusing all of my magic on the tip, making the illumination magic react and light my smoke. I smiled as I walked away puffing on my cigarette, knowing today started pretty nicely.

First, I had woken up late, missing two classes. Then I went and ate breakfast in Ponyville square at my favorite, and oldest restaurant in all of Ponyville, Sugarcube Corner. After that, I took a walk around Ponyville pond, and then walked in on Dr. Burst’s class late. I stayed in the class for about ten minutes (a new record, I believe) and then got kicked out. This left plenty of time for me to do whatever I wanted. However, as I walked out of the hall and into the center of the Academy, I felt a small twinge of regret.

The center of the Academy is a large, open courtyard that has a fountain in the middle dedicated to unity of all species and forms of magic, as was the motto of the school. However, at the forefront stood my ancestors and founders of the Academy, Crimson Moon Steelhooves and Twilight Sparkle Steelhooves. I remembered countless talks from my parents, my dad an ambassador and my mother the mayor of Las Pegasas, about how my actions marred what my ancestors fought, lived, and believed in. It definitely didn’t help that my ancestors were just as famous as my parents, Crimson Moon being the General of the Lunar Battalion (Princess Luna’s personal guard) and Twilight Sparkle being Princess Celestia’s person student, turned Princess.

Yet, my twinge of regret turned to bitterness as I walked toward the fountain. “Buck them all.” I said under my breath, taking a deep drag on my cigarette, blowing smoke out at the fountain, pissed that the smoke would do nothing to it, just like all my attempts to please my family. That was part of the reason they sent me here.

Traditionally, everypony in my family went to school here and then went on to do great things like become an ambassador or a mayor, or a bucking General. But not me. But that was cool by me, because everypony in my family knew one simple and brutal fact: I was the family’s black sheep, but I was also the strongest in the family. My magic, core earth pony magic with some control over the other elements, was the purest and most powerful of all my family members, even my unicorn and pegasi cousins that were in the military. But the best part about me knowing this was that I knew that they knew. More importantly, I knew they were jealous, and I loved it when they knew I wouldn’t be doing a damn thing for them, like following what the family did traditionally. I smirked and walked away from the school, towards the only place I ever really called home.

The ancient library/tree house had stood in Ponyville ever since the happy little town was founded, but it became more than that as Twilight Sparkle had made it her home so many generations ago. Eventually, my ancestors had grown it outwards, making it bigger as it became the original Academy. However, the Princesses both were keeping an interested eye on the Academy and soon it had funding and became the large schooling complex that I had just left. The library was on the outskirts of the Academy, but it still served Ponyville as their day to day library. I opened up the back door and went in, feeling better already.

“What’s up?” I heard a voice call from the library desk as I entered through the back door and into the kitchen, which in turn connected into the main library.

“Just got kicked out of class again, Dagger.” I answered back to my dragon friend, and also apprentice of the great Spike, Emissary of Equestria to the Dragon Mountains. He had been my best friend since, well, forever. He grew up with me and was more of a family to me than my real one was.

“Seriously?” I heard him say with a sigh as I heard his distinct claw-steps. “You’ve really got to work on that attitude.” He said, entering the kitchen.

Dagger was smaller than me by a head, and his dull-white scales seemed to shine while his ice-blue eyes glared at me from behind a pair of spectacles. Dagger was many years older than I was, but was considered just out of adolescent in Dragon-age. He was my bigger brother, and still is, even if he was smaller than me most of the time. Yet, this was just so he could fit into most pony-dwellings. If he let himself change into the size he should have been, he would have destroyed the library.

“Why?” I asked him bitterly. “Why should I change anything about myself? Both the professors and I know I am stronger and smarter than them. Not one of them has even been able to come relatively close to me in a duel.”

Dagger sighed and massaged the bridge of his nose, his icy blue spines drooping over his face, making him look like a Neighpon-ese manga character. “You know Al, one day you will meet somepony stronger than you. Then you won’t be able to just rely on your affinity with magic and your stubborn smarts.” He said as he glared at me, fatherly.

“Someday, you’re going to need something more than the magic you know.”

“Oh yeah?” I answered testily. “And what magic would that be?”

“The magic of Friendship.” Dagger said seriously.

I just laughed and went through the library to the stairs, leaving Dagger sighing downstairs. Little did I know, that his words would become the truth not in a not too distant future.

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Miles away, in a small town, or more aptly a village, something sinister was going on. This village, Rain Scar, was nestled in the foothills of the Macintosh Hills and currently was sound asleep. Its villagers, most miners or metallurgists and few of the unicorn or pegasi race, were plumb tuckered out after a day of hard work, as was the norm. But tonight, tonight something was wrong.

Princess Luna, Queen of the Night, Raiser of the Moon, Sister of Princess Celestia, and Goddess of the Dreaming, spread her wings and flew through the sleeping ponies’ consciences, feeling an uneasiness she had never felt. For some strange reason, this village was in peril. She could feel each and every pony’s consciousness, but she could not enter them or give them dreams as she normally could. With her immense magical powers, she tried to enter each mind, but to no avail. She found each one locked off with a strong and dark shield, one that the sleeping ponies below were not mindful of. Yet, Luna started to panic. This could only be the doings of another pony, but one that had enough magic to resist the powerful barrage presented by one of the Princesses?

To find out what was going on, she knew what she must do. She must send out the Lunar Battalion…

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Puck Unit spread out across the dark, hilly ground and shared some silent hoof gestures between flashes of lighting and claps of thunder. Captain Butterscotch snarled at the stormy skies, wondering if Nova and Sunburst are alright, and Grey whispers carnivorously in her ear.

“Third house on the right.” His voice says, barely a whisper, his fangs making more noise than his voice. “Scroll thought he saw some light come from there. And Midas says this is definitely unicorn magic.”

“Good job.” Butterscotch whispers back with an appreciative nod. “Tell them to take point and put up a strong shield. We don’t know what this unicorn is capable of…” she said, still in disbelief of what Princess Luna told them.

Around one in the morning, each member of Puck Unit was visited by a haggard Princess Luna in their dreams. She quickly told them of what was happening in Rain Scar and that she needed her battalion to go and take care of this for her. Not only was she stopped from the Dreaming, which meant the unicorn must have been awake and doing this purposely, but she also needed to keep the Dreaming in balance, which she could not do if her magic was not focused. Therefore, Captain Butterscotch (an earth pony, one of the strongest and smartest to come out of the Lunar University), her Lieutenant, Grey Tail (a timberwolf of the northern tribes), and the other eight members of Puck Unit had to quickly and quietly teleport all the way from Canterlot to the Macintosh Hills minutes after they awoke and were dressed for a mission. Luckily, Princess Luna helped in the teleporting aspect, leaving the Unit’s three unicorns fresh to use magic at their will.

The Unit snuck up the street on their Captain’s order, holding at the door of the third house, indeed seeing an eerie purple light emanating from behind the shutters of its windows. Butterscotch nodded to her earth mage, Scroll, and her Identification mage, Midas, and they opened the door, their magical shield and earthen shield ready to deflect any attacking magic. However, none came. They started to go into the house, but the hairs on the back of Butterscotch’s neck rose, she instinctively stepped back and screamed out to the rest of her unit.

“GET BACK!” she yelled, her soldiers jumping back, as a wall of purple magic blasted out of the doorway, setting the doorframe aflame. Butterscotch sighed as she saw everypony alright, all eight of them…Her eyes shot back to the doorway and she saw the charred shadows of Scroll and Midas blasted into the ground, her body numbing as she realized they had reacted too late.

However, her lieutenant scared off her numbness as he snarled and ran into the house in anger at the loss of his friends.

“Grey!” she called to him, panicking and looking over at the rest of her assembled Unit. “IN THE HOUSE! LET’S GO!” she screamed as she ran in.

The small doorway barely accommodated all of them, but as soon as they entered the purple-lit house, they easily fit, for the house was millions of times larger on the inside. Somehow, its volume and space had been distorted by the eerie magic being performed on the inside. In fact, the house was so large on the inside, that it housed a myriad of biomes, the Unit entering into a large forested area, but following Grey’s tracks across a tundra, a beach, a grassland, two hills, and up a mountain which was bright with purple energy at the top. The tired team wearily made it to the summit, only to find Grey staring at a young, scared-looking unicorn. Grey was immobile and his eyes shined with the same eerie purple light that the whole house did.

“Who are you? I am the Mountain King.” The unicorn said quickly, his frizzy and unkempt red mane twitching as he spoke quickly.

Butterscotch took one look at his purple mane, blue coat, and his cracked eyes, one black, one white, and both with deep purple irises, just like the color of the magic. She quickly realized that this unicorn was not only very powerful, but also very crazy.

“My name is Butterscotch, Captain of Puck Unit…” she started softly, trying to calm the crazed unicorn.

“Ha!” he laughed. “That sounds like ‘buck!’”

“Heh, yeah, it does.” Butterscotch said easingly. “Now what’s your name?”

“I said my name was Mountain King.” He said with a snarl, his voice being enhanced and echoed by the powerful magic he was producing.

“Oh, sorry.” Butterscotch said quickly, a drop of sweat running down her face as the magic ebbed back. “Are you ok, Mountain King?”

He smiled and sighed. “Isn’t this lovely? So much better than that other world.”

“What do you mean?” Butterscotch asked, her eyes narrowing.

“We’re all in your minds. This is the world I’ve created and I want to share it with everypony…” he said as magic started to pulse faster and faster out of his body.

Butterscotch frowned and took action. She charged at the young unicorn and tackled him, sending him to the ground and watching as Grey fell down similarly, the purple glow dimming from his eyes. However, Butterscotch had too much on her own hooves to see if her teammate was alright. Even though he had been tackled, the Mountain King emitted more and more magic, Butterscotch realizing that he was charging up to teleport away.

“HE’S TRYING TO TELEPORT! LOCK ON HIM!” she screamed over the magical static, alerting the remaining unicorns and a groggy Grey to location lock onto the Mountain King. It was too late to stop him from teleporting, but they could still follow him and take him down wherever he landed.

Or so Butterscotch hoped…

Chapter 2

This story is a fan-fiction of MLP:FiM. I don't own any of it. It belongs to Hasbro, etc, etc.
Don't sue. Seriously. That would be so uncouth.

Chapter 2

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I woke up from my snooze and looked out my window. “Horseapples.” I said to myself, cursing myself for falling asleep. But, waking up at dusk wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened. I got up and stretched and walked out onto the balcony of my bedroom and looked out across my large back yard and towards the Academy. There were a few students lounging or playing lazy games of Frisbee or horseshoes as the day wound up. I didn’t really care that they were screwing around on what was essentially my lawn, since I knew they would be off to dinner or back to their dorms. Talking about dinner, my stomach rumbled like I hadn’t eaten in years, so I headed over to my bedroom door (built into the floor), opened it, and went down the spiral staircase to the library.

The library was silent and dark, so I knew Dagger was asleep already. His room wasn't the “guest room,” but he liked to stay there since it was much closer to all his precious books. He also was quite the early bird, getting up hours before the sun or I rose. Yet, he would always eat the leftovers of what I made for dinner as his breakfast, so in a strange way, we still “ate” together.

I went into the kitchen and looked through the refrigerator, realizing neither of us had gone shopping this week. I cussed under my breath, but a smile broke across my face as I looked through the pantry. I quickly looked through the spice cabinet and my smile grew even wider. I pulled out a pot from under the stove and filled with water in the sink, putting it on a burner and igniting the flame all in one quick movement, looking forward to the dinner I was about to have. I sliced carrots, celery, corn, peas, onions, and a little radish, dumping it all in a pan next to the pot on the stove and similarly, I lit the burner underneath that, only on a higher setting. I sprinkled the different spices I needed into the pan and pot separately, dumping the contents of the pan into the pot after a flash-sear along with the package of ramen noodles I found in the pantry. I almost squealed as it all cooked, knowing that ramen was one of the greatest foods in all of Celestia-bucking-Equestria.

After it was done cooking, I poured some into a bowl, covered it, and put it into the fridge, reminding myself to go shopping tomorrow after I got kicked out of class again. Then I grabbed my lucky pair of chopsticks and headed outside, thinking that since tonight was such a good night, I should eat outside.
I sat down at my patio’s table, a solid table made of stone (another relic left behind by my ancestor) and gave the ramen a gentle blow. I scooped up a small wad of noodles and ramen-y goodness with my chopsticks and lifted them to my lips, almost melting from the wait.

BAM!!!!! I flew from my seat at the patio via a burst of powerful magic and watched in horror as my pot of ramen flew through the air. I mouthed a wordless scream as it hit the stone floor of my patio, spilling all over the place and breaking one of my lucky chopsticks. I got up off the ground and walked over to it, silent for a while. I gently lifted one of the broken chopsticks, and it snapped in two, falling back to the horrendous mess that was once my fantastic dinner. I looked over my shoulder to where the burst of magical energy came from and I saw a group of seven ponies and a timberwolf, all fighting one unicorn. The unicorn’s magic was so strong I could feel it from where I stood and I knew it was the magic that threw me from my seat. I screamed louder than the timberwolf and sprinted towards the unicorn, running faster and faster as my magic intertwined with the earth’s, granting me materials to work my earth pony magic with, but also with a massive amount of power.

“HOW DARE YOU!” I screamed in hunger-driven anger, scaring the timberwolf and the hot mare that was grappling with the young, crazy-looking unicorn. I dropped down in between them, and sent a pillar of stone up from the ground, smashing the young unicorn in the chest and sending him flying off about ten meters. Before the ponies and timberwolf could ask who I was, their eyes widened as the unicorn got up and a wave of dangerous purple energy shot towards us. I reached into the earth with my magic and a gout of lava shot into the sky in front of the magic, absorbing the burst and turning into weakened obsidian which I charged through at the unicorn. The unicorn seemed surprised at my attack, but I wasn’t even close to done yet.

No pony, NO PONY, gets away with harming my ramen. Especially when I'm hungry!

I let loose a primal scream and the earth swirled around me, reflecting any weak bursts of energy the unicorn emitted. “Is that all you’ve got?” I asked him as he was shot away from me by yet another one of my pillars.

“NO.” he said, his voice rattling around in my mind, echoed by magic, and yet everywhere in my mind. Suddenly, the world took on a purple tint and I felt as he ponies behind me and all the life around me froze up. I started to feel the same, my muscles turning to stone, my bones becoming fossils…but something stopped my transformation. I felt my true lifeblood, my world, flowing through my body. My mind not have worked at the time, nor my body, but my heart was constantly in action with the power of the earth. I could feel that the earth didn’t like this…this annoying suspension. So she woke me up, just as the young unicorn was about to incinerate me with blast of concentrated power. I lifted up the ground beneath his feet and suddenly, I saw the earth in deep shades of green, brown, and blue. The trees reached from underground to trap the unicorn, the stone growing upwards to meet the creature, and the dust settling on him, ready to reclaim him. But he was strong. He resisted.

Suddenly, from the cage in the air the earth had formed around him, the brightest flash of purple blasted through all my magic sending me and the other behind me flying into the back wall of my home.

