Canterlot. 3 years into the war...

I slowly open my eyes, my vision blurry. I blink several times, and slowly my vision focuses on the sky above me, which is black with smoke. I can feel something on top of me, pinning me down. I try to move, to breathe, to do anything. I take a short breath and let it out as whatever is on top of me is pushing down on my chest.

I look down as best as I can, and see that I'm being held down by half of a tree trunk.

"What in the...?" I say to myself, but quickly shut my trap. I'm probably not alone here.

I listen to the environment around me, trying to pick out anything that I can relate to being a pony, but hear nothing. In fact, it's oddly quiet.

"Hello?" I call instinctively. No answer.

I try to get my forehooves under the tree, and after a few adjustments, am successful. I push up, lifting the tree up about two inches, high enough. I start moving it up and over my head, and let it drop on the ground next to me. I sit up and take a quick look around. I'm alone and in the middle of a war torn street. Bits of rubble and what looks like hundreds upon hundreds of bullet shells scattered around me. I look to my left and see a shop, or at least what's left of one, as it clearly took a direct hit from a tank shell from the look of it. Which is to say half destroyed with shattered glass all over the place. I look opposite the destroyed store, and see the tank that must've been responsible... albeit damaged beyond repair, not to mention on fire.

"What the hell happened...?" I blurt out, rubbing the back of my head.

I try to think back to before now, and it comes back to me bit by bit. we were sent into Canterlot with orders to retrieve as much information as we could about enemy advancements. It was going smoothly, but then it hit the fan once we ran into a few guards. We were forced out onto the street, with what looked like half the Canterlot army on our heels, and then the tank came out, ahot the store and the tree fell on me. After that I don't know.

I get up, since sitting around in the middle of enemy territory won't do me any good, and grab my rifle. I pull back the bolt to find that it's empty. Well shit... I check my vest pockets for anything, all empty as well.

I put a hoof to my earpiece, which crackles with static as I turn it on.

"Hello?" I say into the mic, but get no response. "Anyone there?" Still nothing. "Night, Rainbow, Ace? Anyone?" Nothing... "Damn, must be jamming my signal." I sigh.

Slinging my rifle over my shoulder, I spread my wings and take off for the Everfree. So far we've been able to stay hidden there for the last few months, so I don't see any reason we shouldn't still be now. I look behind me to see if I'm being followed, and luckily enough I'm not. I try the comm again, but still get nothing but static. I pull the little black box that serves as the reciever from my belt, and see that the antenna is broken.

"Well fuck..." I say silently to myself, and continue the two-hour flight back to the basecamp.

As soon as I arrived I was greeted by many shocked faces. Even Rainbow Dash is surprised to see me.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

"We.. we thought you were dead." Rainbow says. "Night, she's beyond devastated. Basil went to check on her, haven't heard from him though."

My ears perked up at that. "Basil? How long ago was this?"

"I don't know, maybe five minutes ago?" She says.

"Where?" I ask, my anger starting to flare up. I know exactly what he would want now that I was presumed dead.

"Your tent." She says, a puzzled look crossing her face. "Is something wrong, Sharp?"

"Not yet, but it's about to be." I say, storming off.

I make a beeline for my and Night's tent, not caring who I pass or bump into. Speeding there like my tail's on fire, which it might as well be with how utterly pissed I am. As soon as I reach the tent I slam my hooves to the ground, stopping dead in my tracks. I take a deep breath and slowly let it out. It could just be my imagination, but I don't want to take any chances. I prepare for the worst, and step inside the tent, the door falling closed behind me.

Now I may be bad for jumping to conclusions, but usually it pays off. This is no exception. Basil is laying on top of Night, and I can see that she's struggling beneath him, trying to fend him off. And he-and this is what really sets me off- is trying to kiss her.

I barrel towards the two, ramming right into Basil and knocking him off of her. I pin him to the ground and look him dead in the eyes, my nostrils flaring and my teeth grinding together so hard they might break.

"S-sharp?!" He gasps, shocked to see me.

"Hello Basil." I say through gritted teeth. "Mind telling me just what the fuck you were doing?"

His ears go down and I can see the fear in his eyes. Good, he better be afraid. He gulps and opens his mouth to speak.

"W-we thought that you were dead. I was j-just trying to--"

"Trying to what? Get laid with a mare who is grieving the presumed loss of someone she actually loved?" I can feel my throat getting hoarse, but I could care less. All I can think about is beating him to a bloody pulp.

"I... I..." He tries to speak, but I smash my hoof across his face, sick of hearing his excuses.

His head snaps to the left with an audible crack as it hits the ground, and he slowly reels back from the hit. When he faces me, I can see the trickle of blood now coming from his nose. As if that'll stop me. I pull back and punch him in the jaw, then back to his temple, and so on until his face is a bloody black and blue mess.

"Stay. The fuck. Away. From her." I say, timing each word with a punch to his face.

With one final punch I grab him by the throat and look into his eyes, one of which is swollen shut.

"From now on, you will not go near her until I am one hundred and ten percent K-I-A. Do.You. Un-der-stand?" I growl at him.

"Yes." He manages to spit out, along with a mouthful of blood.

I get off of him and kick him once in the gut for good measure. "Get the fuck out of here." I say.

He slowly gets to his hooves and walks out, holding his face with a hoof.

"Sharp?" I hear Night's voice, and slowly turn to face her.

She's looking at me with a mixed expression of disbelief, shock and pure joy. I extend my forelegs and she doesn't hesitate to run into them, wrapping her own around me and squeezing me tighter than she ever has. I return the embrace and rest my head on her shoulder. I can feel the tears of joy landing on mine as she starts sobbing.

"I... I thought..." She starts, getting choked up. "I thought you were dead."

"No. I'm still here." I say, stroking her mane softly.

