Farachan

Chapters

Prologue
Leaving Home
Farachan
The First Battle
Night Raid
Revelation
The Blood Bath
The Unknown Red Hoof
Chasing Shadows
Malum
The Trial
A Worthless Duel
Dawn
Peppercorn Tornado

Prologue

Prologue

Forty years ago in Equestria, life was very different then than what it was today. Princess Luna had still been banished to the Moon, many of the cities across Equestria were only starting to become cities and the six holders of harmony hadn't been born yet, and even those older sorts across the land would have only been foals or young colts and fillies. Nevertheless ponies of all sorts carried on life as they had from years gone by, though despite all the smiles and happiness, a big lingering doubt remained tucked in everypony's head. The problem was on a large island almost sixty miles away from the Equstrian mainland.

One interesting fact of Equestria history that many fail to know is that the country has in fact two other countries in a union with Equestria for over three hundred years. One being the small, rugged and cold northern country called Alba, a land where ponies speak with a Scottish dialect. And the other country being on a large island just sixty miles away from the mainland being the province state of Farachan on the large three hundred mile long island of Alacann. However, the story of Farachan is a rough one.

When Equestria and Alba went into a union in attempt to mend troubled relations between the two nations, the island of Alacann was suffering from financial troubles. The royal family of the island had abdicated and, without a leader for the islanders, everything was bleak and hopeless for the citizens on Alacann. However, when the news came about the union between Equestria and Alba, the islanders found this to be the way out of their troubles and save the country from financial collapse. Representatives from Alacann visited Canterlot to propose to Princess Celestia about Alacann joining part of Equestria. Understanding the problems they were facing there, Celestia kindly agreed for Alacann to become part of Equestria, with only one exception.

Though this was not suggested by Celestia herself, her military officials requested that a province state in the far north of the island was to be formed to make sure that they had complete control of the island and where those on the mainland would want to stay if they intended to move to the island. This new Provence state would later become Farachan or Northern Alacann (though the later name was rarely used by any), though the idea of this piece of land being taken away from the Alacann ponies proved to be the cause of some alarm and some started to doubt if going into a union with Equestria was a really a good idea.

Still, for the hundred years that followed after joining in the union, the island's trade blossomed and the two half's on the island remained at piece with one another, with the occasional banter between the ponies on both sides of the border. With all the strange very friendly atmosphere between them, it did though make things seem a little too peaceful and perfect, and that peacefulness would soon be gone as to what happened fifty years later.

Almost out of the blue, those in the southern half wanted independence from Equestria and were ready to become a stronger country due to their booming economy. The news itself stunned many fellow Equestrians on the mainland and some even doubted if Alacann would survive on their own. Nonetheless, Celestia felt that the country had grown up over time and was ready to stand on it's own in the world, and thus, granted the islanders their independence from Equestria.

All apart from a certain northern province state.

In the wake of this news, the public of Farachan strongly vowed instead to stay in the union with Equestria while the rest of the island would go independent. Once again, this news did not sit happily with those in the south who the majority wanted a reunified Alacann. In the years that followed, tensions increased on both sides of the border, rarely did anypony venture across it, all of this showed how strained relations were between the two sides.

Thankfully, with Equestria wanting to remain a peaceful country and Alacann wanting nothing to do with them, no wars or further break downs in the two countries relationship's happened for many years between them. Then one day, those on the mainland were shocked when they found out that a new leader in Alacann, a unicorn named Ares, had threatened to stage a forceful take back of Farachan from Equestria within ten years if they did not reply peacefully to their terms, or even worse, threatening an attempted assassination on Celestia herself. Those in the north were traumatized by this revelation and even some began preparing for war with the south by closing off the border. While the public of Equestria seemed to think that Farachan would fall to the south, many however didn't know it, Celestia was not going to give up that easily.

She had a plan…

XXX

Very early during the day just after Celestia had risen the sun, a stout looking grey Pegasus commander quickly flew towards the throne room, where Princess Celestia would be waiting for him. For him, there was no doubt that this would be about the troubles in Farachan again. Every guard he knew in the ranks wouldn't stop talking about it and that they would be ready for war. The Pegasus, named Sky Rider, could only guess at why Celestia had called for him. His only best bet would be that they'd be heading off across the sea to start the war within a few days.

As he thought of it, he couldn't remember a time when Equestria was at war with any other country, neither perhaps did everypony else, unless they counted the cold relations with Alba previously many years ago. Eventually after his flight to the castle, he finally landed at the throne doors and breathed in a shaky sigh before entering the room. In the throne room, Celestia sat on her throne with two Royal guards standing beside her. As he walked up to her, he noticed that she was looking over a long piece of paper examining it. Maybe it was a declaration for war? A few ideas did come to the commander's head.

"Princess," Sky Rider bowed just as he finished walking up to her.

"Rise commander," Celestia said calmly before looking at the two guards. "Leave us," she ordered to the two guards, who headed towards a door on the left side of the room, leaving the princess and the commander on their own.

The grey Pegasus waited as the two guards walked out of the room before replying to Celestia. "I received your message you sent me early today. More troubles from over there?"

Celestia sighed uncomfortably as she lowered her head worryingly. "Thankfully no news of war yet from there. But there is something that every solider in the land must know."

Despite breathing a small sigh of relive that this wasn't the call for battle, Sky Rider's eyes widened at what news the Princess had in mind.

"L-like what?" Sky Rider stuttered slightly. "I knew those generals at the time when the union happened between Equestria and them shouldn't have taken over a piece of land from them in the first place, now look what's happened! We are probably their most hated enemy!"

The princess remained silent as she glanced over to one of the stained glass windows. She had to agree with the commander that she had to admit that she had made mistakes over the years like this for agreeing to this idea to the generals then. Though since then, ponies from Equestria lived in Farachan now and had settled down there as their home. She couldn't now demand that those there should leave immediately. She had hoped that the province state would become a peaceful place that would help with relations between Equestria and Alacann, now it looked like it wasn't going to happen anytime soon.

"If war must be declared," Celestia finally replied looking back at Sky Rider. "Then no troops in Equestria or Alba shall head out to Farachan."

The commander coughed in shock. "W-what? What's going on? Who will fight them off?"

"That is why I brought you here." Celestia explained. "When Alacann was under Equestrian rule, they picked up much of our culture with it even our armies tactics."

Sky Rider bit his bottom lip when it suddenly dawned on him. Of course the ponies there would pick up their tactics for battle, no wonder they seemed keen to stage a take back now if they thought they could match the might of Equestria. "But princess," he asked her again. "Can't we simply train our troops differently? I'm sure every solider in the land would be willing to go for it if that were the case!"

Celestia shook her head. "You are forgetting that even if we did that, Alacann has now a stronger military force than what we have since they went independent all these years ago, and sending in all of Equestria's might will be suicidal for all of us. Not to mention with all of them being out there fighting and no one at home defending, it just wouldn't be enough."

The grey Pegasus lowered his head sadly, feeling like there was no way out of this. So what had the princess considered doing? "Your highness, what is your plan?"

Celestia then picked up the scroll with her magic that had been lying beside her on a small table and giving Sky Rider the scroll over to him. "Read it, commander." She said to him calmly.

Without being asked twice, the commander quickly opened the scroll and began reading what it had to say. As he read it, his eyes grew larger at what he was reading at what Celestia had planned. A long minute of silence followed afterwards as Sky Rider stared into blank space as he tried to think over this plan.

"A secret service? Young blank flank colt Pegasai?" He finally answered in disbelieve shaking his head. "They're going to fight out there!"

"When the time comes," Celestia corrected. "The fact that their leader, Ares, wants to wait ten years for a war out there is rather peculiar, but does give us a golden opportunity for this to work out. I shall personally train them myself, and it won't be about strength out there, but intelligence as the ponies of Alacann can have anything planned out there, especially that they have become dangerous foe with their magic."

She paused when she looked back at the unfolded scroll in Sky Rider's fore hoof. "You, and three other commanders that I've asked to turn up, shall head to the chosen locations in Equestria I have pinned down on there on that list there. I already know of the first batch that will become part of this elite force many years from now."

Sky Rider just couldn't believe what he was hearing. How was he suppose to tell parents that their blank flank Pegasai sons were going away to become part of this secret service? He looked down at the list of towns and cities he was suppose to head to with other commanders and even saw a large list of what he suppose were the colts chosen by Celestia. The commander could only shake his head at the princess, still trying to come to grips with the idea. "Your highness…I just hope you know what your planning here. This could be a force that saves us all...or we'll be dead at dawn."

He turned to leave the room before Celestia stopped him. "When it comes to tell their parents…they must be the only ones who know and must be sworn to upmost secrecy over this operation."

Sky Rider looked back and nodded. "Yes, Princess." And with that, he flew out of the room, where Celestia could just see the stallion mouthing the words 'Secret Service?' Again and again as he turned round the corner into the corridor. No doubt that he was still unsure about the whole idea of it.

Once the commander had gone, the princess sat back on her throne in silence, then walked over towards a stained glass window were she could see the sun just over the horizon, giving the sky an orange glow. At this point, the sunrise did seem rather appropriate for this new force, like the dawn of a new era. For the time as far as she could remember, she could only wait for when the chosen colts would arrive.

In the years that followed, all of Equestria would know of this elite secret service. They would be Celestia's finest; the bravest warriors that would ever grace Equestria and would make an enemy quake at the very mention of their name.

Everypony would know their name.

The Red Hooves of Celestia.

Leaving Home

Chapter 1

Leaving Home

Ten years have passed since Celestia decided to form her secret service and in that time, over two hundred thousand blank flank Pegasus colts had been chosen to be part of this new secret force. Despite this large number, less than half of them would be heading to Farachan. The reason for this was as these young colts were only eight to ten when they were sent away from their homes to be taught under Celestia's wing. Eventually when the time came when they reached the age of eighteen, they were to be sent to Farachan. During the ten years they all spent training with Celestia (as well as commanders chosen by Celestia herself to train them) she had taught them the basics of fighting when they were new, then right up to more advance fight skills in their teenage years. Not only fighting skills were they were taught, but also great knowledge that would be needed in the many battles ahead. In a certain way, Celestia raised them like her own sons and the relationship between her and the many young colts developed into a mother/son relationship with each of them, and the family-like bond they all shared with each other really helped them get along.

And with the ten years up that Ares, the leader of Alacann, had decided to wait, it had shocked Equestria that the people of Alacann had now declared war on Equestria and were boasting that Farachan would be part of the rest of Alacann within two years. And to add more to the shock of it all, Ares had even sent out trained assassins to try and assassinate Celestia to prove their point. Exactly how they could kill a goddess like Celestia was beyond anypony's thoughts, though the population of Alacann weren't ones to take anything for granted, especially with their deadly magic which could potentially do harm to the Princess herself. With all this tension going on, it seemed like the entire fate of Equestria lay in the hooves of these young Pegasus colts.

Of course, it must be said that it was rather difficult for the parents to let their blank flank Pegasus sons head away from wherever they came from to be taught by Celestia for whatever length of time it must've been. Unsurprisingly, many parents were reluctant to the idea of them never seeing their sons again, not to mention keeping secret for what their sons were being part of, but the promise that they would see them again and that they were going to be part of history did help a little bit…only a little bit. When teachers at schools were asked where these colts where by their once fellow students, the teachers had orders to keep the news secret of their whereabouts and had to say that they were heading on a special trip by Celestia and would be away for a long time. Though many years later they would see, along with the rest of Equestria, what these colts had gotten themselves into and what they had become.

Many of them when they first started out were quite skinny and weak and indeed the last sort of pony that anypony would be thinking that'd be suitable for an elite force, but by the time they were either seventeen or eighteen, they were barely recognisable. All of them now look strong, tall and muscular, like the classic solider pony that one would come to expect, but not only that, rather unexpectedly, they also developed a strange cutie mark during those ten years training.

Among the commanding officers with Celestia, there had been a debate for what they should be called, their answer came one day when two young colts suddenly turned up with a red hoof cutie mark on their flanks during one day of training.

It wasn't just a one off.

Soon, the rest began to have the same mark over time and it became know as a mark of absolute loyalty to Celestia and Equestria. They were to be named, 'The Red Hooves of Celestia.'

The name, and the service, was kept secret until many of the now young stallions were ready to head out to war. When the news did come out, the news on it was incredible. The idea of this force was so unlike anypony had seen or heard before and there was suddenly a great burst of confidence from all over Equestria, Alba and especially in Farachan, that they could take on Alacann's might and win. Though despite Equestrians milking the thought that they could do it, the Red Hooves still had to go out and prove themselves.

When the news broke out in Alacann, many of the population were unsure of what to make of this, though they themselves were quietly confident they would crush them whoever they were that the princess had trained for this task. Rather strangely in the mind of the Red Hooves, the average pony would be scared to head to war, but to these highly trained stallions, this was like heading on a long vacation and many were raring to go.

And for one Red Hoof in practically during the course of this war, would become a war hero.

Blue Arrow.

XXX

Born and raised for the early part of his life in Alba, Blue Arrow lived a rather normal life with his parents (a Pegasus stallion and a Unicorn mother) in the Alba's capital city, Maredinburgh, just moving through life like anypony would, despite being teased at school for being a blank flank. His colour was that of a dark blue colt with a red and white mane and tail and dark red eyes and hooves (rather strangely fitting to be a Red Hoof!) Apart from that, there was nothing terribly exciting about his life. Then it would all change when he was only eight years old. Unknown to him and all of Equestria at the time, Celestia's then unnamed secret service had been around for the past 3 years when he was suddenly chosen by a officer from Canterlot to be part of this new force. Like many parents who had to deal with the sudden departure of their sons to become part of this new force, his parents, especially his mother mostly strongly apposed for him to leave them. Alas, he had to leave them to join Celestia.

Once he was part of the soon to be named Red Hooves, he should have felt traumatic about being separated from his parents and friends, but as the years went by with his training and now looking back on his life, all he could only say was that it was a very strange time for him as the best way to describe it was just like a blur on his life.

While losing friends where he came from, during his time with the Red Hooves, he developed new ones in his time, and one in practical in the form of a brown stallion named Dynamo.

Dynamo was a complete contrast to the rugged Blue Arrow; this stallion came from the outskirts of Canterlot and spoke with a posh English like accent, while Blue Arrow had a rough Scottish one. Dynamo had a blue mullet mane (in the style of the times then) and tail and narrow green eyes. He also had a unshaven stubble that he was growing on the lower part of his muzzle and it made him look like a low class sort, rather than a high class sort with his background being with him living near Canterlot. It almost seemed strange that a pony like him was part of this service, however, he wasn't the only one of a unique background there.

There were all sorts of stallions from all over Equestria and Alba. Some came from Alba like Blue Arrow, some spoke like Dynamo and there were even some that spoke with southern accents, just showing how diverse the Red Hooves were for where each of the stallions came from.

Despite the two friends being from two very different backgrounds, Blue Arrow and Dynamo formed a strong friendship with each other for all the time they were training with each other with others. Sadly, there was only one problem. Dynamo was a year older than Blue Arrow and was to be part of the first Red Hooves that were to travel to Farachan; Blue Arrow along with others of his age would follow a year later.

Nonetheless, the Caledonian blue stallion kept training for the best part of a year in preparation for his eventual departure from these shores. It must be said to that despite many Red Hooves already heading over to Farachan, the war itself wouldn't officially begin until the next batch of Red Hooves (those with Blue Arrow) would head over as they would be up to full strength, but those there, including Dynamo, would stand guard over Farachan to make sure no armed forces from the south would turn up and attempt to make a move. Later on, Blue Arrow would find out many stories about what went on there before he turned up...

XXX

Just nearly under a year later, along with many other stallions, Blue Arrow was ready to leave Equestria and head on his way to Farachan. It was during that time when all the Red Hooves were lined up in their dark red armour in the large war room in Canterlot, chatting to each other, that Blue Arrow started to realise of how big this event would be on his life this was going to be.

"The armour's too big for you!" Said a taller green Pegasus stallion to Blue Arrow smirking.

Blue Arrow looked down at his slightly over sized armour, but he just smiled at this fact. "Say's you," chuckled the blue stallion. "That amour's too tight on you!"

"Knock it off Albian!" The green stallion laughed, giving him a little punch on his armour, which the two chuckled at the little piece of banter between them.

Suddenly, there was a chorus of hushes and ponies standing to attention. Blue Arrow peered over the lines of fellow Red Hooves at what was going on, and he saw what was going on, he immediately stood to attention.

Celestia had arrived.

Not a pin drop was heard as the alicorn princess stepped up towards a podium on the make shift stage in the room. She took one gaze looking at the many stallions in the large hall, all of which that she had trained for this moment, all of them looking into blank space in front of them expressionless.

"My dear Red Hooves," Celestia began as she kept looking over the stallions. Instead of using her royal Canterlot voice, she spoke gently to them, making the situation rather gentle. "Today is the day when you shall leave these shores and begin your journey to Farachan. Once you are there you shall rendezvous with the other Red Hooves who landed there last year in Farachan's capital city of Coltfast. Already the Red Hooves there have said that no attacks have been made officially, though I do suspect the forces of Alacann will only attack once you are there."

Though it was hard to read their expressions, deep down, Celestia could feel that even the bravest stallion did have to think about what could happen, especially that she had said 'officially' like that, it was almost a small guessing game to some Red Hooves at what she meant by that. In that large five rows of Red Hooves, Blue Arrow himself felt quite uneasy, all of his training with Celestia had been built up on this point, there was no way back now.

"No matter where you are out there," Celestia continued. "Anything can happen out there. It won't be brute force that the Alacann forces will try and win by, but their magic can cause disastrous consequences for any of you here." She paused for a moment as a royal guard entered the room to join Celestia on the podium. This certain stallion was none other than Sky Rider, one of the few stallions that Celestia had sent out to the four corners of Equestria to find these then young Red Hoof troops years ago.

"Red Hooves," Celestia said to the red warriors. "Some of you will know of Sky Rider, he will be one of the four commanders out there that shall be your leaders through the conflict for however long it maybe."

Oddly, Blue Arrow raised an eyebrow behind his helmet. The once stout grey stallion Pegasus that seemed agile now looked liked he had aged badly in the years he had seen him. "Is she sure he's fit to go out there to lead us?" He thought to himself, though at this point he couldn't say anything.

Celestia looked down at Sky Rider before concluding her speech. "From here, you shall head to docks of Glascolt in Alba, there you shall board the ships that will take you to Coltfast in Farachan…all I can say now my dear Red Hooves, all of Equestria is counting on you to win. So take care…and good luck."

Almost just after she finished, Sky Rider started floating over the Red Hooves barking them their orders. "All right boys, you heard her, follow on!"

And he flew towards the giant doors that were just opening up for them. Soon enough, every Red Hoof followed suit flying towards the door. After standing in a rather dimly lit hall for quite sometime, the light from outside was quite blinding. Blue Arrow had to squint his eyes a bit as he, along with the others, went outside. What happened next was something that he and the rest didn't expect at all.

From all directions around them, crowds of thousands of ponies from Canterlot and maybe even further afield, were on the ground, balconies, rooftops and elsewhere cheering them on as they went flying out of the capital city. The Albian pony could see a giant banner hanging from a balcony in red text saying 'GOOD LUCK! And another from a rooftop saying 'TAKE CARE OF THOSE ALACCAN SCUMBAGS!' Cleary, the relations between Equestria and Alaccan had reached to an all time low, not quite a surprise that the two nations were already at war with each other.

The whole feeling of ponies cheering them on was a whole different ball game than what they were expecting. After many years in training in secret from public eyes, they were all suddenly heroes, and they hadn't even lifted a sword yet for battle. As they flew away from Canterlot, Blue Arrow started to think over why they were suddenly heroes in the eyes of the Equestrian public, maybe it was just that they were a strong force that everypony could rally behind or something that they were stallions that ponies could look up to. Other Red Hooves there flying alongside Blue Arrow may have had different ideas, but for now, getting to Glascolt was their main priority.

From there, their great adventure would begin. But on the ship, Blue Arrow would later meet a fellow Red Hoof who at first would seem like any other troop he'd seen. But one that later on that he would find out something strange about this certain pony…

Farachan

Chapter 3

Farachan

As the journey to the Farachan capital, Coltfast, carried on, the stormy weather wasn't making things for those on board the ships any easier. And one certain stallion, named Blue Arrow, couldn't handle it anymore. Though he had not told anypony this, but he was probably the most prone pony to get seasick on long sea journeys, and this one sea jaunt was unfortunately one of those moments were he would not be wanting to try again anytime soon. The stallion had been having a hellish voyage; he just couldn't fall asleep as the ship kept swaying side to side and a fear that he would throw up while sleeping. The stallion just knew that it was only a matter of time until it happened and during the middle of the night, he finally couldn't take any more of it.

Though his fellow comrades were asleep at this point, he had ran out on deck to vomit instead of in the room with the other Hooves, as he didn't want to answer any questions they might've had if they saw his pile of vomit lying on the floor there. It made matters worse for him as it was pouring down with some atrocious rain; it was almost like the gods were making life difficult for Blue Arrow.

By the time a stumbling and tried looking Blue Arrow made it back to his bed, the heavy rain outside had completely drenched the blue stallion to such an extent that it look like that he'd gone out for a midnight swim in the ocean. He was only thankful that the other stallions were sleeping like logs while he was having a horrid time.

"Why'd I agree to do travel by ship?" Blue Arrow thought to himself angrily as he slumped onto his bed completely soaked all over. Wasn't this a pathetic image? A highly trained Red Hoof solider, an elite solider who was part of possibly the greatest fighting force that Equestria had ever seen, just couldn't handle a sea journey if it was to save his life. Thankfully now, he was feeling a little better, but only just. Nevertheless he could finally begin to get some shuteye and hope that land would come sooner that later…

XXX

With it being such inclement weather that night; the journey from the mainland to Farachan had been longer than what it should've been. Originally the group of ships were to arrive at roughly five in the morning, but with choppy currents had delayed their arrival by seven. (Later on, the crews of those ships would say that they believed that Alacann forces were using magic that night to make sea crossing difficult for them or even sink them.) Thankfully by the time they docked port at Coltfast, the storm had died down and the sea was finally gentle again. Celestia had raised the sun that morning as the port city was basked in the morning orange glow of sunlight.

At the moment when the ships were heading into dock, every Red Hoof was woken up to the announcement that they had finally arrived. Many were in high spirits that the journey was over and that they could get out of the dorms they stayed in. For Blue Arrow, along with others on the ship, the sound of arriving at their final destination was probably the most welcoming sound they'd ever heard in their lives. As they heading out on deck to catch their first glimpses of Coltfast and the surrounding landscape, Blue Arrow's fellow comrades couldn't help but notice of how terrible the dark blue Pegasus stallion looked.

The night before, Blue Arrow, combined of being sick and tired, had gone to bed without drying off and now his mane and tail were jagged in different directions. His normal red eyes were even redder from his lack of sleep. And as he walked, he looked like that he was going to collapse at any point. Thankfully in the vicinity with the others and not trying to look weak and pathetic, he didn't.

The sunlight nearly blinded them as they made it out on deck covering their eyes with their fore hooves. Before they went out on deck, they could hear the cheering roars of a crowd outside, no doubt cheering on the other Red Hoof ships that had arrived earlier.

"The same type of response here like back home?" Said a voice nearby Blue Arrow. Turning his head round to the side, he could just make out Shadow's black hide and dark red tail through some gaps in the crowd of soldiers.

Though with a lot of pushing and shoving going on, Blue Arrow lost sight of the stallion as he was pushed forward with others on to the deck. As they went outside, they could only stare on in amazement around them.

All along the dockside in the morning sunlight, it seemed like the entire population of Coltfast was there to welcome them to the city and to Farachan itself. Many Red Hooves couldn't help but smile and wave back at them, especially as they could also see in various parts in that crowd other Red Hoof soldiers were welcoming them, the first Red Hooves that had been staying in Farachan previously a year ago now.

While all this cheering was going on, it was a good chance for Blue Arrow to gaze at the city for as far as he could see. Coltfast defiantly felt modern with nearly all of the buildings looking like they had just been built. The buildings as far as Albian stallion could see were in whites and brick red colour schemes (the buildings seemed what Blue Arrow thought to be housing and older buildings were red while the white buildings seemed to be the new type and working locations.)

However, the blue Pegasus couldn't help but notice that quite a lot of the buildings around him seem to have black marks on them. Blue Arrow didn't really think much of it and assumed that it was weathering.

"Attention!" Yelled one of the commanding Hooves at the front looking back at the fellow troops. At once the Red Hooves and stood to attention. "Please leave this ship at once and rendezvous with the other Red Hooves already down there, understand?"

"Yes, sir!" The other Red Hooves yelled back.

The commanding Hoof briefly looked to the crowd at the docks, then back to the rookie Red Hooves standing to attention. "Then get going boys, make Celestia and Equestria proud!"

At once they started flying off the deck of the ship and landed on the dockside just to get a feel of being back on solid ground again. The cheering itself only increased as they all landed, some members in the crowd, mostly mares, had their fore hooves out trying to touch or even grab them. This was an obvious cue to get out of the way and meet up with the other Hooves there.

"So that's what it's like to be famous," Blue Arrow said to himself, though nopony could've heard him with the crowd being that loud. Even though the Red Hooves already there in the vast crowd were quite easily seen with them being dressed in their red armour, meeting up with either of them proved to be somewhat of a challenge as this required quite a bit of pushing and shoving to get through the crowd to land beside those Red Hooves.

Thankfully for Blue Arrow and his fellow comrades, the Hooves there could see that they were finding the massive crowd a bit of a problem and started hovering in the air and motioning them to follow them.

Getting this, Blue Arrow along with the other Red Hooves followed them flying into the city. As they followed on, all along the route below them, more ponies had filled up the streets and a good few were waving out of windows from many buildings. Suddenly, it only just dawned on Blue Arrow that despite them being a secret service, the attention all around here was anything but secret.

"Oh Celestia, bet this ain't what ye were wantin'," He sighed to himself with a small smile on his lips as he carried on following the Red Hooves while looking down below at the crowd below him.

Despite all this warm reception they were getting and that they seemed confident for what their task out here in Farachan, Blue Arrow though seemed only interested in meeting with an old friend…

XXX

After following their fellow comrades and escaping the crowds, the large platoon of red armoured stallions arrived at a private part of the city that sat towards the large white brick wall that surrounded the city, with the rest of the already stationary Red Hooves waiting for them there.

Blue Arrow and the rest of his troopers found themselves at what seemed to be a long row of semidetached red brick house down a street with little front yards. Those Pegasai who arrived with Blue Arrow could only ogle at their surroundings, trying to find what they would've thought would be a compound or base for them.

"Where's the base?" Said a fellow Red Hoof troop looking around like the rest of them.

"Don't tell me it's in one of the houses here?" Said another annoyed voice nearby Blue Arrow.

They then began muttering among themselves at what had been going on while the more experience Red Hooves looking on couldn't help but keep a smug look on their faces, Blue Arrow himself could see on their faces that they knew the answer.

As all the muttering was going on, a golden clad armoured solider walked up, and the strangest thing that made the newly arrived Red Hooves gawk was that this stallion, while was a Pegasus, wasn't a Red Hoof.

In fact, this stallion was a Royal Guard and Blue Arrow remembered that Celestia has mentioned that she would send over a few of them (though the others couldn't be seen as far as Blue Arrow could tell) to keep an eye on them in case any Hoof turned rogue. Though knowing the mad loyalty the Red Hooves had for Celestia and Equestria, they would never in a million years would do that, though nopony could ever be too careful.

The Royal guard pony stepped forward as the arriving Red Hooves all landed. Though dressed in his golden armour, the Pegasus was that of grey colour, his eyes blue and had a clean cut black mane and tail and his Cutie Mark was that of two crossing swords.

"Welcome new Red Hooves," He greeted them as he examined them from were he stood. "I' am Captain Sixer. Some of you may know me as one of the few commanders chosen by Celestia all those years ago when we came to find each of you to join the Red Hooves."

A small amount of members in the pack with Blue Arrow rapidly realised who he was as they could be heard with some giving a chorus of 'ah's' and some giving the stallion a salute in acknowledge. Obviously they would have been the few that the Royal Guard would've been sent by Celestia years ago to track down the candidates that were to become the Red Hooves.

A small smile appeared on Sixer's lips with him seeing several Hoof troops remembering him. "Now then," Sixer continued as he cleared his throat. "I can tell by the look in your faces that you possibly are wondering where our HQ could be, am I right?" He raised an amused eyebrow when he saw the many Red Hooves muttering in various agreements to their non-Red Hoof captain.

The grey stallion turned his head to look back at the other set of red armour soldiers behind him with them both grinning in the know about where the base was. "Well, I can guarantee that you'll be in for quite a surprise for quite a unique compound we have here."

He pointed over to the long row of houses beside them on the left. Blue Arrow and the rest of the new arrival Red Hooves looked on in confusion as to why the captain was pointing over to those houses. Then Blue Arrow noticed that on one front lawns that a long flagpole stood proud and tall. Then, along with the others one-by-one, noticed that the flag flying was none other than the Red Hoof flag.

The Red Hoof flag itself had a dark red background (that almost looked maroon) with a white cross and in the centre of this cross was the Red Hoof Cutie Mark itself.

Then an impulsive realisation made that set of Red Hooves understand why Sixer was pointing at the set of houses.

"That's our base?!" Cried a voice near the front of the mob in disbelieve.

"You've gotta be joking on us!" Said another.

"Heard of keep bases a secret, but this takes everything!" Added another.

Blue Arrow could only just gape at what was their base. The stallion couldn't even say the words to what he was thinking. With him silent like that, the crowd of Red Hooves with him started quarrelling to Sixer of how ridiculous they thought of the situation and thought that this was a joke.

Quickly seeing that these elite fighters were about to turn their back on him, Sixer quickly hovered up in the air bi-pedal style and started shouting to get their attention.

"Hold it boys!" He barked at them, gradually, they stopped disagreeing and turned their attention back to him. "I know this'll sound crazy, but that is our base."

Blue Arrow was one of a few Hooves there who chuckled, still not buying it.

Sixer however knew what to do as he was there when he introduced the first Re Hooves to their base a year ago. "What you must know is that we've had to go for a secret hiding spot for our compound, and this row of houses have been converted to our base…on the inside."

The pack of Hooves suddenly went quiet. Then a sudden thought came to Blue Arrow's mind. It may have look like a row of ordinary homes, but maybe it was bigger on the inside?

"I suppose you'll be wanting to see what I'm talking about," Sixer concluded as he looked back at the other set of Hooves behind him and raised a fore hoof up, ordering them to head into the barracks.

At once the ordered Red Hooves started to enter the many front doors to get in. Blue Arrow and several others in his rank only just look back at one another, wondering what was going on.

"Ok boys," Sixer said looking back to the new Red Hooves. "You follow them in, inside…well, it'll say everything."

Reluctantly, the newly arrived Hooves headed to some of the front doors, with the occasional troop saying 'Budge up then' or 'Make some space' as they went in. The blue stallion still thought that when they entered the base, it was going to be like a normal home. When they got in…

…It was a giant grey space with a weaponry and armour sections on each side of this giant room.

A collection of gasps followed those Red Hooves and some started looking behind them of what was a long row of semidetached homes. As all these houses were all semidetached, the walls separating them had all been knocked through, creating the giant area before them.