“The Mountain King…will return.” Said the young unicorn in a voice I had heard only in nightmares. I opened my dazed eyes to see that he was shining brightly, ready to teleport, but as I looked at his face, I saw his purple irises glowing with dark magic circles, his horn glowing black. Suddenly, there was a bright flash. He disappeared, but then my world went dark and I fell into the darkness.

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“…and him disappearing was the last thing we all saw.” A strong mare’s voice said, her words echoing in my mind like I was underwater.

“We thank you Captain.” Said a familiar voice in my mind, a voice I hadn’t heard in about four years. “You have done well. We will all morn Scroll Wheel and Midas Touch on the morrow, but now, we will rest. I am sure…”

“Oooh…my bucking skull…” I moaned as I tried to open my eyes, realizing too late that it was a bad idea, but hearing a tinkling laugh that only princesses could possess.

“Hey Princess Luna.” I said in a wimpy greeting, realizing we were all in the library and they were sitting around me, who was laying on the couch. “I’d bow if I could, but I doubt I can even get up right now.”

“It is alright Alder Branch. You have helped my Lunar Battalion tonight. You have earned this rest.” She said before sipping at some drink, probably tea.

“What?” I said, throwing my foreleg from over my eyes, only to close them as the light hit me and I sat up shakily. “Buck. Hey, Dagger, I assume you’re here someplace.”

“That I am, Al.”

“Would you please turn down those lights before I throw-up all over royalty?” I heard a chorus of chuckles, which surprised me, since I thought it was only the four of us.

“Not again.” Luna said briskly, making her soldiers laugh even harder.

“May I ask who you are?” asked a sandy, yet suspicious voice. I understood though. She was a soldier, so who was I, a commoner, to be so friendly and close to Princess Luna? As the lights dimmed, thanks to Dagger, I answered her before opening my eyes to her. It was a wise decision.

“I’m Alder Branch Steelhooves.” I said as I opened my eyes to look at the most beautiful mare I had ever seen. Her pink eyes and lovely looks made my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth while I looked at her glossy yellow coat and platinum blonde mane. Her cutie mark was two lollipops, which was strange for any soldier of the Lunar Battalion, a Captain nonetheless. I sat there gawking at her beauty, until she finally coughed, making me blush and painfully aware there were nine sets of eyes on I and her.

I heard some whispered chuckling from two pegasi in the corner of the room, but I cleared my throat. “Do you mean these guys are all in the battalion?”

“But of course.” Luna said, sipping her tea carefully.

“Well, they must be a unit…” I continued looking at their uniforms until my eyes grew wide when I spotted the small moon on their backs. “Puck? Why were they called out? And why are there only eight of…oh Faust.” I said, the room’s warmth leaving me immediately. I knew what this meant. One is not raised as a Steelhooves, even a rebellious one, without learning a few things about how the Lunar Battalion is run.

“W…what happened tonight?” I asked Luna with a confused glance.

Somberly, she told me about her trouble in the Dreaming, making me pale, and then about the story her Captain, the one that caught my fancy not too long before, had reported to her. However, when she was done with her story, she let out a long sigh. Usually this wouldn’t mean a thing, but knowing Princess Luna all your life teaches you her little quirks. Quickly, I thought up an excuse to get us alone.

“Oh Faust.” I said, not needing to fake drowsiness. “That…that’s quite the tale. Princess, I appreciate you telling me all this, but could I bother you to help me one more time?” I said, a spark of knowing glowing in her eyes. “Would you help me up to my room? I think my hooves are too weak to support me after a tale like that.”

Before one of her soldiers could answer for her, she sprung up and said in the royal Canterlot voice “WE WILL BE GLAD TO BE OF SERVICE,” keeping her soldiers and Dagger at bay as she swiftly flew by me, picking me up under my legs and speeding up the corkscrew stairs. When we got into my room, she locked the door behind us and put a silence charm on the room, making sure no eavesdroppers would be able to hear us.

“What else?” I asked, sitting down on the edge of my bed, actually feeling the weakness spread through my legs. Luna walked over to the bed and sat down next to me, her horn a lit. Suddenly, a small crystal box appeared on the ground in front of me.

“This is one of the tomes of the General of the Lunar Battalion.” She said.

“My ancestor.” I deadpanned, starting to dislike this more and more. All my issues seemed to always stem from my family, in one way or another…

“Yes.” She replied. “He left many for future generals, but this one is of the highest importance. It recalls what your ancestor found under the Smokey Mountain in the Unicorn Range. Be warned, if you are to listen to what this tome has to tell, you will be bound by Equestrian law not to speak of what transpired here tonight.”

“What? That some freaky unicorn killed my ramen and then the Princess of the Night dragged me up to my room, locking me in, and cast a silence spell so nopony could hear us?” I said cheekily.
Luna started to laugh yet again. The tinkling and lovely laughter sent waves of joy through me as they always had.

“You really are more like Crimson than you know, Alder. However, I know of your distaste in my battalion, even though I wish it were not so. So let us warn you,” she said, putting a hoof over mine. “If you do not wish to be pulled into our company, please, do not listen to the tome.”

I just looked down at the crystal box and then up to my mirror. I saw my grey mane in liberty spikes, as I always had it, and then at my dark blue coat. My dusky golden eyes looked back at me puzzled, until I glanced back down to the tome. I may not ever allow myself to be like the rest of my pompous, self-centered, pieces of horse-manure family, but something about this whole situation didn’t sit right with me. Don’t get me wrong: I still didn’t care about the Lunar Battalion. But when Luna mentioned the two ponies that died tonight…her face, and that of Captain Butterscotch’s…I couldn’t let their memories go in vain. I had to find out what the hell was going on here.

“Fine, I take a look in the book.” I said, letting my magic meld the floor under the book into an endtable, bringing the book up towards me. I tried to open the cover when it was close to me, but it was solidly stuck to the rest of the book.

“Open it with your magic. Crimson expected the next general of the Lunar Battalion to be able to use any magic.”

I snorted. “How presumptuous. What if the next general couldn’t use magic?”

“I believe it was Crimson himself who said ‘No earth pony is without his magic.’” Luna said smugly. I rolled my eyes and opened the book with my magic, only to find out it wasn’t a book. The top of the crystal tome opened, projecting a bright and magical light, blinding me for a moment, until I realized the book had used some sort of inner magic to make the room an endless sea of pure white. The only things I could differentiate from the white were my bed and Princess Luna.

“Hello descendant.”

I whipped m head around looking for the source of the voice, only to jump up from my bed as I saw an old stallion sitting to the left of me. I was scared at his sudden approach, but I realized who he was within seconds, being around his statues and such from an early age. However, none of the statues had made out his features just right. His silvery coat shone like stars at night, his blood-red mane shockingly colorful even in old age, and finally his eyes the color of moonlight, staring straight into you, like they knew all that this world had to teach. He looked me up and down with a raised eyebrow and then turned to face Princess Luna.

“So this one here is one of my descendants?” he said with a snarky smirk.

“He is so much like you…” Luna replied nonchalantly. “It is good to see you again Crimson, but could we save the banter for later? He needs to know about the Mountain King.”

“Ohhhh, so that’s what it is…” Crimson said, his expression turning from relaxed and happy to serious in ten seconds flat. “Alright then.” He continued with a ‘huff’ as he got up off of the bed and walked over to me. He eyed me again, part of the smirk returning, but he walked past me and I turned to follow with my eyes. Suddenly, the environment changed around us and we were in what appeared to be a large and long, brightly lit, garage. I could tell it was underground and its walls were covered in the normal legion of tools and devices, but as the room went further, the tools became more sinister and arcane-looking. I saw a unicorn bent over a table at the far end, working on something ferociously while a muffled klaxon was going off in the background. His horn was alit with a pale red aura and I could see the beads of sweat on his back, running down… to the tips of his Frankenstein-looking wings. His left one was a dark silk black and looked like it was pristinely clean, while his right, a white one, was beaten up with feathers askew and some even falling out occasionally.

Suddenly, the door to the garage opened and the sound of the klaxon erupted into the room just as my ancestor came into view from the darkened corridor. As he sprung into the room, he seemed to melt into vision out of the nothingness in the corridor. He was wearing a strange, yet handsome, suit of pure black; the General’s uniform.

“Cyanide Capsule! Get over here with your wings up and horn de-activated. I am placing you under arrest for the cruel and unlawful use of magic.” Crimson shouted. I could feel the amount of magical power being unleashed by him as he, like I with my earth pony magic, connected into the Earth’s magical undercurrents, ready to use them at a moment’s notice. Cyanide Capsule must have felt this too, as he stopped working, but did not turn around to face my ancestor.

“CYANIDE!” My ancestor shouted, half threat, half command.

Yet Cyanide just started laughing. His horn lit up and Crimson readied himself to attack or defend, but no magical assault came. Instead, some strange classical music started playing. The laughing of Cyanide turned into a crazed cackle as the song played. Crimson narrowed his eyes and started to sneak closer to the crazed alicorn. But then, as Crimson was about to reach him, he was flung back by an incredibly strong blast of magic. I thought this would be the end of Crimson, but he caught himself using the Earth’s magic. A large wall of soft sod erupted out of the concrete floor, catching him, while another wall of raised concrete protected him from Cyanide’s next attack. However, the concrete disintegrated after the attack, making the air thick with particulate dust. No attacks were cast while the dust made a veil between them and only Cyanide’s cackling could be heard, except it was magnified and divided by magic, making the laughing louder and seemingly coming from everywhere. As the dust cleared, I got my first glimpse of Cyanide Capsule.

His coat was light yellow, his mane a darker shade of that. But his irises were deep red, as was the aura around his horn. But that wasn’t the only striking feature of his eyes. In each eye was what looked like a vicious black tattoo. His horn a lit again and I could see the same tattoo form on his horn, reacting with the other ones, making the tattoo in his left eye spread, turning it black for a moment as the red aura of his magic pulsated uncontrollably. I saw Crimson prepare for an attack, but the attack came so suddenly that he had no time to prepare. However, this attack didn’t send him flying, crush, or kill him; it invaded his mind. Suddenly, I realized that the same had happened to me earlier as the same sort of magic was cast. I could tell from its feel that it was one of the darker magicks, ones that helped nopony but hurt all.

The magic seeped into Crimson’s core being and I could see and feel as the Mountain King’s mental attack drove deeper and deeper, trying to kill Crimson, or stop him long enough to be killed. But the Mountain King sneered and I knew the attack was changing dramatically. His left eye turned completely black and now started to bleed. I could feel as Crimson thought he was aflame and that the only way to stop this ethereal pain was to fight for the Mountain King. Crimson almost bowed to him too, but at the last moment, as he started to fall, he felt the magic of the Earth and heard a mare’s voice. It was gentle and made me very sad, but I heard it very clearly.

“Rise. Protect yourself.” She said very simply, and Crimson rose, the spell broken, and stomped once on the ground, raising a long pillar of stone under the Mountain King’s head. However, the Mountain King saw it with a sneer and stepped away from the pillar as it rose to the ceiling quickly. The Mountain King looked angered and somewhat scared, but Crimson looked absolutely tired. He panted quickly and reached into the Earth once more for strength and magical power as the Mountain King’s horn started to glow again, the black tattoos coming back. This time, the tattoo in his right eye reacted, turning it completely black in seconds. The room around Crimson started to shake and the blood flowed freely from the Mountain King’s eyes as the concrete floor beneath the two of them broke apart and bony legs shot out of the ground like a cornfield of evil. As skeletons and rotted corpses climbed out of the ground I threw up at the sight. This was yet another dark magick: necromancy.

If Crimson was as sickened as I was, he didn’t show it. Instead, he gritted his teeth and quickly stomped the ground in rapid succession, crushing most of the skeletons with sickening many a sickening “crunch!” before they even got out of the ground. But some still escaped the Earth’s embrace and hobbled towards Crimson, ready to make him join their legions. But the rapid stomping did more than just crush the skeletons, it also filled the air with dirt. Crimson quickly called upon the dusty dirt in the air and directed it like a moving belt sander, turning the corpses into gritty piles of dust in a short time. I threw up yet again looking at the grisly scene, but found a comforting wing over my haunches as I rose shakily from the ground. Luna was standing next to me and urged me to keep watching. The battle, as we could both feel, was coming to a climax.

After the last corpse was reduced to a pile of snowy dust, the Mountain King scowled at Crimson and attacked him with simple magical attacks over and over, only to end up being pushed back by an angry general, one who had had enough of the alicorn’s dark magic. As the Mountain King was forced back to the wall of his own workshop, he could see my angry ancestor coming towards him like a dark arbiter of his death. He looked and saw all of his attacks had not worked against the strength of my ancestor. He saw in fear the growing darkness, foreboding in its justice, following in the wake of Crimson’s every hoof-fall. The Mountain King simply freaked out.

Crimson ran towards the alicorn as his horn started to glow again, only this time his black eyes bled more as his whole horn reacted with the tattoo, turning it into a deep shade of oily black. Crimson soon found himself running on air as the magic was powerful enough to negate gravity in the room. I, Luna, and Crimson were able to look on in a type of object disgust and fascination as the Mountain King’s coat and mane turned the same oily black, the color spreading from his horn. He started to bleed from the mouth and soon cuts started to appear wildly on his body, flowing freely and openly. The hairs on the base of my neck rose as I felt an amazing gathering of magical power and I saw Crimson try to shield himself as the Mountain King laughed maniacally and looked at Crimson with a sick visage.

“You may have beaten my powers for now, Lunar soldier,” He said, his voice distorted by magic. “But you will not live forever-I will! I will be stronger when I return and you, nor your loved ones, will escaped my wrath!”
Then the magic collected by the Mountain King was released in a harsh flash of light, leaving nothing but a pile of ashes where the Mountain King once stood and an insidious laugh that echoed in the room as gravity was returned and Crimson fell to earth. The room started to shake yet again, showing the signs of fighting only as a building can. Crimson quickly caught his breath and his hooves, gathering himself up off the floor and he sprinted off towards the door he came in through. But before he ran out, he looked back over his shoulder, but shook his head and left the room as a large convulsion shook the building yet again. He doubted what he had seen, but I didn’t.

The ashes of the Mountain King’s body shifted as the floor moved in tremors of stress, showing a large circle, in fact it was actually three circles, one inscribed within each other. I gasped as I noticed their significance while my ancestor did not. The first point of importance was that each circle was one of the Mountain King’s tattoos, each put into the ground with black magic, just as the tattoos must have been. The next, and more important, thing I noticed was that each circle was overflowing with dark magic; each wave hitting me harder and harder as I felt the screams of innocent ponies killed for their lives to fuel the dark magic. The final thing I noticed was that in the center of the circle was a small, violet gemstone. It emanated the darkest magic, but also more…a sort of sentience…a sort of life…

The walls of the memory started to crumble as I wondered what the gem was, returning the three of us to the whitened realm. Crimson was now much older again and his face was dark with understanding. Luna looked at me seriously and opened her mouth to speak, but Crimson stopped her.

“Well boy?” he asked me stoically. “What was the stone?”

