The crimson dawn.

Chapters

By the sun and the moon
A different way of life
Christmas short - A very Crimson Christmas
Warning, friendship may result in headaches
An unusual homecoming
Under new management

By the sun and the moon

Author's note.

Just in case you didn't read this note in the long description, this is a remastered "The crimson dawn". Not by choice, my friend jumped onto my account, acted like a grade A D-bag, and deleted my story. Apologies to any effected by the aforementioned D-baggery.

One good thing to come of this is a chance to redo the first 2 chapters, which I had been wanting to do anyway.

So, onto the story, again.

Before I tell you my story, it's only fair I tell you a little about myself, otherwise you would no doubt be confused, wondering who I was and what I did.

My name is Crimsonlight. I'm a white, red haired pony with mastery over crimson hued lightning, kind of obvious given my name, I know. I'm slightly taller than the average mare, and slightly shorter than the average colt. And I'm part of the Spear of Celestia.

It's a group of elite guards, kept under wraps from the public of Equestria. I've been proud to call myself a member of it for 160 of my 175 years. We're a step above the step above the commonplace, overpayed, golden armour clad royal guard you see meandering about the palace vacant to any previous orders, and as such, we take on problems deemed much too dangerous for them. Dangers such as the beasts of the Everfree forest wandering into civilisation, beasts like manticore, cockatrice and wild grypon, but that's all pretty easy. Manticore and Gryphon are beaten by simply out classing them, and defeating a cockatrice for me is simply a matter of putting a lightning bolt between their eyes before you become a statue.

It gets interesting when you get the order to take on the likes of a dragon, a hydra, sea serpent or an ursa minor or major. I've fought my fair share of these beasts, and won, but suffice to say I've had my fair share of close calls. The closest when an ursa major took his rampage out of his cave and into the open world. I was used to working alone, but against an ursa major it took a 10 pony strong squad. After hours of fighting and more than a few ponies submitted to the infirmary, it fell. Almost squashing me underneath it, but it fell.

And being a unicorn pony, sometimes I had to...improvise. For example, I once leapt onto a dragon before he took off. Needless to say, a few barrel rolls couldn't fling me off and it wasn't long before there was crimson lightning being pumped into the back of the head and a dragon wide, mile long skid mark near Hoofington.

All of the ponies in the Spear were hoof picked by Princess Celestia herself at an early age for their raw natural ability. For example, Steelhoof is one of my two squad mates, he's a dull grey earth pony with a jet black mane, his cutie mark is a hammer, he is also a mountain. His family are a mining family, making them very naturally powerful, all of that natural power apparently came to a head in him. He's one of the most physically powerful, durable, and definitely the largest earth ponies I have ever seen.

Arteus, is nearly the polar opposite. She is a small, powder blue pegasus with a mane that matches her coat. And a cutie mark that bears a striking resemblance to the wonderbolts insignia, minus the lightning bolt. As opposed to the lumbering oaf that Steelhoof is, Arteus is small, fast and incredibly agile. I'm fairly certain at least 1 of her parents is in the wonderbolts, whilst the other was a golden clad coward, more commonly known as a royal pegasus guard. Again, her parents natural ability came to fruition in her making her one of, if not the fastest pony I have ever witnessed.

I was fortunate enough not to be forced into risking Celestia simply not noticing my talent, having lived in the palace for the first 15 years of my life under the pretence of a guest, Celestia herself pushed me to join the Spear. Even at an early age I figured that if an alicorn with a current life span well exceeding 1000 alicorn could see potential in me then there must be some. So I pushed myself as she advised, and at age 15 I was a fully fledged member. Now I take my orders directly from her, unlike the other members, in which a middle man is employed. Whether that's due to the fact we had a somewhat mother son relationship in my younger years, or because she knows I'm the best and is simply making full use of the fact, I do not know, but I do, and I'm not complaining.

Now that you know more about me, what I do, why, who for, and all that hay. At risk of sounding horribly cliché.

This, is my story.

I tossed and turned in my bed in the barracks, pulling a pillow over my head to shield my eyes from the sun as it sat, perched atop the mountains shining through the window opposite my bed. I was always one of the late risers, but that's okay, I was always late to bed and trained the hardest, I had the right to get up later than the rest. Well, at least I thought that way. My squad mate didn't share my feelings.

"Wake up you lazy filly!" The gruff, taunting voice of my squad mate came loud and clear over the vocal traffic of rushing ponies around me. My response to this was simply to roll over onto my other side, attempting to ignore him. It was too early to be getting up, there was nothing to do after all, things had been quiet lately. Thanks to us.

"I said wake up!" He ordered, taking one of the rare opportunity's he had to jab me and utilizing it. It didn't hurt that much, but it woke me up, well, not so much the jab, but the drop that followed as I left the bed and met the floor with a resounding thud.

I groggily stood up, slowly acclimating myself to my surroundings, I was entirely too tired to be angry, but I had no doubt I would get there. I stared at him spying a stupid grin on his face as he looked far too proud of himself for punching a sleeping pony. "Why...WHY DID YOU DO THAT!?" I leapt onto my bed in anger bringing my face to his causing him to scramble backwards and trip over himself in surprise. I never was the most subtle about my feelings. Hey, I told you I'd get there.

"Hey, calm down! We have that meeting in the throne room today, remember? Something about Luna returning." He stated trying to defuse the situation as he rose back to his feet dusting himself off.

"...Fair enough. Thank you for waking me, but use those....methods again and I'll visit you in your sleep. How long until it starts?" I conceded, not wanting to miss an address from the Princess herself. I composed myself making my bed and noticing the fact that the only other ponies in the room with us were servant ponies tidying the many beds of the room. That always annoyed me, at least I had the respect to realize that I was living in a palace and make my own bed as I woke up. Bunch of ingrates.

"Not sure. Arteus said she'd come and tell me" He said nervously at the prospect of me visiting him in his sleep, it was a tempting thought. Albeit one I was distracted from because I had just realized the fact that I was woken to attend something that the pony that woke me doesn't know the beginning time of, and was relying on one of the most absent minded ponies I knew to tell us. This left me with one option.

"....I'm going back to sleep. Wake me when she gets here in an hour or so." I angrily said climbing back into bed. Wondering why the hay Princess Celestia had to put me in a squad. I'm not one to brag, I'm stating fact, I'm the best the Spear has to offer. And after working alone for 110 bucking years I don't see a hint of logic in putting me with 2 other ponies who I couldn't stand. I had only had 1 team mate prior to them, and that ended horrifically, friendship, teams, love, all distractions to me. The only reason these foals were still piggybacking off of me is because the Princess had partnered me with them personally. I could only hope she had some grand plan that might actually give these 2 some initiative to become better soldiers instead of letting me do it all, which I actually had no problem with, I enjoy my line of work, I don't enjoy being used by 2 buckers and not having any option in the matter.

"No you're not!" He retorted picking up the glass of water next to him and unconvincingly threatening to throw it at me.

"You remember what happened last time you started throwing water around? Do you want a repeat?" I smirked reminding him of one of my favourite memories from my being in the Spear. He decided throwing water on a pony with the ability to control lightning was a good idea, turns out he was wrong. The shock of being woken up from cold water to the face causing me to....well, short circuit. I started electrocuting myself, now this didn't bother me, it was my own magic, it barely hurt, it hurt him though. It sent him into a muscle spasm causing him to punch my bedside table, which annoyed me, which caused more electrocution. Point being, don't throw water at me.

He rubbed the back of his neck, remembering the joyous day and ignoring my idle threat, I wouldn't kick the flank of my own squad mate, that's just bad discipline. But I do love flaunting the fact I can, it keeps the squad in line, what can I say, I'm a born leader. "Yeah....just stay awake okay? I heard it could be important." He bargained with me, slumping onto his haunches and scanning the room himself as I was doing. I found it fairly odd there were no members of the Spear here, there were at least a few slackers missing their duty. Even a group of highly trained elite guards have their lazy foals, it's inevitable.

"Heard from who?" I asked, I believe I already knew. But this could be worth a laugh.

"Blueblood." He shied away from my amused gaze, I found it hard to believe that such a foal could exist. Blueblood was well known as a spreader of false rumours and an all around foal, but because of his royalty status he was untouchable. Yet here Steelhoof was, buying his bit again. "He sounded serious this time!"

"Did he sound serious when he told you that Princess Celestia was going to exile you to the Everfree for lack of hard work." I mocked, bringing back more good memories. Maybe next I should bring up the time Blueblood tried to mess with my mind and I told him to get bucked because I'm not a moron.

"Blueblood said-" Suddenly, his defensive speech was cut short by the distant screaming of a very fast pony.

"Guys! We need to go, we have like....150...149...148 seconds until the Princess addresses us all!" Came the hyperactive pegasus, Arteus. The fact she had to lower her voice with every word, beginning as a distant shout and gradually becoming a normal speaking voice beside me is testament to her speed. The fact we had 148 seconds to get to the throne room, was the same to her lack of common sense.

"What? Why did you wait this long?!" I asked annoyed, waiting to here the amazing reason I almost already knew.

"I GOT LOST!" Not only had she gone from her courteous lowering of her voice as she approached to not scream in my face, to screaming in my face. But she had once again, got lost in a palace she had been living in for almost 50 years. Again. Delightful.

"....I'm not sure how you keep getting lost. But we're moving out! NOW! GO!" I returned the sentiment by screaming in her face and then dashing out the door of the bedroom, leaping over my bed and piecing together why the room was devoid of any other members of the Spear. Arteus quickly followed, Steelhoof did...well eventually. I had no doubt me and Arteus would get there, Arteus was plain fast and I had the utilization of a trick lightning unicorns had. I could let an aura of lightning wash over me, greatly increasing speed, reaction time, all the cool stuff. Steelhoof however? I wasn't sure, but despite this, not even wanting to be in a squad, and not liking the guy, I had to stick with him as Arteus sped off to no doubt get lost. If I showed up with either of my squad mates not in tow, that would look bad on me, and whilst I was almost certain Arteus was now lost to the palace, I could at least assure Steelhoof's arrival by taking him the best route possible.

I leapt in front of Steelhoof, causing him to scramble backwards. "What are you doing? We're going to be late!"

"This way foal. It's faster." I said irritably leading him down the correct hallway as he sluggishly followed. Yet something was still biting at my curiosity. "What did Blueblood say would happen at this thing anyway?"

"Oh, now you're curious? I thought he was full of manure." He panted through the physical exertion. Whilst I jogged along merrily. He really needed to run more often.

"He is. I just want to hear today's batch of manure. Call it comedic relief, just tell me." I curiously said, whilst I dislike Blueblood, I at least admire his ambition's in life. Mess with an idiot's head, abuse his vast wealth.

"He said because Luna's back, there's going to be some changes. Anyone Luna doesn't think is fit for the Spear will be banished!" He gulped, seeming to believe every word that came out of his own mouth. However implausible this sounded now, I knew it was about to get worse.

"Banished where?" I asked preparing myself for the worst possible thing. Knowing Steelhoof's level of gullibility he would believe Blueblood even if he told him she was going to banish us to the sun. Heh.

And with grade A theatrics, he responded. "THE SUN!" Oh Celestia.

"You honestly believe that?" I would have facehoofed if I wasn't running. But I had to settle for a sigh of disbelief.

"Well. If Celestia can banish ponies to the moon why can't Luna banish them to the sun?" He reasoned with me. Blueblood, I hate you, but good job. You have outdone yourself.

"You realize that's not only an immediate death sentence right? Why would Luna kill a pony for slacking?" We turned a corner bringing us to the hallway that held the entrance to the throne room. "You know what? I don't want to know...is that...?"

Sure enough, Arteus turned the corner on the other side of the hallway, stopping for a short second to look around, spotting us and the entrance. No doubt after getting lost for a short time and ending up here after wandering aimlessly and maybe asking directions as she flew by servants and not even stopping to hear them. "Guys! I found you!" She exclaimed joyously at the fact that she had managed to get lost yet still find her way.

"Delightful!" I sarcastically said as we met in front of the throne room door composing ourselves. Even Arteus knew to calm down, as she fluttered to the ground beside Steelhoof and I. We turned to the door in unison, Steelhoof and Arteus taking place beside me, even they had discipline in front of the Princess....well, Princesses.

I opened the door to the throne room tentatively, worrying I would interrupt a speech, luckily, that was not the case. "Oh, Crimsonlight, there you are. Come in." Princess Celestia smiled at seeing me enter, everyone else seemed to already be here, so there was some sense of embarrassment that I had kept everypony waiting.

"Sorry for being late, Princess. There were some....unexpected problems." I cut a glare at Arteus who looked like she had no understanding of why she was to blame. I scanned the room, everything was as normal. Apart from a new addition, the Princess of the moon, avoiding direct eye contact with nopony in particular sitting meekly in her throne, standing much smaller than her sister. Smaller than me, even, I had heard rumour that something about the nightmare taking control of her had stinted her growth process. I'm not sure whether I believe it, but if she continued to not grow, it would be the only semi logical explanation out there.

"Oh Crimsonlight, it's fine. I wouldn't start without anypony. Now, is everypony here?" She asked gently, it was funny the type of power she had over us, making us feel completely safe with her soothing tones and gentle nature. Yet it was weird to be in the same room as somepony who could do that yet still annihilate you in an instant.

I cantered over to the front of the crowd, Arteus and Steelhoof in tow, placing my hoof firmly on Arteus' back on her occasional attempt to take off and hang in place. If I've told her once I've told her a million times, I probably had told her a million times actually. No flying in the throne room.

Princess Celestia looked at her sister with confidence filled eyes. Whilst Princess Luna looked back with eyes filled with fear and reluctance. From what I could gather Princess Celestia was trying to reintroduce Princess Luna back into the world by urging her to speak, Princess Luna wanted to reintroduce herself with bed. With very obvious reluctance, Princess Luna eventually spoke.

"...T...Tomorrow...The Spear will be split into 2 separate groups. The Spear of Celestia and the Blades of Luna...You will report here at the same time tomorrow, and you will form up in front of the Princess of your choice to represent your choice. This change is to represent that we are now a diarchy. Any groups or squads are, split up or not, are permitted to ask for reformation given all members agree. If a squad requisitioning for reformation is split up a trade must be enacted between the squad member or members being shifted and an unrelated pony. Other than that, groups are formed as normal, through request or order by me or my sister. A...Are we clear?" We were. Apart from some minor stutters and generally sounding nervous, we were.

As the Princesses scanned the room for any pony with a question about the change, whispering ponies could be heard

trying to figure out the situation, I couldn't shake the feeling there was an ulterior motive. Why the hay would an age old organisation be changed now. For all I knew, Princess Luna was around during the time it was first formed, so why were the Blades not also formed then? I found it all pretty suspicious, I could detect no lie in the Princesses speech, though, but then she was thousands of years old. I would be hard pressed to detect one at all.

"Then you are all dismissed, thank you." All ponies began to file out of the throne room, except me. "Crimsonlight? Can I have a word?" She whispered, most likely so no other pony would hear. Unfortunately they did.

Steelhoof and Arteus absently followed me on my way back to Princess Luna. "Just Crimsonlight, please." Luna said, causing them to turn around. Best Princess ever.

"Yes Princess?" I walked up to Luna and knelt down to see what she wanted of me personally.

"You do not need to kneel Crimson. Or call me Princess." She smiled warmly, seeming much more comfortable having a one on one conversation than talking to a room full of ponies. An understandable reaction given her recent circumstances of being isolated for 1000 years.

"Okay...Pri....Luna.." I stuttered. It felt exceedingly awkward to not address a member of royalty merely by name with no mention of status. But she was still my Princess so I had to listen. Even if her order was not acknowledging she was my Princess.

"Better. I just brought you over to say that I look forward to your choice tomorrow in particular." She said, unknowingly giving my ego a three course meal. "Nothing more. You can return to your friends now. Goodbye Crimson."

"Goodbye Luna. Princess Celestia." I knelt to them both as I left. Luna waved a dismissing hoof towards my act of formality. I turned and began to walk towards the door, where my "friends" as Luna aptly put were waiting.

"What did the Princess want?" Arteus buzzed directly into my face impatiently, nosily questioning where I had been for the last minute. Apparently unable to wait for me to actually enter the throne room as she flew up to me about halfway between the thrones the Princesses sat on and the exit.

"Luna didn't want anything important." I responded, pushing her so she wasn't directly in my face. I must make a note to teach her to respect my personal space. She was getting inches away from my face too often nowadays.

"Luna? Not Princess Luna? Just Luna?" Steelhoof questioned with a growing smirk on his face. The only time I ever saw these types of smirks was when he figured he had one up on me. Lets see what gem he had this time.

"Yes. What?" I asked. Wondering what stupid assumption he could jump to just because I left out a title for once. He never added titles. Not even to Princess Celestia's face. I found it quite disrespectful, Princess Celestia didn't seem to care.

"Well. I didn't know you were such a teachers pet." Steelhoof and Arteus burst out into loud laughter as I realized something. Why was I walking with them? They were going back to their beds to slack and I was planning on getting some food.

"I'd rather be the teachers pet than the thing she finds charred and smoking in his bed." I countered, causing my horn to crackle with energy simply to make a fraction of the sound of a lightning strike, causing them, much to my amusement to jump in fright away from the lightning they thought was headed to their face. With that, I turned around and left them on their route to mediocrity.

It was a rather uneventful day after that point. Eat, train, ponies refusing to spar against me, eat, sleep. Not much else really. It wasn't until the following day that stuff really started to become interesting.

I turned to the door as I heard an all too familiar couple of voices laughing, Steelhoof and Arteus entered the room, mischievous grins adorning both of their faces. Thinking they would get another opportunity to physically abuse me in my sleep. I would have payed good bits to see their faces drop from joyous and anxious to downtrodden at a missed chance. Fortunately, I got it for free!.

"What? Why are you awake so early?" Arteus whined, completely missing the vague concept to be subtle. Darting up to my face and doing aforementioned whining directly in my ear. "Why are yo-" I cut her off mid sentence, tired of having my ear defiled by her complaining.

"I'm awake now so I could see your faces as you arrived and realized that you couldn't abuse me. Also, if you violate my personal space again I'll make sure you're served at the next feast." I threatened her angrily. I know it may seem a little harsh. But she was a repeat offender of the "my personal space is MY space and it is PERSONAL" rule.

"Sheesh. Fine. Come on. The...choosing thing starts soon. We don't want to be late again." She pouted, trotting off. Noticeably not immediately taking to the skies. I must have annoyed her with that last remark. Good, at least now we could all actually stay accounted for.

"So. I heard something about today's ceremony." Steelhoof began. No doubt about to drop another load of 24 carat belt fed stupidity onto me. Straight from the mouth of a Prince.

"Oooh, was it from Blueblood? What is it?" Arteus asked eagerly. I don't know what was worse, the fact Blueblood could so easily mislead him, or that he could do the exact same to Arteus.

"Yeah. He said anyone that this is a test of faith. Anyone that picks Celestia gets banished to the sun by Luna. And anyone that picks Luna gets banished to the moon by Celestia!" He trotted proudly saying this, like he was in some well informed inner circle of some kind. In reality, he was just stupid.

"Really? Oh my gosh, I better choose Celestia then!" Arteus gasped, coming to....I don't know her thought process, of the 2 I'd rather be banished on the one that didn't result in instant flaming death. But I fear if I took a trip into that pony's mind I may never be the same.

"You believe this? Then there would be nopony left in the Spear OR the Blades?" I did the unthinkable and attempted to inject logic into a situation involving Steelhoof and Arteus. It was dangerous,, but somepony had to try.

"Well, that's because none of them had faith." He replied turning his nose up and me with complete babble. "You expect a Prince to lie?" He asked me, Arteus nodded in approval. I was left speechless for a second, honestly, neither of these 2 were truly stupid. It's just some times they didn't think out what they were doing. Apparently they were not thinking really hard today.

".....Yes! I do! He's well known to be a liar. I've proven him to be so in the past! Personally! With you BOTH there! That's not a test of faith. That's an elite guard slaughterhouse for no real reason!" I burst out in frustration, both of them left relatively speechless by my reasonable argument. I assumed it's because they were either allergic to it or it was just a completely foreign thing to them.

"....Well. I still think there's something fishy going on." He said looking deep in thought. See, he's not completely stupid when he tries. He has to try pretty darn hard though.

"...At least we can agree on that." We trotted to the throne room in silence for the rest of the way. I gave quiet thought to the situation, but didn't know what to make of it. I would simply have to take it at face value and assume that it was simply because the Princesses wished to be viewed as a diarchy as opposed to a monarchy now, despite the fact I had gotten it into my head that this wasn't the case. We eventually got to the throne room after a short walk, royal pegasus guards standing outside it, apparently the Princesses wanted some extra security today, I was okay with this, I loved a good opportunity to taunt them. "Hey Steelhoof, what has 2 thumbs and is scared of bunnies? Ask these 2." I laughed walking in as Arteus stared at me annoyed, due to the fact that her dad used to be one of these fillies.

What I saw wasn't as expected upon entry to the throne room. I expected seeing grown ponies making decisions. What I saw was the best combat ponies in all of Equestria, proving that they had not evolved past their first kindergarten dance. Huddled together at the entrance side of the throne room as the Princesses of the sun and the moon sat on the other end, no doubt slightly ashamed, I was and I wasn't in charge of all these foals.

"Well. At least we're all a mature bunch of ponies capable of making decisions for ourselves." I made fun of them all as I entered the room, earning some annoyed glances, which I gladly returned. I never was Mr. Popular, it seemed like a silly concept to me. Why would I spend my time worrying about how everypony else felt about me when I could just train and be better than them? That would override my insecurities right? Right. It did.

"Oh. Crimsonlight! Hello there. Please, feel free to make a decision. Maybe you could kick start proceedings?" Princess Celestia gazed over the room laughing at the immaturity of the ponies present. Luna, again, seeming to shy away from a large group of ponies. Receding back into her throne.

I could say I thought long and hard, but I didn't. I stood there, looked at Luna, and decided to give her a helping hoof since she was so shy, especially for, you know, a Princess. Besides, she had yesterday granted me with the honour of calling her only by name, that was....going to be awkward to get used to, but a sign of good will nonetheless. Having "founder member of the Blades of Luna" being added to my accolades couldn't hurt either, right?

I cantered over to Luna, who smiled at my choice, as did her sister. It was like Luna had won a prize. It felt good to be a Princesses prize. "Thank you." She knelt down and whispered, nodding her head.

"No problem." I nodded back kneeling down, seeing if she would dismiss it again, testing the waters, so to speak.

"Crimsonlight, what did I say about formalities?" She smiled. She really wasn't very Princess-like. No formalities, no titles. I wouldn't be surprised to walk into her room finding her chugging a keg of ale upside down.

"Sorry. Kind of habitual." I replied standing up. I turned at the noise of mobile hooves, observing everypony else in the room follow my lead and choose a side. Steelhoof obviously lining up behind me with a smile, and Arteus on his back, I turned around and grinned at the thought of being without a squad again. Ah the good old days.

"What are you smiling about?" Came the voice of a mare, I turned to Arteus out of habit. Who simply tilted her head and looked back at me confusedly. I turned around, realizing I was being addressed, once more, personally by Luna. Realizing I had just confused 2 ponies with completely different voices and mannerisms made me feel stupid. But I shrugged it off.

"Well. All members of a group need to agree if they want to reform, correct?" Luna nodded in response to my question. "Well, I'm not going to agree." I said happily, finally. No more annoying wake up calls. Well, I wouldn't put it past Steelhoof to pull a few more, but he's not my squad mate any more, it's all at his own risk now.

"You don't like your squad mates?" Luna asked, I turned around, looking at my team mates, who were currently debating the strategic advantages of tying their tails together. Luna looked on too, I turned around, spying a confused stare on her face as she looked what I had to personally deal with. "Oh...."

"I don't think I need squad mates. I've been going along with them because Princess Celestia partnered me with them. But this is a very, very good chance to ditch them." I chose my words carefully, I didn't want to outright say. "Look, I know your sister's the Princess of the sun and all? But horrible call on this one. Next ponies you partner me with, they're getting lightning to the face to save us all some time, got it champ?".....Well, I did, but I couldn't.

"Crimsonlight. I know they may not be....ideal...but you must give them a chance. What's a pony without his friends and allies? Got it champ?" She said, mirthfully smiling. She had decent reasoning behind her words. It would have been better reasoning, only I didn't consider them friends or allies. I was more of their babysit- Holy bit did she just read my mind? Happy thoughts, Luna your mane looks really nice, loving the tiara.

"I'm doing fine. I've had a friend before, didn't pan out too well. I did better on my own." I slumped on my haunches remembering back and vacantly staring for a second or two. Before remembering that I was still talking to a Princess. I stood up and almost adopted the kneeling position before remembering her orders not to be so formal.

"Come on now. A pony needs his friends, just because you had one bad experience doesn't mean you can rule it out forever." She continued to attempt to get through to me. Hmmm, how did she know about that? Did she read my mind on that too? Could she even do that? I would presume that my natural unicorn magic makes it impossible for anyone to read my mind, but she was a very old alicorn. Oh Celestia no I just called a mind reader old....You look great for your age.

"Princess Celestia tell you?" I said trying to keep a straight face as I was battling my mind to keep my thoughts pure, no feeding Steelhoof to a dragon here Princess, not one bit. Ah who am I kidding, nobody can read a unicorn's mind, natural magic and blah blah makes it downright impossible. Yet no matter how much I told that, I couldn't help but feel slightly violated and nervous.

"Yes. I understand, it was bad for you. You're very use to not letting anypony down, you're very dutiful. But that was not your assignment nor your fault. You should not count friendship as a liability purely on one bad experience that was no fault of your own." She did have a point, but that didn't mean I was going to go and have a best friends forever party. The only 2 ponies I really talked to were still huge foals who piggybacked off of me.

"....I guess. But it still seems a little risky." I turned around looking at Steelhoof and Arteus, half heartedly hoping to have a super friendship epiphany and embrace them in a hug and be friends for the rest of time and blah blah blah. All that happened was I pushed Arteus back down to the ground and told her to stay there.

"I'm sure you'll change your mind in time." The Princess smiled as if she knew something I didn't. This did nothing more than rouse my suspicion. Which added to the suspicion I already had about this whole thing. Fantastic. "Now hush, my sister is about to speak. You know, the one you have to kneel to?" She jested. Sitting back in her throne as Princess Celestia began talking.

"Thank you all for coming and making your choice sensibly. You are now free to return to your daily routines. Goodbye." The Princess of the sun smiled, turning to Luna, discussing...Princessy stuff.

I walked out of the throne room, taking a left and heading for the cafeteria as hunger stuck. Well, I was going too. I heard a loud, drone voice shout over the crowd of conversation. "Where are you going?" Steelhoof bellowed, bounding after me, Arteus clinging to his neck as he burst through the crowd with his notably amazing situational awareness. Nearly steam rolling some unfortunate ponies.

