Wrath of My Righteous Little Ponies

“We should attack now without delay!” Greenery demanded sharply peering out at the pair of ponies standing at a makeshift altar in the middle of the street. The cultists, one an earth pony the other a unicorn, wore chain barding, horned helmets, and spiked horseshoes. The unicorn held a glaive in his magic while the earth pony clutched a dagger in her hooves. They stood over a young earth pony mare her eyes so wide with fright. Frozen with fear she couldn’t manage to even cry or beg.

“Wait! If we do that then they might just kill the filly and run.” Striker countered grabbing Greenery who let him hold her back. They had caught up to the cultists quickly thanks to Striker quickly scout the surrounding streets from the air. But the cultists were smart or brazen enough to commit their vile rituals in as open a space as possible, and that meant the pair couldn’t get any closer without being seen.

“Well, what do you think we should do? We can’t just stand here and watch!” Greenery shot back shifting anxiously in place unable to stand still her eyes locked on the cultists and the filly.

“Let me get above them,” Really, it was only Greenery who couldn’t get any closer. Striker held up a hoof and his hoof blades snapped forward. “I’ll drop down and take out the earth pony, then you can attack the unicorn. With me right there and you coming at him he’ll forget about the filly and run.”

“No! We can’t let him get away.” Greenery shook her head and glared at the pair. “They’ve already signed their death warrants.”

A downcast look spread across Striker’s face as he watched Greenery’s eyes fill with hatred, but he nodded quietly and took to the air.

Greenery continued to watch waiting for Striker to reappear, taking the opportunity to load her crossbow. Thinking she might as well ready it, weighed down by her armor she wouldn’t be able to rush across to the unicorn before he could run or attack, but a lucky shot of her crossbow might drop him before he even had a chance to act. Watching the pair her thoughts went back to Big Macintosh, his betrayal, their battle and how he had escaped her. She wouldn’t let that happen again, no more cultists would escape justice.

Greenery watched and waited for several long seconds as the cultists neared the end of their ritual. The earth pony raised the dagger ready to strike and still there was no sign of Striker. Glancing up for a moment Greenery didn’t see his black and white form moving through the air, where was he?

Greenery didn’t have time to think about it, the earth pony had readied himself to plunge the dagger down into the filly. Greenery in a single swift action stepped out of hiding and fired. The bolt sang through the air and stabbed into the earth pony’s left shoulder. She gave a short shrill scream of pain as the force of the heavy bolt threw her back knocking her to the ground.

Greenery tossed the now useless crossbow aside and charged across the street drawing her longsword, her armored hooves clanking with every galloping step as she tried to closed the distance between her and the unicorn cultist.

Opposed to Striker’s prediction the unicorn didn’t give a second thought to the filly and raced to meet Greenery’s charge. The features of his face twisted into a mad grin, he seemed excited for a fight rather than enduring a long boring ritual. He let his glaive screech and spark against the stone street before slashing it across at Greenery.

Greenery adjusted her charge slightly and accepted the blow across her chest, the blade scraped harmlessly across her golden armor. She slapped the weapon out of the air with her blade and galloped over it. Swinging out she slammed her sword across the unicorn’s chest. She had no better luck penetrating her opponent’s barding, but the force of her blow was much greater than the cultist’s and the flexible armor did far less to protect him. He gasped in pain and staggered back from Greenery, his horn starting to glow as he called upon his vile master for aid.

Greenery was about to close the distance between them and finish the stallion when a savage neighing and the sound of hooves clopping against the cobblestone street caused Greenery to look up and an instant later she jumped back. The earth pony mare came down on the spot Greenery had been standing, her spiked horseshoes leading her attack and scraped loudly against the cobblestone street. Her barding was still a little stained with blood but the bolt that had pierced her shoulder was gone, yanked out undoubtedly when the mare had, as the unicorn was now, called upon her vile master to heal her wound.