“A soul stone.” I said quietly, knowing that even its existence was illegal in Equestria. To make such a thing required the heavy, and repetitious, use of dark magic: meaning the death of innocent ponies. To make a soul stone required quite a lot of lives, all innocent and of any wrongdoing and all violently murdered by somepony who they thought was a friend. It was sickening.

Crimson’s sigh brought tore me away from my thinking. “I’m sorry.” He said to me, looking downtrodden and in the wrong. “If I had noticed all those years ago, then maybe, just maybe, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“You mean him randomly appearing outside the my house?” I asked, not sure of what he was talking about.

“You mean MY house.” He said with the evil eye. “But yes, that and what will happen in the future.”

“What do you mean?”

Crimson started to pace away from me. “The Mountain King was not lying when he said he would return and he would destroy my life-my family. It was no coincidence that he appeared outside our house, the library. He was attracted to you by your magic.”

“But what about all my cousins? Won’t they be in danger too? He wasn’t even as close to as strong as he was when he fought you. Plus, he was just a scrawny foal. He can’t be that dangerous…” I said confidently.

“No. You didn’t notice it, but the Lunar Soldiers did.” He said, shaking his head. “That foal was being possessed by the Mountain King. Every second that passes, he will become stronger while the foal’s willpower breaks down and his mind leaves him. You must be ready for when the Mountain King comes back, fully in control. Luckily, since it is not his body, he will never have full control, meaning he will be weaker.”

I stood up straighter and I could feel my eyes narrow, my body tense up. “What are you talking about, old stallion?” I asked angrily.

“The Battalion, boy. They will keep you safe. While you may not be able to fight him, the Battalion can at least get you to someplace that I know the Mountain King won’t ever be able to reach. You’re enlisted.” He answered as I started to see red. The one thing, the one thing that I had fought against my whole life, the one thing that I had built my current life around not doing, was now crashing through the walls of my life and breaking down the front door of my reality. I could feel myself connect to the earth and feel her magic and mine intertwine in a mix of rage and anger, my negative emotions only getting worse as I started to feel sick from the feedback that comes with using the earth’s magic as offensive weapon. The treehouse did not react to my magic however, and I wondered this until I looked over to Luna and Crimson.

Both of their eyes were glowing white with power, blocking out the magic of the earth and bringing me to my senses. I quickly let go of my connection with the earth, the magic fading away and making the palpable mist of energy in the room disappear. However, the use of magic by Crimson quickly made the white landscape and his form start to fade away. His last words before disappearing were “Join the battalion. It is your destiny. Fight it as you may, but it is your home…”
I snarled at him as he faded into eternity, the magical book closing its lid and returning Luna and I to my bedroom of my house. Without talking, I headed over to my bed table, pulled a cigarette out of the drawer and headed out to my balcony. I quickly lit it with magic and took an angry drag while I gazed at the stars. I felt Luna walk up beside me, but I was too angry to acknowledge her presence.

“Do you know how bad that is for you?” she asked me.

“What the buck was all that!?!” I screamed at her, my cigarette falling out of my mouth and almost off the balcony.

“It was a warning.” Luna said evenly, as she brought my caught cigarette up to my mouth with her magic. “Not only from me, but from your ancestor. I am sorry, but I warned you before we opened the book…”

“What? That my war-monger ancestor had managed to somehow trap his magic in a bucking book and it was all to recruit me? Or do you really expect me to believe this ‘Mountain King’ horseshit? Did my parents put you up to this?” I spat out, my anger and frustration tainting my words.

“No.” Luna said evenly and seriously. She flashed me a look that reminded me she was a Princess of Equestria, not another college-buddy I could just cuss at. I quickly bit my tongue as she cleared her throat.

“The Mountain King is a real entity, and you met him earlier tonight. However, your ancestor forgot to mention one thing: he will only come after you.”

“Why is that? Some stupid move made by my ancestor, what 150 years ago, is coming to haunt me now?” I said sarcastically, only to shut up as Luna flashed me another look.

“Yes. But, he comes after you, and only you, because your magical powers are the most like Crimson’s from so many years ago. Because your powers are the strongest, the Mountain King won’t stop until he has killed you. Then, he will move onto the other members of your family and try to take over Equestria.”

“If that’s how it is, then why don’t you stop him?”

“I am by saving you.” she said, turning back into my room, surprising me by crushing my cigarette with her magic. “You will report downstairs tomorrow night after your dinner. You need to be ready to leave. The rest of my battalion will take you to someplace I know is safe. We will talk more tomorrow. For now, think.”

I dropped my crushed cigarette to the floor of my balcony and crushed it underneath my hoof as I leaned onto the railing. I looked up to the starry night sky and did as Luna said: I thought. I thought about what this meant and how much I hated the idea of joining the Battalion. I hated that it didn’t seem like I had a choice. I thought about escaping right now, molding the balcony into a stairwell with my magic and just running away. Then I thought about how strong the Lunar Battalion was in their element: night. I gave a deep sigh and pulled a lounge chair sitting on the balcony to my side and laid on it. I looked up at the dark sky, filled with so many stars. I wished to be up there with the stars so much I could almost feel them calling to me. I sighed again and rolled onto my side, laying there with uneasy thoughts until the dawn came.

Chapter 3

This story is a fan-fiction of MLP:FiM. I don't own any of it. It belongs to Hasbro, etc, etc.
Don't sue. Seriously. That would be so uncouth.

Chapter 3

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Captain Butterscotch looked at the earth pony stallion from her hidden perch in a tree close to the treehouse. She glared at the strange pony, especially angry at him after she saw the argument erupt between him and Princess Luna. Nopony should be able to talk to the Princess that way. If she were there during the argument, she would have decked the sorry son-of-a-bit. Her eyes narrowed as she looked onto him even more, wondering what was so special about this sorry, whining stallion who barely even lived up to his name. She personally knew his three cousins, all in different Units, and they were all strong, proud servants of Princess Luan and dark knights of Equestria. What made this one so different and spineless?

“How’s it going Cap?” Nova whispered on her left, landing noiselessly on the branch next to her without as much as moving a branch.

“Quiet you two.” Butterscotch said as Sunburst landed similarly on her right side.

“Why? We should go get ready to honor Midas and Scroll.” Sunburst said, making the trio fall back into silence, if not in a somber tone.

After a few silent moments, Nova asked “Is that really one of the General’s relatives? He’s so…” he trailed off, looking at Alder’s spiked, grey hair.

“Didn’t General Steelhooves have really long hair?” Sunburst remarked, rubbing his chin in an effort to see the similarities between this flesh and blood stallion to the one they all saw portraits and statues of.

“Like your mom, doofus.” Nova said to his brother, sticking his tongue out.

“Vaffanculo, moron.” Sunburst bickered back.

“He is a Steelhooves.” Butterscotch said commandingly, silencing them. Her gaze was pasted on the stallion with the grey liberty spikes and the navy-blue coat. True, he didn’t seem like anything, looking like he would pass out after a simple story, but she could feel it in him when she first looked into his eyes. Nopony other than a relative of the magnanimous General Steelhooves could mold the earth like that, and even the other Steelhoovess’ she knew could only do it as well as Scroll could have. Yet this whimpering ball of punk-looking pony did things that only Butterscotch could dream of. She remembered each of his attacks on the Mountain King from earlier and she knew they would not have been able to chase him off if it wasn’t for him. Grey Tail was the Battalion’s strongest fighter and even he couldn’t stand a moment against the Mountain King’s mental attack. It frightened her that this “Alder Branch Steelhooves” was currently their only one that could beat the Mountain King. It was even worse that they were to only escort him to an undisclosed location. To say she was a little distressed about him in her Unit would be an understatement.

She grit her teeth as she hear the over-dramatic stallion sigh yet again and roll over on his lounge chair to look at the sky. She could feel the anger boil up at him as he lay there, knowing that the Mountain King needed to be finished off, and soon… or at least soon enough so that her cold rage at the monster killing two of her beloved companions wouldn’t fade. Every member of the Puck Unit was her family, even if they were not blood related. She loved each and every one of them, knowing that each time they got hurt it was her own fault for not being able to protect them. She hated that.

Now, this foolish colt was going to join her unit, a colt who not only knew nothing of actual teamwork (which could be solved in time with any other pony), but more importantly, didn’t want to be part of the team. That was more dangerous than not knowing what teamwork was. She shook her head as she stared at the stallion one last time and then fluidly descended from the tree. Nova and Sunburst followed her as she noiselessly and quickly walked around the treehouse in the darkness, as to go in through the front so the light would not alert Alder to their presence.

Butterscotch stopped at the front of the house only to look out at Ponyville. The only reason she was here, not in Ponyville, but in the Lunar Battalion, was to keep her fellow coutryponies safe. Each member of the battalion was there for that reason alone. To have any pony join unwillingly and serve unwillingly would only serve to endanger the rest of the battalion. With this in mind, she reentered the library, Nova and Sunburst following suit.

As the golden light from the inside of the house absorbed Butterscotch, she looked for only one being she wanted to talk to right now: her commander and ruler, Princess Luna. She strode into the main room of the library, Nova and Sunburst in tow, until they saw the look on their Captain’s face. Each knew what that look meant, so the scooted off to where the rest of the battalion was camping out, one of the two book repositories-turned guest rooms. While they went to rest, Butterscotch kept walking until she came back to the living part of the room, the place where they had let Alder rest on one of the couches while he was unconscious. Surprisingly, she found Luna in a conversation with the fireplace.

“I know how he thinks Luna. I know the battalion will be good for him, even if he tries to deny himself from it. The only reason he dislikes it is because of the pressures of his family.” Said a logical and compassionate voice from the fireplace. Luna replied by sighing and resting her hooves in her face. She looked like she was about to cry and that her immortal years were catching up on her.

“Dagger, how do you know? We know for a fact he is against joining the battalion and all that the battalion stands for. We believe it would be best if we just get him to where Crimson specified…”

“To where? The moon?” Dagger replied harshly, stepping out of the roaring flames of the fireplace, shaking ashes off of himself and patting down small flames that had sprung onto his body. “Princess, I know you want to please everypony, but this will not do. He is old enough to understand what the Lunar Battalion truly stands for and what he stands for. This continued ‘I stand for anything against my family’ act is getting old, even for me. Especially for him, even if he doesn’t consciously acknowledge it.” He finished with a sigh, grabbing his spectacles from the mantle, and sitting down next to Princess Luna before spotting Butterscotch.

“Captain,” he asked her as he put on his spectacles, “What do you think of Al joining your squad?”

“It is a Unit.” She answered back coldly, hoping that she could talk to Princess Luna alone.

“Excuse my ignorance then, but please, grant me your answer.” Dagger replied even colder as he examined his claws. Butterscotch grit her teeth. If anything could annoy her other than surprises like Alder, it was this dragon. Yet, for the sake of Princess Luna, who had just looked up with a torn disposition, she spoke.

“I don’t like it at all. From what I have gathered, he is selfish, not a team player, and somepony who would try to stop us at every turn just because of his emotional connections with his family. If history serves me right, he sounds nothing like General Steelhooves from long ago, and it doesn’t sound like he deserves to be in the Battalion.” She said quickly and stoically, before turning to Princess Luna with an apologetic look and said “Sorry, Ma’am.”

“What did we tell you?” Princess Luna said to Dagger, surprising Butterscotch. Indeed it was her who had ordered Alder to join the battalion. Why would she want him to stay out of it right after ordering him to join?

“I know your worries Luna,” Dagger continued in an even voice. “But he will prevail. I know this. And you really don’t have to worry about him stepping out of line.”

“And why is that?” Princess Luna asked.

“Well, first off, you have a great Captain who knows what is important.” Dagger said with a nod over to Butterscotch. “And secondly, Alder will not be the only addition to the Battalion. If my math is right, you are down two soldiers…”

“You don’t mean…” Luna and Butterscotch said together incredulously.

“Yes,” Dagger said with a rare, wicked smile. “I am coming along too. If he doesn’t join of his own will, then I will just help escort him. It’s time I get out and about again and more importantly, I need to watch out for my younger brother.”

“This is not a good idea.” Butterscotch deadpanned.

“Not at all.” Dagger answered. “But I am a dragon and also much, much more powerful than you if I choose to be. So I see two options for you. A.) Let me join and help Al. B.) Try to stop me from joining, only to choose the first option after I beat all of your battalion twice over.”

A smug silence filled the air as Butterscotch gave Dagger a deadly glare as he returned it with a smug smile. Luna looked on in shock, but then started laughing hysterically, effectively killing the silence if not lightening the mood.

“You cad!” she said as she playfully slapped Dagger on the back with a gentle hoof. “Fine, I will allow this, but only for you my dear Dagger.” She said in a friendly tone, which quickly changed as her eyes narrowed. “But if you do a single thing to jeopardize my battalion with Alder, do not forget that I know of a place that even dragons cannot stand…”

“I would never even think of it.” Dagger replied calmly, yet his eyes deceived him, as Butterscotch could see a spark of fear in them. But it disappeared with a sigh from the dragon as Princess Luna turned to face her Captain.

“Captain Butterscotch, good job tonight. What happened to Midas and Scroll was not your fault.” Luna said, making Butterscotch cringe. “It would do you well to get some rest. We leave tomorrow after we have paid our respects to our fallen comrades. Now please, go get some rest.” Luna finished gently, nudging the numb Butterscotch off in the direction of where the rest of her unit was sleeping. Butterscotch slowly walked into one of the rooms and fell onto an empty cot that Dagger had found for them in the basement of the library. She laid there with her eyes closed, trying to forget the memories of Scroll and Midas swimming through her mind. Their faces disappeared as she saw the Mountain King appear in her mind. She clenched a hoof around her pillow and grit her teeth for the umpteenth time tonight. If anypony could stop him, she hoped that this Alder kid would be able to do it. If not, she wasn’t sure if she would kill him herself or not.

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“Object glum-ness and desperation” was a pretty good phrase to sum up my morning emotions. I finally rolled out of my lounge on the balcony around sunrise, threw my saddle bags over myself, and I tip-hoofed downstairs, trying to make sure nopony knew I was up. Especially the Puck Unit.

I saw Dagger gently snoozing in the fireplace on a bed of cooling coals. I smirked at his goofy face and his curled up, cat like form. He had a good room, right below mine, but he often preferred to sleep like that. He said he liked it better because he was closer to his precious books and also much more comfortable. Dagger said it reminded him of his home, back in the Magma cores of the Dragon Mountain range. He was born and raised there, in that inferno he loved so much, but soon became Lord Spike’s apprentice after he reached the young age of 90 years. He was still an adolescent in dragon years at the time, but Lord Spike wanted him to start learning early. He and Dagger traveled around the world for, Equestria and beyond, for about 20 years, and then Dagger settled down with my family about thirty years ago, when my father was barely out of his teenage years. They were great friends, so Dagger moved in with us when they had me, as my older brother and nanny, since both my parents were so busy with their jobs and other work. Dagger had always been there for me and cared for me in his own way, even if it was a bit bossy, he was my family. He was my brother and I loved him.