"....Cafeteria?" I replied confused, half ignoring them and continuing to walk.

"Why? Don't you want to hang out with your squad mates?" He said tauntingly, I don't know if he got the memo or not, but he wasn't my squad mate.

"We're not in a squad any more, no more free rides. You should probably go train." I angrily told him, not particularly liking the idea of their smugness on the subject of using me. Neither of them noticed this, and took off from Steelhoof's back, once again, at the most foolish of times, violating my personal space.

"Yeah? Well both me and Steelhoof are going to vote for us to stay together. That's 2 of the 3 voting, they'll have to keep us together. You're stuck with us!" Then, I got angry. I unleashed all the anger I stored up during our partnership, now that it was over, I had no reason not to release it. We weren't going on missions together any more, no teamwork to jeopardize, why the hay not.

"Get...out...of my bucking face! Neither of you are getting any more free rides from me! Do either of you even listen when a Princess speaks?" I screamed stomping towards them as they retreated slowly backwards, caught entirely off guard. So were the ponies surrounding as they stared, but I wasn't done. "Every one of us has to agree or the squad can NOT be reformed, I am most certainly NOT agreeing to carrying you foals in my backpack any longer! Is this getting through your thick skulls a little better or do I need to make a hole through your bucking head and then tell you?!?!" I seethed through gritted teeth, causing them to back away, along with every pony in a 20 foot radius due to the fact I was now crackling with lightning. Finally I get my personal space. Through all the rage, I didn't even notice a messenger pony land beside me and begin to deliver a message to me. I turned, looking at him as he nearly ran in fear. And squeaked out my orders.

"Um....You need to...go to Princess Luna's quarters...in 15 minutes...." He quietly said before buzzing off back to where he came from.

Oh bit. Was that because of my outburst? I had been the founding member of the Blades of Luna for what, 2 minutes? And I was already being called in for a caution. Delightful. And worst of all? I wasn't going to get to eat. I decided that 15 minutes was enough time to walk back to my quarters and grab a muffin that may or may not be very, very stale out of my bedside drawer. I turned around to, lo and behold, no Steelhoof or Arteus. Hey, at least I scared them off. And I still had my personal space, it was like my birthday.

I began to canter back to my quarters, to pick up a muffin I had in my bedside table, hoping it hadn't gone stale. I thought what Luna's punishment for me may be, she seemed pretty adamant that I was going to "get" friendship, and raging all over the only 2 ponies I really knew seemed to put a rather large obstacle on the friendship road, so that probably wasn't going to go down too well.

It wasn't long before I reached my quarters, solemnly trotting over to my bed, happy Steelhoof and Arteus were nowhere in sight, the last thing I needed to do now was make the hole any bigger. I magicked the drawer open, levitating a muffin in front of me, taking a bite out of it. Like a rock. Maybe I could take this, if push comes to shove I could beat Luna with it. I magicked it back into my drawer, and closed it, deciding upon not beating a Princess over the head with a muffin from the stone ages.

I began my walk to Luna's quarters, before suddenly realizing something I hadn't before through worry of which Luna would send me to, Everfree or the moon. The messenger pony didn't go back to the throne room! Therefore his orders must have been given to find me beforehand, so what did Luna want? The fact I was suspicious about this whole Blades of Luna thing, not entirely believing they would uproot an age old group of elite guards merely to say they were joint rulers now. If they wanted to do that Luna could surely just go find ponies worthy of her Blades. That I was now being called for a personal audience with Luna made me even more suspicious. Just what was really going on here? Oh well, time would tell. Not pondering it on the way.

But ponder I did....Maybe she wanted me to fight a dragon....or date her....heh.....yeah right...She's a Princess and I'm an emotionally distant at the best of times pony who, as far as I knew, was the only pony to reject friendship. I'm pretty sure it was probably just a dragon. Cool, dragons....Then again, what if she did want to date me...She was being awfully friendly towards me, and letting me just call her Luna? I don't know...I hadn't had a date in.....well....ever. My life was dedicated to my work. What does one do on a date? Where would I take her? Okay, that thought is getting out now, no more of that. It's a silly notion entirely, and I couldn't allow it to grow. If she really was a mind reader that would be rather embarrassing...

....Wait....if that messenger got orders beforehand....and he told me to go to Luna...how did he know I would choose the Blades?....I just presumed I was going to Luna because I chose Blades, and if I had chosen to stick with the Spear I would be on my way to Celestia right now.....hmmm....

HOLY BIT LUNA WANTED TO DATE ME. What is the protocol when asked out by a Princess? I can't get her nice gifts, I don't get payed for this! My payment is getting to live in the castle! But those dumb royal guards get payed, stupid overpayed cowardly winged vermin, if they're payed for being afraid of their own shadow, I should be for bringing dragons down! Hayseeds to this job, I'm becoming a royal guard, as far as I know the only prerequisites are looking scary and being a wimp.

What am I saying, I'd never wear that gold. It looks stupid.....Celestia should have gone with something black, with rubies. I wonder if I could bargain a position as captain of the guard, then I could train them to not be afraid of ketchup and mustard, they could at least make me sandwiches all day.....Wait, what? NO! I'm not lowering myself to those foals! To go from my job to.....that...would almost definitely make me the coward king of the royal guards. Cool armour or not, I'd have to run away from it because it looked more intimidating than a throw cushion.

I'm just being stupid, she's a Princess. She's going to get to know me for a longer period of time than 5 minutes before she makes a decision like that, especially given the fact she just returned from the moon. I was just being silly. And she can't read minds either....it wouldn't hurt to whitewash my own mind in fear of her reading it and it being...less than respectable. Time to pull a Steelhoof......food....food....food...Luna eats worms food....BIT...This was harder than Steelhoof made it look...

As I neared Luna's private quarters, worries in tow, worries even I knew to be silly, I knocked on her door....Nothing. How long had it been? I wasn't early, I thought looking at one of the clocks on the palace walls, lovely. I slumped on my haunches next to the door, closing my eyes, I was still pretty darn tired. When my impromptu nap was cut short by a certain tardy Princesses' arrival.

"Ah, Crimsonlight! Hello!" Luna smiled levitating a tidy bundle of paperwork next to her.

"You're late." I joked, pointing at my blank hoof. I don't know why, but I liked Luna, her whole scrapping formalities thing, and she was just...less formal than her sister. I was happy that she seemed to return the favour.

"You try being a Princess." She said, magicking a key from between the paper and sliding it into the door, unlocking the door and walking in, dumping the paper on her bed. Not tidy any more. "Come in, please."

"Thank you." I said walking through the door, once again holding back the ever present urge to kneel. Darn knees. "I'd make a very good Princess."

"I think you would too for what it's worth. But sadly we're not here for that." She smiled coyly, reorganizing the paper on her bed. So we're not here for my eventual promotion to Princess. What else could there possibly be?

"I wouldn't expect to become a Princess yet, I don't even have a tiara. So what am I here for? I assume you have some cool title to bestow upon me for being the founding member of the Blades?" I questioned, it was the only thing I could think of right now apart from an assignment. But with all the paperwork she obviously had, why would she go through the trouble of personally giving me an assignment?

"Heh, Unfortunately not. You're being given a new assignment." She replied, okay then, so my logical assumption was wrong. Hey cool! Dragon fight!

"Okay then, what is it?" I said with a hint of excitement in my voice. I always did like my line of work, hopefully it would be something challenging. Dragon, Ursa minor, the cool stuff.

"Nothing like what you're thinking, I'm afraid." She said, noticing the excitement in my voice and letting me down easily. So...I didn't fight any more? Was this all a ruse? Maybe there was an element of a test of faith about it. Perhaps the Blades were more defensive, not leaving Canterlot, perhaps we were the new kitchen staff. That should be....fun...if your idea of fun is working in a kitchen and being bugged by Steelhoof and Arteus. Actually, on second thought, I was probably going to go to jail for drastically violent actions if this were true.

"....Oh? What is it?" I asked, very much so hoping she was messing with me and there was a dragon attacking a town or something. That sounded a lot less sadistic in my head.

"You're going to Ponyville." She stated plainly.....What? Was it under attack?

"Ponyville? Isn't that where the elements live? Why?" I could only come to the conclusion that I was being fired or was being sent to defend it. But she said there wouldn't be any fighting...maybe...I had to...defend it from...pacifists?...Through rigorous verbal debate?....I got nothing.

"You're right. And that's why you're going there. You need to defend the elements of harmony. I'm sorry to uproot you at a moments notice, but this is of the utmost urgency. Are you okay?" She tried to reassure me, I didn't need reassuring right now, I needed answers. And given the amount of questions I had, she better put that paperwork aside.

"Defend them from what? I thought you said no fighting."

"We're not entirely sure the...danger...is real or not. We need you to keep the elements under your watch. Don't worry, it won't be for too long. It won't take us a very large period of time to figure out whether or not the threat is real." She looked at me as I stood there with a look of confusion on my face reminiscent of an earth pony filly trying to understand the Princesses personal spell book.

Then, my mind put 2 and 2 together. "Is this what you meant when you said 'I'm sure you'll change your mind in time. In regards to friendship?" I was trying to get a footing, so to speak. This was kind of a lot to drop on somepony. I hadn't lived anywhere but Canterlot for my entire life, I kind of needed a dragon right about now.

Luna grinned in response, jabbing me in the front leg. "You're a sharp pony. Surely you didn't expect I meant that you'd find friendship with those 2 foals you used to work with, did you?" She laughed, this did a lot for her in my eyes. Calling Steelhoof and Arteus foals? Princess Celestia would never do that. Luna for life.

"You'll get no argument from me on that one." I smiled. Following beside the Princess as she magically tidied her mountain of paperwork and began to walk outside, back into the palace halls.

"I have business to attend to. And so do you. You need to leave immediately. Two royal guards have been ordered to take you to Ponyville. They're waiting in the carriage yard. Your chariot awaits, Princess." She magicked the key back to her and locked the door, smirking. Great, I had a carriage ride with 2 royal guards. I'm not annoyed by that at all.

"Heh, thanks Luna. Goodbye." I nodded to her, somewhat now used to the no kneeling rule and began to walk away.

"Crimsonlight? I am your Princess, you really think I was serious when I said no formalities?" She angrily said stomping a hoof with authority. I don't get easily scared, but I'm pretty sure I almost squeaked. I turned around and briskly walked up to her, kneeling.

"Sorry, Princess, goodbye." I stood up and quickly turned to leave.

"HAHA! You're so easy. Oh, that was fun. Goodbye Crimsonlight." .......Did she just get me?...Great way to start a day, sent to Ponyville and got by a Princess. At least there was nopony around to witness it.

"....Goodbye Luna.." I breathed out, sighing in relief that she wasn't serious as she walked around laughing to herself. I turned and began to make my way to the carriage yard, still not too sold on the idea of a long carriage ride with a couple of ponies who were afraid of the wind.

I turned around and began to lazily walk to the carriage yard, rubbing at my eyes, looks like I had a particularly long day ahead of me. I may have lived in Canterlot but I had been to some other places for periods of time, Fillydelphia, Hoofington, Ponyville not among them. From what I understood it was a town of closely knit ponies, everyone knew everyone, everyone was friendly, not my thing. I'd prefer Manehattan, at least there I could watch who I was guarding without being forced to become personally involved.

The carriage yard wasn't very far, so I got there relatively quickly. Stepping outside the cool air hit my face, I liked that about Canterlot, high above ground level the temperature up here was noticeably lower, and the scenery was pretty nice too. I could even make out Ponyville in the distance looking over the edge of the carriage yard. I walked over to my carriage, and began to climb in, when a familiar voice shouted after me.

"Hey, wait up, come here!" Arteus shouted after me, Steelhoof in tow. Well, about a mile behind, eh, details. She soared past me not being able to come to a stop in time, flying past a royal guards heads and almost hitting him, causing him to jump back in fear. Which was a pretty basic response on his behalf. If only she had been 2 inches to the left.

"Overshoot that much?" I sarcastically replied as she brought herself to a halt as Steelhoof ran beside me panting. She fluttered down onto his back, looking at the carriage confusedly.

"Where are you going?" She rubbed her head, as the royal guards shuffled impatiently in place.

"Ponyville." She began to raise a hoof in question. "Don't know." She put her hoof down looking at me as if telling me to stop using my mind reading unicorn magic, silly Arteus. "So, what do you want?" I asked gruffly, still harbouring some residual rage.

Steelhoof spoke up. "We saw you and we wanted to....apologize" He strained that word as if it was painful upon exit of his throat. Despite my obvious pleasure at this, I was still caught off guard by the two ponies I berated not long ago standing before me apologizing. Or at least attempting to.

"....Oh, why's that?" I questioned, deciding to push my luck. I knew I was being a buck, but I didn't want an apology, I wanted an apology and a complimentary essay.

"...We...we realized we had been foals, letting you do all the work. Given you were no gem either, but still. We're sorry." Steelhoof blurted out quickly, avoiding any eye contact, as did Arteus, who just stared into space nodding her head in approval...Hmmmm...good enough.

"....I guess I'm sorry too then." I didn't know why, I just felt obliged, didn't want to ruin the moment. "I could have been a little more tolerant." And then a golden clad foal decided to interrupt me.

"Can we cut the love festival and just hurry up?" He said causing his equally wimpy friend to giggle.

"Do you know why we don't wear armour? Because dragons would bake us inside it. You know what is hot other than fire? Lightning. Food for thought." I happily retorted, powering up my horn so to speak. They shifted nervously, apparently not taking too well to death threats.

"Well...thanks for the apology you two....I have to go, order by the Princess and all that...Goodbye." I said, with a new level of respect for the two ponies I had woken up this morning despising.

They both simultaneously said goodbye, then Steelhoof trotted off with Arteus still on his back. I boarded the SS Coward, it took off immediately. Stupid impatient guards. Oh well...the sooner the better.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. It probably would though.

A different way of life

Authors note

So, sorry it took me so long to work on chapter 2, but I am annoyed at the prospect of having to rewrite, I only find fun in writing stuff I haven't before. But thank you for the nice rating nonetheless. In light of my boredom, I promise it won't degrade the level of writing.

On the bright side, I will make SOME modifications to it all.

Also, an apology this took so darn long to write, Christmas and new year and all.

Chapter 2, AWAY.

The carriage barrelled through the clear blue skies as I lounged in the back, trying, and failing, to catch a nap on the short carriage ride to my destination, Ponyville. I picked myself up groaning, leaning back on the carriage and sitting in the comfortable seats, realizing my endeavour to get sleep was going to be a failed one. The winds rushed against my face, flicking about my mane as the pegasi pulling me were no doubt trying to show off, ducking and diving through the skies with agility, mumbling to one another, probably seeing if they could keep up with each other's tricks. Cute. I decided to avoid the more direct approach of insulting them I usually took when talking to a pegasus guard as not to further endanger my nap.

"Hey guys. Could you slow it down a pinch? I didn't get much sleep." I asked, as politely as I would allow myself to ask a pegasi guard. Which turned out to be through a slight scowl.

Their response wasn't so polite, which isn't exactly a big statement, but still. "Ha, whatever kid. Just sit back and watch a couple masters at work. And when you land in Ponyville you can tell your friends." The...one on the left, carriage grunt #1 grunted arrogantly as his partner chuckled, swerving between clouds and causing me to sway violently from side to side. I was used to his tone, but I was the one used to using it, having it used against me wasn't as nice. I decided to take the previously ignored direct approach to gain their attention.

"Pfft. I don't know why I bothered complaining. A filly could sleep through these 'tricks'" They turned around to glare at me, looking right at me smug grin as I laughed at them under my breath. This seemed to annoy them, good.

"You think you can do better? You don't even have any wings!" Carriage grunt #2 giggled from the right, nudging his comrade as he did the same. A lovely point, if I'd ever said I expressed outward desire to become a winged, carriage pulling over-glorified doorpony. Still, a pony could try.

"Well. I can keep the carriage afloat with magic, and at a standstill it would be moving considerably fasting than this pace. Really this is pathetic. Are you guards or homeless ponies Princess Celestia pulled in from the street." I mocked, causing them to speed up and swerve more violently in anger, turning around to check how close I was to puking. To their further annoyance my smug grin had not been wiped off of my face. They keep up this pace and they could enter in some butterfly racing leagues.

"Yeah?! Well maybe we do detach the carriage and see how you do plummeting to the ground?" Carriage grunt #2 piped up, obviously angered by my joking at the expense of his abilities. He turned to face his partner. "How about it, lets ditch this runt!" He motioned to the harnesses on their backs, suggesting they unlatch what attached them to the carriage in tandem.

"Woah. Celestia wouldn't be too happy about that, he's got to get to Ponyville, even if he is wrong. We might even get fired if we up and drop him!" Carriage grunt #1 reasoned with his enrage partner, trying to soothe him.

"...You're probably right. There's no rules against showing him what we CAN do though right? Lets step up. Watch and learn foal!" He smiled, speeding up and exiting his state of anger. Unacceptable.

".....So you're a wuss?" I taunted, shrugging as he turned around, once again fuming. His partner looking worried.

"Calm down...don't do anyth-"

"NO! This ungrateful foal is being ferried to his destination and he can't even bother to be thankful! Hayseeds to him!" He screamed angrily, undoing his latch and flying alongside the carriage as his partner grunted and strained as he struggled to keep it upright, slowly descending. "What now? Haha!"

"...This?" I jabbed him in the shoulder as my horn began to glow. As did the latch attaching his partner. "You started it!" I said blowing a raspberry as the carriage stopped it's slow descent and took more to a style of free falling, me still inside it, still blowing a raspberry.

His level headed partner didn't take kindly to this. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING? WE'RE GOING TO GET FIRED IF YOU KEEP PULLING THIS STUFF!" He shrieked wildly flying up to his friend, who cowered away from his anger. "We have to go get him!"

That was my que to make myself scarce. "Sorry boys, gotta go! I'll catch you later!" I waved goodbye, horn once again glowing as the entire carriage became coated in the same glow. Slowing the descent to a safe hover, not fast enough. I turned the carriage to a dangerous nose diving position, folding the wings out from their secret compartments as I picked up some speed then levelled out the carriage to a glide, pushing through the canopy of leaves and into the forest below. I heard the 2 exchange screams as I left view, becoming quieter and quieter as they no doubt left to plead their case to the Princess. I knew they wouldn't be fired, just sent to find the carriage, the Princess knew there was no harm in me being left alone, but she would no doubt want her carriage back from it's parking spot. I figured that it wouldn't hurt to give the them a little game of hind and seek, parking the carriage in a nearby bush just large enough to contain it yet still show a small portion of it. This would give their seeking skills a nice test, really, where would they be without me?

I walked away from the carriage, scanning the skies to find the outsmarted pegasi, not finding them as they had scampered off as fast as their little wings could carry them. I chuckled, happy with my work, feeling less tired and reinvigorated by the worry the skies vermin must be feeling about now. I stopped patting myself on the back just long enough to continue on my way to Ponyville, knowing way as I had seen it in the near distance from the carriage before it became one with the bush.

I cantered through the forest, seeing no road or pathway in sight and content with taking a straightforward path through the forest, knowing there was nothing of danger here. This was Whitetale woods, the most dangerous thing here right now, by a long shot, was me. And I meant no harm to the various tiny creatures and critters that inhabited this place.

I continued my scenic expedition, marvelling at my surroundings. I was quite the stranger to sights like these, not getting the chance to admire the beauty of places such as Whitetale woods previously, as my short time spent outside of Canterlot had been on missions. I stared at the trees, who's thin coats of sap seemed to reflect the sunlight in such a way that cast the illusion of light dancing upon the tree's themselves. The trees bounced the light between one another giving the entire area a beautiful and peaceful amber hue. This was even more beautiful than the palace gardens. My casual trot seemed to, however, disturb the local wildlife, if you can call them 'wild'. Prompting them to gather around my hooves and tag along behind, and alongside me. No doubt curious to the new addition to their little slice of paradise.

This inadvertently told me quite a bit about the denizens of Ponyville. If the fauna were this relaxed around me, they must have seen other ponies that were kind, and presumed, that because I looked similar, must have been kind too. Ponyville was the only settlement of ponies near here, therefore, the citizens must have been very kind and giving to not only their own, but others. While I did not consider myself at liberty to judge whether or not the animal's judgement of me was correct, and I had no illusions that most ponies I had met would vouch against the animals, I wasn't going to bat them away. And continued my stroll with bunnies, squirrels and birds, walking, gliding and hopping alongside me lackadaisically.

In fact, one plucky chestnut coated squirrel even decided to go one step further. Grabbing onto my tail and scampering up it, onto my back and eventually perching itself atop my head, serving as a lookout. I didn't really want a squirrel aspiring to become a watchpony on my head, but shooing him off may contort the woodland creature's vision of a pony slightly, which stood now as kind and giving. So I let him be, I didn't even know he was there most of the time. Well, apart from when he decided that rappelling down the front of my face was amusing, but even I have to admit, it kind of was.

I went on my way, the cluster of fauna around me strengthening in numbers, the squirrel atop my head even beckoning a few more squirrels my way to add to my ragtag group of critters. The group however, did not last too long, as a graceful noise caused the entire group to disband and take off running in the direction of it. I thought them scared at first, thinking the noise to be dangerous, I picked my lazy canter up into a jog to find the source of said noise, pushing passed branches and making sure they didn't whip back into some poor creatures face, eventually finding myself at the epicentre of the animals attention, a clearing, housing a singing yellow pegasus.

I sat and watched the pegasus, kind of entranced by her beautiful singing. She hovered gently in place with her front legs spread out allowing numerous kinds of birds to land upon them, becoming a hive of activity for the wildlife. Attracting, and mesmerizing the group of animals that was with me, along with many more. The only able to withstand her allure was the squirrel atop my head who had become very comfortable there, though even he was swaying back and forth gently, keeping in rhythm with her melody.

This was a nice change of pace from normal life, the surroundings, the fauna and now this pegasus. Most pegasus I've seen have obviously been the cowardly guard ponies, so I was happy to see all pegasi didn't live by their bad example.

"Eep!" The mystery pegasi squeaked as she spied me, now sitting on my haunches and listening to, and watching her performance intently. Diving into a nearby bush scrambling her followers, all but a small white rabbit who tailed her into the bush. Okay, so maybe she was a coward like the guards.

"...Hello?...Sorry, I...uhm...didn't mean to scare you....are you okay?" I cautiously asked, stepping forward not wanting to invoke more accidental fear in the dainty pony. Not really sure of the words I should say in this situation. I peered my head forward and crouched down in an attempt to see into the bush, as the squirrel, still atop my head mimicked my movement, shifting his body forward curiously too.

Slowly but surely, the pegasus came out of her hiding place. Slowly creeping out, also with a creature atop her head, the small rabbit who followed her into the bush, he brushed numerous twigs, leaves and berries out of her pink mane and tail and she exited the bush. Her actions almost mirrored mine, as she came out crouched, I backed up allowing her the space she obviously needed, then as she shakily rose to her hooves, I did, matching her speed, not wanting to scare her. I was inwardly smug about my correct assumption from earlier, the citizens of Ponyville proving themselves to be, as I assumed, kind and caring towards the animals. Well, that's if she was a citizen of Ponyville and not just some woods dwelling crazy pony, I decided another safe assumption would be if she was a crazy pony she wouldn't have been spooked by an onlooker.

"....You okay?" I outstretched a hoof in greeting, which she shied away from quickly. I withdrew it back to my side wondering what to do. Introductions? "...I'm Crimsonlight...and you are?" I trailed off, to show my expectation of her answer.

"I'm...I'm Flutters-" She became too quiet to understand after that point, receding back, towards that infernal bush. Not the bush. Anything but the bush, who knew how difficult it would be to coax her out this time?

I kicked the dirt with my hoof in awkward silence, still not knowing what to do. I felt another furry lump bound onto my head. Great, there was an entire party up there. I looked up, spying a white bunny looking back down, with a Chestnut squirrel to his left. They conferred with one another in whispered squeaks before they both began bouncing up and down on my head and pointing to Flutters...Fluttershape...Fluttersheep...or whatever her name was. This was obviously a signal to attempt to greet her once more.

"...I didn't get that...what's your name?" I forced a smile, extending a hoof again and leaning forward as the duo on my head did the same.

"I'm...I'm Flutter...Flu-...Eeee." .....Awwww....wait, what? Never mind....She once again receded further away from me, much to the dismay of the pitter patter of little feet now assailing my skull. The only difference being an awkwardly adorable squeaking noise she made in accompaniment with her retreat. At least she had that over the guards, they couldn't do THAT.

Still though, she was being very timid. Had I given her a death threat previously in life and just...forgot? I decided to pay heed to the two sets of tiny feet making my head a dance floor and decided to give it one more try. This time with more gusto, seeing it as somewhat of a personal challenge.

"The animals here really seem to like you. You must really like them too?" I began, obviously doing something right. As the bounding up and down on my head had turned into a congratulatory patting. Great, I was more their pet than they were mine. "This squirrel is using my head as a house, I haven't named him yet...maybe you could...help...me?" I forced out those words more so than the others. Which was painfully obvious to me, this entire one sided exchange between Fluttersheep and I had been very strained due to my lack of social knowledge. I was actually pretty proud of myself, this may have sounded half decent if I wasn't straining them as I was. I had to rely on the good nature I presumed her to have due to her presumed citizenship of Ponyville. Lots of presuming going on.

I leaned forward, hoping this random pegasus would reply. She stared back at me, seeming to go over it in her head, looking up to her bunny and my, well, the vagrant squirrel calling my head home. I looked up, seeing them nodding enthusiastically, both apparently having a fairly larger grasp on the situation than I did. She eventually unfurled from the ball she had halfway began to curl up in and finally spoke.

"My name...is...is Fluttershy." She whispered, looking me in the eyes for the first time and holding her own hoof out in greeting, which I grabbed and gave the softest handshake known to man. There have most likely been butterfly's with stronger grips than what I had to use on her for fear of her retreating back into the bush.

"Nice to meet you.....So...What are you doing out here all alone?" I asked, noticing her bunny hop from my head back onto hers giving me a thumbs up. Good job me.

"I'm just saying hello to some old friends." .....What?....As far as cryptic answers go, this one was a doozy. The whole 'crazy forest pony' thing wasn't looking so bad right now.

"....Friends?" I tilted my head in confusion, getting ready for her to leap at me with a sharpened stick and her bunny to pull out a tiny baseball bat.

"Yes...I take care of a lot of animals, and sometimes to keep it from getting overcrowded I have to release a few...I don't like never seeing them again so I come and say hello every now and then..." Wow! An entire sentence! Given it was barely audible due to how quiet it was at times, but I got it! Good job for not being a crazy stick wielding forest pony Fluttershy! "What do you do?"

