Returning from the Storm: Hunters of Fire, Guardians of Shadow

Storms Rising

Flight and Storm 6.1ANNM

Looking out at the cloud city stretched out below, she couldn’t help but sigh. Cloudsdale was one of the oldest cities in Equestria, but right now it seemed to be the only place safe from some form of weird weather. Her tail twitched as she scowled, remembering what had happened recently, ignoring the play of sun on cloud below her. Shifting her wings, she leaned to her left, letting herself turn in the air, closing her eyes for a moment as she spotted another one of those storms forming over the Everfree Forest.

Memories played over her closed eyelids, as they often did, reminding her of her successes and failures, reminding her what she had been and how she had gotten to where she was. It was funny, an orphan filly with no-one to stand for her apart from a single pair of friends had ended up leading one of the most prestigious teams in Equestria. Of course if anypony knew about her relationships, she would have been accused of nepotism a lot more than she had been when she had gained the rank, particularly since one of her friends had ended up as her second while the other had ended up leader of a supposedly rival team.

Shaking her head, she felt her mane tickle her neck as she refocused on the storm brewing over the forest. From the flickers of fire and strange coloured lights, it looked like another one of those storms. What they were, she didn’t know, but they were trouble, that much had been proved time and again over the last couple of months. Damn things caused more destruction than an out of control tornado, not to mention they were almost impossible to shift by local weather teams once they settled in.

She frowned, circling her way back towards the academy where the rest of her squad was stationed for now, still thinking. After everything Equestria had been through over the last few years, Nightmare Moon, dragons, Discord, changelings, the Crystal Empire and Tirek that she knew of, much less anything that hadn’t made it to her for one reason or another, it left a sour taste in her mouth thinking that unnatural weather might well be the thing that caused Equestria to break when nothing else had, particularly since it was unnatural weather that made Equestria in the first place.

Shaking her head again, the light orange pegasus flared her wings, banking towards the levelled off mountain top that held the physical part of the Wonderbolts’ Academy. No doubt with more and more of those storms showing up, she would be seeing one close too before too long.

*****

Academy Pit Stop 6.1ANNM

“Pack your bags, Spitfire.” The snapped order came before she even managed to drop hooves on the landing strip of the cloud academy, leaving her blinking at the dark grey stallion standing in front of her even as she stilled her wings.

“Sir?” she asked, folding her wings against her flanks, one eyebrow rising up towards her mane.

The other pegasus just gave her a look, “Your squad is joining the Shadowbolts’ First Squad in Manehatten, Group Captain Spitfire, while Second Squad from both will be stationed in Fillydelphia. It should only take you a few days to get there, but command is worried after Canterlot went dark the other day. If any more cities fall, Celestia alone knows what will happen to Equestria.”

Spitfire’s face morphed into a dark scowl, she hadn’t heard that Canterlot had gone dark, nor that the ’bolts were being shipped out like the more common guard units, normally they toured, showing off, and only flew if there was an actual problem. “What about Third Squad, the recruits and the reserves?” she asked, eyes narrowing as she glared at her subordinate. Why are they shipping us out now? If Canterlot is dark, why are we going to other cities? Is anyone searching for survivors in Canterlot? Questions without answers burst through her mind as she waited for the answer.

“The recruits and reserves will stay here in Cloudsdale in case anyone gets into trouble, Third Squad will patrol the local area and recover who they can from Canterlot.” At least it was something, who knew what the current toll of these storms was, much less how high it would be before they ended. “Captain,” he continued, drawing her wandering attention back. “While Cloudsdale hasn’t been affected by these storms so far, we don’t know whether it will be and with Canterlot dark, we don’t know what has happened to the Equestrian nobility, things are changing faster than any of us might think. Be careful out there.”

She nodded, her ears pinned back at the thought of everything going down the pan. Without the nobles, there likely wouldn’t be any real stability so it was entirely possible they would be flying into trouble heading for Manehatten.