So, I gave him a small smile as I snuck out of the house silently, like I always did when I wanted to be alone. I walked out the door and into the early morning in Ponyville, the bright beams of light chasing away the darkness of the night sky and reflecting off of each candy-colored house of my hometown. I took in a deep breath of the morning air and soon all my troubles seemed to melt away into meaninglessness as I walked. I didn’t know where I was going, but I kept walking, knowing I’d stop when I knew it was right.

I found where I was looking for in the bluff that overlooked Ponyville Pond and the valley Ponyville was founded in. I sat on the edge of the bluff and enjoyed the view as the sun rose over my home. Yet, thoughts about the night before still managed to pop up in my skull, defying all the good I was seeing. I kept thinking back to the idea of actually being as close as I could to being in the battalion. My first emotions were bitterness and repulsiveness, of course, but then I actually thought of what it would be like to be in the battalion.

What would it actually be like?

Could I come to like it?

Would I make friends?

I chuckled as I thought about the babe-captain and I knew I’d definitely like to be “friends” with her. But my dirty thoughts were cut short as I heard bushes rustle behind me from the edge of the Everfree Forest. I tensed up and stood, connecting to the earth if anything were to come out threateningly. However, I calmed as I saw a large, grey muzzle pop out of the bushes. It was the timberwolf of Puck Unit.

He came out of the forest, his muzzle red with blood, and a game bird between this teeth. He glanced nonchalantly at me with his deep, ruby eyes and ignored me completely as he sat down next to me and started to devour his catch. If he were to do this to any other pony, they most certainly would have run away screaming and throwing up at the sight of not only a timberwolf, but meat being eaten. Perhaps some of the stronger ponies would have stayed and tried to hold a stiff face. But not me.

“It tastes better if you add a rub and then throw it over a fire. ‘BAM!’ You know, like Emril?” I said, having been taught in the art of meat preparation and also how to hunt. Having a dragon brother and griffon/dragon friends taught you how to get over the differences in what other species ate, even if that might end up being you.

The timberwolf stopped eating and looked at me with an incredulous, bloody muzzle. Soon, his lips started to convulse as he stared at me with wide eyes, which closed at he broke out into a loud series of laughter. He rolled away from his gory, half-eaten meal and onto the green grass of the bluff. His black stomach fur and a necklace with one crow feather showed to the sky as he rolled around on his back laughing. When his mirth stopped he got up and gave me a weary, yet happy, look.

“The others may not really like you kid, but you’re good by me. I haven’t had a pony yet tell me how to cook me meal, or even sit around with me while I’m eatin’. Whatcher name?” he said with a predatory grin and an extended paw.
I extended my hoof similarly. “Alder. Alder Branch Steelhooves.” He shook my hoof with such force I almost toppled to the ground.

“I’m Grey Tail. So what are ya doin’ up here so early?” he said before digging into his meal again. I pulled out a cigarette from my saddle bags and lit it with fire magic as he dug in.

“I don’t know.” I said with a wave of my hoof. “I just wanted to go for a walk.” I looked over to him to find that he had stopped eating and was looking intently at my cigarette.

“How’d ya do that? I thought you earth ponies could only move the earth…”

It was my time to smirk at him. “That’s most earth ponies who are trained in earth magic. That’s why they’re called Earth Mages.”

“Yeah, like ole’ Scroll.” He said with a sigh. “One of our ponies who died in the fighting yesterday.” He explained.

“Oh.” I said numbly, holding my cigarette to my lips, not breathing in or out, just tasting the smoke. I coughed a little after a while, interrupting the silence and again, Grey Tail asked me again how I had lit the cigarette.

“I’m stronger than any other earth pony out there.” I boasted, only to realize it wasn’t the place or the time, especially after the mentioning of the Earth Mage who had died. I realized, maybe if he was as strong as I was, then he wouldn’t have met such a terrible fate.

“But anyway,” I continued, swallowing my pride with humility, “I’m no ordinary Earth Mage. I’m more of an Elemental Mage. My strongest magic is Earth magic, but I can do things with the other elements too, like conjure small flames to lite things like cigarettes,” I said as I counjured a small flame on the ground in front of me, only to let it die out in a few seconds; “move a small breeze, mold water and ice, and of course, move the earth.”

The whole time, Grey listened intently, with curious eyes. When I finished, he asked me, “Have you ever heard of the Star Mages of my people?”

“Of course. They are some of the strongest in the known world.”

“Your magic…it reminds me of ours for some reason. Maybe…no, never mind.” He said as he sunk his muzzle back into his catch, feasting yet again.

Yet, I wanted to know what he was hiding from me. “What do you mean ‘never mind’?” I asked as I started to pull his catch away from him. However, I suddenly regretted it. He glared at me and I could hear a deep growl coming from him which raised the hackles on the back of my neck and made me step back from him. He went back to eating and I got up and walked away, a little shaken. I was used to seeing predatory students and my older brother, but never, never had I been threatened with such a primordial act, making me just a bit scared to be around him.

“Nice meeting you.” I called from over my shoulder as I walked down the sloping path up to the bluff. I heard a return yip and I knew I was somewhat scared by him, but also intrigued by him too. Yet, I walked home, in a numb fog, remembering the two ponies that had died. I didn’t know them, but I had found out the unicorn was an Offensive Mage and the earth pony was an Earth Mage. This small sliver of knowledge only proved to plague me as I walked home. Another Earth Mage, no matter who he was, died in the line of duty. I felt sad and mostly shocked that something like that could happen. Earth Mages were the best at defensive magic. How could something like this even come to pass? I knew I was strong, incredibly so compared to normal ponies, but still…if something like this could happen to another who was knew the arts, then I was no different. I walked around the Ponyville Pond, slowly smoking as I moved, letting this fact hit me over and over in waves of numbness and fear, until I ran into somepony. I felt my world get inverted and my stomach go into my skull as I got flipped over and sent tumbling down to the ground. I saw stars as I tried to find out who threw me.

“Oh horseapples…You’re alright, aren’t you?” I head a familiar voice say.

“Holy Faust.” I replied dazed and confused as her silhouette came into my view, blocking the morning sun from my eyes. “That was…”

“Violent?” she asked as she extended a hoof in kindness and her face betrayed the same solemn look it I had met her by showing an inkling of worry. However, I saw that there was a flash of irritation in her eyes as she helped me up.

“No, awesome!...kinda...” I said in half-hearted excitement, trying to cheer her up. On one hoof, the violence and ease at which she did it like it was natural to her scared me. But it was also amazing how she could move like water around my body and direct it to her own will. She just rolled her eyes at me and gave me a deadpanned look.

“You’ll get along smoothly with Nova and Sunburst.” She said before she swiped my cigarette from my mouth and crushed it between her hooves.

“Hey!” I shouted.

She glared at me. “None of that in my battalion, even if you are somepony we need to escort.” She said with a wave of her hoof. I tried to glare back, but the steadfast look in her pink eyes and the sun gleaming off of her coat made it hard to be angry at her. I almost faltered, but then I remembered that she wasn’t some beautiful mare: she was the captain of the unit and she WOULD make it hell for me if I didn't give it my all to cooperate. I could see it in her eyes.

With a blink of her eyes, she looked away from me nonchalantly. “We’re going to be away today-for the funerals. Pack you things and remind your ‘brother’ to do the same. Princess Luna, I, and the rest of Puck Unit will come for you two later tonight.” She said gently.

I swallowed her words with seriousness and respect, until I heard them again in my mind. “Wait, what?”

“I said…” she started, clearly irritated she had to reiterate.

“No, no, no.” I replied shaking my head. “I know about the packing thing and how you guys will come and kidnap me later,” I said giving her small frown at my “kidnapping” part, “but what the buck did you mean about me telling Dagger to pack too?”

She frowned slightly, but then she opened her mouth. “I thought you knew. Dagger said he was joining us as well.”

My right eye twitched slightly, making a worried look appear on Butterscotch’s face. However, it disappeared as I ran past her, sprinting towards my house. I head Butterscotch call something after me, but I couldn’t hear it as I used the earth’s magic to fill me with energy and sprint at impossible speeds. In no time, I was barreling straight into the library door. Using the earth’s magic yet again, I made the wooden door of my house melt away so I wouldn’t demolish it at my current speeds. I tore into the house, making smoking skid marks in the wooden base boards of the floor as I streaked to a stop before the fireplace. I looked into it and Dagger wasn’t there.

“DAGGGERRRR!!!!!!!!” I yelled, waking everypony in the house who wasn’t already up from my grand entrance.

“Faust, what is it?” Dagger replied, coming out of the kitchen with his small “Buck the Chef” apron on and a rolling pin in one of his claws. His other one was covered in powdered sugar. “Why are you screaming?” he said, not a little too angry.

“What the buck? Why didn’t you tell me you’re coming along?”

“You were asleep, moron. Plus, you would have just found out about it today. I didn’t think you’d freak out so much.” He said with an amused smile on his face. I frowned and punched him in the shoulder.

“You understand you could die, right? You understand it’s going to be complete hell, don’t you?!?” I shouted at him. He frowned at me and bopped me on the head with the rolling pin, flattening one of my spikes and getting white powder all through my gunmetal grey hair.

“No duh. But family sticks together.” He said flatly, giving me a glare. “I thought you knew this.”

As soon as he said the words, I smiled and hugged him tightly.

“Let go of me, idjit. I got some bin-hays to finish.” he said with a muffle from his face being in my thick coat.

“Bite me.” I said, which I later regretted, since he did that. I shouted and let him go and he ran into the kitchen. I sprinted after him and was doused in the face with a clawful of sugar.

“Why you…” I threatened as I laughed and picked up some of the ben-hay dough off of the counter in the middle of the kitchen and threw it at him, hitting him in the face and having the soggy, sticky dough get caught up in his spikes. I smelled something burning and suddenly the dough on Dagger’s face caught fire. A dragon tongue quickly swiped up all the burnt dough off of his face (but not out of his spines) and into his mouth. He gave me a sinister smile and I saw that he had two eggs, one in each hand.

“Don’t you dare…” I said, backing up as quickly as I could, but it was too late. I felt yolk drip down my face as they hit. I snarled at him and lunged back, grabbing the powdered sugar off of the counter as I jumped over the table to begin my full assault.

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“What in Faust’s name is going on in here?” Princess Luna asked with a surprised look on her face as she saw the messy pair of us caught up on the floor of the kitchen. We had managed to create a stalemate in our fighting by tackling each other and holding each other down. I had a Dagger’s body caught in a leg lock, but he had both claws on one of my forehooves and his mouth around the other, biting it so I wouldn’t move. We tried to both wriggle ourselves out of the hold, but neither one of us would give up. Stubbornness is a trait found in all members of my family, even if they aren’t related.

Luna started to laugh the more she looked at us and I could guess why. I knew for a fact three of my spikes had been flattened and most of my mane was now a dirty white thanks to the sugar. Splotches of egg yolk and dough matted down my coat and making it sticky and discolored too. Dagger didn’t look any better than I did. The sugar didn’t show on his white scales, but each and every egg I hit him with stained it a dull yellow and the dough I managed to cover him in stuck up in globs in his spines and on his spectacles. Either way, we were both a mess and us fighting each other, not to mention rolling around on the now-dirty floor didn’t help our cause. So, we slowly let go of each other and got up to face the laughing royalty the only way we could: with evil smiles.

“Hey Luna?” I said in my most cutesy voice.

“What Alder?” she asked as she wiped the tears of mirth from her eyes.

“I think I need a hug.” I said as I approached her with open hooves. She jumped back quickly, but not fast enough, because Dagger had gotten on her other side.

“She needs a hug too, Al. Here, let’s all have a nice big hug.” Dagger said as he stepped closer to Luna, corralling her towards me.

I smiled sinisterly. “Let’s all be nice.” I ran at her for a big messy hug, but she teleported away at the last second, leaving me to run into my smaller and messier dragon brother. I heard her reappear behind me and start laughing again, bringing me to realize that the entirety of Puck Unit was watching us and laughing just as Luna was. Dagger and I got up and started to laugh too, looking at the messes we made of ourselves.

I cut our laughter as I looked into the kitchen and saw the hungry lunar soldiers around us. “Maybe we should get cleaned up and make some breakfast…” I said to Dagger.

“We can handle the cleaning and the cooking. You two should go wash up and rest. Tonight will be busy for you two.” Luna answered, giving the soldiers a look. They were soon all on the floor with rags and other cleaning materials they pulled out of our cabinets. Dagger and I looked at each other and shrugged: she was right. Dagger took the basement shower (his favorite because it always had hot water, unlike the one in my bedroom) and I went upstairs carefully, trying not to touch anything as to get it dirty. I opened my bedroom door and traveled into my room and then straight into the bathroom. I hit the water on my shower and jumped in without waiting for it to get warm. The cold water woke me up and I almost jumped back out of the shower like I did ever morning, but then the water turned warm and I got used to it.

After I scrubbed all the gunk out of my coat and mane, I jumped out of the shower and grabbed a towel. I wiped myself off quickly, as I could smell breakfast from downstairs, and whatever it was, it smelled delicious. I took a look in the mirror and saw that my spikes had gone flat, but I could change that at any time with a little dirt and my magic. All I had to do was take less than a hoof-full of dirt and use my magic to let it settle in a cone shape right in the middle of my hair. I know other ponies may have seen it as dirty or gross, but when you can control the earth, nothing of the earth is really ever “dirty”. All it takes is a simple urge, and all the dirt, dust, mud, and other earthen materials would be off of me. However, eggs and dough didn’t really fall under that jurisdiction, so I needed to bathe for those sorts of messes. Plus, it felt good, so a shower a day really wasn’t too bad. But as I looked into my mirror, I not only saw my flat mane, which now was about shoulder length and hung low around my head, I saw my door slide open. As I saw Butterscotch’s reflection enter, I quickly brushed my mane back, hoping I wouldn’t look like too much of a bum.

“Princess Luna has asked me to come up and get you for breakfast.” Butterscotch said, standing at the edge of my doorway. I came out of the bathroom and shook the rest of my fur out, spraying water in every direction.

“Let’s go.” I said to her, only to be answered with a stare. “What?”

“I didn’t know you could actually wear hair normally.” She answered.

“Thanks, I guess.” I deadpanned at her compliment.

“Hey, don’t worry about it.” Said a voice from above me.

“Yeah, what the captain meant to say is ‘Ohhhh Alder, I love your hair…’” said another pesky voice above me, making me look up to see two pegasi resting on one of the posters of my poster bed. One had an electric blue coat while the other had a bright red coat. Both had a flaming yellow mane and impishly emerald eyes.

“And then you have to say ‘Ah know baby. Now come here for the smooching’.’” Said the one with the blue coat.

“And then it will be ‘Oh Alder! Oh Butterscotch!’” said the one with the red coat.

And then to my horror they started to make kissing noises. I knew I was blushing and to my surprise I saw Butterscotch’s face turn a bright pink when the twins went from making kissing noises to making slurping noises mixed with their laughter.