I puffed out my chest, nearly rearing up on my two hind legs in pride in telling her my occupation. Then I remembered the whole bothersome secret thing. There's no way I could get away with telling some random pony the existence of the Blades or the Spear, I could get away with telling the elements, only because I was guarding them though, any other circumstance and telling even them would end up with me on the streets. I thought about what my lie would be. Something not too amazing, but nothing too...not amazing....dragon slayer?.....Was that even a job?...Well, I guess the only job that would involve slaying dragons was, well, mine, so that was a no go....Business pony?...No, that would involve many, many lies underneath that to back up my status. Royal guard? No, royal guards had to be pegasi, and they were larger than me. Maybe I could say I was a special branch of royal guard? A branch that dealt with larger problems......Wait....I was.....bodyguard it is.

"I'm a bodyguard. I guard the higher up....artists...fashion designers...and business ponies...." I squeezed out the last few words thoughtfully, trying to make my words sound as legitimate as possible. The bunny atop her head looked at me quizzically, trying to tell fact from fiction. Fortunately she seemed to be a very trusting pony, and took my words as truth without any questioning. Thankfully. She even seemed to perk up slightly at my mention of fashion.

"Oooh, you guard fashion designers? My friend Rarity makes dresses, and I like to keep up to date on fashion, we meet up and talk about it." I was taken aback by the sudden outburst of....well....talking. And so was she, suddenly becoming very aware of her herself. "....Oh...um......Are you going to...Ponyville?" She recovered from her stint of talking normally and went back to her quietly whispering. I wasn't too fussy, at least she brought the lie, and even changed the subject for me.

"Yeah...I'm taking a vacation...I heard it was....nice...this time of year." I was now the one avoiding eye contact, due to another obvious lie, oh well, her trustworthy nature proved itself once more, seeming not to deliberate it. The bunny on her head again playing the role of detective, which was, despite the fact that he was just a bunny, slightly unnerving.

"Oh...it is. I could...take you to town? My friend could even give you advice on the best places in town to visit. She's a very smart pony." She kindly offered, I didn't need to think it over, Luna hadn't exactly given me many details as to where I was going, all I knew was that the Princesses protégé lived in the town library and that she was also the element of magic. I could go to her 'smart' friends house, learn the whereabouts of the library and be on my way. Great!

"Sure....That'd be nice." I replied, not knowing what to say again, my social ineptitude shining through once more. The squirrel on my head, who I'd almost forgot, once more began his tap dancing routine, trying to get me to talk. I decided to obey, partly because I didn't want to seem rude, but mostly because the furry little foal was beginning to annoy me.

"So....Nice bunny...what's it's name?" I clutched at straws, motioning to the bunny on her head. Who didn't seem too happy to be referred to as 'it'.

"Oh....This is Angel...He helps me take care of the others." She breathed out again, remaining quiet. "What's your squirrels na-Oh!" She was cut off by Angel drumming on her head with his hands and feet, at least I wasn't the only one who got that treatment. "Sorry, you asked me for help to name her, didn't you?" She asked, the bunny atop her head seemed to be appeased she had used the words he had wanted her to. At least we had one thing in common, we were being mind control by 2 evil furry tap dancers who refused to move.

"Her? At least I know the gender now." I smiled, as the squirrel rappelled down onto the front of my face using my mane as rope and slapped me in the face. Causing everyone but me to giggle. "Ow. Thanks. So much for you getting a cool name." My taunts were again greeted by a stomp to the top of my head. When will I learn? Never, hayseeds to this bunny.

The casual physical abuse and talk of animals caused Fluttershy to come out of her shell somewhat. "Heh. She looks like a....Hmmm...." She held out her foreleg, beckoning the squirrel to come closer. And true to her animal magnetising form, she did. Hopping off my head and onto the waiting leg.

"Melody?" The squirrel nodded her head, displeased. "Oh...Sorry....Anastasia?" The squirrel put a paw in her mouth, making a vomiting gesture. "I'm sorry...I...I don't know...."

"Felicity." I interrupted the failing naming process, feeling very confident in the name I had chosen.

"...Do you li-" Fluttershy was cut off by Felicity leaping back onto my head and curling up in my mane, patting my head in approval. "Well...I guess she does..." Fluttershy smirked, watching the newly named squirrel settle into her nest. Despite the fact her nest was showing displeasure at this. "Hey, look, it's my friend's house!" Fluttershy remarked, pointing to, well, a tree. Her friend lived in a tree? Well, to every pony their own.

We approached the house...tree..house..thing. Walking around to the front of it. I noticed a balcony with a telescope sitting on it. The owner must be a keen stargazer, a hobby I couldn't completely exclude myself from, I had done it on occasion, there wasn't much else to do around the palace at night when the ponies to train with had been exhausted. We walked around to the front door, the bunny atop Fluttershy's head becoming restless and hopping down to walk beside her, as did Felicity, cool, I had my head back!

Fluttershy knocked daintily on the door, which I barely heard, so I have to accredit the owner of the place with super hearing. The door was coated in a purple aura of magic and flung open, we were greeted with a purple unicorn levitating many papers and books around her head.

"Fluttershy! hello!" She greeted her friend, then snapped her head to me. "Oh, hello, I'm Twilight Sparkle!" She welcomed me, extending a hoof that I lazily grabbed. I was only half paying attention, and it probably showed. I was too busy looking inside. It may have been the bookshelves, and it may have been the books in them, but I realized something, this was the library. The hoof I was lazily shaking was that of the element of magic. I quickly straightened myself out to be more formal.

"Hello, Miss Sparkle. I'm Crims-" But before I could continue my introduction, a cyan pegasus bolted forwards, bringing herself to a halt at a gentle hover above the element of magic's head. And interrupted me in a not so gentle way.

"Hey Fluttershy, who's your new friend? And who's the pony below him!" She jeered, pointing to Felicity who had recently jumped back atop my head. This not only annoyed me but brought me to a conclusion about weighing the risks of exposing the Blades around ponies who may not be elements. I decided upon taking the risk, probably not a good decision, but one I could have fun with.

"I'll give you a good....5?..5 is good. 5 Seconds to take that back." I grinned smugly, not even knowing this pony at all and still opting to taunt her before introductions. Fluttershy looked at me in shock, suddenly realizing I may not be who I said I was. Angel seemed satisfied with her previous assumptions, folding her arms in success.

"Regret it? What do ya mean regret it?" She asked, landing in front of my face, and pushing her nose up to mine angrily. "Who do you th-"

"Fooooooooour." I cut her off, attempting to annoy her as much as possible in the small window I had.

"Don't interrupt me!" She pouted, crossing her forelegs and sitting on her haunches. "She once again pushed herself up to my face. "Now tell me, who are you?!" She growled with rage etched across her face. Man, this one didn't like not getting her own way.

I brought a hoof to my chin, looking like I was deep in thought. After a second or two, I said one thing that angered her more than pretty much anything else could have at that point.

"3."

Upon hearing this, the pegasus struggled to contain yet another angry outburst, at this point Fluttershy stepped in, albeit quietly and with great trepidation, to try and control the situation.

"Uhm...Crimson?...Didn't you say you were a bodyguard?" She said meekly, as the pegasus in front of me adopted a triumphant pose. Puffing out her chest thinking her friend had given her one up on me.

"Ha! A bodyguard, eh? I knew I was going to get it out of someone sooner or later! Why didn't you just tell me to begin with?" She taunted, blowing a raspberry. And unknowingly walking right into my trap.

"'Cause I'm not. By the way, 2." I grinned a foalish grin, knowing I had passed the point of no return. As had the hot headed pony pony currently rocketing to the room to sit down and cross her forehooves and stare angrily at nothing in particular, in a sense. I turned to Fluttershy, who seemed to be staring at me wide eyed, having trouble dealing with the concept of lying. I kind of wanted to apologize, but I was currently set to the task of messing with a cyan pegasus, which was going quite well, as I had both figuratively and literally put her in her place.

It was at this point that the element of magic decided to step in after seeing her friend get tormented by a stranger.

"Okay. You've lied to Fluttershy and toyed with my friend long enough. Who are you?" She asked sternly, and I complied, but not before I finished some business.

"1." I giggled, before continuing. "Okay, okay, fine, if you must know. I'm, well, part of a group of elite guards named the Sp-...Erm...The Blades of Luna. I was sent her to protect the elements of harmony from an, as of yet, to me at least, unknown threat. And by the way, I'm taking a rather large risk saying all this without the knowledge that all of you are elements, these 2 are both elements, right?" I motioned to Fluttershy and pony sitting a small distance away. My question was, much to my relief, greeted with a nod from a shocked looking librarian. "..Good..."

They stood, and sat there in shock, even Angel and Felicity, I think, I couldn't really get a good look at her being that she was still on my head. I picked her off my head and placed her on the ground, deciding now was as good a time as any to teach her the important knowledge that my head was not a bed. This did nothing for the silence, they still stared, I didn't blame them for not knowing protocol here, but come on ponies, glass of water? It was not too shocking that a certain pouting pony in the middle of the room broke the silence, rather abruptly, I might add.

"Why I oughta!" Came her well thought out response, diving from in the middle of the room, aiming to go over Twilight's head. She was travelling at pretty impressive speeds too, I gotta give it to her, not fast enough, though. I coated myself in lightning, and without giving her time to react, sped around Twilight and into the middle of the room, effectively switching places. Leaving everypony rather confused, none as much as the one who had attempted to tackle me, who must have been wondering why she was having a dirt sandwich. Twilight looked like she was trying to figure out what happened, Fluttershy was, well, terrified from the crack of lightning, given it could have been a bird's chirp and scared her, but still, Angel seemed to have retreated into Fluttershy's hair, and Felicity just looked downright confused at the fact that she had switched ponies.

"How did you do that?! You cheated!" She yelled nonsensically in anger, picking herself up and dusting herself off, spitting dirt out of her mouth.

"What part of elite guards went over your head?" I smiled as she huffed and turned away from me, stomping indoors as Fluttershy followed, with Angel, and now Felicity on her head, who could apparently go no more than 2 seconds without knowing she was messing somepony's mane. She slammed the door behind her, causing Fluttershy to jump with fright. The element of magic then began to speak....

"....It's a pleasure to meet you, as you know, my name is Twilight Sparkle, and this is Rainbow Dash." She began, finally granting me the ability to put a name to a face. But it was what she said after that that interested me. "What is not a pleasure, however, is you taking it upon yourself to aggravate my friend, I understand she was rude and hot headed, but that is no explanation." She reasoned, adopting a somewhat motherly tone. She was slightly reminiscent of Princess Celestia in her controlling yet soft tone, and in that she was insisting upon something, giving me nearly no choice but to give it to her without saying it directly. In this case, it was an apology for her friend.

I rolled my eyes, making it clear that whilst Rainbow was getting an apology I didn't like it. I felt like a child, but it was still kind of worth it when I saw a few specks of dirt on the now smug looking pegasi's face. "You're right, my apologies, Rainbow Dash."

"In your face!" Rainbow pointed at me, spreading her wings to her side in victory. I stared back and cocked an eyebrow as if ask how the dirt tasted. Twilight cocked an eyebrow of her own at her, assuming the role of voice of reason once more, effectively too. "I'm sorry." She whimpered, retracting her wings and bowing her head, causing me to giggle like a schoolfilly.

"So. Crimson, this secret organisation, what can you tell me?" Twilight asked curiously, beckoning forth a pencil and notepad magically.

"Not much, Miss Sparkle." I responded, opting to speak formally to the owner of the residence. Also opting to dash her hopes as her pencil and notepad were released from their magical grip and dropped to the ground, her face followed suit, dropping too.

"Fine." She humphed, tidying up the mess in the room in a whirlwind of flying objects all being put neatly back in place. "...You sure?" She pleaded tapping a hoof next to the notepad laying on the floor, exposing her insatiable curious side.

"Sorry. I can't go into great detail." I replied, once again causing her mood to drop, still being cautious about saying too much despite the fact that I now knew I was in front of only elements, and 2 random woodland creatures.

"Darn." She magicked her notepad and pencil tidily onto a table, her ears drooping at denial. She perked up once more at random, her mood swings now beginning to worry me. "So. Being as you're guarding us, you'll be attending the sleepover tonight?" She happily asked, as Rainbow Dash seemed to increase her pouting tenfold.

".....Sleepover?" I replied, not ecstatic at the idea of going to a sleepover with Celestia knows how many ponies I didn't know, one of whom seemed annoyed by my presence. Twilight Sparkle seemed quite the opposite.

"Yes! Were going to do a little stargazing! And almost all the attendees will be elements!" She beamed, smiling in her knowing that I had no choice but to come to her sleepover now.

"...Fine..." I grumpily said, turning away in annoyance. Rainbow Dash nearly mimicking my movements in the same frustration. "What do you mean almost?"

"Oh, my assistant spike, and Fluttershy's bunny Angel. And the squirrel you came with." She motioned towards Felicity, who didn't take kindly to not being called by name as she had apparently taken a very quick liking to it.

"Her name's Felicity." I nodded to my 'pet' as she chirped happily and bounded off of Fluttershy's head and towards mine, bounding once more up my tail and to the top of my head. Once more being shoo'd off, she cross her arms on the floor and sat on her back legs with her bushy tail sticking upright.

"Hah. Okay then, at great risk, I have to leave and do some tidying up before the rest arrive, I'll leave you to...mingle?" She said, in the form of a question, unsure as to whether she really should leave her hot headed friend with a pony who had, in his first 5 minutes of being known, annoyed her to the point of sitting grumpily forelegs folded.

"I'll be good." I responded to assure her, I probably would be good, so it's okay.

"Okay then, If you need anything just call!" She cheerfully hopped off, no doubt anxious for her little get together later. Much less could be said about me, I had never been to a sleepover before, and didn't know etiquette very well, but if they tried to give me a makeover I had a feeling Luna may need to commission a squad of ponies to protect the elements from me.

The tension was in the room that took the place of the element of magic after her departure was comparable to that of Luna's first feast after, well, trying to kill the world. We sat there in silence for about 20 long, long seconds before I decided to slowly canter over. Fluttershy still looked slightly terrified by the concept of a lie, wincing away from me to avoid eye contact with me as I moved forward, Rainbow opted to growl and turn away. Felicity joyously absent to the awkwardness of the situation as she jumped beside Fluttershy, Angel jumping next to her as they began squeaking to each other.

"So...Fluttershy....Sorry about lying...I had to, you understand right?" I opted to take the easy route first, knowing Rainbow Dash would be much harder to win over. I asked her as gently as possible, fearing any noise may provoke her to burrow into her own hair in sheer terror. To my relief she seemed somewhat soothed by my apology, seeing that I had no choice but to be dishonest.

"I....It's okay." She replied in short, short or long, it was acceptance of my apology though, so I didn't care. I had bigger fish to fry anyway. I turned to Rainbow Dash, who met my stare with her own, nearly burning a hole in my skull with her angry gaze.

"Still a little saddlesore?" I joked hoping to ease the tension slightly.

"I'm fine." She intensified her stare, a gesture very contrary to what she had just said. It could not be avoided, I had to do it. Something I deep down knew I owed, an unprovoked apology.

"I'm....Sorry....I acted foalishly, I'm not the most social of ponies, understand that." I muttered under my breath, causing her angry stare to morph somewhat into shock. Somewhat. It was still mostly angry.

She seemed to give my words some thought for a few seconds, Fluttershy stared at her as if trying to will her to accept my apology. She finally spoke, re-meeting my gaze. "....It's fine....Just....One thing?"

"What?" I strained, wondering what silly request was about to befall me.

"You're NOT faster than me." She said sternly, as if laying down the law. Underlining the word 'not' much more so than the rest of her words.

"Yes I am." I kept it simple. Not wanting to incite another riot. I realized shortly after these words left my mouth, these were probably not the wisest riot avoidance words.

"What?! I'm totally faster than you! Race me!" She hovered in the air and began flying circles around me much to Fluttershy's disliking. I remained stoic.

"I can't race you, I'm supposed to be protecting you. I don't have time." I reached out a hoof to stop her from flying around me, grabbing her tail and yanking her back down to the ground as she had began kicking up quite the little mess.

"Scaaaared?" She poked my nose as she said this, great, she wouldn't be content with herself until I was angry or racing her. Fine then, I would comply.

"I'll race you." I sighed as her face brightened up. "After I'm done here. When the 'danger' the Princess spoke of is gone. And even then, don't expect a win." I actually quite looked forward to the prospect of racing her, that little tackle from earlier showed she had some speed, if she actually combined that with thought I may have to break a sweat or 2.

"Good with me!" She shook my hoof happy that she had gotten her own way. "You're not so bad after all! You'll be even better when I beat you!"

"Just remember what I said." I smiled back as I felt a nice little friendly rivalry brewing. Awww, you ponies. "So. The other elements, tell me more about them. But, could you keep it vague? Just their jobs, I kind of like a little mental challenge, you know?" I asked, half curious and half wanting to begin a normal conversation before an argument had chance to take place.

Rainbow Dash stared at me like I was an extra terrestrial for a few seconds before replying in a somewhat confused tone. "I...don't...Whatever." She shrugged, maintaining the same strange look. "There's a farm pony, a fashionista and a baker."

"And what elements do you, Fluttershy and Miss Sparkle represent? And what does that leave?" I asked, only wanting the bare basics to work with. I had become accustomed to brain teasers when I could get them, they were a somewhat amusing form of self entertainment in an otherwise mostly uneventful job.

"Twilight is magic, Fluttershy is kindness, and I'm the element of loyalty!" She emphasized her own element much more so than the others. She then stood up on her hind legs and began to make cheering gestures with her forelegs. I could only imagine the theme music an cheering crowds playing on a loop in her head.

"Uhm, that leaves laughter, honesty and generosity...." Fluttershy whispered, deciding if she didn't tell me then Rainbow would forget to amidst the imaginary body surfing that was no doubt going on. I nodded to her in thanks to her intervention as Rainbow Dash snapped out of her self congratulatory trance looking slightly confused as to what conversation she was having, as I had presumed she would.

Before she could further demonstrate her downright goldfish like memory she was saved by a couple hard knocks on the door. "Could you guys get that?" Miss Sparkle shouted from upstairs, too busy with whatever she was doing to answer the door. I turned to go towards the door and found a white bunny clinging to the doorknob trying desperately to turn it around.

Fluttershy giggled and pranced over, helping the helpless bunny out, opening the door for her friend. An orange mare with a very strong Maressissippian accent and a cowboy hat covering her blonde hair, sporting 3 apples as a cutie mark. "Hey y'all. How're ya?" She cheerily said, nodding to the room then taking a bag off her back and placing it on a table. "Ya should let those cool down a little, they're a pinch hot." The bag unfurled slightly, the delightful scent of all different types of apple treats filling the air, immediately perking up Rainbow Dash as she stood upright focused on the treats. "Heh, not for now. Oh! Hello! Ah'm Applejack, and you are?" She turned to me, extending a hoof in greeting, as did Rainbow Dash, no doubt anxious to see me get her wrong.

"I'm Crimsonlight, and you must be the element of honesty, correct?" I grinned at her, she seemed slightly taken aback, but mostly uncaring. Rainbow Dash however was staring at me looking like she was trying to learn my otherworldly secrets.

"Heh, blabbermouth over there tell you?" She motioned to Rainbow Dash who seemed to still be staring at me trying to think of a sufficient retort.

But before I could open my smug little mouth to speak, Rainbow Dash seized the moment. "How did you know that?" She asked calmly, but with an obvious hint of suspicion in her voice. Like an interrogation.

I inhaled deeply, planning to thoroughly enjoy this. "Well, she has a strong Maressissippian accent, and most ponies down there are farm ponies. Judging by the apples as a cutie mark, and, of course, her name, it's no long shot to presume that she works on an apple farm. Most farm ponies have a childhood in which honesty and a hard working attitude are taught to them. Making her a very likely candidate for the element of honesty. Tada." I smiled, extending a hoof as the toxic levels of smug began to pulse from me. Applejack and Rainbow just stood there, one wide eyed and the other a little confused. Fluttershy and her woodland friend, along with my very own woodland friend were actually clapping. I'm not sure the critters knew what they were clapping for, but I was still pretty impressed they were making an effort.

Applejack turned around to see Rainbow Dash pouting, quickly piecing together one and one. "Bahaha! Either I'm missing something or you jus' made her look silly!" She laughed, presuming we had some form of bet on. Not caring so much of the bet, but that her friend had lost. I was okay with this reaction. Rainbow Dash apparently didn't. Scratch that, I loved this reaction.

"Something along those lines." I smirked mirthfully, shaking her hoof.

"Hey AJ didn't you say that Pinkie was coming here with you?" Rainbow questioned, as Applejack raised a hoof to her chin in thought.

"Ya know Pinkie Pie, she'll show up eventually!" She tittered, as did everypony else in the room, and Angel. Felicity and I exchanged awkward glances as we were left out of an apparently humorous inside joke. "So, what brings ya to town? Don't think ah recall seeing ya around here before." She asked, relocating my mind to where it should have previously been. Making me internally ashamed.

"Ah....Right...I have to guard you. No I don't know what from, how long or why. So please, no questions." I almost barked out, not wanting to dwell on something I knew nothing about, partly because I was slightly embarrassed to be saying 'I have no idea what I'm doing here' partly because I plain didn't want any questions.

She seemed slightly annoyed, furrowing her brow in frustration at my not wanting questions. "If you say so." She sighed, obviously having some questions lined up, but still showing respect for my wishes.

Everything was relatively normal up to this point, well, I stretch the word relatively, but it was all pretty much within my realm of expectations. That was, until, a potted plant began to shake. All attention in the room turned to it as it rocked back a forth, I decided given the nature of my assignment it would be best that I take the mantle. I cautiously stepped towards it, observing it's motions, back...and forth....back...and forth....and stop. I caught it as it rocked towards me, stopping it in it's tracks. Only then did it go from it's previous shaking to a now violent rumbling, I moved my hoof away, fearing the worst and standing at the ready. The plant pot jumped a good foot in the air, and with it, in complete ignorance of logic and the fact that she was LARGER THAN THE PLANT POT, out jumped a pink pony, clutching a tray of cupcakes. Horribly burnt cupcakes.

I wanted to say 'Pinkie Pie, I presume?' in a smug voice, but I was honestly terrified due to her law of physics defying antics. Dragons, hydras and manticore, let it be known that what finally brought Crimsonlight to his knees was a pretty pink pony leaping from a potted planted clutching a tray of charred cupcakes. "What are you guarding us from? How long for? Whyyyyyy?" She blurted out, obviously listening to the guard part but simply not caring about my distaste for playing 20 questions, as she planned to exhaust all 20 before I could answer one.

"I....I don't know...." I said, still shocked, the others seemed to be laughing at my inability to cope with this, like it was an everyday thing for them. If I ever said Ponyville was a quaint village full of quiet ponies, I take it back, this place is hardcore.

Before much else could pass my mind, this pony apparently took the initiative and jammed my gaping mouth full of what was probably supposed to be a cupcake. "Here, taste this!" She squealed in delight as her friends giggled and I fought off a sudden urge to choke and die.

"Mmmmf! Ahgaaaa!" I cried in frustration turning around to avoid more cupcake to throat aggression, forcing down the cupcake with a wince, not wanting to spit up all over an elements floor. At this point all of the other elements were full on laughing at my reactions, the wizard behind me remaining quiet. I spun around to face said wizard, having a few things to say to her about trying to kill the pony guarding her. Much to my disbelief, dismay, and many other 'dis's' however, she had, without a trace of dirt on the floor around the pot, disappeared.

".....Erm....Hello?" I said cautiously, still slightly scared. Which I took great shame in, but I really had no choice in the face of such absurdities. I poked at the pot, lifting it up, nothing. No trap door, it wouldn't matter anyway, there's no way she could fit in there. I then heard giggling, though this was different from the general giggling in the room, this was right behind me....

"Psst.......Down here..." I turned around, looking for her as she spoke amidst torrents of giggling. I couldn't see her, then I decided, against my better judgement, to look down, and saw something that destroyed any hope she wasn't a wizard. Two lumps at the edge of Miss Sparkle's rug, these lumps were the ONLY lumps in the rug, meaning she was hiding under there and only her eyes were registering with the universe as being existent. So either this was a VERY elaborate prank involving trapdoors and a degree of unicorn magic that they would not be able to hide this well. Or she was a particularly cruel ghost. Honestly, as much as it pains me to say this, I was leaning towards the second. Either way, I had had enough of this, and grabbed the rug to pull it off and get to the bottom of this. She was having none of this, and the second I grabbed the rug, she sprang up, standing next to me, with a tray of cupcakes stuck in her mouth, a cupcake tray that was, against all logic, which seemed to be her mantra, was not poking from underneath the rug.

"Seriously. How are you doing that?" I asked, peeking under the rug to see nothing but a wooden floor. She seemed amused by my disbelief.

"Doing what silly?" She leaned in as I leaned backwards to avoid a clash of heads, not wanting to harm her. For all her wizardry, I can't recount a time when the pony with the horn didn't come off better in a head butt.

"....Your...things...I mean stuff........Whatever...Hello, I'm Crimsonlight." I whined, wanting to avoid further confrontation. I decided I needed some time away from all this friendship stuff, prolonged exposure to social ponies was resulting in a migraine, and I doubt even Celestia knew what prolonged exposure to the pink one's powers would do. If these other ponies were anything to go by, I'd either become a silent recluse, an easily irrirated hot head, compulsively wear a hat, or be purple. I decided not to risk it, and magicked open the door and began to walk outside.

"I know your name! I'm Pinkie Pie! Are you Rarity's cousin? You're the same colour as her!" She extended her hoof to me, I turned and shook it, hoping this to be the last physical contact I make.

"What? Who's.....Never mind....I know your name..." I murmured in defeat, ignoring her question about this Rarity pony for the better. Walking out the door I caught the smug look on Rainbow Dash's face, and decided to take the risk of opening my mouth to wipe it off. "She's laughter."

At least that brought me some joy, as her grin was morphed into another pouting visage. Applejack and Fluttershy once again giggling along at their pouting friend, not that they had stopped since Pinkie Pie made me afraid of the stability of the world around me, but still. The pink pony herself also joined in the giggling, well, not so much giggling as hysterical laughter, I don't even know if she was in on the joke or just laughing in general, wait, how long had she been listening in? Best not to think about it.

I stepped outside, closing the door behind me and even considering locking myself out. I stared at the serene village in front of me, slouching against the treebrary thing. Ponies of all shapes and sized going about their daily lives with a smirk on their face, pretty brave considering they were living in the same village as an ancient evil. Agh, no dwelling on that. I took solace in this modicum of private time, allowing the cool winds to soothe me, no pony bothering me, asking me questions or forcing me to be social. Just me, the wind and my thoughts, and the occasional giggle at a wall eyed mail pony who consistently flew into things.

