Guardian Angels

Chapters

The Stranger
Investigations
Icebreakers
Cider Season
Sterling
The Guardian
To Protect and Serve
Blood and Tears
Dreams and Nightmares
Friends
Those in Need
The Ball
The Dance
Demons
So It Begins
First Response
Something Worth Fighting For
The Day of Days
Folded Flags
Out of Options
No Greater Love
So That Others May Live
Gone, But Not Forgotten
Replacements

The Stranger

It was a beautiful day in Equestria. The skies were clear, the birds were singing, and everypony was out and about in the serene streets of Ponyville; everypony, except for Rainbow Dash.

She was where she belonged, in the sky, weaving in and out of the clouds, climbing to heaven, diving to the trees below, and feeling the wind caress her mane. This was true happiness.

Late in the day, she decided to fly somewhere she never had before, the Saddleback Mountains.

“I could use the cliffs out there for some awesome stunts,” she thought to herself, “I just wish somepony could be out there to see me.”

She turned to the west and took off as fast as she could go, speeding along at treetop level until she reached the sudden, steep base of the mountains. She pivoted her wings, and the cyan blur shot straight up to the peaks. When Dash reached the top of her climb, she rolled, and dove down in between two sheer cliffs and into a deep gorge.

Pulling up mere feet before the canyon’s floor, she used her momentum gained from the dive to go faster than she ever could fly otherwise. She weaved through the canyon, going so fast that the rocky walls became blurry, hugging the walls and pushing herself to go faster and faster, all to conquer the fjord. She raced time, pushing her limits until the canyon widened out and ended, turning into a wide meadow surrounded by mountains.

Dash slowed down, and cruised along the valley floor, just above the tall grass, thinking of what she would try next. She spotted a group of rock formations resembling an obstacle course in the distance, twisted in their direction, and sped off to find a thrill.

****************

Dash kept on flying until dusk, when she became a bit tired and decided to try and find a mountaintop she could see Ponyville from. She wasn’t too far from the town, maybe only four miles.

She rolled over onto her back, still cruising forward, but now facing the golden sky. From this angle, she could tell the tallest peak in the area was a rocky precipice with a small copse of pine trees at the top to her immediate left. She turned and ascended towards the towering peak, slowing down, flying smoothly and enjoying the sunset.

As she neared the precipice, she thought to herself, “I bet Ponyville looks really cool at night from up here.”

She circled the tallest peak, waiting on the coming of darkness to see the town beneath the face of the moon. She enjoyed the sun’s last warm rays before it descended behind the horizon, and then turned towards the mountain’s summit.

Dash gracefully and quietly landed near the pine grove. She could’ve done it faster, but stunt flying at night just didn’t feel right. As she set down, the scent of ponderosa tickled her nose and she smiled, enjoying the sensation, and began sauntering toward the east edge of the mountain.

Suddenly, she stopped. Right in front of her was another pony. She had never seen him before. It was a stallion pegasus; he was too big to be a mare, nearly the size of a draft horse. He was facing away from her, sitting on his flanks and facing Ponyville in the distance. He had a lustrous obsidian coat and a beautiful deep blue mane, which was cropped short. His back and flanks had abundant scars, but she couldn’t quite see his cutie mark.

Dash was curious, so she took a few steps closer. He didn’t move, so she advanced a few more silent feet closer. Again he remained motionless.

She was lifting her leg to take another step when she heard a deep, strong voice.

“Why are you sneaking up on me?”

She looked up, but the stallion hadn’t turned around.

“Sorry,” she apologized, halting her stealthy advance, “I guess, I just sort of saw you, and was kind of curious. How did you know I was back here? Did you hear me or something?”

He replied, “No. I saw you.”

Dash was confused. How could he have seen her if he hadn’t turned around, let alone known she was there. She knew she hadn’t made a noise he could have heard.

“How exactly did you see me?” she asked, taking a dozen or so cautious steps forward, so that she was now standing only a few feet behind him.

“I can see everything… when I want to,” he answered.

He was still gazing into the black sky ahead of him, and hadn’t moved since she’d arrived. Intrigued, Rainbow Dash slowly leaned in front of the stallion to see his face. Before she could get to an angle where she could though, the mysterious stallion’s scarred face suddenly snapped in her direction.

His eyes were glowing white! Dash had seen something like it before, but only when her friend Twilight or one of the alicorn princesses performed an extremely powerful spell. But how could that be; only ponies with horns could use magic, and this stallion was a pegasus.

Dash at first was surprised, but the shock quickly gave way to fear. She retreated away from the stallion as he walked towards her, matching her every rearward step. He backed her into the trees, and Dash stumbled over one of their roots, falling to the rocky ground.

She looked up into the stallion’s eyes, still aglow, and cringed. She tried to get back up, but stumbled again over the exposed roots of another tree.

When she regained her balance, she tried turning and running, but she turned right into a tree, falling for a third time. The stallion was right on top of her now, standing over her in a way that prevented her from getting up.

She tried to fly out from underneath him, but the sudden movement and flexion caused the muscles in her wings to twist into a knot, cramping and contorting in a painful seizure. She kept trying to get away, crawling along the hard ground.

She turned onto her back to face the menace, and when she tried to back away farther, she felt the thick trunk of a pine at her back. He had her cornered.

Her breathing quickened as he advanced on her, not looking where he stepped, only staring into her soul with those fierce eyes. Dash lashed out with a kick, trying to defend herself, but the stallion dodged the blow with ease. He subdued her, standing on her rear legs to prevent further strikes.

He started to lean in closer, and kept advancing until he was inches from her face. She could practically feel him, his shallow breaths coming out of his nose and onto her skin. She shielded her face, and prepared for the worst.

Then, the stallion let out a long exhale, as if he had been holding his breath for ages, and stood erect, taking a few steps back. When she heard his steps going away from her, Dash opened her eyes to see the stallion standing a few feet away.

The glow had faded from his face, revealing a pair of gentle, emerald green eyes beneath. He looked down at her with an initial expression of content, but quickly changed it to concern when he saw the look of fear on her face.

His expression soon shifted to fear as well, and the smile ran from his lips. He looked around, spread his wings, and took off straight up into the night sky like a rocket, disappearing into the inky blackness.

Dash picked herself up and scanned the night sky for any sign of the stranger, but saw nothing. That was when she realized she was trembling. After Dash slowed her breathing and calmed down, she stumbled from the pines and onto the open rock face of the cliff overlooking Ponyville. She kicked off into the air; Dash was shaken, but could still fly. She slowly made her way back to town, all the events of the night dancing through her head.

Author's Note

Hey guys. I hope you enjoyed the first chapter. If not, please tell why in the comments; I will be more than happy to try fix whatever problems you have. If you did enjoy the piece, please let me know as well. Any sort of feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Investigations

Dash woke up on a cloud.

“What?" she thought “Was that all a dream?”

She couldn’t remember if the things from the night before had actually happened or if she had just been imagining. She tried as hard as she could to recall reality, but she didn’t have a single solid memory of the previous night.

She decided to go for a quick cruise to try and set her mind straight.

As she flew over Ponyville, she looked down at the town square. It was market day.

“Well, I do need a few things,” she said aloud to herself.

She descended into the marketplace, landed, and began browsing, looking for a vendor to buy some groceries from. Eventually she found an orange-maned mare selling carrots and stood in line.

As she waited for the confused customer in front of her to finish debating the price for a bushel of the vegetables, she began scanning the crowd. She saw several ponies that she recognized. There was Lyra buying new strings for her harp at the music store, and Rose buying a new flower vase. Everything was typical, as it normally was in Ponyville.

Then she saw him, the stallion from the mountains.

He was standing in the middle of the market looking at her. Dash’s heart skipped a beat. The two locked eyes, and her initial fear was routed by the kindness she saw on his face.

The stallion had gentle, proud green eyes, and she felt comforted as well as intimidated by his muscular, gnarled physique. He smiled at her, a sort of comforting grin, the kind of smile her father used to give her when she was scared or nervous.

Then, he silently turned and faded into the crowd.

“Wait!” cried Dash, “Who are you?!”

She began to run, pushing through the mob of ponies in the streets as she chased after the stallion, but he was nowhere to be found. He had vanished. Dash had no idea who this strange stallion was, and she wanted to know. But, she couldn’t find out by herself.

Dash flew as fast as she could to Sugarcube Corner to find Pinkie Pie, then to Fluttershy’s cottage, then to Rarity’s boutique, then Sweet Apple Acres to find Applejack, and finally to Twilight’s library, telling each of her friends the same thing, “Meet in the library in ten minutes! Something really weird is happening and I need your help to figure it out!”

Sure enough, ten minutes later, six ponies were all in the town’s library, five of them listening to Rainbow Dash’s story about the strange grey stallion. When she finished, the others just looked at each other, both concerned and confused as to what the identity of the newcomer could be.

Fluttershy was the first to speak, and in a timid voice, asked “W-were you scared Rainbow Dash? I would have been.”

“What?!” the blue mare exclaimed, looking to her fellow pegasus,“Come on, Fluttershy! It’s me, remember. I don’t get scared.”

Dash tried to look like she was telling the truth, but one glance from Applejack convinced her that none of them bought it.

Quickly, to get back on topic, and to cover up her embarrassment, she asked, “So, do any of you have any idea what could be going on?”

Pinkie Pie had the first idea. “Maybe he’s an evil, terrible, nasty, night stalking, pony hunter!”

She stalked up to Rainbow, impersonating some sort of ghastly killer as she stuck her tongue through her teeth and raised her hooves like a ghoul.

“I don’t think that’s it Pinkie,” said Twilight sarcastically. Pinkie was always being a little weird, but they had all learned to tolerate it, more or less, “Or else Dash probably wouldn’t be here right now.”

“Could it have been a ghost?” suggested Rarity.

“There ain’t no such thing as ghosts!” countered Applejack, “Ya really think it was a ghost?”

“Yes, a ghost or an entity of sorts could be responsible for the apparitions Dash has been seeing.”

Applejack rolled her eyes, and drawled, “Ghosts don’ exist Rarity. I thought ya knew that. Only fillies believe in those stories.”

A small voice behind Twilight quietly said, “I-I don’t know. It could have been a ghost.”

“I bet I could figure it out if I did some studying,” chimed Twilight, making her way over to her bookcase.

The others sighed, not wanting to participate in one of her lengthy reading sessions.

“Alright, ya go on ahead with that,” said Applejack as she and the others made their way to the door.

Just as she touched the door handle, they all jumped at the sound of a very near lightning bolt. The sudden crack of thunder rang out, and rain began coming down hard as well. Startled, the five hesitated, not wanting to forsake the shelter of the library for the storm.

Rarity spoke for them all, and with a nervous laugh, suggested, “Or maybe, we could help you read.”

They each grabbed a book about magic, monsters or anomalies, and started flipping through pages.

****************

The storm had passed, and the six friends were no closer to figuring out their mystery than when they started.

They all sprawled out on the floor, covered in books, groaning, except for Twilight, who was still diligently reading.

“This sucks,” grumbled Dash as the other four groaned in agreement.

“But we have to figure out what’s going on! And none of these books have anything on weird pegasi whose eyes glow!” shouted Pinkie Pie as she threw a text into the air.

Applejack suggested, “It’d be so much easier if we could just meet the guy. We might be able to get him to just tell us everything.” The others groaned in agreement a second time.

Twilight came over to the five and tried to encourage them, saying, “Oh come on! It’s not that bad, is it? This is actually kind of fun!”

This time, a groan of disagreement replied.

“Ya know what, I’m just gonna go and try and find him again. This time, when I find him, I won’t let him get away. I’ll bet I could make him talk,” stated Dash, confidently punching her hooves together.

“Ah’ll help ya,” agreed Applejack, “Workin’ outside is better than bein’ cooped up in here anyhow.”

Pinkie Pie, who was beginning to actually twitch for the lack of a release for her energy, seemed to float towards the door, practically vibrating as she did. She began stuttering, unable to make her words audible due to her energetic shivering, but the others knew she would be accompanying them.

“I too could use some exercise,” said the white unicorn in her sophisticated accent.

The four trotted out the door, shouting goodbyes through the doorway as they left.

Only two remained, but Twilight knew Fluttershy was staying not because she wanted to, but to keep her company.

“You can go too if you want,” assured Twilight without looking up from her book.

Without responding, the yellow pegasus went for the door, and galloped to catch up to the others, leaving the library in silence, the only sound being that of an occasional page turning as Twilight read on.

She finished another book, closing it with a thud, no closer to what she wanted to know than when she had first opened it. Twilight walked over to her bookshelf near the window to try and find a conclusive source.

“A History of Equestrian Magic; no, too broad. Rare Natural Phenomena; maybe, but from what Dash described, he was certainly not natural,” she said to herself as she cycled through various books. “A Guide to Uncommon Magic; that might help.”

Twilight carried the book over to the sofa, and curled up to read. Before she lost herself in her studies, she got up to get a few things; a glass of water in case she got thirsty, a quill and some paper for notes, and some oats for a snack. She levitated the water, quill and paper in her magic after she found them, and walked back to the sofa with them in a purple aura.

Just as she was about to retrieve the oats, some movement outside her window seized her attention. She moved towards the windowsill to identify what had caught her eye.

It was a large pony who matched Dash’s description perfectly, except that his eyes weren’t glowing. He was walking on the road outside the library, carrying three giggling fillies on his back. He was smiling, even chuckling a little bit too.

Upon a closer look, she realized that the fillies on his back were Scootaloo, Applebloom and Sweetie Belle, all wearing crimson capes.

Twilight ran outside in disbelief. The others had gone to find this stallion, and he had practically come to her.

She pushed through the library’s door and stood in the road in front of him. He stopped when he saw her, and the fillies he toted peeked out from behind his wings.

“Hey Twilight!” shouted Applebloom, smiling from ear to ear.

“What are you all doing?” asked Twilight, concerned.

“Oh, you mean on his back?” asked Scootaloo as she hopped down, “We just kinda climbed on and he never told us to get off.”

Twilight shook her head, “No, I mean what are you doing with him?”

She pointed at the grey pegasus, who eyed her extended hoof suspiciously as the fillies began to explain.

“Well,” started Sweetie Belle, “we were in the mountains earlier trying to see if any of us could get a biology cutie mark. We didn’t find any animals though.”

Her head lowered in shame, but it quickly picked back up again when she heard her friends at her side. Scootaloo continued where the white filly left off.

“Anyway, we got caught in the storm. We couldn’t get back to town before it started, and when we heard thunder, Applebloom and Sweetie Bell got scared.”

“You were scared too!” protested Applebloom.

“No I wasn’t!”

“You thought your shadow was a windigo, and you kept screaming for the rain to leave you alone,” said Sweetie Bell, raising an eyebrow at her.

Scootaloo blushed, and looked around, making sure nopony else was around, then admitted, “We were all scared, so we hid under a big rock in the foothills.”

Applebloom took her turn, “After a little while, he found us and took us outta the mountains. We went back to his house, and he gave us blankets and hot chocolate, and we warmed up by the fireplace! Now he’s just making sure we get home alright.”

Twilight inspected the three. They seemed to be unharmed, and they were happy, as usual. She turned her attention to the stallion.

He definitely matched Dash’s story, from his size and color to his abundant scars. He was very strong by the looks of him; each muscle in his neck was thick and defined. His mane was cut short, as Dash had said it was, and his coat had a glossy appearance that reflected the sunlight.

His cutie mark was strange; Twilight had never seen one quite like it before. It was a black shield rimmed in gold, adorned with a white lightning bolt in its center.

He returned her gaze, staring back with an eyebrow raised. Twilight began to realize that, though he was the one Dash had seen, he wasn’t as bad as she made him out to be. After all, he had rescued the fillies, who were still in good health and spirits.

His expression softened, and a smile slowly spread across his face. When she looked into his friendly green eyes, Twilight’s suspicions all left at once, and she knew he wasn’t dangerous.

He laughed quietly to himself when he realized she was inspecting him, and then shook his head, saying, “My apologies, I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Clydesdale Sterling.”

His voice was deep and smooth, and held confidence along with gentleness. He bowed slightly, his broad muzzle lowering in a gesture of respect.

“I’m Twilight Sparkle,” she said, flustered by meeting the stallion after all the hype Dash had built around him, “It’s good to meet you.”

“Likewise,” he said, smiling again.

Then, he gave another bow saying, “Until next time,” and continued down the road into town.

As Twilight watched him go, she kept remembering his eyes, along with his chivalry, and she couldn’t help but smile.

Author's Note

Hey guys! Thanks for reading! Please comment on what you liked or what you didn't, and I'll try and fix it. By the way, just in case this piece inspired you guys (however unlikely that may be), I don't mind at all if you want to post art inspired by my work on Deviantart or anything like that, just as long as I'm given credit and you leave a link in the comments so I can check it out. Thanks, I hope you keep reading!

Icebreakers

“Clydesdale Sterling?” asked Pinkie Pie, “That was his name? I can’t believe it; I don’t know him. He must be new to Ponyville if I don’t know him already.”

It was a few hours later, and the six were together in the library again. The other five had returned, and were listening to the second story of the day regarding the town’s newest inhabitant.

“What makes you think he was harmless?” asked Fluttershy, her interest peaking.

“I never said he was harmless, I said he didn’t seem dangerous; not to us anyway. He definitely wasn’t harmless. He looked… tough, but still unimposing somehow.”

“Twi, did he have a scar on his face like this?” asked Rainbow Dash, tracing a line across the right side of her face starting at her temple and running down to her cheek.

“Yes.” She replied.

“Then he was the one from the mountain. He’s gotta be, it can’t be anypony else.”

“So, we know there’s a new stallion in Ponyville,” began Rarity, “We know his name and what he looks like, but we have a complete lack of any other information about him. Not where he’s from, or why he’s here; and I think we all want to find out.”

The others nodded, and they began hatching plans to quench their curiosities.

****************

“I don’t think this is a very good idea,” protested Twilight.

“Relax, darling. Everything will be fine. It’s not like anypony will get hurt,” replied Rarity assuringly, looking back at her from the roadside.

“Ah, I don’ know Rarity. I think I’m with Twi on this one. It just doesn’t seem right,” said Applejack.

“Oh, would you just chill! This is a great idea; it’s foalproof! That stallion came into town on this road earlier, so he’ll probably come back out on it too. And when he does, Rarity’ll work her magic and we’ll know everything about him in an hour,” assured Rainbow Dash.

“Yeah, and after she gets him to go with her, we’ll just show up, and I’ll welcome him to Ponyville! I get to sing the welcome song, and we’ll be friends forever!” exclaimed Pinkie, jumping up and down.

“It just doesn’ seem right to use Rarity as bait,” stated Applejack, looking to her friends for their opinions.

Before they could answer, a sophisticated accent from the road protested, “I am not bait! I’m simply a persuasion to try and get him to stop and talk to us.”

“But, what if it doesn’t work?” asked a small voice.

“Fluttershy, this is Rarity we’re talking about. No stallion ever turned her down for anything,” said Dash as the group looked towards the white mare, who was standing on the side of the road and fussing over her looks, “If anypony can get this stallion to talk, it’s her.”

“Dash, are you okay? You’re kind of obsessing over this guy,” asked Twilight.

“I am not!”

“Um, yes, you are,” said Fluttershy quietly.

Dash rose above her friends, threw her hooves up in the air, and shouted, “I am not! How could you say I’m obsessing over a stranger? I’m not obsessing!”

Her tirade was interrupted when Rarity hissed, “Quiet, he’s coming.”

They ducked behind a bush as they listened to the sound of approaching steps on the cobblestone road. As they grew louder, Rarity crouched on the roadside, holding her back left ankle, and put on one of the most dramatic performances any of them had ever seen.

As the stallion came into view, she began wincing and crying; acting of course but still appearing to be in distress. Her sobs grew louder as the stallion approached, with the group expectantly waiting for him to stop, giving her a chance to lure him into a conversation.

But, the stallion walked right past her without even turning his head.

Rarity looked up in disbelief, and seeing the stallion’s backside continuing down the street, she rolled onto her back, gripping her leg, and fitting the role of a damsel in distress, cried, “Ahh! Oh, my ankle, it hurts! Oh the pain! Somepony, please help me!”

The stallion, without turning around, audibly said, “I know you’re not hurt.”

The white unicorn’s sapphire eyes widened in surprise to match the others’ concealed in the shrubbery. Rarity looked at the stallion’s back receding from her, then back at her ‘hurt’ ankle. She needed to think of something before her chance slipped away.

She acted without thoroughly thinking of a new plan, looking back to her leg and saying, “Oh, it feels better.”

The unicorn darted to catch up to the stallion as the other five crept along the roadside, just out of sight. She reached his side, panting, and struggled to keep pace with his long stride.

“So, what’s your name,” she said out of breath, trying to buy time.

The stallion looked at her with a suspicious look as he walked, then back ahead of him, replying, “I’m Clyde.”

“Oh funny,” she said forcing a nervous laugh, “A friend of mine said she met someone that looked just like you named Clydesdale Sterling.”

"So you're friends with Twilight?"

"Yes."

“Well, that is my full name, but I normally just go by Clyde. And you?”

“I’m Rarity,” she said through heavy breaths, trotting to keep up with the much larger pony’s gate.

“Nice to meet you,” replied the stallion, offering a friendly smile, but not slowing down in the slightest.

Rarity quickened her pace to catch up with him again, passing him on the road and stepping in front of him. The two stopped, facing each other in the middle of the cobblestone path. Her mane was out of place from trying to keep up and she was out of breath, but she tried to look as attractive as she could.

“So, you’re new to town?”

“Yes. I got here a few days ago,” he said as he tried to go around her, but she very deliberately blocked his path.

The unicorn tried to think of what to say next but couldn’t. She looked at her hooves, debating her next move. She had to get the stallion back to the library somehow, but feigning injury hadn’t even stopped him, and small talk wasn’t leading her anywhere either. She decided to go to plan C.

Rarity looked back up into the stallion’s intense green eyes. He was looking back with a slightly confused expression, an eyebrow raised and his jaw set. She batted her eyelids and began slowly advancing on him, swaying a bit as she did. Seducing this stallion would definitely get him to do anything; it had worked on others in the past, so surely it would work now.

“Well,” she began, “seeing how you’re new to town, and don’t know many ponies here, perhaps we could be friends.”

She made eyes at him as she brushed along his side, and cooed, “Maybe even more than friends.”

Rarity looked up into his chiseled face and smiled, trying her best to entice him. The stallion looked back, an amused grin across his face. He opened his mouth to speak, and Rarity anticipated his compliance.

“Thanks, but I’ve got some things I need to attend to.”

He bowed as he said, “Until next time.”

The pegasus suppressed a chuckle until he had walked a few feet away from her, then spread his wings and kicked off into the sky, flying towards the Saddleback Mountains.

****************

Rarity stood frozen in disbelief as the other five sprang from cover and came to her side.

“I’ve… I’ve been rejected,” she said, her eyelid twitching and her jaw hanging loosely.

Her friends began snickering. The situation she was in was ironic enough, but coupled with the look on her face, they couldn’t contain their laughter, especially Pinkie Pie. She was noisily giggling, causing Rarity to whip her head around.

“This isn’t funny!” she protested, “This is serious! This has never happened to me before,” she explained, panic rising in her voice.

“It’s fine,” assured Rainbow Dash, “you were just a little off your game, that’s all.”

“It is not fine!” she whined “What’s the matter with me?”

“Well,” started Applejack through giggles, “I don’ know if it’s the way you started out, with that ‘hurt ankle’ gimmick, or the way you forced yerself on him like some love sick filly, but you were ‘bout as smooth as old applesauce.”

The five laughed, and a smile even spread across Rarity’s face.

“Sorry Rarity, but that was awful,” said Twilight, a giggle escaping as she finished.

Now they all laughed together. It was awful, and they embraced it. When the spell had passed, Rainbow Dash sighed.

“Do we have another plan?”

The group grew silent in thought. Minutes passed until the quiet was interrupted, and even then, the voice behind it was nearly a whisper.

“Doesn’t cider season start tomorrow?”

“Yeah, but what does that have to do with this Sterling guy?” answered Dash.

“Well, with enough cider, we might be able to get him to talk.”

The other five were stunned.

“Fluttershy, how do you know about this sort of thing?” asked Twilight slowly.

The yellow pegasus only shrugged, the corners of her mouth drawing up in a timid smile.

Rainbow Dash, her jaw still hanging loosely, asked, “You mean you wanna get him drunk?”

“I never said that,” said Fluttershy quietly, “I only said with enough, it might be easier to get him to tell us about himself.”

“That’s actually a really good idea,” stated Pinkie Pie, “Ponies at my parties do seem pretty talkative after they’ve had some time at the punch bowl.”

“Well, it’s better than anything I’ve got,” said the purple unicorn, “Applejack, can we use your barn as a makeshift tavern tomorrow?”

“I was plannin’ on fixin’ it up that way anyhow. Mac and I can finish it up by sunrise, but ya’ll need to put up posters or somethin’ so the new guy knows what’s goin’ on tomorrow.”

And with that, the six parted ways to lay the ground work of their new and improved plan.

Author's Note

Hey guys! Thanks for reading this far. Please leave a comment if you have any questions or concerns on my work, and I'll try and respond. Thanks again.

Cider Season

The next day, around noon, the mares, with the exception of Applejack, who was running cider sales, all anxiously marched down to Sweet Apple Acres.

Pinkie, bouncing along, sang out, “I’ll be so happy if that stallion comes! Then, I’ll be able to sing my welcome song, and then we’ll be instant best friends!”

“Well, I’ll be rather shocked if he doesn’t come to the opening day of cider season. It’s inconceivable that he could have missed the signs we put up all over town yesterday, and it’s the biggest festivity west of Canterlot at this time of year,” stated Rarity.

Her blue companion floated to her side, and giggling, said, “I still can’t believe it was Fluttershy’s idea to try and get him drunk.”

The mares giggled while their yellow friend only blushed, forcing a nervous smile.

“If he shows up, it should be pretty easy to keep him drinking,” said the town’s librarian.

“What do you know?” countered Dash, “You’re an egghead. When have you ever even been in a bar, let alone gone over your limit?”

“Well, I’ve read about the effects of too much cider on ponies’ minds, and I saw a tavern in Canterlot once.”

The others laughed, but Twilight didn’t see anything wrong with it. As they approached the edge of A.J’s farm, they could hear faint notes of music in the direction of the barn and could see dozens of pastel ponies around the barn, a string band playing on a makeshift stage a few yards out in the pasture. They quickened their pace towards the party, with Pinkie leading the charge.

The group found their way inside. The Apples had done an amazing job transforming the barn into a communal gathering place in just one night. Wooden tables filled the expansive room, all of which were filled with cups of cider and the ponies drinking from them.

The five pushed their way through the crowd of cider sippers, and approached a new wooden bar the Apples had built. Big Macintosh and Applejack were handing out drinks while Applebloom and Granny Smith sold cider tickets.

When Applejack saw her friends, her fresh eyes lit up even brighter, and she made her way over to them while her kin continued turning a prophet.

“Hey y’all!” she shouted from the other side of the counter.

“Wow! You did a great job this year A.J.!” remarked Twilight.

“I can’t wait to try the cider!” said Pinkie excitedly.

“Aww, shucks. Y’all are makin’ me blush.”

“So, has the stallion come yet?” asked Fluttershy.

“I think we should stop calling him ‘the stallion’. He has a name you know,” advised Twilight.

“You’re right dear, but we don’t really know him yet either,” explained Rarity.

“Well let’s change that today. So A.J., has he come by yet?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“Yep, he bought a cup o’ cider and went to drinkin’ it real slow-like. He’s been sittin’ at that table there for ‘bout an hour or so.”

A.J. pointed to the back of the barn, where the grey stallion sat alone, staring into his drink, then up at the crowd, then back to the drink again.

“Alright, what say we try or luck girls?” suggested the fashionista as she bought a glass of the sweet drink and began making her way over to where the stallion sat.

The others followed suit, trailing her to the secluded table with cider jugs in hoof. As they approached, the stallion leaned back in his chair and turned his head to them. Twilight could see that he recognized her, as well as Rarity, by the spark in his eyes. That was when she noticed that Pinkie Pie had disappeared. She paid no heed to her friend’s absence; she was sure she would pop up again later.

As the group approached his table, he smiled, finally recognizing somepony at the gathering.

He bowed his head slightly, and in a voice as smooth as honey, he greeted them, saying, “Twilight, it’s good to see you again. As well as you Ms. Rarity; how’s your ankle?”

He spoke very deliberately, annunciating every syllable of every word, and his voice held no trace of an accent.

As Rarity was blushing he looked behind the two whom he knew to two fellow pegasi, and said, “I don’t believe we’ve formally met. I’m Clyde.”

Fluttershy whispered a nearly silent greeting, and the stallion was able to make out her name; he obviously had good hearing.

But Dash, remembering the night she first saw him, was hesitant. She was surer she would be able to confront him when he was a distance from her, but now they were face to face, and she felt intimidated. But, when she found solace in his fiery emerald eyes, she forgot her preconceptions and introduced herself.

“I’m Rainbow Dash,” she said, “You sure we’ve never met? You look pretty familiar.”

The stallion lowered his glass, and answered, “Can’t say that I remember you from anywhere. Then again, my memory could be failing me.”

The two stared each other down, each suspicious of the other. Clyde refused to break eye contact, let alone blink, and didn’t even look away when he raised his cider glass to his lips. Suddenly, the lock was broken by a sudden burst of confetti and the sound of noisemakers and kazoos.

Pinkie Pie had returned, towing a massive cart behind her.

The four mares around the table made way for her, stepping to the side. They stood facing the huge party wagon, which she had somehow towed inside without being noticed. She promptly set up her cart in front of the table, and started excitedly shaking.

“You’re new here!” she yelled.

“Umm, yes,” said the stallion, looking around to find that nopony in the barn was as confused as he was.

“Well I’m Pinkie Pie, and I’m friends with everypony in Ponyville, and now you’re here, and so I’m gonna be your friend! But first, I need to welcome you to town!”

Clyde looked to the mares on his sides, his confusion growing into concern. They weren’t shocked or surprised in the least at the unusual and very direct pony jumping up and down and vibrating about in front of him.

Pinkie pulled a string on the multicolored cart, and the entire contraption unfolded revealing a very random set of objects; some he recognized, others he hadn’t an inkling of what they could be.

Music started playing; it varied from the folk genre the band outside was performing, and Clyde realized it was coming from the collapsible wagon. Pinkie began to serenade him. He could only watch in disbelief as the pink mare recited a seemingly rehearsed song welcoming him to the town. He began to panic, and looked around the rest of the barn to see that though all present had seen what was going on, none of them paid attention to it, almost like it was a normal occurrence.

As quickly as she started, the mare stopped singing, and the music halted abruptly. Suddenly, the stallion felt a gush of hot air blow into his face. He closed his eyes as his lips were blown back around his face by the force of the wind. He reopened his eyelids to find himself almost completely covered in confetti and glitter, including the inside of his cup, and Pinkie holding a string connected to an enormous howitzer of sorts.

“Oh dear,” said Rarity from his side, seeing Pinkie’s party cannon had ruined his drink. “Here, let me get you another.”

“Thanks,” he said, pushing his first glass away and shaking the colorful strips of paper off of his hide.

Rarity trotted off to the bar. Meanwhile, Pinkie Pie, excited to be at a fun party, began singing another song. This one was about cider, and she jumped around the barn, singing words she seemed to make up on the spot to everypony with a cup.

Clyde looked to his side, and saw Dash watching her hyperactive companion’s antics with a blank expression on her face.

“Is this normal?” he asked hesitantly.

“Yes.”

“Ah.”

The group watched the shenanigans of their friend until Rarity returned to the table, telekinetically holding several mugs of cider in her magic. Each at the table took one. Dash, recalling their plan to try to loosen the stallion’s tongue, proposed a toast.

“Let’s drink to our new friend,” she said, lifting her cup towards the center of the table, “To Clyde.”

Six jugs clinked together in unison, and the group began to drink. Clyde swallowed slowly and smoothly, while Dash chugged the drink down in noisy gulps, licking her lips when the last of it flowed down her throat. The others drank their entire cup in one go as well, but when Twilight finished, she began hiccupping noisily.

Dash looked to the stallion. His face wasn’t flushed yet, which couldn’t be said for her bookworm of a friend. Dash ordered another round, and again, proposed a toast. The mugs clinked together in the middle of the table a second time, and the group downed the sweet refreshment.

***************

Hours had passed since they began. The stallion had drunk at least forty bits’ worth of cider, and he hadn’t much changed since they first saw him; his face was only now beginning to turn red. It was well into the night now, and most of the other ponies had gone home. The only ones left were the mares, still lingering around the table.

Clyde was still reclining in his chair, smiling contently, but the others were sprawled around the room. Dash and Applejack, who had come over and joined in the toasts when business had slowed, were seated across from him, intent on their goal of loosening the stallion’s tongue and persisting to reach it. The others weren’t as enduring.

Twilight was passed out in a chair, snoring audibly. She had been done before they even really got started, but she had tried her best. Fluttershy was passed out on a bale of hay, sprawled out over the yellow stalks, mouth agape. Rarity was fighting sleep on a stool, leaning against the counter and mumbling incoherently, nodding off occasionally. Pinkie Pie was on the stool next to her, laughing hysterically at the badly slurred jokes she was telling, though nopony was listening at all.

Clyde looked across the table. The mares’ faces were both bright red, and it was obvious that they were well past intoxicated. In all honesty, he wasn’t really feeling that buzzed yet. His thoughts were still, for the most part, clear, so he began contemplating why they kept buying him rounds.

“Maybe they're just trying to be friendly?” he hypothesized, “But then why me? I wouldn’t spend as much money on a stranger as they have. Maybe it was a dare? No, that doesn’t seem likely, none of them have even made a move on me yet. Unless they’re trying to get me drunk? That’s got to be it, but why? Ah, who cares; at least they’re buying.”

Rainbow Dash was battling her own eyelids, struggling to keep them open and pretending she was fine. She forced another toast, and began to drink from her cup, groaning as she did. When she felt the cider hit bottom, she belched, loudly.

Applejack drank as well, then looked at her winged friend, her eyes heavy, then back to the stallion, and then fell backwards out of her chair, passed out. The sky-blue mare watched as her friend hit the wooden floor, hard, and then slowly turned to look back across the table.

Clyde was still fine.

He looked at the blue mare across from him, the only one of her group that was still awake, and began asking questions; it was unsure how much longer she would even be conscious, and he decided not to wait for her to start talking on her own.

“So, why did you keep buying me drinks tonight?”

“Well, I wanted you to tell me stuff,” she slurred.

“What kind of stuff?”

“Oh, ya know, like where you’re from, and what you do, and why your eyes glow,” she responded, nodding through heavy eyes as she raised an empty mug towards him.

“So that was you on the mountain?”

“What mount… oh yeah, the mountain. That was me. I saw you. Your eyes were white then. I told my friends about you, and we wanted to meet you, because we thought you were kinda weird.”

“That’s all you want to know? Where I came from, why I’m here, and why my eyes glow.”

“Yup.”

“Well then,” he said, lifting his glass and handing Dash another as well, “It’s my turn to make a toast. To new friends; may they be wiser in the future.” He nodded to his fellow pegasus, then tipped back his cup. When he looked back down, His newfound drinking buddy was face down, her head buried in the table and her cider spilling out onto the floor.