“ENOUGH!” Butterscotch yelled, making her two subordinates look at each other with a mischievous glint in their eyes. Butterscotch turned to me and said, “Breakfast. Downstairs. Now;” between clenched teeth, before stomping down my stairs and the twins started to laugh again. I looked up to them and coughed to get their attention. They smiled and swooped down from the poster of my bed to me, one on each side.

“You’re Alder right?” said the blue one on my right as he eyed me up and down.

“Relative of the General Steelhooves, correct?” said the red one on my left as he similarly looked me up and down, grabbing one of my legs and tapping it like an antique collector would do to a rare find.

I pulled my leg out of his hooves. “Yes. I’m Alder Branch Steelhooves.”

Each of them pulled on one of my forelegs and shook me from side to side violently.

“I’m Nova Blast.” Said the blue one.

“And I’m Sunburst Blast.” Said the red one.

“We’re twins.” They said together. “And we’re gonna bother the hell out of you and Captain.”

“Oh boy.” I muttered as they left a dazed me at the top of the stairs. They went downstairs together talking animatedly in another language. From what I could barely make out, it sounded Neightalian. However, I didn’t know what they were saying, but as I followed them downstairs, I knew every time they laughed, that the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

First a lovely, yet ice cold, Captain, then a gory and sometimes scary timberwolf, and then two mischievous Neightalian twins. Who’s to meet next?

Chapter 4

This story is a fan-fiction of MLP:FiM. I don't own any of it. It belongs to Hasbro, etc, etc.
Don't sue. Seriously. That would be so uncouth.

Chapter 4

I went downstairs after the twins, smelling the breakfast the entire time and hearing the twins snickering and smatterings of neightalian conversation. I came downstairs into the main room of the library to find out that two of the library tables, the ones that readers were meant to use, were put together and dishes lined them. The kitchen was filled with loud chatter between Dagger and Princess Luna, but I paid no heed to it as I saw the rest of the Unit sitting down at the table.

Butterscotch was already seated, the head of the table on her left and on her right sat, or laid rather-as no chair was big enough to hold him-Grey Tail. The twins at near the end of the table and started talking to some of their unit buddies. As I counted, Puck Unit was pretty diverse. Butterscotch and another were the only two earth ponies, while the twins were the only pegasi. I didn’t know any one of them, but the Unit held three unicorns and, of course, Grey, the only timberwolf. I realized that if they were all to be my future comrades, I better get to know them…but maybe after breakfast.

I wanted to take a seat towards the middle of the table, but thanks to the twins uncanny knack for knowing how to upset Butterscotch, they managed to move me all the way down the table until I was sitting right across from her. I gave a meek smile as she glared at me with ice cold eyes and felt pretty out of place as Luna walked in from the kitchen with Dagger. They each held platters, even though Luna held the brunt of the load in her magical grip while Dagger just hefted one onto the table.

“FEAST!” Luna said in the royal Canterlot voice as she sat down at the head of the table to my right and Dagger sat down on my left. I rubbed my ears until the hearing came back only to find Dagger trying to talk to me.

“What?” I asked him.

“You should eat up too.” He said. “We’re going to be packing and napping before tonight arrives.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.” I said in a daze as I filled my plate with the different foods my brother and my princess had made for us for breakfast. I ate numbly, ignoring the conversations going on around me. I tried to focus on eating my meal, but everything seemed fuzzy and non-existent as I slowly chewed my tasteless breakfast. Tonight was when my life would spiral out of control. Tonight was when I would go against everything I had fought against, when I would end up doing exactly as ordained by family tradition. I suddenly lost my appetite. I stood up from the table and ignored everypony’s gaze as Princess Luna’s questions fell on deaf ears and I walked back upstairs.

Everything had already changed. Forever.

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“What’s up with him?” asked Grey with a mouth full of haycakes as Al walked back upstairs.

“He…he’s just a little stressed out from all of this happening so suddenly.” Dagger said in a concerned tone, putting down his utensils. “Just give him a little space. I’ll go talk to him in a bit.”

Dagger rose from the table after the meal, intending to bring the plates into the kitchen and wash them all, knowing his “guests” would leave soon and that would give he and his brother time to talk. He knew this was a bit much to him, but it must be much worse with Al. He remembered when Al was younger and how he always reacted to big changes slowly. He knew that his brother seemed to shut the changes away from his life until they hit him with such a ferocity and acceleration that it made his mind and spirit spin out of control, as if they were in the talons of a diving griffon.

Luna stopped him with a knowing look, though. “He needs your help right now. We’ll clean and then leave. We will return at dusk.” She said softly as her soldiers started to clean the tables.

“Thank you.” Dagger answered with a sigh, before he slowly climbed the stairs to Al’s room. He opened the door slowly, expecting the worst. Yet nothing was thrown and no shouting was heard. That was somehow the worse.

“Al?” Dagger said as he entered the room cautiously, looking around for his equine brother. When he didn’t find him in the immediate room, he went out onto the balcony, and then into the bedroom’s bathroom, looking to no avail. Finally, went over to a small space next to Al’s closet and knocked on the wall. Slowly, the wood receded with magic and a slight “Come in” reverberated out of the darkened cove.

Dagger could see into the darkness of the small hide-away as he took of his spectacles. This cove was originally made years ago to hid any important documents the Steelhooves’ may need, before they owned a special bank vault in the Royal Equestrian Bank in Canterlot. Now it just served Al as a good place to hide from all his conflicting emotions and the outside world.

“Not feeling that great, huh?” Dagger commented as he shuffled into the cove, sitting down next to the wide-eyed Al who was just staring at the wall. Dagger gave an attempt at a smile, trying to show Al that everything was alright.

“Everything I know is dying.” Al said slowly. “My values, my world around me, and even my future. I could die…”

Dagger gazed at the wall in front of himself, absorbing the truths about the barely-out-of-adolescences stallion sitting to his right in what was almost a fetal curl. It was true. What he thought of his world was coming down all around him. What he spent years of building up against, years of rebelling against, was crumbled by one royal order. Yet, he couldn’t hate the Princess; he knew this himself. So all that was left was accepting that the world he had made was gone. However, this is not a thing any pony, or creature, can handle easily. Al needed guidance, and Dagger knew this.

“This is the end, but also the beginning.” Dagger started, sounding cheesier than a day-time soap opera. “It sounds clichéd, I know, but believe me. When my mentor Spike ordered me to stay in Canterlot, I felt almost exactly like you do now. My days of travel, of adventure with Spike, were over. My world came to an end. But then new adventures leapt upon me before I knew it.”

Al turned to look at Dagger with scared eyes. “But I could die… We could die...”

Dagger snorted. “You could die every morning, chocking on Hay-o’s. It doesn’t matter how long live or how well your life follows your plans. Adults have to do things they don’t like to do, brother. Do you know why?”

“No.”

“I’ll let you in on a little secret.” Dagger said before leaned in closer to his brother, whispering into his ear. “One of the oldest dragons in my clan once told me this. ‘Adults act as they are because they know the truth. They know we do not live for ourselves, but to make those we love happy.’ That dragon is the wisest one I have ever met. If you are scared of death, you must realize that there is beauty all around you. That is the first step to knowing the truth.”

Dagger could see the attempt at comprehension of the words on Alder’s face as he climbed out of the cove and replaced his spectacles. “When you’re ready, come out of there and pack. They will be back at dusk, so you have plenty of time. I’ll come back up with lunch and dinner before we leave.”

As Dagger walked to the door and down the stairwell, a smile spread across his face. He knew the words wouldn’t be lost upon his younger brother, but that time would allow him to comprehend them better. He could only hope that his brother understood and chose the right path when the time came.

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The packing went quickly. With Dagger’s words stuck in my mind, I got out of my hiding place without even thinking and started to pack in a numb daze. I kept on hearing Dagger’s voice in my mind, repeating the words over and over as I tried to comprehend what he meant. I could understand the words from the wise dragon, that it was true that not everything an adult does is for themselves, but what did he mean about ‘the first step to knowing the truth’? I wondered about this as my clothes and other trinkets quickly flew around the room and into bags as I packed. I worked with speed and soon, the job was done.

I heard a knocking at the door and answered with “Come in.”

I saw Dagger’s icy-blue spines emerge from the doorway and soon he came into view carrying two plates with sandwiches on them. I sat down on my bed and he handed me a plate as he looked at my packing.

“You’re pretty enthusiastic.” He said sarcastically. “It isn’t even two.”

“Well…” I answered back between bites of the dandelion sandwich, “I just want to get this done.”

He looked at me with a smirk on his face. “It’s not like a sleep-away camp. We’re going to be involved with the Battalion until the Mountain King is caught… maybe even longer.”

I swallowed the bites of my sandwich dryly, feeling the fear clawing up my throat yet again. For all my punk looks and attitude, I rarely fought. Even when I first fought the Mountain King, it had surprised me. I didn’t know why I had flung myself to the aid of Puck Unit other than I wanted to get back at the pony who had ruined my dinner. In fact, most of the time, I just scared off ponies with a show of magical power. But this was different. Fighting for my life…no, I’d rather run.

But then I remembered Dagger’s earlier words. My fears were still there, but something else inside of me seemed to grab them and hold them down. It was true all I wanted to do was run from here, to keep running when the Mountain King would eventually find me. But that wasn’t what adults did. That wasn’t what I would do.

“It’ll be okay, right?” I asked Dagger seriously, not expecting a truthful answer, not really knowing what to expect.

“It will be rough for a while, but then you’ll be the best. Once, Spike showed me all his memories of Crimson Moon. He and you are alike, but not in the ways that you think.”

“Like what? Being great magical war-mongers and the Princess’s secret weapon?”

“Not at all. You know you can be…emotional. He was too. But, like you, he knew what was truly important. Now enough sulking, let’s go outside and tend to the garden.” Dagger said, getting off of the bed. He knew that the best way to cheer me up-throw me into my natural element.

We went downstairs and through the kitchen and into the back yard via the back door. The old stone of the patio seethed with age and hidden stories as I walked over it and into the garden. The garden was not big, nor was it filled with grandeur and ridiculous amounts of beautiful flowers. It was basically a plot of land big enough to fit a covered bench inside of a grove of trees covered in ivy. The bench was surrounded by flowers, as was the path that snaked through the tiny garden. The flowers were always beautiful in a quaint way, but what I liked the most was way the trees always let in just the right amount of sunlight and rain.

Using my hooves more than magic, I went straight into tending the place, pulling up weeds and making sure each plant was getting enough water. I checked their stems and leaves for insects and insect bites while also turning the topsoil around the plants so that the nutrients would cycle. I went through all the flowers along the paths first and then checked the trees, while Dagger sat on the bench in the middle of the garden and read a book.

Eventually, the sky started to darken and Dagger called to me. I was so engrossed with keeping the garden together and just making sure everything was alright that I didn’t hear him the first few times. Nor did I notice the sun sinking off to the west. However, Dagger left me alone for a bit and then started calling me again, this time, he came up to me and tapped my shoulder. My gardening induced trance ended there, as I saw him standing over me with a plate and the setting sun off in the distance. I looked past him and saw both of our bags on the bench and my heart drooped a little.

“Here.” He said, handing me a plate full of spaghetti. “This will be our last meals here, at least for a while.”

“Yeah.” I said solemnly, eating the spaghetti quickly and quietly. My heart raced when I thought about what was going to happen, the Battalion appearing out of nowhere, collecting me and my brother like the specter of death…

“POOF!” went the air around me and Luna appeared sitting right next to me, almost making me have a heart attack and choke to death at the same time. As I coughed and spluttered, Dagger rolled his eyes and looked at Luna who shrugged her shoulders sheepishly.

“Sorry about that. I’ll go make you some tea…” she said shyly when I had stopped coughing and cast a dangerous glare at her. She teleported away and I saw the light inside the kitchen go on while I heaved a deep breath. I was about to open my mouth to say something to Dagger, but he shoved a forkful of spaghetti in.

“You’ll need your strength tonight.” He said nodding towards the skies. I looked up and saw that the pink and yellow sunset was being beset by clouds. “A storm’s rolling in.” he finished as he stood up and walked inside, his plate empty. I was left alone outside with nothing but my thoughts and a racing heart. But as I started to think of the negatives of the Lunar Battalion, I shoveled spaghetti into my mouth, knowing to think right now would make me throw up out of fright. I finished and got up just as Luna and Dagger were walking outside. Each held a cup of tea for themselves, but Luna held one for me in her magical grasp. I sat back down, the others sitting on either side of me as they reached the bench.

I was given my cup of tea and I drank it vehemently, the steaming liquid scouring my throat as it went down, but the pain made me forget about anything else. Right now, I needed my mind to be a blank slate. To think would bring fear. Fear would bring my end.

“…ok?” I noticed Luna say after I had drank my tea. I looked to her face, full of concern, and realized she had been speaking to me. I blinked and asked “What did you say?”

“I asked if you were ok. That tea was still boiling…” she replied.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Let’s…ah…let’s go.” I said quickly, stuttering as I tried to tell us we should leave. It was now or never. I got up, walked quickly inside, put the plate and my mug down in the sink, rinsed them out, and came out of the house, locking the door behind me.

“Come on.” I said to them as I walked briskly towards my suitcase.

“Just one minute, brother.” Dagger said as he calmly drank the rest of his tea and took his and Luna’s empty mugs and went around front. I knew he was going in and locking the rest of the house up. This was it. We were finally going. If I didn’t feel like I was going to throw up, I would have noticed I felt surprisingly excited.

Dagger came back around the house in a matter of seconds, which felt like hours to me, and we grabbed our suitcases and stood near Luna. Her horn began to glow and she looked over to my brother and me with a sad smile.

“I will take us to Canterlot Castle. There, we will outfit you two for travel with the battalion. Then, we’ll brief about where you two are going.”
“I think we’re ready.” Dagger said, patting me on my withers as the magic around us pulsated and we disappeared in a flash.

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The dark and cold stone barracks of the Lunar Battalion Headquarters in the basement of Canterlot Castle glimmered and then filled with the bright light of magic being done. From nothing we came, Luna, Dagger, and I to what would be the biggest turning point in my life. The headquarters somehow knew this and I could hear the stone that made up the building resonate in my magic. It was almost as if they were singing to me…

But my attention was torn away as torches of mage-light erupted in the hall, all thanks to Princess Luna. She strode down the long corridor of black granite and Dagger and I promptly followed, not realizing what would occur. Within moments, our true journey would begin, but now, I could only think of how majestic the place was, even if it was the home to the Battalion. Luna stopped at a large door of shining obsidian and it gently glowed as her lit horn touched it. Suddenly, it erupted with the dark-blue aura and changed colors from a deep black to a shining, silvery white. Luna passed through the doors as they opened and we, again, followed, amazed by what had just transpired. I felt the doors with my magic and was astonished to find out that not only had the doors changed colors, but they also changed materials they were made of! They had changed from sharp obsidian to gleaming moonstone, a magical element created from pure moonlight.