I then noticed a most peculiar site, a white pony with quite a well styled mane being escorted by....a dragon? ...Scratch that, a dragon with a whole load of quills, some baked goods and what appeared to be a coupon for a sofa in his claw. My natural instincts were telling me to fry the purple lizard, but I decided against it, he was only helping this pony carry some....well, all of her stuff. I studied them for a while, with nothing else to do, as the mail pony had since navigated the wall, they went from stall to stall, well, the white pony went from stall to stall, the dragon followed her, apparently quite smitten.

After perusing some, well, all the stalls, they began to make their way towards me. Were they selling stuff? She did seem to be having short conversations with the ponies at the stalls, were they friends of Miss Spark- Wait! Didn't Pinkie Pie say I was the same colour as somepony called 'Rarity'? Maybe she was Rarity? And judging by her looks she was the fashionista, it was obvious Pinkie Pie was the baker, if you can call those cupcake monstrosities baking. What other reason would she have for coming here, and this must be Miss Sparkle's assistant Spike! It seems a fitting name for a dragon. I decided to amuse myself by messing with them a little bit, I needed it after my close encounter of the Pink kind.

"Rarity, the element of generosity I presume?" I walked towards them, springing to life, causing her to take a prideful look on her face. Not the reaction I was hoping for, I then noticed the dragon drop all of his things and stand in front of her defensively, somebody have a crush? "What's the matter Spike?" I asked him tauntingly, realizing I could mess him with, I was, however, interrupted by a bragging pony's braggery.

"Oh! A fan? Admirer? No need to be so defensive Spike, the gentlecolt has probably just heard of my wears!" She pridefully stated, moving the dragon to one side and grabbing my hoof, shaking it. The dragon looked on with a degree of jealously, gathering his things from the floor.

"Nope." I plainly stated, deciding, despite earlier events, to take this a little further than nescessary.

She pondered for a moment before speaking. "Maybe a fellow fan of fashion? Oo! Another designer? Of course, how could I be so silly. Do you wish to work with me on a grand dress or suit?" She over dramatically stating, emphasizing her words with her hooves a little too much.

"Nope."

"Then who are you?!" The young dragon intervented with obvious irritation in his voice as the fashion wondered who I could be.

I decided to let it go, wanting to avoid more confrontation. The air in there with Rainbow Dash was already a tiny bit tense, and I feared for my life around Pinkie Pie. The last thing I needed was more stress. "My name is Crimsonlight...aaaand....I'm a guard!" I smiled.

"...Like the royal gua-" Spike began, before I cut him off.

"No, nothing like them." I butted in, not wanting to be compared to them. "I'm part of a more skilled and secretive group, I was sent by the Princesses to protect you." I said proudly to the listeners.

"Like super guards?" Spike simplified.

"...If you must." I replied in a dull tone, not wanting any form of comparison to the royal guard. Still though, this was vague enough for me not to kick up a fuss about it, besides, he called me super!

"But what are you guarding us from?" Rarity asked, trying to extract any bit of information from me she could. She was probably a gossipy type, fashionistas, eh?

"No idea. All I know is that I'm guarding you." I wanted to put an end to the questions. Apparently I didn't need to, as she was in a world of her own.

"Oh you must meet my friends. You'll simply adore them!" She over socially said, obviously quite certain that I'd love her friends just as much as she did. She magically flung the door open, leading the way, Spike, true to lovestruck form, scampered in after her.

"I've met th-...Oh never mind." I sullenly walked in, rather enjoying my me time, knowing these fashion ponies had an amazing ability to block out every sound not coming from their own mouths.

"Girls, I'd like you to meet Crimsonlight! He will be guarding us!" She said, pointing to me as I felt something like a trophy. I noticed Miss Sparkle had rejoined her friends downstairs, all the others were there too, even the pink one, suddenly not performing her usual trickery now that I wasn't in the room.

"We've already met him, Rarity." The element of magic giggled as Rarity deflated, wanting to be the one who had first dibs on the gossip.

"....Oh...Well that doesn't mean we don't have to be hospitable! Would you like something to eat? I insist, here, have this, they're to die for!" She offered me a cupcake, an ACTUAL cupcake, still though, as much as I would have loved this 10 minutes ago, the burnt thing Pinkie Pie gave me ruined my taste buds for the time being.

"No thank y-" I was cut off by a pink pony bouncing up to me bearing gifts.

"Do you want another of mine!?"

Dear Princess Celestia,

Help me.

Christmas short - A very Crimson Christmas

Authors note

Hello everypony! It's almost Christmas!

And in that vein, I decided to do a short Christmas story, to give you an insight into the character a little more. But mostly just because I felt like it and Christmas is awesome.

The insight I previously mentioned is that, whilst the main character of The Crimson Dawn, Crimsonlight, can be selfish, arrogant, big headed and smug, he has a more giving side.

This story is set long before The Crimson Dawn, so no worries about interference, it's just about another of Crimson's missions.

This was just done for fun, for the holidays. So please, enjoy!

Also, I am in the process of making chapter 2. But as of now, enjoy this!

Hearth warming time, full of warmth and cheer.

Ponies rejoiced, as they did through the year.

But this was more special, for families and friends.

Gifts were given and accepted, to hearth warming's end.

Not all of Equestria were on humble form.

A certain white unicorn, remained battle worn.

Not caring for presents, friends or comrades.

Single minded to goals, and set on his tasks.

When Celestia called, on one Crimsonlight.

He was excited to hear of a dragon to fight!

A snow dragon rioting, near Ponyville she did speak.

You are the only on duty, your help what I seek.

He accepted with gusto, haste and on whim.

Celestia had no time to tell the problem to him.

He bolted out the door, towards his destination.

And left for Ponyville, no wait or calculation.

He hopped aboard carriage, no ponies on duty.

Nopony to pull it, he levitated astutely.

Carrying the carriage, alone through the air.

On magical prowess, and brave, daring dare.

He rode through the day, and rode through the night.

No ponies to pull it, the carriage's speed was slight.

But he forged ahead, propelling oneself.

A lone, brave pony, on sleigh ride, by himself.

He arrived at Ponyville, so quiet and humble.

He searched for a while, seeking dragon's low rumble.

He almost gave up, when a sight he did spy!

A snow dragon ahead, with his own very eyes!

He covered himself, in familiar lightning.

And bolted off with a crack, anxious for some fighting.

Little did he know, civilians did awaken.

They cantered out doors, seeing things thought mistaken.

A lone, single pony, bolting fast towards danger?!

They were not battle hardened, but they wanted to help a brave stranger.

They galloped in haze, putting dirt under sole.

Ready to risk life and limb, for ol' Crimson the foal.

Meanwhile, our hero approached the danger reptilian.

The dragon snorted and shouted, seeing a puny civilian.

"Stop, scaly fiend, for your time here is up."

Shouted the tiny white pony, under dragon's gaze a mere pup.

The dragon did land, with sickening speed.

He dashed quickly away, fearing reduction to feed.

The dragon did not speak, he exchanged but a glance.

And the battle was on, each adopting a stance.

The dragon struck first, firing cold frosty breath.

The valiant pony dodged, for it may be his death.

He countered with lightning, when much to his fear.

His horn had become frozen, dragon grinning, ear to ear.

He knew it would take a lot to free horn from it's freezing jail.

The dragon still gave no quarter, attacking with tooth and nail.

He stored energy, in the encasement of ice.

Failing to break, once twice and thrice.

Townspony caught up, seeing dark situation.

A pony dodging a dragon's murderous infatuation.

The adults stayed back, knowing best how to act.

But fillies charged forward, ignoring reason and fact.

Crimson fought on, ignoring the brave, giving town.

Who had rallied behind him, trying to help him up when down.

He dodged and he dashed, under dragon's great claw.

Thinking 'This problem? Maybe I should have ignored.'

When his fears came true, phobias to fruition.

He got struck dead on, by a claw coalition.

Sent flying and reeling, wincing in pain.

Bleeding from side, almost crying in shame.

The dragon reared up, to wale and cheer.

A most stupid foe, had he finished the career.

Townspony threw caution to wind, rallying to their current highness.

He was caught off guard, fed strict diet of kindness.

Fillies snuggled to him, warn them to leave, he should.

No words escaped mouth, only sobbing and blood.

"Leave now, Lizard thing!" Cried young filly blue.

Astounded my bravery, the townsfolk had not knew.

"You've hurt him, just look! Is it not easy to see?"

The filly did shout, dragon covered in glee.

"I know that child. Nopony challenges I!"

He replied, gesturing to Crimson, who looked ready to die.

"His idiocy costs you, I have you in one swoop!"

The dragon reared up, charging frost at the coop.

The townsfolk cowered back, facing certain doom.

Crimson shakily stood, charging a reply, for the dragon that loomed.

The dragon stomped down, firing frost at the lot.

As Crimson put hoof on the shoulder of tot.

"Don't worry, young child, for you're braver than I."

Came his sorrowful, yet somehow determined reply.

His horn did now flutter and dance with red bolts.

He knew only he could bring dragon to halt.

He had been charging his magic as much as he could.

And he knew now he must unleash it, for the onlookers he should.

They all closed their eyes, huddled in their mass.

When a loud roaring crack did singe all the grass.

They opened to a new, and warm welcomed sight.

The dragon, so smug, had gotten a fright.

Crimson unleashed, breaking magical ice.

It had finally snapped, long after once twice and thrice.

The elements met, in the middle of battle.

The ensuing meeting, caused bones to rattle.

The lightning did strike the frost wide apart.

Causing icy breath to cease in it's path, nearly stopping some hearts.

The lightning soared onwards, out a small pony's horn.

The dragon was humbled, shocked, and then torn.

The lightning continued on it's straightforward path.

Coursing right through the ice, townsfolk cheered and then laughed.

Hitting dragon in mouth, going to organs internal.

As this beast could attest, this pain worse than external.

The dragon collapsed, his insides now mangled.

Blood seeping from mouth, his organs entangled.

Crimson collapsed on the ground, no not dead, he was tired.

As the Townspony gathered around the hero for hire.

So around this time this year, please remember this tale.

That even harshest of ponies can be heroes and prevail.

As you gift to your loved ones, throughout Hearth warming night.

Spare but a moment of thanking, for ol' saint, Crimsonlight.

Warning, friendship may result in headaches

Authors note

Woah, that last chapter was longer than anticipated, it was a doozy, right? A doozy of a doozy, some might say.

Well, I can't say I'm saddened by that, I aim to make this relatively long, one thing I hate is reading a fan fiction I like and having it, well, end.

Anyway, this will probably change by the time this chapter is finished, but as of beginning to write this, I feel like horseapples.

BUT, watching family appreciation day has made me decided to tough it out for the love of all things pony!

As you probably recall, Crimsonlight was struggling with friendship, mostly from Rainbow Dash, who he provoked into a fit of pouting, and Pinkie Pie, who terrifies him.

So, without further delay, for better or for worse, chapter 3!

"No thank you, Pinkie Pie." I pushed her cupcake out of my face. Which I noted in the back of my mind would make fantastic shrapnel, note to self, relay the following message to either of the Princesses. Contact Pinkie Pie for a deadly deadly cupcake recipe.

"Come on, just a little nibble! They're going to go cold!" She rebuked, pointing to them and pushing them nearer to my face. Somehow I doubted they were going cold, ever. But still, she wouldn't let up, she was a persistent wizard indeed.

"I had a...large feast at Canterlot before I came here, I'd love to but I can't. Sorry." I struggled to think of a lie, it was probably obvious, but somehow, I wasn't too worried about her calling me on it.

"Okay, more for me!" She exclaimed, pressing down on her right hoof back hoof, which caused her mouth to fling open and her head to tilt back. She then tilted the tray back, the cupcakes slid down into her stomach, devoid of chewing. All save for one, with what appeared to have an eraser protruding from it, which she took off the tray and held in her other hoof as she had her feast. "I'll save this one for you!" She held it up, causing me to nod fearfully and gulp, she was an intimidating wizard, an intimidating wizard indeed.

"Can't wait." I feigned enthusiasm, as Applejack cantered over to me, earning my gratitude at changing the topic.

"So, what exactly was all the weird stuff about my accent and my element about earlier? All I got from it was that Rainbow didn't like it one bit!" She snickered, pointing to Rainbow who hovered down beside her looking annoyed at her bringing it back up.

"Heh, that. Well, I decided to challenge myself and try to deduce who had what element out of you, Rarity and...Pinkie." I shuddered slightly saying that. "I got it right, guess she didn't like that." I winked at the cyan pegasus, who had taken from pouting to grinning a determined grin. A welcome change, in my mind.

"Yeah? Just wait until we race." She smirked, proving herself to be the competitive pony she obviously was.

"Well whatever way, all that deducing stuff from earlier was pretty cool! Looks like we have a real detective on our hooves!" Applejack tittered, pronouncing the word 'deducing' as if it had two O's and an S. Still, a compliment is a compliment, regardless of difference in accent.

"Thanks. It pays off in my line of work, so I decided to develop to develop an interest in it." The nice little ego boost was almost a counterbalance for the forced social interaction. Almost.

"Speaking of. How about you tell us all a little more about your 'line of work'" Miss Sparkle asked, still wanting to know more, I couldn't blame her, I was the guest at her house after all.

"Eh...I don't really like talking about my work." A lie, of course, I loved talking about my work. Just, not to other ponies. I found the mirror to be a much more sensible conversational partner. I'm not crazy.

"Awww come on! You never really told us what you do! Please, enlighten us!." She pleaded again, obviously not going to let this go without a fight, and judging by the way her friends had gathered around ready to listen intently, neither would they. And to be honest, I wasn't in the mood for that, let alone a fight with her friends too, as they would probably back her up. Eh, it can't hurt. They are the elements, after all.

"....Fine....But I'm not going into detail, okay?" They all nodded, happy with whatever they were getting. Well, Miss Sparkle seemed a little downtrodden, as she was obviously the most curious of the group, but her interests seemed to be sated nonetheless. "We deal with the more serious problems, guards deal with civilian riots, angry ponies acting foalishly. We deal with dragons, manticore, hydras, the fun stuff." I proudly said, as Felicity came out from her hiding place in Fluttershy's hair to leap atop my head, nice to see he cared about his owner's wishes of his head not becoming a bed.

Fluttershy seemed shocked by this. "You have fun fighting?" Not seeming to be able to wrap her head around the joy I get from kicking a dragon into next week. Rainbow seemed to be enthralled, and Spike had swallowed fearfully when I mentioned dragons. "How can you have fun hurting all the creatures?"

"Well...I only have fun because I know that I'm helping ponies! If it wasn't for us there would be a LOT of rampant dragons running around the place." I said, being forced to think on my feet, which apparently didn't work, because as soon as I had seemingly fixed the problem with Fluttershy, Spike seemed to become a bit frightened once more. Why did I have to say dragons? "Don't worry, only giant, fire breathing winged ones. You're fine." I winked at him, trying to settle him by differentiating him from the dragons I fought as much as possible. It seemed to work, as he breathed a sigh of relief, as did I, seeming to settle any questions, par one over curious cyan pegasus.

"Have you ever got hurt?" Rainbow piped up with something I believe to be an obvious question, but one must never underestimate the Rainbow Dash. Despite the obvious questions, all of the elements and spike were still intently tuned in, overly curious about my job. I can't really blame them, if a pony walked up to me and claimed to be part of a secret dragon fighting organisation I would....well I wouldn't care, because I am too. But if I was a normal pony it'd be cool.

"Yeah.....Pretty regularly...But I use my small size and agility to my advantage, so any hits they do get on are only grazing blows. But sometimes I kind of just have to put on a brave face and deal with it, y'know?" I responded, not realizing the folly of my words until they had left my mouth.

"Oh yeah, I totally get it." She gloated untruthfully, floating in the air as if she were laying down.

"You get it?" She nodded in response. "You've been attacked by manticore and hydra and understand what it's like to take a hit from one of them?" She nodded once more, avoiding eye contact. Obviously lying.

"Yeah, Totally! Remember that time I took the hydra down Twi'?" She turned to her friend, 'Twi'', looking for some form of backup.

"Rainbow, we had to run from that hydra, and you weren't even there!" The purple unicorn giggled at the deflation of her friend. Who turned away at the discovery of her, oh what am I saying, everyone already knew.

"Heh, come on, you expected me to believe that in the first place?" I mused, poking fun at her as everyone giggled along at it. She seemed to take in in good jest, laughing along to, which was good, because the last thing I need is a random pony throwing herself at a hydra to prove herself to me. Not again.

"Yeah yeah, whatever." Rainbow chortled. "Have you ever gotten a pony hurt? You know, by accident?" She said, to change the subject. She did, but I doubt she would have so readily if she had any idea of the memories she was bringing back up for me. My mood and expression instantly dropped as I replayed the events in my head.

You see, as I have previously mentioned, I had a squad mate in the past. That's why I'm so averse to friendship. I've always been a reclusive pony, but this just intensified it. It had been a pretty slow week, no signs of, well, anything, so we decided we could waste some time, we figured nothing would happen, so there was no real reason to stick around and wait to see if any of the on duty ponies needed help or backup, turns out we were wrong. Whilst goofing off with my friend, apparently a normal assignment went pretty sour for a squad of ponies, and because I was busy with nothing, it took word a while to reach me, apparently the dragon was headed towards Trottingham, my friend had gone off elsewhere and I was taking a nap, so in my haste I sped off alone. Trottingham wasn't too far, but it still took a while to reach it, despite the fact I had neglected to take a nice, luxurious carriage. But the dragon was a while away, so I managed to reach it before the dragon, I sped off towards where it supposedly was and managed to head it off. But because it took me so long it was still pretty close to town, and even closer to the trading routes. I managed to take the dragon out, but in the ensuing battle a single trade caravan got caught up in the dragons flames. Whilst I managed to save Trottingham, I didn't manage to save that one pony, and throughout a portion of the battle I had to listen to his screams of agony as flames enveloped him, scarring his appearance permanently and destroying his livelihood. All thanks to my laziness. So yes, Rainbow Dash, I had failed at the one thing I devoted my life to. Yes, I had let that pony down. And yes, I had hurt somepony.

"No."

"Oh.....Okay then." She awkwardly breathed out, quite obvious she had hit a vein as my voice had become gritty with more than a hint of anger. "Hey, Pinkie. Did you bring any cool games?" She turned to Pinkie to avert the awkwardness. Lovely, we get to see the games this maniac brought.

"I brought a ton Dashie! All in the party cannon!" She giggled as I wondered what manic contraption the party cannon was. Unfortunately I got my answer as she reached over to her right, stretching her body to drag a light blue cannon with flowery pink wheels from nowhere. I would have been more externally shocked and terrified but I was too annoyed. But take relief in the fact that I was screaming on the inside. Even more so after she pressed a short length of rope, that would normally be lit but was apparently a secret button (or she had hooves of fire, which sadly may be correct) on the top of it, covering the room in party decorations and filling it with party games. At this point all the alarms were going off, space travelling wizard ponies, cannons, overuse of the colour pink, bad day. "What do you guys wanna play first?" Pinkie asked cheerfully, happily oblivious to the fact she was probably an ancient god of war.

"Ooooh, a game of pin the tail on the pony sounds fun!" Miss Sparkle interjected, motioning over to the poster of a pony on the wall that was flung there by the 'party cannon', levitating the pin with the tail out of the poster onto a nearby table. "Who wants to go first?"

"I'll go! Oh I do love pin the tail on the pony!" Rarity leapt forward, magically tying a blindfold around her head. "Okay Rainbow Dash, spin me, but please do be.."

"Got it!" Rainbow said, sped around her in a multi coloured tornado as I heard Rarity shriek in surprise. When the hasty cyan pegasus was done, she darted off, looking pretty dizzy herself, to pick up the pin from the table to give it to Rarity. Who took it from her hooves, staggering back and forth trying to stay upright.

"Careful about my mane..." The fashionista giggled with her friends, readjusting her mane. She put the pin in her mouth and wandered around in a haze for a while, staggering back and forth to try and guess the correct direction to the pony poster on the wall, whilst trying to keep a good posture, and failing in an admittedly amusing way. She eventually settled on a direction, having great trouble putting one hoof in front of the other towards her goal, sticking the pin where she thought the ponies tail to be. She then lifted the blindfold and peaked from under it as she heard her friends laugh. As she saw that the pin had been stuck not only not on the tail, but in the wrong wall.

"Haha! Maybe next time sugarcube!" Applejack laughed as Rarity set the blindfold on a nearby table. Felicity then leapt from my head and up to the pin, pulling it from the wall and scampering over to the poster and inserting it into the correct position.

"Ooooh, good job, girl!" Fluttershy petted Felicity as she ran over to leap atop her head and rejoin her animal friend, Angel. Good, that's one less critter on my head.

"How about you, Crimson? Do you want a turn?" Twilight asked, trying to include her grumpy house guest. She levitated the blindfold into my hoof, which I stared at in a mixture of disapproval and annoyance.

"No thank you. Party games aren't my thing." I mumbled, levitating it back over to the table. They all looked at me in confusion, as if they'd never seen a pony who didn't enjoy party games before. Well, apart from Pinkie Pie, who looked like I had just cursed her ancestors and spat on their graves.

"What do you mean party games aren't your thing? They're everypony's thing" She squealed in my face in disapproval, pulling my face close to hers. Oh no, I smell an intervention.

"It's kind of hard to make party games your thing if you haven't been to any parties." I replied, trying to explain to her plainly to calm the situation and get some alone time. Apparently somewhere along the line that plan went horribly wrong and I had doomed myself.

"YOU'VE NEVER BEEN TO A PARTY?!?!" She screamed in my face, so close our noses were touching. Wow, this one had a dedication to partying. Then again she does have a party cannon. That I know of.

I pushed her face away casually. "You know, these things work just fine." I motioned to my ears, which were still ringing slightly at her vocal assault. Seriously, I've heard manticore that would hear that and immediately bow assuming it was the leader of their pride. She could make a mix tape with a cat being electrocuted.

"WHY HAVE YOU NEVER BEEN TO A PARTY?" She persisted, refusing to lower her tone and continuing to sound offended.

"I just...never wanted to." I replied, not knowing how deep my hole was or that I was digging it deeper. With a shovel larger than Equestria itself.

"You have to play now! Come on, somepony blindfold him!" She began to push me forward as everypony involved took a break from laughing at our exchange to give each other a few awkward glances, not wanting to forcefully put a blindfold on a grumpy pony from a group of secret guards. Surprisingly it was Fluttershy who picked up the blindfold from the table and began to walk forward to me, I had now been pushed into the middle of the room and Pinkie Pie had her arms wrapped around me to ensure I stayed put. And what a deadly vice it was.

I knew it wouldn't actually be too hard to stop Fluttershy, all I had to do was ask her nicely or maybe say she was hurting my feelings. "Hey, could you like, not put that on me please? Thanks." I asked in the nicest voice I possibly could at that moment, it seemed to work, stopping her in her tracks.

"Don't listen to him Fluttershy! PUT IT ON HIM! I CAN'T HOLD HIM MUCH LONGER!" She said, struggling to keep me down, which was weird as I was perfectly still.

"Oh...Do I have to? He just said he didn't want me to. I don't think it's fair." She whispered out, looking at the blindfold, then to Pinkie then to me. I almost felt sorry for the poor thing. Something I hadn't quite delved into, Fluttershy had the amazing ability to make you feel guilty for no real reason. If she presented me with Pinkie's burnt cupcakes and told me she'd been working hard to make them and hit me with some puppy dog eyes I would have probably had to eat them or leap off a cliff. She'd make a pretty good negotiator.

"Fluttershy! Come on! Hurry up!" She tightened her vice like grip, which was still more like being cuddled by a pink marshmallow.

"Okay, you can stop that." I said, floating her into the air with my unicorn magic which seemed to amuse her as she pretended to fly. It must have sucked for her when her impromptu run as a pegasus was cut short by me putting her down. "No thank you Fluttershy, I'm fi-" I was cut short by something I didn't expect. A small squirrel backed up by a bunny leapt from behind Fluttershy, grabbing the blindfold and standing before me trying intimidate me. "....Cute, but no thanks." I responded, leaning down and petting Felicity's head.

"Awww c'mon, ya might like it!" Applejack spoke up, trying to urge me to try.

"Yes darling! It's great fun!" Rarity added, still adjusting her hair from her turn.

"It's awesome! Like me! But not as much, still, pretty awesome!" Rainbow chimed in, with her usual tone of modesty.

"Yeah! You should totally try it!" Spike stepped in, raising a claw encouragingly.

"What could it hurt?" Miss Sparkle finished up, smiling.

I turned to face Pinkie, who now had a huge grin on her face, that said enough. I looked at the critters, who held their ground, looking ready to pounce. I turned my gaze to Fluttershy, who didn't shy away for once. "I think they're right, you should at least try it." She said in a stern tone, well, stern by her standards, which is pretty darn stern for a mouse and other forms of tiny animal life.

"....Fine. Hit me with the blindfold." I gestured to Felicity and Angel, who without any hint of a stutter, with pretty expert precision, jumped up with either side of the blindfold clutched tightly, wrapping it around my head before meeting each other on the other side and tying it tightly. "Did you two practice that beforehand?"

"Hit it, Dashie!" Pinkie Pie screamed, as I heard Dash ready herself for take off.

"Waaait a second, if I have to play, I'm going to spin myself around." I smirked, wrapping myself in lightning magic and making myself spin around incredibly fast on the spot as I heard the onlookers gasp. That's the kind of reaction I was looking for.

"How did you do that?" I heard the element of magic gasp, followed by some hurried page turning.

"Well, I can use my lightning magic to make myself move fast, it's the same principle for making myself spin really fast. There's just no real point to do it, all it really does is leave me open to attack....and dizzy.....very dizzy.....Pin?"

"Oh, right, here you go." She responded, retrieving it with magic and sliding it along the floor into my hoof. I picked it up amidst staggering and put it in my mouth. I stumbled back and forth for a few seconds, silently cursing myself for not letting Rainbow spin me around, I probably wouldn't have such an urge to say goodbye to my lunch if I had let her. Then again my lunch consisted of some cupcakes made in a volcano, so maybe that wasn't so bad. After a little bit of wobbling around the place I started walking towards where I thought the poster was. I firmly placed the pin in what I thought was the correct location, amongst a chorus of laughter I lifted my blindfold. Turns out I got the right wall, and even hit the poster. Directly in....the eye.

"See? That wasn't so bad wasn't it?" Pinkie Pie exclaimed, stepping next to me and pointing at the poster of the pony.