Clyde clanked his mug down on the wooden table top and gauged the room. He was the only sober one left; each of the mares was sound asleep with warm apple cider in their bellies and strange dreams in their heads. The two mares at the bar had passed out like the rest of their companions, and the room was filled with the sound of silence.

Sighing heavily, he muttered to himself, “And then there were none.”

He rose from the table, and began picking up the mares one by one.

Author's Note

Hey guys! I'm really having fun with this story, and I hope it's just as much fun for my readers. Please comment with the good and the bad, and I'll try and fix the bad. Thanks!

Sterling

Dash awoke in her bed the next day. Her head throbbed, and her stomach felt queasy. She groaned as she rolled over, and through bloodshot magenta eyes, she saw a note on her nightstand. Over the top of the neatly folded parchment was a lone flower; a yellow rose.

She leaned towards the small table, lifted the flower, and opened the note, reading what it said:

Dear Rainbow Dash,
The answers to your questions may be hard to believe, but if you really want to know, meet me in the Saddlebacks today at 4. Your friends are invited too. My cabin is along the path leading west, out of Ponyville. You should be able to see the house from the road. I’ll have a fire going so just look for smoke if you get lost.
Until next time,
Clyde
P.S. Thanks for the cider.

She unfolded the last bit of the paper, and out fell a small pouch. It made a jingling sound when it landed on the floor, and when she opened it, she found a collection of gold coins. Amidst the bits was another note, but this one only said “repayment”. She knew it had to be for the cider she bought him.

Dash checked her clock. It was nearly 3; she had to be at his house in an hour. She groaned again, put on her lucky sunglasses to conceal her red eyes, and forced herself out of bed and down to Ponyville to find her friends.

****************

Rainbow Dash flew over the buildings of the town, scanning the ponies below for her closest friends. She drifted over the market, but didn’t have any luck. They weren’t in the park either, and even A.J. wasn’t at work in Sweet Apple Acres.

Dash started to think where else they could be. They couldn’t have already left; the town’s clock tower was just now striking 3 in the afternoon. The only other place they could be was at home. She darted to the library as fast as she could go hung over to test her theory.

She knocked on the door of the living oak that was Twilight’s home, but heard nothing inside. She knocked a second time, and heard the pitter patter of footsteps approaching the door from within. The door swung open, and a small dragon stood before her.

“Hey Spike,” she said, forcing a smile down at him, “Is Twilight around?”

“Hey Rainbow. She hasn’t woken up yet. I’m starting to get worried about her.”

The light blue mare stepped inside the hollow tree, and ascended the staircase to the librarian’s bedroom, Spike watching as she floated up the stairs. She opened the door, not even attempting to be quiet, and saw her friend sprawled over her bed, sound asleep. On her nightstand was a note as well, again, with a yellow rose laid over it. She picked up the paper, put her sunglasses on top of her head, read it, and found it said more or less the same thing hers had.

“Hey Twi, wake up.” she barked.

The unicorn’s ear twitched, but the rest of her body stayed still.

“Get up Twilight. We need to be somewhere.”

Again, her friend remained motionless. Dash grabbed a nearby flower vase, removed its resident flora, and brought it to the bed. She began to tilt the vessel, and as the first few drops were beginning to clear the vase’s edge, her friend rolled over with open eyes. The pegasus quickly put the vase down so as not to alert her of her previous intentions, and bid a hasty good morning.

The purple unicorn groaned, holding her head in her hooves.

“Ohhhhh, my head.”

“Come on,” Dash said, “You need to get up. We need to be somewhere in a little bit.”

“Where? It’s Saturday.”

Dash tossed Clyde’s note into her lap. The bookworm immediately skimmed over the note, looking up when she finished.

Rainbow Dash, standing in the doorway, said, “Be at Rarity’s in ten minutes.”

“Why?” inquired the ever-curious unicorn.

“To freshen up; you look awful.”

The blue mare offered a sly smile to let her know she was only kidding, then dropped her shades over her eyes, turned, and trotted out the door to retrieve the other four.

****************

Rainbow Dash sped around Ponyville, finding the same scene in each of her friends’ homes; somepony sound asleep in their bed with a yellow rose and a note on their nightstand. She woke each of them, and then waited for them to shake off the previous night’s ‘festivities’ before telling them to meet at Rarity’s.

Eventually, they were all in the boutique, trying to make themselves appear presentable.

“So, it’s a casual event?” Rarity asked while brushing her mane.

“Sounds like it from the note,” said a groggy Pinkie Pie while she washed her face in a tub of lukewarm water.

“I just hope it goes well,” said Fluttershy while arranging her mass of lightly colored hair into its usual style.

“Chill, in the note Clyde said he’d tell us about himself, so we won’t have to try to get him to talk anymore,” said Dash rubbing her eyes.

The six didn’t take long to get ready, and within ten minutes they were out the boutique’s door. They walked briskly along the westbound road where Clyde had told them he lived. Eventually, they saw light smoke rising above the trees with the towering mountains in the background, and followed it to their destination, the walk being enough to chase the last of their persisting cramps and headaches away.

The group approached the home's front door. It was a large log cabin, two stories high and very wide. A pile of chopped firewood was stacked neatly next to the porch, and a lonely ponderosa grew adjacent to the house’s northern wall.

They reached the door and knocked.

From within, they heard a muffled, “Come in.”

They opened the heavy wooden door and stepped inside. The interior of the home was beautiful. To the left of the entrance was an expansive living room filled with a large arm chair, an elongated sofa, and a coffee table topped with a bowl filled with plump green apples, all in front of a large, lit fireplace and a stone mantle. Several shelves and a single, enormous glass case filled the space at the back of the room. The cabinets and shelves held several treasures, most of them made of precious metals, but some were of crystal. The case’s sole content was breathtaking; a pristine set of Equestrian battle armor, each piece hung on a wire frame somewhat resembling a pegasus.

The house was filled with the fresh, sweet scent of pine, revealing the homeowner’s choice of building wood. To their right was a staircase leading upwards to more rooms. Beyond the staircase was the dining room, adjacent to the kitchen, in which their host was cooking. The mares could see him reared up against the counter, frying tomatoes over the stove in a cast iron pan. He turned from his cooking for a second to tell them to make themselves at home, and then resumed tending to his culinary work.

Most of them went into the living room to gape at his dazzling collections, but Pinkie Pie went straight to the stallion’s side.

“What’s for supper?” she asked gleefully.

Fearing she may break into song again, the stallion eyed her carefully before answering, “Tomatoes, which are going over some bread in the oven, some provolone I bought from town today, fruit salad and wild blackberries.”

“Yummy!” said the pink earth pony, her mouth beginning to water.

“It’s almost done; should only be a few more minutes. You could go take a look around if you want.”

“Okie Dokie Lokie,” she said, bouncing out of the kitchen.

“So long as you’re anywhere but the kitchen, away from everything sharp,” he said under his breath.

Suddenly, the mare returned, seemingly materializing next to him in an instant.

She looked to him, and asked, “What did you say?” with an exceptional amount of high pitched cheer in her voice.

“N-nothing,” he said, looking to where she was milliseconds before, then back to where she, somehow, stood now.

His guest looked into his eyes, her face contorted in a sort of squinting glare.

Then suddenly, her face relaxed, and she smiled saying, “Ok then,” and bounded off a second time, humming.

Clyde let out a sigh and shook his head as he turned back to the meal.

Five minutes later, dinner was served. The mares stopped gazing at the many lustrous antiques and treasures in the living room and took a seat at a hickory dining table while Clyde passed out plates filled with food.

As he was dishing up his own platter, Twilight complimented him, saying, “You have an absolutely gorgeous home.”

“Thank you. It’s pretty new; I finished building it about a week ago.”

“Wait,” started Applejack as she removed her hat, setting it on the table, “Ya built this yerself?”

He looked to her and nodded as he took his seat at the head of the table.

He waited to see how his cooking sat with his guests before eating. He could tell by their silence and their delving in for second bites that the bread had turned out crisp and the fruit was ripe.

“What do you think?” he proposed.

“It’s very good,” said Rarity, levitating a glass of water to her lips, “Much better than I could’ve done. I must say, I didn’t take you for a stallion of, umm…” she struggled to find the right word.

“Sophistication?” a deep voice proposed.

The white mare nodded as she wiped her mouth with a napkin suspended in a blue tinted glow.

“Well,” Clyde began as he started to swirl his cup around in his hoof, “You don’t need an accent or fancy clothes to be sophisticated. I guess you can’t judge a book by its cover.”

He turned his emerald eyes to Twilight as he finished, winking when her eyes met his, as if he knew the phrase would connect especially to her.

“I’m just sorry we don’t have very lively entertainment tonight,” he apologized satirically, looking at Pinkie Pie with an amused smile on his face.

The pink mare was too preoccupied with her meal to really notice his shining eyes, but the rest of the group caught on.

Clyde’s eyes floated towards the yellow mare sitting near the end of the table.

“Oh, you wore the rose,” he observed, genuinely pleased, “I knew you’d like it. It looks good on you; matches your coat.”

Fluttershy reached to her ear, behind which the yellow rose she found on her nightstand that morning was tucked. She blushed, smiling a bit; she really did like it. It was beautiful and rare, and made her feel… special.

“So you did carry us all home last night?” inquired the blue pegasus.

“Yes. I couldn’t just leave you there. And besides, after all the cider we drank together,” he turned to the orange mare at the table, who had set her hat on the table, and added, “which was delicious, by the way,” and then continued, “even you couldn’t fly straight, so I had to make sure you all got home safely. That’s what anypony ought to do. Besides, you six of all Equestrians would know that without simple acts like that, harmony in Equestria would crumble.”

He leaned back in his chair, the same way he had the previous night in the makeshift tavern, and continued swirling his glass of water in his hoof. He had a small smile on his face, but he hid any other clues as to what was going on between his ears.

Twilight looked to her friends. She saw four stunned faces returning her expression, but one pink face was still munching away happily at a fruit salad. She knew they were thinking the same thing she was; it was like he’d known them all along. Applejack challenged him,

“Now wait just a minute. I was there last night, and I heard the conversations goin’ ‘round the table, and nopony said anythin’ that’d lead you to knowin’ us so well all of a sudden. Now, you better tell me just who the hay you are and how you found out ‘bout me and my friends so darn quick.”

“All in good time,” He replied calmly.

The mares were uneasy; their host was being mysterious, almost creepy. They could tell he had no intention of coming clean at the moment, so after a nervous visual exchange, they hesitantly began eating again.

Author's Note

Hey guys! Thanks for reading. Please comment and rate. Thanks!

P.S. this is where the little things that will all tie together start happening, so read closely from now on.

The Guardian

When all the plates were empty, Clyde cleared the table, carrying the entire payload of dishes to the kitchen sink in one trip. He then sat in his chair in the living room. The mares followed him into the room, still a bit uneasy, and spread throughout the quarters. Rarity took a comfortable spot on the couch alongside her fellow unicorn. Applejack leaned against the wall nearest the fireplace, with Rainbow Dash doing the same on the opposite side of the room. The vibrant earth pony stood near the coffee table, adjacent to Fluttershy.

Clyde sat in silence for more than a little while, thinking of what to say. His guests waited quietly as well, though some couldn’t help but to fidget a little. Eventually, he rose from his seat, stood before the mantle, staring into the fire, and began to speak.

“I’m sorry if I’ve been a bit…strange, but I’ve got some secrets I’ve been keeping,” he said apologetically, “Dash knows this already, but I’m not normal. I’ll get to that, but before you can understand me now though, you need to know my past.”

The stallion’s demeanor had changed; he wasn’t arrogantly confident or cryptic like he was at dinner. Now he was more pious, more serious; this side of him was much kinder, more humble, more refined, and the mares took a liking to it.

“About three years ago, I joined the Equestrian military. I was just old enough to make it in, practically still a colt. After basic training, they put me in the 11th Cavalry; it’s a unit only pegasi can join.”

Twilight interrupted, saying matter-of-factly, “I’ve heard of that unit; they’re famous for their defeat of the changelings at the Battle of Canterbury Cove.”

Clyde turned to her, his face glum and sullen. He glanced to all in the room, and then turned back to the fire. The realization hit Twilight like a train. Shocked violet eyes moved up and down the stallion’s body, finally noticing the nature of his scars. They were battle scars; burns, cuts, gashes, and puncture wounds that had since, though roughly, healed.

“You were there?” she quietly asked, her eyes wide in epiphany.

Clyde silently made his way to the glass armor case. He looked reverently into its interior.

“This is what I wore that day.”

The mares looked a little closer at the armor’s plating, and could see the dents and holes, the gashes and the warped sections, and knew that the damage had been done in battle. Clyde turned his attention to a perfectly round hole in the front plate of the armor, then looked down at his own chest. Coinciding with the hole in the metal was a circular scar on his breast, along with many similar lines and cuts matching the damage in the iron.

His heart felt heavy, like it was sinking in his chest. He looked into his reflection in the case’s glass, and saw a scarred, chiseled face staring back at him. The image’s eyes mimicked his own, holding all the pain and sorrow he had come to know. His memories flooded back to him like a wave. He could hear the terrified screams of the wounded and dying alongside frightening cackles and roars. He could smell the blood again, its thick pungent odor accompanying the stench of death and decay. He could see his brothers’ faces, contorted in fear and pain, as they died all around him.

He jumped back to the present when he saw a movement apart from his own in the reflection, and felt something against his side. He looked down; Pinkie Pie had come to his side. She looked up at him, smiling. Her baby blue eyes sparkled, eyebrows slightly raised in an expression of innocent compassion. She didn’t have to say a thing; Clyde could tell what she was trying to convey, and looked back to her without trying to hide his grief. Then, surprisingly naturally, she put both hooves around his neck and hugged him.

The stallion drew in a breath suddenly, recoiling at first, but Pinkie held fast. The other five could see this was unfamiliar to him as they approached the pair. Clyde looked around the room quickly and nervously, and then back down at the pink earth pony wrapped around the base of his neck, and felt something he never had before. He didn’t know what it was, but it made him feel warm and light, and the sorrow in his heart was routed by something new. He finally leaned into the embrace, his chin coming to rest on top of her head. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath accompanied by the faintest scent of cotton candy. He didn’t see them, but he felt five more bodies join them.

The group held him tightly, and he felt less alone. He heard a small voice say soothingly, “It’s okay.” He held them tighter, and tried to tell himself everything really would be ok.

Eventually, the embrace ended when Pinkie released her vice-like, yet somehow gentle grip. Clyde continued with his story as he made his way back to the mantle, the mares all taking a spot on the enormous sofa or the soft carpet around the fireplace. He cleared his throat and continued his story.

“Anyway,” he sighed, “I was promoted for my ‘actions’ that day. I won six medals for valor, and most of the unit had gone down; only three others made it through, and they were lower ranks than me. So, the brass saw it fitting to make me the 11th’s Captain. The unit’s basically mine now.”

He began to pace the room, his guests staying put.

“Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to stick around for long; the princesses had different plans for me. Less than a moon after my promotion, I was summoned to Canterlot by Princess Luna. When I arrived, I found out she had chosen me to become a Guardian.”

Six confused faces confirmed what he already assumed, but before he could explain, he needed something. He trotted to the back of the room to a large oak cabinet and opened its ancient double doors.

As the doors swung open on squeaky hinges, Twilight leaned to try and see the contents. She couldn’t really see much, but she thought she saw another set of armor. The stallion blocked most of the cabinet’s interior as he reached into its back, retrieving a folded crimson flag.

He shut the doors and returned to the center of the room. Standing before the fireplace, his silhouette contrasted from behind by the orange glow of the fire, creating an eerie balance between dark and light. He held out the neatly folded banner, letting it unravel to the floor, and placed it on the table. The flag’s foreground displayed a symbol all too familiar; his cutie mark. Though it varied in color scheme slightly, the image was the same as the one on his flank.

“This is our banner,” he explained, “Guardians are an elite group of warriors that protect the citizens of Equestria. There are five of us at any given time, and we each protect one of the regions in Equestria: Central, South, East, West and North. My region is the Central Region. We’re chosen from the military by one of the three princesses; like I said, Luna chose me. When we’re selected, we’re each given a special gift that allows us to better protect our regions. Luna gave me the gift of sight.”

“She cast a spell on me, and now, when I want to, I can see and hear everything in the region. That’s how I knew about of each of you so well; I’ve been watching you six specifically.”

The mares grew concerned, thinking him a stalker, but he explained himself shortly after. He shook his head, realizing how awkward his last comment sounded.

“When I was assigned to the Central region, Celestia gave me priorities. First and foremost, I’m here to protect you six; being wielders of the elements of harmony, you’re valuable assets to the crown.”

“So wait,” began Twilight, “are you sure it’s magic. I mean, I thought only ponies with horns could use magic.”

“I’m not the one using magic though. Luna cast the spell on me, so she’s the source, not me.”

“Well, could you show me?” she asked, her eyebrows working their way higher up her face.

Clyde sighed; he had anticipated doubt. He lowered his head, closed his eyes, sat on his flanks, and drew in a deep breath.

His eyes suddenly shot open, ablaze in white light. All in the room leaned in a bit closer, but closest of all was Twilight. She was giddy with excitement; this was the first time she had seen, let alone heard of magic like this. She inspected him with wide eyes, taking mental notes on miniscule changes in his being. Clyde seemed oblivious to his surroundings, until his head suddenly snapped in Twilight’s direction when she came a bit too close, causing her to jump back away from him.

He then lowered his head again and emptied his lungs. When he rose, his eyes had reverted to their original verdant state. He gauged the stunned faces in the room and then further explained.

“When I use the sight, I go into a trance, sort of like a lucid dream. I see hundreds of pictures floating by, and I can focus on the important ones. I see everything going on in my region. At night, I normally sit up where Dash and I first encountered each other in the Saddlebacks, and watch everypony in the region.Not many civillians know we exist, so during the day, it’s a little less suspicious if everypony sees me walking around and acting normal, so I’ll usually try to keep an eye on everything the old fashioned way.”

He looked out the window, which was filled with the bright face of the moon, its silver glow illuminating a section of the room.

“Night’s fallen. I need to get up to the mountains. It’s been a pleasure,” he bowed as he finished.
He walked with the mares to the door, and accompanied them about a hundred yards down the road, at which point he turned, bowed and said, “Until next time.”

He crouched in preparation to leap into the air, but before he did, he turned his head and said, “Thank you.”

Before the mares could ask for what he was thanking them for, he kicked off into the night sky, and disappeared among the stars.

The six mares were left standing on the road. They watched the stallion go until they lost him in the darkness, then they turned and began making their way back home.

****************

Twilight lead the way, illuminating the path before them with horn aglow.

As they penetrated the darkness, slowly diminishing the distance between themselves and town, Fluttershy asked uneasily, “D-do you think there’s anything out here?”

“You’re not scared of the dark, are you?” asked Dash condescendingly.

“I just…I just feel like something’s watching us,” she whispered as she nervously checked behind her.

“It’s probably Clyde,” suggested Twilight without turning around.

Fluttershy seemed to accept the explanation, as she walked a little easier and checked around less frequently.

“It’s a creepy feelin’. Knowin’ he could be watchin’ at any ol’ time makes me kinda uneasy,” stated Applejack.

“Yes, it could be strange if you look at it that way, but another way of approaching it is to accept that Celestia trusts him to protect us,” explained Rarity, “He has power, but I believe he’ll use it responsibly. I get the impression that he’s honorable, and I think we can trust him as well.”

“Speaking of impressions,” began Twilight, “what do we all think of him now that we know him a bit?”

“He’s not so bad,” said Dash, hovering slightly above her friends.

“He’s surprisingly urbane,” Rarity added.

“I just wish he was a little more fun,” added Pinkie, seemingly dejected.

Twilight rolled her eyes, “Pinkie, we didn’t really have time to throw some kind of party. I’m sure he would be more fun if he came to one of your get-togethers, but tonight wasn’t really the time or place.”

Pinkie perked up, the gears turning in her head, and the group knew she was planning something, most definitely a party.

“I guess he’s alright. He was mighty kind to all o’ us.”

“I like him. He’s nice,” added a small voice near the back of the group.

“Yeah, especially to you, silly!” exclaimed Pinkie, as Fluttershy hid behind her mane.

“W-what do you mean?” she asked, lowering her voice.

“I mean he sure was eager to compliment you at dinner, and he couldn’t keep his eyes off you. I think he likes you.”

Fluttershy turned away, blushing, until her purple maned friend came to her side.

“Well that’s not very fair,” she countered, “He looked just as much at you as he did her. He has a sort of flirtatious personality, and he hugged each of us the same. Then again, I could be mistaking affection for chivalry but I think it’s just a part of who he is.”

She looked around at each of her companions as she continued, “Not that that’s a bad thing; I certainly wouldn’t mind if he were to start complimenting me more often.”

Dash looked to her, smiling a bit with an eyebrow raised.

“Oh come on,” challenged the white equine, “Don’t you dare tell me all you saw were his scars, Rainbow Dash. And I saw you, Pinkie; you were fairly eager to hug him, as were the rest of us once you started. I think we can agree that he is a very handsome stallion.”

The group all nodded or smiled a bit. He was easy on the eyes, and a war hero, but none of them accepted the possibility of wanting him. There just wasn’t enough time yet.

“There’s just somethin’ ‘bout him I just can’t shake,” started Applejack.

“What is it?” asked Dash.

“Well, he said he’s a Guardian, basically a soldier, and that he’s here to protect us, but from what exactly? What do we need protection from? I mean, Ponyville’s a pretty quiet place, so why would Celestia send one of her best warriors here? It jus’ don’ add up.”

The mares grew silent in thought, Dash replying, “Maybe he’s just here to watch over the region. I mean, Ponyville is pretty close to the center of Equestria. It would make sense for him to base here; he could get anywhere in the region fastest from the middle.”

“Maybe," agreed A.J., before adding, "Ah, I still don’ know.”

They continued into the darkness, following the road back home.

****************

Clyde listened to their conversation as he watched from the mountaintop, making sure they returned home safely. He had turned his gaze towards them as soon as he set down on the high precipice, and heard most of what they had to say about him. When they reached the town, and he was sure they were safe, he refocused his gaze. Hundreds of moving images floated in front of his face, most of them depicting ponies in their sleep, and the soft sounds of mothers’ lullabies and quiet snoring filled his ears.

He stayed up well into the night, and after everypony in the region had fallen to dreaming, he double, then triple checked for danger. When he was sure that everything would be fine for the night, he retired to himself, and let his thoughts wander through his mind.

His brain kept coming back to the mares, and he began to think.

"They hugged me. They hardly know me, why would they hug me? Do they think I’m weak, like they needed to comfort me?”

“No, on the road they said they thought I’m good looking. Maybe they just wanted to be close to me for that? Or maybe, they saw right through me; maybe they saw my past, my memories, and felt sorry for me?”

“Or maybe, they were just trying to pick me up; trying to let me know I’m not alone, that they’ll be there for me? But it’s my job to be there for them, not the other way around.”

His heart felt light again when he remembered the feeling of the mares holding him, chasing his pain away with a kind embrace.

“Is this what love feels like? No, no, no, Clyde, you’re a Guardian now; you have responsibilities, duties, priorities. You can’t let some petty love interest get in the way of that.”

“But it wouldn’t be petty. This isn’t some kind of twitter pated feeling; it isn’t like a crush or anything I’ve had before. This is new, and it isn’t for any one of them in particular. Do they feel the same way about me? No, Stop! You’re here to protect them, not love them; don’t let your feelings get in the way. But maybe, that’s why the princess sent me here. No, that can’t be, you’re a soldier, start acting like it!”

He continued arguing with himself, trying to get his priorities straight until the coming of the dawn. The sun warmed his hide, and he went into another trance, watching pictures of the citizens of Ponyville as they started the day, heading off to work, to school, or to the day’s events, float by his eyes.

He decided not to go into town, and stayed on top of the mountain, watching, waiting, and thinking.

Author's Note

Hey guys! Cha! I think this is coming along nicely. Please comment on what you like and what you don't. I'd appreciate it. I hope you guys are liking it! Thanks!

To Protect and Serve

He continued observing until the morning rush hour burned itself out. Most of the faces he could see had become familiar, but he only really knew six of them. As the streets cleared, the amount of ponies to keep track of shrank, and he turned his attention towards a small cottage on the outskirts of town on the edge of the Everfree Forest. In the yard was a yellow mare and several small animals; rabbits, ferrets, raccoons and several birds danced around her in the grass and the crisp clean morning air.

Fluttershy was spreading a checkered picnic blanket on the grass. Clyde smiled; she was still wearing the rose behind her ear.

The food she had laid out was bountiful, much more than she and her animals could finish, leading him to assume she was expecting company. Sure enough, less than half an hour later, the first of her guests came bouncing up the road, brandishing a basket filled with freshly baked cupcakes. She was followed closely by the other four in their group, each carrying baskets of snacks or goodies.

When the friends met, their pure happiness and innocence gave Clyde a sense of content, and he watched as they hugged and greeted each other, and then sat down on the blanket to start their picnic. The animals still encircled them, some running about and playing, others begging for food. Clyde could see that the mares were happily oblivious to everything around them though, and the animals went without tasting apple pie or cupcakes, which didn’t sit well with one of the rabbits.

Clyde watched as the white bunny jumped up and down, trying to get his caretaker’s attention so as to commandeer a slice of pie. He found the rabbit’s unsuccessful pleas entertaining, and he smiled a bit. He heard Fluttershy reprimand him in a motherly voice, saying that he had already had enough sweets for the day.

Suddenly, the rabbit looked to the woods, perked up, and thumped his foot against the ground loudly. The other animals scurried away from the yard and darted for the cottage, while the rabbit began tugging on Fluttershy’s tail. Clyde was at first perplexed by the animals’ behavior, but then he saw a slight movement in the trees. His eyes widened as he gasped and bolted from his perch on the mountaintop, flying as fast as he could go to the cottage.

****************

“Angel, stop. You’re hurting my tail,” said Fluttershy giggling a bit.

The rabbit continued to tug, but to no avail. He tried jumping up and down, pointing, anything, but being unable to speak, his owner remained blind to what he saw.

“Is he tryin’ to tell us somethin’?” asked Applejack.

“What is it Angel?” asked Twilight, coming closer to the rabbit.

As she approached the rabbit, he jumped up, and a terrified squeak escaped him as he ran for cover. The mares watched him run into some shrubbery, confused.

Then they heard it; a roar like thunder echoing through the thin morning air and rebounding across the countryside.

They spun around to face an enormous male manticore, standing poised at the tree line. The winged lion faced them, his lips drawn back in a snarl, revealing perfectly white, dagger-like teeth. The tom began to approach them, growling in a deep guttural rumble, which grew louder as he drew nearer.

The six huddled together, not sure what to do. Fluttershy began trying to coach her friends in dealing with dangerous animals, which she was at least somewhat accustomed to, more so than the others.

“Don’t look him in the eye,” she whispered, her voice quivering, “Just back away slowly.”

Most listened to her advice, but Dash ignored it. As the beast approached, his scorpion’s tail flicking from side to side menacingly, she stepped in front of her friends defiantly.

“What are ya doin’?” hissed Applejack.

The monster roared, a deafening bellow that made their ears ring and their thoughts blur. Dash, though weakly, roared back, shouting as loud as she could at the winged hybrid.

“What are you doing?” scolded Fluttershy, “He’s already upset, don’t make him angrier. Let me try.”

She stepped forward and began talking to the beast. As she drew a bit nearer, she realized his ribs were showing; the manticore was famished, and they were close to being his much needed meal.

The beast made a jab step in her direction, and began to bore down on her.

“Stop!” she yelled in a vain attempt to dissuade the feline’s approach.

When he showed no signs of stopping and only increased the volume of his snarling, Rainbow Dash aggressively darted past Fluttershy with her head lowered, letting out a high pitched battle cry, but the manticore only raised his paw.

With a swift backhand, he sent the blue pegasus flying back, skidding to a stop a few feet in front of the others. She choked for air and held her stomach as she looked up from the ground; the lion spread its wings to their full length, drew back his lips, and charged, huffing and growling in anticipation of a kill, and Fluttershy screamed.

Unable to get to her feet quick enough, Dash shielded herself, letting a faint gasp escape her lungs, and anticipated the pain.

Surprisingly, she wasn’t torn apart in a fury of claws and teeth. Rather, she heard a sound like a strong wind, followed by a dull thud and a soft whimper.

She looked up and saw Clyde standing between the manticore and herself. The beast was sprawled out about ten yards from her, and she could see the marks in the grass where he had slid after Clyde rammed him.

As the monster flailed on the ground, Clyde, without breaking eye contact with his foe, asked sternly, “Are you okay?”

Dash responded weakly, “Yeah. I just got the wind knocked outta me.”

The manticore regained its footing, and was now pacing in front of the grey stallion in a semi-circle, snarling and growling, but not daring to come any closer. Clyde danced back and forth with the beast, keeping himself in between the predator and his prey.

Clyde’s authoritative voice began giving orders; he bore no resemblance to the kind, gentle stallion from the night before.

“You need to get out of here. Carry Dash with you. I’ll hold him o…”

The lion charged, cutting him short. He swung his massive paws at Clyde, who dodged blow after blow, slowly retreating, trying to draw the beast away from the six.

Applejack was just beginning to pick up Dash while the others were starting to retreat, unwilling to leave either of their friends behind.

Clyde avoided swipes and lounges, the beast’s teeth snapping together too close to his face for comfort. He had drawn the manticore away from the mares, and briefly lost focus on his opponent as he checked their status. Before he could make out anything, he felt a sudden force in his chest, and a painful grunt intermixed with the snarls and growls of the manticore.

Fluttershy, who had seen the beast’s claws connect with Clyde’s chest, yelped.

“Clyde!”

“Go!” he shouted frantically as he jumped into the air, hovering a dozen or so feet off the ground to make distance between the creature and himself, “Go, I’ll be f-ugh!”

His words were cut short by a sudden constriction around his throat. The manticore had lashed out with its tail like a whip, coiled it around his neck and hurled him to the ground. Clyde hit with a crash, kicking up a spray of dirt and grass as he landed and slid to a gradual stop.

The manticore turned to see the mares escaping down the road towards town, so it went for the nearest prey. Clyde rolled, the beasts razor-like talons digging into the earth next to his skull. He quickly regained his balance, and countered with a swift kick when the beast lounged for him again.

His hoof connected with the feline’s skull, knocking it back a few feet. Clyde followed with a second kick, this one with both hind legs. As he bucked the lion’s ribs, he heard a loud *crack*. The manticore staggered back and fell, gasping for air. The beast, still on the ground, snapped its head towards Clyde, and hissed.

Clyde challenged back, yelling, “Come On! Try and kill me!”

The beast charged, as did Clyde. They clashed in the middle of the cottage’s yard. Clyde, with a lower center of gravity, was able to throw the lion over his shoulder. When he landed, Clyde pounced on the creature’s back; the tables had turned.

The beast regained its balance with the obsidian warrior holding onto its mane, glaring in concentration. The manticore bucked like a bull, but Clyde’s grip was strong. He grabbed the lion’s head, and was preparing to twist when he felt a sharp prod in his flank. Without releasing his grip, he let out a shallow breath, almost a sigh, as he felt the hybrid’s stinger retract from his flesh.

He swiftly twisted and pulled, hearing a snap from within the lion’s neck; he felt the body of his foe go limp, and the growling ceased. He rode the fresh carcass to the ground as it fell, stepping off of it when it came to a permanent rest. Then, he felt his own legs buckle, and he crumpled to the ground, and the whole world faded to black.

****************

Rainbow Dash, still on Applejack’s back, heard the halt of the manticore’s bellows, and knew the fight was over.

“We have to go back!” she yelled.

Her friends continued running down the road, either not having heard or ignoring her.

“We HAVE to go back!” she said again.

“We can’t. You’re hurt, and Clyde told us to run,” countered Rarity.

“I’m fine!” she shouted, rolling off of Applejack’s back and onto the dusty street.

When she regained her feet, she continued, “Besides, he’s our friend; we can’t leave him behind like this!”

“I gotta side with Dash on this one,” explained Applejack as she reversed her course.

Before another second passed, the pair was galloping back up the road. The other four promptly followed.

****************

Applejack reached the cottage first, (Rainbow Dash was still recovering, slowing her down) and she quickly made her way to the lawn. Two bodies lay in a heap in the grass. She galloped to them; the manticore was dead, and Clyde wasn’t far behind.

His chest was laid open, flaps of skin hanging down in three ragged strips; no doubt the work of the beast’s jagged claws. His head and neck had multiple smaller cuts, and his face had several red streaks running down across his forehead. He lay on his side, exposing another wound; an extremely small hole in his flank, just above the shield in his cutie mark.

The once green grass he laid in was stained red, and his body was motionless apart from the weak flexion of his ribs. The others reached her as she checked his neck for a pulse.

As Applejack began to pick him up, Fluttershy, through frantic sobs, asked, “Is he…dead?”

“Not yet,” replied Applejack, shifting his bulk onto her shoulders, “But he will be if we don’t get help. One of ya’ll better get to the doctor and fast. Tell ‘em we’ll need anti-venom; looks like he got stung.”

Pinkie Pie raced to the hospital in a colorful blur, while the others positioned themselves under Clyde’s massive chest cavity, his hind legs dragging behind them. Even together they struggled to support his weight, but regardless, they began to carry him down the road towards the hospital.

****************

They had only gone about a quarter mile, but the mares were exhausted from toting the stallion’s massive body along the road. His blood was leaving a trail on the cobblestone, and some of it had dripped onto their backs, staining their once beautiful coats dark red.

Finally, they saw Pinkie coming back down the road with three stallions in tow, pulling a white wagon embroidered with a red cross. When they reached the mares, the stallions loaded Clyde into the back of the ambulance on a stretcher.

One of them, the youngest by the looks of him, uttered, “Dear Celestia. What happened to this guy?”

“A manticore,” replied Twilight between exasperated gasps.

The oldest of the medics looked down on his bleeding body with a haggard expression, and confirmed the existence of a pulse.

“He’s lucky to still be alive. Should be dead.”

The stallions shut the coach’s rear door, hitched up, and took off for the hospital with the six following closely behind.

Author's Note

Hey guys! Thanks again for reading. Please leave a comment and tell me what you think!

Blood and Tears

It had been three hours since they’d arrived, but the mares were still in the hospital’s waiting room. They hadn’t heard anything about their friend, and the only staff they had seen was a nurse who offered them a washtub and a room to clean Clyde’s blood out of their coats. That had been two and a half hours ago.

Rarity looked to Applejack, and gestured to her head ware.

“Oh, there’s some blood on your hat, dear.”

The farmer removed her Stetson; sure enough, a few crimson drops had stained the brim. She began to spit into her hooves and rub the dried liquid off of her most prized possession, much to the dismay of her prissy alabaster friend.

“I’m sorry A.J.,” said Twilight, “I know that’s important to you.”

“Well,” Applejack started, feigning a smile, “this ain’t the first time this ol’ hat’s been sullied; won’t be the last time either.”

Before she could finish cleaning her hat, a unicorn stallion came through the door to the waiting room wearing scrubs, and piously approached the mares. They stood up as he came up to them, and immediately grew concerned.

