Keep running. Don’t stop. It’ll get you… It was a stormy night. Of course. It was thundering. Of course. Casting strange shadows across the stone buildings. Of course. An extremely overpowering monster was Galloping after me…of course.

I was running from this monster, a Changeling. They really sucked because they take the form of somepony you love and gain power over you from their own love for “you”. Where is Twilight? I wondered for the billionth time in the past five minutes. All of a sudden, I saw a glowing purple ball of fire flying toward me.

“Duck!” I heard somepony say. No, really?
The fireball struck the Changeling right in the chest; the clumsy thing had not put up a magical ward to protect itself, so as not to waste energy for no reason.

The beast groaned a sickening, “Ouch” and toppled into a building.

I looked around. I saw a light purple unicorn with a black, smooth, mane with red and purple highlights in it as well as its tail.

“Hello, Twilight” I said as she walked up to me.

“Shining,” she replied.

“That was a hell of a long time for you to set up,” I said to my sister, Twilight.

“Apologies, Shining, but I couldn’t find a high enough building to cast from.”

That’s my name. Shining. Or, “ShiningArmor Sparkle” as my full name, first-ShiningArmor-last- Sparkle.
Ahh, forgive me with the regulatory-sounding-stuff. I'm captain of the Royal Guard in Canterlot, so I have to be all “militarily formal” and go “by the book” and-as Her Highness, Princess Celestia’s favorite-“By the law set down by your predecessors” it’s rather annoying sometimes, but what can I do, right?

“Well, at least it’s dead and you’re not,” I said with a grim smile.

Twi frowned, “are you sure Cadence has… ‘accepted’ all of this? I mean I don’t want her to get hurt too, but she was really upset at her not going.” WHO she was talking about was my mare back in Canterlot, Princess Miamorae Cadenza. WHAT she was talking about was Princess Celestia's mission Twi and me were on. It was basically a “hunt down monsters and kill them” mission.
Of course, Cadence was worried that the captain of the royal guard plus the second most powerful magician-unicorn in Equestria would come home from this mission scathed or possibly dead. Mares. Mind you! I am NOT making fun of her. She just cares about us as family more than anypony else, and…well, she loves everypony! It’s just that she is the most caring Alicorn (She is Her Highness’ Niece) I have ever met; even over Her Highness Herself!
“Well, I’m not sure, but at least she took over my command of the Royal Guard to keep her occupied.” A grunt was my only reply.
“C’mon, let’s go talk to the family,” I said, sounding rather down. The reason is the “family” was a mare and a colt, with two…one little filly. The blasted changeling had impersonated the older filly, Word Whistler, and killed her after impersonation at just 10 years old!
Now I had a thing about changelings. This is because the queen of the changelings, Queen Chrysalis, impersonated Cadence, my Mare-To-Be and nearly destroyed all of Equestria! But that’s a story for another time…
As we walked up to the family’s home, we saw their sign for the newspaper business they had going-“Writers’ Writing Co. ©2012”
As I pushed the door open, I could sense ponies coming out of their houses to inspect the burned Changeling, just as I heard immense wailing inside the house, upstairs. I looked at Twi, “Mares first.”
She solemnly walked into the door followed by me. She stopped at the bottom of the stairs to the upper floor and looked at me as I shut the door.
I understood why. She didn’t want to face the wailing of the family alone. And neither would I. we walked up the stairs, as quiet as we could be, so as to not interrupt their mourning and stopped once we reached the door to the room they were currently in.
“Mr. and Mrs. Writer,” I said plainly. The Mare and Colt looked up at me, the filly still whining all with their eyes bloodshot from crying the past day.
Mrs. Writer was rather small in stature, with a short smooth-shaped snout; a gray-coated mare, with a yellow mane and tail. She had a newspaper as her Cutiemark.
Mr. Writer was a bit different; he was tall in stature and had a square, sharp cornered snout. He was forest green in color, with a blood red mane; he had a typewriter as his Cutiemark.
Very nice color contrast, I thought, then shamed myself for thinking about what ponies looked like instead of the horrible tragedy committed today.
“Captain Shining!” Mrs. Writer sniffled, “did you catch that… that… monster?” at this point she burst into tears again and leaned her head on Mr. Writer.
“Yes Ma’am,” replied Twilight. “He’s burnt to a crisp.”

Mr. Writer’s lip was wobbling, but he managed a feeble, “thank you… thank you for killing that monster… that impersonator! That filly killing piece of filth!” He was yelling by the end of his short speech so that the filly’s crying seemed small in comparison.

After gazing at the floor for what seemed like minutes-although it was only seconds- I managed to mouth, “We found your daughter.”

Mrs. Writer’s eyes were as wide as AJ’s apples. “You did!?” she screeched, “Where?”

I looked at Twi, she looked at me and I said, “We have her body out front being guarded as we speak.”

She didn’t seem to be angry with us keeping it an untold secret, instead, her eyes got even wider and she walked past us, followed by Mr. Writer. The filly stayed where she was. I was unsure if she heard the conversation at all.

I started for the stairs as Twi hoisted the filly on her back with a levitation spell. The filly didn’t seem to be fazed by this at all. Poor thing, I thought, how will she live her life like this?

I slowly walked down the stairs, followed by Twilight and the filly.

I just caught a glimpse of Mrs. Writer closing the door, her green magic glowing around it (the entire family is unicorns).