With a growl, Greenery cut diagonally across the mare’s exposed neck as the cultist scrabbled to regain the footing she had lost in the failed attack. There was a spray of blood and the cultist let out a gurgled cry, stumbled back and clutched at the wide wound that ran from her ear to the middle of her throat. It did little to stem the torrent of blood that poured forth and fell to the cobblestones with an audible splash. She managed to give Greenery a hateful glare before collapsing to the ground.

“Die!” The unicorn cried seizing his glaive in his magic and launched it at Greenery’s side. Greenery rushed forward, trusting her armor to do its job. Turning her head to one side she thrust her sword straight at the stallion’s chest. The glaive hit her armored flanks and bounced off, the magical aura that had held it suddenly vanished and the weapon fall to the ground bouncing and clanking against the stones until it finally fell still. The stallion stared wide-eyed at Greenery struggling to breathe as she withdrew her sword from his chest. The rings of his chain barding had failed to hold back the piercing tip of her sword. The moment Greenery had withdrawn the blade the stallion collapsed to the ground dead.

Greenery didn’t waste another second on the cultists, she rushed immediately up to the young filly. The filly sat hunched over on the street too frightened to even run despite the cultists having abandoned her. Moving next to her Greenery reached a hoof out to the filly and muttered through the grip of her sword, “Are you all right?”

The filly looked up and her pupils shrank to pinpricks as they met the slitted cat’s eyes in the blood splattered face of the giant armored pony standing over her; a bloody sword clutched between fanged teeth. Were the filly’s courage had failed to move her, terror succeeded. The filly screamed and scrambled to her hooves, her eyes filling with tears as she made a mad blind dash away from the blood-soaked pony.

“Wait!” Greenery called, dropping the sword from her mouth as she reached an armored hoof out towards the terrified filly. The filly looked back, but seeing that the bloody armored pony was reached out to catch her ran even harder in the opposite direction clenching her eyes tightly shut.

The sound of whooshing air came to the filly’s ears a moment before a pair of gentle but firm hooves clasped her shoulders stopping her in her tracks. “Whoa there filly,” A gentle voice cooed down at her. She opened her eyes letting the accumulated tears drain out and looked up into the reassuring face and gentle blue eyes of Striker’s handsome face. She stared transfixed for a moment then tears came back to her eyes and she buried her face into his chest and hugged him tightly. “It’s ok you’re safe now,” he cooed gently.

“We have to run before the bloody knight gets me.” The filly whimpered, it was loud enough to reach Greenery’s ears. Her face and ears drooped as her eyes fell to the blood coating her sword and splashed across her armor. She didn’t look up to see Striker’s sad apologetic eyes watching her as she scooped up her sword in a hoof and turned away from him and the filly. She pulled out a rag and began wiping away the blood.

Striker looked down at the filly again, forced the gentle smile back onto his face, and wiped away her tears with a hoof. “Oh, sweetie there’s nothing to be afraid of. That’s Green Garden over there, she’s a great paladin of Iomedae. She saved you from those bad ponies, she saved your parents to that’s how we knew they had you.”

“Really, my mommy and daddy are alright?”

Striker nodded and added with a grin, “Because of Greenery.”

The little filly joy deflated a little as she looked back at Greenery who was wiping the blood from her sword. She looked nervously back at Striker again, “But she so big and scary.”

“Well, she’s big so she can protect everyone and beat up the bad ponies that’s why she’s scary to them.” Striker gave the filly a playfully suspicious look, “You’re not a bad pony are you?”

The filly eyes grew wide with alarm and she furiously shook her head ‘No’. The smile came back to Striker’s face, “Then you have nothing to worry about, come on let’s get you back to your parents.”

The filly nodded eagerly at that, they stood and started towards Greenery. Despite Striker’s reassurances, the filly stuck close to his side as they approached the draconic mare who slipped her cleaned blade back into its sheath. She looked back at them the thin lines of splashed blood had already dried to her fur and armor and a wipe of the dry rag did little to clean them away.