“How is he Doc?” asked Dash anxiously.

The doctor looked at his clipboard suspended in front of his face in a sparkling glow, then into Dash’s magenta eyes.

“He’s holding on,” he explained grimly, “but I have no idea how. Most would have died by now from the blood loss he’s sustained alone, never mind the poisoning. We’ve given him some anti-venom, but we’re unsure how effective it will be. There isn’t much knowledge in the medical field regarding manticore poison."

"Other than that, we’ve stitched up the lacerations in his chest cavity and sealed the smaller cuts. Luckily the wound canal missed his vital organs but there is severe tissue damage, as well as several severed blood vessels, which we’ve attempted to close. We’ve stopped the bleeding temporarily, but the wound may need to be cauterized. Like I said, he’s holding up for now, but I have no idea if he’ll make it.”

“Can we see him please?” asked Fluttershy, her voice filled with despair.

The doctor nodded yes, and led the group through the doors he had just come out of and into a lengthy hallway. They followed him to a dimly lit room.

As they entered, the doctor held the door, saying quietly so as not to disturb his patient, “He needs to rest. Please try not to wake him.”

He shut the door behind them when the last had entered, and his steps receded down the hallway.

They gathered around the room’s only bed, and took in the grim sight of their friend. His chest was bandaged in white linen, but there were three characteristic red streaks showing where the claws had pierced him. The cuts on his face and neck were patched with pieces of gauze and medical tape. An I.V. was embedded in his forelimb, the bottle containing some kind of clear solution. His hind legs weren’t visible, concealed beneath the teal hospital bed sheet.
Clyde’s eyes were closed and his breathing slow. A cardiac monitor was slowly beeping off to the side, near the window sill. His coat was faded, and he looked gravely ill.

Looking at him, Rarity couldn’t help but to tear up. He had put himself between her and the manticore; he had made this sacrifice willingly, and she hoped, then prayed, that he would be alright. She felt sad for him at first, but then she felt guilt. She couldn’t help but recognize that if she and her friends had been able to escape on their own, then perhaps none of this would have happened.

“Oh Clyde,” she said, a few drops beginning to fall from her cheeks as she took his limp hoof in hers.

She looked at his mangled body, his chest barely moving with each shallow breath, and she bowed her head. Her friends each took a place at the bedside with her, A.J. even taking her hat off and placing it on the bed side.

The mares accompanied him in silence, holding the words they wanted to say to him now in for the moment. The monitor continued its slow pace, the only sound in the room coming from its speakers.

They watched, they waited, but the wounded warrior remained still. Fluttershy began to cry along with Rarity, and eventually, all the mares’ eyes were at least glossed over. The faint sound of tear drops hitting the floor added to the methodical rhythm of the monitor.

Suddenly, Fluttershy left the bed side. She made for a quill and paper near the entrance of the room, and began to write something down. Her friends came to her side, and looked over her shoulder at what she was scribbling on the parchment.

“A note?” asked Dash softly.

Fluttershy nodded, whimpering softly as she continued to write what she wanted to say to Clyde now, but couldn’t. The mares began adding little bits of what they each wanted to say as well, and eventually, composed a decent letter.

As Fluttershy was finishing the note, the doctor poked his head in, saying, “I’m very sorry, but visiting hours are over. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

Fluttershy neatly folded the note, carried it to Clyde’s bedside, and gently placed it on his nightstand. Then, she reached to her ear, retrieving the yellow rose he had gifted her, and placed it over the top of the paper.

The doctor nodded to her as she left, and then began intently examining his patient. The mares entered the hallway without saying a word, and silently made their way for the exit together.

****************

“Has he gotten any better?” asked Fluttershy, her voice quiet and meek in the hospital’s hallway.

The mares were all standing outside Clyde’s room. It was the day after the ordeal with the manticore.

The doctor looked to them with consoling eyes, and said, “He’s shown a bit of improvement, but it’s nothing like we’d hoped. The wound in his chest doesn’t seem to be the problem, but rather the poison. The changes have been in his chest cavity. We cauterized the wound to stop the bleeding. Had we not, he’d have died of blood loss sometime in the night. But other than that, he’s relatively the same as he was yesterday.”

“But he has shown improvement?” asked Twilight hopefully.

The doctor sighed, saying, “I appreciate your optimism, but unless he improves drastically, he won’t make it to tomorrow morning. We can only halt the venom’s spread temporarily. We’ve tried several smaller procedures, but the final operation’s preparations will begin in about twenty minutes. Should we fail, your friend’s fate is… uncertain.”

The mares deflated, and hope deserted their eyes. Pinkie Pie’s mane suddenly straightened as her knees grew weak. She leaned on her stronger friend, Applejack. She seemed shaken too, a rare occurrence, even to those who knew her best.

“May we see him again, doctor?” inquired Rarity sullenly.

The doctor opened the door while he spoke, accompanying the group to Clyde’s side.

“Yes, but make it quick. Like I said, we’re about to operate again to try and isolate the venom,” the doctor lifted the sheet and pointed to Clyde’s leg, which had turned dark blue and yellowish green around the area where he was stung, “which is spreading rapidly.”

The note remained at his bedside, still adorned with the rose, which had begun to lose its color. He looked to be in worse shape than the previous day. Even though his chest was no longer stained red, the wound was a badly mangled series of stitches in his flesh, running diagonally across his inflamed breast.

“Can we use magic to heal him?” asked Twilight, looking to the doctor with a glimmer of hope.

“We’ve tried that,” he replied, “but the venom seems to have qualities of dark magic. The first time we tried seemed to make it more potent, and a spell to try and reverse the venom’s effects did virtually nothing. Somehow, it’s impervious. The procedure we’re about to undergo will stop its spread permanently, but we’ll never be able to fully remove the venom. It’s joined to his cellular structure somehow. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

For a few minutes, the only sound in the room came from the monitor, its pace slowly decreasing. Nopony spoke. Nopony moved.

Suddenly, the doctor spoke.

“I’m sorry, but you’ll have to leave. We need to get him to the operating room.”

And so, for the second time in two days, the group left the hospital devoid of joy.

****************

It was the third day since Clyde arrived at the hospital, and for the third time, the mares waited in the reception area for the doctor, anticipating news about their friend. They waited for nearly an hour, seeing neither hide nor hair of the unicorn, and finally took it upon themselves to search out answers.

Dash pushed through the door into the hallway, still holding onto the last bits of hope she could grip, telling herself that Clyde would be fine. She went straight for his room, entering without waiting for permission, and her friends followed.

She stopped just inside the doorway, Twilight running into her backside. She stood at the front of the room, staring at the bed. It was empty, the bed neatly made, and the note on the nightstand missing.

She gaped in disbelief, her heart sinking. He was gone. She heard footsteps behind her in the hallway, and promptly ran out the room. She saw the doctor walking towards her, his eyes occupied reading his clipboard. He never saw her coming.

Dash darted for him, her sorrow and shock having transformed into rage. She grabbed him by the collar of his lab coat, and threw him into the wall, his stethoscope flying away.

“Where is he?!” she roared, her magenta eyes ablaze.

“W-w-w, I d-do?” he stuttered.

“WHERE IS HE?!”

“H-he’s gone. He left us this morning.”

Dash released the doctor, slowly stepping back and turning away. She violently kicked the wall and looked to her friends. They were all crying and holding each other, but Dash didn’t join them. Instead, she turned back to the doctor, sour tears starting to fill her eyes, grabbed him by his collar again and slammed him into the wall a second time.

She glared at him, furious, but the fire in her eyes was quickly extinguished by liquid sorrow, and she buried her head in his chest.

“He was my friend! You were supposed to save him!” she said in a hybrid tone of anger and grief, “You were supposed to keep him alive. You were supposed to save him, but you didn’t. He’s gone… I’ll never get to see him again.”

“He’s not dead,” explained the doctor, looking down to her, “He just left us. He walked out the door this morning.”

Dash, looked up, but only for a moment. She sped out the door, leaving a few blue feathers amidst a windstorm in her wake.

Author's Note

Hey! I hope you like it so far. Please tell me what you think in the comments! Thanks!

Dreams and Nightmares

Dash raced around Ponyville, desperately searching for the obsidian stallion below. She checked his house first, but the cabin was empty. She searched his perch on the mountain top, the market, the park, the library, even Sweet Apple Acres, but he was nowhere to be found.

She ascended to a cloud, alighting on top of it as despair set in. The doctor said he was alright, but she needed to see him, to see him awake and breathing and alive. She kicked off from the cloud almost immediately after landing, unable to find it within her to stop searching.

She flew over the mountains to check his house and his lookout spot a second time, but to no avail. She began to make her way back into town, desperately thinking of where else he could be, when she saw something in the foothills below her.

****************

Clyde was sitting amidst the aspens, lost in thought and enjoying the beauty of the afternoon sun in rolling hills. The air was cool and calm as he tracked a dandelion puff floating by on the gentle breeze.

Suddenly, he felt something hit his side, hard. The world turned as he rolled, wincing in pain. Finally coming to a halt on his back, he looked up at his attacker; straddling him was Rainbow Dash, her eyes moist yet stern, and her jawline quivering.

He looked back to her with concern, but before he could ask what was wrong, she shouted at him.

“Don’t ever scare me like that again!”

“What do you mean?”

“I thought… I thought you were dead,” she said, her voice losing its strength.

As Clyde struggled to find the words to say, Dash looked at his chest. Three long rows of stitches ran at an angle from his shoulder to the base of his sternum. He had a smaller row of thread through the skin on his flank, but the discoloration from the poison was still prominent.

“I thought you were gone, Clyde. I was scared.”

“Why were you scared?” he asked gently.

He already knew the answer, but he needed to hear it.

“I’m your friend Clyde; we’re all your friends, and we thought we lost you,” she looked away, trying to hide something.

It wasn’t like her to get emotional, but her feelings ignored that tendency now. The stallion saw through the gap in her tough shell, knowing immediately that she had been faced by one of her fears; loss. Clyde gingerly placed a hoof beneath her chin; the same hooves that could battle monsters and invaders and yet could somehow be gentle and caring enough to dry tears. He turned her head towards him.

“Look, I know we haven’t known each other for very long,” he breathed, “but I want you to know that I’ll always be there for you. It’s my duty, and I’ll gladly keep it.”

She looked up at him, trying to swallow her sadness and hide her tears from the soldier, emerald meeting magenta. He tried to console her, but he could see the elusive tears of the pegasus materializing.

“I promise,” he continued, “that I will never leave you; that I’ll protect you from anything, and I’ll always be there when you need me.”

He stood up, towering above her, but he lowered his head even with hers, and continued.

“And never forget, even if you can’t see me, I’ll always be watching over you.”

He smiled, the same smile she recognized from the market place, and she felt her fears leave. Suddenly, as much to her own surprise as to Clyde’s, she hugged him.

She threw her forelimbs around his neck, squeezing tightly, but then quickly pulled away again, awkwardly rubbing one of her shins. Clyde could feel wet spots on his chest from where her moist cheeks had touched his skin.

“Come on,” he said, still smiling warmly, “There’s something I want to show you.”

****************

Dash followed Clyde through the clear sky, ascending at a shallow angle. She stayed just off his wing as they glided over the curving earth below. Clyde led slowly, flying methodically, strolling through the thin air. Dash knew by the size of the muscles in his wings that he could probably rival her, but not best her, in speed.

Suddenly, the stallion rolled and banked, descending to the sierras with Dash just off his wing. As they lost altitude, the land became familiar, and she realized where they were going.

Clyde alighted on the high rocky precipice, just outside the pine grove. Dash came down next to him, touching down softly. She looked around, confirming their whereabouts; this was where she saw him for the first time. Unlike their first encounter though, this time it felt less scary and more… right.

The air was cool, and the light of dusk added a slight tint of gold to all beneath the shifting sky. Clyde walked to the edge of the cliff, sitting on his flanks and facing the valley. Dash sat next to him, looking at the warrior’s relaxed face. He faced forward, gazing at the basin below, so Dash did the same.

She took in the majesty before her, the green and gold of the trees, grass, and wheat blending to make a beautiful masterpiece on the canvas of the earth. The glint of the sun lit up the face of every object its rays touched, casting long shadows towards the eastern horizon.

Dash looked towards Ponyville, a collection of miniscule buildings in the distance, with the lush rolling hills surrounding the town receding towards the horizon. She could see all the landmarks familiar to her; Everfree Forrest, Sweet Apple Acres, a tall building she knew to be Carousel Boutique, even the outskirts of Cloudsdale. The few ponies she could see still milling around below in the dying day looked to be the size of ants. It was as if she was on top of the world.

Clyde’s deep, smooth voice floated to her ears.

“Gorgeous, isn’t it?”

She turned to face him, but he was still staring out over the land below. The sun created a glow over him, his short, sea blue mane seeming to sparkle in the glimmering sunset. The light illuminated his chiseled face, casting dark shadows over his cheeks and eyes, creating a beautiful relationship between brightness and obscurity.

“The others were right. He is handsome,” she thought to herself.

But, recalling her friend’s comments, she began to notice his scars again. They ran all over his body, creating images of gruesome wounds that in time had healed. He would have a few new ones soon, once his stitches came out. The marks permeated his skin, and Dash both admired and pitied him. He had endured pain beyond belief, that much was obvious, but why did he continue to do so?

Dash needed to ask; there had to be something she was missing, something about him that could explain why he kept going, kept endangering himself to protect the ponies of Equestria, most of them he didn’t even know.
Clyde could practically feel her eyes moving up and down his body, but paid no heed. Eventually, he stepped back from the edge, and turned to face the winged mare.

He looked down at her, his eyes still sparkling in the low light, and Dash couldn’t help but feel drawn to him.

“Clyde, there’s something I need to ask you,” she started, looking down slightly and rubbing her forelimb as he raised an eyebrow.

She hadn’t quite thought of what to say yet, but she started anyway.

"Well, it’s just….um, well…..ya see, I kinda…”

“What is it?”

"I, umm… I was wondering, well… Why do you do it?”

He tilted his head slightly, asking, “Do what?”

“Why do you, ya know, keep being a soldier. You’ve done your part; you’ve fought your battles. Why don’t you just quit?”

The stallion turned away from her, but Dash quickly flew in front of him, hovering eye to eye.

“You could live here with us in Ponyville, forever if you wanted. But instead you keep fighting; you keep getting hurt over and over again.”

He looked away again, but Dash adjusted her position to float just off the edge of his broad muzzle.

“What if you die?”

He turned back to the cliff face, sitting on its rim and closing his eyes, his head held high. Dash flew to his side, aggravated, and practically shouted in his ear.

“If you keep fighting, one of these wounds won’t heal Clyde! That manticore could have killed you, and it almost did. Why would you do it? Why would you keep going, when you can stop right now? You already have medals, the honor, the glory! What more do you want to earn?! What more can you earn?!”

She lowered her voice, checking herself, realizing she was out of place.

“Look, it’s just that we all really like you. It doesn’t feel like I’ve only known you for a few days; it’s almost like we’ve been friends all along, and when you were in the hospital; I’ve never felt that sad before. I don’t want you to go, and I was scared that you were dead. I want you to stick around; I wanna be your friend.”

Without moving his head, Clyde quietly spoke.

“Do you have dreams, Dash? Dreams of what you want to be, what you want to have, what you aspire to?”

“Well, yeah.” She said, descending back to the ground, her hooves gently hitting the rough sandstone of the cliff, “I’ve always wanted to be a Wonderbolt.”

She looked to the painted sky, imagining herself in that blue uniform, a lightning bolt running down its side, shooting across the sky in perfect formation and leaving a trail of colorful smoke in her wake.

“It’d be awesome! I’d perform around the world, dazzling crowds. Everypony would love me; colts and fillies would want me to sign posters and get their picture taken with me. I’d go to parties and hang out with all the celebrities. There’s nothing I want more than that.”

She pictured the life she yearned for, but her brief fantasy eventually ended and she returned to the cliff face. She could feel the warmth in her cheeks accompanying a smile. She turned to her friend; Clyde was looking down at her. Her eyes held wonder and joy, and they sparkled in the low light.

“Right there,” he said, extending a hoof to just in front of her snout, “That’s why I keep doing it, right there.”

“What?”

“Hope,” he replied softly, “You still have hope in your eyes.”

Dash was taken aback as the Guardian turned back to the valley below. She sat beside him and listened at tentatively.

“That’s why you fly the way you do; nothing held back, all out all the time, like the way you were the afternoon we met.”

Yet another fact he knew just from watching.

“Most ponies here still cling to hope, because they still have dreams. They still have things they want to do, want to see, want to learn, and I want to make sure they get the chance to make those dreams come true.”

His voice lowered, and lost some of its sweetness.

“I’ve seen young stallions killed before they got the chance to realize their dreams. I’ve seen hope destroyed by a horn, or a sword, or a burst of magic. I’ve seen the hope in the eyes of ponies crushed by the evil of the world, and I want to try and protect the hope that’s left.”

“But don’t you have dreams too?” Dash asked, her voice cracking slightly.

“I did. My dream was to be remembered.” He paused momentarily before continuing, “I grew up in an orphanage in Canterbury. My whole life I thought I didn’t matter, that the world didn’t care about me, that I would be forgotten.”
He turned his head to face her.

“So, I decided to do something great, something to immortalize my name. I couldn’t think of anything but the military. I believed all the ads, ‘Be All You Can Be.’ So I signed up, thinking I’d be some kind of hero, that I’d have parades thrown for me, that everypony would know my name; but war crushed those dreams.”

“Sometimes I look back on it all, and still dream of being remembered, but my only dream now is to keep the dreams of others alive. My dreams are all but gone, but it isn’t that way for everypony. That’s why I stay a soldier.”

“Believe me, I’d like to live here forever, but I still have to fight for the only dream I have left; for others to keep dreaming. If I’m remembered for that, well and good, but if not, I’d still do it. And until the day comes when no evil can cut the dreams of ponies short, I’ll continue to fight. I’ll fight for everypony who can’t fight for themselves, and I’ll fight alongside those who can, until my dream comes true, and the dreams of all can continue to live.”

An elongated silence followed his explanation, his words’ wisdom sinking into the thick skull of the mare.

“Hey Clyde,” Dash said cheerfully as she floated up to his eye level, “If it makes you feel better, I promise I’ll remember you.”

Clyde laughed a bit, extending a wing around her and pulling her into his side. He knew she was trying to cheer him up.

“Thanks Dash,” he said, “and I promise to be your friend.”

The two sat together on the precipice until the sun fell behind the horizon, Clyde’s wing still around Dash’s shoulder. The sunset was breathtaking, painting a watercolor sky with vibrant purples and reds. Eventually the beauty gave way to darkness, and the two shifted their gaze upward from the horizon to the twinkling stars.

“I swear, if you tell the others any of what I said to you earlier, I’ll pound you; I don’t care how tough you are,” she threatened, but Clyde just laughed and agreed to keep it a secret.

Clyde sat staring for hours in silence. Eventually, he turned to Dash to ask her if she wanted him to take her home, but she was already asleep, her head resting gently against his side. He smiled to himself, and was lying down beside her when a shadow danced across the ground.

He snapped his head to the sky, seeing the dark outline of an alicorn against the pale face of the moon. The silhouette approached quickly, and as it drew nearer, Clyde recognized it was Princess Luna.

The dark alicorn, her splendid starlight mane flowing behind her, descended silently to the cliff face, landing like a ghost in the darkness. Clyde rose from the ground without waking his dormant friend and approached the princess. His head lowered in a gesture of respect when he reached her, addressing her as ‘your highness.’

“You need not be so formal with me, Captain Sterling,” she said.

Clyde stood erect, looking down to her. Though the stallion was much taller than she, the princess held herself with the upmost confidence and composure, her dark eyes showing no presence of intimidation or discomfort around him.

Looking where the Guardian had just come from and noticing the young mare curled up on the ground fast asleep, she asked, “Getting friendly with the local populous, I see?”

“Yes, err, no, no ma’am,” Clyde said, realizing the implications of ‘getting friendly’, “She’s just a friend. She fell asleep while accompanying me.”

“Good. It’s most definitely better that she doesn’t hear this anyway.”

“Hear what?” asked the stallion, growing anxious, “This isn’t a dream, is it princess?”

“No, I’m afraid not,” the regal mare replied, “Rather, I’ve been forced to delay my duty of monitoring the dreams of Equestrians for the night to come to you in the flesh. I bring an urgent warning,” Luna took a step closer to him, and her voice took on a new tone; it was stern, yet still calm and composed, and Clyde knew what she had to say was of grave importance.

“I’ve noticed a shift in the dreams of the citizens of Equestria as of late. The nights are now filled with nightmares instead of pleasantries.”

“Why haven’t I noticed?”

“Your powers of observation with the gift of sight are limited to the physical world; mine extend into the realm of thought and beyond.”

The princess continued, the stallion seeming to accept her explanation.

“Captain, the only thing that could trigger one such thing so suddenly is the presence of great evil.”

“So then, what do I need to kill?” he asked stoically, his demeanor hardening to ice.

“Nothing at the moment; right now, all we can do is to be ready. We don’t know of any definite threats yet; only the presence of evil. In three days’ time, after the Military Ball, my sister and I will begin actively searching the kingdom for anything that could be the source of the presence. If and when we find it, we will respond with military action, but all you need to worry about now is safeguarding your region.”

Suddenly, the sound of a light sigh floated through the crisp night air. The two silhouetted against moon’s heads snapped towards the source. Rainbow Dash had awoken, and was looking through half-shut eyelids at the two. Luna, fearing Dash had heard their conversation, lowered her voice to a whisper.

“Watch over this place, Captain.”

“I will.”

“I know,” the princess said, a rare smile materializing on her lips.

The stallion bowed and whispered, “Until next time, your majesty.”

With that, the Princess of the Night took to the darkened skies.

“What was that all about?” asked Rainbow Dash, suppressing a yawn.

“Nothing,” Clyde said, feigning a smile. “Come on, it’s time you got back home.”

He helped his tired friend off the hard ground, and half carried, half accompanied her back to her puffy white home above Ponyville.

After he dropped her off, Clyde returned to his perch, Luna’s warning still fresh in his mind. He blinked, closing his eyes and reopening them ablaze with white light.

Author's Note

Hey guys! I've pretty much said the same thing in all my notes so just leave your opinion of the story below. Thanks!

Friends

Early the next morning, a concerned citizen of Ponyville strolled through the streets of town. Twilight hadn’t seen Clyde the previous day, though the hospital staff and records all confirmed he was still alive. Rainbow Dash raced out to look for him once they heard the news, but she hadn’t seen her either.

As she trotted down the streets looking for anypony who might know any news about either of her missing friends, she spotted a familiar face. It was Rarity, just outside Sugarcube Corner.

Twilight loped up to her and asked urgently, “Have you seen Rainbow Dash anywhere?”

“I’m afraid not, dear.”

“How about Clyde?”

The white equine shook her head slowly, “No; I haven’t heard anything about either of them. I came here to see if anypony knew anything. I thought for sure at least Pinkie Pie would have heard something.”

“Well, we’d better ask her then.”

They walked into the brightly lit candy shop, a bell ringing out a pleasant note as the door swung open. The smell of fresh cake and candy intermingled with the sound of haughty laughter in the air. The source of the giggles was easy enough to spot.

Pinkie Pie was sitting at a table with a sole companion, his lustrous obsidian coat rivaled only by the shine in his verdant eyes. Clyde and Pinkie Pie were laughing together as they blew bubbles in their milkshakes through straws.

He doubled over as Pinkie somehow got the bubbles to leave the milkshake and levitate through the air, bursting over an unfortunate turquoise pony’s head.

The mare parted her pink mane, which had fallen over her eyes as it was soaked in strawberry flavored cream. She looked at the table to the source of her head’s moisture, and raised an eyebrow disapprovingly. The stallion was covering his mouth and leaning over the table, trying hard to stifle his laughter, but failing.

“He-he, Whoops! Sorry Mrs. Cake.”

“Ohh, it’s alright Pinkie,” the baker replied in a thick accent.

As the unlucky mare trudged into the back room of the bakery, Twilight and Rarity came over to the table. Twilight double checked the giggling stallion seated in front of her, not believing it was actually Clyde until she saw the three lines of stitches across his breast.

The normally serious stallion was trying to compose himself, but the laughter kept coming, and he made snorting sounds as he tried to swallow his giggles. Pinkie began laughing too, and the others gave in to chuckling as well. His laugh was contagious; it made all who heard it want to laugh with him.

Eventually, the spell passed, and the four were able to talk again. The first words spoken came from Twilight.

“Oh, you’re ok,” she said with a sigh.

Clyde only looked to her gladly.

Just after the unicorn finished speaking, Pinkie Pie’s ears flopped up and down, her eyes fluttered, and her knees began shaking.

Suddenly, the bell rang noisily and a gust of wind blew through the store as the door flew open. The mares turned to see a multi-colored pegasus hovering just inside the doorway.

She spoke frantically, saying, “Guys, Clyde’s alright! I saw him yesterday and… oh.”

The pegasus set down to the floor as she saw the dark grey pegasus looking back at her.

“I found him Dashie!” yelled Pinkie to her friend after a short, awkward silence.

The blue mare joined the table as Rarity asked, “How did you find him Pinkie?”

“Well…”

The mares braced themselves, preparing for a drawn out, specific, very animated recollection of a series of random events explaining how she and Clyde ended up in the candy store, but were surprised when all she said was, “I saw him this morning and asked if he wanted to celebrate getting out of the hospital, so we came here and got milkshakes.”

The pegasus downed the rest of his chocolate shake with a gulp, his wings spreading to their immense length and his head shivering violently when the brain freeze set in. The mares giggled again, and he rose from his chair.

“Now what?”

“You should spend the whole day with us!” shouted Pinkie, rising to within inches of his muzzle, beaming.

“Yeah! That would be fun!” added Twilight.

Clyde was hesitant. He recalled the dire warning of the princess the previous night, and his instincts told him he should be watching over his region. He looked down into four pairs of sparkling eyes, and his heart melted; his instincts were subdued by his conscience.

“Alright.”

Pinkie jumped up and down before the words of agreement completely left his mouth.

“So what should we do?! Ooh, I know; we’ll have a party with piñatas and confetti and balloons and punch and cupcakes and music and dancing and…”

Her high pitched squeals were interrupted by a deep, mellow voice.

“Actually, I was thinking something more along the lines of a day in the park.”

Pinkie looked to Clyde, then to her friends, then back to Clyde.

“Well, the party is technically for him after all,” said Twilight.

“The park it is!” recited Rarity, theatrically raising a hoof towards the door.

Pinkie seemed dejected, but then lit up again when she realized cupcakes weren’t restricted to house parties; she could still do her best to make this day as much like one of her parties as possible.

****************

Before meeting, each of the group went to retrieve something from home, mostly food. Twilight brought Spike as well as an entrée’, the others contributed assorted goodies, and Dash retrieved Applejack and Fluttershy.

When they convened in the lush grass of the park, Fluttershy spread a picnic blanket which was promptly covered in food; cupcakes, cookies, and cake, all of which supplied by Pinkie Pie, fruit salad, hay fries, apple pie and fritters, the main course, sandwiches, and of course, gems for a certain purple reptile.

The group plopped down on the checkered blanket and began dishing up. Just as Clyde was about to bite into a sandwich, a young masculine voice reached his ears.

“So you’re the stallion Twilight’s been talking about so much?”

One thing about Spike that was a blessing as well as a curse; he certainly wasn’t shy. The purple unicorn blushed as her assistant continued.

“The one with the scars and the muscles and the cute rum…”

“I’m Clyde,” he said, interrupting the rambling drake and possibly saving the town’s librarian from severe embarrassment.

“I’m Spike. It’s good to finally meet you.”

The dragon threw back an amethyst, crunching loudly.

“Enjoying those gems Spikey-Wikey?” Rarity mused, giggling a bit.

The dragon’s face flushed red, and Clyde looked to Rarity with an eyebrow raised. Could she possibly be more demeaning? Clyde took a bite of the sandwich as he heard a question arise from across the spread.

“So, how are you feeling Clyde?” petitioned Fluttershy

“Pretty good, thanks for asking. I’m still a bit sore, but that’s expected. I’ll need to take these stitches out tomorrow though. Do any of you think you could help me?”

The whole party looked to Rarity.

She harrumphed at them, saying, “I am a fashion designer, not a nurse. Stitching thread and clothing thread are two completely different things. Besides, I couldn’t bear to get my tools dirty; I need them for my work.”

“I’ll do it,” chimed a weak voice, “I can do it.”

Clyde looked across the blanket to Fluttershy, nodding and bidding her thanks.

“Is this the kind of party you wanted Clyde?” asked Pinkie Pie, a spark in her voice.

“Yeah, this is nice.”

Pinkie’s joy suddenly seemed to recede, and as she sank to the ground, she muttered, “I just wish it was bigger.”

Clyde laughed as he finished the sandwich, and once he swallowed, he offered appeasement.

“Well, I happen to know of a big party in a few days.”

The mares perked up, especially Pinkie.

“The Military Ball in Canterlot is two nights away. I’m obliged to attend, but officers are allowed to bring guests. If you wanted to go, I could be your host.”

“Yes, yes, yes!” shouted Pinkie, overjoyed and jumping up and down.

“Well, that’s one,” said the stallion, looking to the other six in the group. Each of the mares seemed hesitant, silently debating within themselves whether they should go or not.

“What’s wrong? Don’t you want to go to a party?”

“Well of course we would dear,” explained Rarity, “It’s just, we haven’t had very good luck at formal parties in Canterlot.”

The six of them shivered at the memory of the Grand Galloping Gala, the worst night ever.

“I promise this will be different,” assured Clyde.

They still remained hesitant, so Clyde thought to use a few methods of persuasion; if they didn’t work, nothing would.

“The Wonderbolts will be there,”

A light blue pair of ears perked up.

“and the princesses,”

A pair of violet eyes looked up, sparkling.

“and hundreds of young, fit, single stallions,”

Rarity gained interest suddenly.

“We’ll go!” said three female voices in unison as Dash, Twilight and Rarity agreed to attend.

“The other four Guardians will be there too,” Clyde said in an attempt to intrigue the others. No interest from the ones not already committed to going arose.

“There’ll be lots of food and drink. A.J., you wouldn’t have to cook for once.”

“Oh, alright. Ah’ll go,” said the orange mare, pushing her hat into a more comfortable spot on her head.

“Spike, Fluttershy, what do you say?” asked the grey warrior.

“I don’t know,” the dragon started, “I don’t think the stallions would like me very much.”

Spike seemed depressed as he looked down, fiddling with his talons. Clyde inspected the young drake, his green spines seeming to droop as his shoulders slouched. Obviously something had happened to him in the past, something that made him fear stallions, especially groups of them.

“What do you think soldiers are, bullies?” asked Clyde, giving Spike a gentle nudge. The young reptile’s sad eyes replied, and Clyde knew he had guessed right.

At first he pitied the poor drake, but then felt like he owed him something. He had to show him that not every stallion was bad or mean, and he thought the ball would be a great place to prove that. He absolutely had to convince Spike to come along.

“They’d like you,” he persuaded, “Heck, I’ll bet most of them will come right up to meet you on their own.”

“But why? I’m just a little dragon.”

“Just a dragon? I don’t know if you know, but dragons are a symbol of power and strength in the military.”

Spike’s big eyes looked back up at Clyde, his sad memories retreating back into the recesses of his mind.

“I promise you’ll be respected there, and even if you’re not, you can stick by my side; all night if you want. They won’t bother you when they see that you’re friends with a Guardian.”

“Alright,” said Spike, “you can count me in!”

Only one remained, and the entire group turned towards their pink-maned friend, who was looking away timidly on the far end of the blanket. She seemed nervous, almost afraid.

“Aren’t you gonna come too Fluttershy?” asked Dash as she hovered to her friend’s side.

“Oh, I…I don’t think so.”

“Well why not?” asked Pinkie Pie, concerned, “Don’t you like parties?”

“I do like some parties, but I don’t think I’d fit in at this one.”

“Come on, please come Fluttershy,” pleaded Twilight, but she only shook her head.

“It’s not like everypony there will make fun of you like at flight school!”

Rainbow Dash realized what she had said when Fluttershy whipped her thick mane in front of her face, flushing in embarrassment behind a bright shield of hair. She tried to apologize, but Clyde began to speak.

His voice, as smooth as calm water, gently asked, “Why don’t you want to come?”

Fluttershy came out from her shield of a mane, her eyes moist.

“Strangers make me… afraid.”

A solitary tear fell as she recalled their words, words she did nothing to deserve, words that she would not repeat, but could not forget. Words that made her feel worthless, that made her feel alone, and made her feel like no one cared about her, or for her.

She looked down, remembering their laughing faces; not a happy giggling but a mean, scary laughter, making fun of her as she walked by or struggled to fit in. She had made a few friends since then; most of them were with her now, but she still couldn’t help but remember how alone she felt against the jeering crowds all those years ago. She had never gotten over her fear of crowds or strangers, and just the thought of the party made her nervous.

Suddenly, she felt something softly touch her shoulder. She hadn’t seen him come, but Clyde was sitting next to her, his wing gently wrapped around her. She glanced to him without trying to hide her fears. Clyde gently smiled, the same kind of smile she would give to her animals during a thunderstorm to try and calm them, to try and convince them they were safe. His eyes were comforting, letting her know that he would protect her from anything.

“It won’t be like that this time,” Clyde assured, “Why would a kind, beautiful young mare like you not belong at a ball? Besides, you don’t need to be afraid of stallions who’ve been trained to respect their peers,” he chuckled to himself as he continued, saying, “The only thing you might have to fear is a few of them fighting over you.”

Fluttershy let a nervous laugh escape, but she was still unsure about going, at least until Clyde spoke again.

“I promise that you’ll be safe with me. I won’t let any of them hurt you, not that they even would in the first place. So what do you say? Will you go?”

All present leaned in a bit closer to hear Fluttershy’s whisper of a voice respond in a reassured and confident “Yes.”

“It’ll be so great!” started Pinkie Pie, “We’ll all go to a party together! And this time, it’ll be FUN! We’ll all get dressed up and ride in a carriage and sing and dance and eat cake and…”

As she continued to ramble, Clyde returned to his patch of blanket, but not before subtly hugging Fluttershy one more time.

********************

It was a few hours after they had finished the picnic, and the whole group was still in the park. Most were tossing a red Frisbee Clyde had brought, and several other ponies had joined in in a game of extreme catch. Rarity, Twilight and Fluttershy didn’t participate, Rarity with the excuse of not wanting to ruin her hooficure, and Twilight because she was never any good or interested in athletics, the same excuse as Fluttershy. Rather, the trio sat on the picnic blanket, watching as a dozen or so ponies ran back and forth after the crimson disc.

“Have you guys noticed something about Clyde?”

The fashionista opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, Twilight added, “other than his body.”

Rarity closed her mouth after being stopped short of what she was about to say, and began thinking of anything strange her violet friend may have noticed.

“I’ve noticed he has different personalities,” Twilight explained, “It’s like he has a mysterious side, a serious side, a sad side. Do you see it?”

“Now that you bring it up I do. When he was new was when we saw the mysterious side, was it not?”

“Yeah,” replied the violet unicorn, “And the sad side when he told us about the battle in his cabin after dinner a few nights ago.”