Again, Princess Luna stole my attention as we walked into the large room that was on the other side of the doors. Its walls and the large pedestals in the center of the room were made of obsidian too, but as a large circular slab of the stone moved on the ceiling via magic, moonlight streamed into the room, illuminating the center of the room. Suddenly, the obsidian started to change dramatically, the moonstone overtaking the other stone by leaps and bounds, all in intricate weaving fashion. When it ended the three of us were in the same room, yet we could see the obsidian walls now streaked with moonstone, which served as the outlines of a mural: the story of the Lunar Battalion. I saw the historic pictures, each one telling a different story I had learned in my childhood. There, the beginning of the Battalion, at a time where the night was never safe, ponykind was new, and we needed heroes. Over there, the dissolution of the Battalion as Nightmare Moon rose, some soldiers running away, some joining her cause, and others fighting her with all their might. The images raced through my mind until my eyes fell on one picture. It was of a pony without a horn or wings, a pony cloaked in shadows, a pony that had the earth around him shaking and pulsing with power. It was my ancestor and the first General of the Lunar Battalion since its dissolution. I felt a certain biting taste enter my mouth out of years of spite, but something quelled it. It surprised me, but it was awe.

“Come here.” Luna said to the two of us, standing in the middle of the moonlight that streamed into the room. We walked to her and stood next to her, bathed in the light of the moonlight.

“When your ancestor was in the Battalion, he received his own uniform just like you two will today. However, you two will not be joining, so these uniforms are going to be for pure protection and traveling purposes. I know you will object, Alder, but these will keep you safe even if the Lunar Battalion cannot. Now stand still.” She said as her eyes glowed in the moonlight, power streaming from her horn and wings.

I closed my eyes and suddenly was bathed in the power. I almost felt my knees buckle at the sheer amount of it, especially as it coursed all over my body, like if lightning was condensed into a liquid form and then poured all over you. I could feel its magic too, and that was what made me truly buckle. It chocked me a little from the emanations of power and magic. But, I still opened my eyes to see the thing as it covered my body.

A bright, yet thin veneer of the magical moonlight surrounded my legs and torso, stopping right below my chin on my neck and also at each of my hooves. My tail sprouted out the back from an unseen hole and the brightness of the uniform made me advert my eyes for a moment. Yet, as it stayed on my body, it started to change rapidly. It dimmed and darkened until it was the color of storm clouds at midnight, the dark grey of the night. I looked over to my smaller brother and saw that he did not have the same body-hugging uniform I did. But, he had tiny silver necklace around his neck instead. It was in the shape of a crescent moon and did barely anything to cover his body, but I could tell from the amount of magic it gave off, that it was just as strong, if not stronger, than mine. A small glance over to Princess Luna showed that she was impressed at her handiwork and her horn started to glow yet again. With that, we were off from that great hall.

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We appeared in yet another room, yet this one was well lit and full of ponies and one timberwolf, all around a table with a map upon it. They saluted as they saw Princess Luna and I noticed more than one set of eyebrows rise as they saw me and Dagger. I was most surprised seeing Butterscotch eyeing me up and down in my uniform. I guess the expression “mares love a stallion in uniform” isn’t wrong, even when the mare in question is surrounded by stallions in uniform all day. I smirked but then too, found myself looking with upturned eyebrows as I gazed across the room and saw my reflection in a window of tinted glass. I saw my grey, spiked mane stood rebelliously against gravity and my navy-blue coat separated the grey of my hair and the grey of my uniform. Not only did the uniform make me look more like a soldier, but it also made me look…different. I looked stronger as I stood, more like the statues I had seen of my ancestor than I’d like to admit. I stared for a moment too long and was pulled back to reality by Luna’s words.

“Finished gawking at yourself, Adonis?” she jested, leading my attention to her and the table she stood close to. Her horn lit up and the map on the table squirmed, the contour lines and other features of the map rising until the table was covered in a complete three dimensional model of the terrain we would be traversing. It was nowhere near my home of Ponyville, nor was it even close to Canterlot. From what I could see, it was in the deep south, past the borders of Equestria, in the land of fire and sand: the Ghost Desert.

“This,” Luna said pointing to the large mountain rising from the middle of the map, “is your final destination. At the summit of this mountain lives an old friend of mine, one that can keep these two safe while the Battalion and I handle the situation at hand. However,” she said, pointing to another spot on the map, one miles away from the mountain and in the desert, “Is where you will enter.”

“Why so far away, milady?” asked Grey Tail in a serious growl.

“This is because my…colleague has placed strong magical barriers around the mountain, barriers that will not allow entrance of any creature or magic, unless granted by the owner of the mountain. Luckily,” she said, her eyes aglow, “I have granted each of you a token of my magic, which she has welcomed into her home.” All of our uniforms and Dagger’s pendant glowed faintly as she finished her sentence.

“Princess, if I may?” Butterscotch asked. Luna answered with a knowing nod.

“Listen up soldiers,” she commanded to Puck Unit and then looked over to us, “and important personnel. We are to transport these two to the mountain promptly and without trouble, which could take anywhere between two to three days. Desert gear is a must, but I also want to make sure everyone is prepared for the worst. These two can fight, but will not be of much help if anything does happen, Faust forbid it does. We leave here in ten minutes. Meet in launching room C.”

“Ma’am, yes ma’am!” the unit answered back in unison before all moving out of different doors in the room quickly and quietly, leaving only the four of us. Butterscotch quickly turned to me and glared directly into my eyes.

“Listen, Al. This may not be ideal for any of us, but you need to listen to me and follow every order I give to the T. Understand? This entity…monster…whatever you want to call him is extremely powerful, deadly, and hell-bent on coming after you. I expect the worst for this mission, which means all of us dying just so you can get to your hidey-hole. DO NOT jeopardize this by being the non-team player you normally are.”

I felt a flare of rebelliousness flare up inside of me as she said that, but the glare in her eyes told me to shut my mouth. I saw in her eyes a lack of any self-preservation, a determination that meant she would give her life just to keep her friends safe, or her mission from being uncompleted. I tried to glare back, but I just couldn’t do it. I deflated under her gaze and let out a conquered “Yes ma’am.” She nodded curtly and walked out of the room through a door behind me. I could only think of the gaze and how in that moment she looked deadly, steadfast, and determined, but also amazingly loving.

I really wanted to be one of the reasons her eyes looked like that.

Chapter 5

This story is a fan-fiction of MLP:FiM. I don't own any of it. It belongs to Hasbro, etc, etc.
Don't sue. Seriously. That would be so uncouth.

Chapter 5

After ten minutes and three turns through some hallways, Dagger and I stood in a square, metal box of a room with the other eight members of Puck Unit. Each of them had saddle bags, scarfs, and goggles on them. Luckily, we had been handed the same desert apparel, but we were also given the packs too. I quickly realized why each Lunar Soldier looked tough as I put my saddle bag on. Simply put, those bags were heavy, and I guessed they must have carried things much heavier than them because of the ease on their faces when they walked around with them on.

Soon, though, their jovial chatting ended at a quick command from Butterscotch. The whole unit assumed positions, which was to form a large circle in the middle of the room. They put Dagger and I into the center and I awkwardly stood there, shifting the weight on my hooves from the added saddle bags and my original ones. One of the twins, Nova, cast a glance over his shoulder and snorted at the sight of me dancing around, trying to get used to the weight.

“Bear with it, Bambino. The weight isn’t going away in the desert.”

“Yeah, it’ll probably be worse.” Sunburst chimed in with an evil smile. “Twenty bits says he gives it off after the first night.”

“Twenty bits says that he lasts to the second afternoon and then collapses.” Nova replied, mirroring the same smile as they shook hooves, making me bristle at their bet. Before I could answer though, I felt a gentle claw on my withers. I looked to see Dagger’s icy-white claw resting on me calmly. His eyes looked over the heads of the ponies in front of us and I saw Luna walking towards us with her horn glowing and her eyes glazed over with magical power.

“Good luck my Battalion. Ready yourselves for deployment.” She said, her voice magnified by magic.

The room lit up and we were gone.

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I opened my eyes just to throw a hoof into the air to block the sun from shining into them. The heat of the desert assaulted me from all sides, making the sun seem a lot less of a happy sight and more of a death bringer as I was able to catch a glimpse of the terrain around us. No green for miles. I already started to pant just imagining water.

“Let’s move.” I heard Butterscotch command, Puck Unit moving already towards the large mountain that loomed in the distance. My spirits rose as I saw it. Only a few days and I would be there and out of all this…combative stuff. How hard could it be? All I had to do was endure for a few days…

It soon became apparent I was way over my head. I was panting and sweating profusely even through the uniform, which was magically cooled. The heat and the sand were definitely effecting me, but my goggles and scarf protected me from the brunt of it. What was really getting to me was that I was ready for this sort of labor. Back home, I never had to do this sort of stuff, and if I had to do any “heavy lifting” or anything that really required labor, I would use my earth magic. I wasn’t completely out of shape though; I did still participate in games and other things like mage competitions. But I mostly used my magic for those too. Let’s just say the walking made me realize I could get sweat in places I never thought possible.

By the end of the day, I was soaked in my own sweat, but we didn’t end there. As the moon rose into the sky, we still pressed on. We walked further and further into the night and the desert became cold and harsh. I lost my footing on the sands often as my eyes became bleary and my body worn with tiredness. Each time I fell to the sand, the next soldier behind me would pick me up and force me to trudge on while Dagger tried to stay by my side. The single-file line we were traveling in made it easy for Dagger and I (who were in the middle) to be helped by any soldiers behind us, but it made it hard for us to talk to anyone further up in the line than us. So, I fell to the soft ground and gasped air in happiness when we stopped near a large rock-outcrop before the break of day.

Puck Unit got busy making small fires, meals, passing around the canteens, and rolling out sun-reflective beds near the rock. From what I heard on the ground and while I was drinking as Dagger helped me to some water, we would be staying there for most of the next morning, moving again near nightfall. I sighed and pulled myself up unsteadily and hobbled over towards where the rest of the Unit was, eating and conversing around a large communal fire.

However, my footing gave out once again and I fell short. I was pulled up into a sitting position before I could pull myself up and found myself face to face with Butterscotch. She looked into my eyes deeply and gave a small sort of half smile, half grimace.

“Well,” she said, a note of respect growing in her voice, “it looks like you made it through day one…but not without a lovely case of sun stroke. That and the walking is why you are so dizzy right now.” She explained, sitting down near me and pulling a few items out of her saddle bags. She procured a few gems, ones that I recognized as fire rubies and tried to make them react with a starter topaz, unsuccessfully.

“Watch out.” I whispered in warning, my voice dry and throat ragged. But she heard me and pulled her head away as I closed my eyes and connected to the earth and then to the gems. I could feel the flames inside of them wanting to come out, wanting to breathe and live again, so I just gave them a slight push. A gentle “oh” from Butterscotch told me my magic had worked. I sleepily opened my eyes to see a Butterscotch that didn’t seem any different, but her eyes told me she was impressed.

“Like it?” I asked quietly as I saw Dagger heading over towards us with a canteen and a plate of undiscernible food.

“I know your record, you know? Born March 21, nineteen years ago to Cinder Steelhooves and Rowan Root Steelhooves. Named in the fashion of your mother’s family, raised as an only child with your ‘brother’ Dagger D'Inferno, started magical training at age five, won the Equestrian Junior Mage competition at age eight, won the International Junior Mage competition at age twelve, Beat Grand Master Mage Arcus at age sixteen in an unregulated fight-deemed ‘untrue.’”

“That was just because the old bastard kept denying he lost.” I said angrily, making my throat hurt even more. Luckily, Dagger had arrived by my side. I took the canteen from him with an appreciative nod, he being quite as not to be rude.

“But that was right after you left your parent’s home at age fifteen. I find that pretty amazing to be able to do all that without any help.” She said animatedly, surprising me. I guess she was a fan of the Mage Competitions under all that serious military gruff. Huh. Everypony has their vices, I guess.

“Don’t ever say that.” I answered, my throat hurting less and my voice regaining its sound after a draught of water. I had used a little of my magic to keep a thin sheet of water on my vocal chords to keep them from chafing any more. “Dagger was with me the whole time. I would have never done any of it if it wasn’t for him…well, that and that Arcus was a jerk. But Dagger was the only one who could have convinced me to even go to the Academy. I don’t think I need it, but he does.” I said with a roll of my eyes.

“Why is that?” Butterscotch asked, a touch of worry in her voice.

“Because he believes he must cut all ties with his family.” Dagger cut in. “But that does not mean I will let him ruin his future for some feud, no matter how large or small it is.”

“Ah.” Butterscotch said, looking back to the fire with a look of comprehension on her face. However, there was also a look of something else I didn’t like: pity.

“So what about you?” I said snarkily towards her, targeting the wrong pony with my anger. “You know all about me, but all I know is that you’re the ‘great commander’ of the Puck Unit.”

Butterscotch looked up from the fire at me with her earlier stoic look. “That’s all you need to know.” She said evenly, getting up from where she was sitting. “You should eat and get some rest. We leave in twelve hours. It sounds like a lot, but it isn’t.” She looked off to the eastern horizon at the signs of the coming sun and she left us to talk to her soldiers.

“You didn’t have to be that way.” Dagger said.

“You saw the way she looked after you told her that!” I answered angrily back to him.

“Yes. Yes. Now eat up. We need to hit the sack in all of ten minutes.” He said looking back to the soldiers who were cleaning up and getting ready to nap.

“What about you?” I asked in between mouthfuls of crappy military food. But food it was and I was hungry.

“I can wait until the mountain before I go hunting. It’s been such a long time since I had something fresh from the desert.” He said with a lick of his chops. I laughed and reminded myself that sometimes my brother had to be a dragon too. However, he did grab the empty starter topaz and flick it into his mouth.

I quickly finished my meal, put the fire rubies out and into my bag, and then walked off in the direction of where everypony else was going: the sleeping rolls in the cover of the rocky outcropping. As I reached my bag and got into it, I slowly started to drift off. Right before I feel asleep, I saw a lovely silhouette in the rising sun. I knew it was Butterscotch, but now I felt something more than just affection for her; I also felt a certain animosity too. I didn’t want it to be like that, but she didn’t know what it was like living with my family. She didn’t know anything about it.

I fell asleep and had waking dreams throughout the whole time I should have been sleeping.

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The next night passed in the same fashion, the members of Puck Unit trudging ahead of me, I panting and struggling until we came to rest. Only this time, they didn’t allow me to collapse into the soft and welcoming sand. Instead, Grey Tail picked me up by my uniform and carried me over to the rest of the unit who were standing next to a large sand dune.

“We need you to form that dune into cover for the night.” Butterscotch commanded in a strangely gentle tone. I couldn’t see her as Grey had dropped me back into the sand and I didn’t have enough strength to raise myself. Yet, Butterscotch’s tone told me she knew this and it pained her to ask me to do something like this. Empathy rushed into my heart, but memories from the night before dammed them. I felt confused and sick and trying to do something like using my magic at this point felt like it would kill me.