“I’m sorry I never ate my alfalfa!” The filly squeaked when Greenery’s cat’s eyes fell on her again and she dashed behind Striker. A look of confusing rather than hurt came over Greenery face at the declaration, and Striker just offered her a confused shrug when she looked to him for an explanation.

“Mommy! Daddy!” The filly cried out the moment her parents came into view, emerging from the ruins of a building when Greenery had softly called the all clear. The filly was being far too loud of course, there was a chance her shouts would attract unwanted attention to them, but no one chastised her. Her parents called back nearly as loudly as they and the filly rushed towards one another. Mother and filly met in a tight hug and father wrapped his forelegs around them both, all were in tears.

“We should get back to Defender’s Heart immediately,” Greenery said to Striker and started for the family, but Striker held her back with a hoof.

“Give them a minute,” He advised gently when she turned to face him. He looked over her blood-smeared face and armor adding, “We should probably get you cleaned up first.”

Striker took a neatly folded handkerchief from the front pocket of his long black jacket, brought it to his lips, and whispered, “Warm and damp.” Then he reached out and gently wiped it across Greenery’s cheek, the handkerchief was a little damp and warm.

She found it and Striker’s gentle strokes to be soothing and it took a moment for her to become embarrassed that she was having her face cleaned like a foal. “I-I can do that myself,” She said a blush coming to her face.

Striker gave her an incredulous grin, “I doubt you have a mirror tucked under that armor and my handkerchief isn’t some towel you can just scrub roughly across your face.” He gave her a soft imploring look, “So let me do it alright. You must have done a real number on those cultists to get so filthy.”

“What happened to you?” Greenery asked suddenly reminded her lone battle against the cultists. “I nearly let them kill the filly waiting for you to act.”

Striker’s hoof paused mid stroke across Greenery’s cheek for a moment but continued as he spoke. “Sorry, there was a third cultist, a pegasus. He caught sight of me lurking around in the air and attacked. I thought I could handle him quickly, but… he put up a tough fight.”

“You’re not hurt are you,” Greenery asked looking the pegasus over for any sign of injury, she hadn’t seen any.

“No, I’m too fast.”

“Lucky is more like it; you should put on some barding before your luck runs out.” Greenery shot back critically, her eyes running over the thin material of his long coat.

“It would just slow me down,” Striker argued with a shrug and wiped the last of the blood from Greenery’s face. He paused and examined the lines and curves of her face for several seconds with the thin guise of searching for more blood. He knew he shouldn’t, but he never had any trouble ignoring what he should do in favor of what he wanted to do, and he wanted to commit every feature of Greenery face to his memory while he could. He stopped only when a blush came over Greenery’s face.

Greenery looked like she wanted to say something, but Striker just moved his handkerchief down to the blood smears on her armor and began wiping them away as if nothing had happened, which nothing had. “I don’t how you manage to defend yourself in this bulky suit of barding.”

“Y-you have to trust it to protect you, not be afraid to let ponies land hits that the barding will shield you from.” Greenery explained shaking the thoughts of those soft piercing blue eyes admiring her from her mind.

“Still I can’t wait to get you out of it,” Striker smiled as he wiped the last of the blood away. He looked Greenery up and down and admired his work, “There my lady’s-”

Suddenly Greenery’s hoof came up and punched Striker in the shoulder, he gave a little cry of pain and looked up to see the flushed face of Greenery who was trying to glare at him through sheer embarrassment. Striker tried to give her the look of an innocent stallion wrongfully accused but is was ruined by a grin he couldn’t manage to suppress. “Ow, what? I didn’t mean it like that.”

Greenery pointed an accusatory hoof at him, but before she could say anything the sound of hoof steps drew both ponies attention to the approach of the ponies they had rescued, a mare with her filly clutching tightly to her side in the lead. “Sorry to interrupt, but you said, Lady Greenery, you’d take us some place safe…” The mare trailed off not seeming to want to sound demanding of their savior.

“Of course I’ll take you there immediately,” Greenery promised with a reassuring smile, glad to see the filly seemed less afraid of her now. “Follow me.”

“Until the end.” Striker promised in turn.