Blue Arrow was utterly speechless at the sight before him. Who ever thought of this idea of a base should deserve a war medal from Celestia herself. "Bloody genies," Blue Arrow finally uttered in a barely audible level. Several others alongside him couldn't help but let out disbelieve chuckles at what they were seeing too.

Because the platoon of Red Hooves had been silenced at this genies idea for a base, they all failed to notice that Sixer coming up from behind them to the front, who had been watching them go in first.

Hovering in mid-air, the Royal Guard haughtily grinned with his fore hooves crossed. Sixer cleared his throat to snap the red armoured stallions out of their trances.

"…Well then," Sixer smiled. "I can only imagine that you're going to love your new base."

XXX

Later on that day, Blue Arrow and the rest of his fellow group of Red Hooves started to settle in and explore their new Headquarters. It still had to settle in for Blue Arrow of how well the concept of this hidden base entire base seemed so strange yet genius. In total, there were two levels in this base.

The ground floor, being the first one that Blue Arrow discovered, had a medical wing, a large refectory and an armory room (which would be used for repairs or spare pieces of amour.) The next floor up was the living quarters for all the Hooves present. A long corridor stretched its way across the row of houses with there being many small bedrooms with four bunks for a Red Hoof troop, though Blue Arrow would later retreat to his room.

Finally the next floor up was the commanding officers' section. This was a section that Blue Arrow and neither the rest of the private ranks were allowed up, unless one was sent up to see them.

After exploring their new home for the time of the war, many went around the city to explore. Blue Arrow himself did the same thing, though going separately on his own. Though the housing part of the city wasn't really that interesting, the city itself was a jewel in itself. Everything about this city was modern, with it's large white towers, cobbled streets, it's friendly atmosphere that the locals gave (which their accent was a mix of Equestrian and Albian with mixed cultures over the years) towards any Red Hoof. And with it's stunning tumbling farmland hills that surrounded the city, it was now no surprised to Blue Arrow why many wanted to live here.

Though despite the praise he would be thinking about the Coltfast, he still couldn't help but notice the black marks on the clean looking white buildings in various locations around the Farachan capital. He also wondered how this perfect looking location could be the main target for a war, alas; he had to remember that nopony could ever be too careful wherever they where. Indeed, despite him already starting to adore this city, he couldn't help but feel that the atmosphere did seem perfect…too perfect…

When it was lunch or dinnertime that day, he would've gone back to the barracks to the refectory, but he decided to try his luck in town. As Farachan was part of Equestria, he was able to spend that last of his bits he had brought over from the mainland. By the time he was done with dinner, he went out to have a small stroll along the seafront. Celestia had lowered the sun and would soon be raising the moon, but Blue Arrow sat on a bench on the prom admiring the view in front of him.

"C'mon now don't change now," he muttered to himself looking up at the orange sky. "It makes this place look bonny."

He joked to himself over it. Of course he knew that it would have to turn night soon, still, one stallion was allowed to dream. He was about to watch more of the view when he heard a voice from nearby.

"Blue Arrow? Is that you?"

At once of hearing his name, he looked around wondering where the sound was coming from. But there was something familiar about that rather smart English accent.

"It is you! I'm up here!"

Looking up, Blue Arrow saw hovering in the air bi-pedal style was a brown stallion Pegasus with a blue mane and tail, cream coloured hooves and narrow green eyes. But this stallion had a Red Hoof for his cutie mark, and then suddenly, it dawned on Blue Arrow over who this stallion was.

"Bloody hay!" The Albian stallion gasped in astonishment as he started flying up in the air bi-pedal style next to the brown stallion. "It's Dynamo!"

At once the two old friends shook each other's hooves and a lump of memories came back to Blue Arrow.

"It's great to see you once again old friend," Dynamo smiled warmly.

"Same for you mate," Blue Arrow replied, smiling also. "And don't worry, I won't go shakin' questions out of ye."

The brown stallion chuckled and shook his head. "Ah yes of course, but I'm here anyway to find you, we'd better be getting back to barracks, the commander won't like that."

The blue stallion bit his bottom lip, thinking about that fact. "I see…alright then, let's get goin'."

And without any further words, the two left their present location and headed back to HQ.

XXX

The two old friends flew back to base side-by-side catching up on each other how things had been going for the both of them. The two young stallions had been chatting for what seemed like a mile a minute completely positively, but then as they approached their HQ, things between them changed when Blue Arrow asked Dynamo as to what those in the south had been doing. Much to Blue Arrow's surprise, Dynamo had relived that a lot more had been going on in Farachan than what anypony back on the mainland knew.

"What'd you mean, a lot more than what anypony knows back hame?" Blue Arrow questioned raising an eyebrow.

Dynamo remained silent, looking in front off him and sighing to himself. "Well dear fellow," He answered softly. "You might have noticed those black marks on buildings, am I right?"

"Well aye, of course," Blue Arrow replied quickly, the mention of those black marks catching his attention.

The brown stallion bit his bottom lip and then muttered something inaudible. "You see…ever since we arrived about a year ago…we've had…let's say, unofficial attacks. And those black marks are from explosions from spies trying to break into the city on a daily basis."

Dynamo shuddered and shook his head sadly, like he was reveling a terrible confession. Blue Arrow though spluttered out a cough, stunned at what Dynamo had said.

"W-what? Attacks already?!" Blue Arrow blurted out, his pupils seemed to shrink down.

Dynamo looked at him sadly. "Yes…unofficial, the war has already begun. They have been testing us to see if we're strong enough, giving the residents of the city a living a nightmare on a daily basis."

He paused; looking down below to make sure nopony down below was listening to their conversation from the ground. "Now that you and the others are here, the war officially begins, and not a soul in Farachan is safe from Ares' army."

Blue Arrow was speechless. To think that not long ago that he had falling in love with this beautiful place, then again, with things feeling too perfect, he had some doubts in the back of his head. Now Dynamo had only help to confirm this.

"…Bloody hay," the blue Pegasus sighed as stopped flying and started hovering. "I…Celestia knows how you lot here must've been feeling here until we came."

Dynamo had stopped too, facing his comrade. "To be honest…it's frankly been quite strange."

Blue Arrow raised an eyebrow at him. "Huh? How'd you mean?"

The brown stallion cleared a bit of his mane from his face before replying. "Well what I mean is that I was thinking that there would great battles out on the field, but it seems that all this is a series of unrest out here."

Blue Arrow nodded knowingly as he understood the situation that Dynamo has said. "I see…still, Alaccan probably knows that we're here and they'll be determined to have a pop at us soon."

"The sooner the better is you ask me…" Dynamo replied sadly, which Blue Arrow noticed that something was troubling his friend, and for some reason he wasn't thinking that this war wasn't the cause of it. What was wrong with his fellow Red Hoof?

XXX

It had felt quite bad in a way that the conversation the two stallions had on the way to the HQ had now turned sour after it had started out quite warm between the two. As they carried on flying, Dynamo didn't speak a word to Blue Arrow, and the Albian stallion practically decided not to say anything to Dynamo if he needed sometime to think to himself.

By this point in the day, nighttime was creeping in and the majority of the citizens of the city would be turning in for the night, with the excepting of some ponies out at various nightclubs and some doing nightshift work…and some Red Hoof troops standing on guard through the night.

Blue Arrow and Dynamo eventually arrived at their base and headed inside for the night. Now that they were here, Blue Arrow had suddenly realized that he hadn't gone up to find out which room he was staying in, though thankfully Dynamo (now speaking again) knew where he was sleeping, coincidently alongside him. Blue Arrow wouldn't thought Dynamo would've done for all time's sake for them to be sharing the same room along with two other Red Hooves (who Blue Arrow had yet to meet still.)

"I do wonder, mate," Blue Arrow asked Dynamo as they walked up the stairs to their room.

"What's that then?" Dynamo replied turning to look at him.

Blue Arrow cleared his throat before carrying on. "I forgot to ask this, but who are our other roommates?"

Dynamo smiled. "Ah, you'll soon see for yourself, if I'm not mistaken, they both should be in by now."

The red and white mane stallion shrugged, he'd soon find out who the other two were. Also coming to think of it, how was Shadow doing? He hadn't heard from him since they arrived earlier today. He presumed that he'd found his quarters and was settling in. His train of thought was soon broken when Dynamo led them not that far down the corridor to a wooden varnished door with the number '92' written on it in brass plates, much like something out of any hotel.

"And this is your room," Dynamo announced as he opened to the door to let Blue Arrow see the room for himself. The stallion could only stare around him; it was a smallish room that couldn't have been ten feet wide each way with a pale yellow colour of wallpaper. Two bunk beds stood on each side of the room with a small table in-between them and a large cupboard stood on the other side of the room, which Blue Arrow thought where the roommates would place their armor in after a day's work.

"No bad," Blue Arrow muttered as he scanned the room looking all round him.

"Well, well, well, another roommate!" Came a voice suddenly from one of the top bunks.

"Huh? Another?" Said another voice from the bottom bunk.

Looking over to where the voices came from, Blue Arrow saw a Grey Pegasus stallion with a messy black mane and tail, dark blue eyes and of course, a Red Hoof cutie mark. He couldn't help but notice a number of many pictures stuck up around that bottom bunk that included a variety of mares posing in various seductive poses. The grey stallion jumped out of bed and walked up to Blue Arrow shaking his fore hoof. "Ah hello there, the name's Macca." He introduced himself with what looked like a forced grin to Blue Arrow.

"And let me introduce myself too!" Said the other voice from the top bunk as he jumped down to meet his new roommate.

The stallion that Blue Arrow saw was unlike any other Red Hoof he'd seen. All of the Red Hooves were either between eighteen or twenty, this stallion looked well into his thirties. The stallion was yellow and had a green mullet mane (similar to Dynamo) and tail and matching green eyes and, like the rest of the pack, had a Red Hoof cutie mark.

"Greeting's youngster, I'm Flying Sunstar, though you can call me Sunstar for short like everyone else does." The yellow stallion introduced himself.

"Well, hi," Blue Arrow uttered, still feeling surprised of seeing quite an older stallion with them. "Um…are you one of the—"

"Well of course he is, dude!" Macca scoffed as he went back over to his bed. "Who'd you think he was? A crazy old guy?"

"Quite you!" Sunstar snapped at the younger stallion before looking back at Blue Arrow. "And to answer your question, yes, I' am one of the specials."

Blue Arrow made an 'ah' shape with his mouth after his thoughts were proven true.

In Equestria, everypony in their lifetime receive a cutie mark of any sorts, though there are some who never get one. When the Red Hooves came about those many years ago, many blank flank young Pegasus colts were training not only to become great fighters, but have the honor of receiving a Red Hoof cutie mark, though they were not the only ones to get them.

There were a few Pegasus stallions out there in Equestria who still remained blanked flanked after all this time, and Celestia knew that several of them could find a place in the ranks of this exclusive fighting force. Sunstar was probably one of a few lucky older stallions that had made it out here to fight for the war effort, though despite their age differences with the rest of the younger Red Hooves, they were still respected like any other Red Hoof fighter.

Blue Arrow now felt a bit at lost for words for anything else to say to them, though thankfully, Dynamo broke the silence. "You'll get use to them…especially him…"

His voice had turned rather cold towards the end of that speech, his eyes narrowing towards Macca. The blue stallion couldn't help but think that Dynamo wasn't impressed by the photo's of mares stuck up on Macca's bed, or that the two stallions weren't practically best friends.

Later on, Blue Arrow settled in on his bed, the bottom bunk with Dynamo on the top bed, started chatting to his two new roommates and later on when they were all sleeping, he started to think things over. There were still things that made him question himself. What were the forces of the south going to be like against the might of the Red Hooves? What was really bothering Dynamo? (who during the time when Blue Arrow had been getting to know Sunstar and Macca, had been silent the whole time.)

He could think for all he might've have liked that night, but soon enough, he would be out on that battlefield fighting the enemy…and his life.

Sixer (C) thunderhawk 6894

The First Battle

Chapter 4

The First Battle

For the next two days that followed for Blue Arrow staying in Coltfast, the only thing that he and the other Red Hooves could do was to prepare and brush up on some fighting skills that, before arriving on Farachan, couldn't quite prefect them. Though the large open green fields beyond the wall of the city looked perfect enough to train on, there was still the nagging worry from many of the locals of spies from Alaccan keeping an eye on them and trying to see what type of fighting they might've been working on.

Though it all sounded quite paranoid for the newly arrived Red Hooves, nevertheless they knew that they could never be too careful for anything. So where were they suppose to train about then? The commanding officers decided to train within the secret base in its main training section. Much like when Blue Arrow and the others were amazed of the idea of the base being covered up as a row of houses, the training hall was yet another sight that made many of the new Hooves' jaws to drop.

On the ground level where it was based about, this giant hall seem to take up a quarter of the size of the base, and with it, house a variety collection of training facilities. One half of this great hall was a complex training course that a Red Hoof troop had to navigate through, with it's swinging axes and various other dangerous traps it had, it clearly wasn't for the faint hearted pony. The other half of the hall was for the training of fighting skills that two Red Hoof troops would duel with one another. Infamously, with the Red Hooves being such amazing fighters, a simple duel between two of them would drag on for nearly ten minutes before one of them gave in.

By just simply looking at them fighting like that, it gave many great hope for a good chance of winning this war. Alas, war isn't simply about throwing a group of strong able-bodied stallions into a battle; it also required the Red Hooves to be highly intelligent to come up with tactics to easily win a battle. For Blue Arrow, he did find this part to be quite difficult. It wasn't that was stupid or anything like that, he just didn't see himself as a leader, and preferred to be among the pack of red amour during a battle.

With this in mind, Blue Arrow kept this confession to himself as if any other Red Hooves found out about this, they would of likely called him a coward or even one that shouldn't been in the Red Hooves in the first place. His fellow comrades all tried to impress the commanders by presenting with various different battle strategies, though the commanders were impressed by their dedication, they already could see flaws in their plans, much to the disappointment of any Red Hoof who presented one of those tactics.

On the third day after Blue Arrow arrived, a new batch of Red Hooves would take their place to train up, this would give the first batch of trained up Red Hooves from the day before to catch their breath. And it was in the room that Blue Arrow shared with his fellow comrades that they could relax.

Blue Arrow lay back on his bed thinking of the time before and how hard the training was. True, being a Red Hoof is a tough aspect, but it was far different from the way Celestia trained them. The day itself though had been a peaceful at most with Blue Arrow's bunkmates minding their own business. Dynamo was acting quite personal around the letters he received and also the ones that he would write to whoever it was. Blue Arrow had asked Dynamo what was going on, but the brown stallion didn't want to talk about and even got quite personal about it. The Albian stallion could've sworn that Dynamo looked upset over something whenever he looked over those letters. Whatever it was though, Blue Arrow decided not to ask anything else about it.

Nearby, Macca was reading yet another magazine of seductive looking mares. Though Blue Arrow and the other bunkmates didn't say it, they were getting quite annoyed more and more with Macca cutting pictures out of a magazine like that and sticking the pictures around his bedside. Dynamo had secretly told Blue Arrow that Macca had only started doing this about two months ago as the young grey stallion was desperate for female companionship.

Then again in Red Hoof terms, there is no such thing as love in war.

The eldest in the room, Flying Sunstar, had down to the dinner hall to meet up with other 'specials' like him. It had three hours since he had gone downstairs and the young ones were enjoying what would be soon as one of the rare peaceful moments that Red Hooves would have in this war.

It was only then that all three stallions could hear a muttering of voices down the corridor increasing and a clatter of running hoof trots up and down that corridor.

"Huh?" Grunted Macca, pressing himself up on his elbows upon hearing the sound. "Something going on?"

Blue Arrow tilted his head to the left. "What is—"

Suddenly, the door burst opened and in ran Sunstar, breathing heavy.

"Celestia above!" Dynamo gasped and jumped down from his top bunk to meet up with Sunstar. Blue Arrow and Macca doing the same as well.

"What's happened?" Blue Arrow questioned hurriedly.

"Give him some damn space!" Macca ordered as he pushed the other two stallions out of the way.

The yellow stallion's breathing slowed down as he prepared to speak. "I'm alright guys," he paused to get some of his breath back. "Just to tell you…the news has just come in. Alaccan wants to start the war now!"

At first when hearing this type of news, any normal pony would've acted being shocked by this; however, Red Hooves aren't exactly normal ponies…

Instead, the other three stallions in the room looked at each other with large smiles on their faces, and starting whooping like idiots. The scene was almost like seeing a group of fans watching a sports team winning a major game.

"Finally!" Macca chuckled happily while performing a small loop in the room flying. "We're gonna kick some Alaccan ass!"

"And about time too," added in a much relived Dynamo. "I was beginning to wonder if we would battle them."

Sunstar couldn't help but smile as he saw the stallions celebrate. Blue Arrow as well was caught up in the excitement in the room and began ridding on Macca's back and waved his fore hoof in the air. "We're going to battle!" he repeated happily like an idiot.

Everywhere else in that building, similar scenes happened with all Red Hoof troops celebrating that war was finally here and that they would at last prove themselves at what Celestia had created for this very point after so many years.

Now, there was no turning back.

XXX

Though it was looming since the first Red Hooves landed on Farachan's shores, the news of war being announced like that send shivers down the back of the average Equestrian pony, all except for those Red Hooves.

They were all fired up and ready for the battles that lay ahead. For the first battle, the two forces would meet up on an open stretch of land near the Farachan/Alaccan border called Foghlamaiche, which ironically meant in the old Alaccan language meant 'beginning'… and this battle would be the beginning for the Red Hooves first test…win a battle.

In secret, both sides agreed for a date for the battle to take place within the early part of next week. For Blue Arrow and all his fellow comrades, that period before hand all went passed in a blur, the mad training that the stallions were put through seemed insane and even life threatening to any ordinary pony, but these are Red Hooves, stallions that would do anything to protect Celestia and Equestria if their lives depended on it.

The night before the battle, the Red Hooves left the city of Coltfast silently in the early hours of the day, with their amour and weapons (spears, shields and swords), and without much fanfare from the city folk to wish them well. Though it was a change from being something like a celebrity in the eyes of the public, deep down in all of them, they really did hope that everything would go in their favor.

As they flew away from the city and headed to Foghlamaiche under the cover of the now lowering moonlight, a sense of wariness seem to spread it's way through the ranks. Blue Arrow felt his stomach twisting itself in knots. So much it seem was at stake here, the first battle the Red Hooves would fight on a battlefield, also the opposing armed forces first battle. Neither Red Hoof had a clue about what their tactics and fighting styles would be like. Even those Red Hooves who had to face them on a daily basis during the unofficial skirmishes in Coltfast had doubts over the enemy, thinking that their style would be different this time round.

But most of all, it would be his first battle as a Red Hoof. Even though all around him, everypony there would be out there for their first time, Blue Arrow felt like everyone was casting their eyes on him.

It was also during this after flying for nearly half an hour, the blue stallion remembered being sent away to become a Red Hoof. "Well then," he said to himself in a tone that no one else around him could hear. "Mum, Dad, I don't think this was how you'd think I'd turn up, but I'm doing this for our homeland…and for you…"

Blue Arrow felt his red eyes feeling moist from just thinking about it. From being separated from his parents and friends from such a young age seemed like a sad story, but this was the sacrifice for becoming a Red Hoof. And right now, he couldn't reflect on the pass and cloud his emotions, he had a job to do.

Just then, a loud voice could be heard from the front from one of the commanders. Though Blue Arrow found it hard to hear at exactly what the commander was saying and who it even was (it still being pitch black), he knew that the call was basically saying that they were here at last.

Like a perfected move practiced on a daily basis, the flying Red Hooves starting flying to the ground in a banked curved manner. When they landed, they all had a look around where they were. Despite being in Farachan for a period, the Red Hooves hadn't done much research of the land; all they knew was that they were on an open stretch of land somewhere near the border.

As the battle would take place at dawn, this gave the Red Hooves the chance to have a rest and have a last chat with various Red Hoof troops. With this in mind, Blue Arrow starting walking through the Red Hoof ranks trying to find certain friends of his. The blue Pegasus shivered slightly in the damp night air, whenever it was a boiling hot day on Farachan, during the evening, everything changed as it went to freezing point.

For the Red Hooves that had been in this land for a year, Blue Arrow had heard that they were slightly paranoid thinking that this land seemed to have section of moods, like it was a person. As he wondered through the ranks looking around him, he heard of voice behind him.

"Hey! Albian!"

The red and white mane stallion stopped. Though he didn't know who that voice was, but it did seem familiar…

Turning round behind him, there before him, dressed in his red armor and armed with his spear and shield, was Shadow! Blue Arrow's eyes widened and his face broke into a big grin. "Bloody hell, it's you!" He greeted happily and walked up to the Manehatten stallion and shook his fore hoof.

"Good to see you too," Shadow replied in his Brooklyn like accent, with a smile on his lips. "Ready to kick some Alaccan ass?"

The blue stallion chuckled. "Now, now, don't get too cocky now," he reminded. "You can never be too careful."

Shadow rolled his eyes sarcastically, "Oh come on, man! You sound like my Dad, and old enough to be him like that!"

Blue Arrow spluttered a cough in a shock reaction from that put down from the black colored stallion. "What? Now listen here daft works! I'm only eighteen, same as you. I'm just followin' rules from our commanders."

Shadow raised his fore hooves in defense and a grin on his face. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm just having fun here. Nothing bad in that."

His fellow Red Hoof comrade sighed and looked out towards the darkened horizon, the place where the enemy would be waiting for them. "Nah, nothing bad in that," he remarked faintly. "Last thing I'm wantin' to do is turn on you on the eve of the battle."

Shadow nodded and replied with a grunt. The two remained silent for not long as they stared out before them, by this point, the sun was starting to rise, and an orange glow started to illuminate the land. Though it was still dark, they could all start to see better where they were. Around them, the ground was a large flat plane that went edged down towards where the Alaccan forces would be standing.

Also in that direction, rugged mountains surrounded that area, no doubt that the border was behind the mountains. It only dawned on several Red Hooves that the opposing forces would've been camped somewhere in those mountains.

After admiring the scenery around him, he turned back to Shadow, gave him a small farewell before walking his way once again through the ranks trying to look for Dynamo, Sunstar and Macca. Blue Arrow couldn't help but smile at the sea of stallions dressed in red all doing various things such as talking to one another, some using stones on the ground and using them to sharpen blades and others eating some snacks that they had brought along with them as a quick breakfast. Speaking of which, Blue Arrow didn't have much of a good breakfast as half way though his meal, he was dragged off for battle. Still, he didn't feel like complaining, not on the eve of battle.

It also seemed rather strange that their red plate armor didn't blend in with the surrounding green and brown colours of grass, they seemed like perfect moving targets to enemy forces from around. Strangely, that was not even in the back of anypony's minds then, they all looked keen to see how the Alaccan forces would try to kill them by using their infamous magic attacks that they were well known for in Equestria.

With this in mind, Blue Arrow snorted in disapproval, he like his fellow comrades all believed that using magic or any long-range weapon in battle (notably bows and arrows) were for cowards and the only way to fight was with sword or spear.

It was when he passed by a dark grey Red Hoof troop, who was sharpening his spear with a rock; that he saw in front of him for what he was looking for. Quickly he trotted over to the small group of three chatting to one another.

"Alright, lads?" Blue Arrow greeted gruffly as he sat down with Dynamo, Sunstar and Macca.

"Ah, good day dear chap," Dynamo replied warmly with a smile.

"Take it your ready?" Macca added. "'Cause let me tell you, some poor idiots don't look prepared for this—"

"Oh shut it," Sunstar groaned facehoofing.

Blue Arrow looked at Dynamo and Sunstar, both of which looked rather annoyed at Macca. "Huh? What's the matter?

The polite brown stallion sighed while glancing over at Macca giving him a glare before talking to his old friend once again. "It's nothing really, just never thought he would be this…you understand, suspicious?

"Hey!" Macca interrupted in defense. "I'm worried, ya know? I mean it's our first battle and all, surely something might go wrong!"

Blue Arrow though chuckled at the grey stallion's worries and placed a friendly hoof on Macca's shoulder. "Ah stop bein' a bloody worry wart! We're the best fighters in Equestria, besides, with us being trained by Celestia, you can't just think we'd throw it all away like that! If anythin' that Ares and his bunch of misfits throw at us, we'll give 'em hell…Celestia's blade, and ye cannae get much more stronger than that."

Though he was only having some banter with his fellow troop and wasn't being serious with his little speech, he was surprised that some nearby Red Hooves had stopped whatever they were doing and instead started to listen to him. Even the older Flying Sunstar looked impressed by the young stallion's words.

The blue stallion uttered a small laugh and rubbed the back of his head, embarrassed that he was being listened to, though shook his head and give the other Red Hooves a scolding glare. "What you lot listenin' at?" he snapped, causing the others to quickly turn away and went back to whatever they were doing.

The Albian stallion then looked over at the sight around him. By the this point, the sun was now over the horizon and at last every Red Hoof there could get a better look around them.

In front of them, the mountains loomed over the landscape that seemed to stretch it's way from both directions. Thanks to the sunlight, the mountains now looked more ominous, no doubt to wonder that the enemy forces would've been camped up there. The grass below them was quite thick and bushy, reminding Blue Arrow of thick heather back home in Alba, clearly the Alaccan forces had thought that the thick brown and green colored grass would cause the Red Hooves to struggle to fight.

Then over to Blue Arrow's left, he noticed Sixer and the other three other commanding officers, dressed in their royal golden armor, heading to the front of the armed forces. Several Red Hooves stopped whatever they were doing and turned to look at the four leaders.

"Red Hooves! Line up!" Barked out Sixer and without being asked twice, every single Hoof troop lined up in a long line of ten in a row. It was quite fast and exact how quickly the Red Hoof troops managed to line up, including even equipping on their red plated helmets. Blue Arrow had found himself in the fourth row towards the front, and even though he had practiced with these stallions from since he was only eight, it still amazed him how highly trained they were after all this time.

"I love these guys," Blue Arrow muttered to himself jokingly.

"Indeed," said a voice from beside him. Blue Arrow looked over to his right to see none other than Dynamo standing alongside him with his spear and shield.

The Albian stallion smiled when his dear friend all suited up for battle. "Just think about it," he said to Dynamo. "It'll be a right laugh this."

The brown stallions cocked an eyebrow at him. "Oh? Why is that?"

Blue Arrow cleared his throat. "Well you see—"

"Listen up boys!" Barked out another of the commanders, causing Blue Arrow to stop talking to Dynamo and focus his gaze to the front. "Today, we finally are let loose on the enemy! Remember our tactics, the front will hold their ground, the rest of you behind them will hold your ground and push forward to help act as a brick wall. If one of us fail, we all fail!"

A shudder went through Blue Arrow as he thought about those last words. The basic description of the tactic for battle (as planned by the commanding generals) was to hold their ground and push back the enemy forces. The Red Hooves had practiced this move constantly before and it required them all to work as a team. One slip up from any Red Hoof there, and the defense would fall like a pack of cards.

Blue Arrow didn't even dare think of himself as the one who would be to blame if they failed. As he looked to his left and right to get his mind off that thought, he could see that attached near to the top of some of the spears were either the Equestria flag or the Red Hoof flag, and some even had both attached.

In the meantime though, all the Red Hooves could do, was wait for Ares' army to arrive. Interestingly, while they had all heard about the tyrant leader of Alaccan, very rarely did anypony know what he looked liked in the flesh, such was an example of how much the borders would not let either information get out. All that the Red Hooves knew about Ares was that he was a green unicorn and quite a young leader being in his early thirties. Hopefully today, they would all see what he'd look like.

As the sun went further up into the sky, the Red Hooves stood there silently. None of them breathed a word; the only thing that was heard was the sound of either birds chirping away or the various clanks of spears occasionally touching one another.

During this period, Blue Arrow felt uneasy. There was a nagging fear in his mind that perhaps the Ares' army wasn't hiding in the mountains, but behind them so that they would strike an ambush on the unsuspecting Red Hooves. It didn't help that they had been standing there for almost ten minutes now and the Alaccan army hadn't turned up. Peering towards the very front, he could see the commanding officers standing beside one another starring towards the mountains.

Then came the sound of a horn.

At once, in the heart of every Red Hoof, pride and defiance sprang anew. As the horn (or other horns by the sound of things) continued, the sound of marching troops could be heard in the distance…all coming from the mountains as expected. Blue Arrow drew in some deep breaths to try and calm himself down, he felt of a mix of excitement and fear. It didn't help when he and his fellow comrades saw in the distance the first of the enemy solders appearing and making their way down the mountain face.

Like coming out of hiding holes, more and more of the Alaccan armed forces marched towards the battlefield. By hundreds and two hundreds, the army grew, and so did the amount of stunned looks on the faces of many Red Hoof faces.

"Hold your ground!" Cried Sixer hovering in the air to the red army before turning round to look at the opposing army. By this point, the last of the remaining troops emerged from the mountains to join the rest of the army who now had stopped and stood there ready for battle.

As with the other army now standing almost half a mile from the Red Hooves, the Equestrians could now get a better look at this army. The Alaccan army's armor colors were of a dark green and contained purple sections that looked strangely organic, that being said, the shape of their armor itself looked all sharp and seemed like it came from a different world all together. Finally, those who had just made it to the bottom of the mountain, the large Alaccan army stood there awaiting orders. It was quite a shock to the Red Hooves at first as the Ares' army outnumbered the Red Hooves three to one, but the shock the Red Hooves had at first was soon replaced with thoughts of cunningness. Every Red Hoof knew that just because an opposing army seemed bigger than their own, it didn't mean that they would wipe them out easily.

Among that sea of red, Blue Arrow's lips curled up with a smirk, plenty of troops to take care off, even the sensible Dynamo standing alongside him had a smirk painted on his face. It seemed that a current surge of energy had surged its way through the ranks and filled them with all the confidence that was needed.

"Stay here boys!" Cried out one of the other commanders. "It's time for last minute negations with them." And with that, the commander officers and a flag barrier Red Hoof troop (all Pegasus) flew off to the centre of the battlefield.

Then out of the Alaccan army, a similar ground appeared out of that army and headed out to the centre of the battleground to join the Royal Guard ponies. Suddenly they saw Ares, green hid color as mentioned before, but had red hawk like eyes, an orange mane and tail with white streaks and a long and thin moustache. He was dressed in similar fashion to his own army, but without a helmet.

As the two leaders met in the centre of the grassy battlefield, Ares seemed to have the manner of a stallion who's spirit had never been broken and for a moment, turned his penetrating gaze to the Red Hooves in an arrogant manner.

"So that's him then?" Dynamo whispered to Blue Arrow.

"That's our culprit alright," Blue Arrow replied nodding. "There is somethin' familiar about him, though I can't put my hoof on it…"

The brown stallion looked over his friend deep in thought for a moment before looking back onto the combat zone to watch the last piece of debate taking place. Strangely, the once thought less-than-a-minute debate by many Red Hooves was dragged on for about five minutes. Though they couldn't hear anything from where they were, they could see that menacing grin on Ares' face never leaving, like he was enjoying the moment.

Finally, both sides headed back to their respective sides. There the Red Hooves could see the serious look on the faces of the commanding troops, all apparent seemed like something had gone on there.

Sixer hovered above them to give them a last minute talk. "Now then, there is no turning back. Out there, Ares and his army will want to wipe us out in less than an hour, little does he know that before me are Celestia's greatest warriors. All these stallions in red will do anything to protect her majesty from forces such as them!"