Giving the stallion a salute, she turned and trotted towards her quarters. If they were being deployed now, they were probably going to be in for a fairly long haul, since they weren’t guard who were meant to sit around various towns, they were Wonderbolts, fast reaction fliers at best as far as the military side of Equestria was concerned. Still, even with that, it would be nice to see Nightshade again, see how she was doing in these trying times.

*****

Arrival Manehatten 6.1ANNM

Compared to most of the cities she had been to, Manehatten was certainly a lot different. Slowing her flight, she scowled at the tall stone towers surrounding large open spaces. Most towns she had seen were more likely to crowd together and leave the scenery to the outside rather than building around it. Turning her head slightly, she gestured to the pegasi in purple and black flight suits following behind her, sending eight of them off to set up tents in the park while the others formed up behind her in a diamond formation.

A flick of her tail and a flap of her wings started her down towards the city hall. Hopefully once they arrived there, they would be able to find out what was going on, since news was practically non-existent at present. They needed information and soon, otherwise they wouldn’t even know what they were doing the next time something happened and it had been bad enough a few months ago with Tirek rampaging around and Discord siding with the red furred centaur. Her eyes narrowed slightly behind the golden lenses of her flight goggles. Nopony had even gotten close to Tirek what with that magic drain thing he did sapping their energy to the point they couldn’t even fly.

A whistle from above brought her out of her thoughts and brought her head up to scan the skies. A moment later she spotted a quartet of blue clad fliers, two with yellow wings flying close to one another. The sight of the group brought a trace of a smile to her muzzle. If they were going to deal with problems, at least they had people she knew around to help.

Beating her wings strongly, she angled up, leading her flight to intercept the other and fall into formation with them. “Hey Spitfire,” she called over, turning her head slightly to see her counterpart and friend. “What brings you out here? I would have thought they would have kept you in Cloudsdale with everything going on at the moment.”

“Probably the same thing that brought you here,” Spitfire responded with a shrug as the pair continued towards the city hall. “I’d just gotten back to the academy when we were ordered out and split between the area around Cloudsdale, here and Fillydelphia.” She glanced over at the light blue-grey pegasus, “I don’t know about you, Nightshade, but I don’t like this.”

“You’re thinking we’ll end up in a situation similar to the one we had with Tirek or worse this time out?” Nightshade asked, glancing back to make sure her flight was still with her. The pink, grey and blue muzzles sticking out from purple and black flight suits confirmed things well enough for now, though once they were on the ground she was going to have to make sure Shadow checked things out. Hopefully it was just going to be the weird weather that caused issues around here, not ponies or other beings.

Spitfire nodded, twitching an ear back at a shout as they flew over somepony’s head before sweeping down to settle on her hooves in front of the city hall. “Canterlot went dark,” she stated, nodding at the hissed in breath from one of the others in the group. “Wonderbolts Third Squad is supposed to be checking it out but… it feels weird. If it was First Squad I could understand, I mean the Princesses are there, or were, anyway. Third though… something’s weird.”

Nightshade arched an eyebrow at her as she removed her goggles, letting them hang around her neck. “I’m not sure, ’Fire,” she sighed, starting towards the wooden doors leading into the building, ignoring the white stone columns holding the balcony above them. “You’ve not really had a good few years. I mean, Tirek, the administrative screw up with the Games and you and Fleet going after Rainbow Dash as a team member.”

“Which I would have smacked you both about,” the other yellow pegasus put in. “There should have been at least four of us there for just that reason and you know better than to go poaching other teams.”

Nightshade nodded as Spitfire grimaced, ears lying flat. “As Misty said, that was stupid. Heck if you’d wanted someone to help, you could have found me. I had all of my first squad there,” it probably didn’t help pick Spitfire’s mood up, but Nightshade did want to point out that she could have helped. “Besides that, there was the last group in the academy,” Nightshade snorted, shaking her head. “Didn’t I end up in the Shadows because of something similar?”