My thoughts somehow drift to Basil, but I dismiss them. I know she won't want to talk about it right now, and to be honest, neither do I. I wrap my wings around her to try and provide a little more comfort, and notice the bandage wrapped around her wing.

"What happened to you?" I ask.

"I don't want to talk about it..." She says, clearly missing my meaning.

"I meant your wing." I say. "I know you don't want to talk about what I saw, and I know for a fact that it wasn't your fault."

"Oh. Well, when the tree fell on you, I tried to get it off of you myself. Got shot in the process, simple as that." She explains. I move to speak, but she can clearly see my comment coming. "It's nothing serious, just a flesh wound."

"Okay." I say, and hug her a little tighter.

Within five seconds of me saying that, Ace comes barging in on us-I swear we can't have five minutes alone!- and says;

"Sharp, Rainbow Dash wants to see you, and she doesn't seem too happy."

"For fuck sakes!" I sigh. "Not one minute alone, I swear."

"I'll go with you." Night says, she clearly doesn't want to be separated from me again.

"Alright." I say, and we walk over to Rainbow's tent, which I can assume she's been sharing with Applejack since she arrived at the camp.

Everypony knows they're together, and they haven't exactly been trying to keep it a secret. We walk in to see Rainbow Dash, Applejack and Basil standing there. I roll my eyes, since I know exactly what this is about.

"You know exactly why I did it and don't fucking say you don't." I say, pointing an accusing hoof at Basil. "He was trying to get in bed with Night, and from the looks of it, the fact that she was repeatedly saying 'no' and fighting back didn't mean shit to him." I take a breath and continue. "He probably would have raped her if I hadn't shown up when I did."

Basil's eye goes wide at this and his jaw drops, all the while Rainbow keeps looking at me with the same stern expression she has had the whole time.

"Sharp," she starts, "I know what you were doing, if AJ were in a similar position I'm sure I would do the same." Her voice takes on a more serious and commanding tone as she says this. "But that does not mean that it will be accepted here."

"Oh, so you'd rather him rape her and me kill him?" I scoff. "We both know that's bullshit. She's your best friend for Celestia's sake, Rainbow. I'm pretty fucking sure that you wouldn't want to see that happen to her."

She clearly can't think of a response to that, but she still manages to say something. "Your heart was in the right place, but your actions have caused--"

"Have caused what?" I interrupt, sick of hearing this bullshit lecture. "Caused Basil to have a bloody broken face, what else? Nothing!"

She simply stares at me, that same expression still plastered on her face. She moves to speak, but Applejack stops her.

"Don't, Rainbow." She says. "It's a bad idea."

And to be honest, it's a very bad idea. I turn around and leave, not caring if she was going to say anything or not. I don't want to be around people who are going to yell at me for defending those I care about. As soon as I'm outside I spread my wings and shoot upwards, looking for a decent cloud to land on while I calm down. I can hear someone flying behind me, but I'm not in the mood to talk to anyone. I start increasing my speed, trying to lose whoever's on my tail.

Slowly, the sound of flapping wings behind me becomes more and more distant, and I slow my pace as I find a solitary cloud floating around. I turn towards it, and make a soft landing right on top of it. I lay down and cover my head, not wanting to see or be seen by anyone. I decide to just take a nap while I calm down, since I am in no mood to be talking to anypony and slowly drift off...

***

Must've been hours, since when I wake up it's nearly dusk. I look around, still alone. Of course I am, it's not like anypony would have come after me.

At least that's what I thought. Thouse thoughts quickly vanished as somepony tackled me from behind. Pinning my legs down so I couldn't move. It's pretty obvious that they're a pegasus, otherwise they wouldn't be up here, but as who who it is...? Not a fucking clue.

I look at the hooves holding me down to see that they're attached to black legs. I let my head fall and hit the could, chuckling to myself lightly.

"You gotta stop sneaking up on me like that." I say.

"Have we met before?" A male voice asks me. It's a little deeper than my own, which is to say not by much, but it's definitely not who I thought it was.

"What the...? Who are you?" I stammer out.

He releases me and gets off, allowing me to stand up and face him. As I turn around I can see that he has a midnight black coat, similar to Night Rain's, but with a dark purple mane and tail that match his eyes. I can also see that his cutie mark is a crescent moon surrounded by swirls of purple lightning.

One more thing, he's holding a black bladed scythe with a dark purple lightning pattern on the blade, damn. He looks me up and down, as if he's trying to conform something, then he looks me in the eye.

"Are you Sharp?" He asks me.

"Yeah, and just who might you be?" I ask him, a little more than curious.

"I'm Night Spirit." He says, and my jaw practically falls off it's hinges.

"Wait, I know that name..." I say, and then it hits me. "You're Night's brother aren't you?"

She spoke of him on occasion, but I've never actually met the guy until now. He's clearly got a bit more muscle on him than I do, but he's also a little shorter than me.

"How do you know my sister?" He asks.

"I married her." I say. Now it's his turn to have to pick his jaw up off the metaphorical floor, since we're about fifty feet above the ground.

"You what?" He stutters.

"Yeah. So I guess that makes us brothers in law." I say, rubbing the back of my neck, "Oh yeah, why did you tackle me, by the way?"

"I was told to find you." He replies.

"By who?"

"Rainbow Dash."

"Oh for crying out..." I rub my forehead. "Okay, let's just go."

***

I walk into the tent, not giving two shits about any of this anymore.

"What the fuck do you want, Rainbow?" I spit out. "You already know I'm done with this argument."

"That's not what this is about, Sharp." She says.

"Than what?" I ask, my patience with her wearing thin.

"Sharp." She says slowly, like something you would want to say to a dying person before you take them out of their misery. "Night's gone M.I.A."

Author's Note

suspense