He paused for a moment to take a last look at Ares' vast army before looking back at the Red Hooves. "Today, we will show the world that whatever threatens our homeland, the Red Hooves will answer the call! Ride to battle! NO SURRENDER!"

"NO SURRENDER!"

The Red Hooves chanting those two words over and over in what might seem to a neutral in all of this as a threat to the other side. On the other side, Ares drew forward many Earth ponies to the front, intending to wait for the Red Hooves to strike first. But in the plain between them, their defiance burned like fire as they chanted, banged their weapons and mocked Ares to attack first. Strangely, the tyrant leader seemed undeterred by all this and decided to let the Red Hooves have their wish. With him giving a hoof signal to his troops, he ordered the Earth ponies to charge.

At last, the battle of the borders had begun.

Upon seeing the Earth ponies of the Alaccan side blindly charging across the field, the Red Hooves stopped all their chanting and prepared themselves for the impact that would follow. At the front, the front line of Red Hooves held up the shields to brace themselves from the incoming army. Behind them, the second row of Red Hooves also had their shields pressed up against the back of the forward stallions and positioned their spears behind the small gaps between Red Hoof troops to give a surprise attack.

The rest of the line of Red Hooves held their shields up too pressed up behind the stallion in front of them. Their job was to simply push forward. And it was among in this lot that Blue Arrow had this task to execute. The charging ponies thundered across that field towards them, and even the Earth pony section seemed to have more than all the other Red Hooves there.

The commanding ponies on their side flew to back of the crowd to watch the battle from the air, and every second passing by, the sea of green and purple edged ever forward to the waiting Red Hooves. Blue Arrow started to feel worried once again, what if this move didn't work? There was no way of telling and whenever it was going to work of not, they were going to try it first hoofed.

The forces were now just thirty feet away from them and Blue Arrow bit his bottom lip, closed his eyes and braced himself. The voices got louder and louder, then there were an almighty shudder that nearly pushed Blue Arrow back. At that moment came the sound of spears striking out and the painful cries of stallions. Opening his eyes, he saw in front of him Red Hoof troops pushing forwards as best as they could, but it was in the very front that Blue Arrow's eyes widened in amazement. The second line of Red Hooves struck out their spears through the gaps in the front like a viper's tongue. Blood went up in the air as many of the earth ponies on the Alaccan side fell to the relentless attacks from the Red Hooves.

That sight alone inspired him to carry on, and like with the rest, he pushed forward.

"Is that the best you can do?!" Yelled out of Red Hoof troop in front of him as they carried on with their offensive.

"My mother could fight better than you lot!" Mocked another Red Hoof from somewhere.

Painful screams filled the air as more and more Earth ponies came crashing to the ground in a bloody shambles, though he couldn't see that great from where he was, Blue Arrow could tell that the Red Hooves were the better side during the earlier parts of the battle.

The Red Hooves heaved and pushed forward with their hind hooves digging almost into the ground. This part of the battle itself seemed to go on for about five minutes. Five bloody minutes of failing Alaccan troops being killed second by second. It was quite amazing that despite the fierce loss of troops the Alaccans were facing, the Equestrian side had virtually lost none of their own. Suddenly for those in the back felt the front gave way and that they could almost walk forward.

The reason for this was that the surviving Earth ponies (now reduced to less than half) had turned back and started to retreat back to the Alaccan side. From this, many Red Hooves, including Blue Arrow, vocally expressed jokingly disappointment.

"Oh come on! Some of us haven't got a kill yet!" They would cry out, though the retreating earth ponies had no intention of heading back as they ran for their lives, though some Red Hooves weren't going to let them off that easy.

Instead, some starting to throw their spears forward at the defeated Earth ponies. Most of the spears missed them, though some stuck down a few of them.

"Hold it boys!" Snapped one of the commanders behind them. "Don't waste those damn spears of the shamed retreating type!" Despite his words, the Red Hooves seemed to be half mad with ecstasy, all of them wanting a kill.

"Head forward!" Came the sound of Sixer's voice, and as he ordered, the Red Hooves marched, while trampling over the bodies of the dead Earth ponies.

"Hell of a good start," Blue Arrow said to Dynamo while minding where he stood on.

"Indeed, but a long way to go still," Dynamo replied while concentration on what was happening in front of them.

Looking ahead, Blue Arrow could see the surviving Earth ponies heading back into the ranks, with some of the forces in the front beating them up as they tried to get through.

"Halt!" Cried Sixer's voice again, and every stallion dressed in red stopped. Once again, several Red Hooves began chanting abusive words towards the Alaccans and banged their shields and weapons together to rub it in.

Then they saw Ares giving another hoof signal to his army as this time, unicorn stallions went forward. Upon seeing this, the Red Hooves went silent and starred at the scene in front of them.

The Alaccans were getting ready for their second wave of attack.

Then along that front line, they could see the unicorns' horns glowing, charging up for an attack…a long distance one.

"DEFEND!" Sixer cried out and the Red Hooves quickly raised their shields to prepare themselves from the attack. They were wary that the Alaccans were infamous for perfecting the art of magic for not only spells, but also for battles like this. Now they seemed like they were going to prove a point.

Out of their horns, white bolts of magic surged forwards towards the red side of the battlefield. This time, even the bravest Red Hoof had to think about this one. Who knew if their spells would be powerful enough to push them back?

The white bolts raced forward at such a speed that it didn't take long until they reached the Red Hooves. All of which expected a blowback of some sort, they were surprised by what they felt from the attack.

The white bolts hitting their shields was just somepony chucking stones and rocks at them. It was pathetic.

"Alaccan cowards," growled a Red Hoof from behind Blue Arrow, but Blue Arrow starting chuckling at this.

"What the hell you laughing at?" Said a large beefy type Red Hoof standing beside Blue Arrow, and other Red Hooves looked back wondering why as well.

"Isn't it ironic?" Blue Arrow laughed. "They are said to be the greatest in magic when it comes to war, sayin' that their attacks could kill us…" Then he started laughing, then other Red Hooves, now getting the joke, starting laughing like idiots while the white bolts of magic were pelting them relentlessly.

During this, some Earth ponies from the previous failed attack that were wounded badly and struggling to get back, became the unfortunate victims to be killed in the crossfire. The fact that Ares didn't wait for all of them to get back into the ranks was probably acting as a punishment for their defeat.

After a minute of white bolts striking the Red Hooves and was in no way doing the Alaccans any good, Ares give a hoof signal to call off the attack. For a moment, the Red Hooves one by one lowered their scorched shields to make sure that the coast was clear, and when they saw what had happened, they began taunting their foes once again.

"C'mon ya wee Jessie boys!" Blue Arrow taunted towards the ever growing restless green and purpled armored solders who looked like they were on the verge of breaking out of their ranks and taking down their nemesis'.

Most peculiarly was that despite what the Red Hooves were doing, Ares seemed at ease with it and secretly smiled. They may have been his sworn enemy at this moment in time, but by the gods, they certainly weren't another run-of-the-mill army. They certainly made a good enemy.

Then with another wave of his fore hoof and the sounding of the horns, the entire army started moving forward. And for his own safety, he and his commanding officers walked through the ranks heading to the back.

From out of that vast army of Ares', Pegasus' of many types starting flying over the marching ground base troops, all of which heading to the Red Hoof forces.

At once upon seeing this, the Red Hooves were silenced.

"BACK TWO ROWS, FACE THE PEGASUS FORCES!" Sixer roared to the red army. And without being asked twice, the back two rows rose up and charged at the rival Pegasus group (also larger then them.)

Sixer then noticed the swarm of Alaccans heading towards the rest of the Red Hoof soldiers on the ground and awaited orders. "THE REST OF YOU, HOLD YOUR GROUND LIKE BEFORE AND FIGHT!" Like before, the ground based Hooves raised their shields up and prepared for a repeat attack like before.

During all this, Blue Arrow glanced up into the air and saw that the two flying forces had joined battle and various pieces of steel weaponry flashed in the morning sunshine. Though he couldn't be distracted for long as he turned his gaze back to the ever-closer charging army of Alaccans.

Just like before with the Earth ponies, they struck the front line with tremendous force, but the Hooves held their ground and, just like before also, the second row began thrusting their now bloody spears and the unsuspecting Alaccans. Blue Arrow did his part in that vast sea of red armor to push the forces back, but it was even more difficult as there was three times more than the first wave of attack and it did look like that the Red Hooves would fail.

While this was going on, bodies from the battle in the air came crashing down around them, all of which so far had been made up from Alaccan forces. Wherever or not this was helping the Red Hooves for motivation, the Red Hooves on the ground stopped being pushed back, and then with an almighty push (to the cries of many stallions) the Red Hooves surged forward and began pushing back the Alaccan forces. In this process, some Alaccans were trampled to death and the Red Hooves pushed forward with all their might.

Now with the Alaccans forward line broken, the Red Hooves all went in for the kill. Not wanting to waste a minute, Blue Arrow raced flying forward, roaring towards an unsuspecting Alaccan solider. With his spear he struck down an Earth pony killing him. He grabbed hold of his spear as he flew past the now dead solider and prepared to kill another. This time he flung it forward at a charging Pegasus troop, causing the enemy stallion to do a backwards flip as he crashed down. By now, the sound of battle was in full swing.

Suddenly Blue Arrow felt something knocking him out of the air and caused him to crash down. He landed with a heavy clang from his armor against the ground. He quickly turned round where he was lying and saw a unicorn solider with his horn glowing; the blue Pegasus had been brought down from a magic attack from this unicorn. The unicorn aimed his horn towards the Red Hoof to finish him off, but Blue Arrow give the enemy troop a kick to the jaw with his hind hooves and quickly found himself to his hooves. Then he grabbed hold of his spear and stabbed it through the unicorn's face.

Streams of blood gushed out from the unicorn as Blue Arrow pulled out his spear and looked around for another enemy. By now, anything that was green and purple was killable. He had gone into a blood lust almost without thinking about how his comrades were doing, forgetting his words that he had told Shadow earlier about not to be too cocky. Again and again he stuck down Alaccan stallions, killing one through his face, another through a gap in that stallion's armour and even throwing his spear upwards towards a Pegasus stallion having a battle in the air with a fellow Red Hoof.

The spear hit it's target through the stallion's under belly and brought the Alaccan solider crashing to the ground. However, as the corpse hit the ground and when Blue Arrow raced over to retrieve his spear, he was disappointed that his now bloody spear had broken in two. Though not to be put off by this, he brought out his saber like sword and raced off flying into the air to find another victim.

"Come on ya bastards!" He roared out as he went up into the air to strike down another Pegasus pony. This time, he thrust his gleaming steel sword into the throat of the stallion. Blood spat back into Blue Arrow's face as he struck the sword into the stallion. As the now dead solider fell to the ground, Blue Arrow took a very brief moment to observe the battle; there the Red Hooves were fighting like crazed Stallions in love with danger and death.

Looking forward he saw Ares standing with his commanders watching as the battle went on. Then Blue Arrow felt rather cocky and blindly charged forward to the Alaccan leader, then two Alaccan Pegasus stallions from out of nowhere barred his way forward and then, he was down spiraling towards the ground. He growled in pain as he impacted with the ground.

He had landed in the reserve area for the Alaccans.

Now many enemy soldiers surrounded him, but Blue Arrow grabbed his sword, but forgetting his shield, and began striking blow to blow with his sword before flying up into the air to avoid them. For once in that battle, he felt like he had nearly cheated death there, but heading back to the ever-forward pushing Red Hooves laying everything in front of them to waste like a tsunami wave. Just then, he saw the hovering Red Hooves flying towards him with their swords and spears charging towards the reserve line.

"Where you going?" Shouted one of the Hooves there. "Get back there, we're weakening their lines and finishing them off!"

Not one for arguing, he fell in with them and turned round to attack the stunned Alaccan forces. Hurriedly, they quickly moved into their positions to fend of the charging Red Hooves. With the Red Hooves roaring as loud as they could, they seemed to fly faster and faster as they got nearer to the enemy line, all of them now looking quite fearful and some in the very back turning away and fleeing for their lives.

The red wave of death completely engulfed the Alaccan forces, leaving a mass pile of crushed corpses in their charging wake. Striking his sword to left to right, Blue Arrow blindly attacked at anything below them. They kept on flying onwards until they were at the either end of the line of troops.

Then in the distance, they could see many more troops retreating from the dangerous Red Hooves, but the Red Hooves took no prisoners.

Instead they kept on flying and began surrounding the retreating Alaccan forces like a swarm of wasps. By this point they landed and began killing them like helpless creatures.

"Where's this great army of yours then?" Blue Arrow taunted to a fallen Alaccan troop after having his throat slid opened by Blue Arrow. Then he looked over behind him to see now the other Alaccan forces were literally being bulldozed back by the Red Hooves. Then like acting like a second wall, Blue Arrow's group of Red Hooves headed back to trap the retreating Alaccan forces from escaping.

Their only way was to face off the Red Hooves, but the thousand somewhat Alaccan soldiers of any pony race were quickly overwhelmed by the two half's of Red Hooves as the closed the gap on them, picking them off one by one.

By now, Blue Arrow felt like he was on cloud nine, the battle was going to be a victory for the Red Hooves. In almost an hour, the vast Alaccan army had been reduced to half it's sized by the smaller number of Red Hoof forces, who in turned had seemly not lost one comrade during the course of the battle.

Surely Celestia had to be watching over them to have been aiding them?

Whatever might be the case for the Red Hooves' victory in this battle; the surviving Alaccans were utterly routed as many of them fled for the mountains to escape the onslaught that had enfolded before them. The lucky Pegasus types flew as fast as they could managed, but the ground based ponies were quickly killed off by the arrogant Red Hooves, who seemed by now not wanting any survivors from this battle.

As Blue Arrow finished off an Earth pony, he looked up to see Ares in the distance watching the battle. Oh, how he came close to killing him off (or so he thought!) He noticed Ares still with a small smile on his lips as his commanding generals could only watch in horror as their army was routed. Then with a flash, the group was teleported away by Ares from the site.

Why was Ares still smiling despite losing this battle? It did break his train of thought during the battle, which now, the Red Hooves started with their taunting and chanting again as the lucky Alaccan troops still on the run fled for the mountains.

"Cowards!"

"Scum!"

"Crap fighters!"

Those were only just a handful of insults the Red Hooves spat at the retreating forces. Then, the cries from the Red Hooves became less and less until they were silenced. Noticing this, Blue Arrow turned round to see their commanders walk through the ranks, covered in spits of blood from the battle.

Each of them looked serious from before the battle, had something gone wrong?

Then they walked up on top of a small mound and observed the battlefield around them. The ground was stained black with blood, bodies of Alaccan soldiers piled upon one another. Incredibly, not one Red Hoof solider among those bodies from what any there could see!

Then Sixer stepped forward and looked down at the victorious army, his expression never changing once. Blue Arrow looked over to another Red Hoof at wondering at what would happen next.

While the silence hung in the air like the stench of dead bodies, Sixer's lips turned into a small grin, and then, he raised his sword into the air triumphantly, the cheers and whooping of Red Hooves celebrating their victory.

The first ever Red Hoof battle and win for them.

Blue Arrow joined in with the cheers and hugged nearby Red Hooves with ecstatic happiness. Finally, he removed his helmet and shook the wet, sweaty mane away from his face before throwing it down on top of the corpse of a dead Alaccan solider. Then he began to think about it, it was a win and a major one for the Red Hooves, but there was a long way to go from here.

Whatever would happen in the following weeks and months in this war, one thing was for certain that the Red Hooves had gone out and proved that they were worthy fighters for Celestia and Equestria.

Now they had to keep on fighting to win the Farachan war.

Sixer (C) Thunderhawk7865

Night Raid

Chapter 5

Night Raid

The news of the Red Hooves' triumphed first battle at the borders spread like wildfire from Farachan right back all the way to the mainland. Though many members of the population of Farachan were celebrating like it was the start of a new year, any normal Red Hoof troop would have to wonder if similar scenes were taking place back home on the mainland. Whatever they might've thought, later that day, the Red Hooves returned from the battlefield and back into the city of Coltfast, where just as they might've expected, were greeted with a tremendous hero's welcome. Instead of flying over the city and retreating back to their secret headquarters, the entire platoon of Red Hooves decided to walk ground level on the streets and enjoy the moment.

With countless city folk either standing on the ground or hanging from windows and rooftops, it did feel like a royal visit of any kind. And within that celebrated pack of Red Hooves, Blue Arrow couldn't believe it. Sure before they went to Farachan, they were given much hope and well wishes for their success, but this reception simply blew that memory right out of the water. Who could fail to not like getting this attention?

"Ya beauty!" Blue Arrow said in an ecstatic manner as he marched within that sea of red armored Pegasus stallions. He wouldn't be afraid to admit it; his confidence was now at an all time high.

"Thank you fillies and gentlecolts!" Cried out a voice from behind Blue Arrow.

Suddenly that voice seemed to dawn on the blue stallion, that voice was familiar. Turning round to see who it was, there behind him, and milking the moment it seemed, was Shadow. His armor liked slightly dented, parts of his body had various scars snaking their way across his black coat and his dark blue eyes burning like those of a hawk. Blue Arrow also noticed that strangely to his own point of view that Shadow seemed to stand out from the rest of his fellow comrades.

He seemed to have the manner of a stallion whose pride seemed to go unchecked and never seemed broken. Hovering slightly above the rest, Shadow scanned around him.

"Alright lad!" Blue Arrow called over to Shadow, and just as he hoped, the Manehatten stallion saw him.

"Hey, hey Blue Arrow!" Shadow replied happily as joined up with Blue Arrow to walk alongside him. "Great to see you're in one shape after the battle!" The blue stallion could see that Shadow had an expression of elation, almost like a teenage colt getting their first fillyfriend.

Still, Blue Arrow was feeling the same; any Red Hoof from that victory had all the right to feel like this. "So then mate, didn't see you out there."

"Oh I was there," Shadow answered with that giant smile of his that seemed to be the size of a planet. "I was in the front row getting the full force of them…what a bunch of wimps!"

Blue Arrow cocked an eyebrow at Shadow's statement. "Oh aye? Right at the front then, I was in the third row back from you lot."

Shadow nearly tripped up over pieces of trinkets that were being thrown in from the crowd; thankfully he simply laughed it off. "Ah back there then?" He replied, "Bet you got the full force of them even back there."

"Haha, no half mate!" Blue Arrow guffawed. "Have to admit, they do have some force of those troops, certainly gave us a wee scare there."

"But not enough," Shadow corrected and give the blue stallion a smug grin.

After which, the two friends carried on their march through the crowded streets to their base, little did they know, that the day was far from over…for all the wrong reasons.

XXX

Following their parade through the city streets, the Red Hooves returned to their base and this was were the celebrations could really begin. Now as the majority of them are either eighteen or nineteen (the 'specials' being far older) the rest of that night seemed to go by in a blur…all thanks to the drinking they consumed over and over again. If any pony had never heard of the Red Hooves and saw the Red Hooves in this state (better known as with their defense walls down) they would've doubted their ability to be major protectors.

The refectory was crowded with Red Hooves happily drinking to their heart's contempt, some of which drinking to much for their own good as those certain stallions ended up collapsing onto the floor in a drunken state. Nevertheless for the majority of elite fighting stallions, they were thankfully still standing, and somewhere in that crowd, Blue Arrow and his fellow comrades were among that lot.

"…And then I met this mare with a damn nice flank," Macca told Blue Arrow, Dynamo and Sunstar a small story from before he left for Farachan, the three other Red Hooves listening to the story. "I mean, we were both drunk, but she decided to sleep with me for the HIC! night."

"As if!" Blue Arrow snorted, chuckling that Macca had now received hiccups.

"No I'm honest!" Macca blurted out in defense. "What I found out was that she HIC! may had the looks, but by Celestia HIC! she was a thick as a ton of bricks!"

Sunstar and Blue Arrow laughed heartedly. "Only you could pull off such a stupid mare."

Macca slumped back on his chair feeling rather embarrassed, a faint tinge of red spreading itself across his face. "Shut up…HIC!" he muttered grudgingly.

Only then that Blue Arrow noticed that Dynamo had been keeping himself out of the small chat among them. By the look on Dynamo's face, something was bothering him.

"Dynamo? You alright?" Blue Arrow questioned his friend, by now Sunstar and Macca took notice of the little situation.

The brown stallion turned his head over to them. "Sorry dear chaps…just that this talk about mares…"

"Mare troubles?" Sunstar asked tilting his head slightly.

Dynamo let out a sigh and cleared his throat. "Well...I do suppose you can say that…it's just…I'm sorry about this." And with that, Dynamo got of his chair and headed out off the refectory, leaving the three other roommates stunned at what had happened.

"…Dynamo…mares?" Blue Arrow questioned to himself, like it was a riddle he'd received. "That's no like him for a start."

"Huh? What'd you mean?" Asked Macca.

Blue Arrow rubbed his chin in thought. "I've know him since I joined the Red Hooves years ago, and never once did he say anything about lassies and all that...doesn't make sense why he would start talking about them in the middle of this war."

The three of them were silent; the only sound was of course that of other Red Hooves chatting loudly among each other. "…Was it something I said?" Macca asked worriedly.

Sunstar looked over at the grey Pegasus with a glare. "Well for starters I'm going to say—"

"Ah shut yer face," Blue Arrow grunted with him rubbing his fore hoof along his muzzle. "Please don't tell me that he's gone soft in the head recently."

The once happy moment with the group who one minute were happily drinking, now felt a wave of uncertainty overcome them. Then, feeling like it was somehow his own fault, Macca left the table quietly and walked away in shame. Now only Blue Arrow and Sunstar remained.

"What the hell is going on?" Sunstar asked in a dumbfounded manner.

"Maybe some of us are needing female companionship," Blue Arrow replied sarcastically. "How the hell should I know?" He sipped a bit of his cider, thinking about what had happened. "I don't know mate. My only serious guess is that some of us are homesick."

"But Dynamo has been here for about a year, and Macca came about the same time." Sunstar pouted, then he sighed. "…I don't know…he has been kind of keeping something secret from the rest of us, I've tried asking him what's the matter, but he just didn't want to say anything about it."

The older yellow stallion looked over to see Dynamo and Macca passing by the doorframe out of the refectory and presumed they were heading to their dorm. "Blue Arrow, as you are great friends—"

"Best friends in fact," the blue stallion corrected as he drank some more of his cider.

Sunstar, still looking towards Dynamo and Macca, opened his mouth, and then closed it after Blue Arrow's correction. "…Yes, maybe you can have a better chance of finding out what's up with him."

Blue Arrow paused thinking about it. "I don't know…I mean, I'm not the type of guy to stick my muzzle into things, you know?"

The yellow stallion remained silent as he slowly turned his gaze back to Blue Arrow. "I don't know…"

Then, Blue Arrow drank down the last of his cider before getting off his chair to leave the table. "Alright then…I'll see what's up with 'em. A friend's a friend."

Sunstar gave the younger stallion a small smile and an approving nod. After gaining the elder Red Hoof's approval, Blue Arrow left the table to catch up with his friends. As look around the packed area, he couldn't help but notice how happy his fellow comrades were. A tinge of irony crossed over the stallion's mind, it was strange to think that his table must've been the only on in that vast hall that weren't joining in the celebrations.

"What a bloody party popper this has been," Blue Arrow grumbled to himself as he approached the doorway that led out of the room.

As he was approaching it, he heard two voices that seemed to be singing something pretty badly, in a drunken way no doubt. Passing by the doorway, Blue Arrow looked around and saw to his left that two Red Hooves, a green one and an orange one, were the one's that were singing. The two of them had their fore hooves on each other's back and both looked completely smashed by this point. At first, Blue Arrow couldn't understand what they were singing due to them being under the influcance of drinking, however soon Blue Arrow heard what they were singing.

She strikes to the left,

She strikes to the right!

Her name' Celestia, and she has a nice flank!

The Albian stallion couldn't help but chuckle slightly at the pair, who now were leaning back up against the wall and laughing like idiots as they slid down the wall. "At least we're gonna have some laughs with them around during this war," Blue Arrow thought amusingly.

"At least they're gonna give us some peace," said a voice from the other side of the room, startling Blue Arrow, not by coming out of nowhere, but that whoever it was had almost copied his words from his head.

Looking over to see who it was, there standing with his back against the wall on his hind hooves and holding a mug of cider, was a certain Manehatten stallion.

"Shadow!" Blue Arrow greeted warmly as Shadow took a small sip of his drink before placing it on the ground and walking up to Blue Arrow.

"Hey dude," Shadow replied before looking over Blue Arrow's shoulder at the now dazed and sleeping pair of Red Hooves. "Take it the celebrations in there too much for you?"

"Hardly," Blue Arrow replied gruffly, then began asking Shadow a certain question. "Erm, I don't suppose you saw two stallions, a brown and grey one head by here did you?"

The black stallion thought for a moment trying to remember for a few seconds. "Yeah, they went up back to the living quarters I think, and looked sad as hell, something happen in there?"

His fellow comrade bit his bottom lip and uncertainty spread across his face. "No, not really…somethin' that I dinae wanna talk about in public, ya know?"

"Ah, I see," Shadow realized immediately before looking back to where the two stallions had gone by.

"...Hold on a second," Blue Arrow realised suddenly. "Why aren't you back in there celebrating with the rest?"

Suddenly the black stallion gave the blue stallion a serious stare before pulling him off to one of the corners of the room. "What? Was it somethin' I said?" Blue Arrow asked worriedly.

Shadow quickly looked around quickly before talking again to Blue Arrow. "Look man, I don't wanna get, you know, have rumors flying around…even if those two there have passed out."

Blue Arrow stared blankly at this fellow Red Hoof, then looked over towards the doorway where all the other Red Hooves were, then back again to Shadow. "What rumors?" He asked dumbfounded.

"Alright listen here," Shadow replied, his voice now in almost a hushed whisper. "Well, apparently, some locals are clamming that they've seen Alaccan troops from the battle that managed to escape."

The red-eyed blue stallion tilted his head in a confused yet amused manner. "…And the point is?"

"That's another thing," Shadow added. "Some say they've seen this sort of thing from the aftermath of unofficial attacks on the city, something that you might've heard like the rest here, right?"

"Well, aye…" Blue Arrow replied in a unknowing manner of what Shadow had planned to say next.

"Well they say that try and rendezvous with other escapers from a battle and band together to make a quick assault on the city or any other part of Farachan," Shadow concluded.

For a few seconds afterwards, Blue Arrow could do nothing than stare like an idiot at the Manehatten stallion, trying to register Shadow's words. Then he chuckled. And again increasing up a notch. And again with Blue Arrow shaking his head in disbelieve while displaying a bemused smile on his face. "What utter shite!"

"What?" Shadow asked in a stunned manner.

"That's what your worried about? Where about did ya hear about this malarkey then?" Blue Arrow now stopped chuckling before ruffling his red and white mane. "How come did I didn't hear about this then?" The thought of a bunch of survivors finding one another to put on a last ditch attack seemed almost ridiculous to the blue stallion.

Despite Blue Arrow's skeptic thoughts, Shadow put on a serious face to the fellow stallion. "Laugh all you like, but I ain't taking chances."

Blue Arrow drew in a long sigh as he thought over Shadow's words again. "…Ah well, guess ye cannae be too careful I see," his words with a hint of sarcasm in them.

"Then what would you did if they attacked right now with all the other Red Hooves drunk back there?" Shadow questioned Blue Arrow as he looked at the Red Hooves celebrating like drunken idiots…literally.

The smile that was on Blue Arrow's face earlier slowly turned into a slight frown as the words melted into his head. 'What if?' True he didn't think that something like what Shadow predicated was to happen with the Red Hooves making the Alaccans flee for their lives, but he did think about the thought of it.

"…Anyway, I have to check on my friends," Blue Arrow suddenly blurted out before heading up to the Red Hoof living quarters, leaving a rather taken aback Shadow standing there with only the two drunks nearby. Truth of the matter in Blue Arrow's point of view, he had now no idea what to think.

XXX

Shortly afterwards Blue Arrow returned up to their bedroom, only to find Dynamo lying back on his bed with his fore hooves over his face, while Macca was sitting on the edge of his bed with one of his fore hooves holding up his face and looking quite depressed. The one thing that Blue Arrow noticed was the cold and uncomfortable atmosphere around the room, like something after the aftermath of an argument.

At first, he wanted to ask them what had happened, but decided against it, the atmosphere in the room making me think otherwise. How was he supposed to tell a normal pony of how his day had gone? He had been in a major battle at dawn against the Alaccans, a battle that they'd won on a magnificent scale. He had spent almost the rest of the day with his close friends enjoying themselves, only for it to end abruptly with Dynamo leaving, closely followed by Macca. Shadow had told Blue Arrow that he predicated that the Alaccans would stage a last ditch attack on them, then again those were only rumors he'd only heard. To say that he'd been having a long day really was quite a big understatement.

For a few hours after he arrived up to the room, all he could do was lie back on his bed and try and drop off to sleep. Neither of them spoke during that while, even when Sunstar came back to the room, he felt the moody atmosphere like Blue Arrow had found previously and decided not to ask a word. To Blue Arrow's mind, it seemed childish that they weren't talking to each other like this; however, this wasn't bothering him like he'd expected. Instead, Shadow's words kept playing on his mind and wouldn't leave him. At times, he would lazily look over to the window, each time getting darker and each time the thought of an Alaccan strike seemed more likely.

Eventually one by one, each of them in the room fell to sleep. As popular as the old thought goes by the general public that Red Hoof or any military ponies don't have comfortable accommodation, though surprisingly, the beds felt like a smooth and thin silk, this itself was a request from Celestia herself that she wanted the Red Hooves to feel as comfortable as possible for their time out in Farachan. It was perhaps no wonder that Blue Arrow and the others almost immediately were sleeping like logs soon after.

By this point, the time was now 2 am and all of Coltfast would've been sleeping by this point…at least what one would think. As Blue Arrow slumbered on, he didn't know if he was sure, but he thought that he could hear cries from ponies from outside. In his current state, it was difficult to tell what exactly was going on, though he didn't really think more about it and instead shuffled vaguely on his bed.

The cries continued…and this time, a loud bang like a rouge firework could be heard.

"Bloody daft works setting off fireworks at this time," Blue Arrow muttered annoyingly in his sleep, this time, he pulled the pillow over his head to block out the sound.

Then, the sounds were silent.

At first, it felt like that was the end of it and the Red Hooves would carry on with their golden slumbers. Silence…

…Silence…

Suddenly there was a violent explosion and a dazzling bright glow of orange that filled the room, and the violent quake from the blast caused the four Hooves to sit up bolt up right, except of Macca who instead fell out of his bed.

"The hell?!" Sunstar stuttered madly as they quickly crowded round the window. Outside, they could hear panicking screams and in the far right hand corner of the window, there standing about a mile away from them, burning and shimmering the town in a bright orange, was a tall building that was ablaze.

As they kept gawking at the sight before them, behind them, they could hear one of their commanders banging on doors and shouting the words 'Get up!' and 'Alaccans have broken into the city!'

Alaccans have broken into the city.

Those six words made Blue Arrow's blood ran cold, while his fellow comrades were turning round and quickly putting on their gear, Blue Arrow kept standing there watching the fire take place. Shadow had been right, the Alaccans wanted revenge from their defeat.

"C'mon, Blue Arrow!" Yelled Dynamo; breaking the blue stallion out of his trance.