Spitfire sighed, “You’re right, it’s just… been a rough few years and… maybe I’m just getting old or dealing with administration is sucking things out of me. I don’t know,” she huffed another sigh, letting her head hang low as Nightshade rested a wing across her withers.

“Even with that, Captain, you’re one of the best we’ve had in recent memory,” Misty put in, moving up on Spitfire’s other side. “You’ve just been making some mistakes lately.”

“We get back to Cloudsdale, why don’t the two of us go back to that swamp town and see if there are any new spooks to find?” Nightshade offered, “Maybe we can take Smoke, Shadow and Misty, maybe someone else as well, have a proper look around there for a couple of weeks or so.”

Spitfire snorted in amusement, bringing her head up. “I seem to remember it taking Smoke getting injured for you to deal with ghosts to some degree.”

Nightshade shrugged her wings. “Didn’t help that I’d encountered one that decided to fill its tank with blood before we met up. Still, it’d be a break for you, since I’m sure you’ve been working more-or-less non stop for a while.” She got a nod from Misty. “So what’s say we see if it’s still there after we’re done here?”

“Sure, I could use a vacation,” Spitfire looked up at the receptionist, who looked to be occupied with Starry Skies. “Guess we should rescue her and see why we’re here, huh?” The other two nodded in response, Misty falling back a bit so the captains could do their job.

*****

Finding the Hotel 6.1ANNM

“Are you sure Daisy will be able to handle the store by herself?” The pink pony asked her cream furred sister as the two of them trotted along the stone covered road leading from the train station to their hotel, numerous other ponies, even a few other beings wandering around them, each heading for their own destination.

The other pony shrugged, her hide rippling around her shoulders as she walked. “If Ponyville remains calm, she should be able to… at least as long as the weather sticks to what is planned until we get back.” She paused for a moment, looking around for a road sign, ears twitching backwards. “Why they had to hold the show in Manehatten this year I don’t know, it’s not as if there are any really good gardens around here.”

“Well, they do have the botanical near Celestial Park, there might be something interesting there since it’s supposed to have a few new greenhouses this year.”

The cream snorted softly, reaching up with a hoof to push her red and rose mane back out of her way before turning slightly to look at her sister. “So what’s so good about houses painted green for plants, Lily?”

Lily paused, raised on hoof and pressed it against her face with a groan. “It’s not houses painted green, Rose,” she sighed. Hurrying a little, she quickly caught up with her sister. “Actually, I don’t know why they call them that, but what they are is houses mostly made of glass, it makes it hotter during the day, at least most of the time,” she explained, her ears twitching slightly as they crossed the front of an alley, one with voices coming out of it that she couldn’t help but shy away from given the roughness of them. “Maybe it’s the plants that give it the name, most are or have some green on them. Maybe we should look around see how much they cost, it could be worth getting one if we can use it to either support us through the winter or allow us to have a bigger variety of flowers. I’m sure there are at least some roses that are more suited to places hotter than Ponyville,” she said slyly, watching her sister from the corner of her eye.

“We don’t have that sort of money, Lily,” Rose sighed, shaking her head. “It took most of what we had available to come here, anything more and we’ll be dipping into our savings, and I’m not sure we’ve got enough in there to really afford a completely glass building, much less anything to go in it.” Glancing up at as they reached the next street corner, she frowned before looking down the road to the left. “C’mon, I think our hotel is this way,” she said, turning in that direction, “with the way the weather is at the moment, I’d rather not be caught out if the weather ponies around here are worse than Rainbow Dash for napping when they should be working.”

Following along, Lily nodded, her blonde mane bouncing a little before a chill breeze made them both shiver and glance towards behind them, seeing dark clouds on the horizon. “They’re not planning a storm for today are they?” she asked, turning to face Rose again.

Rose shrugged, picking up her pace to a trot. “Not that I know of, but these city ponies might not warn people about them – particularly if they’re visitors – the way our weather team does.”