“And the serious side with the manticore,” Fluttershy and Rarity said in unison.

“I think we just saw a gentle side as well. Did you see how kind he was to Fluttershy and Spike? He was so sincere,” said Rarity, her eyes falling on Clyde as he flew after a high toss of the Frisbee.

His coat shone in the afternoon sun, his rippling muscles flexing with each movement.

Fluttershy took to her private thoughts for a few seconds, thinking how kind he was. He made everything seem less scary, and she realized a very characteristic warmth rushing through her veins as she thought of how he hugged her.

“What other sides does he have?” asked Twilight, bringing her friends’ attention back to her.

The three began listing off different traits he seemed to have; romantic, funny, sarcastic, giddy, reassuring, and obviously, protective.

“Which side do you think is the real him?” asked Fluttershy.

Twilight looked back to Clyde temporarily, watching him as he threw the disc across the park, smiling while he did it. The only part of his coat not reflecting the sun was his cutie mark, the permanent stain from the manticore’s poison corrupting his coat and making the lightning bolt in its center all the more prominent.

“I don’t know.”

****************

The day progressed, and eventually Celestia’s sun began its descent from the heavens. Twilight, Fluttershy and Rarity, who had continued chatting through most of the day, were interrupted by panting and heavy footsteps; the group had returned from the game.

Clyde put the disc back in a saddlebag and sat down on the picnic blanket, breathing deeply. Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie and Spike did the same, giggling a bit.

“That was fun,” said Pinkie softly. For once in her life, she was actually tuckered out, and had no energy to spare.

“Why didn’t ya’ll join in?” asked Applejack as she removed her hat and wiped the sweat from her brow.

“It was enough fun just watching,” explained Twilight.

“Pssht. Come on! Sitting can never be fun! Fun is doing tricks and stuff, not watching you egghead!” said Dash somewhere between a shout and a scream, “Out there is real fun. Did you see some of the sick catches I pulled? They were awesome!”

“Oh, don’t be such a braggart Rainbow Dash,” scolded Rarity.

“Everyone has their own kind of fun,” said Clyde, “and I think we all had fun today. I know I did. Thanks for this.”

The pegasus turned and threw his saddlebag over his back, saying, “The sun’s going down. I’d better get back to the mountains.”

“W-Wait!” shouted Spike.

Clyde stopped before he took to the air.

“This was a great day, and I want to remember it,” the dragon explained, “Can we take a picture?”

Clyde smiled and turned around, nodding to the small reptilian. Spike trotted for a saddlebag Twilight had brought while the others stood together. Spike took aim with the camera, which was mounted on a tripod.

“A little to the left; a little more… that’s perfect.”

He pressed a button on the camera and then ran to the group. He stood in front of Clyde and in between the other six, but he had to aim the camera too high to get Clyde’s elevated stature in the shot; Spike was out of place, and the camera’s countdown to the flash wasn’t slowing down.

Clyde realized his problem, and scooped him up in his forelimb, sitting him on his back. Clyde looked over his shoulder at the drake, who wore an infinitely happy expression on his face. Somehow, the simple gesture had meant the world to him.

The camera’s methodical beeping quickened, indicating the impending shot.

“Say cheese!” squealed Pinkie Pie as they all put on their best smile.

The camera flashed, and Spike jumped from Clyde’s back to check the camera.

“Hey, send me a copy of that picture once the film turns out,” said Clyde, hovering a few feet off the ground.

“You bet!”

Before he rocketed off, he looked down to each of his friends, and said in his silky smooth voice, “Until next time.”

Then, the grey warrior pressed against the air with his expansive wings, ascended into the painted sky, and flew towards the Saddlebacks.

Author's Note

Hey! Thanks for reading guys and girls. Just a reminder, I don't mind if any of you make art of this story as long as you give me credit. In fact, I encourage it; I'd love to see what this community will do with my idea. Just make sure to cite me, otherwise its stealing, and I've worked really hard on this piece. Please comment about the good and the bad, and I'll try to fix the bad. Thanks!

Those in Need

Fluttershy woke suddenly with a gasp. Her heart pounded in her chest, and she was out of breath, the dream still fresh in her mind.

She had been standing in darkness, alone, and no matter where she ran, only more and more darkness greeted her. When she heard a snarl and turned to see two pairs of glowing blue eyes penetrating the blackness, she awoke.

“It was just a dream,” she tried to tell herself, but it felt so real when it had been happening, and no matter what she tried to think, she felt afraid.

She looked outside; it was still night, the moon hiding its face with a shadowy veil of clouds. She rolled over, trying to get comfortable again, the nightmare still lingering.

No matter what she thought of, her animals, her friends, even light, her mind kept involuntarily returning to the darkness and fear of the nightmare. It was more than just a dream; it felt almost like a memory.

A new feeling came over her when she looked outside a second time; a feeling like something was watching her. Chills ran down her spine, and she began scanning the evanescent world beyond the glass, checking the tree line for any movement. She saw nothing, and began to panic, but then she realized something; Clyde.

The feeling could be from him; it had to be. He watched over the citizens of Ponyville every night, especially her and the other elements of harmony. It made sense that the feeling was from him watching her, and she began to feel less afraid; her nightmares were scary, but she knew she had nothing to fear as long as the Guardian was around.
Her head gently fell onto her pillow, and she found solace under the stars again, waiting on the coming of dawn.

****************

Morning came swiftly, the cold of dawn chilling the air of the serene kingdom. As quickly as it came, the gilded sun replaced the luminous moon in the sky, and the sweetness of morning came to be.

Fluttershy awoke with the sun and opened the window, letting all the qualities of the morning fill her home. She first prepared herself for the day, and then her home for company. Clyde was coming over; she said she would remove his stitches, and today was the date they set.

She quickly made her cottage’s interior as clean as possible, and as she filled each of her animals’ bowls with breakfast, a knock reverberated through the house.

“Come in!” she tried to shout, but her call only held the energy of a bird’s relaxing song.

Clyde entered the home as she came out of the kitchen, the last of her pets being fed. She flipped back her hair as she came into the living room, and saw Clyde’s body, his face concealed by a bouquet of flowers; yellow roses to be exact.

“A token of my thanks,” he explained as he offered her the flowers, “seeing how you like them so much.”

“They’re beautiful! Thank you Clyde.”

He answered only with a smile, and the two found themselves in a moment of awkward silence, neither knowing quite what to say. One stood confidently upright, waiting to be spoken to, while the other relished in the scent of the roses while coyly trying to think of any good lines. Fluttershy’s mind drew on a blank, and she just stood there for a short while, flowers in hoof.

“So,” she started, “Your…um… stitches.”

“Uh, right,” he said as he followed her towards the centerpiece of the living room, a large sofa.

“So, um, why don’t you sit here while I go get some things.”

Clyde did as he was told as the yellow mare floated into the other room, returning shortly clutching a disassembling first aid kit in her forelimbs.

She set the supplies on the table adjacent the couch.

“Are you ready?”

His head bobbed up and down slowly.

Fluttershy took a pair of scissors and carefully moved them closer to Clyde’s breast. He sat erect and held his breath as she did so, so that his chest was now even with her eyes. Slowly, she cut the knotted end of one of the lines, and Clyde watched as she pulled the black thread out through his skin gingerly.

As she worked, she began a conversation.

“I felt you watching me last night,” she said smiling.

“Really? At what time?”

“Around 3 in the morning.”

Clyde looked down at her, perplexed. At midnight he had stopped watching the ponies in his region, and began patrolling the region for danger personally. After all, the ponies had all gone to sleep, and he didn’t need to keep an eye on them any longer, as they were all in their homes and would be for the rest of the night. Whatever was watching Fluttershy wasn’t him, but he didn’t dare tell her that; it would only scare her. So, he put on his best poker face, hoping she wouldn’t bring it up again. She didn’t.

“So, are you liking Ponyville?”

“Yes,” responded the patient.

“You haven’t told me much about where you came from before.”

“I didn’t have a home before. I travelled all over on deployments with the 11th.”

“Did you have any other friends?”

“In the Cavalry I did,” said Clyde, “it feels like I haven’t talked to them in ages. I’ll have to catch up at the ball. I’m just glad to have some friends here.”

He smiled down at her as she finished removing the first line of stitches.

“Do you remember much about that day?” said Fluttershy as she began weaving the second line of thread out of his skin, “The day you got these?”

“A little bit,” he began slowly, looking up from his chest, “I recall…watching you all set up the picnic…seeing something in the trees, realizing what it was, and then flying to you as fast as I could. It felt like I was going in slow motion…I thought I wouldn’t make it in time.”

“When I first saw you with my own eyes instead of with the sight, the manticore had just hit Dash, and I remember thinking to myself ‘Please, take me instead of them.’”

Fluttershy stopped working at the stitches and turned her attention to her friend, who was still staring into a space beyond the confines of her home.

“I remember ramming him, but nothing of the fight. What happened?” he looked back to her, and his advocate continued working, mostly to avoid eye contact.

“Well… you kept yourself between us and the manticore. When you talked, it wasn’t like your normal voice; you sounded serious, almost angry. You told us to go, and that you would protect us while we escaped,” she nodded a bit, recalling details and images of that day, “When the manticore attacked, you lured him away from us, and that’s when I stopped to help Rainbow.”

A hint of fear invaded her voice as she continued.

“I saw it when he hit you. I cried out to you, but you yelled for me to run away and leave you behind. I was so scared for you, Clyde. I’m just glad you’re ok.”

“Me too,” he said, their voices holding the same tone.

“Do you remember anything from the hospital?” she asked, hinting at the existence of the note she left.

“Only thoughts; I kept having nightmares. I could see everything; ponies, places, you. But I couldn’t reach out to touch it. It was like being on the other side of a mirror, and I wondered if I would ever feel anything again. Looking back on it, I must have dreamt that dream for the first two days.”

Fluttershy pulled the last of the thread from the second of the gashes in his chest as he finished. She looked up again as she coiled the black thread, seeing Clyde’s somewhat sorrowful expression. Slowly, he continued.

“On what would’ve been the third day I had a different dream. I could see myself on the hospital bed; I was standing next to myself. It was like I was somepony else; I didn’t really realize that it was me on the bed until later.” The warrior looked straight ahead of him.

“It was night, the door opened slowly, and this pony in a black cloak came into the room… he made no noise. He came up to the other side of the bed and looked down at my body for a while, which wasn’t breathing. He reached down and started to pull off the sheet.”

He looked down at Fluttershy, who had forgotten about his chest and was wholly captivated by his story; she looked like a filly listening to a ghost tale.

“I told him to stop and he dropped the sheet, like he was surprised I was there. He just stared at me, but I couldn’t see his face. I asked him who he was, but he just pulled his hood down even farther. I asked him what he was doing, and he turned away. Then he looked down at the letter on my bedside.”

Fluttershy perked up slightly at the mention of the note.

“He brushed the rose on top of it away and it withered up. He picked up the letter and read it, putting it back the way it was when he finished. Then, he pulled the sheet back up over my body, like he was tucking in a foal for bed.”

Clyde diverted his gaze to his quiet friend, who held a hoof over her mouth as she listened, both fascinated and terrified.

“Then, he stared at me for what seemed like an hour. It was like looking into the face of a shadow; he had no eyes, no mouth, no visible face, just a void beneath the hood. Suddenly, he grabbed me; not the body on the bed, but me, at least, the me in the dream. He pulled me across the bed, very close to him, he leaned into my ear, and he whispered something. I still haven’t figured out what he meant.”

He paused for a few moments, and Fluttershy waited for him to say what was said; he never did.

“Then he grabbed my hoof, and made me touch my body on the bed; when I did, I woke up. The doctor was there and it was just after sunset. He told me what happened, how you all helped me to the hospital, and that the operation had saved me. They told me that the poison was still in me and that they wouldn’t be able to ever fully remove it, but that it wasn’t spreading, and that I would have to stay in the hospital for a while; I left the next morning.”

Were you afraid?” Fluttershy asked meekly.

"Of what?”

“You did all those things, fought the manticore, had nightmares; even in the past you fought in battles and got hurt really badly. Were you ever scared?”

“Well of course.” he said, much to the surprise of his smaller friend.

She took him to be fearless up to now, and had only seeking confirmation.

“But then, how are you so brave?”

Clyde sighed and said, “Bravery doesn’t mean that you’re not afraid; it means doing what you have to do even though you are.”

He looked away for a bit, saying “I’m not as brave as you think I am.”

“You’re the bravest pony I know,” she said reassuringly, and she grabbed the scissors to begin working on the third line of stitches.

As she cut and began unweaving, Clyde grabbed a single rose from the bouquet sitting on the table next to him and held it in between his hooves while the yellow mare’s eyes and tender hooves were occupied. He waited for her to finish in silence, and when she pulled the last inches of string from his skin, he turned her chin towards him, placing the rose behind her ear.

“Thank you," he said as he leaned in a little closer.

She closed her eyes and her breathing quickened, waiting for him to kiss her. She felt his breath on her face, but all she received was a weak hug. She pulled away and looked up into his verdant eyes; they weren't smiling like the rest of his face. It was like he was hiding something, and Fluttershy couldn't figure out what.

“Wait,” started Fluttershy before he reached the door, “I need to ask you something.”

She needed to know if she had a chance with him, if she was wasting her time and her dreams on him, or if there really was something between them.

“Anything,” he answered.

“It’s just,” the words were in her throat, but she couldn’t seem to get the question to come out. She wanted with every bone in her body to ask him what he thought of her, if it was the same way she thought of him, but couldn’t. After nearly a minute, she gave up.

“I just wanted to say thanks for the flowers.”

She feigned a smile, and Clyde’s keen wit picked up what she was really trying to ask.

He pretended not to, and only said through a smile, “You’re welcome.”

As he leaned against the wood of the door, he turned and said, “Until next time,” and then left, leaving her alone with her thoughts and her animals for company.

****************

Clyde regretted leaving so suddenly. He himself had begun to question what his priorities were. He was here to protect these mares, not fall in love with them. He had a job to do, and his stupid emotions kept getting in the way of it. Were circumstances different, he would have stayed at that cottage until Fluttershy kicked him out. But, the circumstances were as they were, and it would be irresponsible for him to get caught up a relationship, no matter how much he wanted one.

Regardless, he couldn't change the situation, however much he wanted to. Besides, he had to do some things before the ball. After all, with Celestia and Luna’s search set to commence the day after next, it was uncertain how long Equestria would be at peace. He wanted to be remembered for some things in case it went badly, and so he made his way into town.

He was in the town square when he heard a feminine voice call his name.

“Clyde, there you are!”

He turned to see Rarity trotting in his direction.

She flicked her curled mane as she reached him, but then seized him in a blue aura and began to lead him in the opposite direction he wanted to go.

“I need you for something,” she said as Clyde felt his dragging hooves being lifted off the ground in her magic.

“For what?” he asked, frustrated by his inability to move on his own.

“I need your body.”

Clyde began to panic, unsure what she meant, and fearing what he assumed she was leading him to. His eyes were still free to move, unlike the rest of his body, and he saw several ponies gawking at the spectacle of such an obviously masculine stallion being manhandled by an established prissy mare.

She levitated him to her boutique, pushing through the door with the stallion floating in behind. Once inside, she released him, and he fell a few feet to the ground, landing very uncharacteristically clumsily.

He picked himself up, and in clear exasperation, shouted, “What is this all about?”

“Sorry dear, but nopony else would do; I absolutely need you for this,” she explained as she began trotting around and levitating various fabrics and tools across the room.

“For what?” he asked as she lead him by his front leg onto a small pedestal in the center of the room.

“I’m releasing a new line of stallion’s clothing, a very specific size range, and I need you to model while I finish up these last few designs.”

“What’s the size range?” he asked, partially from curiosity but mostly from confusion.

“Big and tall,” she said matter-of-factly as she selected a large square of blue cloth from her expansive inventory.

“Are you sure there’s nopony else that can do for this?” he said with a sigh.

“You’re it. Please Clyde, I need to get this done as soon as possible. The dead line for this line is three days from now and I’d rather spend the next day’s time making the dresses for the ball.”

“Alright,” he reluctantly agreed.

Rarity smiled, levitated her red rimmed glasses to her snout as well as an outfit draped over a mannequin in her inspiration room, and began working. She dressed him in a vibrant blue coat and fancy blouse with her magic, and stepped back; the outfit was blatantly small. Clyde was having trouble breathing and it squeezed his wings into his ribcage, his skin and muscle being pressed together in the tight clothes.

“Oh dear,” she said, and began tailoring the clothes to fit his size, “Sorry Clyde, but I’ve had to fit these clothes to ponies of, well… average size.”

“It’s fine,” he wheezed.

Eventually she loosened the bonds enough for the large pegasus to breathe normally, and she began stitching the pieces of the outfit together to fit comfortably around his body.

“Ow,” he said suddenly, flinching a bit, “You keep getting me with the needle. I just got stitches out, I don’t want any more.”

Sorry dear, but It’s hard not to with your muscles being so...well, big,” she flamboyantly gestured with outstretched forearms as she finished, “It would be easier if you would stop fidgeting around so much.”

As she said this, he felt her hoof on his chest, and she leaned in on him; he would have looked her in the eye, but he wasn’t allowed to, as that could be classified as fidgeting. Besides, she was in his blind spot anyway, adjacent to his ribcage, her head barely clearing the top of his back.

“Is she working or flirting?” he thought to himself.

He felt her hoof slide down his chest and onto his forelimb, and she put a little more of her weight on him.

“Flirting,” he concluded, but his theory was rebutted by the sudden prick in his side, No, she’s still working. Wait, she’s doing both at once. Now is that a talent or a problem?”

Again, her hoof slid back farther, this time to his lower ribcage, and he decided it was a problem, most of the time.

“Why is she so direct? The first time we met on she was like this too. I guess that’s what the stallions around here fall for?”

He felt the needle touch a few hairs on his side as she continued sewing, and her hoof slid back a bit farther. She apparently finished whatever she was doing, because he stopped feeling disturbances on his hide, and her hoof came off of his oblique.

She then continued the same process on the other side.

“Maybe it’s involuntary? She probably doesn’t even know she’s doing it; or it’s just for fun. That’d be a sick joke to pull on some love-sick colt.”

She quickly finished mending the outfit to his size, undressing him with a glowing horn in preparation for the next piece. She levitated the next outfit she needed to adjust out of the wardrobe.

It was a handsome tuxedo with an elegant twist. The collar was studded with gems and the jacket and vest were white instead of the traditional shade of black.

“It looks nice,” he complimented sincerely as she examined the spotless fabric.

“Thank you dear,” she said, shooting him a confident smile, “Now, let’s get you into it.”

Clyde, not allowed to fidget, stood like a statue as the alabaster mare dressed him in the clothes. She fit the shirt, vest and jacket over his thick frame without buttoning them. Once confident the apparel sat on Clyde’s body properly, she inspected the fabric to make sure it would be the right length. As she orbited him, he stood still, but tried to start a conversation to create some noise in the room other than the designer’s hoof falls.

“Looking forward to the ball?” he asked.

“Oh yes. I’m so glad you invited us; I’m just a bit worried about a few in our group,” she answered.

“Who?”

“Well,” she explained while continuing her work, measuring and adjusting the clothing on her mannequin, “Dash, Pinkie and I have no trouble being social, and I’m sure Twilight will head straight for the princesses once we get there, but Applejack, Spike and Fluttershy can be a bit reserved among strangers. It’s just that it can take a while to earn A.J.’s trust, and Spike normally isn’t shy, but he can be intimidated fairly easily.”

“And Fluttershy’s…afraid?” prepositioned Clyde.

“More timid, I’d say.”

“She almost broke into tears just thinking about going. I see more than you all think from that mountain; she’s terrified of anything new.”

“Except you,” hastily replied Rarity.

“Well, yes, but that’s because she knows I’m here to protect all of you; she doesn’t know anypony that’ll be at this party or how they’ll treat her, and I know that’s a source of fear for everypony, but especially to her.”

“You’re right,” agreed the mare as she fetched different samples of cloth and held them up against the suit’s coat to compare colors, “it very well could be that she feels safe with you. And you’re right, she has had some…less than desirable experiences with others, but I think she agreed to go because she knows you’ll be there. She has nothing to fear while you’re around.”

I don’t know about that,” he said solemnly, looking down at what he could see of his freshest trio of scars.

“Then again,” began Rarity a second time, “it could be something else.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, needless to say, you’ve been turning heads ever since you came; I’ve seen plenty of fussing whenever you walk by a group of mares, even among the six of us,” she said playfully.

“Huh,” he said, coming to grips with what she was trying to convey, “I guess I never noticed.”

“So you don’t have one?” inquired Rarity.

“What?”

“A very special somepony,” she cooed in a comical change of voice, her eyebrows drawing up as she did.

The response came in the form of a shaking head.

Suddenly, the session was interrupted by the bell’s announcing of a visitor. A quick burst of high-pitched laughter revealed the newcomer; Pinkie Pie.

She couldn’t help but giggle at the Guardian’s demotion to a model, and her chuckling grew into a belly laugh when Clyde’s cheeks turned red.

She rolled on the floor at the warrior’s feminine moment, and as she trotted out, Clyde swore he heard her say, “Wait ‘til the others see this.”

“Don’t mind her,” said Rarity, trying to reassure the stallion, “this will get you mostly respect in the town, at least from the mares.” She jokingly flicked her mane and added another level of theatricality to her accent, “Mares like a stallion with a bit of a sensitive side. After all, it can be hard to relate to a heartless machine like some soldiers are.”

The two both laughed, and Rarity continued her work. She decided to fully adorn her model in the outfit, and began to fasten the shirt’s buttons with her magic, but didn’t get past the collar. The second button down wouldn’t slip in through the button-hole, and she reverted to manually securing her creation. She glared in concentration and leaned on Clyde slightly as she reached across his broad chest for the button, but Clyde wasn’t ready.

Not expecting her weight added to his, he stepped back to take a wider stance, but his hoof overshot the perimeter of the pedestal. He slipped and fell, as did Rarity. Clyde rolled off the platform, landing on his back amidst pieces of cut fabric, and heaved when he felt something heavy land on his stomach. He looked up into the wincing face of Rarity; she had fallen on top of him, her legs on either side of his body and her stomach against his. Then, the doorbell rang again.

The two looked to the open doorway; Clyde straining his neck and Rarity propping herself up slightly with her forelimbs. Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash stood shoulder to shoulder just inside the entrance.

Dash looked at the two ponies in the awkwardly compromising position, and her eyes grew large in surprise and shame. Her friend was on the floor straddling Clyde, practically dominating him, and his shirt was in the process of being unbuttoned, so it seemed.

The colorful mare quickly turned to leave, saying, “What makes you think that’s funny Pinkie?”

“Hey, it wasn’t like that a few minutes ago."

Rarity and Clyde exchanged a quick glance, and simultaneously realized how they appeared. She quickly stood up off of him while Clyde rolled onto his stomach and hastily ascended from the floor.

“Wait! It’s not what you think,” shouted Rarity, her white face shifting instantaneously to red. When the others turned around, she explained what happened.

“Uh-huh, sure,” said the blue pegasus sarcastically.

“No really; you just had bad timing is all,” Rarity tried to explain.

The two seemed to believe her, and they came back into the room, which was filled with a very awkward silence.

“So…um, shall we continue?” Rarity petitioned as she levitated a new outfit towards her model, who had retaken his place on the pedestal.

This outfit was much more conservative; it was a white garment with a grey overcoat, complete with a grey cap as an accessory. As she dressed her living mannequin, Clyde noticed that it fit much better than the previous outfits, and that he was very fond of it; it was light and comfortable, it had holes behind the shoulders to comfortably accommodate his wings, and the color scheme fit his taste very well. But, he dared not say anything while the needle-wielding equine diligently worked, adjusting the acute details of the suit to fit his size and shape perfectly.

As she was finishing her work on the outfit, a tomboyish voice from the side of the room jokingly asked, “How’d you get him to model for you?”

“I didn’t really give him a choice,” she answered, a guilty giggle coming forth.

She stepped away from Clyde as she finished, and he said, “I would have come on my own if you hadn’t literally carried me here.”

“Really? Why?” asked Pinkie Pie, obviously surprised.

“A friend in need,” he answered.

The seamstress finished securing the outfit on her model and stepped back.

“Doesn’t look too bad on him,” said Dash shrugging a bit.

“Of course it looks good on him Dashie, Rarity made it,” chimed Pinkie Pie.

Rarity, still focused on her work, asked, “Could you walk around a bit for me?”

He did as she asked, looking to her for approval as he did; she gestured for him to keep going, and said, “Keep your chin up and your shoulders cocked.”

He followed her instructions, and the two mares standing to the side giggled a bit at the normally masculine pegasus prancing around the boutique, gracefully high-stepping like a show horse.

Rarity couldn’t help but remember Twilight’s theory about his multiple personalities, and thought, "Maybe I just found his feminine side.”

“What do you think?” she asked.

“I like it,” he said as he completed his second lap around the boutique’s interior, slightly disturbing the cat on the following pass, “How much does this outfit cost?”

“50 bits."

“I’d like to order one,” he began counting, pawing the ground in a rhythmic fashion, “When do you ship these?”

“In a few days; I’m not really certain of the exact date, it can change any time.”

“Well when you do, can you save one for me? I’ll pay you when they’re ready.”

“Uh…sure,” she stammered, surprised that he actually had taken an interest in her passion, which was universally regarded as a prissy subject.

Clyde walked back to the pedestal in the center of the room, signifying that he was ready for whatever was next. The white mare followed, brushing a strand of her deep purple mane away from her face before her horn began to glow. The outfit came off smoothly without even a single stitch being disturbed.

Rarity just stood in place after removing the clothing, and he asked, “Anything else?”

She shook her head ‘no’, and neatly folded the grey overcoat and white shirt, stacking them and placing the cap over their top, replacing it in a storage compartment on the far end of the boutique. She trotted back to face him, barely coming up to the base of his neck, and thanked him.

Clyde nodded, smiling slightly, and then turned for the door.

Before he left, he turned and slightly bowed to all present, and in his sweet, smooth voice, crooned, “Until next time.”

Rarity and the others moved closer together as he left, watching the muscles in his flanks and shoulders flex with every step he took. In between the bell ringing and the door closing, he looked back over his shoulder, as if to let them know he knew they were watching.

As the door clicked shut, Rarity leaned to her friends, and cheerfully said, “I’m glad we met him.”

****************

It wasn’t long before he arrived at the library. He knocked, firmly, but in a way that was somehow docile, and then waited to be let in. A few seconds passed before the tree opened from within. A lavender unicorn stood in the doorway, surprised but happy to see him.

“Oh, hey Clyde. What can I do for you?”

“I was just wondering,” he explained, “if you had a book I’m looking for.”

“Well, I can check.” She turned inwards to her expansive bookshelves, and the grey stallion followed, “What kind of book is it?”

The pegasus went off on his own, and asked, “Where’s the classical literature section?”

“Uh…right over here.” She motioned to a heavily stocked collection of shelves, and Clyde moved closer to search.

He hovered up to the highest archives, deliberately reading each spine of each text on each shelf until he finally selected one.

He pulled a thick leather bound book from the second highest shelf, and returned to the floor with it. He brought the hardcover to the librarian, and asked if he could check it out.

"Sure, take it.”

She tilted her head to read the book’s cover; A Collection of Poetry Through the Ages.

“I didn’t know you were into poetry?” she inquired.

“Neither did I.”

The stallion made his way back to the door, but not before he stopped, having eyed a hardcover copy of some sort. He grabbed the book, held it up, and said, “This one too.”

This book’s cover read The Chronicles of the Northern Wars. Twilight nodded.

He shot a smile back to her, genuflected a bit, and uttered his usual farewell, “Until next time.”

Then, he took off for the mountains, leaving her alone and somewhat confused.

The Ball

It was afternoon, only a few hours before the Military Ball. Clyde was in his cabin, standing before the mirror, adjusting his dress uniform. His hind legs were bare, but he wore a sage green coat and a matching tie over a black shirt, a black beret adorned with the Guardian’s insignia sloping down the side of his head.

He inspected his reflection, examining the condition of his appearance for several minutes before concluding that the clothes rested perfectly on his body. He walked outside, and slowly began the flight into town; he had arranged to meet his guests, be picked up in the town square and chauffeured to the ball by carriage.

He had spent the majority of the day’s young hours making sure that his absence for the night wouldn’t end in disaster at the hands of evil for the Equestrians under his watch. He saw nor found any possible threats, and was confident that the night, like countless others as of late, would be uneventful.

As he neared the town’s edge, he set down on the road’s cobblestone, his hooves clapping against its surface. He could have flown the rest of the way, but he felt like walking. This way, he could watch as all the ponies in town turned their heads as he strolled by; it wasn’t out of pride as much as it was out of fascination. When he wore that uniform, he stood for something noble, and all in Equestria recognized him for it. It also meant that he had to act accordingly so as to represent the honor he signified when he adorned his ribbons and insignia.

He strolled through the square; sure enough, he drew attention. He sat on a bench in the center of the square and began waiting for his companions to arrive. He waited alone for several minutes, crowd-gazing. Foals and fillies pointed at him, asking about the ‘soldier’ in town, to which their parents responded in fabricated answers; none of the town’s citizens, excluding seven and a few of the hospital staff, knew him, at least not yet.

He could hear voices around him, and his curiosity peaked. He dare not use the sight in broad daylight, let alone within the town’s limits; it would raise too much of a panic. But, his hearing was heightened enough to hear most everything around him.

A group of mares at the diner across the square turned the topic of their conversation to him, and he could hear them laughing as they cooed over his muscles, scars and ‘handsome’ mane. They called him ‘cute’; he pretended not to notice. Some colts behind him, though he couldn’t see them, began wondering aloud why he was there; unaware of the volume they were speaking in.

As he sat, a young family walked by very near to the bench; an aqua colored mare pushed an orange infant foal in a buggy, and dragged a slightly older brown colt behind her. His left hoof was clenched in his mother’s, but his right dragged a toy wooden sword. As they passed him, the foal slipped from his mother’s hoof without her taking notice. He stared at Clyde for a long while, then, though in very shabby form, he saluted him.

Clyde froze, his heart gripped by the innocent and simple, yet profoundly meaningful gesture. He stood, snapping to attention as if the toddler were a superior. He raised his right hoof to his brow, and looked down at the young one, smiling. The colt blushed and smiled, matching the expression of his mother as she retrieved him. Clyde watched them go enviously, dreaming of the family he so dearly wanted back.

He looked to the clock tower; it was just about to strike 5. The ball was to start at 6.
Their carriage arrived as the somber tone of the bell rang out above the square, four gilded royal guards hitched to the front. He nodded to them, their faces shielded by halcyon helmets, their crests the same color as his own mane.
He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could explain to the guards that he was waiting on a few others, he heard the sound of hoof beats behind him and spun around.

The six mares were breathtaking, and the looks in the chauffer’s eyes matched Clyde’s emerald bedazzlement. Rarity had done an amazing job on their gowns; each was unique and elegant, yet still not excessive in show.
The color schemes molded to each one’s personality; vibrant pinks and blues, earth tone green and sky-blue, hearty red and brown, complete with a new hat, all shades of purple, all the colors of the rainbow and then some, and the fanciest of ball gowns for the designer herself. They looked beautiful.

Once he chased the flabbergasted look from his face, Clyde bowed to his guests, bending a knee slightly and descending to their height.

“You all look wonderful,” he said, looking up.

“You don’t look too bad yerself,” complemented Applejack.

“The uniform is a good look for you,” added Rarity.

Clyde opened the door to the large carriage, and the others filed inside with Spike taking up the rear; it was the first time Clyde had noticed him in the group. He was wearing a black tuxedo that was a bit too big for him, especially the bow tie. His spines were groomed and his claws shined, and his face was beaming; it was obvious that he was excited to be going, and Clyde hoped he would not be disappointed.

Clyde signaled to the stallions at the front of the carriage as he entered, taking a seat near the window. He removed his beret and held it in between his hooves as the mares started excitedly asking about what was to come.

“You’re sure the Wonderbolts will be there?” asked Dash, fidgeting a bit in her multicolored gown; she was obviously not used to dressing up.

“I’m sure. They’ve been there every other year.”

“What do the princesses normally do at the Military Ball?” asked Twilight.

“They host, they meander, they chat; if the party goes late enough, Luna may even drink a bit.”

The joke spawned a few giggles.

“The other Guardians will be there too, right?” asked Spike.

“They will.”

“I hope so,” the young drake replied.

The carriage bounced along the road to Canterlot as they continued to chat. After about an hour of excited small talk, the carriage came to a steady stop, and Clyde stepped out onto the lawns of the Canterlot palace. He placed his beret on his head and waited for the others.

Together, they walked towards the castle; Clyde held his head high, and the guards and soldiers they passed showed him instant reverence, stepping aside for him and his guests and coming to attention. Spike scampered alongside the tall pegasus, looking up at him admiringly; he only wished he could command such respect.

Clyde couldn’t help but notice some of the gawking faces on the stallions they passed. His company sure was winning a lot of attention.

They reached the gates to the palace, in front of which stood a unicorn guard levitating a long scroll and a quill in front of her face. The party followed Clyde as he approached the horned mare.

“Name and rank,” requested the guard.

“Captain Sterling, Clydesdale T.”

The quill began to write on the paper.

“And how many civilians in your party?”

“Seven."

Again, the quill began to drag itself across the parchment, and when it ceased fluttering above the paper, the guard stepped aside, allowing them to enter.

They found themselves in the castle’s expansive hall; banners of each military unit draped over the majestic archways and balconies. Countless tables were set up and covered with food and drinks, a band was playing to which a few ponies danced on an open ballroom floor, and myriad uniformed stallions and mares joked and laughed together. Clyde turned to check his friends, but only three remained by his side.

He looked back around the room, and quickly located the missing; Dash had already found the Wonderbolts, and had struck up a conversation with a few of the members, while Twilight was doing the same with Princess Celestia at the far end of the room. Rarity had gone off to inspect all aspects of the festivity, and Pinkie Pie was bouncing around the room, also inspecting everything, though much less critically, but Applejack, Fluttershy and Spike adhered to his side.
Clyde checked each of the banners, searching for one in particular. He recognized the colors of the Magic Brigade, the Celestial Infantry, the Royal Guard, the 11th Cavalry, the Equestrian Marine Corps and Special Forces, until finally, he spotted a crimson flag bearing a golden shield, a silver lightning bolt at its center. Beneath the flag, four ponies sat together at a large circular table, laughing.

Clyde turned to his guests, smiling reassuringly, pointed to the other Guardians, and led them to his comrade’s table.

As they drew nearer, Fluttershy grew nervous; the ponies at the table were intimidating. They wore the same uniform as Clyde, had the same cutie mark, but they were different somehow. One of them, an immense, jet black earth pony stallion, was bellowing and laughing in a voice much deeper than even Clyde’s. He pounded the table as he laughed at jokes or stories a smaller orange unicorn stallion was telling in between drinks of cider. Two mares also sat at the table; one, a turquoise crystalline pegasus with a dazzling white mane, and another, a light brown unicorn with an elongated and very sharp horn. The mares laughed as well, but in a much less eruptive way.

They reached the edge of the table, and the black earth pony rose suddenly, easily pushing the dense furniture away from him with a grinding screech.