“You are an Earth Mage, right?” asked some unknown member of the Unit as I laid in the sand. His remark made the members around him laugh and sending just the right amount of anger into my body to let it react with the other emotions of confusion I was feeling. I let it well up within me and I connected to the earth, shifting the dune into a hardened sand wall. The Unit went silent, but I wasn’t done there. I felt where the member that ridiculed me had spoke and I made the sand trap him in an upright coffin of sand, only his head poking out from the trap. He yelled in surprise and the others around him reacted, trying to free him from the sand, but they stopped as they saw me get up and stagger over to him. The whole unit was quiet as I spoke to the scared unicorn I had trapped.

“I am and Earth Mage.” I said to him, glaring into his scared eyes. “And much more.” I threatened with a jab of my hoof, before I threw up all over him and fell to the ground, my world suddenly becoming black.

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“Wake up.” Dagger said to me as he rolled me around in the sand. I was brought back from unconsciousness, but also back to a throbbing pain inside of me. I waved a hoof around in his direction giving him the signal to stop, but I didn’t move after he did so. I just laid there in the sand and tried to focus on breathing and why I felt so bad. It was the strangest ill-feeling I had ever gotten and I had been plenty sick before. Not only did I feel nauseous and queasy, but I also felt like something inside of me was…off. As I tried to get up, a barb of pain shot through me, leaving me on the ground again, ready to vomit.

“Are you alright?” Dagger asked, clearly worried.

“No.” I panted in answer. “I…I don’t know what’s wrong.”

“Can you at least get up?” Dagger said calmly, alleviating my growing panic.

“I could if the ground would stop shaking.”

“The ground isn’t shaking.”

“Yes it is.” I answered back sharply. “Don’t you feel it? It’s far away, but it’s getting…” I trailed off, realizing that I wasn’t feeling the ground shaking.

“RUN! RUN!” I started screaming, my adrenaline helping me get up, albeit being unsteady. Suddenly, the whole camp was all staring at me.

“RUN!” I repeated frantically. Butterscotch came over to me and put a hoof on my shoulder.

“Calm down and tell me what’s going on.” She said evenly to me.

I grabbed her face between my hooves, clearly catching her off guard. “I…I don’t know what it is, but something is coming, and fast! We need to run! It…it is evil, that much I can tell from what the earth tells me, but we need to leave! NOW!” I ranted and screamed, her face going from surprise to a mask of realization. She quickly pulled away from me and turned to her soldiers.

“Leave the camp, grab any essentials, we’re out of here yesterday, understood?” she commanded. The Lunar Soldiers saluted her and then started moving quickly. She turned back to speak to me quickly.

“I knew he would find us, but this…this was too soon.” She said grimly, making my heart race in fear. Him. The Mountain King. He had found us, found me, and was coming. We still had at least a few miles to the mountain looming in the distance and at the speed he was going, we wouldn’t make it.

“We’re not going to make it.” I said, my voice becoming a harsh whisper. “We’re all going to die.” I panicked. Luckily, Dagger was there.

“Yes we will.” He said confidently. “You forget I am a dragon, and not just any dragon, brother.” He said as he walked away from us. He tossed his spectacles back at me only to have them land in the sand at my hooves. He stood thirty feet away from me and smiled at me with a victorious look in his eyes. “I am a dragon of the Inferno Clan.”

He roared and his small body started to ripple, changing as he grew in size. His iceberg-like spines grew long and razor-sharp, his claws becoming the size of long swords and his thin arms and legs growing until they were thicker than tree-trunks. His body became massive and his tail became a barbed, coiling whip of death. He grew until the distance he walked away from us was nothing, as his increase in size made him just inches away from us.

“Puck Unit,” He rumbled, “Climb on. I will cover the distance in this dire situation.” His icy blue eyes rolled over the stunned soldiers and he snorted a gout of golden flame as he became impetuous.

“Well, what are you waiting for you fools? The Mountain King is neigh upon us!” he said as he lowered his left side and extended his two legs out in the sand, allowing the soldiers to board his radiant white scales. As they clambered onto his back, I grabbed his spectacles and held onto them tightly, poking the stunned Butterscotch to grab her attention.

“We should get going.” I said around the spectacles held firmly, yet gently, in between my teeth. She just nodded in a daze and followed me as I slowly walked up Dagger’s massive front leg and sat between his shoulder blades.

“Is everyone holding on tightly?” he asked, a note of humor in his voice.

“Let’s hope so.” I answered with the same chuckle.

“Ok…” he said as he started off slowly, everypony grabbing onto a spine that went down Dagger’s back as he started to walk. He then broke into a run for us, a trot to him really, but then started leaping and running across the sandy dunes in a long and eased gait. We were covering ground quickly and I laughed as I saw Puck Unit grab onto the spines tighter. I saw as the mountain became closer and closer and I relaxed, looking around and then over to Butterscotch, who had turned pale, and laughed.

“What? Never rode on a dragon before?” I asked playfully.

She was about to answer, but her eyes went wide. “WATCH OUT!” she screamed as a pillar of stone erupted from the ground and knocked Dagger square in the chest. We all went flying and I quickly connected to the sand, so that all of us were caught in a gentle bed of the stuff. However, our attacker saw what I was doing and quickly attacked, using my own maneuver against me. I didn’t know where the Mountain King was, but I knew it was his magic, because only he could even stand a chance to control the earth as I did.

He trapped about half of the Unit in my beds of sand and then turned them into coffins. The sand closed in on the surprised ponies and their screams told me that the constricting monster the sand was had also become their graves. I managed to save the rest of the Unit, only a unicorn I didn’t know, Grey Tail the timberwolf, the Blast twins, and Butterscotch. I raced over to Dagger and stood by his side, close to his body as I wondered in fear where this monster was attacking from.

Earlier, when I didn’t know who this freak was and was in a bad mood, I didn’t care what could happen. But now…now that I knew what he was capable of, now that I saw him kill ponies I had shared meals with not long ago, ponies that I knew were trained soldiers, I shook with fear. As I saw some sand shift in the moonlight, I launched attack after attack of earth magic. After I had settled down, sand drifted down from the heavens like snow in the middle of winter. It suited too, because I was freezing cold with fear and panic. Slowly, I heard shouting. I turned my head to see that it was Dagger and Butterscotch.

“…STOP!”

“ALDER, STOP!”

“Or just wet yourself while I kill your friends.” Said a powerful voice as my eyes widened and I saw him, or rather we all did, as he appeared out of nowhere in the midst of us. We all jumped back and readied to fight. Instead of making the first move, he simply smiled, his eyes grey from the use of his dark magicks. He lifted a hoof and we all tensed, but nothing happened, until we all saw the sand near his hooves rippling. At first I expected nothing, but then fear and revulsion set in as it came out of the sand.

Up rose the form of a pegasi wearing a Lunar Uniform. He was part of the group that was killed by the sand, but for some reason, he was kept intact, even though it was clear from the way his limp body moved in the sand and the way his neck was angled that he was dead. The Mountain King smiled as he knew this fact and saw all of us looking at him in fear. He made the pegasi (Thundershot, I think he was called) and one of his eyes turned black as he touched the pony. Viciously, Thundershot’s eyes opened with a start, only they were glazed over. The Mountain King cackled madly as the other Lunar Soldiers rose from the shifting sands and their once-dead bodies awoke with starts.

“Kill your friends.” He said happily as they rushed us. He simply stood back with Thundershot and walked around to his back. His horn glowed red and Thundershot’s wings were illuminated in a terrible, red aura. With a sickening crunch, the wings were ripped from his body and then floated above the Mountain King. I felt sick as I saw him magically fuse the wings onto himself with evil magic. I couldn’t focus for long though, as unknown unicorn-zombie attacked me.
I was about to fall to the zombie, my wits lost in the moment, but Dagger was there to swipe him away with his claws. The zombie was torn to ribbons, but it wasn’t done yet. Even as it was dead, it somehow still had control of its magic, obviously a power granted by the Mountain King. It sent a wave of electricity at me, but again, Dagger stopped it by shielding me. He growled at the pain, but flipped me onto his back with a deft turn of the head.

“WE’RE LEAVING!” he shouted amidst the battle, the remaining living members of Puck Unit hearing him and running to his side.

“You think I’ll just let…” the Mountain King started, but Dagger inhaled a deep breath and roared at him, sending the zombies tumbling backwards with nothing but the strength of his voice. The Mountain King stayed where he was and tried to say some villainous rebuke, but Dagger cut him off again, inhaling once more. This time, as he breathed, he breathed the flames a dragon of the Inferno clan should: Hellfire.

The Mountain King rolled around on the sand in agony as the fires burned at his body and soul. It was impossible to put out Hellfire without having the owner of the flames put them out for you, so Dagger simply turned around and sprinted towards the mountain. I hoped this would be the last time we saw the Mountain King, but I knew subconsciously that this thought was a lie. He would be back, but I didn’t expect him to attack so soon.

We were about a mile away from the base of the mountain and I could feel the magical barrier coming upon us. It felt like a giant bubble of strong magical aura. We were yards away from it when a wall of sand erupted in front of us, trying to block the path. I opened a hole in it, but golems made of hard sand and the bodies of the fallen soldiers were upon us. Soon, we were fighting hoof and claw against the monsters. I barely managed to escape from an attacking golem, mainly because I was able to make its legs become less stable and regain its natural state. However, this allowed me to get out of the middle of the melee…and right towards the Mountain King. He smile was that of a cat trapping a mouse and I certainly felt like one, even though he was still shorter and much lankier than I, due to his stolen body. His horn glowed red and his eyes flared black.

“Hello Steelhooves. Prepare to die.” He said as he flared his stolen wings, a strange pair of sunny yellow on a coat of blue.

Before he could attack, I threw everything I had at him. Waves of sand assaulted him, rocks blasted through the ground up at him, and great quakes in the earth tried to swallow him whole. However, he brushed these attacks aside and strode closer and closer to me, his eyes becoming darker and darker. I suddenly felt myself shrink in his presence and I could feel as his mental attack brushed against my psyche. While it couldn’t take over me, it certainly could transfer his thoughts to me. What tortures he imagined for me…they were worse than being taken over and being his puppet, though that idea caused him a great deal of happiness.

“Ready to die?” he asked me mentally.

“NO!” roared a behemoth from behind me as the Mountain King was again engulfed in hellfire. As he rolled away in agony, Dagger picked me up in his paw and threw me over to the rest of Puck Unit, all of which were heading towards the barrier. As I sailed through the air, I felt two pairs of hooves catch me, and knew the Blast brothers had me. That didn’t calm me though.

I saw the broken golems below near Dagger. I also saw the gouge marks he made in the desert from his attacks. But what held my view was the Mountain King rising from the sand, the hellfire disappearing into his horn with some arcane magic. He snarled at Dagger and then glared at me. Dagger took this moment to charge.

Swinging left and right, slashing the air, the Mountain King, and the Mountain King’s attacks, Dagger was a veritable weapon of destruction. I could feel the attacks from the air and I watched in horror as Dagger’s attacks landed but did very little damage. The Mountain King understood this too, so each nick and slice he made on Dagger had a lasting effect. Soon, Dagger was bleeding profusely from many slashes and cuts and he panted deeply.

I tried to fight against the brothers’ hold, but as soon as I started, they flew faster. I was torn by the distance between me and my brother in need, but a strange feeling combated that. I felt like I had just walked under a waterfall, only the “water” scoured through my innards. The brothers felt this too, and landed a short distance from the inside of the barrier, leaving me to get up and walk towards the edge, towards my brother, towards my only family.

But fate, and a giant timberwolf, had different ideas. I was tackled to the ground by Grey Tail, who held me inside the barrier as I watched the ongoing fight in terror. Dagger had fallen to the ground, a gaping wound in his left leg caused by some sort of dark attack. The Mountain King strode up to him and channeled his dark energy into his horn. Soon, an orb of crackling, evil magicks was at the tip of his horn and he pointed it straight at my brother. He fired and Dagger was hit. He erupted in light and shockwaves of power raced out of where his body had been, throwing the Mountain King backwards and making the barrier become visible for naught but a second.

Minutes passed as my broken mind tried to take in what had just happened. But my slow comprehension was stolen from me as I saw the Mountain King rise from the ground, bloodied, his flesh burned off in various places, and his insane smile glaring right at me. I screamed once and became even more insane than he was.

The ground shook with my rage, causing the desert to undulate like the sea. Flames and gouts of superheated water blasted out of the ground, simultaneously boiling and burning the Mountain King as Grey Tail was tossed from me. I galloped on the moving earth, the kamikaze wind I had somehow summoned helping my speed. Soon, I was upon him, cutting him in so many places, rending his body asunder, creating the same fear inside of him as he had inside of me. In little time, I made him nothing more than tatters of flesh and bone. I saw the fear in his eyes, but I also saw something else: sick enjoyment. His eyes laughed at my rage, my pain, and all my sadness, which made me just attack him all the more.

A blast of magic sent me flying away from him. Only when I regained my footing did I realize I was bleeding from my left shoulder, the muscle being torn from the magical blast. I snarled at the Mountain King and his smoking horn. He laughed even harder as his eyes both turned black with runes and his horn was covered in the demonic scriptures. I ran at him as he turned to ash, leaving nothing more than a chaotic laugh on the winds. I looked to the ground and saw a soul stone, glinting in the moonlight as it teleported away.

I howled my fury to the desert night and then walked back to the rest of Puck Unit. My adrenaline and powers slowly faded as I walked and my blood-loss and that same sickening feeling came back to me overwhelming me as I passed through the barrier. I fell to my knees and threw up repeatedly onto the sand, only dimly hearing the cries, shouts, and discussions of the lunar soldiers. I fell onto my front, only barely falling to my side as I realized I had something hooked upon the neck of my uniform. I wearily reached down and unhooked Dagger’s spectacles from my uniform, tears springing to my eyes as I held them gently. I cried and was sick and cried and was sick until I felt a gentle hoof on my shoulder and a pulse of magic that was telling me to go to sleep. Overcome with emotion, sickness, and tiredness from my actions, I willingly obliged, hoping to escape from my pain in the darkness that rushed up to me.

I fell asleep in the warm embrace of somepony, or maybe the darkness. Of that I was unsure.

Chapter 6

This story is a fan-fiction of MLP:FiM. I don't own any of it. It belongs to Hasbro, etc, etc.
Don't sue. Seriously. That would be so uncouth.

Chapter 6

Warm morning sunlight chased away the chill of the desert night and woke me. At first, I was warm and felt comfortable, a thin, yet warm survival blanket that had been tossed over me slid away from me as I got up, rubbing my eyes. But then the events of the night prior raced up and lunged onto me. I felt my heart shatter again and my eyes become wet as I looked down to the ground and saw Dagger’s spectacles near where I had been sleeping. I felt like screaming, but remembered that there were others still asleep.

On the ground lay Grey Tail, the Blast twins, and the unicorn I had yet to meet. Butterscotch was missing, but I saw that her hoofprints in the sand led off into the distance. She would be back, but I felt like I needed to leave. So, I walked towards the mountain until I crested a large sand dune. I sat at the top and wept my heart out to the world.