A few minutes, and a couple of near misses when a pony appeared out of a side street right in front of them later, they managed to get into their hotel, just as fat drops of rain started splattering over the pavement and ponies outside. “So, which floor are we on?” The voice drew the pair’s attention to a pair of pegasi standing in front of the hotel’s reception desk, one wearing blue, the other in black, making them stand out from the crowd who wore little more than their fur regularly.

“You’re in the top floor penthouse suite, captains,” the receptionist replied, a light Manehatten accent telling that she was a local, unlike the other two. “Your squads will be in rooms on the floor beneath. Unfortunately you’ll all have to share rooms as we’ve been booked solid this week for the Spring National Garden Contest that will be held in Celestial Park all being well.” As the two moved slightly, they revealed the receptionist, a young looking unicorn with a green coat a shade or two darker than Daisy’s mane in Rose’s opinion.

Waiting until the pair trotted off, Rose stepped up to the desk. “Hi, there should be a reservation here for Roseluck and Lily Valley.”

“Just a moment please,” the receptionist held up a hoof for a moment before turning to the book on her desk, flipping over the pages. “Ah, here we are, room 453 on the fourth floor. It’s one of our better rooms, though usually reserved for pegasi, unfortunately it was the only one we had left what with having to rearrange everything to accommodate the Wonderbolts and Shadowbolts along with the garden show.”

Rose nodded as the receptionist hoofed over the key to the room. “We heard you talking to their captains as we came in,” she said, flicking her tail out. “Is there anything else we should know about?”

The receptionist nodded, “Yes, actually, the room is normally for families, due to circumstances, I’m afraid you’re stuck sharing. Two other mares from Ponyville are due in this weekend and booked a room. Their names are Sparkler and Lemon Hearts I believe.”

“We know them,” Lily said, sharing a look with her sister. “Are there enough beds for all of us?”

“There are four singles, one room with a bunk, one with twin and the last room has a double that would normally be for the parents.” The mare shifted, watching them talk for a moment. “If that is all for you, there is a restaurant on the second floor, dinner starts at five, you can head down any time between then and nine to order or call room service if you prefer, breakfast is served there between four and nine if you wish to have it.”

The two flower ponies nodded, leaving the desk to head to their room.

*****

Storms Rage 6.1ANNM

Her ears were battered by an almost constant crack-boom as lightning tore the angry skies. Black clouds lit with eldritch fire as another one of Manehatten’s towering buildings was engulfed and imploded. Ponies ran every which way, trying to find cover from rain that hammered down almost like catapult hurled rocks, yelling and scrambling, trying to find one another in the mist seeping along the roads. Everywhere she looked it was complete chaos, worse than the time Discord showed up in Ponyville, in fact it was more comparable to the times she had been with her parents and a group of aliens had tried invading somewhere, usually robots or cybernetics.

Her horn flickered as she yanked a piece of what had been her friend’s family home out of the way, finally freeing Lemon Hearts from her prison, though even in their combined horn light, she couldn’t see the yellow of Lemon’s coat or the blue of her mane. “We’ve got to get out of here,” she yelled, ears flattening as something detonated overhead. They couldn’t stay here, not with this storm, not with any of those storms.

Lemon nodded, an action easily missed in the darkness. “I-I think there’s a guard post near the park,” she paused to look around, seeing little more than black, lit by brief flashes and the occasional glow of a horn. “If I could remember where it was.” The last was quiet enough she couldn’t hear her own voice over thunder.

“This way,” the first unicorn yelled, using her tail to smack her friend’s shoulder as she started off, only to have to stop for a moment as blue fire illuminated the road, exploding out of another house as something flashed from above. “Or maybe this way,” she turned down one of the side streets to avoid the rubble, Lemon hot on her hooves.

Hooves thundered all around them as buildings and ponies flashed by on either side, darkness closing in around them like a smothering blanket only relieved by the glow of their own horns and the constant lightning that cut through the black clouds covering the skies. Their lungs burned as they finally made it into the park, fortunately near a group of tents, they skidded on the wet stone, hooves slipping as they fought for grip, fought to slow their headlong run.