Blue Arrow turned round, his wide-eyed stunned face really saying it all. Then, he quickly shook off the expression off his face and starting preparing his gear on. It seemed that in every room in that long corridor, Red Hooves all started getting ready, thought the strange thing was, nopony had any idea what to do.

Blue Arrow and a few other Red Hooves peaked their heads through their respected doorframes; they could see Commander Sixer flying through the corridor hurriedly equipping on his golden armor and barking out orders. "Don't just stand there! Get out there and bucking help civilians for Celestia's sake!"

That was all that was needed as Sixer rocketed past them down the corridor. Almost immediately, every Red Hoof quickly dashed down the corridor following Sixer outside. The stampede of Red Hooves quickly found themselves outside and all huddled together like a bunch of school foals as they could see hovering up in a bi-pedal style was Sixer and the four other commanders loudly talking for the next course of action. Even though they were about a mile away from where the fire was, they could feel the heat from that distance away. Also, there running away from the blaze were various motley mobs of city folk, fear written on their faces, some even had various injuries on parts of their bodies.

"Help us!"

"They're killing us!"

"Stop these bucking scumbags!"

The Red Hooves looked to one another wondering if they shouldn't wait for their orders and go in and help those in danger. Suddenly, one of them did just that and flew as fast as he could towards the fire. Even though the blaze was causing the city to bask in an orange glow, but due to it being night, the mysterious Red Hoof was and all they could do was watch in stunned amazement as this unknown Red Hoof went rogue on them.

"Get back in line private!" Snapped one of the commanders, alas, the Red Hoof troop carried on flying away. "Damn it!"

"He's in for in now," Blue Arrow muttered coldly under his breath.

"Stallions!" Yelled a beefy looking orange Pegasus, named Woolwinder. "Just get in, get any trapped civilians outta there and if you see any Alaccans…kill 'em!"

Without being asked twice, the Red Hooves started flying towards the blaze, passing by many shocked and confused ponies, like the Red Hooves, none of them knew exactly what had happened. In the mad rush, Blue Arrow had found him separate from Dynamo, Sunstar and Macca, however he knew that he couldn't think about what was up with them, right now, tracking down whoever had caused this fire was to be taken down immediately.

As they arrived at the scene, fireponies were scattered across the area doing whatever they could to help injured ponies and putting out the blaze. They also noticed that the fire had spread to some nearby buildings and terrified citizens fled for their lives.

"Alright boys, let's do this!" Woolwinder yelled out as they scattered round the site.

Despite the buzz of the moment, Blue Arrow still felt tired from earlier and kept shaking his head to try and keep himself awake. He along with five other Red Hooves entered one of the buildings that had caught fire in the hopes of rescuing any trapped ponies. It would seem strange from an outsider's point of view to see the Red Hooves getting involved in the rescue side of things considering that they are troops/secret service for Equestria, however in moments like this, everypony was needed to help out with the current situation.

As Blue Arrow walked away from the other Hooves while trying to look out for any activity, a suddenly heard a cry from the far left of the room he was in caught his attention. Fully turning his body round to see where the screaming was coming from, he could see a middle aged earth pony mare lying on her back with the lower parts of her body covered up from rubble from the explosion earlier, which that itself had caused a large hole in the side of the building Blue Arrow was in.

"Hold on lass!" Blue Arrow cried as he quickly flew over to the distressed mare as she screamed again for help, her face was white as a sheet and looked utterly fearful. Oddly, as Blue Arrow approached her, she didn't hear nor notice that he was coming and instead kept looking towards the large gash to the wall.

Nevertheless Blue Arrow quickly landed beside the mare and began to quickly dig away the debris. "Easy now, the Red Hooves are—"

"Help us!" The mare screamed again, once again she didn't look at him but kept staring towards the hole.

"Calm down lass! There's nothing…" Blue Arrow tried to reassure the frightened mare, but as he turned his head round to see what she was staring at, his eyes widened. There before them, was an Alaccan Pegasus grinning smugly as he aimed a crossbow at the pair.

As soon as Blue Arrow noticed him, the Alaccan troop was on the verge of shooting down Blue Arrow. Knowing that there was very little he could've done, he shut his eyes and braced himself from the arrow…

…But it never came.

Blue Arrow heard a clash of armor and the grunts of two stallions, opening his eyes, Blue Arrow saw the Alaccan being pushed back into the blazing building next door by the unmistaken sight of a Red Hoof solider. The damned opposing troop that had been knocked back into the blazing building caught fire and screamed loudly for his life, only for the Red Hoof troop to strike his saber sword into the Alaccan's face, killing him immediately.

The unknown Red Hoof troop, while flying in a bipedal manner, turned round showing who it was that had saved him. Shadow! His dark red mane and tail were all scruffy, his blue eyes burning like those from a bird of pray, he seemed to have the manner of a stallion who's pride had gone unchecked and never seemed broken. Seeing the situation with the trapped mare, the black stallion quickly flew down to help.

Blue Arrow was stilled speechless of his comrade's almost dramatic appearance like that. "Shadow? How'd you-?"

"Couldn't let a fellow Hoof down now, couldn't I?" Shadow smirked at Blue Arrow before getting back to dig away at the falling rubble.

"Oh Celestia bless you two!" The mare said, overwhelmed that her life had been saved.

"Nah, thank him," Blue Arrow corrected, pointing at the Manehatten stallion. Shortly afterwards, the two Hooves managed to clear off the heavy ruble from the mare and in doing so, freed the mare.

Due to the injuries she had sustained, both Blue Arrow and Shadow had to help her out of the building and down to ground level below. By this point, the building they were in had now caught most of the fire that was spreading quickly. Thick smoke filled the area as the three ponies stumbled outside to see various Red Hooves in other buildings trying to find any trapped ponies with the fire ponies, all of which now, were trying to tackle the blaze. A large crowd had formed nearby who could only stare at the sight before them.

Once the three of them were away from the building, two medical ponies raced over to take care of the mare from Blue Arrow and Shadow. As the watched the mare being taken away to safety, the two Red Hooves turned to look at the burning set of buildings.

"The fire's getting worse!" Shadow shouted, as it seemed like the blaze had never changed since the fireponies had arrived.

"Those bloody Alaccans just dinae ken when tae quit!" Blue Arrow said angrily as he saw a motley groups of Red Hooves hovering up in the air trying to find any hidden Alaccans troops, there was no doubt by this point that Shadow was right about Alaccans coming back for another round.

The black stallion snorted as he pulled out his saber like sword and readied himself for battle. "Do I get the praise now for being right?" Shadow asked in a slight sarcastic manner as a small smirk appeared on his face.

"No the now," Blue Arrow replied gruffly as he squinted his eyes up towards the roof of a nearby tall building, he thought he was seeing the silhouettes of ponies on the roof. "Didn't any Red Hoof get any orders tae go up there?" He asked suspiciously to Shadow and pointing towards the rooftop with his hoof.

Shadow looked up towards where Blue Arrow was pointing to and squinted his eyes to try and see what the Albain stallion was on about. "…Wait a second…"

Then before they knew what was happening, a sudden blast of green energy streaked its way towards them. "Shit!" Blue Arrow cried and pushed Shadow out of the way before the blast hit the ground and caused a small explosion. The audience who were standing and watching the events from the sidelines panicked and ran for their lives.

The two stallions had only just managed to jump clear of the attack, which they now lay in a heap. As they looked back at where they were before, only to find a small section of scorched tarmac to be seen. Then all at once, more blasts of green streaks of energy started firing at anyone on the ground. "Cover now!" Sixer's voice could be heard over the crowd of retreating towns folk.

Just as Sixer ordered, the remaining Red Hoof troops quickly dashed over to hide behind any large piece of wreckage that they could see to hide from the relenting attacks. Blue Arrow and Shadow found themselves taking cover behind what was once a section of a thick pillar.

The black stallion breathed heavily, his eyes burning with the desire to stop the attackers. "When those orders come," Shadow explained through grinded teeth, "I'm gonna pop these fools!"

"You'll have all the time in the world soon," Blue Arrow remarked, despite the situation they were currently in of being bombarded like this.

Looking behind over to a small group of three Red Hooves huddled behind a similar sized piece of wreckage, though with them, a wounded Red Hoof stallion could be seen with his back up against the ruined structure. An unnatural stream of green mist was coming off the unfortunate stallion's left wing; one of the blasts had caused a hole in his wing. All Blue Arrow could do was listen to the stallion's anguish and painful moans as one of the stallions from over there tried to comfort him.

Suddenly a large blast of magic from one of the unicorns caused a section of rubble to fly up, and with it, two Red Hoof stallions were heard screaming as they found themselves being flung up into the air and, much to Blue Arrow's horror, receive the blunt of the relenting attacks as all the firing of the Alaccan stallions turned their aim to the two stallions and fired jointly at them. Even though the stallions were only up in the air for a few seconds, it seemed that a hundred blasts seemed to hit the stallions as their bodies were ripped to pieces like paper.

By the time the mangled bodies hit the ground, they barely resembled two Red Hooves.

Along with other Red Hoof troops taking cover, Blue Arrow was stunned into silence at what he had witnessed. The blue stallion then looked over to the commanders on the other end of the site, also taking cover, and could see that the commanding troops were just as shocked as he was.

"Oh buck this!" Shadow snapped, causing Blue Arrow to be startled and looked back on his fellow comrade, only to see that he had gone out from his cover and was now charging towards the Alaccans.

"Get back to your bucking cover!" Roared a voice from one of the commanders as Shadow ignored the orders and carried on risking his life. Despite the constant steams of attacks from the Alaccan forces, Shadow moved with a deadly graceful ease around them. The shock from the deaths of the two Red Hoof troops from earlier suddenly turned to a rational sense of hope.

Without even thinking of what he was doing, Blue Arrow suddenly found himself going out from behind his cover and charging towards the dangerous Alaccans.

"Get back you idiot!" Roared the commander's voice again as Blue Arrow went out.

Blue Arrow didn't listen; it seemed now that commanding orders had been thrown out of the window. The remaining Red Hoof troops still taking cover watched the two stallions head out towards the top, then they looked back at their shocked and disgusted commanders, then all at once they sprang out and homed in on the Alaccans.

As Blue Arrow held his sword close to him as he kept on flying onwards, by now Shadow had reached to the top and had tackled on Alaccan troop to the ground and started striking him blow to blow with his sword. Some Alaccans on that rooftop fled to escape from the Red Hoof currently killing their fellow solider, only to be stopped by Blue Arrow. The blue stallion struck one of them with his sword from behind, killing the troop.

"Not so tough then, er?" Blue Arrow shouted out them cocky.

He pulled out his bloody sword from the dead troop and started chasing down the other troops on the run. By now, the other Red Hooves had joined in and started down any Alaccan troop they could catch.

Blue Arrow tackled down another Pegasus troop and sent him crashing to the concrete ground. The force of the impact seriously wounded the Alaccan troop, but Blue Arrow had used him as a cushion for the impact, only making it worse for that Alaccan. Blue Arrow slowly got, feeling quite shaken up from that fact that the impact was much harder than he anticipated. Then with his sword, he plunged it into the Pegasus' neck, finishing off the troop.

The heat from the fire wasn't getting cooler by this point and Blue Arrow was starting to sweat buckets, the heavy plate armor they had on wasn't helping them either. Blue Arrow looked up and saw Shadow taken on two Alaccan troops like a mad stallion. As Shadow started to take on the earth pony and unicorn, it was only then that he could see Shadow's fighting style.

The best way Blue Arrow could describe Shadow's style was either a blur or a coffee fuelled stallion. Blue Arrow could only watch in amazement as it only took less than ten seconds for Shadow to finish off both of them. He had been in such a trance by watching the fight that he hadn't noticed behind him that an Alaccan earth pony started lunging him way towards Blue Arrow, it was though just lucky that he only just noticed the earth pony and quickly dodged the stallion before plunging a sword blow into the back of the pony's neck.

Looking up again after killing of that stallion, Blue Arrow saw Shadow take flight, but strangely, he was following the other set of Alaccan Pegasus that had started a retreat from Coltfast. Surely the stallion wasn't trying to pull off a one-stallion attack on the rest of them?

Whatever thought might've came into Blue Arrow's mind was quickly shaken off as he followed on with the rest of the Red Hooves to take down a motley amount of Alaccans taken cover in a building nearby.

This time, these Alaccans were firing arrows at the Red Hooves, this time, a few good Red Hoof troops were caught in the cross fire and fell to the ground. Despite the thought of helping out his fellow comrades crossed his mind quickly, he had no time to help them, but instead avenge them by taken down these enemy forces.

Blue Arrow let out a major roar as he aimed out his sword towards one unicorn troop, who looked fearful and was on the verge of running away from this mental Red Hoof solider. Along with the rest of the Red Hooves, Blue Arrow brutally stuck down the unicorn and started lashing again and again with his sword so much that the neck of the unicorn he had killed already was barely hanging on. Blue Arrow stood up and watched as the dead troop lay there in a pool of its own blood.

"That's for Alba," Blue Arrow remarked as he spat on the dead troop. Then he heard a few cheers and looking up, he could see the remaining Red Hooves standing scattered about the place celebrating their victory.

Another victory for the Red Hooves of Celestia, but just as Blue Arrow was about to breath a sigh of relive, a fellow Red Hoof troop came up to him and pulled him into a hug like an old friend. "Nothing can stop us now!" The stallion said happily before pulling away and racing across to hug another Red Hoof troop.

Blue Arrow couldn't help but smile at the overwhelmed stallion looking so ecstatic over this battle. But then that smile fell when he thought about that stallion that from earlier who broke away from the group and went into the battle without following orders from his superior officials. It only dawned to Blue Arrow that that stallion that had been was Shadow.

There had been something about Shadow that seemed rather rebellious and would only take matters into his own hooves. However, when Shadow took chase after the retreating stallions out of the city, that would be the last time he would see Shadow that night, whatever might've happened to him was anypony's idea. Then he had himself to blame from when they were taking cover when Shadow went out first with him following behind him…without following orders from the commanders. Blue Arrow only knew that he was only going to land himself in hot water after that move, or worse, possible deportation back to the mainland.

"Aw, crap…"

Revelation

Chapter 6

Revelation

One week had passed since that eventful day both at the battle of the borders and the unexpected night attack on the city that surviving Alaccan forces from the battle had tried to make a last ditch attempt of any glory. Thankfully, the Red Hooves had crushed any hopes that the Alaccans would get any ounce of glory, though it wasn't exactly a case that the Red Hooves were going to be sitting on their laurels until the forces from the south would strike again. Because of the attack on the city that fateful night, several Red Hooves would all take turns in patrolling the city to keep an eye on any suspicious activity that might be taken place. With them wandering through the streets or flying overhead silently in their signature red armor and with a sword and dagger by their side, it all felt like they were wardens patrolling a major prison, though the city folk knew that the Red Hooves were keeping them safe.

Apart from those new rules coming into place, most of the time the Red Hooves had seemed to be all peaceful with them either training or making friendships with the locals, all except for two certain stallions known as Blue Arrow and Peppercorn Tornado, or better known simply as Shadow.

On that night, the two of them had ignored orders and dived into the fight with the thought of getting killed quite easily for being on their own never on their minds, thankfully though, they both survived, but they both knew that this would lead them into bother.

At first it would seem that the day after the battle that Blue Arrow and Shadow would be taken in to meet the commanding troops face-to-face and learn about what their punishment might be. However, that had been a week ago and still neither of them had heard of anything to meet the commanders, all the while making both of them on edge the whole time. Later on conversely, they would learn that if a Red Hoof did anything like breaking orders in front of their commander, the long absence of not seeing the officers would act like a warning to them, though if they broke it a second time, then they would be faced with punishment.

Towards the end of the week, Blue Arrow was among the pack of Red Hooves ordered on patrol at dusk, with him on the ground keeping an eye out for anything out of place. During his patrol around the city streets, he had to keep himself going as he was on the verge of sleeping like a log; Blue Arrow isn't practically an early bird pony. Was this perhaps little punishment for him breaking orders? Well he would've thought Shadow would be here, but the Manehatten stallion couldn't be seen with the others, and throughout that patrol, Blue Arrow would wonder what the rebellious stallion would do. For about five hours until it was nearly about nine o'clock, they could report nothing of any strange activity and handed over their duties to the next batch of troops.

Despite the fact of not being one to be working early in the day, the morning air had woken him up at least and decided to head over to the training gym, just to make sure he was fighting fit. As he entered, he was bemused to see other Red Hooves training like he was planning to do, just going to show that the Red Hooves had to be up for anything that might happen. The blue stallion then joined in by taking the 'gauntlet run' for his training (as what it was called by his fellow comrades.)

In spite of best efforts, it was a challenge course to even the fittest Red Hoof there and Blue Arrow failed multiplies times in trying to beat it. Finally he decided that enough was enough (especially suffering with a few bruises!) and head out back to his dorm to rest. It was on the way out was when he heard a well spoken voice calling his name.

"Blue Arrow!" Said the voice, and the red and white mane stallion turned around to see who it was, and there before him, was Dynamo.

Blue Arrow chuckled as the two of them brohoofed with one another. "Great tae see you mate!"

"Always great to see you," Dynamo replied with a smile. "I take it your heading back up to our dorm?"

"Aye," Blue Arrow replied nodding. "That bloody course over there is such a pain in the ass let me tell ye. I need a break."

The brown stallion laughed. "No complains from me dear chap, come along, let's go." And with that, the two friends headed up to their dorm room.

The two stallions walked side by side as they talked about various things from either the never-ending supply of rumors from south of the border to the various goings on with the Red Hooves. It was just as they were about to head up stairs that Blue Arrow noticed towards the end of the corridor some feet away was a group of about five stallions all laughing and joking with one another playing darts.

Then again, what caught Blue Arrow's attention was that instead of darts, it was small daggers that they were throwing and that on the dartboard was a picture of the Alaccan tyrant himself, Ares. Though the scene amused Blue Arrow as the five stallions there tried to get a bull's-eye hit (which in this case was Ares' eye), there was something about that portrait of the tyrant that did make him feel on edge.

He couldn't quite put his hoof on it, but there was something about Ares that seemed familiar to him. It was like he had seen him before, not counting like seeing his face in any newspaper articles and such, but something did seem rather strange as all he could do was stare down at the picture from where he was.

"Are you alright?" Came the sound of Dynamo's voice from upstairs, breaking Blue Arrow out of his thoughts.

"Erm, aye!" Blue Arrow called up. "Don't worry just…was watching somethin'." And with one last look at the face of the Ares, Blue Arrow headed on upstairs to catch up with his friend.

He quickly joined up again with Dynamo as they approached their room; it was in that corridor however, which was when the brown stallion dropped a bombshell on Blue Arrow.

"Tell me," Dynamo inquired. "What is going on with you getting in trouble from the commanders?"

Blue Arrow bit his bottom lip and said nothing for a few moments. Ever since that night, his roommates had been predicting about Blue Arrow's fate, clearly, they weren't living this down on the poor stallion.

"…Well, ya see…they…didnae ask tae see me…" Blue Arrow uttered like a school colt that had gotten in trouble.

Dynamo put on a pouted expression in his surprise. "What? Nothing? Not even like a warning—"

"Nothing at all," Blue Arrow replied. "I don't know why and I don't know about Shadow too."

"Who's Shadow?" Dynamo asked tilted his head with some interest.

"Ah, you don't know" the Albian stallion said. "He was the stallion that was the one that ignored orders and that just went in fer the kill." He paused as he saw Dynamo looking back at Blue Arrow with some shock written on his face. "And Shadow's just some nickname he calls himself, his real name though is Peppercorn Tornado, but he says it's a crap name and all."

"Good heavens," Dynamo uttered as he stopped outside their room. "I was wondering who it was."

"Oh yeah?" Blue Arrow stopped to look back at his friend. "You know him?"

"No…no I don't," Dynamo uttered with a tinge of disappointment in his voice. "I mean, I nearly know all the Hooves in this building, but I can't think of anyone that is called 'Peppercorn Tornado'…will say it is a rather nice name though."

"Aye…" Blue Arrow nodded. "Don't know why he went with Shadow, it's a pretty common name."

"Three stallions in our ranks have the name 'Shadow'," Dynamo pointed out. "Oh, by the way, what does this stallion look like, it might help me try and figure out who it could be."

The Albian stallion thought for moment as he remembered some of the details of the stallion. "Well, he's from Manehatten, is black with peach colored hooves, a dark red mane and tail and dark blue eyes…ring any bells with ye?"

Dynamo rubbed his chin with his hooves as he thought about the description that Blue Arrow had laid out for him. "…Strange, don't recall any stallion like that…I know nearby from our room that Night Fall has a look like him, though there's no stallions called Shadow or Peppercorn Tornado who are like that."

"Mmm," Blue Arrow grunted to himself as he opened the door, with the two comrades heading into their dorm.

Just as they both expected both Sunstar and Macca were gone. Sunstar was with the rest of the 'specials' being taught a training exercise of some sort while Macca was out on the morning patrol with the other chosen Red Hooves around Coltfast.

It was then as Blue Arrow was taking off his red plate armor into his cupboard when a memory suddenly flashed into his head, it was something that the other two stallions in the room had been determined to know what was going on with Dynamo, and that as he was Dynamo's best friend, that he should ask what the matter was.

He remained silent as he considered asking his friend the question. He knew he couldn't say that it was for the other roommates sake, because Dynamo would've putting up his walls up quickly. But Blue Arrow was never the sort of pony to go in and ask about anypony's personal business, but Dynamo was his long standing friend he had made since he joined the Red Hooves all those years ago, and he wasn't going to let him suffer like that alone whatever it was.

So with long drawn out sigh, he decided that he was going to ask the fellow stallion what Dynamo was hiding.

As he closed the cupboard door, he could see Dynamo lying in the top bunk bed reading a letter. There was nothing there that would make one second guess about any suspicious activity, but what caught Blue Arrow off guard was seeing the smile of Dynamo's face wiped off and replace with a frown, with the brown stallion looking like he was on the verge of sobbing at any second.

"Dynamo? Somethin' wrong?" Blue Arrow asked in a gentle manner.

The brown stallion slowly looked down from his top bunk at Blue Arrow, his face still full of worry. "Please…I don't to talk about—"

"Oh buck that!" Blue Arrow snorted as he started flying in a bi-pedal style so that they could be level with each other. "Listen mate, I'm worried about ye. Look, whatever it is that is botherin' you, I swear on Celestia's ass that I won't a breath a word to anypony."

He gritted his teeth, as he felt like he'd said that more aggressive than he had wanted. However though, Dynamo's expression remained unchanged. An uneasy silence followed for a few tense moments, until the silence was broken by Dynamo letting out a sigh. "Well…I suppose you were going to find out one of these days."

And with that, the brown stallion hopped off the top bunk and headed over to a cupboard draw on the other side of the room that had a lock on it. At once, Blue Arrow's attention rose quickly, he had been wondering since he arrived in Farachan as to what was in that cupboard draw, now he would soon find as he walked over to Dynamo.

As Dynamo opened the cupboard draw, Blue Arrow was amazed to see a large pile of letters that nearly filled the draw to the brim. Now all the Red Hooves normally recive letters from home from friends and family, much like any war with any solider, but here it looked like Dynamo had kept an entire collection for himself. "Bloody hell," Blue Arrow uttered in shock. "What've you been hidin' all this time?"

Dynamo didn't say anything but instead handed over a small photo to Blue Arrow. The Albian stallion looked at the photo that he'd been handed over and on it was Dynamo, but leaning on him was a pale blue unicorn mare with a long flowing white mane and it looked like from Blue Arrow's point of view that the mare's cutie mark was that of a shooting star. What struck Blue Arrow mostly about the picture was the love in their eyes as they looked at each other in that picture.

Blue Arrow then looked up to Dynamo, whose expression didn't seem different from before. "Hang on, is that...?"

"Star Burst," Dynamo finished for Blue Arrow.

Then abruptly, Blue Arrow's widened in realization. "Hang on...I remember...it's that old friend of yours, isn't it!"

The blue stallion was well aware that since he first became friends with Dynamo years ago, and when they ever met up with some of Dynamo's close friends, he had notice the well-spoken stallion looking quite strangely flustered when he was around that certain mare. What history the two ponies may have had together was unclear to Blue Arrow, other than the fact that the two were old school friends.

It wasn't until near the eve of when Dynamo was giving his orders to join the first of the Red Hooves to go out to Farachan was that when Dynamo had confessed to Blue Arrow that he had feelings for the pretty unicorn. From then on, Blue Arrow was left in the dark about what happened and until this point had very nearly forgotten about the mare.

He looked back again at the brown stallion with a small smile as he seemed to understand what was going on. "Let me guess…you two are in a long distance relationship?"

"Y-yes," Dynamo stuttered and looked away awkwardly.

Blue Arrow on the other hand let out a hearty chuckle and slapped Dynamo on the back. "Ah well done lad! I will admit, you are lucky tae have her, she's a wee gem—"

"Please," Dynamo interrupted coldly, causing the smile on Blue Arrow's face to drop.

"W-what's the matter?" Blue Arrow asked with some worry. "Did something happen? You broke up? She cheated on—"

"Please!" Dynamo snapped irately, causing Blue Arrow to be silent. "Look…sorry, it's just…well…it's complicated…"

Once again, Dynamo headed over to the pile of letters, scavenging through the many letters in that draw. Not long later, Dynamo found the letter he was looking for and, this time, in a rather shameful manner, handed over the letter to Blue Arrow.

Having no idea what was going on, he quickly opened the letter and read what was on it.

My dearest Dynamo,

I do hope that everything for you out there is fine, but as a write this; I do have a confession to make.

If you will remember our night of passion before you left to join the other Red Hooves, I adored that night, but from it, I bring some news that I'm not so sure how I can break it easy to you.

The truth of the matter is, from that night, it is that…I'm pregnant.

Yes, you are reading this correctly; I'm pregnant with your foal. I'm not so sure what the foal will be, it is early days yes, but I haven't told anyone from my family about this, I do dread to think what they might say, but all I'm asking for is please…don't die out there, when the war is over, please come home soon and be by my side, I love you so much. I will try and send out more letters in the coming weeks and months.

All my love,

Star Burst

Blue Arrow was speechless as he finished reading that letter, never in all his days did he think that Dynamo would do something like this. With his upper class manners and well-spoken voice, he could've quite easily been part of the Canterlot elite. It just didn't felt right in the slightest.

He looked up to Dynamo and saw that his head was lowered in shame, no doubt regretting his actions that had caused that mare to end up like that. It was all no wonder why Dynamo had not wanted this bit of information being leaked out, but the fact that he had kept it secret for over a year now since he arrived on Farachan was nothing sort of wonder. Nevertheless, despite what Blue Arrow had read, he truly felt sorry for his friend.

"Oh lad," Blue Arrow expressed softly. "I…I don't know where to begin…"

"And that's just the start of it," Dynamo corrected after letting out a long sigh. "That was over a year ago, and the letters you see behind me were mostly from her parents, all of those from them were mostly made up from them wanting my head and cursing me to get killed out there…When your young and in love, you can perhaps do anything crazy..."

Blue Arrow was silent, the atmosphere in that room feeling really heavy from what Dynamo was confessing to Blue Arrow. Most of those letters over there in that pile from Star Burst's parents wanting Dynamo's head, he was only scratching the surface at what Dynamo must've been going through this whole time, and he didn't want to even know what was written on those letters for a start. "…But wait…that was sometime ago, what happened with the foal? Was it a colt or a filly?"

"Twins," Dynamo answered with some regret looking up to Blue Arrow.

"…T-twins?!" Blue Arrow spluttered in shock, this was just getting more stranger by the second, then again, as the old saying went, the truth was always more stranger. "Bloody hell…I didn't know you had it in ye."

Dynamo rubbed the back of his head looking uneasy. "Well…it's not something that I would like to brag about." He paused, then headed back over to the draw and looked through the pile again for something.

All Blue Arrow could do was sit down on his bed and try and process this revelation that had transpired. He didn't know how long he must've been staring into space for as Dynamo placed a fore hoof on his shoulder to get his attention.

"Here," Dynamo muttered as he handed over another photograph, this time, Blue Arrow saw that there on a hospital bed was Star Burst, looking tired, worn out but triumphant, with two little unicorn foal fillies wrapped up in white in their mother's fore hooves. One of the twins had its mother's pale blue coat color with Dynamo's dark blue mane, and the other was vice-versa with the color schemes, with a brown coat and a white mane. On the picture, what seemed like the names had been written on just below the foals. The blue one was named 'Water Heart' and the brown one was simply named 'Ash'.

No need for Dynamo to say anything about the foal's names.

Blue Arrow couldn't help but smile at the picture, and then he looked over to Dynamo, now sitting alongside him on the bed and still looking uncomfortable. "I will say, they look like a bonny wee pair, you and her did well to have them."

For the first time in ages, Dynamo raised a small smile on his lips. "Thanks but…I still feel like such a fool for this. And I love them dearly, it's just…" The brown stallion stopped and his head lowered and found itself in his fore hooves.

Blue Arrow pattered his long time friend on the back. "Don't worry mate…Like I said before, I won't breath a word anyone to anypony, I swear it on Celestia's will that I won't say anything. I mean the whole thing seems to crazy for me to say it to all."

Dynamo looked up at the dark blue stallion. "You…you promise?"

Blue Arrow smiled and gave him a nod.

"Oh thank heavens," Dynamo sighed in relive. "You won't believe how much of a weight is off my back."

Blue Arrow placed his fore hoof along Dynamo's shoulder. "Only tryin' to help a friend. But let's not get to sappy now, we're in the middle of a war, let's just focus on that for the time being, alright?"

Dynamo nodded then firmly shook Blue Arrow's other fore hoof. "For Equestria."

"And Alba," Blue Arrow added with a wink.

Neither of them knew what was to go on in the following months ahead of them, but whatever might happen out there, As long as the old friends kept fighting like they did always, they knew that they would be coming home one day…

…One day…

The Blood Bath

Chapter 7

The Blood Bath

Another two weeks had past, and nothing was heard from across the border. By now, winter had arrived across Equestria and the rest of the world, ponies of all types would've been celebrating Hearth's Warming Eve just like it had been from before, all except for the Red Hooves. Even though the ponies of Farachan were preparing for the seasonal event just like that back on the mainland, the Red Hooves, with them being constantly on guard, seemed out of tune from the rest of Equestria. They knew they couldn't wish that the war would be over by the end of the year, the Alaccans were such an unpredictable armed force that each passing day with no word from them was making the Red Hooves grow all the more restless for action.

For one Red Hoof in practically, all Dynamo was wanting was to be back home for his unexpected young family. Apart from Blue Arrow, he hadn't told anyone else about his secret for fearing about any consequences he might've brought upon himself. On one freezing Tuesday morning, Sunstar and Macca had left the dorm to head downstairs to have breakfast with the other Red Hooves, leaving Blue Arrow alone with Dynamo. Though Blue Arrow wouldn't admit it to others, he did have a longing to get home for Hearth's Warming Eve with his own family back in Maredinburgh in Alba, though he couldn't even bare to think of what Dynamo must've been going through as the brown stallion sat on his top bunk reading another letter from Star Burst.