I looked at her and back to the poster before letting out a little laugh and replacing a good deal of my fear for Pinkie with respect. "Guess not." There was still a good deal of fear though.

We spent a while after that playing various party games, talking, joking, all the usual stuff. And yes, I did say 'we', as even I joined in at intervals. I was actually having fun for the first time in a while that didn't involve beating up a dragon, as a matter of fact it involved playing party games with one! It was nice actually hanging out with ponies I didn't order around, I found myself thinking that I could maybe even make a habit out of this 'social interaction' thing. Later that evening, Spike, well, puked a letter. An ability I didn't know dragons had.

Miss Sparkle rushed over to look, but upon going to grab it from him, Spike moved it away from her hoof. "Spike? Give me it here, it could be an important letter from the Princess regarding Crimson!" She said with urgency in her voice as he stared at the seal.

"It is about him. The seal says it's TO him." Spike pointed to the seal as Miss Sparkle examined it.

"You're right, well...Here you go Crimson, you have a letter from the Princess!" She levitated it over into my hoof as I looked at it curiously and with a slight hint of fear. Had this ancient danger actually come back? After spending time with these ponies, dragon, squirrel and bunny respectively, I had an even larger inclination to not let them get hurt. I know, right? It caught me off guard to not have a heart of total stone too.

I slowly unravelled the letter as the rest watched in anticipation, Felicity and Angel leapt atop my head to get a better view. The letter read as such.

Dear Crimsonlight.

I hope you're enjoying yourself in Ponyville, I know it is a very sudden and large change, as you've no doubt never met ponies like the elements before, but unfortunately this is not a social letter, this is business. I'm writing to you to tell you that some guards encountered a disturbance in the Whitetale woods whilst looking for a carriage which I'm sure you had nothing to do with. They failed to locate the disturbance, but reported hearing some low growling sounds. Needless to say, they came home and we're still a carriage down. It is up to you whether you inform the elements of this danger, but whatever you do, please be careful, this may be nothing, but remain alert.

Princess Luna.

"So, what's it say? What does Celestia want?" Rainbow Dash lurched forward trying to get a peak at the parchment in my hand as I moved it away.

"It's not from PRINCESS Celestia." I said, careful to underline the Princess part as I continued to swipe it away from her prying hooves.

"Then who's it from?" Miss Sparkle tilted her head quizzically, obviously used to getting letters from the Princess of the sun, being her protege and all.

"Luna." I said, internally proud I remembered to leave out her title. "It's....It's nothing, just a standard check up. All that formal nonsense." I flung it onto a table, deciding not to tell them for fear that Rainbow would lead Pinkie on a search party into the surrounding area. And that's the last thing I needed.

"Booooriiing!" Rainbow shouted, putting a hoof in her mouth a miming vomiting. Her antics were much to my relief as this confirmed she would be leading no search parties.

"You know what's NOT boring?" Miss Sparkle said, grinning ear to ear. "Stargazing! And it's dark outside now, so we can go up there and took a look!" She wailed in joy, prancing up stairs in a most fancy of fashions. Rainbow didn't seem to agree, slouching her shoulders at the thought of standing, well, hovering still.

Everypony proceeded upstairs, following a bouncing element of magic, a method of movement normal used by Pinkie Pie. By Celestia's mane, it's spreading. We arrive at the treebrary's balcony, which had a telescope set up pointing at the night sky. The over excited purple unicorn took a gaze through the telescope herself, before pulling her head away and enthusiastically turning to her friends. "So, who wants to go first?" She smiled, obviously wanting more to get her friends involved than do this herself. Unfortunately for her, nopony looked really interested. Pinkie was just staring wide eyed at the sky, Rainbow looked more like she wanted to fly up there and catch a star herself, which I had to be ready for, Spike, Felicity and Angel were nowhere to be found, they probably left to go to sleep, and Rarity and Applejack just looked plain disinterested. This left Fluttershy, who stepped forward out of what I believe to have been politeness.

"I'll have a look, Twilight." She smiled, slowly stepping forward.

"Great! Let me just adjust this a tiiiiny bit. There you go!" She said, moving it ever so slightly and stepping aside to allow the timid pegasus to look through.

Fluttershy peeked through the telescope for all of 10 seconds before pulling away and saying. "That was fun Twilight, thank you." In an insincere tone to be polite, this didn't get past anypony, let alone the pony she was trying to fool, who looked disappointed to say the least.

"Ugh, anypony else want a go or can I pack this thing away?" She sighed in dismay at her failed attempt to provoke a common interest between her and her friends. Fortunately for her, I had a slight interest in this anyway, and decided to be the one to make the kind gesture for once. This truly was a night of firsts.

"Hey, I like stargazing. I'll give it a go." I stepped forward, adjusting the telescope magically myself.

"You stargaze? Why didn't you mention it before?" Miss Sparkle asked as her face changed from one of disappointment and annoyance to a relieved joyful look.

"Not much else to do in the palace." I smiled and nodded at her as I looked through at the night sky, shocked by what I saw. It was obviously the same night sky, but somehow much, much prettier. The night sky looked like a beautiful mixture of indigo and black, dotted with shiny white stars looking almost strategically placed to further extenuate the sky around it. I didn't have any other reason to why the night sky had suddenly got a new surge of life, but I could only attribute it to the return of a certain Princess of the moon. After a few moments of looking at the reinvigorated night sky, I pulled away. "Wow. I don't remember it looking like that, you should all really take....a...look..." I turned my head to realize I wasn't talking to anypony at all. They had all apparently crept away to bed whilst I was looking at the night sky. I expected this of...well, everypony, but even Miss Sparkle had left too. How long was I looking?

Either way, I decided I wasn't done looking. But was rather hungry. With that idea in mind, I crept away from the balcony and downstairs, to find something to eat. Most of the party treats that had been brought had been promptly consumed, mostly by Pinkie, well, except for a certain ash covered cupcake. Which sat on the table, taunting me. I walked past it and silently into the kitchen to look for any remaining food, I found a half eaten bag of chips laying on the counter, left there by Rainbow Dash, if I remember correctly. I picked them up and left for the telescope, eager to get a more prolonged look at Luna's sky. I was walking back upstairs when I heard some fumbling around on the balcony. This worried me, it could be a curious element of harmony, deciding to take a look, but it could be the danger Luna alluded to. I presumed all of the elements asleep, and decided to take no chances. I laid the bag of chips at the top of the stairs and got my horn at the ready, creeping slowly around to the balcony to confront the intruder. I reached the corner of the wall, and with a deep breath. Turned and pointed my horn at the danger.

"Gyaaah!" Shrieked a very surprised element of magic, who was lay down on the balcony with a book sprawled out in front of her. "What's wrong with you?!" She adjusted the volume of her voice as to not risk awakening her sleeping friends.

"Miss Sparkle? Sorry....I uh....Heard something up here. I thought you went to sleep." I scratched the back of my neck awkwardly, magicking the bag of chips down and sitting next to her.

"Everypony else is asleep, but I had just left to find a book." She explained, still wide eyes, motioning to the book she had knocked over in her shock.

"Heh...Sorry about that, Miss Sparkle." I replied formally, still addressing her as 'Miss' as this was, after all, her residence.

"Why do you keep calling me Miss Sparkle?" She questioned me, apparently not used to such a formal greeting, not surprising as for the last part of her life she had lived in a village where everypony know each other on first name basis. So she had limited formal interaction, par addressing either of the Princesses of course.

"Well...This is where you live, It's only respectful to call you as such." I walked over to the telescope readjusting it back to how it was.

"You don't have to. Miss Sparkle was my mother, Twilight is fine." She nonchalantly said, causing me slight relief. As much as I had become accustomed to formal interaction, I didn't really like it in most cases. In others it felt wrong not to use it, such as royalty, excluding Blueblood of course.

"Sure. I'm just happen this didn't happen at Rarity's house. What would I have called her, Miss Ty?" I giggled, taking another glance through the telescope, turning it towards Canterlot. Which looked picturesquely beautiful perched on the mountainside from here. I envy for Ponyvillians for being able to look up and see that on a whim.

"Haha. So, Mr Light. How long have you enjoyed a hobby in stargazing?" She tried to provoke a conversation, good thing she took the lead, as much as I considered myself to be 'making progress'. My topics expanded to the mountainous highs of 'So why are you purple?' and 'What's the deal with the pink one?'.

"Hard to remember. I just picked it up one day and it seemed like a decent way to pass the time. My days are kind of a blur of the same stuff, so I can't really pinpoint with that much accuracy. How about your hobby? How long have you been into reading?" I asked, pointing to her book, which seemed to be on a page about how to improve one's ability to teleport. An ability I had never really had much reliance on due to being a lightning pony.

"Since I was a little filly. I've always had an interest in books!" She perked up at the mention of what was quickly becoming apparent to be her favourite past time.

"What's that book about?" I asked, knowing I'd probably at least read something very similar to it. Reading wasn't exactly a hobby, but I had a LOT of downtime in the palace, so I occasionally found myself wandering into a library, that wasn't in a tree, and reading whatever I saw first.

"This is 'advanced unicorn magic and it's origins.' It's a really good book to read if you wanna pick up a tip of two! It even has descriptions of some of the most well renowned unicorns throughout Equestrian history!" She spared no detail, this obviously being her 'turf' so to speak, turning a page and pointing at a bearded unicorn. "For example, this is -"

"Starswirl the Bearded." I finished her sentence happily. Having heard of this particular unicorn before.

"You know of him? Well, of course you do, you do live in Canterlot palace after all. What's it like having access to the entire library 24/7? I never actually lived in the palace so I had to make do with other sources." She had calmed down slightly, but was still nearly jumping with joy at having a discussion partner on this subject.

"It's nice, but I didn't read about him, or hear about him, for that matter." I smiled, glancing at his picture in the book.

"Oh? Then how do you know about him?" She edged before me, ever curious, I could tell she had a great deal of respect for the unicorns who shaped magic as it is today. It's no surprise Princess Celestia chose her as a protege.

I leaned in close and said in a hushed voice. "I know one of his descendants." This nearly caused her to leap among the stars herself, but she contained herself for the sake of her slumbering friends and settled herself down.

"Really? What's he like? What's he DO? How do you know him? Oh, what's his name?" She seemed overwhelmed by the idea of being brought one step closer to one of her heroes, and I was only too happy to give her answers.

"He's pretty cool, very into his work, as you would expect." She nodded along with this vigorously, hanging on my every word. I continued. "He's a higher up at the magical university, never does any teaching, I think he does research. I met him one day whilst walking through the palace gardens, he noticed I had a book titled after his great grandfather, and we had a little conversation. And his name is Aurora star the bearded. Though the beard hasn't come in quite as well as Starswirl's yet." I joked, pointing to Starswirl's aforementioned monster of a beard, it was truly a force of nature.

"Wow, I never even knew about him. That's cool! It must be great to live in the palace!" She giggled along, I myself was pleasantly surprised with how social I was being.

"Well....It can get kind of lonely, but it's pretty nice honestly." I said as she let out a yawn, shutting her book and standing up.

"You don't have to be lonely any more!" She said cheerily yet very drowsily, she had obviously been up all day in anticipation for this stargazing thing. And whilst she didn't get what she bargained for, with her friends not wanting to do it at all, I was happy to take their place and have a chat with her, giving her a fulfilling end to her day. Who knew, do nice thing and you feel nice, weird. "I'm just about ready for bed, you coming?"

"Nope. I was sent here to guard you Mis-" My near mistake was corrected by a stern look. "...Twilight...So I will." Whilst she approved of me addressing her informally, she wasn't so happy about me shirking my sleep duties.

"It must have been a long trip from Canterlot, you need sleep, or else how can you guard us? Look?" She waved a hoof out at the border of trees surrounding the treebrary. "Not a hint of danger in sight, however if there is in the morning and you don't sleep now, you won't be as prepared to deal with it." She rationalized, much to my dismay, everything she said was true. I grumpily got up, convinced sleeping was the best course of action, whether I liked it or not.

I walked inside with Twilight, magically folding up the telescope and placed it indoors, then closing all the windows and the doors to the balcony with but a thought and a shiny horn. I love being a unicorn. "Safety first." I smiled, before finding another mattress laid out on the floor. "Wow, this looks comfier than the one in the barracks." I pushed down on it with a hoof, my hoof sank deep into it without much pressure confirming it's comfort, I lay down slowly on the inviting bed, laying my head against it and giving out a relieved yawn myself.

"Heh, have a good sleep on it then. Goodnight, Crimson."

"Thanks, you too, Night Twilight." I said, laying my head on the mattress, closing my heavy eyes and being sent off to sleep in no record time. I had a pretty pleasant dream too, no visions this 'danger' Luna talked about, no nightmares, no waking up in cold sweats. One that I only wish could have gone on for a little bit longer, as I found myself being stirred from my slumber by an ever timid Fluttershy, which confused me, of all the ponies to wake me up, she was easily the worst for the job.

"Erm...could you please wake up now? You're help is...uhm....needed..." Fluttershy whispered timidly into my ear, nudging me gently with her hoof.

"Noooo, I'm tired. Wake me up later, I don't care what Pinkie's done." I responded putting a hoof in front of her face to silence her, rolling onto my side to block her out.

"Oh no, it's quite serious. You really sho-" Fluttershy was interrupted by a very panicky sounding Twilight Sparkle.

"Step aside Fluttershy!" She screamed as I turned and saw Fluttershy leap away, and a magically levitated bucket of water tilt to dump it's contents directly onto my face. This had the same effect that it had when Steelhoof did it, sending red lightning randomly surging into different directions, fortunately, nopony was hurt. But I can't say that it didn't cross my mind.

"WHAT THE HAY DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING!?" I shouted, surrounding myself in an aura of lightning and zipping towards Twilight snarling. "I COULD HAVE KILLED SOMEPONY. WHAT COULD BE SO SERIOUS THAT YO-"

"Look outside, I'm sure you'll agree with my decision." Twilight cut me off with a serious tone going towards the balcony, I snorted and followed her, I could vaguely hear Fluttershy following behind me quietly. When I got outside everypony, woodland critter and dragon were gathered around in silence staring at the trees, Fluttershy and Twilight quickly joined the group as I walked to the edge of the balcony and took a quick look, seeing nothing.

"I don't see anything, goodnight." I angrily said, turning around to go back to sleep.

"Take a closer look at the trees." Applejack redirected me, pointing forward, sure enough, in the darkness I saw a very large figure moving back and forth.

"....Manticore....Good call Twilight." I nodded to Twilight with an apologetic look on my face. "Who first saw them, and when?"

"Me." Applejack responded. "Ah got up to get a glass of water and saw 'im walking back an' forth in the bushes a coupl'a minutes ago." She hurriedly explain, sounding very worried, couldn't blame her.

"Sit tight." I leapt off the balcony and down onto the grass below as the manticore stepped from the veil of the tree line to reveal himself. We circled each other until we were both near the bushes he was using as cover, I examined him as we did, he appeared to be male, slightly larger than usual, but that wasn't what worried me. His eyes were....well, dead. They were dull grey with red pupils in the centre, and a strange marking adorned his forehead, it was a all in blood red and slightly glowing, there was a circle in the middle of his forehead with a straight line, slightly to the right of the centre of the circle, that began outside the circle going through it and out the other end, another diagonal line was going through the straight line, it remained inside the circle and began at the top right and ended at the bottom left.

Unfortunately, whilst I was staring in confusion at the marking on the beast's head, another one of them leapt from the concealing shadows of the woods, carving a straight line down my side, causing blood to pour along my body. I winced but managed to stay upright, my first though being these were somehow more intelligent than normal manticore, applying basi teamwork strategy as oppose to rushing me blindly trying to murder me. My second thought consisted of 'OH SWEET CELESTIA MY INSIDES'.

I staggered to remain upright, knowing that this brief fight had just become a time trial, I wouldn't remain conscious long, so I had to make sure these guys went down as I slipped into unconsciousness. I covered myself in lightning as I saw the other manticore try to capitalize on his friends opening, wincing at the effort, I dodged his pounced, backing up nearer the balcony. I turned to the balcony, seeing them all getting rather worried about me.

"I'm coming down to help!" Rainbow shouted, hovering in place, getting ready to fly towards me.

"You're staying there! I got this!" I screamed back, almost being forced to kneel down due to my large wound.

"You need help Crimsonlight!" Rarity shouted down at me. Maybe so, but not from anypony on the balcony.

"She's right, I'M COMIN'" Rainbow screamed bravely as she readied to hurtle towards me. Time for a more direct approach.

"YOU COME DOWN HERE AND THE MANTICORE WILL BE THE LEAST OF YOUR WORRIES." I shouted in anger, horn flaring red as lightning jumped over my body crackling at the outburst. I wasn't going to hurt her, but if she thought I would she wouldn't come and actually get hurt. Thankfully it worked, they reformed back into a worried crowd, better they be moral support than multi coloured starters.

Apparently the manticore had had enough dilly dallying, one pounced at me, I managed to run around him, taking place beside him. I spun to blast him from side, the other saw this as opportunity, leaping at me, the blood on his claws took me aback as it had oh so shortly ago been in my body, nevertheless I decided to get a little payback. I darted underneath him and, with as much power as my weak legs could muster, thrust myself upwards horn first, puncturing his stomach and giving his insides a little shock upon entry. Eye for an eye, or in this case, grievous bodily harm for grievous bodily harm. This unfortunately didn't finish him, but left him a bloody mess, clutching his stomach as blood poured from the tiny hole. The other wasted no time, catapulting itself at me, I turned to see it mid air, no time to move I was forced to meet it head on. I still had much of the charge that was meant for him earlier before his partner decided to try his luck, and felt it was time for him to get what was rightfully his, I unleashed a bolt of crimson lightning directly into his face, the force of which sent him skidding backwards into the outside wall of the treebrary with not much face left to recognize. I turned to the other, who was still on the ground, I limped towards him, glancing at my side in sorrow, wondering if this was my last act. I walked over his face and put all my leftover energy into my hoof, it sparked up with lightning as the manticore widened his eyes, probably knowing what was coming. He let out one final scream before I plummeted my hoof into his face with a sickening squishing sound, I stepped away, happy I could protect the elements, I turned to see where they were, they were all now leaping from the balcony themselves with a few bandages and worried looks on their faces, even Pinkie Pie.

I staggered a little bit, looking at the blood red trails I had left behind before finally falling over and beginning to pass out. I heard Pinkie Pie say one last thing before I was swept away into unconsciousness.

"We need 50 cupcakes! STAT!"

She was a silly wizard, a silly wizard indeed.

An unusual homecoming

Hello, I hope you all enjoyed chapter 3, this is chapter 4 and it's getting dangerously close to the point I was before my original story got deleted, almost time to actually write new things!

So, that's all, chapter 4, go!

I woke up in a haze, still barely conscious, which wasn't much of an improvement, but being that one of my fleeting thoughts was 'did anyone catch the number of the mountain that fell on me?' I decided to be very thankful for this change. I could hear busy sounding ponies rushing around the place, chatting furiously to one another about....well, I don't know, I was still only semi conscious. Metal clanging on trays, must have been equipment of some sort, and the beeping of machinery....A lab? Either way, somepony was touching me, I felt a hoof rest on my forehead, brushing my mane. That at least soothed me slightly, not much though considering the thought I was dying and they were going to cut my superior pony parts up and use them to make a new me was still running through my head. Dying or not, I swear to Celestia I'm not becoming Crimsonstein. The pony rubbing my head seemed to sympathize with this, gifting me a few kind words.

"Crimsonlight....I need to you wake up now. Please? You're going to be fine....just please....don't make me a liar...Wake up...." The voice pleaded with me, okay, time to break it down. Somepony who's voice I couldn't deliberate in my current state was asking me to wake up, so was I dying? But I was awake, barely. I better fully wake myself up before....I better fully wake myself up!

I stirred in my sleep, moving my head back and forth and trying to open my eyes with greatly diminished strength as the voice offered kind words and moral support. I finally struggled my eyes open, closing them immediately as the surrounding area's brightness peirced their sanctity much more than I would like. As I became fully conscious I felt a weird stinging sensation on my side, accompanied by an odd soothing sensation that seemed to pass up and down by body, I also noted a throbbing headache in my....head.....I slowly reopened my eyes, acclimating myself to my surroundings. Whitewashed walls, a machine next to with a line, spiking every now and then, beeping....wait.....Great...I'm in hospital. I turned my head to find the pony rubbing my forehead gently, expecting to see a nurse, but I was instead greeted by a dark blue pony blob, as my vision was still blurry, what I found peculiar about this blob was that it had wings AND a horn.....

"Crimson!" The figure screamed excitedly, revealing itself to be none other than the Princess of the moon, Luna. She hugged around my neck tightly, not really causing me any discomfort as that wasn't were my injury was, I can't say the same for the high pitched wail of excitement that assaulted my currently tender sense of hearing, though.

"Nice to see you too. Nice to see anything, actually." I responded, hugging back and putting a hoof to my head, as my headache shifted into a migraine.

"Oh...I'm sorry...Don't worry, there's a powerful healing aura placed on you, that headache....and the rest...should heal up pretty soon." She shied away slightly saying that, seeming to want to hide something. I hazarded a look down at my right side, where the majority of my pain was coming from, and sure enough, saw what was provoking this pain and discomfort, and remembered how it happened in the first place. My body, from just by the cutie mark all the way up to behind my front legs was bandaged. Bucking manticore.

"....Oh...." I sighed sadly, remembering what happened. "....So...What are you doing in Ponyville? That worried huh?" I asked with a smirk, much to Luna's delight as she laughed, which, given the situation, caught me off guard. "What?" She responded simply by pointing off to a window, I looked, only to see the towering spires of Canterlot. ".....I'm....I'm lost. Help me out a little, will ya?"

"Haha, okay, do you want the long story or the short story?" She smiled, trying to wipe the grin off her face.

"Whichever one explains to me why I'm in Canterlot and what you're doing here." I grumpily replied, trying to peak under my bandage with a prying hoof, only to get it slapped away by Luna's.

"Leave it alone. And okay, long it is. You took quite a deep wound from that manticore, it hit some...uhm....Important stuff. You would have bled out long before you got here if the elements didn't transport you hear in a hot air balloon, Twilight and Rarity used the little healing magic Equestrian law allows them to know to sustain you on the trip. When you got here they delivered you to hospital and sent my sister and I a letter detailing the events, my sister was busy so I rushed over here and performed surgery myself with advanced healing magic. What you feel now are whatever was harmed slowly stitching itself back together." She explained in detail, in a business like tone. I found no questions to ask her, she explained the....complicated, at the very least, situation, very carefully and well. I only had one thing to say.

"Thank you, Luna......For saving my life...." I reached out to hug her, wincing as I sat up, something I hope she deeply appreciated, not as much given current situation and the pain I was experiencing, but given I don't think I've ever hugged another pony before. Not willingly at least. She gently pushed me back down and wrapped her arms around me softly.

"Come on, I'd rather you save your thankful hugs for later when you recuperate. Hopefully that should be soon, I'm pretty good at this magic stuff." She lightened the mood, walking over to the other side of my bed, performing an x-ray spell on my bandage to see the wound itself. Why didn't I think of that? ...Oh, yeah, almost dying. "Seems to be stitching itself back up quite nicely. Pretty good work, If I do say so myself."

I followed suit, using an x-ray spell on my bandage. It took more effort than usual and didn't help my migraine, but I pulled it off without many problems nonetheless. What I saw was slightly disconcerting, a long, nasty looking gash, bloodied and flayed skin all along it. It looked pretty deep, no surprise it hit some important stuff. Fortunately though it looked to be healing in places, skin, as Luna said, knitting itself back in place thanks to her powerful magic, my insides were no doubt completely fine by now, but understandably I didn't want to look in there. I repeat. Bucking manticore.

Then, my brain kicked in gear and reminded me of something. Something rather important. "Luna. What was up with those manticore?" I asked, with the 'danger' that Luna mentioned previously looming in the back of my mind.

"...I...I don't know, what WAS up with them?" She answered my question with a question, great, more post near death thinking, my favourite kind. I racked my brain for a couple seconds to come up with what actually was up with them. Eventually though, my brain made good and delivered. Thanks brain, friends for life.

"They had like...weird grey eyes, with completely red pupils. And weird signs on their foreheads. I can't remember exactly what the signs were like, but they were red too." I responded hazily, trying to get a grip on my own thoughts, a lot harder than it sounds.

"Signs....What signs?" The fear in Luna's voice became obviously present at this point, this worried me, but I had dealt with the problem, right? Those two manticore had some magical Princess slaying abilities and I stopped them before they could utilize them, right? ......I found myself trying to convince myself they were indeed the threat more than congratulating myself on ending the threat.

"...They.....I'm....I'm sorry, Luna....I don't think I can...." My migraine got the best of me as I clutched my head and lay down. Still racking my brain for answers, becoming frustrated when there were apparently none to find, which only intensified my migraine, which stressed me out, causing me to want the answers more and more before the migraine got much worse. Stupid vicious circles.

"Crimson....I know it's hard, but please, calm down, you're only making the migraine worse. Now can you give it one more effort? This is very important to Equestria, what were the markings like?" Luna encouraged me to get over my mental block. I took a few deep breaths in an attempt to soothe my migraine somewhat, and it worked somewhat, I became less focused on the migraine and more focused on retrieving the answers for Luna. I delved into my mind one more time, and thankfully, came up successful.

"It was like....a glowing red...circle...With one line inside of it...a diagonal one, from the top right to the bottom left....And one more line going through it, beginning and finishing outside of the circle, through just right of the centre.....Yeah...that's it, I think at least....Luna....?" I waved a hoof in front of Luna, who had frozen up somewhat, with a look of shock and horror mixed on her face. My hoof being waved in her face snapped her out of her trance. "Luna? What's going on, it's fine right...I killed them...."

".....It's....I don't think it's fine.....I need to talk to my sister before I tell you anything....I'm sorry...." Luna bowed her head, intimidated by two dead manticore than I've ever seen an alicorn intimidated about, well, anything. Like Celestia it what ending there. Bed ridden and hospitalized or not, I wanted answers and I was going to get them.

"Luna....tell me....what is going on?" I asked, the same fear that tinged her voice now present in mine. I sat up slightly, waiting intently to listen to what Luna had to say, knowing now that those two manticore were just the beginning, scouts, reconnaissance, a warning.

"I....I really need to ask my sister..." She continued to shy away from my and avoid eye contact, this did nothing but confirm my fears that this was just the beginning....or even by the way she was shying away, suggesting she knew a lot about this...the return?...Of something big.

Nevertheless, she forced me to play a card I didn't want to play in my desperate plea for information. The guilt trip. "Luna, I just almost died....Now please, I want to help anypony I can as much as possible. Tell me, what was up with those things?" I was sitting up fully now, the pain from the cut already dying down thanks to the very powerful healing aura, but I didn't feel too good about pulling the dreaded guilt trip card on Luna.