Eventually, my sadness left me, leaving me feeling alone and empty. I knew that Dagger was gone and I wished that I could just sit there until the world ended. But as the sun rose higher in the sky and the land around me baked in the sun, I too felt heat. However, the heat came from inside of me. I knew that the Mountain King wasn’t gone and I knew I was the only one who could kill him completely. I stood up, wiping the tears from my face, and I laughed to the heat of the desert and my heart. There was no more fear. I knew what I had to do, but first I had to approach Puck Unit with my decision.

I started to walk, but I heard something very faint on the wind. I turned my head to the direction of the mountain and saw a small opening of a cave, barely discernable, even in the light. I stopped and heard it again: a tune of some sort that sounded eerily familiar. I don’t know what possessed me, but I walked towards it…

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Butterscotch woke earlier than the rest, granted the amount of sleep she had from the night before. The eastern skies were lightening, telling her that the sun was on its way to clearing out the last vestiges of the night. Still, she laid in the sand with her eyes open, just thinking about what had happened already.

Last night, as she cradled the delirious Alder, she started to show her emotions too. Tears of frustration, a rare sight, seeped onto her cheeks. Within days of what should have been a quick and simple mission, a precursor to what she knew would be a long fight that would include the other units of the Lunar Battalion, she had lost one of her “packages” and three good ponies and soldiers. She cursed the Mountain King, but she blamed herself for their deaths. She could have pushed them harder, traveled faster, made the dragon carry them the whole way, something, anything.

But she fretted for naught. Her dear friends, her trusted soldiers were dead. She looked over to Alder’s sleeping form, fretful just as she, and realized he had lost someone just as loved and trusted as she did. Yet, she also remembered what had happened afterwards. While it seemed none of her soldiers could even touch the monster, this civilian pony ripped him to shreds. Just as the Mountain King had done to three of her soldiers and the pony’s brother. She frowned and was reminded, again, of her failure the night earlier.

So, she rose before the sun did, before the rest of her soldiers did. She strode away silently, a whisper of night across the dawn desert. Before the sun rose, she sat down in the darkened clave formed by a sand dune and started to scribble arcane runes in the sand. When she was done drawing a circle about two hooves across with seven smaller divots around the sides, she pulled out a small, polished moonstone and placed it in the center. It started to glow fiercely and the circle reacted, glowing as well. The divots became wells of light and blasted the light upwards at an angle, until they all converged. They formed a large, translucent, silver circle. Shortly, Princess Luna’s tired face appeared on the screen.

“Ma’am.” Butterscotch saluted.

“I expected your situation report last night, Captain.” Luna said with a little grumpiness from not being able to go to bed on time.

Butterscotch winced. “Sorry milady.”

“Apologies accepted. Give me your report.” She said with a sigh and a wave of her hoof.

Butterscotch gulped and felt as her pink eyes grew wide and a little wet with tears. She started her report telling her Princess about everything. First, about the Mountain King. Then, about the dead ones. Then, about Dagger. Then, about their arrival and survival thanks to the magical barrier. Finally, about how she had failed in her duty as a captain over and over.

As she felt herself cry silently, Princess Luna spoke up from her quiet and grim listening.

“Do not cry my Captain.” Luna said evenly. “We all knew the risks, even if they did not seem apparent. This just teaches us to be prepared for this creature at all times. You did well to keep as many ponies alive as possible. It saddens me to hear about Thundershot, Fire Brand, and Zephyr Song, but they died as any Lunar Soldier should: protecting their loved ones by fighting evil. To hear that Dagger died as well is… strange. The necklace that I gave him would teleport him to safety here in the castle if he or his brother ever encountered the Mountain King’s deadly powers, but he never arrived here.” She said with a suspicious look on her face.

“However,” she continued, “We must assume the worst. Also, I have bad news for you.”

“Bad news, milady?”

“Yes. A diplomatic emergency has erupted in Saddle Arabia. Apparently, one of our ambassadors has been sleeping around…” she said as she pinched the bridge of her nose. “Nevertheless, my sister and I will be leaving the country for a short while. Our magistrates will be handling everything, but I fear that with what the Mountain King has been doing, our nation is threatened. It pains me to leave at such a time, but it is either this or bad relations with the one of our closest and oldest allies.”

“Don’t worry Princess.” Butterscotch said. “If you saw how the Mountain King died last night, I doubt you would worry. How long did it take him to reform himself last time? A few generations?”

“Thank you for trying to quell my fears.” Luna said with a sleepy smile. “But the threat persists…Because of that my sister and I have stationed the majority of the Solar Guard and five of the Lunar Battalions in Canterlot. Phobos is leading the other units and that only leaves the last of Puck Unit and all of Proteus Unit. If the need arises, they are currently stationed in Manehatten.”

Butterscotch groaned. “Couldn’t you call them in for guard duty and put some other unit, like Charon out in the field? They’re always helpful.”

Luna smiled knowingly. “No, Proteus stays. I know they can be hard to get along with and they are very..." she paused, trying to find the right word, "flippant, but they are also the most adaptable out of all the Units. They might not always look or act like a Unit should, but they are some of the best…”

“When they want to be.” Butterscotch deadpanned, making Luna laugh.

“Exactly. Now excuse me, Captain, but I need to take care of some matters before retire. Good morning, Captain.”

“Good morning and goodbye Milady.” Butterscotch said with a sad sigh as the moonstone dimmed and the communications portal disappeared. She picked up the stone and wiped the circle away, noticing it had become decently light out. The sun had risen during her report with Princess Luna and she knew that the rest of them would be awake. While she walked towards their position with a heavy heart, she was also filled with resolve. She would finish this mission without any more unexpected trials and would be the captain she needed to be.

“Where’s Alder?” she asked Grey Tail as she reached them.

He simply shrugged his shoulders sleepily and Butterscotch facehoofed. She was about to reprimand the timberwolf for not noticing he had wandered off earlier, as she just saw his hoofprints in the sand, but then some unexpected trial occurred: she heard a loud shout coming from the direction of the mountain.

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The strange music pulled me into the cave in a dim lull. I wondered what, and more importantly who, could be out here. My body tensed as I thought it could be the Mountain King again and I instinctively connected to the earth, my magic ready for use in a moment’s notice. But I felt no ill-will like I always had with the Mountain King. Instead, I felt something stronger, something older, something wild. I went deeper into the shrinking cave, squeezing between rocks and steeping on capricious footings until the walls opened and I gasped at the sight.

I walked into a dimly lit, yet majestic, glen. The rocky walls were filled with the green of growing moss and ivies, a few trees littering around the only sources of light-open crevices in the ceiling-and I saw a small babbling brook snake its way through the verdant floor. The stream came out from between a few rocks at one side of the glen, crossing it with a gentle happiness, and then departing from sight down yet another crack in the stone. However, steam rose from this crack. I connected with the earth and was surprised to find that this mountain was actually a volcano and that I should have been standing in its caldera. But something had changed the mountain to what they willed. Something or someone who could shift the earth just like I.

The calming quiet of the small alcove became a dreadful silence as I felt like I was being watched. My magic raced through the earth, feeling around like tendrils, and I knew something else was in here with me. I also remembered the music that initially brought me into here and I knew that whatever, or whoever, was in here was at least sentient. Or so I hoped.

“W…who’s in here?” I asked, my voice a-tremble as I readied to protect myself with my magic. Nothing but silence answered my question, but I still knew that there was something else in the room with me. So, I walked around, investigating what I could, my fear starting to lessen as I did simple tasks like flipping rocks and looking at certain rocks for details.

I found nothing. There were no clues of who could have been in here. In fact, it felt like me finding this whole place was just a fluke. But I still wondered…who could have made this place? Who would wield so much power? And why was that faint whisper of a song so familiar?

My eyes widened as I remembered the song. I couldn’t name it, nor could I place where I heard it first, but I remembered it. I knew the rest of it. So, I started whistling. It wasn’t a long tune, nor did it carry much depth, but it struck me. For some reason, I could feel a deep pain within me. It reminded me of Dagger’s death. Tears started to drip from my eyes as I finished this unknown song. I sunk to the ground and felt myself start to sob again.

“There is no need for that.” Said a motherly voice in my ear. I jumped back and whipped my head over to where I heard the voice. There was nothing there. I took a deep breath and shook my head. It was just my nerves. I stood up and realized that it was time for me to leave this place; it was messing with my head. I turned around and then my eyes grew wide. I screamed loudly as I saw another monster standing in entrance of the alcove.

It was covered in leaves, moss, and other natural camouflage. Its face was elongated and drawn out; dead eyes looking straight into my soul and bloodied fangs hanging from its mouth. A darkness seemed to present itself around the freak and I knew that it was what I had known to be in the alcove earlier. It must have been watching, lying in wait, and ready to kill me whenever it chose was a good time. That time had come.

I shifted the earth with my magic, the creature unmoving until two large slabs of rock raced at it. Then it simply raised a limb covered in the same forest-like skin and the rocks smashed into it. My jaw dropped as I saw that its limb had cut through the earth like it was warm butter. I started to back up, the walking towards me to lunge while I was scared. But then it did something unexpected. It raised its limbs to its face and grabbed it. In a sickening scene, it ripped it off, only to leave me even more dumbfounded.

As the impossibly well-made mask fell to the ground, I was left staring into the eyes of an amused Zebra. Her eyes shone amber and there was not only strength, but love within them. I gaped as she pulled the rest of her costume off, the “skin” falling off of her body and instantly becoming one with the floor of the alcove, all by her will. Her long black-streaked-white, or white-streaked-black, mane fell around her shoulders, individual curls twining themselves around her ears, shoulders, neck. Around her neck was a golden necklace that held three things: a medicine pouch, a strange medallion inscribed with heavy magicks, and a moonstone. I immediately knew that this was the pony that Luna sent me out to.

“W…who are you?” I asked, still dazed by the sudden paradigm shift in my psyche.

She opened her smiling lips to answer, but Grey came howling into the alcove, the rest of the unit on his heels. He lunged at the zebra and she just only managed to dodge his sudden attack. However, she didn’t see the Blast brothers. They tackled her to the ground and held her there…for a moment.

In a tumble, they rolled around on the ground, Grey jumping into the fray, I screaming to stop, Butterscotch trying to solve what was going on, and the unknown unicorn sitting on the ground, his horn lit up and a semi-interested look in his eyes.

But then the melee broke apart, both the Blast brothers being flung into the only tree in the alcove and Grey Tail being thrown back, bounding on the ground once before regaining his footing and snarling at the zebra. His growl lost a little volume as he saw the zebra that had just thrown him off of her. Her eyes were not narrowed, but there was a fire within them that blazed in the light of battle. Her smile grew wide as she stepped into a shaft of light pouring down from the ceiling. Her whole body shined in the light and I gasped as I saw it. It looked like a moving, breathing armor, but it was her skin. She had not cast any spell I could feel; she had just become that way.

Yet, Grey wasn’t daunted. He rushed her with a howl and slashed her repeatedly, his claws making sparks fly as they contacted her metallic skin. Soon, his emotions took over and he became nothing more than a blur of fur and sparks on the mare’s skin. I could hear howls infused with cosmic energy bombarding the zebra and the reflected magical energy pushed Butterscotch, the unicorn, and I back. I looked around in fear that somepony would be hurt and something rose up inside of me. It wasn’t as silly as the anger I felt when my food was taken from me, but just as powerful.

“STOP!” I screamed, my magic convulsing through the earth and air, separating the timberwolf and zebra a small distance. Butterscotch acted in a flash of platinum mane and bright yellow coat, dashing into the space between the two fighters, halting their battle.

“Stop.” I reiterated. “This is who Luna wanted us to meet.” I said, pointing a hoof to the sinisterly smiling zebra.

Grey glared at her. “I can see the moonstone around her neck, but are you sure this isn’t some imposter? Some sort of test the master of this place would put forth to challenge us?”

The zebra and the unicorn both laughed.

“If I were a ‘test’ you would have failed it, puppy-dog.” The Zebra chided with mirth in her eyes, the metallic sheen fading from her skin. Grey growled at the rebuke, but stayed where he was.

“Yeah, Grey. You’re way too suspicious. Sometimes things are just what they are.” He said as he stood up and strode over to the tree where the Blast twins were still stuck. He helped them down with two bolts of magic to their rumps, sending them crashing down through the branches of the tree and into the hard embrace of the earth below.

“Ow.” The moaned in unison.

“Captain Butterscotch, Captain of Puck Unit of the Lunar Battalion.” Butterscotch said to the zebra mare, putting out a hoof in a sign of friendship.

The zebra eyed it with a mischievous look that faded slightly as she took it and shook Butterscotch’s leg until it almost fell off. “I’m Circe, witch of Mt. Purgitorio and the last of the Zambaru tribe.” As she said her name, I could feel magic seep out of her rune-filled medallion and it overcame me.

Suddenly, my vision dimmed, time slowed, and I could see an astral projection of the zebra floating around in the air above my head. While she may have worn nothing in the real world, her astral body was wearing heavy bits of tribal armor. She smiled down at me and I rose, leaving my body. She pulled me into the air and laughed at my form. I was able to see myself in the reflection on her armor and I was wary about what I saw. My body was made of stone, my eyes were golden flames, my mane a wisp of storm cloud, and my tail a whip of water. I looked to my cutie mark, a seven-sided star, and found it to be leaking a strangely strong, golden light.

“Don’t look so glum.” Circe said, floating around my head, her armor sounding like chimes in the wind. “It might be a shock, but that’s you.”

“But…”

“No ‘buts.’ If you don’t like who you are, change it. That’s not your problem though. You’re scared of yourself.” The zebra said sagely, her cutie mark, a large spider, aglow in the darkened world we resided in.

“What?” I asked her. Like she was taunting me, she smiled and mysteriously sailed over towards her body, the room slowly returning to normal light, my form becoming heavier and heavier.

“We’ll talk later. I just wanted to see who you were. Now I know why Luna sent you to me.” She simply said as we were brought back to the real world. It all happened so fast, I barely even understood what had just happened. Yet, I knew that this zebra was more than just powerful…she was cunning too. I could tell she had her own agenda, but what?

“Yeah, yeah…” Circe cut off whatever Butterscotch was saying. “We can talk up in my house.” She said as she lightly walked over to the tree, past where the twins were arguing with the unicorn I still didn’t know, and straight against the rock wall behind it. She tapped it lightly and with her strange magical influence, it melted away like molten gold, opening up to a path that led back outside. However, as we all followed her in single file, it was apparent that the outside of this mountain was not what it seemed from further away. We rose, the temperature and humidity rising with us, until we reached a small plateau and the end of our climbing, winding path.

I gasped as I saw what laid ahead of me. In the middle of the desert, a land of aridity and golden brown earth, there rose a mountain on which a jungle thrived. The humidity and the swampy heat of the jungle, not to mention all the sounds of the mountainous and jungle life mingling, weighed upon my back, furthering my disbelief. Yet, I could see even further up the mountain, the jungle growing up the side of the mountain with large waterfalls draping into the green every so often. At the top of the mountain, the green receded and the dusky, ashy grey coated the summit as shimmering heat waves rose from the top, visible even from where I was standing.

“Welcome to the Holt.” Circe said with a smile.