As Dynamo read a new letter from his long distance love, he found himself holding his face up with his hoof in despair, and now had started to sob quietly to himself. Blue Arrow watched from the cupboard as he was getting on his armor, he knew that Dynamo was letting his walls down and was showing a weakness that would've been scolded upon from their fellow comrades, it may have sounded quite heartless for the Red Hooves to be like that, but they were to be a force that quite literally had to show no emotion whatsoever. Yet despite that, Blue Arrow pitied his close friend. He drew out a sad sigh and shook his head as Dynamo rubbed away a small tear that was running down his muzzle.

"Dynamo…I can't even think what yer going through right now," Blue Arrow confessed softly.

The brown Pegasus stallion placed the letter beside him as he turned his gaze over at his comrade. "It's alright dear chap. Just that this one is a bit more personal to tell the truth."

Blue Arrow cocked a raised eyebrow. "Huh? How'd you mean?"

Dynamo cleared his throat as he began to inform Blue Arrow what was going on. "Well then. This one is from Star Burst herself and thankfully not from her parents who are wanting to place my head above their fireplace."

Blue Arrow snorted a small-bemused chuckle. "A' least that's no' bad from the shite that ye get from her parents."

"Yes but…" Dynamo paused as he looked back to the letter again briefly. "She'll be spending Hearth's Warming Eve with her own family, no doubt that she'll be being barged with questions about me from her parents."

"Take it she'll be taking the wains with her then?" Blue Arrow added.

"…Wains?" Dynamo questioned, not knowing some of the slang that Blue Arrow would speak.

"Foals," Blue Arrow answered. "It's what we call 'em back home. But, what is it that's bothering you mate?"

The blue mane stallion was silent for a brief moment before answering Blue Arrow's question. "The thing is…it is that for the foals, it will be their first Hearth's Warming Eve, and I won't be there for them…"

Dynamo lowered his head dejectedly; the poor young stallion seemed to have had a hellish time since he landed on Farachan's shores.

Blue Arrow sighed sadly seeing his friend like this, and quickly tried to change the subject to get Dynamo's mind of it. "Come on, mate. If I'll be honest with ye, I'm scared myself. We're a bunch of young laddies out here far away from hame fightin' fer our lives. Remember, nae matter whit happens, we all have each other's back."

The blue stallion smiled as he saw a small smile appeared on Dynamo's lips. "Yes…yes, your right."

"'Course I'm right!" Blue Arrow chuckled as he adjusted his main piece of red armor that covered his body. "I do know a lot of things…though I'll tell ye whit I dinnae know…" he paused as he walked over to the bunk Dynamo was sitting on. "…And that is when those bloody Alaccans will be wanting to fight again."

The brown stallion bit his bottom lip as he looked out their window where a section of the city could be seen. "It's really strange. Nothing has been heard, though that can only mean that they're hoping that will start to crack."

"And they've probably already done that," Blue Arrow added grudgingly. "Half the stallions in our ranks are on the verge of going rouge on us and takin' matters in their own hooves. Rumors of a another battle this month or even later this week are flying about the place left, right and center."

Dynamo rubbed his chin in thought as he thought about it, Blue Arrow was right about a growing unease that was surrounding the base like a cursed aura of energy. "Whatever happens dear chap, they're like unicorns with unrestrained magic attacks, and they can go off at any time."

The words were pretty much accurate of how to describe the enemy in the south, going off at anytime. After a short period of silence between the two stallions, Dynamo shook some of his blue mullet mane from out of his eyes before hoping off the top and heading over to the cupboard to take out his own armor. "Nevertheless, each passing day will only help us get back to them as soon as possible."

Blue Arrow nodded with a grin, Dynamo seemed to be having his own personal journey, while Blue Arrow himself was here with many other stallions like himself who were fighting to protect Equestria and the Crown. "Come on, mate, let's get doonstairs and have some breakfast."

And when Dynamo placed on his armor, the two stallions left to head downstairs to the dinning area. Little did any of them knew, that they and the rest of the Red Hooves would be giving the call…

XXX

The two stallions eventually made their way downstairs and met up with Sunstar and Macca along with the rest of the Hooves in the dining hall. Blue Arrow and Dynamo sat alongside their fellow roommates, with them discussing about various things such as the rumors of another battle on the cards anytime soon. Thankfully in Dynamo's case, Blue Arrow didn't breath a word about Dynamo's secret, though he did know inside of him that the truth would be shown someday after the war was over, if they won of course or even make it back alive truth be told.

Nearly ten minutes had gone since Dynamo and Blue Arrow had sat down to have breakfast, at this point, Macca was telling another story of his.

"…And then I ended up in this strange upper class party in Canterlot," Macca explained his story to his somewhat dumbfounded looking comrades giving him skeptical expressions, it was something of a mystery to them as to how Macca claimed to have been in these situations with some of them sounding quite ludicrous at times. What ever the others might have thought about his tales, with the amount he had told them by now, he could've wrote a book on them.

"I mean it was strange, all of them dressed fancy, and I was there with just some worn armor, they couldn't tell I was a Red Hoof and thought I was a tramp. Thankfully I managed to fly away before the guards could call the cops on me." Macca finished his story with a small chuckle remembering his tale; only to be greeted with the unchanged looks on the faces the three other Red Hooves.

Sunstar was the first the break the uncomfortable silence that followed. "Macca…why'd you come up with such crap for? Who the hell's gonna believe that?"

This was met with a few bouts of stifled laughter from Blue Arrow and Dynamo along with an annoyed Macca groaning. "Oh come on! " Macca raising his fore hooves in the air before letting them hit the table. "I'm serious man! I was on the run!"

Blue Arrow couldn't help but shake his head at how funny the scene was. Macca and Sunstar had never really gotten on, mainly as Sunstar was always the first the doubt about Macca's reliability, still, for the rest of them, it gave them some amusement in the middle of this war. And truth be told, they needed it at times to keep their heads high.

The argument that followed between the young and older stallions was brought to a halt when they heard for a call for silence coming from the other side of the room. Gradually the chattering stopped and as Blue Arrow and the rest of his table looked over to see where the voice was coming from.

Hovering bipedal style above a sea of heads, one of their commanding officers, Woolwinder, could be seen looking down on the many Red Hooves there. He waited until all were silent before he began speaking again. "Thank you. Now then Red Hooves, later on today at half past five, all of you will have to be in the training suite where you'll meet up with the rest of your commanders for new orders for you. And before any of you start asking questions, I'm not so sure myself as the orders are being kept confidential until today, when we then will spill the beans to you all. So until then, see you all there."

And with that, the orange Pegasus flew out of the room to a chorus of loud chattering from all the Red Hooves to each other about what might've been happening. They all obviously knew that it was to be the next long awaited battle with the Alaccans; the only thing they didn't know was where it would be.

"About damn time to!" Sunstar expressed with great alleviate as he sank back on his chair.

"You can say that again," Blue Arrow added with a relaxed smile on his face as carried on eating his waffles for breakfast.

"Here, here." Macca muttered loudly raising his mug of coffee in the air to Blue Arrow's words.

Oddly with Dynamo, he looked down on his breakfast suspiciously thinking about it. "Something's not right here," he said bluntly.

"Oh aye?" Blue Arrow asked though a mouthful of waffles.

"I don't know why the Alaccans would want to leave it this late for a fight," Dynamo explained to the others round the table. Perhaps the weather might be in their favor, choice of battlefield? Then again I'm being a bit too paranoid I might add."

Macca grunted in agreement. "Don't blame you feeling like that, this entire island feels alive in a strange way, you're bound to feel like a jumped up shit like that in this place."

"Also it's all right for you dear boy," Sunstar said to Blue Arrow, who had just swallowed his waffles. "You've only just got here and probably don't know how we feel after being here for a year now."

"Erm, aye, I get it…" Blue Arrow grumbled, feeling a bit left out with his fellow three comrades for being in Farachan longer than he was. It now seemed that he would start to feel the same way as they were sooner or later.

XXX

After breakfast, all around the base, the Red Hooves seemed to only talk and speculate about what must be going on in the head offices. Still, they would find out later on in the afternoon. However, as Blue Arrow headed out with a fellow batch of Red Hooves to take part in the afternoon patrol of the city later that day, like his many comrades, he could only think about what the news would be that awaited him. However, his speculated train of contemplation was stopped when while exploring nearby their base, he thought he saw another Red Hoof in the distance standing on top of a rooftop looking over to their base.

Normally Blue Arrow wouldn't battered an eyelash as he would think that they would either be another one from his patrol or perhaps a Red Hoof taking a break and was exploring the city. But that stallion looked strangely familiar to him. The stallion was dressed in the normal red armor of that of the Red Hooves, but the fur on the stallion was black…it looked a lot like Shadow.

Now when he came to think about it, he hadn't seen him since the night raid on the city sometime ago. What had happened with him? As he was the one that had refused to listen to his commanding officer's words, maybe he was currently being punished for his actions? The Albian stallion didn't bother to think much more about it and instead shook his head and carried on his patrol like normal.

It now seemed that the paranoid feeling that was said by many on this large island was finally starting to get it him.

XXX

The rest of the day seemed to go in a blur for the young blue stallion. The city of Coltfast was shrouded in a blanket of frost from the freezing weather for this time of the year. While the ordinary of the typical citizens of the city would've been preparing themselves for Hearth's Warming Eve, the Red Hooves had been anticipating for nearly all day now for what their new orders could be.

It did came as somewhat of a great relive for all the Red Hooves when it was roughly twenty past five as all of them headed straight towards the training hall like determined trained homing pigeons. Along with his comrades, Blue Arrow followed the others into the training hall, which when they all got inside, all of the training equipment that was lying around the room had all gone, which perhaps was for the best as the entire hall was completely crowded with Red Hoof troops within five minutes. Even though many of them hovered in the to help allow others find a space in the room, the place was totally swamped with Red Hooves.

Blue Arrow looked up at a large clock hanging on the wall that read twenty eight past five, nearly time for the commanders to come in and give them their new orders. Looking around the room that was filled to the brim with these elite fighters, it was quite incredible to Blue Arrow that they just managed to get all the Red Hooves into this hall.

The blue Pegasus looked around again where he was standing shoulder to shoulder with others, all of them chatting loudly among each other, then from out of the corner of his eye, he saw the fire exit door towards the end of the hall open. At first, he thought that it was their commanders arriving, though his eyes widened when he saw he came through that door. A black stallion in red armor along with a dark red mane and dark blue eyes. Shadow!

Blue Arrow attempted to shout over to the new arrival, but was drowned out from the chatter in the room. Then a thought came back into his head, what had Shadow been doing all this time? True he had seen a stallion earlier that day that looked like Shadow, but apart from since that night raid, he hadn't seen the Manehatten stallion since. Something just didn't feel right with Blue Arrow, and he couldn't put his hoof on it.

He couldn't even begin to think more of it as just then, the four commanders flew into the room and landed on a makeshift stage on the other end of the room with a giant map of Farachan hanging up behind them. Upon seeing them, the chatter in the room quickly died down as the Red Hooves all saw the commanders.

When the room was totally silent, one of the commanders named Sky Rider (A stallion that had been sent by Celestia many years ago to track down the then young colts for training) stepped forward from the other three.

"Thank you for coming gentlecolts," He began. "I will begin by saying that I'm sorry for the long wait since my fellow partner Woolwinder announced the news to you earlier on today."

He paused as he brought from a small opening in his golden armor a small sheet of paper before opening it up. "The news is still classified from the general public so neither of you MUST never leak out any information to the public as this information is from our spies."

The Red Hooves listened intently for what the news might be. "Now then this is the information. Before I begin, yes, the Alaccans have invaded Farachan, heading towards the north east of the country. Another battle is on the way."

A good chunk of the Red Hooves started cheering and stamped their hooves, all of them were waiting for another battle with the enemy, which seemed like ages for the Red Hooves. "Silence please!" Sky Rider yelled out, and with the Red Hooves being quite the respectable force, they quickly went silent again. "Now then…our spies have worked out that they'll be heading towards the marsh land in the north that is called Sanguis Marsh…" He walked over to the map pointing at the marshland on the northern point on the map nearby the coast. "It is quite strange for them to be heading up that way, whatever their cause of action for that remains unknown, though we do know that they have a force of ten thousand, most of them being unicorns."

A murmur of worried voices followed that went all around the room. The Red Hooves had no problem on taking on the earth and Pegasus ponies, but the unicorns of Farachan were a worry situation for them. They had no idea what magic attack the unicorns might have in store for them.

"Now I do understand your fears fellow Red Hooves," Sky Rider said calmly. "Me and the other commanders have made a choice for the upcoming battle…only half of you here will go out to Sanguis to fight."

A stunned silence followed. Blue Arrow's eyes widened as the words sunk into him. Only half of the stallions here would go out to fight? That amount against a force of ten thousand? The blue stallion couldn't really grasp the idea, but then he remembered that Red Hooves weren't ordinary stallions, they were the arguably the greatest fighters that Equestria had ever seen, they'd surely find a way.

Just then, Sky Rider stepped back to stand alongside the other commanders while the younger Commander Sixer stepped forward to take his place. "Now then gentlecolts, our spies have told us that if we are to face the enemy at the marsh, then we'll have to be quick in order to give them an ambush and halt their advance."

The younger commander looked round the room of eager looking stallions all listening to the plan. "Also, I can revile that me and the others have already set up a list of who will be coming over to the battle. Tonight, we'll slip a sheet of names of who'll be selected for the battle. If your name's on there, then you'll have to prepare yourself as three days later…it's time to face them off again."

A small murmur of chat followed once again among the Red Hooves. They all looked at one another all wondering which one will be going for the battle. "Who's going?" Blue Arrow muttered to himself, still surprised like anyone else.

"Silence," Sixer ordered calmly. "Also on that sheet, it'll have other pieces of information for where we'll meet up and so forth." He took a step back to take another look at the amount of Red Hooves in the room. "Until then…good luck gentlecolts."

XXX

Shortly right after the meeting, the Red Hooves went back upstairs to their dorms where each of them could muse with one another over the new orders the commanders have given to them. Most of them were either about the battlefield itself, the worrying number of unicorns in the Alaccan ranks and most notably of all…who would be going out there to fight. Like with their fellow counterparts, Blue Arrow, Dynamo, Sunstar and Macca sat around in their dorm discussion with each other about who they thought would be going.

"You know what guys," Macca said proudly to himself, earning him a few bemused looks from his comrades. "I'm sure I'll be on that list let me tell you."

"And why exactly?" Sunstar questioned skeptically. "You do know that they're going for the best among us."

The younger grey stallion snorted crossly. "Huh? You trying to say I'm crap?"

"I'd say ye have more muscle than brains mate," Blue Arrow offered dryly, earning a few stifled bits of laughter from Dynamo and Sunstar.

"Not far off I'd put it bluntly," Dynamo added with a chuckle.

Macca bit his bottom lip as he lowered his head in embarrassment after his over-confidence speech with red appearing on his cheeks. "…You never know…I might get lucky…"

"Ah come on Macca," Blue Arrow sighed as he saw the way Macca looked. "Ye might get the last laugh and even go out there."

Sunstar pushed some of his green mullet mane from out of his eyes. "In saying that, I have no idea who'll be going out there. It looks like either two of us will be going."

They paused and looked at one another, all that they did knew was that at least one of them would be off to fight.

"That's one thing that does surprise me though," Dynamo suddenly said breaking the silence. "Why would they only want a small number of us out there to take them head on?"

"Don't want the rest of us harmed or need more to guard the city?" Blue Arrow offered.

"Mmm," Macca grunted as he laid himself back on his bed thinking about it. "I'll tell you what, they aren't kidding with keeping the city safe after that night attack."

The night raid…the very thought of it made Blue Arrow cringed with shame. The one time he stood out of line along with Shadow. Even though it had been sometime since then and it was strange that he hadn't heard of anything from his commanders. Everything just felt so uneasy, like they were waiting for an opportunity to lash out at him. On that topic when he thought about it, had Shadow been punished? True he had saw in the training hall, but he was quite a reclusive figure that never seemed to be hanging around with the other Red Hooves.

Whatever that might happen in the following days and months ahead, there was perhaps no chance of him being the lucky few going to the Sanguis Marsh to head into another confrontation with the Alaccans after his brief rebellious moment that night.

Blue Arrow quickly shook his head again when he realized that he had zoned out from the current chatter taking place, this time, it was the Marsh itself.

"…It's more like a swamp if you ask me," Dynamo explained to Macca and Sunstar. "The locals say that there are rumors of strange creatures lurking below the water."

"Like hydras?" Sunstar asked suspiciously.

"Perhaps," Dynamo replied thinking about it. "Though I'm not sure myself."

Macca chuckled. "Perhaps we should sit on the sidelines and watch the monster get to them!"

A few chuckles followed, though it was quickly stopped when they heard the sound of something being pushed under their door. Looking over to the door, there laying there on the floor was the small sheet of paper they had been expecting.

"I'll get it," Blue Arrow quickly said as he quickly trotted over to the door before the others had a chance to reply. Looking down at it, the little sheet of paper had been folded up, and with anticipation of who might on this list, Blue Arrow slowly unfolded the slip of paper.

"Alright…" Blue Arrow murmured as the other three looked on waiting. "Well, we have two of us going out there, they are you Sunstar…" Sunstar punched his fore hoof into the air whispering a silent 'yes', before they all looked at the blue stallion again for who the next one would be. "And other one is…" Blue Arrow's eyes widened as he looked at the second name on the list. "Bloody hell…"

"Who is it?" Macca asked excitedly, his heart racing in suspense.

Blue Arrow slowly looked up at the others, his eyes still wide open and his mouth on the verge of dropping to the floor. "…Me…"

"You?" Dynamo said in amazement as he walked over to give him a pat on the back. "Well done dear chap!"

"Aye…" Blue Arrow uttered, still stunned that he had been chosen. "Just…wow."

"Don't worry, dude," Macca perked up. "If you don't want it, I can take it for you—"

"Shut up," Sunstar snarled giving him a bop on the back of the younger stallion's head. He then looked over to Blue Arrow and quickly trotted over to him. "Well then, looks like you and me will be in the gym training."

"Aye," uttered Blue Arrow, it felt like he had been made a leader of a country without any qualifications. He really couldn't get over it. He was one of the few troops heading out on a mission to halt the Alaccans. Little did he know, that despite how great it must've felt in that moment, he then knew that that weight of the world would on his shoulders for the next few days…

XXX

At last, something that the Red Hooves were hoping for…a battle with the enemy, only for the ones going of course. For the three days, Blue Arrow seemed to take on a rigorous routine…work, eat, and sleep. The training for this battle was challenging like any other, only this time, Blue Arrow felt that as he was only going to be with half of the forces would be alongside him, he did feel like he was going to be on his own out there.

As these pieces of information for upcoming battles were only shared with the Red Hooves and any other military member of the highest order, the general public was completely oblivious to the drama that was about to unfold. Before he'd go to sleep at night, he'd sit on the edge of his bed and look out off their window looking at the city basked in the moonlit glow and reflect about various things. Why was he going out there? The memory of his brief rebellious moment still hung round his neck like a heavy necklace. No matter what though, he couldn't keep on thinking about the past and knew that he had to be thinking off the future, it was coming to him wherever he like it or not.

On the night of battle, Blue Arrow slumbered on. The previous day's training had been really difficult for him and the stallion literally collapsed when he entered the dorm. To make matters worse for him, his sleep had been a restless one with images of charging Alaccan forces plundering the land and heading across the sea to Equestria and winning the war; they seemed so vivid that they felt frighteningly real.

In the middle of that certain dream, prodding on his back suddenly awaked Blue Arrow. "Wha-what?" He grunted as his eyes blinked on and off as he tried to make his vision clear.

When his eyes did become clear, standing above him, already dressed in his red armor with weapons by his side, was Sunstar. "Come on, time to get up," he whispered, motioning to come with him.

The younger stallion thought for a brief second, due to him just being woken up, about what was going on, then without any more words, Blue Arrow quickly got out of bed and quietly headed over to the cupboard to dress himself in his armor and arm himself. "Thanks for waken him up," Blue Arrow muttered in a hush tone to Sunstar as slid on his helmet.

"No problem," Sunstar replied as he looked back seeing their fellow two comrades still fast asleep. "We better hurry, they'll be leaving soon."

Blue Arrow quickly pulled out his spear from the back of the cupboard before opening the door for them. "Alright then, let's go."

The older yellow stallion was the first to leave the room before Blue Arrow took a final look at the other two stallions left in the room. "…Wish us luck lad," Blue Arrow muttered a pray to himself before closing the door quietly and followed his comrade down the corridor.

Along the way, they encountered other stallions that were joining them for the trip to Sanguis Marsh. Blue Arrow didn't have any idea how many Red Hooves would be going along with them, but when they joined with their fellow troops outside, both he and Sunstar were stunned to see about two thousand to the thousand Red Hooves all standing about in the night air awaiting to head off.

"Is this the lot that's comin'?" Blue Arrow asked Sunstar dumbfounded as he quickly turned his head round to see if any more were behind them, though only about ten followed suit. "This against their lot?!"

Flying Sunstar just looked on shaking his head. "Celestia save us," he muttered to himself. Already it seemed that he'd lost hope for a victory.

Blue Arrow was about to injected something into the conversation when the sight of their four commanders flying overhead to the front of the pack stopped the blue stallion from carrying on. Like himself, many others stopped chattering when they saw them hovering in the air.

"Right then boys," Woolwinder said. "Glad your all here, tonight, we travel to the marsh and at dawn, well…you just do your stuff to rout them, understand?"

"Yes sir!" The Red Hooves replied back, though there were some forms of uncertainty in some voices…

Woolwinder looked back at his fellow commanders who all gave him a nod for them to go. Then he pulled out his sword from his side and raised it into the air. "Come Red Hooves…time to fight again…for Equestria!"

And with those words, the commanders and their small platoon of Red Hooves flew silently out of the city and to the marsh. It was just then as they were about to fly over the city's walls and into the open countryside, was when Blue Arrow (who now had gone in front of Sunstar by some ten feet) looked out from the corner of his eye a Pegasus stallion approaching the flying ranks of fighters. At first, Blue Arrow thought it was a late person, but he gasped when he saw that the stallion was Shadow!

The black Pegasus stallion didn't seem to notice the stunned Blue Arrow as he flew up into a line of Red Hooves in front of the blue stallion. "Shadow!" Blue Arrow uttered loudly, which black stallion heard his name and turned round to face Blue Arrow.

"Hey, it's you!" Shadow said with a smile as he pulled back to fly alongside Blue Arrow. "So then, how have you—"

"Never mind that," Blue Arrow snapped angrily. "Where the hell have ye been since that night attack?"

Shadow paused before shrugging his shoulders. "Nowhere…just hanging around the others, why?"

Blue Arrow raised an eyebrow. "What? Ya mean that you haven't been sent tae the commanders tae get punishment?"

"For what?" Shadow asked confused looking.

Blue Arrow sighed in annoyance and rolled his eyes. "Ye know what I mean, you breaking out of line like that without orders."

"Ohh," Shadow replied nodding as he remembered. "Ah that…well somepony had to help them out and we were just standing like idiots watching the blaze. Why did you get punished?"

"...Well...no..."

"Then why you complaining then?"

The blue stallion didn't bother saying anymore; he didn't want to rub off Shadow the wrong way, especially on the eve of battle. Instead, the talk ended on an awkward note. It didn't matter what Blue Arrow must of thought what was going through Shadow's head about that night, they had a battle to win, one that any Red Hoof there knew that they couldn't afford to lose.

XXX

Despite it being quite small on the map, Farachan was surprisingly quite vast when it comes to flying over the land by yourself. The Red Hooves gracefully flew over the tumbling green landscapes in the very early hours of the morning, Celestia would be lowering the moon and raising the sun at any moment.

For Blue Arrow, the flight had been a silent affair for him, as he wouldn't now go into conversation with Shadow as he could sense tension brewing between them. The black stallion seemed to think the same thing as he had flown out further in front of Blue Arrow.

"Oh lad," Blue Arrow sighed sadly to himself as he looked down on the world below him. "I don't want tae sound like an arse, but there's something about ye I cannae get about ye."

And so whatever thoughts he and any other Red Hooves might've had, they simply shook them off and carried on their journey to Sanguis Marsh. The journey itself seemed to take forever and during the journey it had started to get foggy which resulted the Red Hooves to fly lower in order to get better visibility as possible. It must also be interesting to note that the Red Hooves hadn't done more exploration of Farachan as they had always been behind the city walls of Coltfast so there was quite a sense of the unknown among the elite fighters.

Finally, the morning sun began to rise and quickly burned away the fog that had developed and at last, Blue Arrow could stare around him at what was Sanguis Marsh. The land was completely barren and miserable with various large pools of deep water scattered all around the sight. It only then dawned on Blue Arrow that with the land being nearly flat, taking cover from attacks was going to be difficult.

"Attention! Lower!" Cried out Woolwinder from the front as he motioned his fore hoof down to the armed forces behind him. Like a herd of birds, the gently flew down to an open section of ground that wasn't uneasy to land on.

Quickly, they all landed and began looking all around them at how vast the Marsh was. There didn't seem to be a hill, mountain, tree or living soul anywhere. All they could here was the faint crashing sound of waves with them being somewhere along the coast.

At that moment when Blue Arrow was looking around him, Sunstar trotted up to him, he himself looking around at the forsaken piece of land.

"So this is it then?" Sunstar asked in a dumbfounded manner. "We face of the Alaccans here? Well, can't say it isn't a place I'd like to die."

"Same here," Blue Arrow muttered as he felt the spongy wet ground below his hooves. "But if it's here we fight, then it's fine by me."

The two of them remained silent as all the other Red Hooves started preparing themselves by either sharpening swords with any rocks nearby, giving each other last words of encouragement and keeping an eye out for the Alaccan army.

Blue Arrow kept an eye out on Shadow, who was one of the few looking out for the enemy. Oddly, he didn't look like mingling with the others that made him seem to stand out from them. The silence that hung around the air made Blue Arrow feel uneasy that someone or something was watching them.

"Sunstar, I don't like this," Blue Arrow uttered worriedly. "Something's no' right"

The yellow stallion sighed. "Ah don't worry, this island makes you feel crazy, it's just getting to you, remember?"

"Er, aye, of course," Blue Arrow replied hesitantly. "I mean, it should be easy tae spot them, all flat here and nowhere to hide."

There was suddenly a strange sound like that whirring sound from the far side of the field. All the Red Hooves quickly pulled out their spears and hurriedly went back-to-back in a hedgehog formation with their commanders in the center.

"Hold your ground!" Yelled out Sixer as he frantically looked around for the source of the sound.

Then as quickly as it came, the sound ceased. Stallions within that formation had no idea what was going on and all scanned all around them for any sign of Alaccans.

Just silence.

"What's happenin'?" Blue Arrow whispered to an orange stallion beside him.

The orange Pegasus panted heavily in fear. "I don't—"

He was then cut off when suddenly they all saw countless little balls of purple energy surrounding them, only for the Red Hooves to see that the source of where the purple energy was coming from many transparent unicorns. Then the transparency faded away, and there all around them was unicorn troops in familiar green and purple armor…Alaccan troops.

"Oh shite!" Blue Arrow uttered in horror that they had run into a trap.

Then without warning, the unicorns fired their bursts of energy and the Red Hooves quickly scrambled out of the formation and into the air. Blue Arrow didn't bother to look back as he could he several Red Hooves screaming in pain as some were hit in the relentless attack.

At the very front, the commanders were flying away, only for Commander Sky Rider to stop and turn around to face the retreating Red Hooves and bark out orders. "What you doing? Bucking kick their flanks for Celestia's sake!"

In a tight U-turn formation, The Red Hooves quickly turned round and charged down on to the Alaccan forces. Blue Arrow then noticed in several places below them was several bodies of killed Red Hoof troops all lying in pools of their own blood, due to the intense blasts that had blown a hole through their bodies.

In the mad dash to face off the Alaccans, it didn't seem to come to Blue Arrow's mind that they were outnumbered five to one, all that did matter however was kill the enemy and get out of there.

The blue stallion roared as he lunged forward with his spear into face of a unicorn solider and brought him to the ground. As the other Red Hooves rained down upon the Alaccan forces, Blue Arrow didn't bother digging out his spear from the face of the fallen enemy troop and instead pulled out his sword to strike down many nearby Alaccan troops.

"Come on ye bastards!" Blue Arrow yelled as he punched an earth pony solider to the face before finishing him off by plunging his sword into an open area of the stallion's neck. All around him, it seemed that every stallion on the enemy side all seemed to attack him as Blue Arrow did his best to fight them all off by either striking blow to blow with his sword, punching them with his other fore hoof or giving them a buck kick with his hind legs. He couldn't fly out of that crowded scene, as they all seemed to be pushing him to the ground in order for him not to escape.

Blood seem to fly everywhere and for Blue Arrow, he had no idea how many of his comrades were still alive or even if he was the only one there. Then out from the corner of his eye, he just barely noticed a unicorn fire a bolt of dark magic at him, sending him flying over the heads of several troops before crash landing on top of two Alaccan fighters.

He barely had time to react when several Alaccan earth ponies surrounded him and prepared to finish him off and braced himself for end. But it never came. Instead, he heard cries of pain from those ponies and he opened his eyes to see none other than Shadow fighting off the Alaccans. The black stallion was bathed in sweat and blood, his armor barely hanging together and his own sword was so bloody that it looked like he had dipped it in a bucket of red paint.

Snapping out of his trance with what he was watching, Blue Arrow quickly grabbed his sword (his spear long forgotten at this point) and began taking on Alaccans side-by-side with Shadow.

"Think you needed some help," Shadow said over to Blue Arrow as he tackled a charging Alaccan Pegasus to the ground before snapping that stallion's neck.

"You can say that again!" Blue Arrow called over lunged forward at an Alaccan unicorn (one of the two that he had landed on) about to fire and blast of magic before Blue Arrow slashed off the neck of the unicorn. Blood seem to spat on to the blue stallion's face from the headless stallion as the corpse fell to the ground.

"Damn you look like a psychopath!" Shadow laughed as Blue Arrow looked over to him with his face marked with blood.

"Oh aye?" Blue Arrow replied with a chuckle. "Look at ye, you look more like the part!"

Shadow didn't hear him as he suddenly found himself surrounded by Alaccan Pegasus forces and tried his best to fend them off.

"No!" Blue Arrow yelled as he raced forward to help him, only then to be blasted to the side by yet another unicorn magic attack. He found himself flying hitting a wall of other Red Hooves and the force of the impact caused both his wings to snap in a sickening crack.

"…B-bloody…unicorns," Blue Arrow uttered as he lay there curled up in the mud. All he could watch was seeing other Red Hooves still fighting and shockingly getting killed. The wet ground was starting to become black with blood, with the bodies becoming more of Red Hooves than that off Alaccans.

"No…" Blue Arrow uttered strenuously as he tried to stand up, which was painful with both his wings broken. All around him, the Red Hooves were getting routed and some had started to fall back into the lines with fear written on their faces.

The pack of troops he had crashed into started slowly moving backwards as more and more of their own troops fell. Looking up into the air, Blue Arrow could see their commanders looking helplessly at the massacre below them, nothing but the sounds of swords clashing, magic blasts and the cries of death echoing throughout the stinking air of death.

"What'd we do?" Sixer exclaimed to Sky Rider, he himself was speechless and stunned…it was a disaster of leadership, neither the other two commanders had any idea how to pull together.

Then came a sentence from Sixer that neither any Red Hoof in any of their hearts could ever hope to hear.