".....Okay....I understand......Just don't tell my sister okay?...." I nodded and leaned closer. "You see....the thing is...." Just then, with arguably the worst timing known to Equestria, none other than Pinkie Pie burst through the door of my room, followed by the rest of the elements and Spike, and worst of all, Luna's sister. Princess Celestia.

"Crimsonlight! You're okay! I was so worried after that manticore hit you! But you're okay now! You ARE okay, right?" Pinkie Pie was the first to speak up, leaping forward and latching herself around my neck, nearly choking the life out of me. Awkwardly strong grip for such a small and....pink pony.

"For now, yeah." I replied, pushing her off of me, coughing as I regained my ability to breathe. "Where were you guys?"

"We were forced to remain in the waiting room, well, until the Princess showed up and got us in here." Twilight motioned to Princess Celestia, who now had her back turned to us, as did Luna, whispering to her in hushed tones, which worried me as it brought doubts that I may not get the information I was prying from Luna before she arrived.

"So, how're ya?" Rainbow stepped forward, mimicking my actions earlier as she slowly moved her hoof towards my bandage, I played the part of Luna and slapped it away.

"I've been better, but Luna patched me up pretty well. Thank you, all of you, by the way. If it wasn't for all of you coordinating to get me here, I'd be.....you know." I bowed my head, not wanting to think about my own demise. I'm weird like that, go figure.

"Weren't nothin' sugarcube. You're our friend, what did ya expect us tah do?" Applejack said assuringly, resting a hoof on my shoulder. Awww, warm fuzzy feelings and all that nonsense.

".....Either way, I owe all of you a whole lot more than one." I nodded back, getting the odd feeling I would get a chance to repay them.

"Oh please darling, if it wasn't for you we would all be in the same position as you right now! You could have easily hid in the house, but you chose to confront those manticore. Consider us even." Rarity attempted to comfort me in her casually over dramatic voice, to her credit, she did a good job, But despite her efforts, the only pony that had a real shot at comforting me now was Luna, and Celestia had stolen her.

"Like it or not, you all are now owed one." I smiled back, only half paying attention, my eyes darting back and forth between the elements, accompanied by Spike, and the Princesses. Finally, I was put out of my misery by Princess Celestia, who was turning around from her brief meeting with Luna.

"Crimsonlight, after some discussion, my sister and I regret to inform you we can not disclose the information upon exactly what attacked you as of now. We hope you understand." Princess Luna shied away from me, averting her gaze to the ground and away from me, whilst Princess Celestia took on a businesslike tone and kept it short, obviously not too pleased with the situation. Whether it was what attacked me that was displeasing her, or not being able to tell me, I didn't know, but what I did know was that I was angry about being denied information as to why I had almost just died. Angry enough to challenge an alicorn.

"You can't 'disclose the information'?" I angrily spoke up, as I climbed slowly out my bed. Princess Celestia seemed taken aback by my sudden lack of obedience, whilst Luna simply rushed forward to attempt to keep me in bed. I got up despite Luna and the pain in my side's combined efforts to keep me down, and slowly hobbled my way towards the offending Princess. "I don't know if this was the 'threat' Luna told me about, but I almost died, because by YOUR law only doctors are allowed any decent healing magic, so by the time I finally got here your sister had to come here and save me personally! The least YOU could do is tell me what almost took my life." I hissed at the Princess of the sun, now mere inches from her face. Her face mirroring the shock of that on everypony else in the room.

Princess Celestia overcame her own shock, reforming herself to speak once more. "Crimsonlight, I understand your anger, but you do not know what is at stake. If me or my sister tell you, or anypony else, before complete confirmation, we risk sending the whole of Equestria into a state of urgency and panic for nothing." Princess Celestia tried to keep her usual regal tone, but as she went on tones of anger were becoming more and more evident, to me at least. Luna tugged on my tail as a signal to stop, despite all better judgement, I chose to continue my argument with a deity.

"Oh, my apologies, I suppose my life is forfeit as long as Equestria doesn't get afraid of what goes bump in the night. Princess, if those manticore are linked to this....this....this thing that has you so worried, and judging by the look on your face when Luna told you about them, they are, then why not tell me, so I can prepare to help in whatever way I can. So Equestria can prepare to help." I spoke through gritted teeth as my and the Princesses eyes never shifted their angry stare from each other. I couldn't shake the feeling that arguing with the ruler of the land in which I lived was not the smartest thing I've done, however.

The Princess and I bored holes through each other with angry stares, creating not so much of an awkward silence, but a terrifying one. I felt that the Princess was not spending her time searching for the correct words as she spent it wondering how stupid I was, eventually though, she opened her mouth, now with much more than a hint of anger in her voice. "......You have NO idea what you're talking about. You almost died, that is terrible, but you survived, and by a small miracle you are walking again, and you use that ability to walk to stand and challenge me when you know nothing of what is happening? Think of Equestria instead of yourself. That's why you make a good Spear, that's why you have all these years, don't let me down, especially not now." Princess Celestia stepped forward, not afraid of showing the elements a side of her I doubt they'd ever seen.

"You're right, I completely agree, I have no idea, you however, do. Yet you still choose to keep us in the dark when faced with evidence of what you obviously fear so much is here. But that's fine, because you're our noble ruler, aren't you, Princess?" I was not just openly challenging the Princesses opinion, I was mocking it. I lowered to one knee as I said Princess to underline that I meant it as an insulting gesture, causing a collective gasp from everypony, even the one I was arguing with, in the room.

Princess Celestia's face turned from an angry one, to one of shock, and then to one I didn't expect to see, disappointment. She lowered her tone and began to speak. "Crimsonlight......I expect more of you, you rarely step hoof out of line, and when you do, it takes no more than a word from me to calm the situation, as it should do. You not only have no place in deciding anything about this information, you have no right to address me in such a fashion. Crimsonlight, your status as a Blade of Luna is hereby revoked." For the first time in the argument I felt like she wasn't debating me on an important matter, but talking down to me. Nothing more than a mother scolding her young colt after he had misbehaved. My three other legs buckled and dropped into a kneeling stance too as I sat there on the ground, my eyes welling up, I felt unwilling to continue the argument.

"Sister, I beg of you, reconsider! His actions may be brash but he can not control them, he just had a near death experience, let it pass!" Luna leapt to my side and rested a wing on my back as I stared at the ground, silently thankful of her pleading my case, but not really wanting this to continue as I knew she would not sway her older sibling.

"Luna, how would you react if a servant spoke to you in such a manner?" Princess Celestia turned her gaze to her sister who remained at my side. I remained on the ground, attempting to hold back something that was very rare for me, tears, in hope of keeping some of my dignity after being turned into a kneeling wreck by mere words.

"I....I would......This...This is entirely different!" Luna found herself somewhat robbed of words as she attempted to defend me, her sister now unwavering in her stance. Looking cold and merciless, at least from my position, an admittedly skewed one. I let a single tear escape my eye as I bowed my head further to hide my shame, the shame of being robbed of the only thing I knew how to do, defend ponies. The fact that a huge danger may be on the horizon did nothing to comfort me.

"No, Luna, it is not. One of my subjects has shown blatant lack of respect for me, but more importantly Equestria, stop trying to defend him, you know I'm right." Princess Celestia cast an accusing look at Luna, and motioned a hoof at me, not even bothering to look my way. This did nothing but make me angrier, and I didn't even have the fight left to utilize it. "Besides, if the worst of the worst happens and it really happens, I will still utilize him, as I will have to." Utilize me? I was nothing more than a tool to her? This gave me the fight I needed, I slowly rose to my hooves and faced the Princess of the sun, vision cloudy with tears and pure rage etched across my face.

"You will utilize me, Princess? What, am I no more than a tool now?" I stepped forward, back up to the Princess and out from under Luna's protective wing. "I don't take kindly to being thrown aside like a foal, then the pony that threw me aside saying they will merely 'pick me out the mud I was cast into and use me again'. What if I don't WANT to help?" Princess Celestia seemed unwavering now, uncaring, almost sure of herself, but more annoyingly, my mindless obedience.

"You will do as instructed. If the worst case scenario comes to be, I trust that even in your current state you have the sense to help, not for me, not for your own honour, for everypony in Equestria. Do not make me a liar, Crimsonlight." Princess Celestia batted me down once more, in a scarily gentle voice, I receded at her words and curled up next to Luna once more. I felt like a filly, curling up next to Luna to protect me from the big, bad Princess of the sun. But that's what I was right now, I was nothing like Crimsonlight, the Blade of Luna. I was a lost filly, with no idea what to do with his life.

What she said did get me thinking though. About why I was so important. About why they even needed me, as their powers far exceeded my own. But mostly, about whether I was going to help. I wanted to help ponies, but helping Princess Celestia after she had taken away my only merit seemed like the actions of a desperate foal, but was that what I was? Would this give me a shot at being rehired to the Blade or the Spear? Doubtful after that display, but I had nowhere to go, I couldn't rely on Luna, who seemed to still be on my side, because after getting fired I had no ties to either of the Princesses and gaining an audience with them in their busy lives would be tricky. The only thing I had to rely were 6 ponies who called me friend, yet I was unsure if I could return that feeling. All of this ran through my head and more as I sat there, shunned and broken, to summarise the entire thing, I was homeless, unemployed, and depressed at the loss of the only thing I had. And I could only think of two words to spare myself more embarrassment. Sadly, these two words brought me great anguish to say.

"....Yes, Princess."

"Very well." Princess Celestia turned to leave, seeming very displeased with the entire situation. At least that was mutual between us. "Luna, are you coming? We both have a lot of work to attend." She motioned a hoof to Luna, who seemed to snap out of the slight trance she was in and turn her eyes to her sister.

"Uhh, yes! Of course. Just give me a moment please, will you?" Luna asked her sister, motioning her head to me.

"Okay Luna, but be quick. We do have a lot of work to do." Princess Celestia's horn then began to glow, that was followed by a flash of bright white light as she teleported out of the room, off to do whatever was so important.

"So.....Are you okay? That was fairly harsh." Luna asked, walking towards me and doing her best to take on a casual tone. I raised my head, attempting to hide my sad feelings, I wasn't that sad any more to be honest, I was just overwhelmed by an empty feeling.

"All things considered, lets consider it a personal triumph I didn't take a swing at your sister. Good thing too, doubt it would have gone well." I looked around the room, noticing the elements and Spike. I gave a brief thought to how awkward the situation must be for them, not a day ago they were living their idealistic lives, now they were watching their friend, who had recently returned from the brink of death be berated by a Princess who had no doubt shown only her kind side to them.

"Can't say I didn't think of it myself." Luna smirked, reassuring me. Hey, maybe later to pick my spirits we could all go mug Princess Celestia in an alleyway. "You're going to be fine, right? Not planning on doing anything rash, or stupid? Like hitting an alicorn?" She joked, attempting to lift my spirits. She was doing an okay job, all things taken into account.

"I hadn't quite chalked up the blueprints yet, so she'll be fine for now." I jested back, attempting to lift my own spirits with the joke more so then follow the conversation.

"Okay, good." She cantered over to the door, stopping just because it and turning around. "Would you...like to meet me at the courtyard in one hour?" She asked, rather shyly for a several thousand year old alicorn.

"Wh...What for?" I replied, rather caught off guard by the spur of the moment invitation. It's not every day you get fired by one alicorn then asked to hang out by the next moments later.

"Well, I'm sure you could do worse than kill time with an alicorn, couldn't you? Besides, it'll be a nice change of pace, the only time you've had to stop and rest this last day or so was when you were unconscious." She insisted, and she was right. Given I normally didn't get much sleep, but most ponies didn't use their relaxation time in a bleeding unconscious state being stitched up by an alicorn, so I decided to take her up on it.

"I guess you're right. I'll be there in one ho-.....Wait a minute, did you just ask me out on a date and expect me not to notice?" I smiled, perking up a bit and pointing an accusational hoof at her at the sudden realization of what just happened.

"Crimsonlight, please, this is merely one friend helping out another." She giggled, smiling coyly

"Of course, how could I be so foalish." I giggled along with the joke, feeling slightly reinvigorated at the thought of spending some time with a pony that was actually decent conversation.

"Good, I'll see you then. Goodbye Crimson, stay out of trouble." She smirked, walking towards the door. Nice to see she was opting for the more direct, and much less flashy approach.

"I'll try. Goodbye." I said, slightly sad by her leaving as I sullenly walked over to my hospital bed, lying down slowly and turning my head to everypony else in the room, noticing they were still standing there, in silence and awe at everything that had just happened, as it was no doubt not what they were expecting. Hay, even Pinkie Pie was standing in silence. "Never seen a pony pick a fight with a Princess before?"

It took them a while to register that I had said something, but Twilight Sparkle was the first to shake off the pre-awkward jitters and speak. "Oh...Um...No....Sorry about all that....How's....How's your wound feeling?" She awkwardly smiled, trying desperately to change the subject.

"Let's see, shall we?" I lit up my horn with an X-ray spell, noting the decrease in difficulty as I had recovered, Luna really did put a powerful healing aura on me, the skin had stitched itself together noticeably since my last peek, this might even be done by mine and Luna's 'date'. "Seems okay, take a look at your own peril."

"I'm....Okay..." Twilight retracted, not wanting to look at the slashed and bloodied skin. Rainbow Dash however had very different plans.

"Oooh! I wanna look!" She dashed close to the bandage, hovering around it trying to find an angle to get a look inside. She eventually gave up and went right for it, only to be blocked by a magical bubble I placed on it. She impatiently tapped a hoof on the bubble. "Awww, why can't I look?" She whined, floating down to the ground and trotting back to place.

"Because you're not a unicorn, and can't use X-ray spells." I sarcastically replied, tapping my horn with my hoof as I let down the protective bubble around my wound now that the immediate danger, Rainbow Dash, had left, and the crimson glow around it dissipated.

She seemed to concentrate on the bandage for a few brief seconds, trying to evoke some hidden unicorn powers inside herself. After a few strained grunts and more than a few raised eyebrows, she unsurprisingly failed and gave up. "Well can't any of you unicorns put a spell on it that makes the bandage see through?" She pointed to me, Twilight and Rarity in order, obviously not content at giving in at her own failures, being the persistent little nuisance she was.

"Yes, either one of us could do that, you're right. Very good." Came my response in a deadpan tone, my emotionless stare not wavering from her. I wasn't angry with her, or anypony really, not even that darned Princess of the sun. I was just indifferent. The events that had just passed, that wasn't too shabby.

"Well, why don't you do that?!" Rainbow Dash was far from indifferent and uncaring, flailing her hoofs around trying to reason with me and get even the slightest peek at the wound. It would have annoyed me a couple days ago that she was treating my near fatal wound like a rare bird, desperately trying to get a view, but this was actually what I expected from her.

"Because then everypony else in the room will be exposed to it, and I doubt they want that." I looked over the rest of the group, I knew Rainbow wouldn't care about seeing it, maybe Pinkie wouldn't, who knew, but I very much doubt that Twilight, Spike, Rarity or Applejack wanted to see it. And I was downright afraid of showing it to Fluttershy, the delicate thing she was.

Rainbow crossed her hooves and sat on her flank at this, a sight I was used to after not even a full day with her. Spike took the chance to hop up and sit on the bottom of my bed nonchalantly. "So, you gonna be okay?" He asked, laying back on the bed, enjoying the comfort of it as he stretched his scaly limbs a little too much, given the situation.

I gave a little thought to the matter, and eventually came up with something that seemed to offend the group. "Hmmm....I don't really know. Probably not."

Fluttershy interjected, not wanting anypony in the world to ever be sad ever forever times ten. "What? What do you mean? You're fine, right?" She said almost pleadingly, her expression dropping immediately.

"What do ya mean? You're alive, right? You can only go up from here!" Spike concluded, pointing a hoof....erm....claw...upwards.

"True. But even if I go up, I'll still....uhm.....lower....than before.......I think..." I knew there was a point in there somewhere, I just couldn't find the right words. They collectively stared blankly for a second, before Pinkie Pie responded with something rather philosophical, for a maniac of her standards.

"But we can help you rise higher than ever before!" She happily said, extending a hoof skywards. She was obviously speaking gibberish, I would most likely never be a Blade again, and that was my thing, but there may have been a point in there somewhere. The point that now that I had more time on my hands, a life with friends could be better than one beating up various beasts across Equestria with two ponies that annoyed me. I doubt she knew that there was a point in there, but bonus points for effort.

I sighed and look down at my wound, silently cursing the manticore that began this horrid chain of events. "I hope so."

"We know so! We're your friends now, sugarcube, an' we'll do all we can tah help ya!" Applejack nodded, resting a reassuring hoof on my shoulder, causing her own little chain of events, all of her friends nodding with her, par Spike, who opted for a stand to attention followed by a salute. Silly as it may sound, this actually reassured me. They were after all the elements of harmony, they helped ponies, if I was their friend then I could help too. Not in my usual, violent way, but help is help nonetheless.

"....Thanks...The sentiment is appreciated." I said earnestly, before surveying the room a little, not liking what I saw. "So, nothing to do here, huh? Let's go." I rolled out of the bed, careful to not put pressure on my bandaged wound and began walking towards the door. Much to the objection of a very worried sounding Fluttershy.

"I think that you should stay in bed....If you could....Please..." She landed between me and the doorway, blocking my path to it, and doing her best to be assertive, which was kind of humorous.

"Fluttershy I'm fine, it's healing nicely and will only continue to do so. All being cooked up in here is doing is making me angry." I lazily breathed as I walked around a slightly shunned looking Fluttershy as her advice was ignored. I turned to look back at the rest of the elements, still at my now unoccupied beside. "You coming?"

"You bet!" Rainbow Dash said, eagerly landing beside me, obviously as ready to leave as I was. Everypony else followed suit, even Fluttershy, given it was with a very concerned look on her face. Which I appreciated despite outward appearances, I just didn't want anypony telling me where I could and couldn't go right now. So it was pretty fortunate for me that it was Fluttershy, so it wasn't so much telling as kindly suggesting.

"You know they're not going to let you out. Right?" Twilight added with scepticism of my plans. I had taken that into account, I didn't have an over complicated answer, I just wanted to see them try and stop me.

"That's real good for them. Hey, all these imaginary ponies you see that nopony else does that can stop me from leaving, tell them I said hi." I cracked wise as we left the room, completely sure of my ability to leave. I wasn't planning on hurting any ponies to leave, I was just planning on.....Well, I don't know. Like I said, hurting things was my default, this would take a level of trickery, or distraction. Fortunately for me, I had a Pinkie Pie. A Pinkie Pie who was currently breaking the whole 'walking out without a care in the world' vibe by hugging the door and peeking around the corner pretending to be a spy.

"We got a nurse coming down the hallway. What do we do, Cap'n?!" I said, pointing to the nurse at the other end of the hallway, she had a lime green coat with a red and white mane. She was fortunately oblivious to our presence. Pinkie Pie donned an admiral hat out of nowhere, which I took pretty well.

I leaned in close, playing along. "We walk around her, calmly, but most importantly, quietly." I whispered to her, winking and patting her on the head.

She apparently liked this plan, a lot. Just enough to immediately scream in happiness at her love of the plan and ruin it. "That....is.....GENIUS!!!" She leapt into the air, startling everypony nearby, and the nurse I was planning on avoiding. "Wait, were we not supposed to tell her? Sorry!" She smiled, swiping her hat off her head and stuffing it away.....Somewhere.

The nurse walked over, giving me a thorough look up and down before acting like she remembered something important and trying to ushering me back into my room. "Back in! You're not to leave your bed for another 40 minutes. Princesses orders!" She said in a panicky fashion, trying, and failing to move me back to whence I came.

"Princesses orders?.........Which one?" I asked inquisitively. This made a large difference, if they were Celestia's orders I presumed she was keeping me locked up out of spite, or better yet, for the sake of the rest of Canterlot. Either way, I had no problem ignoring them right now. However, if they were Luna's orders, then I would presume them to be keeping me hospitalized for my own well being. So I could at least acknowledge her point of view as a just one before ignoring it and leaving.

"Princess Luna, I'll have you know." She adopted an important stance due to her carrying out of royal orders. "She instructed me that a white unicorn with a red mane and tail would attempt to leave, and by no means should I allow him to do so." Yeah, I can totally acknowledge her point of view as a just one. Now I'm going to ignore it and leave. But not before I mess with a nurse for fun.

"Red mane?.....No no no, this is not a mane, these are one of a kind head snakes. Now in red!" I smiled, causing her look to distort to one of anger as everypony around me chuckled at my gentle ribbing.

"She told me you would be difficult. Please, get back in your room." She ordered me, pointing a stern hoof towards my room. This didn't go down too well with me, I decided to up the ante.

".....You get back to YOUR room." I mimicked her actions, finding myself in an oddly playful mood. I suppose it was something to do with trying to cheer myself up, but I mostly just liked messing with ponies, and she seemed game.

"I am a nurse and I will no- Stop doing that!" She cut herself short at her anger of my mimicking her movements an lip syncing her words.

"Why do you have to be so volatile? Just calm down and get back to work." I pointed to a pony at the far end of the hallway, who actually looked like she needed help, unlike me. Unfortunately the nurse disagreed and decided she had had enough of this.

"I have had enough of this! Get back in your room this instant! Princesses orders, need I remind you?!" She shouted, this struck a chord with me as I hearkened back to a minute or so ago when I thought I didn't want to be told what to do. I decided to cut the game of 'harass the nurse' short and make my leave.

"No, I'm fine. I'll be going now, if you don't mind." I tipped an imaginary hat, curious as to whether Pinkie Pie was doing the same with a real one behind me. I ran around her, quickly adjusting to the pain my bandage gave me as I took off into full gallop, once more impressed with internally impressed with Luna's abilities.

"Guards!!!" The nurse screamed after us all as the elements followed suit and ran past her. I knew I couldn't activate my lightning aura to speed myself up as the lightning that would coat me would tear the bandage apart, exposing my wound. Besides, I'd probably end up leaving them behind, par for maybe Rainbow Dash, or Pinkie Pie, I didn't know, or want to know of the full extent of her dimension shattering capabilities.

My mind jostled with itself as I rounded another corner, hospital guards hot in pursuit. Well, slightly warm in pursuit. I thought of sending Rainbow Dash ahead, but becoming separated to any degree was not an option. Twilight Sparkle was the first to point out my lack of planning.

"Uhm...Not to insult your plan. But where are we going?" She said beside me amidst pants, living up to my expectations as a less than peak physically conditioned bookworm.

"We keep running until we find the exit." I answered unsurely, finding a set of stairs and darting down them, hoping to get to ground level. I spied salvation, a map of the hospital, and stopped in front of it figuring we had some spare time since we were faster than the hospital guards. "Okay....Lets see....We're on the floor with the exit, good start....Forward....Forward.....Looks like it's a straight shot from here then we take the next to last left and we're home free." I hurriedly said as I heard the clatter of uncoordinated hooves rushing down the staircase after us. I took off galloping again, elements still in tow, down the hallway as the hospital guards were once again in sight, but it didn't matter now, we were almost home free.

We took the next to last left as the map indicated and the door came into view, a short sprint away. Unfortunately for us a pair of royal guards landed in the doorway, apparently hearing the commotion and blocking us.

"Stop, criminal scum!" He shouted at me, offending me slightly. I tried to think of a way around them, as much as I would like to, I couldn't zap them, and with the hospital guards sandwiching us from the other side, I needed to think fast.

"Crimson? What do we do?!" Spike said frantically from Twilight's back, obviously not able to keep up with us on his own. Fortunately for him, I had just conjured a plan.

I lit up my horn, to the collective shock of the elements. "What are you going to do? Oh please don't hurt them!" Fluttershy said, almost at normal speaking volume now. Worrying for even the lowly guards of Canterlot. They however, looked more worried for themselves, flying out of the way at the thought of getting hit with whatever I was packing.

"I wouldn't think of it, Fluttershy....." Okay, so maybe that's a lie. "Rule number 1, royal guards are cowards." I grinned as we ran out the hospital into the crowded streets of Canterlot, the masses of ponies within them providing ample cover from whomever wished to pursue us.

I ushered Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy down to the ground to avoid detection, which even the sky bound Rainbow Dash could understand, as we galloped to the centre of Canterlot. We stopped by the fountain in Canterlot square, a natural gathering place for ponies, market stalls and stores everywhere you looked. We caught our breath for a brief moment as we did our best to fit in with everypony else.

"Do you think we won?!" Pinkie leapt up and down, breaking the stealthy aspect of things, probably thinking we were just engaged in a particularly energetic game of tag.

I came to the conclusion the best way to quiet her down was to simply go with it. "Uhm....Yes! You can stop now, we won!....Good job?" I pushed her to the ground, placing a hoof on her mouth to stop her yelping ecstatically. She quieted down, a joyous look still etched on her face at our 'victory'. But it was a joyous quiet one, so I was happy.

Just as everything settled down and Pinkie Pie was calm, I noticed a lot of stares coming my way, shocked, slightly fearful looking stares, accompanied by a few gasps. I also heard a low rumbling, thankfully Pinkie's ability to mess with time and space wasn't finally ripping Equestria apart from the inside out, it was my stomach, I was just hungry. I looked around past the stares, which I chalked up to Pinkie's perpetually odd behaviour, and found the nearest food stall and cantered over to it.

I browsed the selection of food the stall offered, and picked up the biggest apple I could see. "How much for this?"

"That'll....That'll be one...b-bit." He stammered, doing his best to avoid direct eye contact, or any form of contact at all. A quick glance around confirmed that every other pony in the immediate vicinity had formed a circle around me, leaving around 3 meters between me and any of them. The elements were inside the 'quarantine zone', standing behind me, but they had the same looks on their faces.

"What is up with you?" I said, before realizing I had no bits on me. "Heh....Sorry, I don't have any bits with me, my bad." I turned back to the stall pony, smiling awkwardly and putting the apple back down.

"No no! That's quite fine! Just take it!" He threw the apple back at me, I responded quickly with my magic catching it and levitating it beside me.

"Are you sure?" I levitated the apple back towards him, causing him to recoil back with a terrified look on his face.

"No no! It's quite fine!" He said, almost cowering behind his stall.

".....Okay....Thanks...." I cocked an eyebrow in confusion, turning around to an overwhelming sea of faces looking like they'd seen a ghost. "Okay, that's it. WHAT?!" I shouted at the herd, now officially angry, causing them to recoil in fear. And rightly so, but not quite the response I was looking for.

Rarity was the first to speak up. "You might want to tighten your bandage, do you need some help with that?" She strained out, looking disgusted and pointing a hoof at my bandage. I took a bite out of my apple and turned to look. Apparently somewhere in my gallop away from the hospital, the bandage became loose displaying my bloody wound to everypony nearby.