“Clyde!” he boomed as their hooves met with a powerful clash, “Finally, you’re here! It’s good to see you again!”

He towered head and shoulders over even Clyde, more the size of a bull than an equine.

“Likewise Brutus; how are things in the West?”

“Better than ever since it was placed in my care,” he rumbled, gutturally laughing as he finished.

Clyde smiled as the orange stallion stood to greet him as well.

“Sebastian. It’s been a while.”

“Yeah,” he responded in a very thick east-coast accent, “I’d a come by to say hi, but things in the East have been pretty busy. Friggin’ city punks keep gettin' in gang fights; I don’t even have any time for mares anymore. You believe that?”

“I hear you brother,” he said, clapping him on the shoulder and moving on to the remaining two.

“Persephone; looking beautiful,” he crooned, but the crystalline mare only looked at him disapprovingly.

“For all your charm, you still think I’ll fall for a lame compliment?” the sparkling pegasus answered, raising an eyebrow at him.

“I wasn’t trying to flatter you,” he began, “and I didn’t think it was that lame; I also didn’t know you thought I was charming?”

He smiled as he teased her, and she gave a brazen grin back as he moved down the line.

“Dawn,” he said as he and the mahogany mare embraced, “It’s good to see you. Has the South been good to you?”

“More than you know,” she said in a slight drawl, her lips drawing up in a smile as her chin rested on Clyde’s shoulder.

Fluttershy, Applejack and Spike stood in place while Clyde greeted each of the Guardians, sheepishly waiting to be noticed. Now that they were closer, Fluttershy could see them each a bit better.

Brutus, the biggest one, was all the same shade of black, mane included. Though it was hard to distinguish from farther away, he had surplus hair around his lips and on his chin, forming a very neatly groomed goatee. His bulk built around a towering frame, and it was obvious that he was the biggest pony she had ever heard of, let alone seen. The orange unicorn, Sebastian, though average sized as equines go, seemed exceptionally small next to the other Guardians, all of which were astoundingly large. However, he made up for his stature with wide shoulders and defined musculature; it was obvious he was powerful, despite his size. He had taken off his beret and placed it over the white tablecloth, revealing a styled light blue mane, spiked up in front and neatly cut along the sides with a chipped horn protruding from his forehead.

The turquoise pegasus gleamed; it was obvious she was from the Crystal Empire. Though not as thickly built as the stallions in the group, she matched them in height, able to look Clyde in the eye. Her white mane was long and very full, extending down to her shoulders, and her fierce yellow eyes pierced the soul of everypony she looked at. Dawn, the brown mare, unlike her comrades, was very calm and relaxed, and moved with a certain grace and composure. She had kind blue eyes and was also very tall for a unicorn, coming up to Clyde’s chin. Her coat was clean, and her black mane held an obvious luster, a long slender horn rising up through a hole in the top of her beret.

All of them had abundant scars much like the ones on Clyde’s obsidian hide. Rough lines and discolorations covered their bodies, necks and faces, each one no doubt telling stories of battles fought and won; after all, scars only form if the wound did not kill.

“Are they with you?” asked Brutus, interrupting Fluttershy’s analysis, his dark eyes turning on the three onlookers.

“Yes, these are a few of my guests tonight; the others ran off somewhere,” Clyde trotted in between the three, extending his wings around them.

“This is Applejack,” he said as she gave a tip of her hat, “Fluttershy,” who coyly curtsied a bit, “and Spike,” the dragon vigorously waved as he was introduced.

“Well, would your friends care to sit with us?” asked Dawn, her tone a blend of sophistication and drawl.

“We’d be delighted to, ma’am,” replied Applejack politely, and they each took a seat at the secluded table.

Applejack started a conversation with Dawn, Fluttershy occasionally adding a few words of her own, and Spike darted straight for a chair in between Brutus and Sebastian. His head barely cleared the lip of the table. He looked at the colossal earth pony, his eyes glimmering as he smiled up at him. Brutus returned a blank look down at the drake as Clyde sat beside the orange unicorn, and asked, “Seb, can you believe this?”

“Nope,” came the reply, both stallions intently staring down at the reptile with expressionless faces.

Spike began to panic, “Oh no. What if Clyde was wrong? What if they don’t like me? What if they make fun of me instead? Oh, please, let this night go well.”

“I never thought I’d meet a dragon here,” rumbled Brutus, and Spike’s spirits immediately shot from the pits into the sky.

“Me neither,” added Sebastian, taking a drink.

“Well, I’m glad I could be the first,” said Spike nervously.

Brutus let out a very hearty laugh as Sebastian patted Spike on the back and said, “I like this kid.”

“So where’d Clyde find you bud?” asked Sebastian.

“In a library.”

“You’re kidding?” rumbled Brutus, and Spike began to realize that it was impossible for the imposing stallion to speak in anything less than a shout, “Why would anypony put a dragon in a library?”

“Well, I help Twilight out when she needs me to,” he said, pointing across the hall to the purple mare, still chatting happily with Celestia, “She’s the closest thing to family I have.”

“Well that’s respectable,” said Sebastian, his thick accent making it difficult to understand, “Ya know, they say that a couple hundred years back, dragons used to fight alongside the military. They must’a been somethin’ to see. They say one dragon could kill hundreds, alone too; and we used to have dozens of ‘em! But that alliance ended, abruptly too.”

“Why do you think that was?” asked the purple drake, sincerely intrigued.

“They probably got mad that they couldn’t come to all the feasts and celebrations in the palace over the years. Couldn’t fit their damn heads through the door,” laughed Brutus, pounding the table as Sebastian chuckled with him.

“Oops, sorry,” he apologized to his small scaly admirer, “I’ve gotta watch my language while you’re around.”

“You don’t need to mind your damn language,” said Spike in a way that felt forced.

He knew it was wrong to curse, but he was trying hard to impress the Guardians.

The two stallions only broke into laughter, Brutus pounding the table again and Sebastian doubling over, belly laughing this time instead of just chuckling. Spike laughed too, but he didn’t really see what was so funny; he was just trying to talk like them.

“You’re alright kid! Here, have a drink,” Sebastian reached for a glass and the bottle of sparkling cider on the table, but as he was pouring, he looked down to Spike and stopped smiling.

“Wait, no. You can’t have this.”

He raised his hoof and whistled at one of the many waiters traversing the room, and asked him to bring some drinks over. When the waiter carried over a bottle of cola, Sebastian bit out the cork, poured Spike a full glass, and handed it to him.

“To new friends,” said the orange stallion as he lifted his glass, and the three drank to the toast.

Spike was overjoyed.

The Dance

Clyde sat in between two groups of new friends, Spike and the stallions getting along well and the mares chatting away, except for Persephone. He knew that Dawn would take up well with Applejack and Fluttershy; she was gentle and kind, and shared A.J.’s southern blood.

Clyde leaned into the crystalline mare, and inconspicuously whispered, “Have the princesses said anything to you about what’s going on after tonight?”

“We already know,” Persephone replied in an icy voice, “Celestia presented a plan to us before you arrived; if they find anything, we’ll be the first response. Hopefully this doesn’t turn into another Canterbury Cove.”

“You do think it’s changelings then?”

“What else could it be?”

“But there haven’t been any foalnappings, no raids, nothing; all Luna said they know of is a presence of evil.” he tried to explain.

“That doesn’t mean they won’t come,” her fierce yellow eyes exemplified her belief that war was near, “After tonight, we are all to return to our regions and await the results of the princesses’ search.”

Clyde took a drink of sparkling cider, hoping its burn would ease his mind. As he swallowed, he looked up to see the rest of his guests standing on the other side of the table, obliviously smiling at him.

“Hey,” began Twilight cheerfully, “we just wanted to thank you for inviting us; this is so great!”

“So you’re with him too?” asked Persephone, her cold voice finding a smidgeon of kindness from deep within.

Four vigorous nods responded, until a thunderous voice caused all present to jump.

“These are the others?” asked Brutus, leaning forward.

Clyde leapt from his chair, hovered over the table, alighted next to his friends and introduced them. They each raised a hoof or nodded as her name was called, except for Rarity, who gave a very elegant bow.

“We just wanted to come over and meet you all,” explained Pinkie Pie, grinning from ear to ear.

Sebastian opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, a blur shot from the scene, leaving a cloud of dust behind; Pinkie had gone off to continue partying, and she was now downing punch on the far side of the room.

“Well then, come over and meet us,” requested Sebastian as he arose from the table and chivalrously pulled out a chair on the opposite side of his; Brutus and Clyde did the same, and everypony present ended up shifting seats to sit around the circular table.

Clyde ended up in the middle, essentially sitting between his guests and his comrades, who had involuntarily sat in segregated groups. Small talk ensued, mostly about the party, and Clyde couldn’t help but notice Sebastian’s eyes repeatedly falling on Rarity.

“So, where are y’all from?” asked Dawn softly.

“Ponyville,” was the unanimous response.

“How about you? Where are you from?” asked Twilight, thirsty for knowledge, as usual.

“I was born in the Crystal Empire, but I moved to Detrot when I moved out on my own,” answered Persephone.

“Born and raised in Appleloosa,” said Brutus, puffing out his already expansive chest.

“I was born in Fillydelphia, but I was a drifter until I joined the military. I don’t really have a home,” said the orange unicorn as he ran his hoof through his mane.

“My family’s from Hoofington,” explained Dawn, “but I’ve lived in Stableside for eight years now. It’s where I watch over my region.”

“So you all do that too?” began Rainbow Dash, excitedly leaning forward onto the table, “I mean, I know you protect your regions but do you watch over them like Clyde does, with the gift of sight thing?”

“You told them?!” exploded Persephone, turning on Clyde with a frightening glare, “Civilians aren’t supposed to know about our abilities!”

“Well, they’re not really civilians,” he tried to explain, “Do you remember why the princesses assigned me to the Central region in the first place?”

“She thought you were most fit to watch over the bearers of the elements of harmony,” recalled Brutus, stroking his facial hairs in recollection.

Clyde responded by nodding towards the six mares opposite them.

“Ah,” Persephone replied.

“I saw it fit to tell them; after she caught me, that is,” he looked playfully at Dash with an eyebrow raised; she returned the look.

“So,” started Spike, a presence of curiosity in his voice, “What are your gifts?”

The Guardians were hesitant.

“Oh, come on, please,” pleaded Dash, “We already know about you guys. Why keep secrets?”

“Oh alright,” began Dawn, “My gift,” suddenly, a voice perfectly matching the unicorn’s sweet tone spoke from behind the mares, “is this.”

They whipped around, and the mahogany unicorn was behind them. They turned back, but she was still in her chair across the table as well.

“I can bi-locate,” explained a third voice, coming from a third copy of the Guardian standing in front of a stained glass window. The two clones meandered to the sides of the original, three identical mares oriented shoulder to shoulder. Seven dumbstruck faces gazed upon the spectacle.

"I know, it’s weird,” said three melodious voices in unison. The two clones grew transparent, and were absorbed into the real Dawn.

“Ho-ho, that’s…somethin’, Ms. Dawn,” commented Applejack, mystified.

The brown unicorn only smiled humbly, and turned to her comrades.

“I’ll go next,” started Brutus as he stood. He placed his left hoof beneath the dense oak table and lifted it over his head with ease, not even a vague sign of effort showing anywhere in his body. Amazingly, he oriented the airborne piece so that not a single glass fell from its balanced platform. He set it back down, easily controlling the massive table.

“That’s nothin’” Rainbow Dash got up to replicate his feat, and positioned her shoulders beneath the table. She tried to lift the wooden platform, but couldn’t even get the edge of the table to budge. She pushed against the ground with all her might, but it was like it was sealed in concrete, and wouldn’t move an inch.

“Hang on, almost got it,” she lied, her face turning red from strain.

As she tried in vain, Rarity asked, “So it’s strength then, Brutus?” to which she received a silent nod.

“My turn,” said Sebastian confidently. Suddenly, he vanished, the feel and sound of static electricity filling the air. As quickly as he disappeared, he popped up next to Persephone. The stunt caused all to gasp, even making Rainbow Dash stop trying to lift the massive table and focus on the bizarre feat.

“You can teleport? That’s awesome!” exclaimed Dash.

“Yep,” then he was gone again, leaving the skin of all present tingling.

He reappeared leaning up against the wall, a few feet from the table.

“Celestia gave me it to me to be more effective in a fight, and to get around quicker,” he vanished, materializing next to Rarity’s cheek, and whispered, “but it’s good for other things too.”

She tried to slap him in rebuttal for his arrogance, but her hoof hit only air as he disappeared, coming back into view in his original seat, smiling confidently at the white equine. Rarity only glared, her eye shadow amplifying her discontent, but the orange unicorn only stared back grinning and slowly took a drink of cider, holding the gaze as he did.

“Ahem,” said Persephone, interrupting the stare-down, “looks like I’m up. Brutus, hit me with that chair.”

Eyes widened in fearful anticipation of her demise. The crystalline Guardian stood, and the black giant nonchalantly lifted a wooden chair with cumbersome strength, and swung with incredible force. The chair broke over Persephone’s head, and she took her seat again, unfazed.

“Luna hardened me, made me impenetrable. I suppose she saw it fit seeing how I’m practically kin to diamond, being crystalline and all.”

Dawn very courteously levitated the wooden shards of the chair into a wastebasket while the other’s tried to rid themselves of awestruck expressions.

“There’s just one thing I’m not understandin’,” began A.J. after a short silence, “Why don’t the princesses just give ya all the gifts and make ya invincible?”

“They tried that,” explained Dawn, “but the load of all the magic on one normal pony is too much; you’ve got to be an alicorn to support more than one of the spells. The magic the princesses used on us is so powerful that it can kill normal ponies if they aren’t strong enough, which is why Guardians are hand-picked from the strongest in Equestria.”

“By mixing and matching abilities,” continued Persephone, “we get a blend of strengths to compensate for each other’s’ weaknesses.”

Many questions ensued, mostly from Spike but several from Twilight as well. Clyde leaned back in his chair, perfectly content with watching his two worlds meet in conversation before him. He enjoyed seeing his friends’ interest in his other life, and laughed at how critically Twilight was interrogating the other Guardians about their abilities, trying to determine the nature of the magic behind their power or the history, however opaque it was, of the Guardians.

It didn’t take him long to notice that Sebastian and Rarity kept exchanging looks; the orange pony glancing at the mare seductively, the chiseled lines in his face drawing up tighter with each turn of his eyes. She looked back with only angry contempt at first, but as the night progressed, she turned with less frustration and more content, but Clyde could see the gears turning in her head.

“She’s planning something,”he thought,"She either wants him or she’s going to pull some stunt. She probably likes him; geez, how’d he pull that off after she tried to smack him. He’s always had a way with mares. Maybe it’s the haircut?”

He was neither jealous nor upset, but he felt a bit concerned for Rarity’s sake; Sebastian wasn’t exactly the best companion. He was more the love ‘em and leave ‘em type.

Just then, the band switched keys from the melodious lounge music they had been playing to an upbeat rhythm, and the mares’ ears perked up.

“Finally, something to dance to,” rejoiced Rarity, flicking her curled mane as she turned away from the table and towards the dance floor.

As she spoke, Brutus rose and bowed to Applejack, extending his hoof towards her as he did. She blushed, then smiled, took his hoof in hers, and allowed him to lead her to the dance floor.

Seemingly out of nowhere, three other stallions did the same to the others. A dark red unicorn from the Magic Brigade bowed in front of Twilight and asked her to dance; she accepted. One of the Wonderbolts, a blue pegasus stallion with a swept back mane, did the same to Dash, and she too agreed, smiling from ear to ear. Another stallion, a white pegasus with the 11th Calvary insignia on his shoulder, asked Fluttershy to accompany him, but she timidly declined.

Another stallion was approaching Rarity, but he was repelled by a fierce glare burning holes in his skull from the orange Guardian. Sebastian disappeared from Clyde’s side, leaving his hair tingling, and materialized next to Rarity.

“Shall we?” he proposed, moving in close to her cheek, blatant confidence permeating his demeanor.

“No, we shan’t,” she replied giving an impertinent smile back.

She flicked her mane across his face as she turned away, leaving the wordsmith speechless.

She strolled up to Clyde, swinging her hips as she did, and mocking Sebastian’s tone, asked, “Shall we?”

Clyde looked over her at his comrade’s dumbstruck face and couldn’t help but laugh. His jaw was hanging on its hinges and one eye twitched.

“Of course,” he replied.

She led him by his hoof to the center of the dance floor and turned to face him. She began to sway to the melodious harmony of the strings as Clyde let the rhythm flow through his body. He took her left hoof in his, and wrapped his other forelimb around her, and they began to waltz, spinning slowly around and around their section of the floor.
Rarity stole a quick look at Sebastian, still back at the table; he was blatantly pissed. He sat, his wide chest huffing, holding his glass but not drinking, and glaring. His cheeks turned red in rage when she winked at him, pulsating veins surfacing on his forehead.

The song continued playing, loud enough for all to hear but quiet enough to talk.

“All to show him up?” asked Clyde.

"Not all,” she replied, her dainty accent adding feminine quality to her voice.

Clyde knew what she was trying to say from the look on her face. The few words she spoke meant nothing next to the volumes contained within her sapphire eyes.

Clyde anticipated a rise in the music, and in perfect synchronization with the roar of the cello, he spun Rarity around, catching her and leaning forward, holding her swooning figure close to the ground. When the strings sang again, he spun his partner back upright, her mane and gown twirling behind her.

He advanced on her, a hoof around her and another joined at the end of her forelimb, as she retreated, matching his every step until the cello stopped and the violin took its place. She then took her turn, gaining ground on the tall grey stallion as he stepped back in perfect rhythm.

They spun around and around together, until again, Clyde anticipated the shift in the music, and as the cymbal rang, he took hold of his partner, lifted her off the ground, and spun a semicircle with her in his hooves. He set her down and she swooned back, catching her a few inches from the ground and leaning in close.

He was just about to continue when the music suddenly stopped. He looked around; everypony, including his friends, was gathered around the perimeter of the dance floor, watching as the two of them moved to the music. He hadn’t even noticed they had the floor to themselves. Apparently it had been quite the performance, as an ovation began. Clyde helped the white mare upright, and she curtsied a bit, relishing in her brief fame as he gave a slight bow.

The band slowly began to play again, and Rarity looked up to Clyde with a big splendid smile. She was out of breath, but regardless, she spoke.

“Thank you Clyde; that was amazing! I don’t think I’ve ever danced quite like that.”

“Any time; and I’m sorry about Sebastian. He’s a good guy. He’s just a bit…”

She stopped him with a hoof over his mouth, smiling as she did.

“I don’t care about him dear; I’ve grown used to brazen colts like him,” she explained, “But I’ve waited for a dance with a stallion like you forever.”

She began to sway again, and he realized she wasn’t ready to stop yet.

As the band began to gain vigor, he and Rarity began to sway again. Her head rested on his chest, and he began to scan the room. A.J. was dancing with Brutus again, Twilight and Dash with the same stallions as before, Pinkie Pie with an aqua colt from the Infantry, Sebastian, looking less frustrated than before, with a mare from the Intelligence Regiment, Persephone and Dawn with stallions from the 11th, and even Spike with a mare from the Royal Guard.

The music switched, as did the dancers. Rarity moved on, purposely avoiding a certain orange unicorn, but not before giving Clyde a quick tight hug.

Clyde found himself in front of a pink pegasus smiling up at him hopefully. He bowed, and the two began to sway to the melody of the strings. Again the song changed, and Clyde now found himself across from Applejack, who humorously tipped her hat to him. Again he bowed, chuckling a bit as he did, and the two began to twist to the beat.

He looked around again and spotted Spike moving back and forth with his hands around Rarity’s neck. Clyde nodded towards the sight, and A.J. giggled.

Again, the beat changed pace, and the pegasus and the farm pony moved to new partners. Clyde made his way through the crowd of ball goers, dancing with Dash, Twilight, Pinkie, the female Guardians and several others who were strangers to him. Each dance was unique, as each partner was different; modest, exuberant, lively, refined, bold, fun, simple, casual, but something seemed to be lacking.

As he tried to teach a very young green mare with three left hooves to dance, the music abruptly shifted into a slower melody, characterized by the gentle notes of a flute with soft strings harmonizing with its graceful melody. Clyde moved to the next closest mare, and was shocked to see who his next partner was; Fluttershy.

She stood coyly, smiling gently. Her mane was pulled back, showing the world her often concealed, yet beautiful face. Behind her ear was tucked a yellow rose from the bouquet he had bestowed the day prior.

Clyde smiled, both proud and pleasantly surprised that she had mustered the courage to venture onto the floor to dance with him. He bowed, and she very properly returned the gesture. He placed a hoof around her as she wrapped a forelimb around his neck, and they began to move and sway gracefully to the melody of the gentle music.

Clyde was taken aback when he realized that she was leading; she beckoned this way and that as they moved, pulling him into a surprisingly elegant promenade around the dance floor. She held a very rare confidence, and Clyde smiled knowing that he was most likely the cause.

This dance was unique from the others; something about the improbability of it gave it a sweetness that eluded those that came before. And that was just how this dance felt; not bold or fun or refined, but sweet. Fluttershy, who had declined to dance minutes earlier, had approached him for a brief moment of companionship, and he felt honored.

The music began to slowly die, and as the sweet notes of the flute began to float through the air, she hugged him tightly. He held her in his forelimbs, and brought his head so it rested on the back of her shoulder. The last note rang through the air, and several ponies began to clap, but they held the tender embrace through the applause.

Eventually, she pulled away from him, smiling, and they returned to the table exchanging somewhat awkward smiles. All in the original party, save Sebastian, sat down; the orange unicorn had posted up as far away from the previous holder of his affection.

“Ah always forget how much fun dancin’ is,” said Applejack as she fixed her hat, happiness spread across her face.

“I told you this would be fun,” said the grey pegasus, his wings fluttering slightly as the shrill notes of a violin invaded his ears.

“Well,” began Brutus, “thank you for the dance Ms. Applejack, but I think I’ll need to catch up with some old friends of mine from the Infantry.”

“I think I might do the same,” added Clyde.

The two stallions made their way to the other side of the room, leaving the table to the mares.

Author's Note

Hey guys! Thanks for reading this story. I hope you're enjoying it. Please leave a comment on what you did and didn't like. Thanks again.

Demons

The eight mares, Guardians included, watched as their masculine company trotted off, leaving them behind to chat.

Clyde was talking to the few members of the 11th that weren’t recruits; he had made it clear earlier that he and few others survived the Battle of Canterbury Cove. The couple of stallions he was conversing with had to be those few.

Spike stayed at the table, but Brutus and Sebastian were out of sight, the black earth pony presumably in the bar with a group from the Infantry and the unicorn conversing with his former Special Operations comrades.

“So how long have you known Clyde?” asked Persephone, finding the only likeness between the two groups in their mutual friend.

“A little while,” responded Fluttershy quietly.

“And, what do you know about him?”

They recalled what he told them, beginning with Rainbow Dash; how she had first met him when he was using the sight in the mountains outside of Ponyville. The others chimed in, telling about how he used to be in the 11th Calvary, but became a Guardian when he was chosen. They told her how it was his job to watch over them, and about how he nearly died saving them from the manticore.

“But what do you know about him?”

“I think he has a split personality,” explained Twilight, “He seems to have different sides to his behaviors. He’s been chivalrous or sad or serious or happy, but never at the same time. I just can’t figure out which side is the real him.”

“Anything else?” asked Dawn, prying.

“He told me he was an orphan,” said Dash, her raspy voice cracking as she did.

The brown unicorn nodded, a few strands of her dark mane falling over her face. This fact was new to the other mares; only Dash and the Guardians had known.

“We’ve noticed it too, his different personalities. You said you can’t figure out which side is his natural side,” Persephone began solemnly, “Before tonight, it was sorrow.”

“How?” asked Pinkie Pie, “When we first met him, he smiled a lot. I noticed it for sure!”

Dawn said quietly, “The easiest way to hide pain is with a smile.”

The mares grew solemn as she continued.

“That boy there,” she said, her voice holding a reverent tone, “has known more pain than anypony I’ve ever known. His body used to be free of scars, he used to have dozens and dozens of friends, he wasn’t always an orphan; he had a family once.”

Shocked, Fluttershy looked across the room to her Guardian. Somehow, he was laughing.

“So, he only smiles to mask his suffering?” inquired Rarity.

“Yes, or to try and comfort others in suffering. At least, before tonight,” said Persephone, “The Clyde that came tonight isn’t the one I’ve known for years. I don’t know if it has anything to do with you all,” she contemplated, turning towards her newest acquaintances, “but when he smiles now, it’s because he’s genuinely happy. I think he’s rediscovered something in his life.”

The Guardian stopped speaking, anticipating realization.

“What is it?” asked Fluttershy, both intrigued and concerned over the answer.

After a long pause, Dawn answered for her sister in arms, “Love.”

“He loves us?” asked Dash, appalled by the emotional shift in the conversation.

“Don’t say it like that, dear,” advised Dawn, “Remember, there are different kinds of love other than romantic love,” she turned to the young purple drake seated at her left, “like brotherly love,” she looked to Twilight, “or the love that comes with friendship,” her gentle eyes landed on Dash, “a protective love,” she smiled as a thought hatched in her head, “or the love among family.”

“Ya think he loves us like family?” asked Applejack.

“You’re the closest thing to family he has,” reminded Persephone.

“He may love each of you in his own unique way,” Dawn smiled as she spoke, “as is normal, but he loves you all regardless; that much is obvious.”

All seven civilians turned in their chairs in unison to see Clyde, still on the opposite side of the room.

“You love him too, don’t you?” asked Persephone, and they slowly nodded, realizing that they, in fact, did.

They watched as Clyde looked over his shoulder at them, and somehow, smiled.

****************

It was well into the night, and most of the ponies at the ball had already left the palace.

Clyde was outside on a balcony, his eyes glowing as he faced the east. Pictures of the serene night floated by, but he took note of a few ponies tossing and turning in their sleep. He was in the process of triple checking for anything with mal-intent in the region when he heard a soft step behind him.

He finished confirming the town’s safety before coming out of the trance, and turned around to see that Fluttershy had joined him on the platform.

“Nice night,” she said softly as she stood next to him.

“It is,” he agreed as they both sat beneath the face of the moon.

She began fidgeting, and Clyde knew she was uncomfortable about something, most likely something she was thinking about privately.

Then, she blurted out, “Do you like Rarity?”

“Oh,” Clyde was taken aback. He had danced with her, and if she had heard from Pinkie or Dash about the
incident in the boutique, it would make sense why she would think that.

“It’s fine if you do,” she added with a flat, almost depressed voice.

“No,” he said desperately, quickly recomposing himself, “no, we, um, were trying to teach Sebastian a lesson, that’s all.”

“Oh,” said Fluttershy, hope restored to her tone.

“I was going to ask you to dance when she asked me, and I knew she was trying to prove something to Sebastian, so I couldn’t say no. Everything after that, with everypony else was just for fun, until you came out.” he explained.

Fluttershy’s hoof went to the rose behind her ear as he spoke, and she smiled to herself. It was obvious that she liked him, everypony could see it, including Clyde.

There, together on the balcony, Clyde entered a dilemma; His duty, or his emotions, the same problem he came across every time the two of them met.

He didn’t notice the silence in the air; his thoughts seemed like voices all around him. His conscience told him that he had to stay true to his duty, and not let a love interest get in the way of protecting Equestria; his heart told him to forget his duty and tell her the way he felt, hoping it would turn into love; his brain told him to try and do both, but to stay true to his duty first and foremost. He decided to listen to his brain.

“Nights like these sure are beautiful from up high,” Clyde sighed in an attempt to sound charming.

Fluttershy hummed in agreement as her head bobbed a bit.

“I know a spot where you can see everything in Equestria. Maybe I could take you up there sometime?”

She smiled at him, “I’d like that.”

He hugged her, but she held him long after he meant to end the embrace. Then they re-entered the palace, and the group prepared to leave.

****************

They said their goodbyes to their new friends as they prepared for the ride out of Canterlot. Sebastian apologized to Rarity, fabricating the excuse that it was the cider talking, not him. She forgave him, but denied him the kiss he leaned in for.

Clyde held the massive doors as his guests meandered back out into the crisp night air. Before he himself departed, he looked across the room to Celestia and Luna. Eventually, the two regal mares turned their intense gazes towards him. They locked eyes, and Clyde nodded to them, letting them know that he understood what was to come. They nodded back with straight faces, and then, he joined the others outside.

The same carriage that had carted them to the ball was set to take them home, and was waiting on the palace lawn. They silently boarded; Clyde knew they were all very tired, and the night was fitfully over.

“Did you have fun?” he asked after taking a seat, again, removing his beret and holding it in between his hooves.

Seven smiling nods replied, all of them too tired to speak from a long night of dancing, talking and laughing.

The carriage began the journey back to Ponyville with a jolt, and within minutes, the steady rocking of the carriage lulled most within to sleep; only Spike, his eyelids heavy, was still awake.

“You can go to sleep if you want to,” he offered.

Spike looked up at him through more than half-shut eyes, and then teetered over onto Twilight’s lap.

Clyde quietly chuckled to himself and waited for the trip to end. When they arrived in Ponyville, he directed the chauffeurs to each of the mares’ homes, and then carried the tired residents inside, setting them to sleep.

After he carried Twilight and Spike into the library and laid them in bed, he kicked off for the mountains.

When he landed on his perch, he closed his eyes and went into a trance. He felt slight pressure in his temples, and images of sleeping equines began to drift by his eyes.

Eventually, he turned his gaze towards Canterlot, just in time to see Luna and Celestia taking off from a tower balcony to begin the hunt for the source of the evil Luna had sensed.

He stayed up very late, until the moon began to kneel to the earth, and when he stopped the vision he drifted off to sleep under the twinkling stars.

****************

The sound of terrified screams suddenly seized his attention. He recognized the sounds of battle; sobs and screams of the wounded, the clashing and clanging of metal and flesh, and the howls and cackles of the enemy.

He tried to get up, but he couldn’t. Only his head could move, and even then he could see little in the darkness. He craned his neck to see a burning town; Ponyville was in flames.

He tried to get up to help, to do something, anything, but his legs were pinned to the ground by some immense weight; only his head remained flexible. Suddenly, a shadow flashed overhead. Startled, he flinched and tried to turn to see the menace in the dark, but he saw nothing; nothing except for a pair of opaque cyan eyes.

He recoiled as the figure drew closer and closer to his face, and he shuttered when he heard it laugh; a heartless laugh laughing at him, at his powerlessness, and at his demise.
Then he woke up.

He shot upright, sweating. He was still wearing his uniform, and was on the cliff face in the mountains, the sun just starting to clear the eastern horizon.

“It was only a dream,” he told himself, “But it felt so real. This has to be what Luna was talking about, but I didn’t notice these nightmares before. It must be getting stronger.”

He picked himself up off the rocky ground and flew home, stressing over the ominous future.

Author's Note

Hey thanks for reading! Please leave a comment on what you think so far!

So It Begins

It was early in the morning, and Equestria’s Central Guardian loyally watched over his region from his mountaintop perch. His eyes glowed bright, but their fire was put to shame by the majesty of the rising sun.

It had been a few months since the military ball. The princesses’ search had turned up empty, yet even Clyde knew that the nightmares were becoming increasingly more common. If Persephone’s theory was correct, then the changelings had slipped under the radar somehow; if she was right, that is.

Clyde had fallen into a custom of watching over the region from evening to morning, and doing his best to get to know the citizens he was protecting during the afternoons. Pinkie Pie helped him do so on a regular basis, but he tried to meet others on his own by helping them with anything he could.

He built fences, lifted things too heavy for ordinary ponies, anything that would add weight to his name. He quickly became fairly popular, but rumors still persisted about the ‘soldier’ in town. That’s what he told everypony he was, a soldier, but anypony with common sense caught on that a lone, active duty soldier wouldn’t be living in Ponyville. He didn’t mind keeping the secret though, and some of the rumors that arose from his secrecy were fairly interesting.

He had become extremely close to the six mares and Spike. But, his relationship with Fluttershy bothered him. He continued tormenting himself over which to conform to, his duties or his desires, and it led to a stalemate in which he decided to let her make the first move, which she never did. They both harbored feelings for each other, but they never got past ‘crush’.

With the others, he found a niche like an older brother in their lives. They became like a family, and each day, he found himself spending more and more time with them. Through autumn and winter, he competed neck and neck with Applejack and Rainbow Dash in the Running of the Leaves, they spent Hearth’s Warming Eve together at Twilight’s, and he set the snow lifting record at Winter Wrap Up, which was promptly reclaimed by Big Macintosh, Applejack’s older brother.

He tried to make every day, minute and second with them count; after all, he had no idea which moment could be their last together with the ever-preset presence of the evil hidden somewhere, never fully revealing itself. Clyde searched the region himself through and through but never found anything, but he knew not to let his guard down.

After all, he didn’t know which second would bring an end to it all. He kept the dark presence a secret; he didn’t want to scare anypony. It was his duty alone to protect this region from whatever may come, and he meant to do just that.

He began to scan over the regions’ citizens as he normally did, until his gaze fell on Sweet Apple Acres. All seemed well until strangely, his vision was blocked. For a few moments, all he saw was blackness. He was confused; it was the first time anything like this had ever happened.

As quickly as the blindness came on, it departed. As quickly as he could, he checked for everypony in the region, but he took note of an absence; Applebloom. The filly wasn’t in her bed, and her window was flung open, the curtains fluttering in the early day’s breeze.

“She was there a second ago,” he frantically thought to himself, and he began searching every nook and cranny in Sweet Apple Acres for the filly, but she was nowhere to be found.

He began to panic as he double, then triple checked for any sign of her, but when he saw nothing, he took off for Sweet Apple Acres.

He pummeled the air with wing beats as he raced to the farm, desperately hoping that what he was beginning to assume wasn’t true. He reached the farmhouse’s doorstep and began to look for footprints around the home’s exterior; he found none, confirming his fears. She hadn’t left on her own.

He dashed to the porch and began furiously knocking on the door. He heard no noise from within, and assumed that the rest of the Apple family was still asleep. So, perhaps over zealously, he bucked the door in, nearly kicking it off its hinges.

He heard excited rummaging upstairs, and very soon saw the surprised face of his friend peek through a doorway in the hallway, her head bare for once. Seeing it was him, Applejack loped down the stairs and began scolding him.

“Clyde, what do ya think yer doin’?”

“Applejack, who’s down there!” an old, feeble voice shouted from upstairs.

“Nopony granny, go back to sleep,” she yelled back up the stairs, then turned back to him, frustration and confusion burning in her eyes, “Ya can’t jus’ go kicking ponies’ doors in! I oughta…”

“Applebloom’s gone,” he interrupted, “I can’t find her.”

She stared at him, shocked, but then darted back up the wooden staircase, down the hall, and into a room on the right.

She rushed into her sister’s bedroom and found it empty and cold, the open window letting in the brisk early morning air. She hurriedly shut the door and trotted back down the hallway and knocked on another of the hallway’s doors. The door was opened by a large red stallion, her brother, standing freshly awakened in the doorway.

Her voice held genuine fear when she told him, “Applebloom’s gone. We’re goin’ after her.”