"Fall back! Retreat!"

A muttering of shock and horror followed from the Red Hooves who neither could believe this could happen, they were suppose to be like gods…it only showed that they were mortal.

"Come on! The battle's lost!" Sixer yelled out again before flying away from the battlefield.

"What? Get back here you fool!" Roared Woolwinder. Only then to see to his horror that the Red Hooves were flying away following the younger commander away from the site.

The battle was lost.

As Blue Arrow couldn't fly, he was quickly assisted by two other Red Hoof stallions and flown away from the battle. Blue Arrow looked down helplessly as many thousands of Alaccan soldiers mocking at them, and neither sign of Shadow within that sea of green and purple armor.

But the Alaccans were not giving up so easily; instead the unicorns fired more blasts of that purple energy from earlier in the battle at the retreating Red Hooves. Despite flying as fast as they could, several Red Hooves were caught in the fire and tumbled to the ground.

Blue Arrow uttered a silent pray for himself as he shut his eyes. "Celestia…please get these stallions back—"

A blast of energy suddenly caught the three of them and Blue Arrow tried frantically to fly his wings, only causing him more pain in their current state. Instead, he tumbled towards the ground. Everything around him seem to go silent as he fell, memories of his life went by his eyes, then he hit the edge of a body of water and was knocked out on impact before his body bounced and fell into the deep muddy water.

The battle was a disaster for not the Red Hooves, but for all of Equestria. And to make matters worse…this battle was on the day of Hearth's Warming Eve.

The Unknown Red Hoof

Chapter 8

The Unknown Red Hoof

Darkness. The only thing that Blue Arrow could see or even feel in the moment he was in. Everything seemed confusing; he couldn't remember anything from what had happened, it was like he was awake during a coma. Gradually, he felt a terrible pain explode in his wings that become worse every second. He then began to feel voices, very muffled they were, but slowly they became more audible like that of the sound of waves crashing against the rocks.

"Look!"

"He's…he's coming round!"

"He's not dead!"

The darkness slowly began to go away and a bright white light became the only thing that he could see in front of him. Then his body felt itself lurching forward into the light.

XXX

With his eyes firmly shut, Blue Arrow let out an agonizing groan with his teeth gritting in pain. The pain in his wings was excruciating as he tried heavy pants to calm himself down.

"Freighted the life out of us!" Said a female voice nearby him. Slowly opening his eyes, he looked around and found himself in a bed with his bottom torso wrapped in some bandages with some IV cables attached to him. Looking around him, there were many beds with many other Red Hooves all receiving medical attention from medics either stallion or mare.

He looked around and sighed when he saw where he was. The medical room. An area that he had hoped he'd never come across during his time during this war.

He then cast his eyes over to see a pale blue earth pony nurse beside his bed looking at him with great concern. "Thank heavens your still alive," expressed the mare with great relive.

"Wh…what happened?" Blue Arrow voiced faintly, groaning slightly from his broken wings.

"You and the others were...routed in that battle," the nurse explained sadly. "I'm sorry…but you lost the battle."

Blue Arrow stared at the mare stunned at what he had been told, then he sighed forlornly; he remembered the call for retreat from the commanders and him getting struck from one of the deadly magic blasts. But then it came to his attention that he had ended up mangled on the marsh back there and he somehow must've gotten out of there alive without being captured by the Alaccan forces.

"How'd I get out of there then?" Blue Arrow asked propping himself up on the bed.

"I…I don't know," the blue mare confessed, her eyes glancing away from him. "All I know is that you were brought in here quite late from one of the Red Hooves, a black stallion, and that your wings were badly injured."

A black stallion? The blue Pegasus knew that it had to be Shadow that must've saved him back there. But why? He didn't know and instead gazed around the room seeing all the wounded Red Hooves being treated by medical staff, some more badly than others with either wings or hooves missing. "Celestia above…how long have I been out for?"

The pale blue earth pony remained silent for what seemed like a minute. "…You've…been out unconscious for two days."

"What?!" Blue Arrow spluttered as his eyes went wide as dinner plates.

"I know sir," the nurse replied sadly. "When you came in, I feared that you were not able to be saved from the wounds you picked up." She looked down over his scarred body, it felt like some person had given him these wounds by slashing a knife over him. "It's nothing sort of a miracle that you survived. Had it not been for your wings, you could've been out of here and back with the others."

A sense of guilt seemed washed over the Red Hoof solider, out for two days? He dreaded to think what the public back on the mainland was feeling for them losing that battle. Still, they weren't the invincible force that the media had hyped them up to be, they were bound to lose a battle someday, only that Blue Arrow didn't think that he would be one of the unlucky ones for that particular battle and that it would be so soon.

"I do have some good news though, sir," the mare spoke up to gain the stallion's attention. "We're letting in visitors at this hour, I'll leave you with your friends to catch up on things."

"Alright then lass," Blue Arrow nodded in reply as she trotted over to the other side of the room to check up on another patient across from him with a badly scared face.

The blue Pegasus fell back on his bed and stared upwards towards the grey ceiling. He could only think that his friends must've thought he had been killed out there, but what of Flying Sunstar? That made his blood turn to ice; he had lost him during the mad final moments of the battle before the retreat. He prayed to Celestia that he was all right, but as he looked around the room of the many injured stallions on their beds, Blue Arrow could see none of them that looked like his older comrade and friend.

Maybe he was one of the lucky ones? He didn't know, all he did know was that he was in a medic room, along with what seemed like the survivors all in this room. Blue Arrow sighed dejectedly as he fell back on the bed, cringing a little as he fell back on the bed due to his badly injured wings. "Well Celestia," he muttered to himself. "Isn't this a fine mess? We lose a battle and I don't want to know how things are over there."

And so the Pegasus lay there lazily looking up at the grey ceiling and started wondering when he was going to get out of here. Wondering…

XXX

Time went by at a snail's pace with the only thing that the young troop could do was look at all the other wounded Red Hooves…wounded Red Hooves, an image that perhaps the Equestrian public did not want to see as they had hyped them up as gods.

Blue Arrow rubbed the side of his face in boredom, it didn't help either that the two Red Hooves in beds either left or right of him were both fast asleep, and Blue Arrow being the somewhat gentlecolt he could act at times decided not to bother them.

As he was thinking about what to do, an purple earth pony nurse with a deep blue mane and tail entered the room. "Attention all!" She ordered (her voice sounding quite raspy), gaining the attention of the Red Hooves straight away. "You'll be please to know that now it is visitor hour and that many of your fellow comrades are out there waiting to see you, so make yourselves comfortable."

She headed over the door from the other end of the room and opened it to reveal a mass of Red Hooves to enter the room and find their chosen friend that would be somewhere in this room. "Amazing," Blue Arrow chuckled to himself. "Nothin' 'appens in here, then suddenly, everythin' happens at once." He chuckled at his own joke, only to stop when he heard a familiar voice.

"There he is!" said the voice, and as Blue Arrow looked in the direction of where the voice was coming from, there was his close friends, Dynamo, Sunstar and Macca.

"Lads!" Blue Arrow greeted happily as his three friends trotted over to him.

"You won't believe how lucky you are!" Dynamo said in incredulity.

"Hey, ye cannae put a lad like myself doon that easily!" Blue Arrow replied with a smile. However his smile soon vanished when he looked over at Sunstar's face, red rims around his eyes with some scars over his face.

"Bloody hell, what happened to ye?" Blue Arrow asked in alarm.

"Those damn unicorns of there's!" Sunstar replied through gritted teeth. "I had a close one too, nearly blinded me as we were retreating." He paused briefly as he blinked his eyes a couple of times. "Mind you, my vision has been getting blurry, think I'm needing some glasses."

"Would suit you," Macca offered dryly, which led to the older yellow stallion to glare at him.

"…So…what happened after that battle?" Blue Arrow questioned the three, all of them looking back at him with sorrow on their faces.

"Terrible," Dynamo sighed with him closing his eyes as he remembered. "When we found out here that you guys had been defeated…oh Celestia, we all thought it was a cruel joke until the first bodies of our boys turned up here."

A chill went up Blue Arrow's spine as the image of bodies of Red Hoof soldiers arriving back to Coltfast. "Oh no…take it the public didn't take too well?"

"Awful," Sunstar replied sadly shaking his head. "You could say that while they were suppose to be celebrating Hearth's Warming, the news of our defeat made the celebrations horrific. A night of national trauma for Equestria."

"I don't even want to think what must've been going on," Blue Arrow said dejectedly.

"That's not the end of it," Macca added. "The militant generals over there have gotten cold hooves on us and that they are planning to build bases for the Equestrian army in every major town and city on the mainland in case of the Alaccans decide to invade by sea."

The blue stallion was speechless as he heard this. All of this in the time that he was unconscious that back home they had started planning for military bases to be built back home for fear of a defeat. "I…I can't believe this," he uttered in a dumbfounded manner.

"Neither can we," Sunstar replied grimly.

An uncomfortable silence fell among the four friends. Blue Arrow still couldn't understand that after their first victory at the borders that the Red Hooves had to end up like this, but then he narrowed his eyes at the other three troops.

"Lads…" He began clearing his throat. "We lost that battle aye, but we haven't lost the war now haven't we?"

The three Hooves looked at one another with some uncertain looking nods. "I might no' have power to lead nor have a rat's arse idea of how to lead an army, but I do believe that we need to rally up and take them on again."

The reaction from Sunstar, Dynamo and Macca remained unchanged from before, but then a small smile appeared on Dynamo's face as he looked at the rest of them. "Yes…yes your quite right dear chap. We can't think about our past like that, that's in the past. We have to keep going forward in our hope of winning the war."

Blue Arrow shifted a bit in his bed. "Hey Dynamo, who's suppose to be given the motivational speech here? You or me?"

A few chuckles followed from them at Blue Arrow's joke. "But seriously," Blue Arrow added. "Dynamo's right, we have to look forward, and if we can win a battle then sure to hell we can win a war." He grunted in slight pain from his wings.

"Damn your wings look like hell!" Macca exclaimed as he peered to the left to see the blue stallion's smashed wings.

"Aye that…" Blue Arrow muttered. "They say the bones in them were completed scunnered when I hit the ground like that, mind you, with some magic medical skills they have here, they say my wings will be ok within two days hopefully, then I'll be out of here."

"Celestia almighty," Sunstar uttered as he eyed the broken wings. "No disrespect though, but I'd hate to be you right now."

"Don't ye all?" Blue Arrow remarked with a cocky smirk.

Just then a mare's voice was heard on the other side of the room. "Visiting time's over now! Everyone leave now!"

Blue Arrow extended his forehoof forward to give his three comrades each a pat on their shoulders. "Well lads, guess that's that then, dinnae ye worry now, I'll be out before ye know it."

"Get better soon," Dynamo replied with a smile before he and the others joined the crowd as they headed out of the hospital room.

As he watched Dynamo, Sunstar and Macca leave the room, the stallion still had doubts on his mind. Though he had said to them that they'd win the war, he was to fair still doubting his own claim. Another thing was the whereabouts of a certain black stallion that so happened to have saved his life from that hell of a marshland.

"Oh Shadow," the blue Pegasus uttered to himself. "You are quite an enigma around here."

XXX

From then on, the day went by fairly quick, mainly at the fact that the injured Red Hoof solders had either the newspaper or various magazines they could read to keep them occupied. That was quite a great relive for them as for goodness knows how long each of them had been cooked up in this room.

First Blue Arrow would read one of the newspapers to read about what was happening back in Equestria while at the same time musing of various subjects to the other bedside troops. After that he would later read the sports news from his homeland of Alba, mostly though the Hoofball section (or soccer as those in Equestria would call it, much to Blue Arrow's chagrin.) There he cursed that his colthood home team, Maredinburgh City, were sitting third in the league table and had lost a crucial game in which they could've gone into second place.

"That stupid striker…" Blue Arrow thought angrily shaking his head.

It was just in that moment that Blue Arrow's looked up and saw an orange unicorn nurse mare walking with a large thick book that was being held up by her telekinesis magic. The injured Red Hoof stared at the book while wondering what this book was.

"Uhm, excuse me?" Blue Arrow called over the unicorn mare, who stopped walking and looked towards him.

"Yes? Something wrong?" The mare asked

"No," Blue Arrow replied. "Just wondering what that book ye have there?"

The mare smiled. "Oh this? That's just the name sheet for all the Red Hooves that are here in Coltfast."

"Ah," Blue Arrow nodded. "Alright lass sorr—"

He stopped mid sentence as he suddenly had an idea. "Wait, for all the Red Hooves here ye say?"

The orange unicorn nodded with a curious expressing on her face.

"Well, if ye dinnae mind, can I borrow it for a wee while?" Blue Arrow requested.

The nurse looked at the book, then back towards the stallion with a smile. "Alright then, sir. Here you go." And with that, she floated the book over towards Blue Arrow who grabbed it. After given the nurse a quick thanks, he began reading this book.

The entire book was covered in names, which seemed to feel like he was reading something like a war memorial. The names all had had either red, orange or green scribbled over the many names in the book. Reading at what the colours meant, Blue Arrow discovered that the green stood for still active, orange for injured or out of action and the red stood for deceased.

All the names were laid out in alphabetical order so finding his name wasn't much of a problem (his own named covered in orange meaning that he was wounded.) But that wasn't what he was looking for, he was looking for Shadow's name as by now Blue Arrow had been suspicious about how that stallion fitted in with the rest here.

First he started looking through the 'P' section to see if he using his real name, Peppercorn Tornado, within that book. However as he scanned that section over and over again, he couldn't find that name anywhere.

"The twat must've signed up using that stupid nickname," Blue Arrow snorted as he flipped through the pages till he found the 'S' section.

It did amuse him at first to see so many Red Hooves had a name which began with 'S', but quickly dived in to reading through the section. However no matter how hard he tried looking he couldn't find the name 'Shadow' in it. There were many names with Shadow such as 'Shadow Strike' or 'Shadow Heart', but no plain Shadow.

By now Blue Arrow's eyes widened to those of dinner plates. Shadow wasn't even on this list, not even in the 'Red' section. Crazy ideas began firing off in his head as began pondering who Shadow really was. A spy from the south? A rebel? Or even a hallucination after all this time?

He didn't know, he just didn't know what to do in this moment in time, all he could do was wait until he'd be out of this room and track down this infamous Peppercorn Tornado…

Author's Note

As many of you all know, there have been some interesting news regarding the series finale of series 3 that has perhaps wrecked 90% of the fanbase's headcanon. Whatever happens though for the next future set of stories in this series, I won't be changing any of the outlines I have for them as this is is my own AU you can say. Until then, stay tune for the next update.

Chasing Shadows

Chapter 9

Chasing Shadows

A few days had past since Blue Arrow had awoken to find himself in the medical area and hear the news of their humiliating defeat. It was also bad news for him as the bones in his wings had been shattered (with some cracks along his back to add insult to injury.) Thankfully for him, the groups of medical ponies worked tirelessly for his wings to get seen to and for him to ultimately get back to full strength.

Though it took slightly longer than what they had said to him before, his wings were finally repaired and he was able to leave the medical room, though was instructed not to be too forceful on his wings as they were not exactly strong, in which the bandage on his lower torso reminded him for that.

By the time he was allowed to leave, the New Year had started and although many ponies across the world were probably still getting over the New Year hangover, the Red Hooves still had a job to do to protect Farachan and it's citizens just like with every other day they had been staying on the province state.

Despite him being finally out of hospital wing, future encounters with Alaccan was far from being on his mind, what was though was trying to track down a certain stallion from Manehatten. Ever since he couldn't find Shadow's name in those log sheets from a few days ago, his suspicious had gathered momentum right to the point that he didn't even consider returning back to his dorm and reunite with his fellow Red Hooves.

"Come on ya bastard where are ye?" Blue Arrow muttered through gritted teeth as he scouted up and down every corridor trying to find the elusive stallion. For the last half hour he couldn't find any trace of Shadow's whereabouts. It was during that moment as he turn around the corner that he suddenly found himself crashing into something or somepony.

"Ow! Jeez watch it!" yelled the angry stallion that Blue Arrow had collided into.

Blue Arrow rubbed his head and snorted back at the stallion. "Hey! It's no' my fault that—"

His speech was abruptly paused when he saw whom it was he had met head on. There before him, was Macca. The grey Pegasus stallion also held a similar look of surprise when he gazed back at Blue Arrow.

"Damn it's you!" Macca greeted as he extended his forehoof to shake Blue Arrow's. "Well, great to see you again, where were you heading anyway?"

Blue Arrow paused as a he thought about what he was going to say. At first he was going to tell him the truth that he was going to find a fellow Red Hoof troop named Shadow or Tornado Peppercorn and question him. But in what felt like a millisecond, he quickly decided to say something else as he wasn't sure how to explain to Macca about the mysterious stallion.

"Erm, I was…well, trying to find my way back to our room, just, got lost here…" It was a terrible delivery that Blue Arrow gave, but strangely, Macca smiled and placed his forehoof on his friend's shoulder.

"Ah no worries!" Macca replied cheerfully. "I'll lead back to our room, the guys have been wondering how you've been."

Macca soon lead Blue Arrow down the corridor all the way to the dorm. As Macca happily yammered on about the usual goings on, Blue Arrow on the other hoof had his mind elsewhere. He wasn't sure how long it was going to take, but he was going to track down Shadow if it killed him. Right now though, he had to meet up with old friends.

XXX

The journey from where they were to their dorm didn't take that long as they navigated through the various corridors, while meeting several motley Red Hooves scattered about the building, until they finally found their room. Macca opened the door for his friend to reveal both Dynamo and Sunstar either cleaning or sharpening their weapons. As soon as they saw the return of their fellow comrade, their faces lit up and trotted on over to him to welcome him back.

"Ah thank Celestia your back!" Dynamo expressed happily.

"Great to see you back, even though you still have that bandage on you," Flying Sunstar added while pointing out Blue Arrow's obvious bandage.

Blue Arrow put on a small smile. "Aye, thanks lads. Even though I'm out of there, they say I cannae be too forceful on the wings. Bottom line, I'm not in full fightin' condition."

A few groans from the other three followed. "Oh come on!" Macca moaned. "They let you out and yet they tell you not to fight?!"

"Hey give him a break!" Sunstar interrupted. "Just be glad he's out and is with us again." The others muttered in agreement.

"That's true," Blue Arrow replied with a nod. "They say give 'em a rest for about a week, then I'll be out there kicking ass like a good Red Hoof. I'm just glad that I don't have to eat anymore of that shitty hospital food they give us."

The others chuckled at the blue pegasai's remark. Just then, Dynamo's eyes suddenly widen as it looked like from Blue Arrow's point of view that the brown stallion had remembered something. "Oh of course! I nearly forgot to tell you some news for what could be our next battle!"

At upon hearing this, Blue Arrow swung round to face Dynamo. "Oh aye? Our next battle ye say? Those bloody idiots in that hospital wing tell us buck all…"

Macca and Sunstar stared at their blue friend with surprised looks. "…They…didn't tell you?" Sunstar questioned.

"Nothin'" Blue Arrow answered with a disappointed smirk on his lips. "Not a scrap of anything."

Dynamo sighed and shook his head. "Good heavens…anyway dear chap, it appears that despite your defeat not long ago, our spies thankfully have cleverly managed to divert the Alaccan forces from what apparently was their main route onwards to Coltfast, right into the Pass of Malum."

"The Pass of Malum?" Blue Arrow asked.

"Yes," Dynamo nodded. "It is a very rocky and mountainous route that not even pegasus' can fly over it that easily in fear of they causing an avalanche from their wing power, it is that dangerous, so they are force to navigate over by hoof. Also, it seems that our spies have found another army of Alaccans coming over the border to rendezvous with the forces that would be in the pass."

"Then what?" Blue Arrow asked raising an eyebrow, the news of yet more of the Alaccans were arriving.

A smile appeared on Dynamo's face. "When they are in their together, we come in and give them an ambush of our own on them."

"Revenge I see?" Blue Arrow remarked. "Well, it's nice get some payback on them and to stop them from getting through I guess. When will this battle take place then?"

"Hopefully in time for when your wings are battle worthy," Sunstar said. "Right now though, this information is totally classified, so much so that not even in the higher ranks of the Equestrian military know about this, only the Princess knows."

Blue Arrow stared at them stunned at what he was hearing. Not even the military service knew about what they were about to do? Then again, the Red Hooves were Equestria's secret service after all, so he quickly shook away the thought, then almost immediately, he remembered something from eariler.

"Alright then. Excuse me, I…have some things I need to check up on," Blue Arrow stuttered. "I'll be back soon." And he quickly left them without giving them either a chance to reply or even process what he'd said to them. Though really, he was only leaving them as he had only one thing on his mind…Shadow.

XXX

Blue Arrow quickly left the Red Hooves' HQ and was soon exploring the streets of Coltfast. By this point at this time of the year, the snow that lay all over the country had now started to melt, but with it being the first month of the new year, it was still bitterly cold.

Knowing the doubts about his wings, he didn't fly much and instead opted to walk in the streets, looking for any sign of that elusive black stallion. Even though there were few members of the public walking about the city, it didn't make Blue Arrow's mission easier for him with his not seeing any Red Hooves out on patrol.

After what seemed like three hours of exploring every avenue of the city, Blue Arrow had found himself exhausted, walking all over the place was something he was not use too being a Pegasus. He had decided to call the whole thing off and began walking dejectedly back to their base, his only hope now was that he wasn't in trouble from his superior's for being out not under their orders. It was just then out of the corner of his eye on the right that he thought he heard the sound of plate armor…

Looking up on top of a roof top, he thought he could see for a brief moment a flash of red, his heart started racing as he suddenly thought about what it might be, A Red Hoof troop! Without wasting a moment, he started to fly up gently knowing about his wings' problems. He quickly landed on top of the rooftop, and sure enough, it was a Red Hoof solider, and not just any Red Hoof, Shadow!

The black stallion hadn't noticed Blue Arrow and instead was looking over the edge of the building and scanning the streets below. Blue Arrow had finally caught Shadow and now wanted to hear everything about that stallion's whereabouts. "Peppercorn Tornado," Blue Arrow uttered in a low voice, his eyes narrowing at the Red Hoof troop.

He half expected Shadow to jump back in surprise at the sudden call of his name, though strangely, there was none of that. Instead, the black stallion paused from what he was doing, still with his back turned away from Blue Arrow, and didn't reply until what was a few long seconds later. "Calling me by my real name?" He replied bemused. "Only that could mean that something's up."

His calmness didn't settle well with Blue Arrow as he began to feel uneasy, but quickly shook it off to retort back at him. "Oh ye damn right there that there's somethin' up wi' ye. Why aren't ye no' on the Red Hoof list of who's here?!"

Shadow finally turned round slowly to face him, a small smirk clearly visible on his face. "The list, what list?"

"Dinnae be tryin' tae get smart on me!" Blue Arrow growled as he started slowly walking up to the Black Pegasus stallion. "When I was stuck in that medical ward, I had a wee look at the list of every Red Hoof that is here out in Farachan, and ye know what surprised me when I was reading through that list? Yer name wasnae in it! Neither yer real name nor nick name ye call yerself, what's goin' on?!"

Shadow stared blankly at Blue Arrow at his comrade's little rant. To Blue Arrow, he thought that he had gotten Shadow caught in a corner, and the long silence that followed seemed to make him think that.

"Well then," Shadow responded. "All I can say is that I'm surprised to see you would act like that to your savior."

Blue Arrow raised a confused eyebrow at Shadow's unexpected reply. "What? What ye on about?"

"I saved you from that last battle," Shadow answered coolly. "I saw you fall from the air after you were hit from one of their magic attacks. When you hit the ground, I didn't know if you were even still alive or had just died. Whatever though, I didn't want lose another comrade's body to those bastards, as they were already starting to round up all the dead Red Hoof bodies and started roasting them on a bonfire. Is that how you want to thank me?"

Another long stillness followed between the two Red Hooves. Blue Arrow's eyes had widened to the size of dinner plates as Shadow's reply had only just sunk into him. "…You…saved me?"

Shadow nodded. "Looking out for others I was."

For a moment, it felt like the tables had been turned on Blue Arrow. For a moment he did think about it, and it became slightly obvious that he had considered it was Shadow that saved him, but then he wasn't so sure, only now it had been confirmed that it was true. But then, he remembered why he had gone out to find him in the first place.

"Never mind that smart ass!" Blue Arrow snapped. "Tell me why ye no' on the list of Red Hoof troops here?!"

Shadow paused as his head glanced sideways in thought. There was only an uncomfortable silence between the two stallions as Shadow's face looked quite fearful. The first time that Blue Arrow had seen the rather cocky stallion in that state.

Suddenly, Shadow turned round and bolted off flying away across the city leaving a shocked Blue Arrow behind. He intended to go after him, but he remember that he couldn't go fast with his wings being in a delicate condition so all he could do was watch the black Pegasus fly away into the distance and wonder about Shadow...

"This isn't over yet, lad," Blue Arrow muttered to himself. "I'm gonna get to the bottom of this soon…"

Malum

Chapter 10

Malum

Coltfast and all of Farachan were in a state of panic. For the last few days, the entire province state had been hearing many snippets of worrying news about the advancing Alaccan army that was somewhere out there in the open fields of Farachan. Despite the population knowing that the Alaccans had been cleverly diverted into a notoriously dangerous mountain pass known to many as 'The Pass Of Malum', their biggest fear was how close the Alaccans were that made even those back on the mainland in Equestria terrified at the concept.

The Alaccans were only twenty miles away from Coltfast, the key to capturing Farachan. There was no doubt that the Red Hooves had to go out there and stop their advance to the city. They knew that they were the last line of defence, (not counting several brave souls in Coltfast who had already armed their selves for fear of the Alaccans arriving.) If they were to fail, then the Alaccans would march onwards to Coltfast and win this war. To make life even difficult for the Red Hooves, the citizens, who were treating them as heroes when they first arrived not so long ago, were now starting to question their liability and even sometimes give them a lukewarm reception ever since that disastrous defeat not so long ago.

Nevertheless, the very thought of the importance of this battle made the Red Hooves' hearts fill with passion for Equestria and hatred for the enemy, more than they had ever felt in their lives since this war started. No longer was there to be a repeat of the last battle when the commanders decided on taken out their best fighters to face the forces of Alaccan, only for them to be routed. This time, every available Red Hoof that was in any form of fighting condition was brought out to join all the others, all the more the better, as they would say.

At last, the morning of the battle finally arrived. Like always, the Red Hooves were to leave in the very early hours of a rainy day, and with this being the fight of their lives along with revenge in their hearts for their fallen comrades, neither of them were late to report in to join all the others waiting outside. Even with it raining heavily on the Red Hooves as they stood outside the base waiting, they didn't seem to care as they were all itching to go.

Well, nearly all of them.

Within that large huddle of Red Hooves chatting to one another in the pouring rain, a certain blue Pegasus stallion from Alba had his mind elsewhere. Ever since that last meeting with Shadow, he had grown more accustomed to his thought that Shadow was a rogue Red Hoof solider that had gone with the others without orders from officials, though how old he was still remained a mystery to Blue Arrow. There was no doubt that if he caught Shadow if they won this battle afterwards, he would take him to commanding officials so that they would deal with him.

Casting his eyes from left to right, he tried to spot the black Pegasus stallion in the pack of Red Hooves, alas, he saw many thousands of red armoured stallions standing around with their weapons by their sides, but none of them looked like Peppercorn Tornado.

Blue Arrow shivered slightly in the cold air and rubbed off some of the rain that had found itself on his face. Though he was determined to find the black stallion he knew that really he had no time for it as he was about to head into a battle that was more intense than the others.

"You ready?" Said a voice next to him.

Blue Arrow raised a small but uneasy smile as he looked over to his friend Dynamo, who was also standing beside Sunstar and Macca. "Aye, as ready as I'll ever be," Blue Arrow replied coolly as he tightened his grip on his spear.

"Well don't worry, we'll stick together," Sunstar added. "And by the way…you found…Shadow yet?"

Blue Arrow sighed sadly as he lowered his head and shook his head. "Nae luck," he uttered. Ever since he last saw Shadow, he had told his three comrades about the mysterious stallion and his theory that he was perhaps a runaway Red Hoof troop. Though they were all sceptical at first at Blue Arrow, they did eventually agree with him when Blue Arrow explained to them about Shadow's name not being on the list of Red Hoof troops.

"I'm sure he's around here somewhere," Macca spoke up. "They way he ran away from you sounds like he ran off like a rat."

"More like I smelt a rat with him around," Blue Arrow replied dryly, earning a few chuckles from the others. "But hey, if I see him, I'll get that bastard if it kills me."

Dynamo opened his mouth about to inject something into the conversation, but was halted when the four commanding Pegasai flew overhead ordering the Red Hooves below to be quiet. Blue Arrow and the others all face upwards to look up at the commanders in their Royal gold armour.

"Alright Red Hooves, this is it," Said Woolwinder as he flew forwards in front of the other three. "Today is a battle that neither side can lose, if we win, we can cause them to flee back to Alaccan. If we lose, Farachan will fall, and I'll be damned if that was to happen!"

The Red Hooves' expressions remained neutral, though Woolwinder could see it in their eyes that they were filled with fiery determination. "That's all you need to know," Commander Sixer added as he flew up alongside Woolwinder. "Just get in there, fight like you have done before, and kick their asses so hard that they won't dare to set foot in Farachan again, Understand!?"

"NO SURRENDER!" Cried the Red Hooves.

"And what was the call!?" Woolwinder yelled to them.

"NO SURRENDER!" The Red Hooves roared with such passion that it felt like the entire city that day heard it.

"ONWARDS TO MALUM!" Roared Woolwinder as he raised his sword into the air before he led the swarm of Red Hooves onwards to the Pass of Malum. The Red Hooves flew over the city walls and headed to face the enemy that they utterly despised so much.

Like the others, Blue Arrow and his three friends had been fired up and flew in that large sea of red in the air. So much was he fired up that he almost forgotten about his own personal mission of trying to Shadow. Whatever what was more important to him, wherever it was the battle or finding Shadow, Blue Arrow was not on his life going to give up so easily.

XXX

Through the torrid rainstorm, the Red Hooves carried on flying through that terrible storm like every mile they were covering was giving them medals; such was their determination to stop the Alaccans. Along with the others Blue Arrow had to wipe away the rain splats that kept finding their way onto his face to try and see where they were going, he could only pray to the heavens that the storm would die out and let their flight over to Malum get any more easier. Regrettably, despite muttering a few words of a pray under his breath, it never did him any favours.

In the midst of all this, Blue Arrow then suddenly caught a glance of a Pegasus in some rows in front of him. Squinting his eyes, he then noticed that the wings were black and the stallion's tail flowing in the wind was dark red. His heart skipped a beat as his thoughts began thinking of who it was. Shadow…or was he mistaken? He had no idea and even if he wanted to fly further up to the stallion was almost impossible due to the vast number of Red Hooves all around him and to make matters also rather dangerous, if he suddenly slowed down, he would then get sucked through the other Red Hooves behind him like a vacuum, so any ideas to try and see this stallion were ruled out quickly.

Despite the rain that pelted down on the Red Hooves' armour making hearing almost near impossible, many of them were thankful to just barely hear one of the commanders call out an order for them to fly down.

"Red Hooves! Lower!"

They had arrived.

Blue Arrow like the rest was thankful they were here and even more so that the journey was much shorter, though it was a stark reminder to so just how close the Alaccans where to Coltfast.

