to hear a battlecry

(This chapter is written in the form of a flashback)

The air was stiff, Battlecry was surrounded by other fresh recruits. This was the day he had been waiting for, the day he would join the royal guard. Those present had passed inspection and were being assigned to their barracks.

“Hopefully, I don’t get stuck with weaklings,” Battlecry thought to himself as the barrack groupings were made. He was stuck with what looked to him like nineteen of the most pathetic recruits out of the group. Taking another look around he noticed that almost none of the new recruits looked like royal guard material, but maybe this meant the training was hard enough to toughen them up, for their own sake more than his.

Battlecry woke up bright and early ready for the first day of basic training, perhaps a little too early. It was a full two hours before wake up call, but that gave him plenty of time to warm up. He, however, was not the only one. There was a unicorn with a white coat and blue striped mane that seemed equally as eager. Something about him rubbed Battlecry the wrong way.

As the first day of training proceeded a tension built in Battlecry that he couldn’t quite explain. He and this Shining Armor as he had heard him called were far ahead of the rest of the pack in every aspect. Battlecry welcomed the rivalry at first, but as training wore on he realised that they weren’t on par with each other. Shining Armor was a whole league above him.

The bitter sting of jealousy festered beneath his skin. He couldn’t accept that there was anypony that much better than him. He began to push himself trying to keep up with Shining Armor, but he failed. His jealousy gave birth to spite, and eventually became hatred. One he had been shown up for the last time, he was going to settle this self imagined conflict. He struck Shining Armor without even the slightest bit of warning. Shining Armor who was normally calm and quite happy gave in to basic instinct and retaliated.

Battlecry soon regretted picking this fight as he was greatly outmatched and was reminded of this by the magical aura around him slamming him into the ground. The fight was short lived, however, as one of the drill sergeants broke them up.

As punishment they both had to run twenty laps and clean all of the barracks. Running the laps had cooled them off and had given Battlecry time to think about his actions as his body was worn down with fatigue. While cleaning he did what he thought was right, “I’m sorry for attacking you I was being an idiot, I was just so jealous of your talent.”
“It’s alright, to be honest I was a little jealous of you too.”
“Jealous of me, why?” the concept puzzled him. “Your stronger than me, smarter than me, and you’re better at magic than any unicorn I’ve ever seen.”
“Because you can fly and your speed is incredible, not to mention you’re courageous.” The more they talked the more they realized they had in common. When the day was over and the cleaning was done they had become friends.

The next few months passed quickly and the two friends had to part ways for their next level of training. The first day of advanced training was full of drills and incoherent rambling, so it was pretty much basic all over again. Battlecry had forgotten how boring training was without Shining Armor to hangout with, his thoughts lingered over this as he took a refreshing midnight fly. He liked the feel of the wind against his face when he took a leisurely flight.It wasn’t like flying drills where everything was about speed and precision, it wasn’t even close. When you’re flying slow you feel free and relaxed, like all your cares are swept away by the breeze.

The moon’s brilliant glow caught Battlecry’s attention, he landed on a cloud to get a better look at it. As he gazed up at it he felt as if it were gazing back at him. It brought him a sort of eerie comfort, he liked to believe Luna was watching over him from the moon. A sudden weariness washed over him and he passed out on the cloud.

It was dark and a storm tore the skies apart, flashes of lightning illuminated nightmarish creatures, and the sound of thunder and shrieks of agony filled the air. Battlecry saw himself on the ground bleeding out, then a majestic mare who appeared to be made of shadows flew down from the moon and wrapped him in her embrace and they both disappeared.
Battlecry’s eyes blinked open, it was still night.
“that was a strange dream,” he said aloud to himself, “I wonder what it could mean.” He rarely had dreams but when he did they always had some sort of significance. He headed back to the barracks a plopped down on his bunk, his mind wandered and eventually came back to his dream, more specifically the mare made of shadows.
“Could that have been Luna?”

The rest of his days in advanced training were rather uneventful. The months crept by and eventually it was time for his first assignment. All the now fully trained recruits were gathered together. He met Shining Armor in the crowd.
“You got any ideas of what they are going to assign us?” Battlecry asked almost sarcastically. He knew fully well that Shining Armor didn’t know, but he asked anyway just to see how he would answer.
“I don’t know, but it looks like it’s going to be something big if they’re sending us all.”
Before Battlecry could say anything back the captain began to speak.
“ALL RIGHT ROOKIES LISTEN UP, YOU ALL ARE NOW OFFICIALLY IN THE ROYAL GUARD. NOW THIS NEXT PART MAY COME AS A SURPRIZE TO SOME OF YOU, WE ARE AT WAR.” Expressions of confusion and despair crossed the faces of the rookie soldiers.
“IT’S YOUR JOB TO FINISH THIS WAR SO EQUESTRIA CAN CONTINUE IT’S ERA OF APPARENT PEACE. THIS WAR IS NOT KNOWN TO THE PUBLIC AND WE WOULD LIKE TO KEEP IT THAT WAY. YOU WILL ALL LEAVE FOR THE ENEMY HOMELAND IN THE MORNING.”

(sorry it's a little thin even by my previous chapters standards but I don't have as much time on hoof as I used to and for those who care I will try to bring the next chapter faster thanks for your time)