"Seriously? That's it?" I looked around to all of the faces surrounding me. Voicing my displeasure at their cowardice. "Can't take one little flesh wound? You should of seen it before, you wimps." I scorned them as I tightened my bandage magically, wincing slightly at the pain and thinking how many minutes that had set back the progress of the healing aura. Despite now being covered more, the bandage was still bloody and some of the wound was still showing, so I, well, not as much me, but the subtle hints I was getting from the still disapproving faces, decided that I should get it cleaned and changed.

"Does anypony know where I can get this thing changed?" I looked to the crowd, hoping they could overcome their fears and answer me.

"The hospital!" Somepony shouted from the crowd, no doubt just trying his best to remove me from his eyesight.

"Can't go there." I replied, as I heard him sigh. Thanks no-name, much appreciated. "You there, cowardly stall pony. You know where the....pharmacy is?" I pointed to him, speaking through a mouthful of apple as he jumped back behind his stall at my mere point. I admit, I was abusing my new found power to terrify ponies for no real reason.

"Y-Yeah.....Go through that alleyway. It will be right in front of you as you come out the other side." He pointed to an dingy, dark looking alleyway that stood out in the normally polished white view of Canterlot. I gave a quick look to my bandage, the would was healing nicely but tightening the bandage on it seemed to increase the bleeding. I'd have to hurry if I didn't want to make a little trail of red through the nice white streets.

"Thanks! Come on, lets go before rumours that I'm a zombie start. We don't want that again." I remarked to the elements, which caused eyebrows aplenty to raise. "I'll erm...I'll tell you that story another time...." I said, running a hoof through my hair awkwardly.

We set off towards the alleyway. The only conversation I took part in was apologising to ponies who I had accidentally bumped into with the bandage. Not sure what for, sure, maybe there was a little blood on them, but they did bump into my near fatal wound. Didn't hear me complaining about that, did you? No. Silly upper class ponies and their silly upper class hygiene.

We reached the alleyway after a short walk, I ditched my now eaten apple in a trash can as Rarity squealed in horror after seeing the state of the alleyway. "You expect me to walk through THAT?! I simply won't!" She waved a hoof over the alleyway, expressing her repulsion for something so dark and nausea inducing.....Okay, enough of that. It was kind of dark and had a couple puddles, she was just being a drama queen.

"Stop being such a drama queen Rarity!" Rainbow Dash floated next to her, saying exactly what was on her, and my mind, putting at arm around her neck. "Look at it this way! If you step in any puddles you won't have to take a bath!" She giggled, pushing Rarity towards the alleyway. Rarity halted immediately and turned around with an annoyed look on her face.

"Just because you like rolling around in the mud doesn't mean I should! I'm a lady Rainbow Dash, and I will behave as such!" She put a hoof to Rainbow's face, symbolising she was now being ignored. Snap.

"I'll lay in the puddles so you can walk over me Rarity!" Spike jumped up and offered his own body as a plank. Something I thought very selfless, despite it's stupidity.

"Uhm....The sentiment is appreciated, but that's quite fine Spike. I simply won't go through." She blushed embarrassedly at his offer, looking for another way around.

I took a peek around at my bandage, deciding play time was over, lest I pave the floor in my blood. "Okay, lets go." I took the direct, point blank approach. Followed by the elements, Rarity being left behind with Spike. After a few dramatic gasps for effect, she flicked her hair back and followed along daintily. Spike scouting ahead for any despicable speck of dirt that she may step on.

After a few seconds, Rainbow Dash took a devious look upon her face whilst looking at Rarity. She saw that I had noticed her look and walked closer to me to whisper in my ear. "Watch this." She whispered to me, with mischievous mirth, as she dipped her hoof into a dirty puddle next to her and flew into the air above Rarity. I watched intent as an evil drip of brown water formed at the bottom of her hoof, Rainbow Dash suppressed fits of giggling as it took shape, and eventually fell off her hoof. "GERONIMOOOO!" She shouted, attracting everypony's attention. They suddenly realized what was happening, none more than Rarity, who's eyes widened tenfold as she saw the drop head her way. And eventually land on her mane.

"WAHAHAAAAAHA!" The white fashionista cried, outraged an a drop of slightly muddy water fell onto her mane. Causing no blemish or marking whatsoever. Everypony laughed, even the smitten Spike, at her reaction. "Rainbow Dash, what is the meaning of this?!" She barked up at Rainbow Dash, who was lounging around in the air, residually giggling at her despair.

"What's wrong Rarity? Afraid to get your hooves dirty?" She pointed at Rarity and laughed, doing backstrokes downwards in the air towards her victim, she landed before her and blew a raspberry in a Rarity who looked like she was planning some payback.

"Lets see how you like it, Rainbow Dash!" She smiled, as she sidestepped to a puddle and sacrificed her own hoof to kicked water into Rainbow Dash's face. Rainbow didn't even flinch, but simply took a smug look before flying into the air above Rarity and dripping all the water Rarity had just kicked onto her back down around her. Rarity frantically dodged back and forth, laughing along, suddenly taking it in good humour.

Everypony was eventually forced to dodge Rainbow's onslaught. Constantly flying into puddles then flying above us, obviously not caring about getting dirty herself. I decided to stay away from it, lest I wet my bandage, or my wound. The last thing I wanted was dirty water in my wound, I decided to gallop ahead to the end of the alleyway, as did basically everypony else. Thankfully Rarity was too busy dodging droplets of water to follow us, and bring the flying terror with her. When we got to the end of the alleyway, I got quite the unfortunate surprise.

"Hey, you two, stop horsing around! The pharmacy's closed, we need to find another place." I called back angrily, not valuing the prospect of walking around crowded streets with a bloody bandage showing again. That's more attention I didn't need.

Apparently, Pinkie disagreed with the idea that it was abandoned, seeing something as I began to walk away. "Hey look, a ghost!" She ran up to the window of the store, and pressed her face against the glass trying to get a better look.

We all exchanged some puzzled looks before going next to Pinkie Pie, who was now further back from the glass with a look of fear. "Where's this 'ghost' then?" I asked, waving a hoof at the shop window. Seeing nothing but darkness inside. No ghosts, nothing, just the prospect of me having to do more walking. "Okay then, lets go."

"No, look, he comes out every now and then....Here he is!!" She tapped on the window furiously, towards an outline of a pony covered in tattered rags in the darkness swaying back and forth. I was a sceptic on these things, but even I have to admit, this looked kind of creepy.

"That's not a ghost...That's probably just the owner." I unconvincingly said, I wanted to assure myself more than anything. I'd seen a lot in my time, so I couldn't complete rule out that unicorn magic couldn't be used to raise the spirits of dead ponies when used in the right way. The fact that healing auras tend to place euphoric effects on ponies probably helped me reach that conclusion.

"Yeah, then why hasn't he turned on the lights?" She retaliated, as the figure continued it's near hypnotic swaying.

I wasn't really listening, and therefore had no interest in answering. So Twilight took this one for me. "Maybe he can't find them!" She nervously said, trying to force reason into the head of a crazy pony.

"Doesn't know where the light switch is in his OWN shop? Yeah, right!" She out-logic'd Twilight, which was very surprising, but I was still entranced by the figure. My curiosity reaching fever pitch, I decided to get to the bottom of this.

I magicked open the door. "What're ya doin'?" A shocked Applejack leapt away from the door, not wanting to take lead.

"Putting an end to this nonsense." I said, stepping inside and deciding it was time to find out the identity of this ghostly pony. As I stepped in, the ghost pony reacted in a way that caught me off guard. Stumbling over the rags on his head and falling on his face. Everypony jumped back, and I'm sad to admit, everypony included me. After composing myself I lit my horn and gave light to the room, seeing an elderly, auburn unicorn pony with a grey mane, but more interestingly, no cutie mark, struggling to get up. I used a illumination spell to set a glowing red orb in the middle of the room, keeping it well lit as I helped him up. "Are you okay? Fluttershy can you hit the lights?" I grabbed his hoof as he shakily stood and Fluttershy hit the light switch, allowing me to de-cast my spell.

"Ah, thank'ya, I'm fine whipper-snapper." He adjusted himself, magically putting things back on the shelf he knocked off in his tumble.

"What were ya doin' in the dark with those old rags on yer head?" Applejack asked, going for the elephant in the room.

"Oh, I don't get many customers, so normally I just leave the lights off. I heard a commotion nearby so I came down here, I guess I just forgot wear the light switch was." He replied, leaving out one thing.

"And the rags?" I asked, handing the dusty rags back to him.

"I was cold and they were the first things at hand." He took the rags from me and laid them across his back.

"See? I told you he was the shop owner." I looked to Pinkie Pie, nudging her, feeling very self satisfied.

"Enough about me, are you okay?!" He immediately hobbled around me to get a closer look at my wound, the bandage now sagging and allowing a small amount of blood to escape the now small wound onto his wooden floor. "This needs re-bandaging, wait here!" He darted off to the back of the shop urgently, coming back with no rags on his back, but with a bag full of medical supplies. "This should do it." He said, setting them down near me and inspecting the wound. "So, what's your name?"

"Crimsonlight. And yours?" I asked, grimacing a tad as he dabbed something onto my wound.

"Sorry, should have warned you. I'm Cattleprod, by the way, please to meet ya." He shook my hoof as he pulled out a fresh towel and poured some water on it, to clean the wound.

"The feeling's mutual. So, when did you get into medicine?" I attempted something I knew very little about, the dreaded small talk.

"Back when I was a young colt tryin' to find my way in the world! Can't say my family agreed with me, but they were supportive!" He smiled, remembering back to his childhood. Though this did give me a few questions, Cattleprod wasn't a very medical name, and it sounds like his family weren't very medical ponies. Did this having something to do with his lack of cutie mark?

"So, what's with your cutie mark? Or your lack of, should I say. If you don't mind me asking." I tried to remain polite, I know young ponies rush to get their cutie marks, so who knows. Maybe this old timer is bitter about never having achieved his.

"Well, my family were farmponies, and I guess my true calling was with them, on the farm. But sometimes you gotta say no to your cutie mark if it means happiness." He rather deeply explained, as he finished bandaging up my wound. "There, that's healing up now. Shouldn't be long before it's fully gone, but the bandage will keep the last few droplets of blood contained. I gotta say that's a mighty powerful spell, who put that on for you, a Princess?" He chuckled, packing away his medical supplies.

"Well the funny thing about th-....Wait, what time is it?" I suddenly remembered a prior engagement, one I may be late for.

"Ehhh, it's 8:42, why?" He glanced at his grandfather clock, which looked to be his junior.

I strained my brain to try and think when my meeting with Luna was. As I was running out the hospital I glanced at a clock, it said 7:50. That was roughly five minutes after Luna's departure. That gave me...

"THREE MINUTES?!" I went to leap out the door, quickly remembering something. "How much do I owe you?" I said, turning to Cattleprod, forgetting my lack of bits.

"Oh it's fine, I don't get much business nowadays, I'm just happy to chat with a pony. And that you could keep these old hooves practiced." He humped his medical bag onto his back, looking content with letting me leave for free. That's the second free thing I've got today! And the first one that was out of the kindness of somepony's heart and not just fear!

"Thank you! I'd love to chat more, I really would, but I have....GAH! TWO MINUTES! I'll catch up with you ponies later, have a good nap Cattleprod!" I waved, leaping through the door and off towards the palace courtyard.

"How did you know? Well, I guess it's obvious, haha!" Cattleprod joked, waving goodbye to me. Oddly enough, I was genuinely happy I could do a good deed for an old pony who no doubt spent most of his time alone. And that good deed involved no dragon electrocution! This friendship stuff is contagious! But no time for that, I have a date! I mean a meeting....ah whatever.

I galloped back through the alleyway into the square, I knew I could make it easily usually, in well under a minute, but without access to my lightning aura I was uncertain. Either way, I made fast progress approaching the fountain and darting around it, all the ponies present stopping and looking at the bandaged pony frantically barging through the huddled masses. Some of their expressions even melting into ones of fear as they recognised me as the 'angry zombie pony' from before. Groupies, eh? Gotta love 'em.

I dashed through each street, ducking into alleyways when nescessary to quicken my time, even leaping over stalls to keep up the pace. My bandage not loosening one bit despite the pressure being placed upon it, next time I get the chance, I'll have to repay him with another quick chat. My mind drifted for a second, thinking about whether I would even live in Canterlot any more, and it almost cost me dearly as I tripped and barely stopped myself from smashing head first into a fabrics stall. I quickly righted myself and continued my frantic dash, weaving in and out of ponies as I arrived at the courtyard...The....Luna free courtyard?....

"Hello?....Luuuuunaaaa..." I called out, mind boggled at to where she was. Was my timing off? Was Cattleprod's clock's timing off? I got my answer as an acorn, usually used to feed the squirrels that sometimes inhabited the courtyard, was utilised in the unusual manner of being thrown at my head.

"Why hello there, Crimson." I heard Luna chortle, I turned to see her lounging on a bench behind me in the shade, another acorn floating beside her magically, presumably if I began to misbehave.

"Hey....How are you?" I walked forward, catching the other thrown acorn and suspending it before me, then throwing it back to her as we began a small game of catch.

"With all due respect, who cares about me? You're the one who almost died, how are you holding up? I see you have had your bandage changed." She thoughtfully asked, moving position so I could sit beside her, tossing the acorn up in the air as it arced back down towards me.

"Eh, it's fine. The pain wasn't really bothering me, but the visible, bloody wound seemed to strike a sour note with some of the townsponies." Luna giggled at this, finally, somepony who doesn't have such a weak stomach, I continued. "Some pharmacist changed it, for the price of a chat......Either way, it seems to be healing up nicely....Thank you, again." I took the acorn we were playing catch with and bonked it on her head playfully, my way of saying 'thanks for saving my life'.

"It was my pleasure." She said brightly, returning the acorn bonk before continuing our game of magical unicorn acorn catch. Kind of a wordy title, I know. It's a work in progress. "So....How have you been holding up on.....other....fronts..." She seemed to think she was treading on a verbal minefield, that if she chose one wrong word she would set me off. And she was wrong, I wasn't exactly happy with it, but I knew venting my frustrations on her wouldn't solve a thing.

"Better than you'd expect. The elements, and Spike, of course, did a relatively okay job of distracting me with their tomfoolery. I mean, I haven't been in the best of moods, but all things considered.......I'm....fine...." I said, with a lot more enthusiasm than my dull tone was giving off. I think Luna got that though.

"Good...I'm glad to hear it...You know, despite the fact that you're a little filly, you're a pretty mentally strong pony. I've known a lot of ponies throughout Equestrian history, and they would have crumbled a lot more readily than you from going through what you've been through today..." She put a comforting hoof on my shoulder, I couldn't help but at least feel the urge to crumble a little due to her heartfelt display. Honestly, the reason I was dealing with this was because I'd become used to bottling emotions, anger, sadness, jealousy, okay not the last one, but I always had the release of battle. Now I didn't, so hopefully I didn't become a huge wimp. Like Luna.

"Thanks...It means a lot....." I acorn bonked her for goof measure, causing her to giggle, but luckily take no retaliatory action. I took the brief moment to look around, registering once more that the courtyard was completely empty. A very rare occasion, there was always at least somepony here....I decided to play detective. "Say....Where is everypony...This place is usually a hive for pompous foals." I asked, craning my head to see every angle of the courtyard, seeing nothing. Par a few birds and movement in the trees. Did she hide them in the trees?....Probably not...

"I had them cleared out."

This caught me off guard, my lapse in concentration cost me a lot more than you would think. I neglected to catch the acorn, losing the first ever official game of magical unicorn acorn catch. I was devastated, so were the fans. But I decided to shrug it off and continue the conversation. "Cleared out? Why? Seems a tad harsh to clear them out just for an afternoon chat."

First, she addressed the more important matter. "Yeah! You lose!" She said, bobbing her tongue out as I crossed my forehooves and looked away in shame. Eventually she managed to stop gloating and answer me. "Haha, but I digress. If I'm here as well as other ponies, they're no doubt going to pester me, and I wanted to actually talk to you. So I had them cleared out by MY royal guard." She beamed proudly, I had only seen Luna's royal guard once before, but I got the notion she was proud to have her own class of guard.

"Bet they're cowards too, aren't they?" I tittered, getting up and laying down in the shade of a nearby tree, taking cover from Celestia's beating sun. "Come on, if you're gonna have everypony else escorted for our chat we may as well get our money's worth."

"Yeah, but I get to boss them around." She mused, laying beside me. I expected as much, all looking scary would do for them was scare the colts and fillies, and maybe Pinkie.

"You're a Princess, don't you get to do that anyway?" I pointed out the obvious, then again she made next to no public appearances, so maybe she was having some time off? Still, I don't doubt she had a bushel of butlers waiting on her hoof and hoof.

"Well, yeah. But you can't expect a bushel of butlers to clear out the courtyard." Sometimes, I wondered if she really was reading my mind or not......How much wood could a woodpony cut if a woodpony could cut wood........Okay, no reaction to that, I think I'm safe.

"Why couldn't YOU do it? You're a Princess. Surely you could cast a hypnotise spell on them and get them to walk on out." I mussed my hair, magically plucking an apple from the tree above me to satiate my ever present hunger.

"Because putting a hypnotising spell on my subjects is bad press. Just enjoy the quiet or I'll have you banished." She joked, plucking the apple from my hand, forcing me to get another one.

"Yeah, right. Just because you're an alicorn don't think you can handle this." I laughed, motioning to myself. Fully hoping she didn't want to take my joking threats seriously. I don't want to go to the sun.

"Oh please, I'd level you and the town you were born in and you know it." She giggled, pointing out the painfully obvious.

"Jokes on you, I was born here. You'd be destroying your home town." I chuckled standing up and stretching my hooves, casting a quick x-ray spell on my bandage, revealing that the cut was now tiny and no longer bleeding. I magically took the bandage off and tossed it in a nearby trash can showing off my new....well, skin. "Better than the day I got it, good stuff, Luna."

But before further laughs could be had, our conversation was cut short by a wall eyed messenger pony speeding around the corner towards Luna. "Letter for you, Princess!"

Luna's faced turned into one of shocked fear, grasping the letter tightly and reading it over. She looked up with a look of urgency on her face. "We need to go to the throne room, now." She didn't spare another word as she began to gallop off, I quickly followed her along, the mailpony following me. "You're wound good to go?" She asked, to which I only replied with a nod as she picked up her speed as I allowed lightning to blanket my body as we rocketed off, leaving the mailpony behind.

We rushed through hallway after hallway, taking the best route to the throne room possible, both of us having the palace memorized like a levitation spell. It felt good to let the lightning cover me and the wind rush through my mane again as I dashed alongside a Princess. Unfortunately it didn't take too long to reach the throne room. We entered, bursting through the doors, seeing the elements, Spike, and Celestia. I decided to put my urge to go on a rampage aside for the sake of Equestria.

"How did you all get here so quickly?" I asked, baffled and slightly disconcerted at how they had gotten here faster than me due to the fact I left them considerably further away from the throne room than the courtyard.

"A little while after you left we got a message from the Princess, via....erm....me....asking where we were. After we replied she teleported to us, then took us back here. What took you so long?" Spike shed some light on the situation, making my ego feel better.

"Yes, pleasantries aside though, you're finally going to get to learn just what hurt you, Crimson." Celestia began, walking forward towards us. I did a quick check of everypony's faces, most looked worried, par Luna's, it showed nothing but fear. I would have loved to try and red Celestia's expression, but she was obviously hiding hers for whatever reason, this didn't go far to making me feel better, unsurprisingly.

"I'd hardly say hurt is an appropriate term, but do continue." I countered, feeling a large weight be lifted off my shoulders, with the weird feeling they were just going to be replaced.

"Well....It's a rather long story...but...he-"

And just as I was about to get answers, I got many more answers than I had expected or hoped for. A jet black alicorn crashed through the stain window behind her, sending sharp shards of glass flying through the air, Luna and I put up shields to stop anypony from being harmed, but somehow I knew the glass was the least of our problems. Even Celestia retreated backwards, spinning around and standing in line with me, Luna, the elements and Spike.

The nameless alicorn who had all but sucked the actual life out of the room merely by making an entrance landed in front of the throne, smiling and spreading his wings triumphantly, revealing himself fully. He had the same eyes as the manticore I had fought before, eyes that looked dull and lifeless, yet invoked so much fear in even two alicorns just by looking their way. He stood slightly taller than Celestia, but opposed to her white, he was jet black, with feathers underneath his wings the same colour as his mane and tail, a purple dark enough to pass off as black at a glance. Eventually, after a few seconds, he tired of invoking terror by merely standing there, he decided to speak.

"Princesses.....Nice to see you again....How have you been?"

Under new management

Author's note

Great news! I can now write new things as opposed to rewritten chapters.

This not only makes it more fun but adds some vigour to me, fuelling me more so to write!

So, without further hesitation, I go!

"Princesses.....Nice to see you again....How have you been?"

We all stood there in complete silence, eyes glued to the only other alicorn, par the Princesses, we had ever seen. He stood there, completely still and lifeless, a malicious grin upon his face, waiting for us to make the first move, every now and then taking a quick glance around the room, looking very happy with himself. Normally I would take this small gap in his attention span towards me as an opportunity to strike, but something told me not to, this may seem obvious, being that he was an alicorn, but I had two of his kind behind me, so I had no doubt in my mind he would come out the worse in a fight, but something told me to stay put, there had to be some reason the Princesses held back, I decided to bide my time, for now. Finally, he broke the silence once more, opening his mouth and letting his raspy, ancient voice out to play once more.

"Neither of you want to speak? Not even you, Luna? The last time I saw you you were so very vocal, and the same size! What happened to you, my dear?" He taunted Luna, confirming that this wasn't the first time Equestria faced him. He sauntered back and forth as he said this, his mane dancing in the wind entering the room through the broken window, his actions almost daring us to assault him.

"Do not call me that. I am not 'your dear'." Luna was the first of us to speak, verbally objecting to being called 'my dear' to the levels of almost snarling back, narrowing her eyes in anger. This only seemed to amuse him, he chortled in response, his laugh echoing through the empty chamber.

"Oh come now, must we be so hostile?" He said with a tone of indifference, turning his back to us, exposing something I hadn't previously noticed, an absent spot where a cutie mark would ordinarily be, I deemed this unimportant as he continued walking towards Celestia's throne, turning and having a brief stare down with Celestia before smirking and slumping down in her throne insultingly. I'm no royalty, but I know enough to know that's an insult on level with burning your apple orchard down, so for Celestia to be holding herself, he must have some pretty huge leverage.

I decided to eradicate my own vow of silence and get some answers, or at least try. "What do you want?" I compressed my sentence due to fear, something that hadn't happened before. He immediately turned his head and rest his inanimate upon me, I managed to keep my composure long enough to hear his response.

"I almost didn't notice you there, brother...." He replied, getting up and cantering over, stopping around 20 feet before me before giving me a quick look up and own. He snapped his head away from me in what appeared to be disgust, this didn't go far in clearing up my questions. "What a shame...So much potential..." He spoke to me in riddles, or what I hoped were riddles.

"Leave him alone, Andrum." Celestia stepped forward, breaking her posture for a moment in an outward display of anger towards him, defending me almost maternally, and finally putting a name to a face.

"What is he talking about....?" I turned to the Princesses, surprisingly, the more shy of the two sisters met me head on with an apologetic gaze, whereas Celestia turned away from me. I ignored my own perplexed state and decided to come forward with the obvious solution. "Come on, it's two on one! Get him!"

Everything went silent, par Andrum scoffing at my proposal. "Foal, have you not noticed this little trinket?" He held something I had not noticed in all the commotion up in his hoof, a golden amulet around his neck, housing a gleaming purple gem. Rarity's blue eyes broadened, her pupils dilating for a brief second, before coming back to reality.

"That's pretty, really brings out your eyes, but what has it got to do with anything?" I bantered, becoming increasingly annoyed at his continued existence. No matter which way I spun it, I couldn't find any situation in which one alicorn could defeat two without some form of upper hand going for him.

"A little angry, are we, brother? You should learn to keep your tongue in cheek." He shot an agitated gaze at me, obviously tiring of this debate himself, planning to give me my answers. He floated the amulet from around his neck, covering it in a dark aura and dangling it above himself. "The jewel in this amulet is made of no ordinary mineral, as the less educated among us would believe. It is named after it's founder, myself, it is andridium. It renders all alicorns, and their powers, within it's radius powerless to me. My entire army is outfitted with them! You stand no chance....That is...unless...Why, you destroy both of the Princesses right now, you could if you so wished it, come on, that would be fun, wouldn't it? Slaying two so called deities, that's bragging rights, if you asked me." He offered, I think he knew I wouldn't accept, he was just playing mind games. And honestly, I wouldn't harm Luna, but it took some restraint not to blast Celestia, as I still had a good deal of residual anger.

Nevertheless, I controlled myself and refocused back on what was important, his amulet, it seemed harmless before, but now that I knew what it was I decided to point out the obvious flaw in his logic. "Maybe you should polish that jewel up and take a look in it, because you're an alicorn too."

"Haha! You continue to amuse me, brother." There he goes again with that 'brother' thing. I was beginning to think he said these things just to throw my mind off balance. "Did you not hear the part where I founded it? I have control over it, I am attuned to it, it is an extension of myself, I can activate and deactivate it's properties at will and am not effected by it. No small feat, if you ask me, it took more time than your lifetime would permit you to have." He said with pride, I was taken aback, suddenly realizing all too well while Luna and Celestia were keeping their anger in check.

I found myself in an unusual situation, which seemed to be a recurring theme this week, I was at a loss for words. I prided myself on the ability to, no matter the size, or power of whatever I was facing down, be able to look them dead in the eyes, in confidence or defiance, and accept what was coming. Now, I knew what was coming, and I didn't like it one bit, and I was frozen in fear, body and tongue. Celestia obviously wasn't.

"What do you want, Andrum?" She hissed, cutting an enraged gaze at him, only she knows what her eye that was covered by her multichromatic hair looked like.

"My home back." He angrily reciprocated, stepping forward to her. "I'm here to reclaim what you once stole from me. Equestria! Starting with what I used to call home, and what you now call 'Canterlot'." He floated the amulet back around his neck, looking like he was readying himself to take action.

"Sister....what do we do...?" Luna asked, seeming very uncertain of a lot more than herself.

I felt like a psychic, knowing what Celestia was going to say before it had reached her lips. Managing to predict an alicorn brought me less comfort than I expected, because of what I was predicting. ".....Run."

We all turned and ran for the door, Celestia magicking the door shut as we went through, it seemed like we made it when I felt myself leave the stable ground and float back towards the throne room helplessly.

