The Road Left Alone.

"This evening is perfect..." Reggie was sitting on the river coast, watching as the sun hid behind the mountains. It reminded him about his own lands. About the Red Mountains and the red spiky rocks they were made of. When he was a kid, he liked to watch them in the evenings. It looked like they were glowing red. When he grew up, he tried to flew on top of these mountains, but they were just too high for him.

The familiar blue pegasus landed next to him."What's up?" he said.

He had a funny cowboy hat on his head.

"Nothing much." Reggie answered. He looked at the blue pegasus. "Where did you get this?"

"This? Oh, heh, i bought it from the Apple Family, they have many hats like this!" Lightning laughed.

"You are the one who saved me in the Southern Diamond Marshes, ain't you?" Reggie asked.

"Well... Yes, but I was not alone. Arh helped me and thanks to Dawn we knew where were you going." Lightning Reel sat on the little stone close to the water.

"Arh?! Is he alive?" Reggie stood up from the sand.

"Yup. Don't you remember? Oh wait... Did you lost your memory or something? I heard that some of the ponies who fought cockatrice lost their memories..." Lightning seemed to fell into his thought.

"No. Maybe. Not sure about it. Wait, did you brought me all the way from the Diamond Marshes to Lunar Lake?" Reggie asked.

"Mhm." Lighting nodded. "Also, I didn't asked him, but why is he called Arh? I thought ponies supposed to have names like 'So and so'."

"He was the Arena fighter since he earned his cutie mark, it's a long story..."

"How do you like that?!" Rik hit Reggie in his face. "You really think that you can help those...Pf-f Ponies? Now we'll see what you really are!"

Rik pushed him out of the room. It was late and the moon just showed on the sky. The old Arena was good illuminated and Reggie could see the blood on the sand. Stone columns were still standing in corners, although two of them were already down, crashed by warriors. Many fights happened here. The Arena was pretty popular in griffon kingdom, most of the criminals and warriors wanted to fight here. First for the freedom, second for the glory.

"Welcome to The Arena, good citizens of the Featherwind city. Today we have a special guest - a griffon who decided to abandon his own people and help pony spy! But it's not all the news I want to tell you." Reggie of course knew the commentator. Alex, his old 'friend'. "It will be a team fight! Our traitor seems to be surprised, huh? Meet the second piece of meat, Arh himself!"

The second gate opened and Reggie saw the pony he tried to help to. Green stallion, earth pony without a cutie mark. He knew that those scars on Arh's flank were there not without purpose. They burned his flank, because Red Feather clan never liked 'that stupid pony stuff'.

"Against them will be our usual beasts, THE DIAMOND DOGS!" the crowd started to applaud. "But as long as it's not a casual fight, there will be six of them. Have a nice meal, doggies. OPEN THE GATE!" Alex yelled as loud as he could.

Reggie had no weapon, but he saw a body of another unlucky griffon and ran towards him to look if there was something usable. Arh had his favourite weapon - spiked horseshoes. He winked to Reggie and started to move in the direction of the main gate which was slowly opening.

Reggie turned the body of a griffon and found an old scimitar.

"Better than nothing." he thought.

Six diamond dogs jumped out of the darkness. "Ph-h-honies-s and bhirds! Dinner!" said one of them.

Arh came closeer to one of the diamond dogs, dodged his hit and bucked him in the chest. Diamond dog screamed and fell to the ground. The others turned to see what is happening and it gave Reggie few moments to move behind them. He wanted to kill dog's leader as fast as he could, but at the last moment the grey, huge beast noticed the shadow from behind and shouted: "Bhirdh!!!"

"Crap!..." Reggie jumped away and it saved him from being sliced by the diamond dog's claws.

Two dogs tried to attack Arh. He reared up, hitting both of them, but one dog was a little bit quicker. Arh screamed as the diamond dog's claws left three bloody lines on his hip.

"Isn't it nice to reap what you've sow, huh Reggie?" Alex shouted and the crowd blew up with a laugh.

Reggie noticed that two more enemies were coming to him. Avoiding every swing of dog's claw he pierced diamond dog's leader. The old and rusty scimitar was covered in blue blood. "That's new..." he mumbled.

On the other side of the Arena Arh pushed one of the diamond dogs to another, gaining some more time for the maneuver he used in the fight two weeks ago. He ran around one of the columns and bucked it as hard as he could. The sound of crashing stones filled The Arena.

Two diamond dogs saw what Arh was doing, but it was already too late. "Nhaaaaaooooo!!!"

Few big rocks fell on them.

Reggie were facing last dogs. His scimitar lowered, the bandage lost in a fight with enemy leader. Some of the scars on his eye started to bleed, but he didn't cared.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" the familiar voice of the old grey griffon brought attention of everyone on The Arena."Guards! Release them quickly! Who ordered to put MY SON here?!"

Few guards came from the little door on the left side of The Arena. One of them opened the main gate and another forced last two dogs to go back in cells.

"Arh!" Reggie shouted. "Let's go. We must leave."

They passed the gates which was used for prisoners and saw Rik with his soldiers standing infront of them.

"Get your red feather ass somewhere, Rik. Haven't you heard? Father will be mad." Reggie said.