When we got outside, it was still raining. Mr. Writer had pulled the body cloth off Word Whistler’s now pale pink face her mane, however still glowed a brilliant purple. Just like Rarity…

Surprisingly enough, neither MR. nor Mrs. Writer started crying. Instead they gazed at the deceased filly with a smile. I decided not to ask why, but I think it’s that she is in a better place. And that she was, I’m sure of it.

We left the body there, in Fillydelphia, to let the family do as they wished with it.

Instead of riding in a flying chariot, Twi and me decided to walk to our next destination, Staliongrad.

The next objective in Staliongrad was not to hunt down a monster, of which I am thankful for, but to flush out an organization of ponies thought to consort with monsters and the like.

We sent a message back with the chariot we ditched in favor of walking.

Said message contained orders as such:

1. A squadron of 4 transit chariots is to be flown to the southern edge of Staliongrad to aid in our upcoming skirmish.
   
2. Said chariots, containing 7 spearponies each will be flown by 4 Pegasus ponies to get to Staliongrad with all due haste, including one magician unicorn in total.
   
3. There is to be an additional chariot to carry provisions for the entire squadron, including us
   
4. The chariots are to arrive within the week.

Captain Shining Armor; Twilight Sparkle.

It would be nice to see some more Canterlot faces instead of these town-ponies of which I am unfamiliar with.

In any case, we arrived a little earlier than I had originally expected. Because of this, I had Twi go into town and see if we could buy some provisions for ourselves until the reinforcements arrived.
During her shopping, I had time to plan out our attack on the rebel-ponies, as they were designated. I had bought a map of Silver Stallion Keep in Fillydelphia.

The layout of the keep was very similar to that of Fort Sol near Canterlot, so I only had to think of the attack than spending valuable time on getting the floor plans to commit to my memory.

The “plan” was to get everypony into the chariots, and fly straight into the manor inside the keep to capture the lead monster/pony and force the others to surrender if at all.

What a great plan.

It would be easy for us to hold up in the manor, as it was designed to keep ponies out, not in. of course, not many windows can withstand a chariot full of 8 ponies flown by 4 Pegasus ponies, all in full armor.
From what Twi gathered at the Bazaar in the middle of Staliongrad, the manor had a large conference table that was rectangular in shape in the floor we would bust into. That could bar the door. And as for a secret passageway that led into the manor from behind a banner inside, well there could be ponies stationed on either side waiting to strike from behind piles of books and coffee tables. There was also a bar inside that the magician could use to cover him/herself from oncoming attacks, and therefore be more affective.
The plan was set and the reinforcements arrived by noon. However, instead of launching the attack then, I decided to wait until dawn, just before the Princess raises the sun.

*** *** ***

It was still dark. We had commenced the operation far sooner than expected. This was good. I had the magician-StutterStrut- extinguish the little magical lights we had above the chariots before Silver Stallion Keep was in sight.

Once it was in sight, I gasped-it really was an exact copy of Fort Sol, right down to the position of the siege engines in the courtyard! Wait a minute, siege engines? How in the Hoof did these satanic ponies get siege engines?! They were just a ragtag group of demented little fillies-how could they possibly get siege engines?

Twi must have heard my mental screaming, for she whispered, “do you still want to go through with the operation?”

I sighed, “we have to, the Princess needs this Keep cleansed of enemies… and so do the ponies in Staliongrad.”

I sensed her nod. When we were at the right angle of a breach, I gave the signal and we plunged to our inevitable doom, my last thought before the carnage being, those siege engines can fire at the manor. What have I done?

*** *** ***

I heard a nice Shllllich! As my spear slid out of the body of a “Sat-Raider”, as they had been designated. I saw a grayish-reddish pony charging me. Noticing that it did not have an Equestrians Guard’s armor, I disintegrated him with a spark of magic from my horn. “Behind you!” I heard somepony say.

Regardless of whether or not it was directed at me, I turned to see a Sat-Raider shoot a bow at me. I ducked. The arrow hit a Sat-Raider that was sneaking up behind me in the calf. I had to try not to laugh as I struck down the pony with a quick thrust of my spear through her throat.

I dispatched the bowpony by levitating him through the air and flinging him out the window. I went to said window to see how the Sat-Raiders would counter against us.

One of the ballistae in the courtyard was aimed at the manor. It fired a flaming missile. However, the missile went straight over my head and exploded in a group of Sat-Raiders and Guards alike!

And then I heard it. Laughter… laughter… it grew louder and louder until I realized that all of the ponies in the courtyard were laughing! They’re mad! I thought. Some monster has possessed them! I looked back at the place where the missile had struck the ground, but instead I caught a glimpse of all the Sat-Raiders gazing up at the sky. And then…I noticed that so too were the Guards on our side. Frantic, I searched for Twi. She too, was staring up at the sky. Dear Celestia… everypony, even down in the courtyard was staring up at the sky. Dear Celestia, some evil being possesses them all! Then I took the risk of looking up at the sky. And what I saw… was a meteor racing straight at us. And my last thought before the carnage being… I am going to die.

Author's Note

Hellooooooooooooooooo Everyone! Some background before we get into the actual story for you. As a side note, this was originally a friends story but he pretty much gave up on it and gave the rights to me. So the first 7-8 chapters will be his writing with a bit of editing/making things flow.
Stay Beautiful.