One by one, the Red Hooves all landed within a large canyon like structure with steep sides and a rather strange flat bottom. Looking up, the walls stood about ninety feet tall though looked hazardously unstable due to the heavy rain, almost like the walls were about to cave in on them.

"Nae wonder they wanted to bring us here to fight them," Blue Arrow said to himself quietly. "Just knock those walls down and have them crushed to death."

A thunderclap sounded as Commander Woolwinder flew into the air above the elite troops to give them their orders. "Alright then, this is a battle like no other, not in a sense of this being the final battle, as much as we might all like to think, but one that shouldn't really be happening."

Blue Arrow and his fellow troops muttered among one another wondering what the orange Pegasus commander meant by that.

"And to answer your question," Woolwinder added noticing their confused looks. "What I mean is that I didn't want them to be this close, had we stopped them back there on the swamps, they would've been driven back over the border to lick their wounds yet again, only that time was when we received, and one that I damn well hope to Celestia that we don't find ourselves in again!"

Some mutterings of agreement could be heard as Woolwinder gave out his speech to them. Unlike the rest though however, Blue Arrow wasn't focusing on his commander's rallying speech his eyes were firmly fixed on that stallion he'd noticed during his flight. The stallion Blue Arrow had his eye one then looked up at the orange commander listening to Woolwinder's words and Blue Arrow could see the stallion had a slightly pale muzzle, dark blue eyes and a turf of dark red mane sticking out from the helmet.

There was no doubt in Blue Arrow's mind whom that practically stallion was. Shadow. He'd finally found him, though he'd found him at the worst time possible, just at the start of a damn battle that the fate of Farachan rested on. Timing was never one of Blue Arrow's strengths in all honesty.

"But now my friends!" Woolwinder added as he hovered over the elite troops. "We mustn't be bitter now for what happened, we have no choice but to turn this all around and send them homeward to think again…For Celestia and Equestria!"

"NO SURRENDER!" The Red Hooves roared with defiance, that sign alone was another for the commanders to know that their troops didn't need any more encouragement to get them going.

Then with Woolwinder giving the Red Hooves a few hoof signals indicating for them to line up within that canyon and another one of the commanders behind Woolwinder giving another hoof signal for some of the Red Hooves to head up to the top of the canyon walls to give the enemy troops the element of surprise.

Blue Arrow found himself being among the many Red Hooves positioned on ground level and the ones to face of the Alaccans first. Then over to his right, he saw Shadow standing in the second row towards the chasm wall (Blue Arrow was standing in the forth row back). "I have ye now," Blue Arrow mumbled to himself as his eyes narrowed at the rouge Red Hoof troop.

But before he could do anything, a horn sounded that brought the place to silence. The Red Hooves all stood there, some tightening their grips on their spears as they waited for the green and purple armoured stallions to emerge from around the corner in the distance. For Blue Arrow, he kept his gaze fixed firmly on Shadow as he remembered during the night raid attack on Coltfast not so long ago that the black stallion would refuse to follow commander's orders and breakaway from the ranks.

"Don't you dare think about doing that you little shite!" Blue Arrow thought to himself as he almost expected Shadow to pull off that move.

Then one by one, a few various rumblings could be heard that sounded more and more like hoof steps…thousands of them. By that point, Blue Arrow quickly tore his gaze away from Shadow and towards the long chasm in front of him waiting to see the first glimpse of the Alaccans.

The heavens kept pouring a hammering amount of rain that seemed powerful enough to cause the stone walls to crash down on them, but not even that seemed able to shake of the Red Hooves, all they wanted was to fight, win and get out of here. Then, through the thick wall of rain, the Red Hooves all caught a glimpse of green and the sounds of hoof steps getting louder.

At last, they were here where they wanted them.

"Get ready boys!" Commander Sixer yelled to the red armoured troops. "Remember our main tactic, block them out and push them back!"

Just as Sixer finished his sentence, the Alaccan troops suddenly sprinted forward towards the waiting Red Hooves.

"Oh shite!" Blue Arrow swore under his breath as he and several others franticly raised up their shields to help push their comrades standing in front of them to push forward.

"Hurry and arm up!" Cried out Commander Sky Rider as he looked over at the charging Alaccan forces.

In a few frantic seconds, the Red Hooves quickly readied themselves for impact. While this was going on, Blue Arrow kept one eye on Shadow, expecting the black Pegasus to break out from their lines and take on all the Alaccans on his own…suicidal.

"Don't ye dare ya daft arse!" Blue Arrow muttered angrily under his breath. It was just lucky then that his attention went back to the Alaccans, who two seconds later, crashed into the front ranks of Red Hooves. He and many others behind those front lined elite troops pushed forward with their shields pushing the enemy back as much as they could. Though Blue Arrow couldn't see ahead of him, all he could hear was the sound of swords clashing and the cries of death from stallions being slaughtered. Looking down to the ground, thanks to the rain, Blue Arrow saw rivers of blood coming down between his and fellow Red Hooves' legs. He could only hope that the blood there was from the Alaccan troops.

Despite their best efforts, the Red Hooves couldn't muster the strength the push back the Alaccans, both sides were at a standstill.

"Push you idiots! Is that the best you can do?!" Cried a Red Hoof from the front, and with that, slowly, the Red Hooves started pushing forward.

The screaming continued and none of those stallions dressed in red had any idea of the situation at the front. Nevertheless, various stallions within that pack kept barking out the word 'Push' over and over again.

Then they all heard the loud humming of wings from above, and looking up into the air, Blue Arrow put on a small grin as he could see the Red Hooves that had been hiding up on the walls started raining down on the unsuspecting Alaccans. More blood curling screaming from the green and purple armoured stallions followed as those attacking red armoured stallions began to utterly route them.

Finally, those on the ground level pushing the Alaccans back all felt a great lunge forward as the Red Hooves suddenly found the pushing very easy, and that only meant one thing. The Alaccan line had been broken. As Blue Arrow and his fellow comrades carried on, he glanced down below him to see broken bodies of nothing but Alaccan bodies lying around in heaps of scarlet flowing rivers.

A good start for the Celestia's stallions dressed in red.

Finally, the rest of the Red Hooves could finally take on the already faltering Alaccan troops. Blue Arrow used his new spear taking down many green and purple armoured stallions stabbing them either through the face or neck. Either way didn't matter to him, as long as it killed them.

"No surrender!" Blue Arrow roared as he plunged his spear into neck of a fallen Alaccan unicorn troop.

Suddenly Blue Arrow groaned in pain as somepony's sword made a large cut on his right cheek before Blue Arrow quickly tackled the Alaccan stallion (an Earth Pony) to ground and stabbed the damned stallion through the eye and into his brain with the end of his spear.

After finishing that stallion off, Blue Arrow grabbed hold of his spear and saw an Alaccan Pegasus charging towards him.

"Come on ye bastard!" Blue Arrow taunted the stallion as he aimed his spear at that stallion.

Just as that stallion pulled out his sword, Blue Arrow threw his spear right into the neck of the unfortunate stallion, causing him to flip backwards before crashing down on top of his neck with a sickening noise of bones smashing.

Rather much to Blue Arrow's annoyance, his spear had snapped on impact, reddening it worthless. "Celestia damn it," He snapped crossly before pulling out his sword and carried on his slaughtering of Alaccans.

All around him, the sounds of swords clashing and screams of death was the thing that he was hearing, right up until he heard Woolwinder cry out 'Hold your ground!' to the Red Hooves.

Looking forward, Blue Arrow could see the lucky survivors from that onslaught hurrying away from the Red Hooves and back into the Alaccan ranks in a desperate attempt to regroup. The look of sheer white terror was written all over their blood-covered faces; they had only been in such a short time fallen to pieces to the Red Hooves.

"Fall in!" Woolwinder yelled out another order in which the Red Hooves quickly regroup in a tight pack that stretched to both sides of the canyon walls, with them, there was no chance for Alaccans to get through now. The Alaccan forces had already been reduced to nearly half the size they once were.

At this point, the two sides didn't attempt to strike first, leaving the battle at this point to a stalemate. Suddenly, a flash of red bolted out of the Red Hoof pack and as everypony within that canyon turned to look at whatever it was, they could all see that it was a Red Hoof solider charging into the Alaccan ranks headfirst. As Blue Arrow got a better view of whom it was, his blood ran cold. It was Shadow! He'd gone rogue! His worse fears had come true.

"Buck!" Blue Arrow cursed and then without him even thinking of what he was doing, he found himself unexpectedly flying out of the Red Hoof pack and attempted to stop Shadow, who by now had entered combat with the Alaccans and was surprisingly holding up on his own.

"GET BACK HERE YOU FOOLS!" Woolwinder roared as Blue Arrow entered combat as he attempted to pull back Shadow within enemy lines.

Right now, Blue Arrow didn't seem to care about what consequences he was leading himself in for, all he wanted was to stop Shadow. However that fact proved to be difficult as he was constantly finding himself overwhelmed by Alaccans wanting to make quick work of him, but being a Red Hoof, he kept fending off their attacks until he could see a piece of red in that sea of green and purple.

After seeing it, he headed towards in that direction striking oncoming Alaccans blow to blow with his sword. Nothing seemed to be halting the blue Pegasus.

"ATTACK!" came the sound of Woolwinder's voice, but with all the sounds in that pack, Blue Arrow barely heard it. Finally though, he managed to break through and came face to face with Shadow. Covered with scars and bruises all over his body, Shadow had almost a crazy look on his face, a look that to Blue Arrow's perspective made him think that Shadow had gone insane.

Almost immediately, the swarm of Red Hooves crashed into the Alaccans and began their onslaught once more. Thanks to them, it gave Blue Arrow and Shadow just the time to speak.

"Shadow! What the buck are ye playin' at?" Blue Arrow spat out angrily.

"I'm only doing my job!" Shadow replied as he quickly dealt with a unicorn Alaccan killing him.

"Not without orders ya idiot!" Blue Arrow yelled furiously, his face now glowing red as his armour.

Shadow suddenly charged forward and pushed Blue Arrow over to one of the canyon walls, nearly causing Blue Arrow's spine to break. The blue stallion groaned in pain but quickly pushed off Shadow and began punching up the black Pegasus, in which Shadow fought back leading it to an all out brawl in the middle of this battle with the Alaccans.

Shadow laid a punch on Blue Arrow's face, causing blood to fly out of him mouth and send him falling backwards, but Blue Arrow never give up and this time kicked Shadow back using his hind legs and send him this time backwards.

In the midst of this petty fight, the Alaccan forces were now down to what seemed like only fifty at a casual glance and were on retreat. The Red Hooves had won again!

But any thoughts of celebration quickly turned sour as they all turned to look at the two brawling stallions seemly trying to kill each other. "Stop it at once!" Commander Sixer ordered as he quickly flew in the separated the two. "Stop it! Stop it!"

With the help of commander Sky Rider, the fight was brought to an end with Sixer holding Shadow back and Sky Rider held Blue Arrow back. Quickly as it started, Blue Arrow and Shadow, both covered in various bruises from their personal fight, stopped and began taking deep edgy breaths. The two stallions never took their eyes of each other as each seemed to have a burning hatred to beat each other. Only then did they both notice that all eyes were on them, and that Commander Woolwinder sauntered up to the two separated Red Hoof troops. The orange commander could only shake his head in disapproval, but anger could be seen burning within his eyes.

"You two just crossed the line boys."

The Trial

Chapter 11

The Trial

Despite the fact that the Red Hooves had utterly annihilated the Alaccan forces in Pass of Malum, sending only a handful of survivors running scared for their lives over the border, much to the relive of all those in Farachan, the celebrations from the Red Hooves had turned sour due to two certain young Red Hoof troops. Although the population of Farachan could finally relax that with the utter rout the Alaccans had suffered, they were all completely oblivious to the drama that was taking place within the Red Hooves' HQ.

Blue Arrow and Shadow's brief but furious punch up with each other nearly did cause the Red Hoof line to fail had it not been for the fact the Alaccan's moral had dropped dramatically, and now every Red Hoof troop could only talk about that punch up, nothing about their great victory there. Each one of them had their own theory's about the fate of the two Red Hooves, all of which seemed to point in the direction of deportation back to Equestria and face further punishment from Celestia herself.

It had been two days since that victory in Malum and both Blue Arrow and Shadow had been sentence in two prison cells from each other until they awaited their fate from their commanding officers. Whilst locked in his cell, with all his armour and weapons stripped from him, Blue Arrow laid back on the stone floor glancing at the look of the place around him.

Even though he had been living here on Farachan for quite sometime now, he hadn't really been round the prison section of the base, but all that he did know about it was the fact that it had been built for those captured Alaccan soldiers who had surrendered to the Red Hooves. But with the numbers of deaths the Alaccans had suffered at the hooves of the Equestrian elite side, there didn't seemed to be any there. Thus, Blue Arrow and Shadow were given the unlikable titles of being the first to be imprisoned in these cells.

For a certain blue stallion lying on the floor of his cell, it all seemed like madness. Blue Arrow didn't bother to move from the floor, he just lay there feeling bitter and angry after what had happened. It did seem though to be a good idea to keep the two Pegasus stallions away from each other as had they been placed in a cell together, they would likely had beaten each other to death, such was now the relationship between the two stallions.

Although he felt glad to have finally caught Shadow, he felt like an idiot for getting himself into bother, something in his head kept telling him that his time as a Red Hoof solider would be over. It was a terrible thought to him as he had trained for nearly his whole life to be the skilled fighter he had been trained to become.

"That bastard has to answer those questions now," Blue Arrow muttered to himself as he remained there on the cold, damp floor. "Either way, I'll find out more about that little shit soon enough."

Finally after what seemed like an age, he sat up looking directly at the steel prison bars before him. With no weapons or tools to break out, it was useless to even think about escape, and even if he wanted to get out, he didn't want to make matters for him to be more difficult as he still wanted to show his loyalty to his country, even if did mean he had to remain in this prison cell for Celestia knows how long. Feeling around his face, he could feel that he was started to grow a beard after the amount of time he'd been in here for without a shave.

Then he heard a clatter of hoof steps from across the room. Upon hearing this, he quickly dashed over to the bars and peered through the gaps to see what was going on. There on the other side of the room, he could see Commander Sky Rider and Pounce Hammer (a yellow Pegasus stallion with an striped orange and black mane and tail with brown eyes) opening the prison door for what Blue Arrow suspected was Shadow's cell.

After the two stallions fumbled around with unlocking the door, Pounce Hammer went in to bring out Shadow. Just shortly later, Blue Arrow saw Shadow, with his mane looking in a horrendous state with a grim look that could send a cold shiver up anypony's back. As Pounce led Shadow up the stairs, Sky Rider turned round and trotted up towards Blue Arrow's cell.

Quickly, he went back to his spot on the floor as he awaited the commander. Not long later, Sky Rider appeared with a key and prepared to open the cell door.

"Today's the day," Sky Rider said gruffly as he opened the door, but Blue Arrow said nothing as Sky Rider led him out of the cell. "Wherever you two like it not, you've made quite an impact around here."

Blue Arrow snorted. "For worse," he utterly coldly as he followed the older Pegasus out of the room.

"Perhaps," Sky Rider replied calmly. "But let's hope this little trial will go without incident."

Blue Arrow rolled his eyes, such an ironic thought, 'go without incident.' Anything with Shadow seemed to be a recipe for something to go wrong, even with it being a trial.

Even as the stout grey Pegasus led him up the stairs, Blue Arrow started to ponder his fate. Even with the amount of time he'd been locked up in that cell with the time to think about it, he had spent most of the time fuelling his grudge on Shadow and how he was going to make him pay.

He bit his bottom lip in embarrassment as he realised this, what was to be of him? For nearly causing the Red Hoof forces to collapse and start fighting with Shadow, his future didn't look bright. The only thing that he could do was just try and keep calm and even if he did come face to face with Shadow again…would try his best not to fight him again.

XXX

Wherever corridor Blue Arrow walked down along with Sky Rider to the commander's room (the location for the trial), an eerie silence hung in the air. It felt like all the Red Hooves had been told to give him a cold shoulder. Blue Arrow really couldn't argue if that was the case, he did wonder as well if his friends hated him too. Dynamo, Sunstar and Macca could be either worried about him, or perhaps completely broken their alliances with him.

That thought also made him think, did Shadow have any friends while being out here? If he living away from the base, then he would've had a lonely time here, a thought that while made his grudge still strong, he did felt a tinge of pity on him. He was deep in thought when the sound of Sky Rider's voice broke him out of his concentration.

"Alright Blue Arrow, here we are," Sky Rider announced as they ended up outside the commander room's door.

The young blue Pegasus drew a deep breath trying to calm down before entering, there was no way out of this, he had to go in and face his fate.

Soon Sky Rider opened the door for him and the two stallions entered the room, and for a brief moment, Blue Arrow could gaze all around the room. Sitting round a U-shaped varnished covered table was the other three commanders Woolwinder, Sixer and Pounce Hammer. Behind the four commanders, there stood there a large window that looked out upon the city of Coltfast. All around him, Blue Arrow could see the room had a plush look about it with a maroon carpet, cream coloured walls and pillers and a small statue of Celestia in one of the corners of the room. Looking to his left, he could see two doors that he presumed were the sleeping quarters and the bathroom.

Also in that direction, was the sight of Blue Arrow's archrival Peppercorn 'Shadow' Tornado.

The two untidy looking stallions deeply glared at each other, like one of them were about to suddenly start a fight yet again. That was until Woolwinder's voice broke them out of their state.

"Now then gentlestallions, let's not cause a riot in here, let's get this trial done." Woolwinder said.

Quickly the two Red Hooves turned to look at the commanders, now, both of their fates were in the hooves of the golden armoured Pegasus stallions around that table. A long silence followed before Sky Rider spoke up.

"Well…me and my fellow comrades can't begin to say that we are lucky to even win that battle with you two breaking out of line like that." He paused briefly looking at the baffled looking Red Hooves. "It may had looked easy for us in that battle when we defeated them there, but there is always a small piece of a battle that can either turn the tide of the battle for or against us."

"You do know that our defensive pack there we do is vital for us to push them back and if possible win a battle," Commander Sixer added. "Could you imagine if you had both gone out of line and not only that, but our defensive wall would've shattered and defeat would be staring in our faces?"

A sense a guilt washed up through Blue Arrow and Shadow as Sixer carried on speaking. "We'll probably say it again and again and we still consider ourselves lucky there. We are the last line of defensive for Farachan and maybe all of Equestria with it!"

Blue Arrow lowered his head shamefully and he felt his heart sink. He quickly glanced over seeing Shadow still staring at the commanders unfazed of what they were being told. Was he feeling anything? Blue Arrow didn't know and wanted this trial to be over.

"But enough from them," Commander Pounce Hammer interrupted. "I can see that you want to know will happen to you two."

Blue Arrow breathed a silent sigh of relive. "Good old someone knows how I'm feelin'" He grumbled to himself dryly.

The yellow Pegasus commander then brought up from under his desk a large leather book and opened it for the other three. The young blue Pegasus stallion wondered what that book was for, most likely something to do about their ID's maybe.

As the four commanders mused among themselves at a page in the book, Blue Arrow felt like they taken like an hour, even though it was only a few seconds. "Celestia have mercy," He thought sadly.

Finally after what seemed like an age, the four commanders looked over to the two Red Hooves, though they were all casting their eyes principally on Blue Arrow.

"Private Arrow?" Woolwinder asked him.

"Aye Sir," Blue Arrow replied standing to attention.

"From Alba I guess from the voice?" Woolwinder added.

Blue Arrow nodded. "Aye, born and raised in Alba from the early period of my life 'till I was sent down south to Equestria for Celestia to train me."

The four commanders remained quiet until Sky Rider spoke. "Ah yes I remember you, a small little skinny colt that would always listen to what his parents would tell them, a nice upbringing. Still, the Albaians have always been our closest allies through our darkest times since our union with Alba."

The blue stallion didn't say anything; he just wanted to know what was to become of him.

"Now with your actions," Sky Rider added.

"Here we go," Blue Arrow muttered in a low tone that only he could hear.

Sky Rider looked back at a page in the large book. "You decided to follow him out off line and then eventually fell into a fight with one another that nearly, as we said before, endangered all of the troops on our side."

"I was only tryin' to stop him!" Blue Arrow spat out.

"By breaking out by not following orders?" Woolwinder inquired.

"How else was I supposed to stop him?" Blue Arrow replied angrily, his words making the commanders silent. "I know what I did now was stupid, but I didn't want to let another one of us get killed by them—"

"So you went in to rescue him…then fight him?" Sixer asked calmly.

Blue Arrow's mouth opened, but nothing came out for a moment. "…Sirs…I'm not sure tae be honest wi' ye. You see I…"

"…Go on," Woolwinder urged in a relaxed manner.

"I…I had my suspicious about him ever since that night attack on Coltfast you may remember."

Now Shadow raised an eyebrow about what Blue Arrow was saying. "What the hell you taking—"

"Silence," Sixer interrupted casting a small glare at Shadow before looking back over to Blue Arrow. "Carry on then."

The red and white mane stallion bit his bottom lip as he prepared to confess. "Well…there many times that when I was around the base or even out on patrol, I never saw him and I began thinking…then again I just shook it off like it was nothin'. But it just still lingered on in my mind from then on. Then everythin' went more strange after I ended up in hospital bed after that defeat."

He could see the commanders shudder at the thought. "Yes…" Woolwinder uttered coldly. "I can remember we had you and a selected few troops out there to stop them. Oh Celestia it is a miracle we managed to find survivors like you. Anyway, you were saying about your suspicious?"

"Erm, well," Blue Arrow trailed off. "I was in bed when I saw one of the nurses walking around with a book that had all the names of all the Red Hooves out here, so I asked her if I could read and she accepted it. And in it I could find nothing that said anything related to Peppercorn Tornado or Shadow."

"Then you wanted to find him and get more answers from him," Pounce concluded, in which Blue Arrow nodded. "Well, I'll give you credit that you are being honest with us, and we can say that your suspicious are all true about him."

At once both Blue Arrow and Shadow's eyes widened as they both looked up at the golden armoured commanders. "What…what you talking about?" Shadow asked them hurriedly, Blue Arrow noticed that Shadow started to look quite flushed somehow.

This time, the four commanders turned their gaze over to the shocked black stallion. "So then tell us then," Sky Rider asked him. "Please tell us your name and where you're from."

Shadow didn't speak for a moment, looking like he'd lost his words. "…I'm…Peppercorn Tornado or Shadow, born and bread in Manehatten."

The four stallions on the other side of the room looked back on another page in the book for about a minute. "It says here there is no 'Peppercorn Tornado' or 'Shadow' out here fighting," Sixer answered. "But it does say in black and white here that there is a Peppercorn Tornado that should be back in Equestria training with Celestia am I right?"

Blue Arrow could only watch as all at once, his suspicious all started to come true. Shadow on the other hoof looked liked he was about to be sick. "I…I…"

"No point trying to defend yourself trainee." Woolwinder said with a stout commanding sound in his voice. "We had reports from home saying that they have lost a Red Hoof trainee over the last several months now which the description of this stallion is black with a dark red mane and tail and blue eyes…and I can say that there is no need to give out a name for this certain stallion."

The young blue stallion's mouth dropped as Woolwinder dropped the bombshell on Shadow. Surely there was no way out of this for the black stallion.

"And another thing Peppercorn Tornado, tell us…how old are you?" Woolwinder added leaning slightly forward on his chair.

Shadow was silent for some seconds, trying to find the confidence to utter anything. "….S-sixteen sir…" he finally uttered as he lowered his head in shame.

Blue Arrow shook his head in disbelieve, it was like listening how the world was going to end, he couldn't believe what he was hearing, and Shadow's world was caving in around him. Not only had Shadow sneaked out to Farachan but also he was also underage, and that last fact was certainly the final nail in the coffin for Shadow's fate.

The four commanders were silent and looked on with disappointed looks on their faces. It was Sky Rider however he finally broke the silence. " Well there we are then, it gives me the unfortunate task to tell you this but…with the facts here that you are the missing stallion that our fellow commanders have been looking for back on the mainland and we have at last found you for them. You've have also been fighting out here underage and it leaves us with little choice other than for you to be deported back to Equestria where you shall receive further punishment for your actions."

Sixer then looked over to Blue Arrow. "As for you Private Arrow…" Blue Arrow nearly jumped out of surprise, he was starting to think that they had forgotten about him. "As much as you did do such foolish actions, you did your part in tracking this stallion down and we thank you for that, but please, don't try to break anymore rules otherwise you will face expulsing, understand?"

"Erm…a-aye sir," Blue Arrow stuttered, breathing a sigh of relive that he wasn't going to leave Farachan.

"Very good," Woolwinder replied. "Now please Blue Arrow, could you lead this…stallion, back to his cell until he is ready to leave Farachan?"

"Aye sir," Blue Arrow nodded as he led the utterly shocked and stunned Shadow out of the room. The trial was finally over, but with one stallion staying, the other leaving to head back home and face more shame.

The two of them didn't speak for what felt like an age as they walked down the many corridors back to the cells. Shadow now looked quite literally a shadow of what he was before; a totally disheartened and shell-shocked pony in his place replaced the once cocky and brave stallion.

As much as Blue Arrow felt angry about Shadow and the state he had gotten himself into, deep down though, he did pity him and wondered what would happen to him.

Suddenly he found himself being slammed against a corridor wall by Shadow. Pure rage was written on the black stallion's face and Blue Arrow could've swore he could see fire burning in Shadow's eyes. "You bastard!" He snapped angrily.

"What's the matter now?" Blue Arrow spat out in confusion of what was happening.

"You should've helped me-no, you shouldn't have tried to stop me back at Malum, then I wouldn't in this damn situation!" Shadow explained, his eyes narrowing at Blue Arrow as he kept his grip on Blue Arrow up against that wall.

"For Celestia's sake lad!" Blue Arrow replied exasperated. "Even if I didn't go in to stop ye, you would've still gotten caught by them, it's a miracle I'm walking out this even!"

This time, Blue Arrow pushed Shadow off him and the two stallions squared up to win another. "Listen lad, don't start a riot here, let's just…get over it."

"GET over it?!" Shadow yelled. "Oh really bucking original, Blue Arrow! Many years from now I'll still remember this moment! But you do have a point about not fighting here…"

Shadow paused and began thinking it through. "Yes…I just know how to settle this…"

Blue Arrow was silent as he waited to hear Shadow's suggestion. "I know what to do…a good old fashion duel tonight at ten on top of the mountain over looking the city. No need to reply, you'll get it, you just head back, I'll lead myself to those cells."

And with that, Shadow left a dumbstruck Blue Arrow standing there in the corridor still trying to digest the information Shadow had said. A duel? Tonight? What had he gotten himself in for? Shadow had lost his mind it seemed and was after revenge on Blue Arrow. The blue Pegasus pondered what to do, he wasn't going back to get a squad of Red Hooves to come asset him in bringing back Shadow.

No. It was him who had to do, it just between him and Shadow. He would face the mad stallion tonight. A duel with no winners or losers.

A Worthless Duel

Chapter 12

A Worthless Duel

Following the verdict of the trail, Blue Arrow had been order to lead Shadow back to his cell, only for Shadow suddenly to lay down a duel for Blue Arrow at nightfall in an act of revenge for not supporting him. However, when Blue Arrow thought about it, Shadow seemed like he had gone insane from the verdcit and that Blue Arrow now seemed like the only one who could stop him.

When Blue Arrow did return to his dorm to the shock of his roommates whom were expected him to be deported, he understandably had to endure a barrage of questions about how he managed to survive and not be sent back to Equestria, needless to say that no matter how he told them the whole story including about what happened to Shadow's fate, they still felt sceptical about Blue Arrow's tale.

Even though he had told them all of the events that had happened during the trial, he never though said anything about the night time duel he had to undertake, had he let on about that, Dynamo, Sunstar and Macca would've no doubt gone on to try and help him out to stop Shadow, but this whole situation was simply between Blue Arrow and Shadow…no one else.

For the rest of the day, he sat outside on top of the Red Hooves' HQ and looked out over the city of Coltfast. All around him, the daily routine of life, working, eating and sleeping seem to carry on like normal regardless that they were in the middle of a war. Blue Arrow always admired that of Farachanians, always willing to carry on life as normal as possible regardless of their situation. Looking up at three tall flagpoles that flew the flags of Equestria, Alba and the Red Hoof flag flapping in the breeze at sunset.

One interesting piece of news in recent days was that the Farachan population had adopted the Red Hoof flag as the flag of Farachan due to the fact that for all of Farachan's life, it had never had a national flag. Then again, it also made Blue Arrow bemused at the fact that flying that flag in front of the Alaccans was a sure sign that they wanted to remain under Equestria control.

He paused and looked down at his sword as he pulled it out of its scabbard. "Damn it Shadow," He growled quietly staring at the newly forged sword. "I dinae want it tae come down like this." The thought of the duel seemed to make him feel sick. Though Shadow seemed to now act like a spoiled foal wanting a fight by thinking that he had betrayed him, the sad truth was, Blue Arrow did feel a tinge of guilt that he didn't really stuck up for him.

Yes he had caught him, but should've done something at least to show some support for otherwise he wouldn't in this state…then again who knows how things might had turned out if he done that. Sharing the same fate at Shadow no less. It made him feel like he was only out to protect himself and not others.

After taking a deep breath, he placed on his red helmet, checked to see if his sword was placed back in it's scabbard before flying away from the roof top. The sun had now set below the horizon. As he flew away from the top of the building, Blue Arrow still felt apprehensive about how the duel would end up. He was hopefully that none of them would be killed, though judging Shadow's hatred of Blue Arrow back at the barracks made him think that this wasn't going to be the case. Noticing that he still had some money left in a pocket area in his armor and that he still had some time to kill, he decided to make a brief detour and buy himself something quick to eat for some energy.

He stopped by at a small grocery store and bought himself a bar of chocolate for some energy, a small nagging thought persisted in his mind that his may his last meal in the case if he was killed. Once inside, he came face to face with the store owner, a male green earth pony who looked to be about ten years older than he was.

"Alight then Red Hoof?" The storeowner asked as Blue Arrow grabbed one of the chocolate bars from a shelve.

"Aye fine," Blue Arrow duly replied as he handed over the chocolate bar and the bits to pay with. "Just night patrol."

It was a lie of course, but the storeowner thankfully bought it. "Oh yeah? Where about you headin' too?"

"Up ta' mountains," Blue Arrow answered.

"Yes…hopefully you won't get any Alaccans up there," The green earth pony said cheerfully. "Since that last battle, you sent them all off scared, war will be over soon thanks to you and those Red Hooves, anyway, here's your change."

The blue Pegasus grabbed both his change and the chocolate bar and gave the green pony a farewell before leaving the store. Though the store owner was right about there not being any Alaccans sighted, Blue Arrow did indeed have an enemy of a different type up there in those mountains.

While assessing this thought, he flew away from the store eating his bar of chocolate and headed straight for the mountains that overlooked the city, the mountains of Proelio.

The mountains themselves were nothing sort of spectacular; they completely dominated the landscape of the city. It did look familiar to Canterlot of how it was built into a mountainside, only here was that the city wasn't exactly built into it as it was at near ground level, but that the mountains were part of the city's protection for keeping an eye out on enemy forces from a distance. Blue Arrow had only been up in once during one of his patrols and witnessed some astonishing views from the top, literally all of Farachan could be seen from there.