“GET THOSE CLOUDS ON THE WEST SIDE DISPERSED! YOU, I NEED UNICORNS ON THE SOUTHERN FRONT FOR SHIELD DUTY!” The voice cut through the thunder of the storm, competing with it on its own level.

Head between her forelegs as her chest heaved, she listened as the owner of the voice rallied the local guard. As her breathing slowed, she raised her head, just in time to dance away from a shadow that appeared out of the dark. Ears flat against her head, she whinnied as ice slashed her flank, slicing down alongside her cutie mark.

“Sparkler, that you?” the question came from the new shadow in front of her.

“Rose?” Sparkler barely recognised the voice, but it was someone she did know. “We need to…” she tried to take a step, only for her leg to burn, drawing a hiss from her as pain flared. “Need to get into shelter.”

She felt rather than saw Lemon move up to her side. “Can you walk?”

Sparkler tested her leg and nodded slowly. “Need to get it checked soon, but I think so.”

“Lily saw some tents over there,” Rose pointed, fortunately timing it so that lightning lit the area as she did. “She’s over near them,” she continued, turning towards the group of tents and hurrying that way as Sparkler and Lemon followed.

Bursting into the tent as Lily held the flap up, only to freeze as they spotted a pegasus in a black uniform sitting at a desk, scowling at papers. “Um… I think we got the wrong tent…” Lemon started, only to yelp as a loud roar of thunder sounded right overhead, followed quickly by a pair of screams from the pair of earth ponies, even Sparkler jumped.

“Even if you have,” the pegasus said, looking up, “it’ll be slightly safer in here than out there.” She sighed, putting the paper in her hooves aside before using them to rub her eyes. “Not that it’s saying a lot with what’s going on. I don’t even know the current damage, much less death toll.”

Rose and Lily whimpered, fore hooves going around one another as both paled under their fur. A moment later, the tent flap opened again, admitting yellow pegasus in a blue uniform, one that echoed the dark grey pegasus’ black uniform.

“Nightshade, what’s going on in here?”

Nightshade huffed, “Bad timing mostly, these four were in the wrong place at the wrong time… though I’m wondering if there is a right place at the moment, Spitfire.”

Spitfire snorted, “Of course there is, anywhere that isn’t being hit by these feathering storms.”

“Look, how about we just use the first aid box and stay out of your way?” Sparkler asked, wincing as her leg flared up again. “I’m probably not going to be good for much for a bit, but once my leg is seen to I might be able to help out.”

Spitfire nodded, her ears flicking up briefly. “We need all the help we can get,” she said tiredly. “I saw Blueball coming in, Nightshade, you might want to see what she knows.”

Nightshade nodded, getting to her hooves and heading for the tent flap as Spitfire grabbed the first aid box and hoofed it over to the others before taking a seat at the other desk, resting her head in her hooves with a groan.

*****

Disappearance 6.1ANNM

Looking over the ruin that had been Manehatten, she sighed in resignation. The place actually looked worse than when Tirek and Discord had come through a year ago, the centaur devouring the magic of everypony he could catch. Unfortunately that had been practically all of them. Now though, they were being hammered, not by monsters, but by weather, something that they had thought they had under control. Even with every weather pony available in Manehatten, the Wonderbolts and the Shadowbolts, they hadn’t even made a dent in the storm that had just ripped through the place. It seemed all anyone could do was batten down the hatches and pray to the Royal Sisters that they would get through things.

“HalfthewesternsideoftheparkisgoneCaptain, onlythere’ssomethingelsethereinitsplace.” The blue pegasus rattled off her report so fast that most ponies would have to record it and play it back at half speed in order to get any sort of sense from it. She wasn’t most ponies though, she knew what her subordinate was like and Blueball did nothing slowly. “Stratusspoketosomeoftheponiesthere, theysaidtheywereinBanangoonemomentthenexttheywereinManehatten. Poniesdon’tjustmovefromonetowntoanotherwithoutanythinginbetween, evenIdon’tdothat.” Blueball continued her report.