He responded silently, not speaking though his eyes grew wide. He went back into his room and promptly returned bearing a heavy wooden collar around his neck. Dressed, he followed his sister down the stairs, and then followed the grey pegasus out the door.

As she was leaving, Applejack grabbed her hat from a rack just inside the doorway, and shouted upstairs, “Granny, we’ll be back!”

The door shut with a hurried slam, and three galloped off.

****************

Clyde explained what had happened, how his vision had gone dark and when he reacquired it, Applebloom was gone. He told them how the sight may as well be useless, as he couldn’t see whatever had taken her, and had no idea where she could be.

“What are we gonna do?” Applejack asked, frustrated and afraid, and kicked the ground.

An extremely deep voice responded with an idea.

“If ya can’t see her, why don’t we check wherever ya can’t see.”

Clyde turned to Big Macintosh; he knew him vaguely, and this was one of the few times he had actually heard him speak, and even then, every word he had uttered around him prior was ‘yup’ or ‘nope’. Being kindred to Applejack, he already assumed he knew his secret, but the stallion had just confirmed that suspicion. And, what he had said was incredibly wise, attributing him to far greater intelligence than he was taken to have; at least, intelligence in the form of sense.

Clyde hesitated no further, and immediately tested the theory. He went into a trance and checked everyplace in Ponyville, all of which he was able to see without hindrance. He checked the surrounding countryside, as well as some other cities and towns in the region.

Images from Canterlot were visible, and he could see the mountains and hills just fine. He checked everywhere until only one place remained; Everfree Forest.

He couldn’t see beyond the tree line of the ominous and expansive wood, only blank images of black coming from beyond the dark green vegetation. That had to be it.

Without saying a word, he took off for the forest.

“Everfree, of course; why didn’t I think of Everfree? Dammit, dammit! They’ve been there all along!”he thought to himself, both frustrated with himself and worried for Applebloom.

The Apples struggled to keep up from the ground, trailing the pegasus by several hundred yards, though he was still visible against the early morning sky.

When he reached the edge of the trees, he landed, the Apples quickly running up behind him. Clyde stood, facing the wall of vegetation. He was afraid, not for himself, but for the ones it was his responsibility to protect. He had to be brave.

“Ya think she’s in there?” asked Applejack.

“There’s nowhere else she could be,” he said sternly, and Applejack recognized that he was in soldier mode now.

The pegasus led the way into the dark jungle, walking slowly and deliberately and searching for any sign of the filly. They combed the ground, desperately hoping to find some clue that could lead them to the filly.

It was quiet; not a single animal stirred. The air felt heavy, fog coated the ground, and it was hard to breathe in the humidity of the tightly packed trees. The thick canopy was nearly impossible for light to penetrate; but, the most overwhelming thing about the forest was the silence; the absence of sound made for a deafening quiet that rang in their ears, and it made the fear that Applebloom may not be found all the more real.

They searched for hours, not entertaining the thought of giving up, though all felt despair setting in. Then, Macintosh saw something.

He plodded over to a dead snag and removed a piece of material from its jagged limb. He turned with it in his mouth, and Applejack’s heart stopped; it was Applebloom’s hair ribbon, torn, tattered and dirty.

Before she could cry, she heard Clyde behind her.

“Footprints.”

There were three sets; one of them was a small series of prints that started and ended in about a ten foot space. They were fairly far apart, and were going away from the tree with the ribbon. Two larger, crescent shaped sets followed them, and all three ended and began in the same place, though at the end of the distinct tracks was a pair of parallel drag marks in the dirt.

The crescent tracks belonged to changelings; Clyde recognized them from the shores of Canterbury, meaning that the small tracks probably belonged to Applebloom. He recreated what had happened in his mind. From what he could tell, she had attempted to make an escape but her kidnappers, at least two of them, retook her before she got far. After they fell on her, she resisted being taken and dragged her hooves behind her as they carried her off. They were hovering with her to try and avoid being tracked; they knew he would be coming for them. Clyde made a mental note to be weary of traps.

The footprints were still fresh, and he led his companions in the direction the drag marks pointed with scrupulous caution.

He pushed through a dense pack of shrubs, and upon stumbling through, he found himself staring into the mouth of a cave. Two bodies bumped into his thick flanks as the Apple siblings pushed through the bushes behind him.

He turned to them and silently pointed to the cave, then slowly put a hoof over his lips, telling them to be quiet. He pointed to them, then to the ground, trying to convey that he wanted them to stay; they nodded.

Clyde took a deep breath to slow his quickening pulse. He had only one chance and no choice but to succeed. He closed his eyes and muttered a quiet prayer, then crept towards the cave.

He entered without looking back. The only light was at his rear, making it nearly impossible to see. He crept along slowly and silently, feeling the ground rather than seeing it. He pushed deeper and deeper into the cave, listening more than looking for anything that could lead him to Applebloom.

Eventually, a faint beacon of green light became visible deeper in the cave. Clyde slowly approached, cautious of danger. He circled the luminescence, testing to see if there was movement in the dim light surrounding it. When he was confident that he wouldn’t be ambushed and killed as soon as he neared the glow, he began an approach.

Silently, he stepped from the shadows and into the faint green light. As he neared the source, he couldn’t help but notice its oddities. It was shaped like an egg, but it flexed and shifted occasionally, as if the sides were soft rather than rigid like an egg’s should be. It was large, coming up to his shoulders, and a dull green fluorescent liquid seemed to slosh around inside with a pulse-like rhythm. Its walls were opaque, and though blurred, he could somewhat make out the interior.

He leaned in closer to the strange object, prodding it with a ginger hoof. The leathery walls of the sack-like object gave in as he touched it, and then reformed after he removed pressure. He thought he saw a small movement from within, so he pressed his muzzle against the object’s shell to see what it was. He peered inside, and could vaguely make out a shadowy silhouette. Suddenly, the figure moved, and Clyde realized what the object was; a cocoon.

He grabbed the shell in his hooves and tried to tear it apart, but to no avail. So he used his teeth, tearing a small rift in the chrysalis, out of which glowing green liquid flowed, its light much more intense now that it was free of the hazy walls.

He pushed a hoof into the small hole, making it bigger, until he was able to grip and tear the cocoon’s wall open. It crumpled like a wilting flower, and out of it spilled Applebloom, drenched and exhausted, but breathing.

The sudden outpouring of the glowing fluid created a quick, intense flash that carried through the cave’s interior, illuminating the entirety of its contents. For a few seconds, hundreds, if not thousands of unsealed cocoons waiting for hosts littering the floor were visible.

The filly crumpled up at his hooves let out a faint cough followed by a weak sigh. She needed his help, now; he would deal with the changelings later. He scooped her onto his back, shoveling his muzzle under her ribcage and gently lifting her so that she rolled onto his back and draped over his spine like a blanket.

As she came to a rest, Clyde heard a distant sound from the bowels of the cave. For a second, it sounded like a lion's yowl, but a second call from the depths of the blackness revealed that something much worse was stirring. The changelings were onto him.

Before waiting to see what happened next, he turned and ran as fast as he could out of the cave, the sounds and calls behind him growing more frequent and drawing nearer as his hooves beat against the damp floor of the limestone.

First Response

Applejack sat on the edge of the shrubbery, waiting in silent concern for Clyde’s return. Both she and her brother were afraid for Applebloom, and for themselves; Clyde thought this was the work of changelings. If he was right, their sister, and Equestria, was in grave danger.

For a brief moment, Applejack thought she saw a sudden glow from within the cave, a verdant flash interrupting the darkness. She leaned in closer, trying to hear or see anything in the dim silence.

She heard something from inside the cave, but was unsure of what it was; she had never heard anything like it before. As Applejack grew worried, her brother stood, his flanks and shoulders flexing in anticipation, ready to face whatever came out of the cave to defend his sister. Luckily, it was Clyde that came barreling out of the cave first, their unconscious sister on his back.

He ran up to them, leaning so that Applebloom fell from his shoulders and onto Applejack’s waiting back.

“It’s an invasion force, and this is the recon element,” he began, panting, “They’ve got cocoons waiting inside. They’re going to try to take Equestria and feed off the survivors or turn them into changelings.”

Another bark, followed by a demonic cackle came from the cave, closer than before. Applejack’s eyes widened and Clyde pointed at the still blacked out Applebloom.

“Take her back,” he ordered, “Get the others. Ring the bell tower thirteen times; that’s the signal for a call to arms. Once the surrounding towns hear that, they’ll ring their bell towers too until all of Equestria knows an invasion is coming. After that, evacuate the town; get everypony into the mountains. Once they’re safe, you and the others need to get to the elements of harmony. Go to Canterlot as fast as you can, because we won’t have mu- Oough!”

A sudden black flash knocked him down as he was attacked from behind by the first of the changelings. Clyde fell on his back, the shape-shifter on top of him being held at bay by only an extended grey forelimb. The creature slashed back and forth with its jagged horn, excitedly cackling, but wasn’t able to reach Clyde’s flesh.

“Go!” he shouted as he threw the foe off of him, but the Apples stayed still, frozen. He jumped up and positioned himself in between the menace and the others. The creature snarled as three more emerged from the cave.

“I thought you said it was an invasion?” asked Applejack very untimely.

“These are scouts! The rest of them won’t be far behind! You have to go!”

The earth ponies stayed still.

“Now!” he cried as the first of the changelings rushed him.

Big Macintosh forced his sister to turn away, and they left their friend behind, as was his wish.

As the two disappeared into the trees, the first of the changelings rushed the Guardian. He met the eager drone with a swift kick to the jaw, splitting its open at the chin. It fell, immobilized but still alive for the time being.

The shape-shifter’s comrades were more hesitant to attack after seeing their hive-mate crippled. Rather than fight the poised warrior, they decided to bombard him. They stood three abreast, and began firing searing green bolts of magic from their jagged horns.

Clyde’s pupils dilated as the bright light of the magic contrasted with the dim forest, and he began to dodge and weave in and out of the beams. The magic filled the air with static, and the shots burned through the humid air with each accumulating miss. He circled around his enemies, until the largest of the group grew frustrated and blindly charged him.

He met the creature with another extending forelimb, landing right on its throat. Before the changeling even hit the ground, Clyde grabbed it, wrapping a forelimb around its neck, and maneuvered himself in between the disabled changeling and his still firing comrades. He used the flesh shield to advance on the other two until they too tired of firing green blasts into their dead comrade and charged the warrior, letting out a fearsome high pitched shriek as they did.

Clyde threw the limp changeling away and anticipated a blow from the more aggressive enemy. He spun around the changeling as it darted at him, leading with a jagged horn. The menace failed to connect as Clyde danced around his strike, and spun back around with an arcing kick. The blow landed on the changeling’s skull, and it crumpled into a heap on the ground. The last one still standing advanced on him as Clyde matched his every step with a rearward one, dodging each of its blows with a duck or a backwards thrust.

Eventually, Clyde stopped, leaned into an advance, and threw his opponent backwards, turning the tables. He never felt the blow connect, but he felt a warm liquid seeping down his forehead from a gash above his left eye. He took his turn advancing on his adversary, lashing out, trying to connect a blow, but his opponent was swift. The creature retreated as Clyde had before. It bobbed and weaved like a boxer, keeping its balance and composure through the deadly dance.

The changeling was good, but Clyde was better, and when the foe tried to counter, Clyde anticipated its move. As the changeling thrust forward with its horn, Clyde sidestepped and threw him over his leg, flipping him onto the ground. Clyde reared up, and brought his two front hooves down hard. The changeling let out a scream, but it ended abruptly with a grotesque ‘splat’ when Clyde’s hooves hit home, his forelimbs and the forest floor wet with the drone’s blood.

He relaxed a bit as the fight ended, but when he turned, he only counted three bodies. The first changeling, the one with the split chin, was gone; the only proof of him ever having been there was a blood trail. It led off into the forest. No doubt the creature was trying to escape Equestria’s borders for the changeling hives to the west, where his army was probably waiting.

Suddenly, he heard the distant clang of the town’s bell tower, and decided not to pursue the escaped changeling. He had a kingdom to protect, and the enemy was on its way, regardless if he was ready or not. So, he raced to Canterlot.

****************

Clyde knew he had no chance of holding off the changeling horde alone; he needed reinforcements. He flew like the wind, leaving a trail of light smoke behind him as he burned through the thin mid-morning air. He soared through the thick doors of Canterlot palace, crashing through into the great hall violently.

Celestia sat on her throne, flanked by guards at the ready that stepped forward when the pegasus came barreling through the entrance.

He trotted to the princess as the guards blocked him, but when Clyde shouted, “A changeling army is on its way!” they allowed him council with the princess.

“What?” asked the royal in disbelief.

“They’re coming. I discovered a recon team in a cave in Everfree Forest today; they had nests built and hundreds of empty cocoons. They foalnapped a filly this morning and lead me to the cave. I rescued her and killed the majority of the scouts, but one escaped. From what I can tell, he’s headed west to the hives of the wastelands. It won’t be long before they’re knocking on the palace door.”

The gravity of the situation hit the princess at once.

“That’s why my sister and I found nothing!” she realized, “Their armies are waiting for those scouts to clear an invasion route. That has to be why they had cocoons stored; they were trying to build their numbers before they invaded.”

“We’ve started ringing the bell towers; if the rest of the kingdom doesn’t already know, they will soon. We need to set up defenses; they have to be stopped them before they get to Canterlot,” advised the Guardian.

“Right,” she agreed hesitantly, “What do you need to protect your region Captain?”

“Not just my region, but the others as well; send the Infantry to the west to defend the border towns. They’ll be our first line of defense. Should their lines be broken, they’ll fall back to a second line outside of Ponyville. The third line will be Canterlot; hopefully they never get that far. I’ll need the 11th; keep the rest of the military on the third line.”

Clyde started to turn, but then remembered one more thing.

“Send your fastest messengers to each city in the kingdom. They need to start evacuating; tell them to go into the surrounding countryside. The cities will be their main targets after Canterlot falls.”

With that, Clyde left, but not before he heard the regal voice of Celestia say, “Get my armor.”

He raced from the palace to his cabin; he needed a few things.

****************

Earlier…

Applejack raced through the dark forest trying to keep her sister balanced on her back as she dodged and weaved in and out of oncoming snags and branches. Her brother ran alongside her, checking behind them to make sure nothing would come from behind.

Applebloom coughed a faint sound that was barely audible over the mare’s hoof beats.

“Hang in there,” she pleaded, “We’re almost home.”

After what seemed like an eternity of running in slow motion, she saw light ahead, and broke through the thick abyss of the forest and onto a grassy plain. Town was in sight, only about a quarter mile to the southeast, and Applejack meant to cover the distance as quickly as possible.

She sprinted through the tall grass, waving in the afternoon breeze. As they reached the edge of town, Applejack recalled what Clyde had told her to do.

“Take her back and get the others. Ring the bell tower thirteen times; that’s the signal for a call to arms. Once the surrounding towns hear that, they’ll ring their bell towers as well until all of Equestria knows an invasion is coming. After that, evacuate the town; get everypony into the mountains. Once they’re safe, you and the others need to get to the elements of harmony.”

“Take her Mac,” she commanded her brother as they reached the first buildings in town, and she lifted the filly onto her brother’s back, “Get the family into the mountains; keep ‘em safe.”

“What about you?” he worriedly asked.

“I’ll be fine, just go!”

The stallion reluctantly galloped down the road while A.J. sprinted the other way, her long blonde braid flowing out behind her from underneath her hat.

She reached the town square; it was midday, and the streets were busy and full. She tried to tell the crowd what was happening, but nopony would stop to listen; they were all busy getting along with their days.

She climbed onto the wall surrounding a fountain in the square’s center, and began shouting to the masses.

“Ya’ll need to get outta town, now! There’s an army of changelings headed for Equestria!”

A few ponies stopped and listened, but several others paid no heed. Applejack kept pleading with the mass of equines around her, trying to get them to listen to her, but few did, and even fewer took the warning seriously, forgetting her honest reputation and writing her off as some sort of fanatic or lunatic.

It took an old friend for the crowd to begin to take her seriously.

Rainbow Dash, who had been buzzing the town’s rooftops, spotted her friend frantically trying to deliver some sort of speech. It was unlike Applejack to be seeking public attention, so she zipped down to investigate.

“What’s goin’ on A.J.?” she asked as she alighted next to her friend.

Applejack told her what had happened, and that they needed to evacuate the town, but her multicolored friend only smiled.

“You joker,” she laughed as she elbowed her in the ribs.

Applejack looked to her in desperation, her eyes filled with genuine terror, and Dash realized she wasn’t kidding.

She hovered above the crowd and boomed in a voice like raspy thunder, “Listen up! Now!” and then she darted to the clock tower.

“Everypony, there’s an invasion comin’ our way! We need to evacuate the town,” she commanded, “Ya’ll need to gather your kin and head to the mountains ‘til this plays out!”

As she finished, Dash kicked the bell in the clock tower above the square as hard as she could, and its resounding ‘clang’ rang out across the rolling hills of Equestria. She rhythmically continued ringing the bell as the crowd dispersed in a panic, the brass ornament sounding off twelve more times before she stopped. Then, she too went to spread the word across town.

Author's Note

Hey guys! Thanks for reading! Please leave a comment on what you did or didn't like and I'd appreciate ratings. Thanks!

Something Worth Fighting For

Clyde arrived at his cabin in the foothills, and crashed inside. He had made the trip back home from Canterlot in about ten minutes, flying as fast as he could over the miles that separated the two landmarks. In the time of the trip, the cut on his forehead had coagulated, and blood no longer dripped down his face. Rather, it caked on his forehead in a dry, itchy crimson line. Out of breath, he staggered to the back of the living room to a large wooden cabinet behind his glass armor case.

He threw open the heavy double doors, revealing its contents; another set of Equestrian armor. It bore little resemblance to the antique he kept in the case as the centerpiece in the room. This armor gleamed so purely that it appeared almost white, though it was a light shade of grey.

It was different than standard Equestrian battle armor, as he had designed it himself. Being a Guardian had its privileges, after all. The metallic plates were made of a silver aluminum alloy, making it stronger and lighter than standard issued iron or gold plated armor.

This set adorned weapons of its own, independent of swords or spears. The first of these was a three foot lance topped with a spear tip fixed to the forehead of his helmet. The blade was double edged and sharpened along the shaft, so as to be effectively used as a spear and a sword.

His second tool with which to kill was a new design he had recently come up with; he called them razor-wings. They were strips of aluminum shaped to secure along the front edges of his wings. They were jointed so as to fold and flex as he flew, and sharpened on the outside edge. This way, in a charge, he had more lethal surface area, and took away the possibility of a changeling attacking his wings from the front, which they tended to do.

His final weapons were a pair of spikes he had fixed to the armor’s wrist gauntlets. They folded into a slot, and protruded when he extended his forelimbs ahead of him. This way, when he flew or thrust forward, they would extend, like cat’s claws, but he could still walk and run unhindered. This was due to a wire he had attached to the base of the blades and secured to the interior of his chest plate; extending his forelimbs tightened the wire, pulling the blades out of their metallic sheaths.

Clyde stared at his shining armor for a long while, then, he began to dress himself for battle. Though it was difficult alone, he managed to tighten all the straps effectively, and was confident that the metallic suit would not fail him.

He looked into a large mirror on the inside of the cabinet’s doors, inspecting his reflection. The armor fit well, and the majority of his body was covered. His chest plate protected his vital organs, wrapping around his ribs and breast in a gleaming three plated shell. His head and upper neck were encased in a dense sterling helmet, the razor sharp pike rising out of its metallic center. His blue mane protruded out of the back of the crestless helmet, too short to flow behind him but long enough to be visible.

He was nearly impenetrable from the front, but at his rear he was vulnerable. His lower back, flanks and hamstrings were exposed; having these parts encased would inhibit mobility and add unneeded weight, something he couldn’t afford to bring with him into battle against much smaller, nimbler, more numerous enemies.

Clyde took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and turned for the door. As he walked, his armor jingling with each heavy step, he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. It was full of color, contrasting the dull brown of the table it lay against.

He stooped to investigate; it was a pastel colored photograph, slightly protruding from a small drawer in the table in the center of the living room. He opened the drawer to retrieve it, and it slowly drifted down amongst other trinkets and such nestled in the bottom of the compartment.

He emptied the drawer onto the floor; it was easier than fumbling around in the small space in his cumbersome armor. Pieces of paper, an aged book, a withered and long dead plant and the photograph drifted to the floorboards.

The warrior knelt, his armored shins hitting the floor with a ‘clang’, and retrieved each piece one by one. The first was the withered plant.

He held the crumbling flora in his hooves, examining it. He was about to throw it away, when he noticed the still remnant, though faded and faint, tint to its pedals. They were yellow once.

For all the armor he adorned, a pang went straight through his heart. It was the yellow rose he found on his nightstand when he awakened in the hospital all that time ago. His friends had left it on top of the note.

"The note!"

He reached for a piece of folded paper near the bottom of the pile and began to read it. He already had once before, but only once, and he needed to hear its words again. His eyes began to moisten as he relived each word.

Dear Clyde,

I don’t know if you’ll ever read this, or if you’ll even care, but I want you to know in case we never see each other again that I am grateful. I am grateful for our friendship, no matter how brief it’s been, and your sacrifice. You didn’t have to do what you did, but you put yourself in harm’s way for us anyway.

That is the mark of a true friend, and of true love; to make sacrifices for somepony else. I know we haven’t known each other for very long, but I consider you one of the best friends I’ve ever had.

I’ve never understood fighting, and I know it’s a part of what you do, but if you can, try and stay safe from now on. I want you to stick around for a while, maybe even make Ponyville your home. You could have a great life here, and we could all be happy together.

Like I said, I am grateful for what you’ve done, and it breaks my heart to see you hurt because you tried to keep me safe, but that’s not all I’m thankful for. I’m thankful for you. I thank Celestia every day for sending you to us. I know I am a happier mare and Ponyville is a better, safer place with you around. I value your friendship more than you know and I don’t want you to go before it really even gets started. Ponyville needs you. I need you.

Please, come back to us.

Love,

Your friend, Fluttershy

The letter was stained with tears, both old and new. Clyde’s bitter droplets were slowly dripping from his cheeks, wetting the paper.

“I wish I could,” he said aloud in solitude.

He knew he would probably never see any of his friends after today. What were the chances that he would survive, let alone keep Equestria in the light for another few hours? An entire changeling hive was on its way to Canterlot, and he knew the odds of victory were slim to none; unless they could get to the elements of harmony. That was their only chance; it wasn’t about defeating the changeling army, it was about delaying them.

Regardless, just in case, he wrote a note of his own. He found a quill and ink, and scribbled what he needed to say on a page of a library book he had never returned, and placed it on the table.

Clyde rose, restored in vigor. He had something more than his region or his country to fight for; his friends. He would get them as much time as they needed to get to the elements, no matter the cost, and he found peace in knowing that he could save many, including his friends.

Clyde reached to pick up the picture that had siezed his attention in the first place. He turned the photo over to see its face; it was the picture Spike had taken the day the eight of them spent in the park the day after he got out of the hospital.

His expansive wings were wrapped his friends, a beaming Spike on his shoulders, eight faces smiling in delight. That was the first day he remembered of them being together as friends, and his eyes were flooded with memories, happy memories, that had taken place since. Most of them were immortalized in pictures adorning his once nearly barren walls, but this picture represented the catalyst that set all those times in motion.

He couldn’t get over the smiling faces.

Should he fail, that may never happen again. His purpose was to protect them so they could continue to smile, continue to be happy, continue to chase their dreams, and continue to live, even if it meant he would no longer be able to. It was his duty.

He swallowed the rest of his tears, and tucked the picture into a pocket in the interior of his chest plate, just in case.

Then he rushed out the door and into the sky.

Author's Note

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The Day of Days

Twilight looked up as echelons of armored pegasi flew over Ponyville. She gaped at the cloudless sky, the sun blocked out by equine bodies, their shadows darkening the land.

“That’s the 11th!” she realized as Spike came running up behind her to the windowsill.

As she spoke, the door to the library burst inwards and Applejack darted inside.

“Twilight, we’re bein’ invaded!”

“What!?”

“Changelings, they’re comin’! The military’s here but we need to evacuate the town and get to the elements of harmony!”

Twilight galloped out the door with her friend, but Spike shouted, “What about me?”

“Go to the mountains Spike, you’ll be safe there,” commanded Twilight.

“Why should I? I’m a dragon! The Guardians said dragons used to fight alongside ponies; why can’t I try to help?”

“Those were big dragons Spike, you’re still too little.”

The drake was dejected, deflating his previously puffed out chest in shame.

“Spike,” barked A.J. with an order, “Get to my farm and go with my family into the mountains. Help Mac with Applebloom and Granny Smith. You’ll do just as much good there as you could here.”

Then the mares turned as he yelled after them, “What happened to Applebloom?”

****************

Clyde flew as fast as he could to join the 11th Cavalry outside of the town. He could see a mass of gleaming armor in the distance, about a half-mile or so outside the town’s edge.

As he soared over Ponyville, immense wings beating the wind into submission, he descended and buzzed the town’s thatched roofs to make sure that the evacuation was under way. As he sped along a few meters from the ground, the downdrafts from his mighty wings kicked up dust and papers on the town’s streets, and it spiraled behind him as he raced forward.

He neared the formation of armored pegasi and took his place at the front of the unit. The 11th’s lieutenant, a dark green pegasus stallion with a blonde mane, greeted him.

“Welcome back sir.”

“How many stallions do we have?”

“The unit is at full strength sir. We have two thousand well trained, battle ready stallions at your command.”

“That won’t be enough.”

“Sir?”

“We have a hive on its way, lieutenant. That means close to ten thousand changelings; two thousand stallions won’t be enough,” the lieutenant’s face was grim until Clyde continued, “At least, not in a standard engagement.”

the subordinate grinned, and Clyde laid out a plan.

Clyde looked to the west upon finishing, and saw a rising cloud of dust proceeding towards the border.

He bowed his head and closed his eyes, lifting them back up again when they were ablaze. He could see the Celestial Infantry advancing on the edge of the kingdom; Brutus was among them, leading the troops. In the distance, a threatening black cloud loomed; the hive.

Clyde watched as the horde poured into the kingdom, seemingly unaffected by the protective spells the Princesses normally encased Equestria in. Like a black wave they charged the unit of earth ponies, who had hurriedly taken up a shabby defensive formation. The Equestrians didn’t last long.

His vision revealed hundreds of ponies dismembered and gored in an instant, more than half the unit becoming casualties in the first moments of the battle as the drones broke their ranks. They assaulted them from above, the front, behind, and the sides, their abilities of flight giving them the undoubted advantage.

Once in close quarters, the changelings shifted, taking the form of equines, which confused the majority of the ponies. Their lack of armor gave them away, but it was enough to cause hesitation among the ranks, allowing time for the changelings to kill quickly and efficiently.

The Infantry began to pull back, and Clyde watched as stallions missing armor, weapons, and limbs sprinted, limped, or were dragged back to the second line of defense.

Ponies, struggling to walk after being maimed or wounded, tried to make it to the outskirts of Ponyville to the safety of the second line of defense. Clyde could only watch as these unfortunate souls were tackled from behind by the oncoming storm, and had their terrified screams silenced by quick efficient thrusts of the drones’ ragged horns.

He fell away from the trance, and came back to his own body again.

The battle that seemed so close seconds before was now miles away, but he could see the oncoming cloud like a swarm of locusts, the few remaining Infantry ponies driven before them.

He looked behind to the town; the evacuation was still underway, meaning that his friends were still in Ponyville. The elements of harmony weren’t ready to be used yet and he had to buy them enough time to get to Canterlot, putting retreat out of the question.

The first of the earth ponies from the Infantry arrived. The insect-like buzz of the changelings was already audible, though they were still over a mile away. Clyde turned around at the front of the formation of hovering stallions, and removed his helmet.

“Stallions! Today, on this day of days, we fight for what is right! We stand against darkness, against evil, against our fears! We stand for light, for good, for hope, things that will no longer exist should we fail!”

He began to glide back and forth across the lines, looking into each of his soldiers’ eyes. They were all terrified. He had to inspire them, somehow.

“Don’t fight for Equestria and don’t fight for The Princess! Fight for your families, your homes, and your lives!”

He pointed across the golden plain to the oncoming changelings, their cackles and roars becoming more and more audible as they neared.

“They mean to rob you of those things! Will you let them? I know you’re scared, as am I, but we have to be brave! Together, we will face our fears, and we will emerge victorious! Are you with me?!”

A thunderous “Hooah!” rang out across the kingdom as two thousand voices shouted in unison.

With that, he darted back to the head of the formation, shoved his helmet down onto his head and began barking orders.

“Form ranks! Spear formation! On my order we charge! Stay tight, fight together, and kill anything that isn’t Equestrian!”

Metallic jingling and clanging reverberated through the unit as each pegasus took his place in the formation, shaping a giant gleaming arrowhead in the sky. The changelings had closed to under a mile, and Clyde was betting that the incredible distance the creatures had just flown in such quick time would cause their performance to halter; changelings weren’t known for endurance flying.

Clyde looked down for a brief moment, picking a gigantic black armored earth pony out of the miniscule crowd of Infantry ponies that had made it back from first contact.

“Brutus!” he shouted down to him, and his comrade looked up. His face was slashed, a diagonal gash running across his forehead and through his left eye, his black coat stained and wet with blood.

“Take your stallions and get the evacuation complete, then fall back to Canterlot!”
The earth pony nodded

A half-mile of open sky now separated the two units, and Clyde could hear the anticipating roars of the enemy coupled with the eager bellows and battle cries of his own comrades.

“They’re getting too close sir!” shouted the lieutenant from Clyde’s side.

“Steady!” Clyde yelled as the horde drew nearer and nearer.

Just as they came within a quarter of a mile, only a few hundred yards, Clyde roared, “Now!”

He pushed, heaving up and down as the echelon gained speed and closed the distance to the enemy army.

As he gained ground, Clyde began to lose himself in his focus; nothing existed except for the moment he was in, and that moment was filled only with concentration on the oncoming black cloud of ten thousand changelings. Their hisses and roars went dull, and Clyde singled out his target, a changeling officer marked by a dull iron helmet encasing its grotesque face.

The changeling gave a loud bark, and a volley of green magic came forth from the swarm. Those quick enough to react rolled and weaved around the short volley of searing bolts, reforming the charge when the shots had passed, but the hesitant plummeted back to the plains below smoking.

The formation closed on the changelings, and Clyde let out a roar like the manticore he had slain all that time ago. He extended his forelimbs in front of him, the blades in his gauntlets swinging forth from their sheaths and locking into place. He lowered his metallic horn towards his target as the gleaming squadron charged headlong towards their enemy. As the moment of impact came nearer and nearer, everything went blurry but his target, and he heard no noise as he went into his trance-like focus; all until it was ended by a sudden jolt.

The pegasi rammed into the oncoming swarm, their disciplined formation holding as they punched into the loosely formed ranks of the changelings. The force of the impact was tremendous, all of the changeling officer’s momentum coming to an abrupt halt as Clyde drove a meter long pike through its body and out its back. The drone let out a painful shriek, then went limp as blood hemorrhaged from the wound in its ribcage, the only movement being from the reflexive buzzing of its weakening wings.

The Equestrians held their momentum through the charge, pushing to keep their speed.
Clyde pushed forward into the swarm, the changeling still hanging limply off the end of his spear-like horn, heading the assault of his unit.

He felt jolts and strikes against his outstretched wings as changelings were sliced open by his razor-wings, unable to see their effect as his view was still blocked by the corpse hanging a few feet from his forehead. His forelimbs were knocked back into his body and hit from the sides, and though he felt no pain himself, he knew that the blades were hitting home on those unfortunate enough to be in his way.

He couldn’t remove the body, as it would mean exposing himself for precious seconds, so he waited. When the echelon emerged on the far side of the changelings’ ranks, Clyde swung his head violently, the edge of his horn cutting through the soft flesh of the changeling officer’s abdomen. The body fell, a massive T-shaped wound through its breast pouring blood.

Clyde looked back at the swarm just in time to see them refilling the massive hole torn by the charge. Black and red specks in the grass below marked the fallen changelings, some of them still descending with throats or chests laid open, or limbs or heads missing.

The plains were not devoid of the bodies of ponies though, and several metallic gleams identified the final resting place of a few dozen Equestrian warriors.

He watched as the horde doubled back to face them, unwilling to give up on the fight with anything less than victory. Another changeling officer was at the front of the army, barking and pointing as it tried to organize the forces into a formation to fill the rift torn by the Cavalry’s charge. Clyde looked to his sides; his stallions, panting and bloodied, were looking to him for orders.

“Pincer move!” he barked as he wiped the blood of his enemy from his eyes.

With breathtaking precision, the Equestrian soldiers assembled in a ‘chest and horns’ formation, the majority of the force congregating in the center of the formation with two thinner, more nimble wings branching out from either side.

“That worked better than I expected!” laughed the lieutenant with surprising, and possibly misplaced, joy.

“I know, a little too well. We’re on the wrong side of them; we need to be in between them and town, not vice-versa.”

The changelings, despite their losses, were still as expansive as before. They were so many that they cast a shadow large enough to engulf the entirety of Ponyville, which they surprisingly weren’t pillaging at the moment.

“We need to go now! Charge!” bellowed Clyde, and again, he headed the onslaught.

He sprinted forward as fast as he could, pumping and flexing as his muscles strained against gravity. He gained speed with the formation as they neared the invaders.

A few seconds before impact, he realized that the officer was still trying to organize the horde; the Cavalry had caught them off guard.

Everything was in slow-motion again. His horn drove straight through the enemy officer’s skull, his iron mask flying off at impact. Again, blood and bacterial spray from the force of the impact sprayed from the wound cavity below the shape-shifter’s temple, and a quick twitch of the blade removed the upper half of the skull from the rest of the body. The gored carcass fell, but Clyde continued to send more down after it.

The battle moved slowly around him as he led the attack, straying a few feet in front of the rest of the formation. He thrust forward with his wrist blades, catching two hive members in their throats. He slashed to the side after penetrating their flesh, cutting from the entry points all the way through their necks, and two more drones fell towards the plain below.

Another target presented itself as a changeling scrambled to flee before him. He lowered his head towards the black body, his horn piercing the drone’s lower back. It screamed and fell away from him as two more foes advanced on him.

They went for his wings, unaware of the blades fixed to them. They lowered their horns to try and cut through the appendages, but were scalped by their edge. Knocked from the sky, they fell to the earth, unable to correct their flight before slamming into the ground. Clyde continued to push into the mass of enemies, many of them beginning to fly up and out of the path of the ponies crushing through their ranks.

He met one trio as they tried to escape up and away from the oncoming wall of armor and muscle. He ran the middle one of the three through with his horn, which landed on and pierced the creature’s thyroid, just below the base of his neck. His outstretched forelimbs rammed into its underbelly, driving the blades into its flesh up to their base.

His razor wings connected with the other two, the sharpened aluminum hitting the base of their skulls, beheading them instantly. As he dislodged his blades from the changeling on the opposite end of his horn, the rest of the formation came from behind him. The majority of the force came from his six o’clock, while the wings of the formation came barreling in from the sides, trapping the changelings too slow to escape and killing them swiftly.