This time however, this wasn't going to be a day off for him to admire the view or even head out here as part of his patrol, but of a duel that he didn't want to do. As Celestia lowered the Sun and raised the Moon, Blue Arrow felt his stomach tie itself in knots as he flew closer to the mountain as somewhere in those mountains was were Blue Arrow's rival was awaiting him. Now, there was no turning back.

XXX

The journey itself was surprisingly quite long as by the time he flew near to the top, it was all nearly pitch black up there and the only things that illuminated the landscape was the bright full moon and the lights in the city or Coltfast below.

Soon after he gently touched down on a grassy verge and looked around for any signs of life. He shivered slightly in the midnight air, the temperature on top of the mountain was certainly much colder than down below in the city.

"Shadow! I'm here for ye!" Blue Arrow called out loudly hoping that his opponent would appear.

All he got was silence from the surrounding rocky outcrops around him. He kept turning round trying to catch a glimpse of anyone about these hills. A cold sweat went down Blue Arrow's back as he gingerly pulled out his sword fearing for a sudden ambush attack from Shadow.

His eyes kept glancing round, his grip on his sword tightened, something on his mind was telling him that this was going to be his most toughest battle yet, never mind the battles against the Alaccans, they were foals play compared to battling a Red Hoof in a duel.

"So you finally brought your sorry ass up here then," said a familiar tough Manehatten accent that Blue Arrow only knew too well who it could be.

He spun round looking around from where that voice came from. Looking up, hovering bi-pedal style and dressed in red armor was his rival and opponent… Shadow. Even though it was nearly impossible to see him in the dark, Blue Arrow could see Shadow's dark blue eyes seemed to burn with anger in them and could quite easily lit up the site.

"Had to give myself a wash before comin' up 'ere," Blue Arrow said sarcastically as Shadow lowered himself to the ground.

"Stupid answer," Shadow replied coldly as he pulled out his sword. "Let's see if your fighting is better than your damn jokes."

And without given Blue Arrow the time to reply, Shadow suddenly lunged forward knocking Blue Arrow back some feet away tumbling backwards before he quickly regained himself landing back on his hooves still gripping his sword. He quickly looked up and saw Shadow charging down on him again, but this time, Blue Arrow dodged him and got out of the way.

"That's the best you can do?" Shadow taunted Blue Arrow as he hovered in the air following Blue Arrow's move.

"Nope," Blue Arrow replied as he started hovering similar to his rival. "I was only just wakin' up."

And with that, Shadow lunged forward yet again as both his and Blue Arrow's sword clashed with one another. The sound of metal clashing almost every second could be heard in the mountain range and the fighting itself was so intense between the two Red Hooves that sparks were flying from their swords.

Blue Arrow was playing defensive, as he didn't want to harm Shadow, complete contrast to Shadow who seemed to want Blue Arrow dead by constantly striking his sword down on the older Red Hoof. Then suddenly, Blue Arrow kicked Shadow back using his hind legs causing Shadow to fall out of the air and hit the rocky ground.

Blue Arrow didn't decide to fly down and finish off Shadow, his idea was to try and tire out Shadow to point of surrender, and there he would hope the battle wouldn't end in such bloodshed. The blue Pegasus hovered in the air bi-pedal style staring down at Shadow as he pulled himself back up on his hooves before dusting himself off.

"Look Shadow, I don't want tae dae this!" Blue Arrow exclaimed. "Can ye no' accept ya fate?"

"Really? Accept my fate just like that?!" Shadow snapped back as he started hovering some feet away from Blue Arrow. "During the trial you could've helped me!"

"The hell you talkin' about?" Blue Arrow asked with a skeptical look. "Ye had already broken Celestia knows how many rules just tae get out here!"

"I wanted to be part of it!" Shadow yelled, causing Blue Arrow to be silent. "Don't you get it? Think about us guys about my age still be trained up? What if by the time I had reach eighteen and had been training since then only to discover that the war was over and there was no need for my type and all our efforts would be all for nothing! Sometimes, even if it's illegal to do so, you have to take matters into your own hooves."

Silence hung in the air, as Blue Arrow remained speechless by that speech. Shadow may have been crazy by this point, but the blue stallion did have to admit that he felt quite bad for leaving the younger Red Hooves finishing the war without them. However, it was those words that Shadow has said that really made him think.

Sometimes, even if it's illegal to do so, you have to take matters into your own hooves

Now when he thought about it, Shadow was only doing what he thought was right, fighting for his country despite his age and the situation he had gotten himself in to. "Look, lad…" Blue Arrow uttered as he lowered his head sadly. "We don't need tae fight, let's just put this behind us and head back tae HQ."

"WRONG ANSWER!" Roared Shadow as he abruptly stormed through the air towards Blue Arrow with his sword held high.

"Buck!" Blue Arrow cursed as he found himself raising his own sword preparing to defend himself from the oncoming Red Hoof troop. From what looked like a moment when Blue Arrow thought would give in, Shadow had gone on the attack again, now it seemed like fighting was the only way to stop the crazed Red Hoof solider.

Like Shadow, Blue Arrow found himself flying through the air onwards to Shadow preparing to make contact with their blades. With a second 'till impact, Blue Arrow shut his eyes and braced for contact. He felt his weapon smashing against his rival's blade, but it was hit at such force that Blue Arrow felt a surge of pain up from his fore hoof.

He backed away from Shadow growling in pain while holding his injured forehoof close to him and dropping his sword to the ground. And when he glanced down at his sword, he was stunned to see that because of the impact with the two blades, half of the sword had snapped in two rendering it useless, but that wasn't all. Looking up at Shadow, he could see that Shadow's blade had also snapped and was holding his own forehoof close to him similarly to Blue Arrow.

Shadow moaned in pain while casting a deadly stare at Blue Arrow, but this time, it was Blue Arrow who looked the more angered. In what seemed like a flared up moment of madness for Blue Arrow, he found himself lunging forward at Shadow, this time, in furious hoof fight. Shadow quickly joined in and the two stallions were laying blows to one another in the air, both knocking their helmets off in the process.

Shadow served up a punch to the face of Blue Arrow causing some blood to be spat out of the blue stallion's mouth, before Blue Arrow laid one punch of his own on Shadow's stomach. As Shadow's defensive stanch went down after that punch, Blue Arrow saw his chance and began forcing Shadow to the ground in a attempt to crash him down on his back.

A sickening crack of bones snapping could be heard as Shadow felt his back break on impact. "You bastard!" He yelled in pain as he gave Blue Arrow a huge blow to the jaw knocking him backwards and onto his back. Even with his back broken, Shadow wasn't that easy to stop, his mind on a blind fury as he pulled himself up and starting attacking Blue Arrow, while just getting himself up, and started pinning him down and beating the blue stallion to pulp...and to death.

Blue Arrow was now losing the battle and couldn't find the strength to stop this from happening, it seemed like only Celestia suddenly appearing was the only way to stop the rampaging black stallion.

"No!" Blue Arrow suddenly thought as his now bruised and battered eyes shot open. "I can't let this damn idiot win like this! I want…to win, the war, the love of the people, respect and this damn bucking duel!"

Blue Arrow let out a major roar and kicked Shadow off with his hind legs. Blue Arrow staggered himself up and winced in pain from his bloody and bruised face. He saw Shadow pulling himself up again, and this time, Blue Arrow decided to finish this for good.

He quickly flew over to Shadow, grappled him by the neck and threw him down near the edge of a cliff. Blue Arrow didn't know how deep the cliff was, he didn't care, he just wanted to stop Shadow from causing any more damage between them.

Now it was Blue Arrow's turn to pin Shadow down as he began laying punches across Shadow's face. "Stop it! Stop it this damn duel, give up!" The blue stallion repeated again and again in the hope Shadow would finally give in. Even as he was beating Shadow to the point of hopeful Surrender, he felt a great deal of regret doing this, it was know the way for Red Hooves to behave, had Celestia seen this, who knows how things would've turned out for them.

Then without warning, Blue Arrow found himself pushed off the top of Shadow and now found himself closer to the edge of the cliff.

"Ye never give up, dae ye!" Blue Arrow remarked loudly, then Shadow leapt forward on top of Blue Arrow, but the blue stallion was not going to give in so easily.

Just as Shadow was about to pin down Blue Arrow once more, the Albian stallion used his hind legs and pushed Shadow forward away from him and off the cliff. Blue Arrow expected at least Shadow flying back up again…but he never came back. Instead there were several thuds to be heard and an equal amount of yells of pain from Shadow.

Blue Arrow slowly turned round to see what had happened and was stunned to see Shadow tumbling down the mountainside until his body came to a stop on a flat grassy verge. He then realized that when Shadow's back had broke it must've broke the bones in his wings resulting him to lose his flight and resulting him to end up crashing to the bottom.

More a few brief anxious moments, Shadow didn't move and Blue Arrow had a horrible thought that he might've killed him. "For Celestia's sake don't be dead now!" Blue Arrow whispered to himself as he felt sweat come down his face in fear for what he possibly had done.

Then incredibly, Shadow's body started twitching, he was alive! The black stallion slowly got up, he body staggering in pain. Surely Shadow couldn't be asking for more fighting? For a moment, Shadow turned to try and fly back up again, but his wings were now useless and he suddenly collapsed in pain once more.

Blue Arrow sighed sadly as he could only watch Shadow struggle to get himself up again while baring his teeth. Then, the black stallion looked up at Blue Arrow with a grudge filled face before finally turning round and leaving the blue stallion behind. He had given up! At this point, Blue Arrow should've been celebrating that he had come out on top, but he hated that fact that it had to come down to this, he really didn't want to use all of his strength on another comrade, especially on a person he could once call a friend.

For a moment, he was torn at the thought if he should help Shadow back to the base or not, but quickly decided not to incase he flew down only for the fight to spark off again.

"Oh Peppercorn Tornado," Blue Arrow muttered to himself the real name of his rival. "Ye didn't have tae dae this…I'm sorry." Then he fell on his back exhausted by the pain from the brutal fight. All he could do was look up at the moon and wonder what the future would hold for Peppercorn Tornado….

Dawn

Chapter 13

Dawn

From that night onwards throughout the war, Blue Arrow never saw Shadow again. Neither did anyone of the elite Equestria force in Farachan. At the crack of dawn the morning after the duel, Shadow was escorted from the Red Hooves' HQ and onto an awaiting passenger ship to take him back home to Equestria. Many rumored it later on that Shadow looked completely battered and bruised and nopony could understand how he had managed them, only one certain blue stallion knew the truth.

Speaking of which, Blue Arrow had during the night after the duel had gone over to a small river stream to wash all the blood from his face in a attempt to try and look normal as possible, though the black eye and the various red marks across his face were still there to be seen. This didn't help the following day as when Blue Arrow woke up in his dorm along with his fellow friends, Blue Arrow had to lie to them about his suspicious marks and say that he was flying to fast and hit a brick wall during last night.

The others only just bought it, but the rumors of Shadow looking beat up did make them think otherwise. When Shadow did finally leave Farachan's shores, many Red Hooves had all sorts of things to say about the shamed Red Hoof troop. 'Good Riddance!' some said 'A bastard son who should never had been a Red Hoof!' others said while a surprisingly large amount did hold a small amount of sympathy for him, most notably about what his fate might be lying the hooves of Princess Celestia herself. 'Celestia please forgive that kid' would be the words lingering on the minds of those Red Hooves.

A week followed onwards and despite the Red Hooves being a secret service, neither of them, not even the highest-ranking commanders there, heard any more about Shadow. It was then a hazard guessed by many that he had been given a frightful punishment that no one dare to even talk about it, of course many were still skeptical, but the mystery over the black stallion deepened overtime. During that time as well, winter eventually rolled in spring and now everyone seemed certain that the war was soon at an end and the surrender terms would arrive from Alaccan any day soon.

Too bad Blue Arrow didn't feel the same way…

XXX

An early morning sun lit up the Farachan docks during an early morning round with about eight Red Hooves patrolling around the Coltfast. Among the pack, Blue Arrow and Dynamo were both grouped to scan the docks looking out for any signs of suspicious activity. It may have seemed rather redundant to do this sort thing considering how the Alaccans hadn't attack in ages, but they could never be too careful.

Blue Arrow, dressed in full armor with his new sword by his side, walked along one of the wooden piers of the dock before taking a second to stop and look up at the morning sun.

"Bonny morning it is ya majesty," Blue Arrow muttered in admiration of how the sun's beams lit up the rather grubby and damp docks. "Always lookin' out ta' make us feel better durin' oor work I see." It was then while looking at the sunrise that it made him feel like that this was the dawn of something new. No it wasn't about the Red Hooves and their main purpose which everypony seem to go on about, but something that Blue Arrow felt had yet to be discovered...

He was admiring the sunshine quite a bit that he didn't notice Dynamo trotted up beside him. "Indeed it is my good sir," He replied calmly.

"Oh! Er…I bet ye kinda heard me talk to myself on there, right?" Blue Arrow rambled on embarrassed.

The brown stallion smiled warmly. "Only just a bit, though I do agree with it being such a nice morning."

Blue Arrow's head then lowered while pondering. "Aye…that's true, just don't feel good today, that's all?"

"What's the matter then?" Dynamo inquired.

"Who'd you think?" Blue Arrow remarked. "That stallion that everyone says he-who-must-not-be-named."

"Ah yes," Dynamo sighed sadly.

Ever since Shadow had been deported, Blue Arrow had been one of the few Red Hooves who felt quite sorry for him, not surprisingly that he was the one who not only tracked him down and beaten him in a dangerous duel, but seemed to be the only one who could've helped him somehow. And even though those wounds he had received from the duel were starting to heal up, the memory that they brought from the fight made Blue Arrow feel uncomfortable, it didn't help even that he hadn't told Dynamo or the others about the true nature of his wounds.

Sometimes, he felt quite a cruel person for having to lie about the wounds.

"…Anyway then," Blue Arrow said quickly in order to try and change the subject. "It's quite somthin' ta' think that oor home is over those waters." He pointed out to sea that in the distance they could just make out a faint bit of land…Equestria.

"And that's what we're also fighting for," Dynamo added. "Well, for me personally it's a bit different…"

Blue Arrow notice the brown Pegasus' head droop down, and Blue Arrow only knew too well of what was going on through the mind of his close friend. "Hey, don't worry, we're both still alive and well. She and the foals will be just dandy when we get back."

Dynamo's face briefly lit up at his friend's words of encouragement. "Thank you, speaking of which, I received another letter from her regarding the foals."

Blue Arrow raised an eyebrow. "Oh aye? What'd she say?"

Dynamo briefly chuckled at the thought of it. "As you know, both of my daughters are unicorns, and little Water Heart performed her first magic trick."

"Hey, no' bad, the wee lassie is growing up already!" Blue Arrow said with praise.

"That's also the bad news…" Dynamo added with some regret.

"W-what happened?" Blue Arrow asked.

Dynamo drew in a deep breath. "Her first magic spell was merely a electric shock to act in a manner of defensive…to bad it had to be on her grandfather…"

Blue Arrow let out a hearty laugh at the thought of it all. "Oh gods that's just classic, she hates that stallion much like you hate him, haha!"

The laughing stallion eventually died down, but was surprised to see Dynamo looking not amused. "Oh…sorry mate, didn't perceive ye still have a troubled relationship with Star Burst's parents."

"No it's alright dear chap," Dynamo said calmly. "It's quite a thorny subject to talk about them, even after the war is over and trying to win over her parents will be quite difficult."

Dynamo looked quite rejected from thinking about the thought and Blue Arrow felt sorry for all the trouble Dynamo had been getting along with himself personally, much like with his relationship with Shadow.

"Don't you worry," Blue Arrow then said placing his forehoof on Dynamo's shoulders. "Ye are my best friend and old Dad would always say that everythin' always works oot in the end. And I'll gladly be the best stallion at your wedding if ye needed it."

Dynamo smiled back in response. "Thank you, Blue Arrow."

And with that, the two friends left that pier to continued on with their patrol, with them not knowing that the war was far from over…

The End

Author's Note

Blue Arrow will return in...Outlaws of Alaccan! So the adventures of Blue Arrow and the Red Hooves have only just started and they'll get more darker as we move along, so for all those who have followed the story, thank you and join me next time for the next instalment.

Peppercorn Tornado

Chapter 2

Peppercorn Tornado

The Equestrian capital city gradually became smaller as the red armoured Pegasai flew northwards towards the large port city of Glascolt; to Blue Arrow at least as they were heading to Alba, it was a bit of a homecoming for him. Glascolt sat not only near the sea (thus making itself as a port city), but also sat right on the Equestria/Alba border on Alba's side. Though he was a Maredinburgh born colt, Glascolt had always had developed a bit of a soft spot on him (even though the two cities had a rivalry like with any big cities.) It had been a long time for him since he had been in his motherland and was interested to see how things had changed since he left to become a Red Hoof.

By this point while leaving Canterlot behind, the sun had nearly gone over the horizon and the sky was now a glowing orange. Blue Arrow could feel the warmth on his face as he flew alongside with his fellow troops as they continued to fly and was also starting to realise that his own heavy plate armour was starting to weigh him down. Though he simply went on flying, not wanting to look weak in front of his fellow other Hooves (no doubt to Blue Arrow's point of view that they would be feeling the strain too).

"Wonder if I'll see this land again?" He thought to himself as he looked at the Equestrian landscape around him. In his own mind, the green and pleasant lands of Equestria would be a far contrast to what could likely be a muddy battlefield in Farachan; despite hearing a lot that many in this land were going there for stating a new life or retiring there, all of which saying that it is was a beautiful land.

Who was he to argue with when he got there?

The dark blue stallion seem to lose track of time as they carried on flying. By this point, they must had been flying for at least two hours now with the sky become darker and becoming more cloudy as time went on. However, Blue Arrow noticed some large faint formations on the horizon. Just in the distance as the red and white mane stallion squinted his eyes to try and get a better look through the ranks of Red Hooves in front of him. There in the distance, he could just make out the large rugged mountains of the one country that only could warm the Stallion's heart like no other.

Alba.

From several other Albian stallions alongside him, a few cheers could be heard as they also could see their homeland, and Blue Arrow couldn't help but have a large grin spread across his face upon seeing that they were getting closer.

"Could've kept the sun up at least for us, Princess," Blue Arrow muttered under his breath jokingly, referring to the sky getting darker and hoping that they would have at least some light when they arrived at Glascolt.

As they got ever nearer to the border, the temperature began dropping slowly, and for those stallions living who had never stepped a hoof in Alba or even lived there, they all had a shiver up their back. They were not use to that sort of cold temperature up north. But for Blue Arrow and his fellow country stallions, they all knew the cold weather pretty well and pretty much well use to it on a daily basis when they were young colts. There was no denying at least from one or two of the Albian ponies there all raised a cheeky grin at seeing their Equestrian counterparts shiver for feeling cold.

Nevertheless, they carried on and the group of highly trained stallions soon enough flew over the border and into Alba. It was a great thing with the city being right on the border near the coast that finding the city wouldn't be much of a problem as they went onwards to Glascolt. Looking down below him, Blue Arrow was surprised that the mountains themselves remained unchanged from the day he left his homeland (always thinking that buildings would be built on them in that time he was away), though he could see that a long dirt road had been built that snaked it's way alongside the mountains and uneven terrain.

"What else could be different here, especially in Glascolt?" Blue Arrow muttered to himself again, not trying to gain attention from his fellow comrades. Glascolt itself was something that did make him think, when he last saw the port city many years ago before joining the Red Hooves, it only just became a city and was still growing. No doubt the city now would be twice the size it once was.

"Ah shoot, not now!" Cried a beige stallion with a southern accent in front of Blue Arrow as several other Red Hooves looked to him wondering what was wrong. Then one by one, they could feel a few drops of rain. For the Caledonian blue stallion and his fellow country ponies, they could only share a chuckle.

"A' least we know we're back hame!" Blue Arrow called over to the others, only causing the laughter to increase.

It must be know too that Alba had been somewhat the butt of many jokes about its moody weather, even with the help of the large amount of weather patrols who would have to stop the rain on a daily basis. Still, no country in the world could ever be perfect.

Just then, they could hear loud chatter from the front of the pack, all excitedly pointing to some flickers of light in the far distance beside the ocean.

Glascolt.

As other stallions realised what was ahead, some cheered and whooped that they were getting closer to their destination, mostly as they were now getting tired from all this flying. Blue Arrow himself felt like cheering with the rest, but instead focused on the landscape around him. Despite some terrible weather, rugged mountains and almost bleak countryside, it was home to him, and with the thought that he may never make it back home after heading to Farachan, Blue Arrow took the chance to drink in all the sights around him.

Even though the city was becoming more larger as they approached it, the air was getting damper and even those Alba born stallions now felt a chill up their spines. Only thing to make it worse for them was the heavens to open up fully on them and that nopony would turn up at Glascolt to say their farewells to them…hardly the send-off any Red Hoof there would want!

Finally the stallions at the front of the pack gave a hoof signal to fly low as the entered the outskirts of the city. By this point, everypony there could get a great look at the city, and for Blue Arrow, he was stunned to see at how things had changed overtime.

The outskirts of the city was mostly houses all around, all of which to Blue Arrow's perspective all seemed new and weren't there before. But when he looked down closer, he was surprised to see many ponies on the tops of rooftops waving at them with happy looks.

"Oh Celestia," Blue Arrow said dumbfounded to nopony in particular. "Even Red Hooves are loved up here!"

"Only that the word get's round quicker these days," said a black stallion beside him, with a Brooklyn accent on him. Like the other Red Hooves there, his face was covered by his red helmet and could only see a few bits of a longish dark red mane and tail.

"When I was a youngster growin' up in Alba," Blue Arrow replied back to the stallion, remembering the old days for him. "Everythin' was just laid back 'an all, I bloody well need to catch up on things here!"

The two of them chuckled at Blue Arrow's words. The black stallion was about to add something to the conversation when one of the stallions leading them cried out an order. "Follow onwards to the docks!"

Soon, the many Red Hoof troops turned to their left as they headed towards the city docks. Looking onwards to his right, Blue Arrow could see larger buildings in the centre of the city and the vast field of buildings of all shapes and sizes everywhere.

In terms of sheer size, Glascolt could quite easily rival Canterlot in many ways. Blue Arrow did have a tinge of disappointment of not staying here for a night and explore what was new in the city. Still, he had a task to carry out for his country and this was no time for sight seeing.

By now the sky was nearly pitch black and the only light was coming from the streets below. A giant dark cloud now loomed over the city that only made everything more darker and bleak. But when they all looked down on the city, every Red Hoof could see thousands of ponies in the streets and on rooftops cheering them on in similar fashion than what it was like at Canterlot.

Looking back in front of them again, up ahead they all caught their first glimpses of the vast Glascoltian ports even the large ships waiting to transport them. Blue Arrow remembered before heading to Canterlot to have that send-off from Celestia that there would be ten ships there for the one thousand Red Hoof troops heading to Farachan (one ship for each hundred).

For Blue Arrow and perhaps his fellow Red Hooves, there was a sense of excitement and nervousness for each of them. Flying ever nearer to the docks, once again, large crowds could be seen cheering for them. Some eagle-eyed Hooves could see some in the crowd waving banners with messages such as 'Good luck!' and 'Haste ye back!' (An old Albian slang for 'Come back soon'.)

Looking at the large docklands around him, Blue Arrow remembered vividly that Glascolt was literally built on its docks, ship building and the various exports it would send around the world. Though it amazed him that despite the quick growth of the city, the docks remained unchanged as far as Blue Arrow could remember from all those years ago with the only thing different being the modern looking ships scattered around the waterfronts.

Even with the sky getting darker by the second and the climate becoming quite damp, ponies of all sorts were all standing together giving them a grand send off with a loud exclamation of cheering. With all this going on, Blue Arrow felt quite touched by this support for them. Who knows how their fame was going to last after they returned back from Farachan…then again that is if they all returned in one piece and won the war.

They started to flow lower to the ground to touch down on the concrete surface of the waterfront, to the tremendous sound of the crowd that could've deafen any Red Hoof there. For a few moments afterwards they stood there looking around them, waiting for their orders from the leading Hooves, though with the loud roar of the crowd, the poor ordering Hooves perhaps couldn't be heard.

"Hooves! Line up!" Cried out one of the commanding troops from the front of the pack, just barely being heard by others. As soon as all Red Hooves heard it, they followed their orders lining up in rows of ten. The commanding Red Hoof started hovering above them with his fore hooves around his mouth in order to get the troops attention a bit better.

"Remember boys, hundred to each ship!" He cried out to them before waving his fore hooves leading them to their awaiting ships. As ordered, they headed onwards in groups of a hundred to their ships; Blue Arrow was to aboard the third ship tied up by its berth. After the long trip up North that seemed so slow, everything now was going by in a blur. It seemed that every Hoof there all simply wanting to get on with the final part of the voyage and get some sleep. Before entering through the door way on the gangplank, Blue Arrow stopped to look back at the crowd around him again.

The giant crowd did not falter in their support for these brave stallions. It seemed like ages that Blue Arrow seemed to stood there until he utter a few words. "…We'll meet again," He said to himself with a small smile on his lips before entering the ship with the others.

Inside, the interior was just barely lit a few oil lamps and because of this, a few tripping's could be barely seen through the darkness. Though that was the least of their worries, the main thing now was to find a good bed for the journey. Though there was exactly the right amount of beds for all Red Hooves there, they weren't marked out for who was sleeping where and now it was a mad rush to find the best bed.

Blue Arrow didn't have time to get use to the ship as with the rest headed to the sleeping quarters, all the beds were bunk types. Thankfully it was nearby them when they entered and at once, every Red Hoof there started to swarm around the room like a swarm of bees. The dark blue Pegasus quickly bolted over to one bed near a porthole, which he nearly had to fight off a fellow troop for the bed who stated that it was his.

Blue Arrow had no time to argue, after the long journey from Canterlot, he hauled off his red helmet and placed it under his bed before finally collapsing on the bed completely exhausted. Had it not been from the din of other troops there he would've likely fallen asleep on the spot. All he could do was lie back lazily looking up at underside of the top bunk above him…

…And wonder…

XXX

About ten minutes later, the ships were finally cast off and began their journey over the sea to Farachan. Some Red Hooves (after finding their chosen beds and marking them by placing their armour on them) had gone up on deck to wave goodbye to the crowds there. Like the majority however, Blue Arrow didn't bother; all they wanted was some shut eye. By now, the only sound heard was the sea crashing against the ship and various small chattering of a few Red Hoof conversations taken place around the quarters, apart from that, some peace at last, though one certain Blue stallion didn't look himself.

"Don't wanna get seasick now!" Said an almost greened face Blue Arrow to himself through gritted teeth as he looked out of his porthole at the darkened horizon in an attempt to try and feel better. Too bad that wasn't helping him. And to think that he had said before leaving that he wouldn't want any medicine…!

"No sea legs on you?" Chuckled a familiar Brooklyn voice from behind him.

Blue Arrow stopped thinking as he heard the voice. "Hang on, I know that voice…" He thought to himself as he turned round to look behind him to see who it was. There before, without his helmet on, was the black stallion from earlier. The stallion had a round muzzle, with a slight tinge of peace round his mouth. His eyes were a deep blue and his red mane and tail were both quite thinner than Blue Arrow's.

"...Well, what'd ye think then?" Blue Arrow asked with a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

"Look well for a five hundred mile round trip if you ask me!" The black stallion chuckled, which Blue Arrow groaned and rolled his eyes.

"No, I'm really no well for this," Blue Arrow retorted grudgingly as he fell back on his bed holding his head with his fore hooves.

The black stallion bit his bottom lip at the Albian pony's condition and seeing that he might throw up at any point. He really couldn't blame him if this was his first time on the sea. "Look dude, it'll be over before you know it," He extended his fore hoof over to Blue Arrow.

Blue Arrow noticed this gesture from the black stallion. "Hope ya right about that, mate." He then turned round to face the stallion before taking his hoof and shaking it. "Blue Arrow"

"Peppercorn Tornado," The Brooklyn sounding stallion replied. "But I prefer to be called Shadow."

The blue stallion raised an eyebrow at Peppercorn's statement. "Huh? What's wrong with 'Peppercorn Tornado'?"

"Sounds pretty stupid in my opinion," Shadow scoffed while taking a look out of his porthole. "That's why I chose 'Shadow'."

"Ye know," Blue Arrow replied scratching his chin. "I think 'Shadow' sounds pretty corny, many damn ponies are named that in some ways…popular common name though."

"Hmm," Shadow grunted while continuing to look out of the porthole.

The two stallions remained silent for a period as Shadow kept looking outside through the porthole while Blue Arrow tried not to throw up by lying back on his bed. The rocking of the ship wasn't making things easy for him; it seemed only a matter of time until he did throw up.

"Bloody hay, I ain't gonna last long at this rate!" Blue Arrow said over to Shadow, who merely laughed at the Albian stallion's predicament.

"Boy, you really aren't sea built!" He snickered. "Need a sick bucket?"

By this point Blue Arrow was sitting on the edge of his bed hanging his head in his fore hooves. "Ha-ha, very funny." He said sarcastically. "Just talk about somethin' different ta' take my mind o' this."

Shadow paused thinking about what to say before having an idea. "So…you from Alba then?" he asked shrugging his shoulders.

The Albian pony turned his head round to look at him with a 'well-of-course' look. "Just worked it out then after all this then?" He said rolling his eyes.

Shadow rubbed the back of his head a little uneasily. "Oh I knew, just haven't met an Albian before in the flesh. So what part of Alba then you from?"

Blue Arrow smiled for a bit when hearing this. "I'm from the capital Maredinburgh. Glascolt doesn't raise a candle to it any day."

Shadow rolled his eyes as Blue Arrow beamed, proudly boasting about his home city. Then Blue Arrow cleared his throat before talking again. "So then, you from Manehatten then?" he asked with a knowing grin on his face.

The black stallion's eyes widen slightly at that he was right. "Erm, yeah" he replied. "Lower part of the city I came from, not the rich part."

Blue Arrow made an 'ah' shape with his mouth. "I see, never like those snobby types, must be hell for you guys gettin' looked down like that."

"Yeah," Shadow replied sadly with a sigh and his gaze turning downwards.

The blue Albian stallion thought to try and get the Manehatten stallion's mind of this. "Tell ye what when we get there," Blue Arrow stated leaning a bit closer to the black stallion. "When we get there, my friend Dynamo's there along with the other Red Hooves. We can go ta' the pub there and grab a few drinks."

Shadow suddenly bit his bottom lip while rubbing the back of his head with some uneasiness. "Well…yeah. But no thanks."

Blue Arrow was taking aback by this, where he came from, stallions would have jumped at the chance to have a few drinks. "Really?" Blue Arrow asked surprised, with a hint of amusement. "I remember my dad would say that if ye didn't drink then yer a miserable git. Then again that's up ta' ye."

Shadow then fell back on his bed before pulling the covers over him. "Nah, its fine dude, I just want some sleep now."

Blue Arrow shrugged his shoulders before he himself tucked himself up in his bed. "Alright then, fair do's. See ya in the morning."

"You too," Shadow replied as he shut his eyes as he fell asleep.

While Shadow seemed satisfied to fall asleep, Blue Arrow was still feeling quite sick and falling asleep wasn't going to be that easy for him. All he hoped was this sea voyage to be done and most importantly…not to throw up.