Nightshade scowled. The last couple of months there had been storms all along the coast, but this was the first time they had managed to get something coherent from those that rode out the storm. Turning, she glared out at where the latest storm was retreating over the ocean outside Manehatten. They had been battering the entire country for the last few weeks, but there seemed no rhyme nor reason to them and they left most of the areas they passed over looking like Discord had been up to his old tricks, only ten times worse than the last time he had been free to do so.

“Thank you, Blueball, tell Stratus I’d like to talk to him when he gets back, would you?” She got a nod from the blue pegasus and sighed as Blueball zipped off.

Turning, she pulled her flight goggles off, revealing a pair of golden eyes as she made her way over to the tent set up just outside Manehatten on three legs, the last holding her goggles.

Making her way inside, she glanced around, seeing the two unicorns that had been trying to help busy comforting a pair of earth ponies. The pair was apparently known back in Ponyville for going off the rails, so she was content to let the unicorns handle them for now.

“Did Blueball give you anything useful?” A tired voice caused her head to turn to the last occupant of the tent, her opposite number on the Wonderbolts.

“Nothing more than we already knew, Spitfire,” She replied, finding a place to sit as her wings slumped. “Canterlot’s bucked still, the storms are some form of magic nopony has seen before and the unicorns there couldn’t do any more than the ones here. Pegasi can’t touch them either and earth and crystal ponies are basically stuck.” She rubbed an eye with her hoof, one ear flicking back as she heard one of the others approach. “Apparently half the Celestial Park is somewhere around Banango and part of its terrain is in its place, along with several ponies.”

“I don’t remember my geography lessons that well, but isn’t Banango pretty much the other side of the country?” A voice asked from behind her, causing her to turn to see the purple of the two unicorns standing nearby.

Spitfire nodded, even though she had an eyebrow arched in a manner that suggested she wanted more. “A pegasus can fly there in roughly fifteen to thirty hours, if they fly a straight line at full speed and weren’t Rainbow Dash.”

The unicorn’s eyes narrowed. “It sounds like the storms are capable of a massively overloaded version of the teleport spell some higher power unicorns have.”

“Massively overloaded is right, Sparkler,” the other unicorn sighed as she got up from where the two earth ponies were. “I studied the spell, I doubt even Twilight Sparkle could teleport across the country, and she’s an alicorn. Celestia and Luna might be able to, but I doubt they would, simply due to the amount of energy they’d need. It’s probably easier to raise the sun and moon than teleport that far sight unseen.”

“Exactly and…” Trailing off, Nightshade looked up as the storm siren went off again. “Can’t we get two minutes? Ugh… I’ll be so glad when those idiots in the guard get off their rumps and get down here.”

Spitfire sighed as the pair of them got to their hooves. “Even if most of them are only militia, it’ll still take a while to train them to be worth anything in this sort of situation.” She pointed out.

Sparkler sighed, sharing a look with her companion. “I’m militia trained and I don’t know what to do in this sort of situation apart from Dad’s preferred thing of run like bucking Tartarus.” She shut up as thunder cracked right over head. “Oh boy….”

“Well that’ll help.” Spitfire sighed, looking up at the roof of the tent. “If you and your friend can help the unicorn militia in trying to contain anything that gets loose, Nightshade and I will work on clearing this mess. If it lets us.”

The named member of the trio nodded, before one of the earth ponies spoke up. “Wh-what about us?”

Nightshade turned to them. “Stay put and hope things don’t go as horribly wrong as when we had Tirek around.” She said grimly.

Running outside, the ponies barely had time to see another one of the strange storms had formed almost directly overhead before lightning lashed down, tearing their command tent to shreds. When the lightning faded, neither pony could be found. Most wrote them off as casualties of the storms, missing in action, for ten years.