The Cavalry came back together as they finished off the changelings caught in their grips, but the majority of the enemy escaped through the open sky above the charge. Still, for the few dozen pegasi that lay in the blood stained grass below, hundreds of black bodies littered the flatlands outside of Ponyville.

“Dammit, we haven’t even made a dent in their numbers!” yelled the lieutenant as he released a limp black body from his grip, its neck twisted and bulging.

Sure enough, the swarm was as expansive as before, well over nine thousand strong. Another officer, this one much more efficient than before, hastily organized them into a defensive formation, creating a massive wall of bodies hundreds of rows down and dozens of columns across. They tightened themselves together into an actual formation instead of a ragtag assembly of rampaging drones, and let out a challenge daring the Equestrians to continue fighting them.

It started as a solitary bark, but it was followed by another, and then a cackle, and a hiss, and a shriek until the cumulative roar of the entire swarm rang in the ears of everything for miles around, and those who heard it tasted fear.
The sound was so intense that it deafened many of the pegasi, and they clutched at the sides of their head as its resounding note penetrated their ears. They held the scream for a few seconds, but it seemed like it would never end while it was torturing those who heard it.

Clyde looked down at the town; the evacuation was finished, the last of the citizens having cleared the city’s eastern edge. Then he faced his enemy, locking the myriad black shape-shifters in a thousand yard stare, his emerald green eyes retaining their luster though the rest of his once gleaming armor was stained red.

He waited for the changelings to make a move; after all, he didn’t need to defeat them, he only needed to stall them.

****************

Earlier…

“Hurry up!” bellowed Brutus from the far side of the street. Twilight could see the huge warrior as he towered over the crowd of ponies fleeing their homes for the relative safety of the hills. Applejack stood at her side, and the rest of their friends were doing the same as Brutus, apparently having already heard the word; Rainbow Dash must have been the messenger.

Applejack darted to help an elderly mare with a cart loaded down with possessions, but the task was promptly undertaken by two chivalrous stallions. The others followed her example, and began doing everything they could to try and help the evacuation go faster, whether it involved lifting packages or directing the exodus; all except Rainbow Dash.

Twilight saw her friend staring into the sky from the sidewalk, her face awestruck.

“Rainbow what are you doing?” she asked, “We need your hel…”

The words failed to take form as she finally saw what her friend was staring at. The changelings were coming.

There had to be thousands of them, their numbers blocking out the afternoon sun. The 11th, which Twilight had concluded was the response unit earlier, was stationary outside the town, waiting as the black cloud came closer and closer.

The two were soon joined by their other friends, all staring up into the sky in fascinated terror as their defenders charged into the mass of invaders.

“Oh no!” fretted Fluttershy as the first of the bodies began to fall from the sky, “We need to help them!”

“The only way we can help them is with the elements!” explained Rarity, “But we can’t get to them before this bloody town is empty!”

“So let’s hurry up and empty it! Clyde’s up there, we need to help him anyway we can!” commanded Rainbow Dash, and she darted from the huddle to aid in the evacuation’s progression as the battle raged in the skies above.

Just as the evacuation was completed, the last frantic citizen of the town vacating the city limits, a weak sound began to drift through the town’s panicked atmosphere. All who were running about and trying to withdraw from the town stopped when the noise surpassed the ruckus in intensity. It began as a low hum, but it grew and grew into a deafening roar, so loud that those who heard it had to cover their ears.

“What is that?” shouted Pinkie, barely making herself audible over the deafening battle cry of the changelings.
Brutus was the only one who heard her, but he couldn’t respond; the noise had paralyzed him. Several ponies fell to the ground as the noise literally knocked them off their feet. Rarity curled up into a ball, trying to escape the noise as it pummeled the inside of her head, and screamed.

The terrible shriek of the changelings reached a peak, and Rarity was joined by dozens of moaning and screaming ponies, as the glass of the town’s homes and shops shattered, and ears began to bleed.

Then, as quickly as it started, it stopped, only a few prolonged cackles and howls carrying through the air. The Equestrians got back to their feet, and hazily looked around.

Brutus bellowed, “Everypony get to the hills!”

The stallion rose out of the crowd of the few stallions from the Infantry still alive, and he approached the group of six mares with three others. The Guardian himself wore dense black steel armor too heavy for normal ponies but harder than most metals, while the rest of the stallions wore gilded iron and helmets adorned with crimson crests.

A short crest also ran down the midline Brutus’s helmet, but at his forehead was a dull metallic plate shaped like a dull rhino’s horn; a battering ram. On his back, he carried a curved scimitar in a sheath. His armor and body had several fresh cuts, gashes and holes, most prominent being the one on his eye, and though thick red blood stained the entirety of his exposed hide, he seemed not to notice.

“We’ll escort you to the palace. Once you’re inside, get into that tower and retrieve the elements. Don’t stop for anything,” he lowered his head considerably to reach their level, staring at the mares with his remaining eye as he repeated, “Anything!”

They nodded.

“Let’s go,” he rumbled, and the four stoic warriors encircled the mares, Brutus at the front, and they began to lope out of town in front of the rest of the Infantry as they retreated to Canterlot, while a certain grey pegasus watched from the skies.

Author's Note

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Folded Flags

Clyde saw his friends in the protective company of Brutus, and knew that if he could hold them off for a bit longer, they could win.

“Typhoon Formation!” he shouted, and his comrades, just fewer than two thousand of them, arranged themselves into three groups of equal size. One group hovered in the center, while two others took positions above and to the sides.

The two armies, one light, one dark, stared at each other, waiting to see which would make the first move. Clyde was smart enough not to attack a ready and defensive force that outnumbered him, but the changelings were a bit hesitant to charge as well. They had just lost hundreds of hive members in a few minutes; these ponies were nothing to be trifled with.

A few minutes passed. Clyde, content to wait until the elements’ power expelled the invaders, withheld his army and waited for the changelings to make a move. He knew that in a few more minutes, no more than twenty if the mares were hustling, the power of the elements would be ready to be wielded; that is, if nothing interfered.

Just as he was assuming that the changelings would never take the offensive, the cloud of shadows parted, and flew at the pegasi like a trident; a long line of them made a beeline for the 11th while the other two swept around the sides, so as to bypass them.

“Shit!” he said under his breath, “They’re going for Canterlot!”

He would have to split his forces, meaning they would be insignificant next to the sheer size of the enemy alone.

“Separate!” he yelled, and each segment of the formation maneuvered to meet a section of the oncoming swarm.

Clyde took the middle formation, six hundred stallions, straight into the enemy; but the changelings were cunning.

Just before impact, they parted like water around a rock; they had lured the stallions into a trap, and now the equines were surrounded on all sides by grotesque black bodies.

Clyde could only watch as the changelings fell in on him and his stallions like a wave. The sudden influx of the creatures buried the ponies in an impenetrable black cloud. The clever fiends shifted their appearance to appear like pegasi, confusing the stallions much like they had the Infantry. Clyde knew that their lack of armor gave them away, but the change in appearance was enough to make even him hesitate.

Clyde fought with all his might as the ponies around him were slaughtered, and his memory flashed back to Canterbury and then to the present like a flickering candlelight. He caught an oncoming enemy in the throat with an extending forelimb, his blade switching out and slicing through the creature’s jugular. Two more came at him, and he met them with a sweeping slash of his horn. The first hit was clean, cleaving the creature in the lead above the waist, but the second hit was messy.

His blade had lost momentum after the first blow, and the edge failed to sever the second changeling’s spine. The horn stopped in the creature’s stomach cavity, and Clyde struggled as the changeling, impaled on the end of his metallic horn, still tried to kill him. It flailed and slashed, gnashing its fangs and swinging its head, trying to cut him with its misshapen horn, but Clyde was just out of reach.

While keeping the creature at bay, everything around him slowed; the whole world seemed to have lost the meaning of time, and he saw everything as it happened. He witnessed the demise of his comrades around him.
As he rolled onto his back, falling with the changeling as he tried to regain his balance, he saw a stallion above him; he recognized him from the ball. The white pegasus was drawn on four sides by changelings, each of them pulling his legs taught. The stallion’s wings flailed, but to no avail.

In slow-motion, a changeling plunged its horn into his abdomen and snapped to the side, disemboweling the pegasus but failing to kill him. He screamed, a terrible cry of sadness and fear and pain, until his sobs were silenced by a merciless second thrust, this one digging into the stallion’s throat. A fine red mist spurted from the wound, and he went limp, the changelings releasing him as his lifeless body leaned earthward.

Clyde continued to fall, the weight of the gnashing changeling coupled with his lack of momentum making it impossible for him to regain his balance. He drifted downward, continuing to see his comrades killed on all sides of him. He fell past a brown stallion as he was beheaded, two changelings holding him while a third cut. One stallion had his midsection blown open by a simultaneous shot of magic from three drones, and his blood scattered over those around him. Another, holding his own, finished a changeling while growing faint from blood loss; he had an open wound in his chest. He finished his foe, but a dark flash from above cut him down, nothing but fluttering feathers marking the place he occupied moments before. A black stallion, a friend from the original unit, the one Clyde fought with in Canterbury, met a gruesome demise a few feet from the falling pegasus’s snout.

The stallion was held from behind by one changeling, while another bucked him in the ribs. The stallion screamed and doubled over at the audible ‘crack’ in his midsection, and when he did, the changeling bucked again. The blow connected with his temple, and the helmet was crushed in as his skull fragmented; he died instantly, but his legs still twitched as he began the long descent to the last landing he’d ever make.

That was enough. Clyde let out a scream, not of fear, or sadness, but of rage. He extended his forelimb up into the changeling’s neck, and the drone’s gnashing and thrashing came to an abrupt halt. The intensity ran from the creature’s opaque eyes, and Clyde dealt him three more cuts to the neck for good measure as he threw him from his horn. He regained his composure less than one hundred feet from the ground, and shot up through the tumbling mass above him, flying as fast as he could.

He carved through the changelings, pushing his way back to the center of the battle. He found himself amidst the only surviving Equestrians in that patch of sky. They had formed a phalanx in the middle of the battle, and were doing their best to fight off the relentless onslaught of savage attackers.

“Follow me out!” he barked. It was the closest thing to a retreat he had ever ordered, but it didn’t mean defeat was on its way.

He shot to the east, punching out of the black cloud as his razor wings sliced through the enemy formation. He emerged into the light, a few dozen stallions behind him.

The other groups didn’t make it, and the entirety of the changeling army was now coming for them. He turned to the few stallions behind him, all that was left of two thousand, and said, “Keep up with me.”

Then, he raced towards Canterlot to the third line of defense to continue fighting, with twenty pegasi just off his flanks and the hive in hot pursuit.

****************

The mares had been running along the road to Canterlot for miles, and the first lines of Equestrian defenders were coming into view.

“Come on! Faster!” ordered Brutus from the front of the group, urging the panting mares on.

A quick flash in the sky above caught the eye of Rainbow Dash, and she slowed her pace ever so slightly to investigate its source. The glint came off of an armored pegasus above, a formation of ten or so passing them in a v-shaped echelon; remnants of the 11th Cavalry.

Suddenly, a shape plowed into the earth in front of the group, and they all came to a sudden halt as dirt, grass and mangled chunks of metal bounced off of the thick armor of the warriors shielding the bearers of harmony.

The dust settled, and out of the crater, a badly injured stallion slowly rose, moaning in pain. His right wing had been severed, and his maimed flanks looked like mincemeat. As he staggered to his feet the element of kindness trotted forward from the group to help him.

However, before the bloody pegasus could take a step, a second shape flashed down from the sky and struck his ribcage. Fluttershy stood dumbstruck as a changeling soldier knocked the pony onto his side, and then swiftly plunged its warped horn into the base of the equine’s skull, severing the brainstem with a sickening wet sound.

The changeling rose from the carcass, its glossy black skin stained with Equestrian blood.

The creature snarled; its dry lips folding back to expose shining white fangs. It leapt from the crater and advanced on the frozen yellow pegasus, glaring through hazy blue eyes as it hissed more and more fervently, drawing nearer and nearer to a quivering Fluttershy.

“Get back here!” yelled Rainbow Dash, but her friend remained still, too frightened to move.

Suddenly, the changeling let out a high pitched bark and lounged as Brutus charged forward as well. The black stallion emitted a powerful roar, more fit for a lion than a pony, and threw himself between the changeling and his liability.

The shape-shifter’s jagged horn deflected off of Brutus’s thick chest plate, and the stallion swung his massive head as hard as he could. The upwards traveling blow connected on the creature’s jaw with a metallic ‘clang’.

The black porous body of the creature was lifted from the ground by the inertia of Brutus’s skull, and the black hammer on his helmet burst the changeling’s head like a melon.

Brutus turned and shook Fluttershy from her daze, and again prompted haste.

“We need to go, now!” he said as he took in the spectacle of the oncoming swarm of black, again, falling in on any Equestrian warriors, wounded or healthy, that fell behind their units.

As he watched, the slower remnants of the 11th and the Infantry became the day’s freshest casualties.

“Watch out for the scouts!” he advised as they regained momentum.

They neared the defensive lines, but just as they were about to enter the relative sanctuary of Canterlot, the two stallions at the rear of the wedge fell as a green flash illuminated the air just behind the group.

Brutus pushed forward, leading the mares and the remaining stallion behind the defensive wall of Equestrian warriors. The Guardian looked back to see two of his stallions dead with smoking holes bored through their skulls. Two changeling scouts hovered out of reach of the defenders, just long enough to grin at the black stallion, then turned back to their own armies.

He turned, rage and frustration building within, and very angrily ordered, “Get to the palace, get to those elements, and get these bastards out of here before they kill any more!”

The mares sprinted for the palace, unable to shake the desperate, horrified looks from their faces, while Brutus and the other stallion made for the defenses.

****************

Brutus raced for the hovering chariots of the princesses at the rear of the martial columns; the other Guardians, including Clyde, were already there. They were all armored, including the princesses. Celestia and Luna wore matching, though varying in color scheme, armor. Their flowing manes were pulled back through regal helmets, and their horns protruded through the metal. Celestia’s gold and Luna’s deep blue adornment was light, only protecting the front with little armor at the rear and long bayonets secured to their horns.

Sebastian wore light plate armor, his helmet’s thin eye slots and long mandible-like decorations giving his armor an exotic appearance. Dawn wore virtually no armor, only a light blue helmet and sparse plates over her chest and shoulders; Persephone, however, adorned a full set of engraved white metal with blades and spikes permeating her gauntlets and helmet. She may have been immune to force, but magic was still a threat.

“Did they get through?” asked Clyde frantically as Brutus arrived.

“Yeah,” he panted, “barely.”

“So what do we got?” asked Sebastian, looking up at Princess Celestia’s golden platform, which was hovering a few feet off the terrestrial ground.

The sun goddess explained confidently, “The Magic Brigade, Marine Corps, Lunar and Celestial Infantry, 7th Cavalry and the remnants of the 11th are all stationed between the changelings and the palace as a first line. I’ve stationed the Royal Guard inside the palace as a second line of defense, but the elements should be ready before we’ll need to fall back.”

“Your majesty,” started Dawn hesitantly, “you may want to rethink that.”

The mahogany mare pointed beyond the Equestrian lines towards Ponyville, a mere speck on the horizon. Looming over Everfree Forest was a second black cloud, the weak evening sun at their rear. A third hive was advancing from the west, beyond the borders of Equestria, and both swarms sped towards the kingdom’s capital unhindered.

“Reinforcements,” mumbled Persephone, her spotless armor reflecting the low hanging sun’s rays.

“Reinforcements?” argued Sebastian, “It’s two more hives! In a few minutes we’ll have nearly thirty thousand of the damn things all over us.”

“We’ll be overrun in minutes, your majesty,” said Clyde.

“Those mares have got some time,” started Persephone, “They’re waiting for the back-up to get here before they attack,” she pointed to the looming army of changelings, hovering in place and belching out intimidating roars and screams.

“As long as they get to the elements before they get here, we can win this,” said Luna determinedly.
Moments after she finished, a reverberating ‘boom’ carried to their ears from behind the defenses, and they turned to see a rising plume of smoke and fire at the palace gates.

“Infiltrators,” muttered Clyde in horror. He looked to the equally stunned princess of the sun, her sister retaining her composure.

“You didn’t cover our flanks! Of course you didn’t; every military unit except for the freakin' Royal Guard is right in front of me,” Clyde thought, disgusted.

“Guardians,” Luna said surprisingly calmly, and nodded towards the palace. The five silently acknowledged, and took off for the towering castle.

****************

The comrades raced to the palace gates, Brutus heading the charge with Dawn and Sebastian in tow and Clyde and Persephone just above. They drew nearer, the sounds of battle between the Royal Guard and an unknown number of changelings coming from inside.

Brutus let out a roar, putting the bellows of the changelings to shame, and crashed through the heavy palace doors as Sebastian phased straight through, leaving the air filled with static.

The others charged in through the hole Brutus made. Inside, they stood facing dozens of changelings in the palace hall; the dead bodies of royal guards littered the floor. The creatures looked to them confused, hesitated for a moment, then collectively attacked their new adversaries.

The changelings in the back charged up a volley of magic while those at the front darted forward.

The shots came over the drones up front and at the Guardians as Dawn’s elongated horn began to glow aqua blue. Hard transparent shields formed between the ponies and the deadly beams, and the volley connected harmlessly but with great force on the barriers she had constructed.

The Guardians waited for the barrage to pass, and when the blue shields faded, four of them charged forward. Brutus again led the charge, plowing straight into the mass of the parasitic invaders as he trampled and crushed the porous black bodies beneath his bulk. Clyde followed him, galloping with outstretched wings as he gored and cut his way through the changelings. He impaled one of the oncoming foes after ducking a sweeping slash of its jagged horn, and threw the bleeding creature over his shoulder as he continued advancing.

As Clyde and Brutus brawled together in the center of the insect-like horde, Persephone hovered above the tumbling mass. She selected a target out of the swarm and swooped in. She took the monster in her forelimbs and ascended to the rafters, sending a solitary body back down to the havoc below with a slit throat. One of the changelings attempted to fly, but she shot down from the ceiling to cut the creature’s abdomen, disemboweling it before it collapsed in a writhing heap on the once clean palace floor.

Dawn hang back from the fight, picking off foes with well-placed, deliberate shots of light blue magic. A group of five tried to rush her, and she bored holes through three of their skulls. She gored the fourth with her horn, quickly retracting the ivory to avoid the slash of the fifth’s crescent-shaped horn. She drew back slowly and the creature shot an impatient beam of magic at her. The green ray burned through her thin blue armor, leaving a cauterized wound in her left shoulder.

She screamed, clutching the hole in her flesh, hurt but far from incapacitated. As the creature lounged, she made use of her gift; five copies of herself sprang from her body, and her identities pierced the surprised changeling’s body from multiple sides. It tipped over slowly, and Dawn and her copies formed a firing line, six abreast, and continued picking off the changelings one by one.

Sebastian tried to follow his larger comrades into the fight, but he lost them in the crowd. The unicorn found himself alone surrounded by dozens of snarling enemies. The drones bared their fangs and brandished their ragged horns as they closed in on the Guardian, who was staring back at them through small slits in his helmet. He swung his forelimbs back to his sides, and two scythe-like blades emerged from his gauntlets. Two of his larger adversaries darted at him, and he jumped up and spun, slashing both of their throats with the curved blades. They toppled in a heap to the floor, and their blood began to spread across the ivory tiles.

A second pair challenged him, and he charged forward as they did. He slid between the legs of the first, reaching up to spill the creature’s entrails onto himself as he did. He leapt to his feet on the opposite side, shaking off the guts, and jumped to land a kick at the base of the second drone’s skull. The creature went limp as it crumpled onto the floor.

The others took a few steps rearward from the lightning fast unicorn.

“Come on!” he dared, blood drunk.

No challengers arose, so he took the offensive. He disappeared in a sudden moment of static, materializing behind one of the oblivious foes. He punched his blade deep into the base of its skull, pulling to the side and cutting the jugular vein. Blood spraying like a fountain onto the changeling next to the victim prompted the creature to turn, but Sebastian had already moved on, materializing amidst two more of his attackers. He again targeted the throats, slashing at the carotid arteries of the pair simultaneously. His horn began to take on a glow as he disappeared again.

Sebastian reappeared on the back of a changeling, quickly plunging his blades into the enemy’s eye sockets. The cut was shallow enough to cause only blindness and pain instead of death, and as the creature bucked, a red beam of intense light shot from Sebastian’s horn. His mount spun, as did the beam emitting from his forehead, cutting through the remainder of his attackers as the beam shot in all directions with the thrashing changeling’s twists and turns. When the group of assailants lay smoking and bloody, the unicorn pushed his blades deeper into the screaming changeling’s eye sockets until it went limp, blood spurting forth onto his gauntlets.

In the center of the fray, Brutus and Clyde were fighting the masses back to back. The black stallion gripped his scimitar in his mouth, dismembering his foes or bashing their bones to pulp when they came too close. He could feel his comrade at his rear, and knew his flanks were covered. Together, they beat back the pack of vicious invaders, savagely fighting for the right to breathe for a few seconds longer.

Brutus cleaved heads and limbs from his gnashing adversaries with the scimitar in great long sweeps of the blade, turning his head constantly to see in all directions with his solitary working eye. He could taste his own blood from the wound across his face, but it only intensified his will to kill.

Clyde, at his comrade’s back, swung his forelimbs and head at each advancing individual, their bloodcurdling screams only being rivaled by the sickening sounds of their mangled bodies hitting the blood soaked floor.

The changelings’ numbers waned as they continued to throw themselves at the Guardians, desperately hoping to land a lucky blow. It wasn’t long before Dawn’s sniping and the other’s cutlery withered the changeling’s numbers to seven. The remaining black invaders backed away from the warriors, nervously retreating themselves into a shabby phalanx. The Guardians came together opposite their enemy, each taking a combat stance as Dawn and her multiples charged up their horns.

They faced off in a stalemate until Brutus charged, leaving the others behind. He threw his scimitar at the changelings, its curved blade embedding itself in one of their skulls and knocking two others to the floor. He lumbered forward and swung his head as one of the black creatures tried for his throat. His hammer-like head met the changeling’s temple, and he reared up to stomp down on two more of them as they lounged up at him. His hooves came down on their ribs, crushing the weaker adversaries beneath with all his strength. The pair spat and coughed out light foamy blood. Three remained, the two having picked themselves up off of the ground.

Brutus laughed, a low rumbling sound like distant thunder, and taunted, “You dare stand against me?”

One of them desperately lounged for him, but the stallion sidestepped the thrust and brought his head down, snapping the changeling’s spine like a twig.

“I am the Guardian of the West!” he shouted as he bashed the skull of the second changeling in, “And you will die at my hooves!”

The remaining drone shied away, terrified, but the Guardian advanced brazenly. He plodded forward under his heavy armor as the black shape-shifter stepped back. Brutus impatiently charged, and swung his massive head in a long arcing blow, but missed. The changeling ducked and slashed Brutus’s exposed neck, but it had no effect.

Brutus paid no heed, and he brought his head back around and into the changeling’s throat, sending it flying across the hall with a crushed windpipe.

The silence following the skirmish was interrupted by a weak breath, and the Guardians looked to the staircase to see a mortally wounded Royal Guard desperately clinging to life.

They rushed to him; the blue stallion had a deep gash in his stomach and was bleeding profusely, and though Dawn tried tending to his wounds, it was obvious that he wouldn’t make it.

“Did the mares get through?” asked Clyde frantically.

“Huh?”

“The mares, did they get to the elements of harmony?”

“We got them to the staircase…” he pointed to the spiraling steps leading up to the chamber of the elements, “We were ambushed. They came through the door behind us. There were so many,” his breathing was shallow and labored, and his blood covered the floor around him.

Just then, the stallion slumped over and his chest stopped moving up and down.

“Damn,” uttered Dawn as she stopped trying to plug the wound.

She noticed that, even though the stallion’s heart had stopped beating, she still heard blood dripping into the red puddles around her hooves. She checked the stallion’s wound; it had stopped dripping with the cease of his heart’s movement. She examined herself for wounds, but found none that were bleeding.

She looked over her shoulder at the large black stallion standing over her, and her eyes grew wide.

“Brutus!” she exclaimed, pointing at his neck.

A deep gash, gushing blood, was in the side of his throat.

The stallion looked down at the hole in his flesh; he hadn’t even felt it. The changeling’s clean cut coupled with the adrenaline had made the wound painless. His eyes grew wide in fear as he looked at his escaping blood, then back to the equally stunned Dawn.

Suddenly, he toppled over, hitting the floor hard.

“Shit,” muttered Clyde as he rushed to his comrade’s side.

He picked up Brutus's giant head, lifting it from the blood soaked floor and laid it in his forelimbs. The wound was hemorrhaging blood, much worse than the stallion they had just witnessed die.

“Brutus!” he shouted as his friend’s eyes glossed over, “Brutus stay with me!”

Blood flowed in rhythmic spurts from his neck, and even though Dawn tried with magic and her hooves to stop the bleeding, still the crimson fluid flowed.

“They got me,” the once mighty warrior whispered weakly, “I can’t believe it. They got me.”

“No they didn’t,” Clyde encouraged, “Not yet; you’ll make it through this, you just have to stay with me!”

His words fell on lifeless ears, and Clyde watched as the once proud flame faded from his comrade’s eyes.

“Brutus!” he yelled, shaking him.

“Brutus!” he shouted louder a second time, even though he knew he was gone.

Clyde reverently closed Brutus’s eyelids, laid his friend down among the rest of the dead, and rose, the blood of his brother-in-arms mixing in with the rest already on his armor and obsidian coat. Clyde stood over the immense body in silence; until he heard a muffled scream from far above.

He recognized its source, and he frantically flew up the stairwell with the other Guardians.

Author's Note

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Out of Options

Twilight couldn’t move. She was caught in the grips of a green glow, the changelings’ magic keeping her frozen mere feet away from the vault of the elements of harmony.

Earlier, when she and her friends had first entered the palace, a group of changelings assaulted the front gates. The Royal Guards stayed back to cover them, and they were able to reach the top of the towering stairwell without running into any trouble.

When they reached the decorated chamber of the elements, Twilight tried to get the vault open but, with its complex locks, both magic and manual, the process took time. However, just as she was about to unlock the last bolt, the stained glass all around the chamber burst inwards, and twenty changelings ambushed them.

They were all knocked to the ground before they could get to the elements of harmony, and Twilight had felt herself being lifted from the cold floor, the characteristic tingling sensation of magic permeating her skin.

These changelings were different; they wore thick, dull metal armor and were much larger than the other changelings. Their fangs were bigger, more like tusks, their wings had six lobes instead of the regular four, and their eyes and fins were red instead of the common blue. Twilight recognized them from her readings. They were evolved forms of changelings, higher on the hierarchy than the drones but just below the queen; the warrior class.

Two of them, though it took all their focus just to contain her magic, held Twilight in invisible chains as she was suspended in a verdant glow. The other eighteen tried to subdue the others, but none of them quite submitted.
One of the creatures straddled the ground-stricken Rainbow Dash, but she didn’t give up.

She refused to be dominated, and she lashed up at the changeling’s chin with a vicious kick. It connected with a sharp crack, and the creature staggered back off of her and spat out blood from his bit tongue. This prompted Rarity, Applejack and Pinkie to struggle back, but Fluttershy still cowered beneath her captor in terror.

Rarity dragged her assailant off of her, her horn aglow. As the creature levitated above her, she flung it away, but it regained its balance before striking the ivory wall. Applejack and Rainbow Dash kept kicking and thrashing at their attackers until their numbers overpowered them. Several changelings piled onto them, but still, they struggled to evade capture even though they were already practically immobilized.

Rarity gripped another creature in telekinetic waves as Pinkie bit down on the leg of her attacker. Just as the unicorn was about to slam her writhing foe into the ceiling, an authoritative voice interrupted the brawl.

“Enough!” bellowed the entity from the front of the room, and the mares lost focus on the fight just long enough for multiple changelings to seize each of them in tight holds.

The mares looked up after recovering from being brutally slammed into the floor. Their necks strained, but they were able to make out the source of the voice; Queen Chrysalis.

Her gnarled black horn matched the rest of her grotesque body. She was the hue of night from head to hoof, excepting her grimy silver mane. Her body filled with dry holes, and her eyes burned in a fierce shade of green.

The queen of the hive strutted forward, a forked tongue darting in and out of her glistening fangs.

“Well, if it isn’t the elements themselves,” she mused, her tone changing drastically from the powerful voice she held moments before, “How convenient.”

“What do you want?” growled Dash.

The changeling detaining her brought up a warped hoof and stomped on her head. She winced and let out a faint whimper.

“You will address the queen with respect, pony!” it rumbled in a deep, raspy voice.

Dash glared up at her assailant, blood oozing forth from a gash in her brow. The warrior returned the look, growling through bared teeth as its fins fluttered threateningly.

“What I want,” chimed Chrysalis, “is Equestria.”

“You’ll never have it,” said Rarity angrily, a bit of blood from a shard of glass coming from her temple creeping down her face, “you could never defeat Celestia in the first place, let alone the army.”

“I may not be able to defeat Celestia alone,” explained the dark queen, “at least, not without the nourishment of love, but with the combined strength of myself and my children, we overpowered her spell protecting Equestria. My armies are slaughtering yours as we speak, and my children will overpower the last of your forces in moments. It’s only a matter of time before your beloved princess is no more. We are strong, and we will grow even stronger on the love of this land, and there is nothing you can do to stop us.”

The changelings in the room howled triumphantly, so sure of their imminent victory. Twilight was unable to speak the magic securing her was so tight, but she could still hear and see, especially the battle going on through the broken window. The Equestrians were indeed losing, and the changeling swarm was only getting bigger and bigger as reinforcements from the wastelands arrived. She tried to move, tried to use her magic, but couldn’t while suspended in the green glow, and despair set in.

Dash, bloodied but defiant, actually began laughing condescendingly at the queen.

“You still think you can win? We have the elements of harmony. As long as those are around, you’ll never take Equestria.”

Her captor raised a hoof to strike her for her insolence a second time, but Chrysalis shook her head, stopping him.

“You’re right,” agreed the queen sardonically, “The elements are all that stands between myself and victory, which is why they must be destroyed.”

She strode to the vault confidently, and blasted the door with a spell of raw force.

It didn’t budge.

She tried again and again, but the vault didn’t give an inch. She tried fire, spewing forth a stream of orange flames like a flamethrower from her horn. Next was ice, but the shards failed to weaken the vault door in the slightest. With each failed spell the queen grew angrier and angrier, until her wrathful roars were interrupted.

“It’s no use,” a weak voice from the other side of the room whispered.

Chrysalis turned to the speaker, a unicorn held aloft in magic. Twilight gritted her teeth against the mounting pressure on her ribs as the changeling’s tightened their telekinetic grip.

Chrysalis strode up to her, motioning for her warriors to loosen the invisible bonds holding the captive.

Twilight, barely able to speak through her compressing windpipe, explained.

“Celestia’s put a spell on that vault to keep evil like you from harming the elements. You’ll never break that spell, and you’ll never rule Equestria.”

As she finished, the bond tightened and she found herself struggling to breathe once more.
The queen looked away, dejected and angry, until her eyes fell on the mares being contained by her children. She noticed their injuries, their blood, and the queen realized something.

With her back to Twilight, she eerily cooed, “I can’t open the vault, but you can, unicorn. You will open it for me.”

“Not…a…chance,” Twilight managed to whisper though she felt her ribs were about to snap, “I’d rather die.”

“If I can’t destroy them now, then they will have to be destroyed later, after we kill Celestia. With her passing, the spell will fade, and the elements will be vulnerable. Until then, I can’t have anything using those elements, and you six are the only ones that can. The elements may be invulnerable, but their bearers are not.”

Horror spread across the face of every pony in the room while evil grins of anticipation came to be on the chins of the hive-members.

“Kill them,” the queen ordered coldly.

The mares cried out as the changelings prepared them for slaughter. Two changelings per mare, three in the case of Dash, held them still, pulling their heads back to expose their throats, while another stood like an executioner in front. Twilight was pulled in different directions by the bonds of magic, and she struggled to look beyond the changeling brandishing his horn in front of her to see her friends.

Dash was still struggling, thrashing her legs and flapping her wings, but she was held still by the warriors. She leaned away from the changeling in front of her. Her breathing was fast and exasperated, and her eyes were wide in fear as she struggled against the changelings on her flanks and back, trying to escape, but their grip was a vice. The creature before her smiled down murderously, licking his chapped lips with a forked tongue.

Rarity was being gripped by her forelimbs by two changelings on either side, and she held herself upright on her knees. She was crying, her jaw quivering, but she didn’t sob or tremble. She looked up into the soulless eyes of the killer before her defiantly, not even her bitter tears breaking her gaze.

Pinkie Pie was struggling back and forth, trying to loosen the strong grips of the changelings securing her, but they easily pinned her to the floor, and the to-be killer looked down at her blankly with a cocked head as she began to repeat the word ‘no’.

Fluttershy was weeping, tears pouring down her face and onto the ivory floor. She didn’t sob either, much like her purple-maned friend, but the characteristic soft whimpers of the bearer of the element of kindness carried through the room. The pegasus closed her eyes and weakly tried to pull free as the executioner stepped in front of her, turning away in fear, trying and hide from the ominous inevitability of the horn’s piercing of her heart.

Applejack was being held like Rarity, drawn apart at the limbs and pushed to her knees. The farm pony didn’t cry, didn’t shy away, didn’t even blink when the red-finned warrior stepped before her. She only glared, flicked her hat farther back on her head, and spat on the ground at the creature’s feet.

Twilight’s attention was brought back to herself when the warrior stepped closer to her, drawing an X in the air in front of her chest with his horn. She breathed out once, a long exhale, and closed her eyes while she decided what to do.

“Wait,” she said, much to the surprise of Chrysalis.

Twilight could face her own death as repercussion for her defiance, but not her friends’.

“If I open the vault, will you let them live?”

“I suppose,” sang the queen, as the grip on the unicorn began to diminish.

The bonds faded and she stood in between the warriors and Chrysalis, nervously looking back and forth.

“Hurry up!” growled the changeling on her right as it prodded her rear with a razor-like horn.

She jumped forward, and slowly walked through the gauntlet formed by her imprisoned friends and their changeling captors towards the closed vault. They looked at her sadly, knowing that the cost of their lives was the doom of Equestria, and wondering if it was worth it.

She reached the vault, and began telepathically dropping the tumblers.

Chrysalis stood behind her, flanked by warriors whose armor softly jingled every time they shifted their weight.

The last tumbler fell with a click. It sounded like thunder in the otherwise silent room; nothing else spoke.

Chrysalis leaned forward anxiously as the vault began to swing open. She pushed past a depressed Twilight, the warriors taking the unicorn in their grips again. Twilight looked back at her friends, her sad eyes matching theirs as they watched the queen’s horn beginning to glow green in the vault’s entrance.

“I agreed to let you live,” began Chrysalis over her shoulder, “and live you shall, as changelings.”

Their faces contorted in looks of disgust and fear, but eventually, all turned to sorrow again.

“You have shown dedication, and it will be put to good use in the hives. After all, every empire needs slaves.”

Twilight met eyes with each of her friends, and bitter tears began to flow down her face. She could only think of one thing to say.