"Heh heh, I'm sure he will..." Rik smirked.

Meanwhile in the king's lodge a grey griffon which was the king of griffon kingdom, Serh the Second argued with his adviser.

"He tried to help that green pony, so what? Arh is no more than just an arena fighter. He is not a spy or Equestrian warrior!" Serh said.

"But sir, it was the Red Feather soldiers who caught your son trying to help this green pony. It will be hard to solve this problem diplomatically." the advisor insisted.

The doors opened and few griffons in the red armor entered the lodge. Led by a big knight with red feathers and black tail they stood on the both sides of a room.

"Well well well... Look who is here. Serh himself, a good father who was trying to protect his 'traitor' son from the fair punishment..." he said.

"Tos! What are you doing here?! You threw my son into the jail without any word. How dare you to come here?!" Serh yelled.

"Oh sorry Serh, but wasn't it your son, who tried to help 'pony spy' to steal secrets of our kingdom?" Tos pulled his dagger from the pocket and hid it behind his back, coming closer. "I thought we have some kind of rules here..."

"I am still the king here, if you haven't noticed!" Serh said. "Now tell your men to get the hell out of here and let my son go." he turned away.

Tos came closer to Serh, rising the dagger.

"Of course you are still the king." he whispered "Of course you are..."

"Whoa, it's really late. I should get back to Cloudsdale." Lightning Reel said, looking at Reggie. "Oh, almost forgot. We are expecting some news from Dawn soon. Not sure how soon though, but I hope it wont take too long."

The sun was already down and everypony in Ponyville was already asleep.

"That ol' feathered bastard. How is he doing anyway?" Reggie asked, walking in the direction of the village.

"I heard he visited Moschoof a month ago. But who knows why, It's Dawn!" Lightning smiled.

"Yea." Reggie smiled back.

Lightning Reel waved his hoof and flew away heading to the big city above. Reggie had nothing to do except coming back to Sugarcube Corner. He came back and looked at his armor and a sword. "Hopefully I'll never have to use you again." Laying on his bed he fell asleep in 10 second flat.

An image of the huge enormous castle appeared before him. Giant spikes on the towers, skulls on the them and the smoke coming from behind the walls made this view very scary. Thunderstorm just started and first rain drops fell on the black, burned ground.

Silent and evil voice came from high above. "S-s-sapphf-f-fire!"

"A-a-a!" Reggie screamed, waking up. "Oh snap, what a dream..."It was early morning and Reggie wondered how did he managed to wake up. He put his black bandage on. Somehow he felt that it's much comfortable with this piece of cloth on his eye. "I'm starting to get used to you." he said with a little smile on his face.

The weather outside was cloudy. Seemed like the pegasus ponies had to make another rain as he was told. He heard that sometimes they miss the Rain Deadlines and have to make heavy rains or even thunderstorms. It was funny to think how the weather works here. In griffon kingdom and the Great Wasteland on the north weather was all on it's own.

The rain just started and he was walking through the streets, across from him was Carousel Boutique. Reggie was just about to visit this beautiful shop when Lightning Reel quickly flew to him.

"They...Now..Go..Gotta..." heavily breathing, he told only few parts of what he wanted to tell.

"Hey hey, calm down. Take a breath and say me what you have." Reggie said.

"The message from Dawn... We gotta... Get to the Ironclaw as soon as we can!" Lightning barely said few words.

'What? Ironclaw? No way! I just found a perfect place I always wanted to be in. Mayor even let me live in a small house on the edge of Ponyville." Reggie laughed, but then finally realised what Lightning Reel meant to say. "Wait, has something bad happened? Something about griffons or sorcerers from the northern lands?"

"I... Don't know. The letter says that we should hurry, that's all." Lightning responded.

"Dangit! Not again!" Reggie groaned. He turned back and ran towards the Sugarcube Corner. As he entered the house, he met Pinkie Pie. The big pile of muffins laid on the table. They looked incredibly delicious.

"Where are you going?" she asked cheerfully.

Reggie stopped. He thought that it's really bad to leave her when they just met.

"My friend is in need. I gotta leave." he said while picking up his armor and bag.

Pinkie Pie was shocked.

"No-o-o! I was just about to make a Welcome Party..." she looked sad.

"I will be back. Very soon. I promise." he smiled and left the Sugarcube Corner.

Lightning Reels was waiting for him at the main square, already equipped. He knew that Reggie couldn't fly, so he was scooting, annoyed by the wasting of time.

At the edge of the village, Reggie made a last look at the place of his dream. The Ponyville village...

*******

It was the second day of their way to the Ironclaw village. Whitewood was already passed. It was just a miracle that they haven't met any aggressive creatures there. Reggie still couldn't fly, because they pain in his wing hasn't faded.

They decided to place a camp next to the big old tree not so far away from the road. Reggie was making a fireplace while Lightning went to scout nearest hills. The night was dark. It was strange that weather outside Equestria was not controlled by anyone, the sky above looked very strange. The Moon was full, but clouds were covering some parts of it.

Reggie tilted down to light up the pile of logs, when he heard a deep voice from the darkness.

"Hello, my old friend..."