“I’m sorry.”

She bowed her head, and prepared for the sound of the elements’ shattering.

Suddenly, the tingling sensation of static electricity touched her skin, and the vault door slam shut.

No Greater Love

Twilight flinched when she heard a wet noise, like something spilling onto the ground.

She glanced up and saw the changeling that was to cut her earlier slashed open at the throat, still standing in shock. The hive warrior toppled over, painting the floor red. As it hit the ground, Twilight was blinded by a flash of color from the chamber entrance.

The Guardians stormed the room; Clyde, Persephone and Sebastian ambushed the changelings holding the mares, while Dawn and her respective doubles bombarded Chrysalis with blue beams of magic.

The queen turned in time to see a brown assailant send a burning bolt her way, and shielded herself with a verdant wall. The barrier kept Dawn’s magic out, but as Dawn’s duplicates fired again and again, the queen had to divert all of her energy and focus in protecting herself from the attack. Dawn kept the queen from fighting, keeping the changeling royal at bay, but she couldn’t keep her from commanding her changelings.

“Kill them! Kill them now!” she shouted.

Before the changelings could, Clyde and Persephone knocked the mares’ captors away and started combatting the numerous warriors in the rafters. Sebastian herded the mares into a group as several of the warriors threw themselves at them. He was the only thing standing between them and death; they were able to fight, but these changelings would have no trouble finishing them. The only reason they were still alive was that Chrysalis had tried to take them that way earlier.

Sebastian positioned himself between the changelings and the mares. They tried to go for the exit, but were stopped by a snarling black warrior in their path. The orange unicorn phased to the front of the changeling as it thrust its jagged horn forward at the mares, catching it in the brow.

With a spray of sparks, the horn deflected off of his helmet, and the Guardian brought his forelimb up in an uppercut. The blow met the much larger enemy’s sternum, cleaving his breast straight through the armor with the scythe-like knife on the stallion’s gauntlet.

Another changeling went for Rarity, diving from behind, but Sebastian again threw himself in harm’s way. The changeling’s horn plunged itself into his stomach, and he cried out in pain. The force of the impact jolted his helmet free, revealing his anguished glare. Retaining his spirit, he returned the gesture, stabbing the changeling’s underbelly as his foe’s momentum carried the two of them into the floor.

They brawled on the pearly ground in a death struggle, each savagely thrashing and goring his opponent while armor and bones snapped. Finally, Sebastian, bleeding and broken, rose above the changeling. It was softly gurgling through an opening in its throat, and Sebastian yanked his blades from his enemy’s lifeless body. He took an awkward, stumbling step towards the mares to try and continue his duty, but two more of the warriors descended from the fray above on him.

The unicorn was impaled on their warped horns, and he spat out a mouthful of blood as he felt his strength leave. They carried him to a broken window in a second, and tossed his motionless body from the tower. The pair then turned towards the mares, who were standing in shock a few feet from the vault. Dash bravely stepped forward, but the warriors only laughed as she took a defensive stance between them and her friends.

From the other side of the chamber, Dawn witnessed the death of her comrade out of the corner of her eyes. Her heart sank, and she lost focus for a second as she turned and watched Sebastian thrown from the world of the living. Her duplicates replicated her lapse in concentration, and stopped engaging Chrysalis for a moment.

Dawn and her clones avenged Sebastian, burning holes through his killers, inadvertently buying the mares a few more ensured seconds of life.

The queen seized the opportunity. Of the six unicorns in front of her, she guessed that the one to react to the pony’s death first was the leader. She lowered her luminous shield and sent a searing wave forth from her horn. The shot hit its mark, and the rest of her attackers conveniently faded into the victim of her spell.

Clyde heard the cease in magic burning through the air, and turned from the fray above to look back. He saw his friend, Dawn, lying on the white floor, a circular hole in her neck. Her eyes were open, but her ribs were motionless, the wound emitting a slow steady smoke into the air above.

“No!” he cried, and darted down leaving Persephone to fight the changelings alone.

He knocked the queen to the floor with a vicious impact as he drove an armored hoof down on her from above, opening a wound on her brow. She lay motionless, but her eyes remained open.

Thinking her dead, Clyde quickly turned back to fight with Persephone, who was being overpowered by her adversaries. The few of them remaining had learned that they were unable to hurt her with brute force, so they tried to detain her. As they immobilized the crystalline warrior and crashed through the unbroken section of one of the elaborate panes of glass, Clyde pushed off of the ground to come to her aid.

However, he found himself unable to move.

Clyde felt his bones being squeezed, and realized he was caught in the grips of a spell. He felt himself being turned in the air, and looked into the face of Chrysalis.

“You played dead?” he realized, “You conniving piece of…Ungh.”

He moaned as he felt his organs being pressed together in the vice-like grip of the queen’s magic.

Clyde heard a sudden exchange behind him, and the queen looked up from her captive. She turned her prey in the air, and Clyde saw his friends imprisoned in a clear encasing of green magic. A lone changeling in the center of the room had its horn aglow. The blood on its leg and Twilight’s smoking horn revealed what he had missed.

“How dare you attack me!” scolded Chrysalis as she turned him round in her magic, taking in every speck of blood, laceration and physical feature on his body, including his cutie mark, still bearing the stains of the manticore’s still present venom.

“A Guardian?” she said, shocked upon seeing his flank, “You and your kind have killed thousands of my children!”

“Yeah, today. Wonder what the number is at for the past year.”

He laughed in the face of the queen, but he was stifled by another constriction on his ribs, and he felt at least two of them give. He groaned and began to spit up blood.

“Clyde!” cried Rarity.

The queen raised an eyebrow at the six encased in her warrior’s spell.

“You know this stallion?”

“He’s our friend,” said Pinkie angrily, “and you’ll never take that from that us like you did to countless ponies in Equestria today!”

“I beg to differ,” added Chrysalis sarcastically.

She turned her prisoner to face her. Clyde’s face was contorted in pain, but she knew he could hear him.

“Now, as much I hate you, you are a fine warrior. If you agree to serve me and me alone, I shall let you live.”

“I’d rather die you bitch!” he growled before having three more of his ribs broken.

“You will,” she said through a scowl, “but first, you must be punished for your actions. Death alone does not do you justice. I will finish what I started later; nothing here is a threat to me anyhow, and your armies are dying as we speak.”

Clyde felt his wings involuntarily unfurl to their full extent, and something gently grip their base.

Suddenly, they violently twisted and snapped back towards his flanks as the queen splintered their bones. Tears of pain that had formed when his ribs gave in began streaming down his face, and his breathing grew fast and shallow as he screamed and was turned in midair.

The mares screamed from within their verdant prison, and Dash began desperately bucking the case's interior to try and come to Clyde’s aide, but to no avail.

Chrysalis didn’t stop until she had pulverized his wings, mangling and twisting the bones to pulp. Clyde continued screaming, but the sound of his wings crunching was still audible through his cries.

Chrysalis turned to the horrified mares when she finished, an evil smile across her face.

“You monster!” scorned Twilight through her own tears.

The queen only smiled condescendingly, relishing in their hatred. She forced the bloody stallion to the floor, and held him up on his knees. She looked into his eyes, and was taken aback by their intensity. His spirit was still unbroken; she meant to change that.

Holding him still in her magic, she levitated the iron headpiece off of one of her dead changelings, and carried it to herself. She brandished the dense object in front of her, and slowly raised it above the pegasus. Maliciously, she brought the dull helmet down on Clyde’s brow, knocking his own helmet off. He recovered, sniffing in and picking himself back up on his own.

Clyde glared at the queen through gritted teeth, and she swung the helmet a second time, bludgeoning his jaw. He slumped over on impact. Again, but not without wincing, he picked himself back up, more slowly than before.

Again and again, the queen assaulted the Guardian, torturing him with blunt force until the pale iron of the helmet had turned red and Clyde’s scalp and face lay mangled. He tried to pick himself up, tears from his broken nose dripping down his snout, but he was devoid of strength.

His breathing was shallow and labored, and his blood dripped into pools as he lay on the cold floor.

The changeling leader looked to the weeping mares theatrically as she spoke, “And now, Guardian, for your crime of the murder of countless numbers of my children, your final verdict is death.”

Chrysalis centered her grip on the pegasus’s throat, a dull halo encircling the base of his skull, and lifted him from the floor. His wings hung limply at his sides as he was strangled by his own weight pulling down on his windpipe.
The queen levitated the broken warrior to the window, and suspended him in the cold outside air.

Night had fallen, and with no pegasi around to control the weather, dark storm clouds had rolled in over the kingdom.

Clyde struggled for air as the stinging outside wind blew his mane and lifeless wings about. Just as he thought she would drop him to the unwelcoming ground below, Chrysalis pulled him in close.

“You see them?” she asked, rotating his head for him to look at his friends encased in a verdant shell, “They say they were your friends, that you were their Guardian. It was your job to protect them, and you failed.”

The changeling purred her address to the stallion, relishing in the torment as he looked to her under his own power. His glossy eyes still flickered, but with only a remnant of their previous flame.

“You couldn’t even protect yourself,” taunted the queen, “How could you think you could keep them from harm. Not even through your death will they be saved.”

The queen pulled him in closer, and whispered, “Before you die, know that you failed them. I will enjoy seeing you perish, as much as I will enjoy cutting their precious throats.”

Clyde looked at the queen in horror.

“They think that in assisting me, I will let them live. But, there will be plenty of slaves once Equestria is thoroughly conquered. Their fate is sealed; after all, I can’t have hopeful spirits like them wreaking havoc with my oppression of this land.”

The broken warrior looked to his sobbing friends one last time. He knew they were crying for him, and despair set in as he came to grips with his and their fates.

Then, a movement caught his eye in one of the broken windows, and his brow descended in a determined, bloodied glare as he formulated what had to be done.

The queen levitated him a few feet over the ledge, and suspended him by his throat for a few seconds.

“Goodbye,” she mused, and then released him, but Clyde didn’t embrace death just yet.

As the spell faded, he lounged forward with the last of his waning strength. He pushed forward with his forelimbs, extending the daggers in his gauntlets, and drove the blades into the queen’s sternum. As he fell earthward, they dragged down through the changeling’s flesh, opening her breast. Then, they came loose, and Clyde dropped from the tower, his limp wings flowing above him.

The queen let out a panicked cry and Persephone burst back into the chamber. She had one eye remaining, the other a singed dent in her skull; the changelings had apparently found a weakness in her shell. She fell on the warrior imprisoning the mares and broke his neck before he became aware of her presence. The glow from his horn disappeared, and the mares were freed.

The crystalline pegasus, her brilliant coat sullied by her own blood, darted for the queen, but Chrysalis retreated. She hastily opened a portal big enough for only her, limped through, clutching her laid open flesh, and closed it behind her. Persephone set down on seeing her prey escape, and limped towards the six left alive in the room.

They started to go for Clyde, but Persephone stopped them.

“Wait,” she explained desperately, “make sure they didn’t die in vain.”

“She’s right,” pleaded Twilight in between sobs and gasps, “we have to use the elements, or this will all have been for nothing."

The mares ran back to the vault as Twilight reopened it, revealing the jeweled forms of the elements on a pedestal within. They each adorned their ornament, and unified the elements. A gust of wind and a flash of color swept out from the room, and the sounds of battle outside faded into the young night.

Then they darted for the palace lawn below.

Author's Note

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So That Others May Live

Clyde watched the window slowly fall away from him as he descended to the earth, his lifeless wings hanging uselessly at his sides with no bone left to hold them in place.

The world around him seemed to move in slow motion. There was no noise, only the faint trickle of air past his ears as he gained speed in the free fall. He felt so weak, and didn’t struggle on the way down; he didn’t turn and writhe in the air, he didn’t scream, he didn’t try to look around. He only breathed in the cold, dark atmosphere.

He didn’t see the ground coming.

His insides were jolted around his skeleton and most of his bones broke when he hit a few feet from the base of the tower. He blacked out on impact.

He reanimated after a few moments, weakly spitting out a mouthful of thick, dark blood. His chest struggled to fill itself with air, and he sobbed in pain as he choked on the warm liquid in his throat. He clung to consciousness, though barely, and was able to see a burst of light come from the tower.

"We did it," he thought to himself, “They did it.”

Clyde could feel his life draining. The pain was unbearable; he could see the skewed bones in his legs, his back was excruciating, and he could feel the sharp prods of fragmented rib bones in his breast. He could only think of one thing to do with his shattered body.

Adjacent to the tower, he propped his head up against its ivory exterior. He used only one limb; the others he dragged behind him. Most of the armor adorning his body was ruined, either by the fall or from the day’s fighting. His helmet was still up in the tower, but the rest of his sterling armor was cracked and warped, either around his body or in the palace’s lawn.

He could feel the warm release of his blood from cuts and compound fractures all over his body, as well as a heavy feeling in his chest. More blood seeped from his mouth, and he knew he was bleeding internally; how could he not be after a fall like that?

The sky was dark from its layer of storm clouds and the absence of moonlight. Lightning flashed above, a weak report of thunder trailing the bolt. Clyde looked to the diminished formations of Equestrian warriors to the west. The changelings had killed thousands of them, and only a few specks in the distance were all that remained of their once proud garrisons. The changelings were gone, expelled by the elements, but the toll for their eviction had been paid in blood.

Somehow, there, beneath the thundering sky, choking on his own blood and suffocating from his crushed organs, he felt peace. He had done his job, he had saved those that could be saved, and he knew death was coming for him; he recognized a hooded figure above.

Slowly, and with shallow, labored breaths, he reached inside his crushed breastplate and removed the picture of his friends. He held it tightly with his one good forelimb. He didn’t move; he only let the memories of the photograph accompany him on the cold, lonely ground.

As he looked at the photograph, his friends’ and his own smiles so prominent on the paper, he found the corners of his mouth drawing up into a diminutive smile. Right now, he wasn’t dying, he wasn’t struggling to breathe, he wasn’t in pain; he felt as if he were with them, memories of the times he spent in Ponyville flooding his eyes as they flashed by.

He saw a panorama of beauty beneath him as he sat on his perch at dawn, the day’s first rays of light touching the golden tertiary world below. He saw the beauty of Sweet Apple Acres in fall, the canvas of nature painted with warm yellows, oranges and reds. He saw the sky as the moon rose to kiss its face, the blue and white of the air’s domain changing to pink, then to deep, peaceful blue.

He saw himself in a barn at a party, Pinkie Pie bouncing around him as she joyously welcomed him to Ponyville for the first time. He saw his wing around Dash as they sat on the precipice over the valley on the night he left the hospital, the luminous moon and stars smiling down from above. He would have laughed if he had the strength when he recalled the time Rarity had employed him as a model, and the unfortunate situation that accompanied it.

He saw Twilight the night he had invited them over for dinner the first time, her ever-present curiosity interrogating him for any information about every little thing she didn’t know. He saw Applejack in the park chasing a toss of the Frisbee, and focused on her wonderful smile. He saw Spike, beaming up at him and the other Guardians at the ball when they accepted him into their group. And, he saw Fluttershy, coyly tucking a few strands of her beautiful mane behind her ear, the same ear adorning a yellow rose, as he took her hoof to dance.

He saw the exchanging of gifts beneath a pine tree on Hearth’s Warming Eve, a ridiculous red stocking over his own head. He saw each of their faces as they cooed and giggled over stallions in town on Heart’s and Hooves Day, and the looks on their faces when he prompted the same stallions to approach them, which they willingly did. He saw the awe on their faces when he demonstrated his capacity for strength on Winter Wrap Up, lifting more snow from the frozen ground than anypony in town ever had prior. It was hard to believe he ever held such strength now.

He saw Fluttershy’s face buried in his once mighty wings, crying, from the time she had had a nightmare in which he went off to war, and never came back, and the reassured look she sent up at him when he told her he would never leave her alone. He saw the talks he’d had with Spike about what being a stallion, or a dragon, meant, and how he had become the closest thing to a brother the drake ever had. He saw all the nights he had stayed up to make sure his friends were safe, and all the days they had spent together in the peace he maintained.

But, more important to him than all the others, he didn’t see, but felt a memory. He felt his coldness being replaced with warmth when he hugged any of his friends, the light feeling within when he danced with them, the feeling he would get when he dried tears or routed fears, or lit up the face of somepony with a kind deed. He remembered the love he had found in Ponyvile, the love that had changed him for the better, the love that was previously absent within him, the love he had died for.

He felt his strength give, and he dropped the picture. He reached for it, but he was too weak. Everything was fading to blackness, and the figure above him seemed to come closer, but a familiar voice called him back.

****************

Rainbow Dash found him first, her cries and desperate shouts calling the others over in haste.

“Clyde!” she sobbed as she knelt at his side, “Clyde, wake up!”

The stallion’s eyes weakly opened. Somehow, miraculously, he was still alive. His glossy eyes, still as green as before, looked up at Dash weakly as the others galloped up to him.

“You’re all ok?” he whispered.

“Yeah,” said Dash, trying to comfort the surprisingly calm stallion with a phony smile, “yeah, we’re fine.”

“Good,” he creaked, his mangled head nodding towards his breast.

“Twilight,” began Rarity, taking in the extent of her friend’s injuries, “fix him!”

A beam of purple took Clyde in its glow as Twilight tried with all her might to heal his injuries, but the spell which she could have performed successfully before had no effect. She tried again and again, enveloping him in her magic, but to no avail.

“Why won’t it work?” she yelled in frustration.

She saw the discoloration on his flank; the manticore venom. When he was stung all those moons ago, the doctor in Ponyville said that the venom had caused the hospital staff’s spells to be useless. They had to heal him manually. The venom had never come out; the operation to save his life was only to keep it from spreading, not to remove it.

“It’s no use,” she realized as she pointed to Clyde’s rear leg, the still visible dark poison seeming to pulsate beneath his skin.

The mares started to panic, and Pinkie Pie darted a few feet from Clyde’s side to Persephone.

“We need to help him! What can we do?” she cried.

The solemn look on her damaged face melted any hope Pinkie had retained. As her face contorted into an expression of despair, Persephone only nodded to Clyde’s body; Pinkie slunk back to her friend’s side, knowing there was nothing that could be done for him. His injuries were too great to be healed in time, and magic was no use. The only thing they could do now was to hold onto him while they could.

Pinkie bore the weight of depression as her mane straightened in the rain, and she led her friends to Clyde’s side. They knelt; Rarity took his hoof in hers while the others tried to hold him in one final embrace without hurting his broken body. It began to rain harder, the water mixing with falling tears in the grass. The precipitation washed some of the blood from Clyde’s body, and it collected in a pool on the ground around him.

“Hey,” started Clyde weakly, “you’re crying. Why?”

“You’re dying,” whispered Fluttershy through sobs and sniffles.

“And that’s a bad thing? We all die sooner or later. I’m just glad I died for something worth dying for.”

“And what was that?” asked Twilight, trying to feign a smile to console the fading stallion.

“You.”

His voice trailed off and he began to slump over.

“Clyde!” said Dash loudly, shaking him as he started to nod off, “Don’t go; come on, stay with us.”

He looked up at her as she continued. “We’ll go back to Ponyville; we’ll live together, we’ll be friends,” her tears blended with the rain, “we’ll be happy, and we’ll all die later, when we’re old, after we’ve lived full lives together.”

Her voice trailed off as she heaved, choking on sadness.

“I can’t,” he gurgled, “but you can.” Thunder rolled again, and the rain picked up its pace.

“You promised you’d never leave us alone,” whimpered Fluttershy, “You can’t go.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said, smiling consolingly.

“Even if you can’t see me,” he said soothingly as he used the last of his strength to gingerly place his hoof over Fluttershy’s shoulder, “I’ll always be watching over you.”

His eyes, somehow, still held that consoling strength, and as he looked to his friends’ faces for the last time, the flame within flickering, he asked, “Will you remember me?”

“We could never forget you Clyde,” lamented Applejack.

“Then all my dreams have come true. Now go chase yours.”

The flame began to die.

“I’m glad for the time we’ve had together. I love you all, and I will miss you.”

His struggling rib cage suddenly went still, his eyes looked to the heavens, his hoof fell from Fluttershy’s shoulder into the damp lawn, and the quality faded from his eyes as his soul escaped on one final breath.

The mares fell onto his lifeless body, crying into his damp hide and trying to hold onto the friendship they treasured.

****************

Hours passed until the princesses returned to the palace with the remnants of the Equestrian military. The regales found the mares still crying over Clyde’s stiff body, the elements still adorned on their bodies. Luna approached Persephone, who was fighting tears a few feet from the solemn congregation.

Celestia came up from behind the mares, spreading her expansive wings around them, and tried to comfort them.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered maternally, “I’m so sorry, this is my fault. I’m sorry, but he can’t be helped. We need to move him.”

One by one, they released Clyde and clung to the princess. First was Applejack, then Rarity, then Rainbow Dash and Pinkie.

Twilight, as she came loose from the lifeless embrace, saw something on the ground at Clyde’s side. She reached down for it; it was the photograph from the first picnic they shared together. There was blood on it, and she could see by the wrinkles and bends that he had been clutching it before they arrived, and Twilight realized that as he was dying, he had been holding on to the closest thing he had had to them, and even more tears flowed from her eyes.

Each of them left Clyde’s side except for Fluttershy. She had to be pried from Clyde’s corpse. Crying, she released her friend, and wrapped herself around Celestia.

As the Princess of the Sun consoled them, Luna approached the body. She looked down on the Guardian, barely a remnant of his former self. He was bloody and stiff, his face expressionless and devoid of his common smile, and his once strong, gentle eyes were black in death.

She couldn’t bear to look at him like this; her former Guardian, her former friend, regressed to this state. She closed his eyes, and ordered three soldiers to move his shattered frame for burial.

The rain coming down, the dead littering the kingdom, and the tears of the living cursing the day, the ponies started to try and continue their lives, but how could they?

Author's Note

Thanks for reading. I hope you guys like this and have been touched by my writing. Please leave a comment and a rating. Thanks!

Gone, But Not Forgotten

Several days had passed since the invasion. Clyde, along with the thousands of others, was being buried in one mass funeral, and Twilight and her friends had congregated for the first time since their friend’s death in the Saddleback Mountains. Spike didn’t come; he chose to remember Clyde privately, and had stayed back in town while the others went to the service. Thousands had gathered outside the gates of a new military cemetery, which was commissioned and built on the mountain range’s valley floor.

At the entrance of the cemetery was a large bronze statue of three figures. The portraits were anonymous, one being an earth pony, one being a pegasus, and another being a unicorn. They stood shoulder to shoulder, all wore grim expressions, and all appeared to be injured or wounded. They wore armor, and even though the entire statue was the same color, the orange of bronze, it was easy enough for the grieving to imagine the three as ponies once known.

At mid-day, the procession started. The thousands of casualties had already been buried within the cemetery ground; the ‘funeral’ was more of a commemoration than a rite. Regardless, respects were paid by ponies from all over Equestria; nopony was exempt of effect from the battle. Everypony had lost a brother, sister, mother, father, uncle, aunt, cousin... or friend.

The ceremony began with a solemn address given by Celestia. The royal took her place on a temporary stage before the crowd, just in front of the statue, and reverently spoke.

Twilight sat amidst her friends. They all wore the same blank expressions, emotions of confusion, sadness and regret building within. The unicorn didn’t focus on the speech. Rather, beneath the bluebird sky, she focused on the ironic beauty of the environment around her.

The mountains rose high above on all sides; Clyde’s perch was just behind them. The valley floor was cool and soft, and the lush grass blew in the breeze. Spring was just starting to turn to summer, and each tree adorned its freshest leaves.

“He would’ve loved it here,”she thought.

As she lost herself in thought, the speech ended, and the gates to the cemetery were opened for the first time.

Twilight and her friends ambled in among the entirety of the crowd, and they began searching the gravestones for familiar names, one in particular.

The sheer size of the cemetery was breathtaking. The headstones, all made of the purest marble, were hundreds of columns wide and even more rows deep.

While they meandered, they found the gravesites of Dawn, Brutus and Sebastian. The Guardians had nothing on their headstones to identify them as Guardians; even though their fight had been more important, even more heroic, than the others.

None of them cried as they combed the graves. It took hours, but finally, towards the center of the cemetery, they found him.

Clyde’s gravestone was exactly the same as the others. It was just another headstone in the sea of marble on the valley floor. The inscription read ‘Clydesdale T. Sterling- Captain-11th Cavalry/Guardians’ Division’. However, below his title, it read, ‘Keep on Dreaming.’

They stood around his grave in a semi-circle in silence. They stared for a while without moving, until a familiar, icy voice from behind shook them from their trance.

“Found him?” asked Persephone, not receiving an answer.

The Guardian, an eye patch over her face, joined their group as she too honored Clyde’s death in silence. They stood like that for hours, trying to come to grips with his absence, and wishing things had turned out differently.

The day passed quickly. Everypony else in the cemetery had already left, and it was nearly dusk when Persephone broke the silence a second time.

She reached into a saddlebag and retrieved a warped chunk of metal; Clyde’s helmet.

“I took this from the tower that day. I thought one of you might want it,” she said flatly as she offered the misshapen headpiece.

“Thanks,” said Rainbow Dash after a long silence, “but we’ll remember him our own way. Keep it.”

Rather, Persephone only reverently placed the helmet over the white headstone. Before turning away, she reached out and touched the stone, holding it for a long time. Then she left, silently ascending into the late day’s painted sky.

As soon as she departed, the mares each left one by one, but not before paying their final respects. First was Pinkie Pie, who tied a green balloon around his headstone before quietly plodding out of the cemetery. Then Applejack removed the crimson ribbon from her mane and tied it in a bow around the marble. She knelt, pressing her forehead against the cold stone as she tightened the knot; the headstone was the closest thing to him she had left.

Next, Twilight stepped forward. She reached into a saddlebag and retrieved the picture she had found at Clyde’s side when he died. She had cleaned the blood from it, and she laid it down face-up at the base of the headstone. Afterwards, Rarity laid the cap of the suit he had helped her to make on the grass before the gravestone. She had memories of him wearing that suit on Hearts and Hooves Day, as well as every formal gathering they ever went to when he didn’t have to be in his uniform. The hat rested on the grass, and Rarity, tears forming in her eyes, promptly left the site.

Next was Fluttershy, who calmly and gracefully said goodbye. When she finished, she reached up to her ear, retrieved the last yellow rose she would ever wear, and placed it over the grave. She kissed the headstone, and her sorrowful farewell was complete. Full of regrets and uncertainties about what could have been, she returned home, where she would cry alone.

Dash however, stayed. She sat by the grave until the moon rose to accompany her, and the stars smiled down; only Dash wasn’t smiling back.

The only sound in the cemetery came from her sobbing. Sure that nopony was around, she let it all out at once, and she began to talk to the grave. She said things she needed to say to him, but just never got the chance, all the while lamenting in solitude with nopony around to console her. It was better that way; she didn’t need to worry what anypony else thought of her.

She looked at the gravestone as if it were him.

“I miss you,” she choked.

“I miss everything about you; your smile, your eyes, our talks, the way you’d always be there, the way I felt when I was with you.”

She managed a nostalgic smile, but it was quickly replaced with frustration.

“But that’s all I remember. I can’t think of any real memories of things we did together. I just can’t stop thinking about the day you died; I can’t remember anything else. I don’t want to remember you by this graveyard, by how you died; I want to remember you by how you lived.”

“I want to remember you by how you looked out for us, how you were brave and strong, and by the great friend you were. I want to remember the nights you stayed up to make sure we were safe, and how you did anything you could to protect us. I want to remember how much fun we had whenever we all did anything together. I want to look back and hear your laugh, see your smile, remember everything about you, but I can’t! All I can see when I think of you is you dying. I want to forget that day, but I can’t; it’s haunting me!”

“When you were dying, you said that you loved each of us. Before, that would’ve freaked me out, but at the ball, Dawn told me something. She said that there are different kinds of love.”

“I don’t know what way you loved me, but I loved you too, and so did the others. We were a family, and you left us behind. If you really loved us, then why’d you go?”

“You once said that you’d never leave me alone. Now you’re gone; I’m alone Clyde, and I need you, now more than ever.”

“If you can hear me,” she said, looking skyward, “then keep your promise! Prove that you didn’t leave me alone. I hate being alone, Clyde, but all I feel without you is alone. Equestria is moving on, but I don’t think I can, not without you.”

Her gaze fell from the stars, “I just wish you were still around.”

A sudden flash of light above caught her attention, and she gazed up at a shooting star darting across the sky. She watched as it disappeared over the horizon, its tail leading her eyes to a familiar landmark; Clyde’s home.

It was somehow visible from the cemetery; how she hadn’t noticed it before eluded her.

She flew to the cabin, slowly for once, and entered. The home’s once spotless interior was contaminated by a layer of dust, and it still held the essence of pine. She went for the living room. On the walls hung dozens of photographs portraying the times they’d all had together since the day they met. She recognized most of them, and realized they all had the same thing in common; they were all smiling in each photograph.

Dash slowly approached to the pictures, recalling that the shelves filled with gilded and crystalline treasures from the night, the only night she ever spent in this house, no longer hung on the walls; their place was taken by the photographs.

"We were more valuable to him than gold," she realized, and her sorrow was routed.

Even in death, he was still comforting her.

After her reverent trip down memory lane amidst the photos, she turned and continued her inspection of the house.

The cabinet in the corner, the one that once held his armor, was open. She peered inside; it now held only the crimson flag of the Guardians, his dress uniform, and a dusty mirror fixed to the inside of one of the doors. She took his beret from the top shelf, held it to her nose, and inhaled; it still smelled like him, and her tears started flowing again.

She held onto the beret as she continued through the dining room, the kitchen, and her ventures upstairs. There, she found a bedroom, the bed neatly made, a bathroom and some closets.

Still clutching the black headpiece, she trudged down the stairs to leave. However, at the bottom of the wooden staircase, she noticed a leather-bound book resting on the living room’s table.

She approached, stood with her back to the mantle, and read its cover; "A Collection of Poetry Through the Ages".

“Great,” she moaned.

She did do some reading, but it was mostly Daring-Do novels, not poetry. Still, she figured there had to be some reason why it was left out while the rest of the house was so organized. She opened the aged leather cover, which seemed to creak as she turned it over.

Dash scanned through pages, skipping old ballads and modern lyric poems, until she found a page that was dog-eared, the only page in the whole book that was so.

Her eyes, though still moist, grew wide in attentive curiosity as she read the poem.

Color

When we are born, the canvas of our lives is filled with color: vibrant reds and blues, and fantastic shades of green.

But as we age, the colors dull, until the canvas is nothing but grey.

Yet, every now and again, we find something that adds small dabs of color

Back into the masterpiece of our lives;

And those are the things we fall in love with.

-Anonymous

Written below the text was a note.

To my friends,

When I came to Ponyville, my canvas was dark, but today, it’s all the colors of the rainbow. I don’t know if I’ll see any of you after today, but in case I don’t, I want you to know that no matter what happens, I have no regrets. I’m glad I came to this town, and my life changed for the better the day I met you. It has been an honor to be your Guardian, but a greater one to be your friend.

If you ever feel alone, afraid or like you need me, you need only look to the stars. From there, I’ll be watching, a Guardian forever. I’ll see you again someday, but between now and then, live your lives, love one another, and never stop dreaming.

Until next time,

Clyde.

The book was wet with Dash’s elusive tears. One memory suddenly came to her, something Pinkie had asked him about when he was new to town; she had asked him if he was a guardian angel. It was so fitting, and Dash looked out the window to the sparkling stars above.

“My guardian angel,” she whispered, a tearful smile adorned on her cyan face, and she whispered what seemed most fitting.

“Until next time.”

She flipped through the rest of the book and a yellow rose fell from its pages. She stooped to retrieve it; it was a bit faded and had seen better days, but she could tell that when it was fresh, it had been beautiful. She left the house; she would come back another time, a time when she missed him more than usual, but until then, the beret, the flower and the book would be her connection to her Guardian above.

She walked rather than flew back to Ponyville, looking to the night sky. Maybe she was just being a bit odd, maybe it was that she was out very late, but she felt like something was watching her, and as she looked to the stars, which were sparkling more than usual on that particular night, she knew he was watching.

The End

Author's Note

I had a lot of fun with this piece. Thank you guys so much for reading, and I hope you liked it. Please leave a comment and a rating, and if for any reason, any of you were inspired to make artwork or something from a scene in this story, don't hesitate. I'd love to see what you do with my creation, just as long as you cite me as the owner, otherwise its stealing. Thanks again!

TheBigLebowski

Replacements

The Princesses stood on the balcony shoulder to shoulder, watching the training fields below.

The grounds were filled with recruits.

Volunteers had been all too eager to sign up after the invasion, but even for the amount of new ponies adorning armor and PT clothing below, their numbers were nothing compared to what they had before the infiltration by the changelings.

"Any likely candidates?" asked the larger of the regal siblings, her majestic mane flowing behind her in the elevated air's breeze, caught by the tower's altitude.

Luna shook her head, not diverting her eyes from the fields below, and a third pony descended a short way from the buttresses to the balcony.

"We lost four of them," explained Celestia, looking earthward again, "The time for mourning has passed. We can't afford to be at a disadvantage for long. The Guardians are invaluable to Equestria."

The newcomer, a crystalline, turquoise mare, a black patch over her right eye, leaned against the balcony's railing, watching intently as the stallions below sparred, marched, and drilled.

For some reason, her gaze found a unicorn stallion apart from the action; he was resting, apparently having completed his PT before the others in his squad, as the others in his unit's colors were still doing pushups. He was not imposing, nor was he anything exceptional to behold, but Persephone was drawn to him nonetheless.

It wasn't long before a group of the unit's much more threatening stallions finished their training as well, and approached him in a group of four.

Even from this distance, the mare could see words being exchanged; they weren't words of kindness.

The stallion, a beige unicorn with a monochromatic red mane, rose, barely coming up to the others' shoulders. The biggest of the opposing group shoved him, and the unicorn said something in return.

The other reared back to strike him, adorning a glaring grin on his face, but the stallion countered swiftly. He moved like a blur, throwing lightning fast jabs and kicks, dodging blows and redirecting the others' momentum, grappling a foe to the ground, only to hop back up and do the same to the next oncoming opponent.

Before the sergeant could reach the group, the four lay on the ground, and the beige stallion stood at attention as the sergeant began bellowing audible curses into his face.

"Brute," mumbled Celestia as the stallion was ushered into a physical training pit, the most severe of field punishments for the trainees, by the sergeant.

Before the unicorn reached the pit, he stopped, and turned his gaze to the tower, staring confidently at the three silhouetted mares on its balcony, and then hopped into the sand to begin his suffering.

"Ugh," Celestia groaned again, "He doesn't belong in our army."

"You're right, he doesn't," agreed Persephone, seeing the same thing she was thinking in Luna's eyes.

The Princess of the Night finished the thought.

"He belongs in the Guardians."

Celestia looked to the two in shock, but Luna and Persephone only watched as the stallion quickly cranked out his sentence in pushups and sit-ups, looking back to the tower with a sort of fascination when he was finished.

Luna and Persephone looked at each other, and though faintly, smiled.

Author's Note

It's Back!
I had a lot of fun with this story, and I understand a lot of people liked it as well. If I get twenty-five followers or fifty likes on this story, there will be a sequel in bound. Cool. Thanks for reading!