"Crimson! NO!" Luna turned around, trying to wrestle me from Andrum's magical grasp, finding herself in unfamiliar ground, hopelessly outmatched in terms of power. Andrum magicked the door shut in everypony's faces, then placed a spell on it to keep it closed, sealing me in there alone with him. "Let him out Andrum!" Luna screamed angrily.

Andrum released me, I dropped to the ground hopelessly, staring at the door as everypony on the other side trying, but failing to break Andrum's spell and open the door. I didn't even believe the next words I said. "Go...There's not a single thing you can do for me now. Go, escape, I'll think of something and be just fine....I promise."

"....You do?" I heard Luna respond sounding as if she was tearing up, I don't know about the rest, but I like to think they were all crying to.

"Of course I do, now go, Equestria needs you more than ever." Of course I didn't, but I didn't want them to stay and try and get through only to die when Andrum tossed me aside. I heard Celestia mutter a few things to soothe the group, then the pitter patter of hooves leaving. I turned around to face my fate, a clapping alicorn.

"Touching....You normally have to pay to see that calibre of acting." He sarcastically remarked, stepping towards me. My mind worked overtime, making and discarding plans, I was almost certain of my death here, but almost wasn't all, so I settled on a plan, a long shot, that's a given in this situation, but a plan.

"....Just be quiet you pompous foal...." I spoke down to him, sternly staring at him as he was caught off guard.

".....Do not speak to me like that, you insignificant litt-"

"Do NOT speak unless I tell you you can, you insignificant little filly!" I screamed in rage, mimicking his insult to anger him further. Before he could speak again I slowly began to walk towards him, berating him once more. "I do not know who you think you are, just because you have a silly little amulet around your silly little neck does not mean you can best me. You're nothing more than a glorified showmare!"

"Silence! I am Andrum! And I will not be spoken to li-"

"I WAS NOT DONE. Now, I'm willing to let you off if you leave now, with your tail between your legs and never mentioned this again. If not, the consequences, I can tell you, will be worse than anything you can imagine. You should run, back from whence you came, tell everypony you see that Equestria is off limits." He didn't respond to this one very well, charging up his horn with a dark aura and letting a blast off. I continued walking mercilessly as the blast formed a crater in front of me. He was taken aback as I stopped just before the crater, examining it before continuing to walk around. "Pathetic." I scoffed, growing ever closer to him as he had had enough, leaping forward into my face.

"CANTERLOT. IS. MINE. You are powerless before me, all are powerle-" I motioned a hoof to him, looking the other way, seeming indifferent towards the furious alicorn before me.

"Can I just stop you there?" I knew this was do or die. My plan was to get close to him, more than close, face to face. The only way I could think of doing this was exploiting his ego, which he obviously had due to his need to boast about his victory to Celestia and Luna rather than annihilate them, letting them get away so he could hunt them down. Which begs the question, why was I so important? Was he just showing off, picking a pony at random, or was I important? All of these were questions for another time. Point was, I knew with his ego he would want to hear me out before retaliating, show me why I was wrong before obliterating me. All I had to do was maintain his anger at the perfect point between keeping his distance and freaking out and killing me. And I did just that. Admittedly I almost lost my cool when he blasted a crater inches ahead of me, but after seeing that it didn't hit me, I knew it was because it wasn't supposed to, it was just to scare me, and that reaffirmed my belief that he was an egomaniac more than anything, he wanted me to cower before him. When he didn't get that, he reached boiling point, and the tables turned on him.

I smirked a little, inching my face closer to the fuming alicorn and readying myself. "You should remember my name, big guy. I'm no 'brother' of yours, I'm Crimsonlight, defender of Equestria from anypony who wants it, unfortunately for you, you fall in that category. But more than that, much more, actually, I'm the pony you should have kept at a distance." My horn roared to life in an instant, glowing red with all the magic I could muster, I discharged it all into Andrum's eyes. I knew I couldn't really harm him for long, so I had to blind him for a while.

He reared back, charging his hooves up with magic to stomp down and crush me, I caught this early and dashed out the way, being knocked off balance slightly by the shock wave. The lack of a sickening squishing sound angered him more, as he blasted wildly, I dodged back and forth steering well clear of the blasts, scared of charging myself and dashing out the window as I knew the second I activated my aura he would sense it and bullseye me if I wasn't fast enough.

I eventually gathered the courage, manoeuvring myself near the window, feeling time slip by, knowing he wouldn't stay blinded forever. I waited for him to turn his back to me and activated my lightning aura, and dashed towards the window, crashing through the window he immediately knew where I was. If my leap through the window didn't do enough damage, his stream of jet black magic sure did. It singed my mane as it passed just overhead with near deadly accuracy, sending even more sharp shards of glass flinging past me.

I fell to the palace gardens, immediately activating a magical shield around me as glass that may have skewered me bounced off. I looked around, seeing ponies wearing those amulets sporting hooded capes with the same symbol that was on the manticore's forehead on the hood. I stood in shock for a second, how long had this been planned? How many of these invaders were just normal ponies that were waiting for the day their amulet got activated, ready to reign down their fury on Canterlot? All these thoughts and more were cut short as I heard the thud of stone and glass shattering above me as Andrum, obviously still blinded was still trying to kill me. I wisely decided to save thinking time for later and made myself scarce, dashing away from the falling debris and through the arches, leaving the palace gardens and into the halls of the palace itself.

I ran into the palace, not very assured by what I saw. I saw the spear and the blades working in unison with the guards, yet still being overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of attackers. I decided it would be a good move to chip in, readying myself and dashing horn first into one of the invaders, sending him crashing into a stone column with a fresh new wound, been there buddy. I gave a quick look around, trying to prioritize my targets, noticing a pony who was about to flank some guards, congratulations, you made the V.I.P list. I pounced atop him, pinning him down with my hooves and pumped him full of enough lightning to run Cloudsdale for a month. I jumped up from him, nearly coming face to face with a pegasus pony who was looking to tackle me, I didn't let her get much farther though, shooting a bolt of lightning into his face, stepping out of the way as she spiralled out of control past me. Skidding along the ground and into a wall with a crack.

I was thinking I stopped her dead in her tracks, now I was just thinking she was dead.

That was enough horsing around for now, I turned my attention to finding the rest of the ponies. I deduced, however bad an idea it was, I would have to pass by the throne room again, despite however many murderous alicorns it contained, as I heard them leave to the right, and as of my window jumping spectacular, I was left on the other side. I galloped through the fighting, ignoring most of it, seldom the occasional buck to the face, to get to my destination quicker.

I arrived at the hallway that contained the entrance to the throne room, peering down it, hoping to keep some modicum of stealth. It seemed to be relatively empty, I suppose they wanted to give their beloved leader his privacy, I thought I was fortunate as I began to creep down the hallway, I thought wrong. A unicorn leapt onto me from behind, clutching around my neck for dear life, I bucked to try and get him off, but he wouldn't let go.

"I've got you now!" He gloated, shooting a fire ball directly into the back of my head, filling my body with adrenaline and pain in equal measure. I had only one option now, I lit up my horn, it crackled with lightning as he scrambled to get off.

"Psyche." I gloated right back, the tables now turned as I was holding onto him. Teaching him the lesson not to brag unless the other pony is knocked out or dead. I don't know which he ended up as, but as I released the lightning built up in my horn, causing it to surge through his body, it was the flip of a coin. "Motherbucker." I squinted my eyes, clutching the back of my head as it thumped mercilessly. He got a pretty good shot in there, oh well.

I walked down to the throne room, looking over my shoulder every couple seconds, being reminded to do so by a throbbing head. Thank buck for the natural magical protection ponies have from living amongst magical creatures, namely the unicorns, if it wasn't for that, my skin wouldn't be so....not smouldering....right now.

I hugged the wall towards the throne room, hoping for the best, but expecting nothing but the worst. I peered around the door, and my nightmares were fulfilled. Andrum wasn't there, I was safe. But the rest of the castle, namely Luna, the elements, Spike and Celestia, did not have such a privilege.

In place of Andrum however, were six of his lackeys. The numbers were split perfectly, two earth ponies, two pegasi and two unicorns. Coincidence, perhaps? Or were they a strike team? I didn't want to take a chance, six less, possibly high ranking enemies could only be a good thing. Besides, I had quite a bit of anger to vent.

I activated my aura with a crack as they turned to face me, seeming shocked by my appearance, no pun intended. I shot a bolt of lightning at the larger of the two earth ponies, he was pretty on the ball, attempting to pre-emptively get out of the way before I had even attacked, but he still went down for the count, as my lightning flew through the air and clashed with the side of his head. Though I suppose that's better than square in the face. The rest of the ponies scrambled to mobilise, pegasi launching themselves into the air, unicorns illuminating their horns whilst the earth pony charge me. I dashed head on towards the earth pony, waiting for the last second to hit her in the front hooves with a weak blast of lightning, calling her to barrel flat onto her face as I ran around her. I kept my momentum and charged one of the unicorn duo, leaping over the magic being shot at me and landing inches before her, slamming my hooves down causing a shock wave large enough to stumble her and her partner nearby momentarily. I raised a hoof and struck the hooded blue trespasser across the face, three down, three to go.

I turned around, slightly worried by the lack of pegasi interference, most pegasi I'd known had been energetic, too energetic to stay out of it for this long. I was right to turn around, side stepping a flying charge from one of them, he corrected himself as the other followed up, barrelling towards me at breakneck speeds. I stood firm, waiting for the opportune moment, he grinned thinking I was frozen in fear, speeding up constantly, unfortunately for him I spun around at the last second, planting my two back hooves into his face, causing his body to fold up on itself and skid across the ground into the wall where it lay motionlessly.

"You bucker!" Screamed the other pegasi, obviously enraged by the defeat, well, possible death, of his comrade. He charged at me angrily, not thinking things through very well. I magically ensnared his wings for a split second, taking his ability of flight from him, making him nothing more than a falling sack of bones, desperately trying to correct himself. He hit the ground with a dull thud and a crack, even making me wince.

"Job well done." I smugly said, patting myself on the back before heating a humming coming from behind me, quickly remembering something.

"TAKE THIS!" The remaining unicorn screamed, unleashing a magical volley he had been preparing for a while now. I fought back at the last second, my red lightning colliding with the blue energy as our attacks merged and fought against one another in a spectacular light show. I struggled at first, with half formed attacks and through surprise, but I won back ground after a few seconds, then some more, then some more, and before I knew it, my lightning was uncomfortably, for him, close to his face. In one last spur, I drove it home, connecting with his face and sending him flying across the room, into the wall, continuously pumping lightning into his body, pinning it to the wall with my barrage. After about ten seconds, I let up, his body falling to the floor, I felt drained. Not of energy, but of anger. I sauntered to the exit, surveying the carnage.

"Now it's a job well done."

I left the throne room into the hallway, turning right, my mind still racing as to where Andrum could be. He had the entire castle to himself, surely it couldn't be too hard to pinpoint the only other two alicorns in it. I quickened my step, turning left at the end of the hallway and being reacquainted with the sight of anarchy. Looked like Andrum specifically told them to stay clear of the throne room, so those six were either specifically told to guard it, meaning they were high ranking, or just very disobedient. Either way, at least half of them were dead now, the other half wouldn't be waking up for a good day or so.

I picked up the pace, breaking character and avoiding conflict, I gave thought to where I could find them. This obviously wasn't the first time Andrum had been here, so maybe Celestia would have led them back to her quarters to find something that he shouldn't get his hooves on? But the good money was on heading straight to the carriage yard and out of there. I doubt Celestia wanted to keep the rest in a castle that was under siege from very ill meaning forces.

Still, in case I was wrong, I head down a path that still got me to the carriage yard quickly, yet took me past her quarters, I couldn't leave anything to chance. I charged myself up and began to dash through the hallway, not even stopping for casual violence or murder. This truly was a dark day.

I gave no thought to the fighting around me, but I couldn't help note that it seemed to be a losing one for the side of Canterlot, with the unnamed invaders vastly outnumbering them. It probably had no positive effect that there was currently an alicorn rampaging throughout the palace doing Celestia knows what. It pained me to think that I could have no impact on the battle, but with the overwhelming numbers fracturing our forces into tiny, uncoordinated pieces, it was a painful reality.

I eventually came to a crossroads. On one hoof I could go left, and stick to my current path, lose a few minutes, which could prove vital, but check Celestia's quarters too. On the other I could go straight ahead, and bank all my hopes on the carriage yard, if they were going to Celestia's quarters then I would definitely lose them, but if they were, as I suspected, going to the carriage yard, I would make great time there.

I gave thought to both options, and eventually came to a conclusion from an unusual source, to say the least. Whilst I was standing there, in thought, a hooded unicorn came to his own conclusion, to pounce me. My reaction to this was to charge my horn with lightning and leap forward, striking him in the face and propelling him backwards. But this made me realize just how urgent the situation was. I couldn't stand still for thirty seconds before somepony made an attempt upon my life. There was no time to waste, but even less, I couldn't risk letting them escape me, so all options had to be exhausted. I turned left and set of dashing down my original path.

Now with my goal clarified, I only ran for a minute or so. I still thought it would be most likely that they would go to the carriage yard, so I wanted to spend as little time as possible on this diversion. I turned through the hallways, struggling to remember which way was which. Turns out it's a lot harder to navigate the place you know like the back of your hoof when it's a secondary concern to survival.

I kept running, and finally found myself to be very happily incorrect. I saw two Princesses, six elements and one dragon, alive and well. Maybe not well, they were fending off whatever attackers they could with the help of some nearby guards. But the elements had no all the combat training of living in Ponyville, where the largest threat was food poisoning, the Princesses were severely weakened, Spike was a baby and the guards were guards, so they were being quickly overwhelmed. And we all know my opinion on the capabilities of the guards, and we know that is no opinion, it is fact. So I had to stop being happy with my decision and save some flank.

I charged forward to protect them, striking a pony leaping for them with a lightning bolt, making quite a nasty wound and sending him into one of his friends. I flailed hooves and lightning, clearing out the remainders of the attackers with a distinct lack of flair, but quickly and efficiently, and judging by the blood on the floor, pretty gruesomely. However, it was after the murderous invaders were dealt with that the real danger came. An eight pony strong tackle hug.

Luna, the elements and Spike piled on top of me, crushing the life out of me better than anypony else could have. Why couldn't they have done this to Andrum? I even caught a glimpse of Celestia looking happy before the death pile consumed me.

I understood the face that they were all overjoyed that I was alive, so I tried my best to return the hugs when possible, but there's only so many hugs one pony can give. Thankfully, the pile of death eventually dispersed, freeing me from it's grasp. The happy greeting calmed down too as everypony took a step back. Luna, being the wise alicorn she was, was just biding her time, leaping from the crowd and wrapping her hooves around my neck.

"How did you survive?!" She asked, grabbing me around the neck tightly. I rested an arm around hers, wondering how to appropriately answer that question without seeming too big headed.

"I'm a genius." I returned, keeping a level head as usual.

"Obviously." She smiled in return. "I'm....happy you're alive....thank you...." Her tone softened and became more meaningful. I didn't know why she was thanking me, but it was fine.

"Me too....But thank you for what?" I asked, wondering if it was for buying them time, or simply blasting Andrum in the face.

"Surviving, of course." She happily replied, the real answer was far more simple, yet far better. Of all of my flirts with danger, I felt this one had not only been the most dangerous, but the most personally rewarding.

"My pleasure." I smiled in return, letting my mind drift slightly from the current troubling setting. Rarity stepped forward, reminding me of the danger that loomed all around us.

"Tell me, how did you really do it?" She inquired, as everypony leaned forward. Eager to know how I bested an age old alicorn that had Celestia and Luna pinned.

"I just kept him talking long enough to get close. Then I shot him point blank in the eyes with lightning. Probably didn't hurt him all that much, but it blinded him just long enough for me to escape. Barely." I told them proudly, as even Celestia seemed impressed. Not so happy about firing me are you now, are you?

"Smart, couldn't have done it better myself." Twilight congratulated me with a distant gaze, seeming to be pondering how it would have played out in her head. Rainbow Dash wasn't laudatory.

"Pfft. I would have just flew up in the air and ki-" Rainbow began before being cut off by a considerate, and surprisingly assertive Fluttershy.

"Rainbow, I think we should be more supportive of Crimson. He's probably very traumatized. Crimson, are you okay?" Fluttershy asked, her caring instincts she had developed from looking after animals kicking in as she gave my body a quick check over for wounds.

"Thank you Fluttershy. I think Rainbow should be more supportive. I'm a gentle flower." I joked, looking at Rainbow in pretend disgust. "But really. I'm fine. I got out unscathed, and I plan to keep it that way."

Celestia moved forward through them all, looking at me in the eyes with a confused stare. As if perplexed by my survival. I couldn't blame her, odds were against me. Nevertheless, she spoke. "I'm....happy to see you're unharmed Crimson.....I trust you now understand the severity of the situation?" She said in her regal tone something I'd wished she hadn't.

I sucked up my pride, which took a lot of effort, Escaping an insane alicorn's clutches had nearly doubled it, and died inside. "I......I was wrong, Princess.....My apologies...." I knelt down, not in angry sarcasm this time, apologetically. I honestly didn't know which one I preferred.

"That's okay, Crimsonlight. Your apology is accepted. But lets not dwell on it, shall we? I think we are lucky to get this brief moment to ourselves. Pushing it further would be unwise." I had to agree with her. I was also happy to not be angry at her anymore. Her lack of tackle hugging just to keep her royal image may have been unacceptable, but if I ruled Equestria, I wouldn't have told me about....this.....so I couldn't remain annoyed.

"Agreed. Where are we headed?" I asked, readying myself to protect them.

"My personal quarters." I smirked, being overrun with self satisfaction realizing I had made the correct call for the correct reason as she said that. "There are things there that Andrum should not....must not see...." My self satisfaction would have reached new heights if the situation didn't call for a much more serious tone. "Fortunately, the lay out of the palace is completely different from when it was in his grasp. So he will need to find it himself. And I have ordered any guards I have seen to do their utmost to keep them away from my quarters, so hopefully the path will be clear."

"That's reassuring. The enraged, murderous alicorn that I hit in the face with lightning has to wander around aimlessly. Lets hope he doesn't wander in our direction. I don't think I can pull that level of miracle off again." I looked around, spying some fighting not too far down the hallway, but still avoidable on our way to her quarters. Guess it was good that Celestia brought the reunion to a halt when she did.

"Lead the way, Crimson." Luna smiled, taking advantage that she still had the ability to order me around.

"You want me to lead?" I said, beginning to walk down the hallway towards the quarters. "Isn't this place dangerous enough?" I joked as I sped up to a gallop, running down the hallway towards the fight, fortunately I was allowed to turn left a mere twenty feet before it, running towards our destination, thanking myself nopony spotted either of the Princesses. I dare say that the thought of killing the rival alicorns whilst they were powerless was tantalizing to them, to say the least.

It didn't take long to make it to the Princesses quarters, the guards, for once, did as ordered with more than foal-like efficiency, that or they had just lucked out. As the way, as Celestia hoped, was clear. "So, what are you looking for?" I asked as Celestia entered with everypony else as I stood guard outside. "Some kind of anti andridium spell? Big sword? Club? Help me out here."

"A book." She riposted, as everypony tore the room apart, while she went to a certain bookcase, scanning for with her horn. Fine, a book, a book to save an empire....Kind of lacks a certain flare, but it could be useful, in it's own way. And it seemed to spur Twilight to search even harder, being the bookworm she was, she was no doubt intrigued by a book that would somehow provide a defense against an invading army.

"Well, I doubt it's taking long for an alicorn and Celest-.....You knows how many ponies to sweep the palace, so could yo-"

"Not to worry, Crimson. I keep track of my personal items." She said, pulling a book out of her bookcase and lighting her horn, which was accompanied with the sound of something behind the bookcase, a hidden safe, unlocking. She pulled a dusty old tome, quickly grabbing her satchel. I noticed it had a very weird string of symbols before she stuffed it into her satchel and slung it over her back, they looked oddly familiar though.

"Is that....Ancient Equestrian?.....How old is that thing?" I asked, finding it hard to believe anything written that long ago could still be in one piece. Even in optimum conditions, chances are it would have become dust by now.

"I placed a preservation spell on it. And older than you, suffice to say." She scanned the hallways, looking very worried and anxious. "Lets make our leave, shall we?" I was only half listening, I was pondering the origins of that book. Andrum said he came to take back the castle, was this possibly his?

I shook myself out of my trance thanks to a curious poke in the face from an unusually contained Pinkie Pie, I guess that's for the best, then again, her dimension bending would have come in useful fetching that book. "Kshhht, Equestria to Crimsonlight. Come in Crimsonlight. Kshht." She japed, still managing to put on an unwavering happy visage. Admirable, I suppose.

"Crimsonlight he-"

"You have to say 'kshht.'"

"......Rea-?"

"Kshht. Yes. Kshht."

".......Kshht.....Crimsonlight here.....lets go.............Kshht..." I sighed, going along with her games, unsure as to why I was doing so. I took off running down the hallway, quickly followed by the Princesses and the elements, with Spike on Twilight's back much to her chagrin. We almost made it all the way to the end of the hallway without stoppages, a monumental achievement, before a familiar voice called out to me.

"Where do you think you're going, boy?" I turned, dashing around the pack following me to place myself between the ponies I was protecting and the source of the voice. I saw three ponies at the other end of the hallway. One was a unicorn and had an auburn coat, with a grey mane and tail. Of the two ponies that were flanking him, the one to his right was also a unicorn and had an orange mane and a dark red coat, not to dissimilar to the coloration of my mane. The one to his left was considerably larger, with a very unflattering lime green coat, combined with an equally unflattering sky blue mane. Something told me that due to his size not very many ponies pointed out how silly he looked. All of them had two things in common, they were wearing hoods and amulets, just like all the other invaders. And none of them had a cutie mark.

"What's wrong? Do you not remember me, child?" The middle one, who appeared to be the leader taunted me.

"Sorry, it's been a busy day, care to remind me?." I called back to him as he laughed insultingly, reaching a hoof up to pull his hood back. He lowered his hoof as he got near, obviously feeling the need to toy with me. Had I not two Princesses to worry about, I would have no doubt reciprocated the act in a considerably more aggressive manner. "Let me give you a clue....." He said, tapping his hoof along the right side of his body.

I struggled to think what he meant, I looked to the right side of his body as he chuckled at me. Without much given thought, my patience wore thin. "Enough, you mule! Who are you?"

"Not a very nice way of repaying a kindly old pony who changed your bandages in your time of need, now is it?"

I was taken aback, becoming wide eyed and at a loss for words. It's a good thing Rainbow had me covered then, I suppose. "You? Just wait 'til I get my hooves on you!" She hollered in anger, darting forward and coming to an abrupt halt as Applejack grasped her tail tightly in her mouth. "Let me go!" She cried, struggling to get free.

"Mmmhf! Mmmmm!" Applejack attempted to reason with Rainbow, finding that her attempts were stifled by the tail in her mouth.

"Rainbow, don't be stupid." I turned to look at her, taking an authoritarian tone. "You have no combat training. I'll deal with them, now simmer down."

Rainbow sulked to the ground as Applejack released her tail, jerking her jaw back and forth as she did so. Cattleprod spoke up once more. "My apologies, but that won't be happening. I'm a lot more than the grunts you've fought thus far."

I looked him and his friends up and down before making my response. "Really? You don't look so different. Well, that one does." I said, pointing to his oddly coloured earth pony friend. "He kind of looks like seaweed."

"Hey, how did you know my name!" He screamed in agitation, leaning forward looking ready to pounce as Cattleprod put a hoof in front of him to keep him back.

"Wow, your name's really Seaweed? I'm so sorry, I almost don't want to beat you up, having that name and looking like that is bad enough. And I thought Cattleprod was silly." I insulted them, trying to get them to charge me in an angry haze. It doesn't seem like the best idea, but having an opponent charge you without thinking can be a blessing in disguise. And I'd take all of those I could get right now, being that I was protecting some very important ponies.

"Do NOT call me that!" He screamed, breaking his calm image for a second before recomposing himself. "...That was....an alias....My real name....Well, I don't see the point in telling you, being that you'll be dead soon."

"Really? You think you can take me just because you have the numbers game won? Think again."

"Foal, we were trained to be the best we could be by Andrum himself! Taught age old techniques. Why do you think we don't have cutie marks? Not because I didn't want to live a quiet, rural life on a farm. Because I never had a chance to discover my special talent because I was too busy readying myself for this very day." He boasted, once again catching me off guard, he was a darn good liar, not much got past me in way of lies, but I didn't suspect a thing with him. So, these were essentially Andrum's alternative to the Blades and the Spear? I usually relished a challenge, However, right now, I could really go without.

I turned my head to the ponies I was protecting, and gave Celestia some sound, and familiar advice. "Run." I whispered. But the response I got was different.

"No." Luna militantly replied. "I'm not leaving you behind again." She didn't say much, but I got the idea I wasn't going to convince her otherwise.

"We need your protection, Crimsonlight. We can't leave without you." Celestia added, injecting some logic into Luna's stubbornness.

"....I suppose....Teleport to your quarters. I'll knock when I'm done."

Luna walked up to me, standing beside me. "Promise you'll be the one knocking?"

"Please, you think Seaweed over there can take me? Think again." I pointed to the unfortunately coloured pony, who's face was quickly turning from lime green to red. And with that, Luna, Celestia, Twilight and Rarity all lit up their horns and teleported everypony to Celestia's chambers, I heard the door lock as Cattleprod stepped forward.

"Well then. May the winners get the prize?" He smirked, motioning to the door to Celestia's chambers.

"I will."

And with that, the kindly old unicorn that patched me up for free lit his horn and shot a pulse of red energy at me. I couldn't take the time to admire his choice of colour as I was forced into retaliation, striking back with a a surge of lightning. The attacks collided in the air, dancing against one another as I pushed him back, I began to gain ground as he cut his attack short and looked ready to defend. I was confident in my attack's ability to break his defence, when the red unicorn to his right pitched in with the effort. My lightning collided with their joint shield with a loud crack, they winced but stayed put, I struggled for a second as my lightning pulsed against my shield before I realized I couldn't break their combined resolve. It was then that I noticed the absence of a certain silly looking earth pony from the side of the artist formerly known as Cattleprod. I looked around, and spotted him just in time to for him to pounce on top of me from the side. Impressive tactics, it was a bait and switch on a grand scale.

I would have sent them a written letter of congratulations for laying a hoof on me, but there was still the problem of a rather large earth pony who was currently pouncing on me. I slid along the floor as he raised a hoof to strike me, he didn't get the chance to as I kicked him off of myself with my back legs, sending him crashing into the opposite wall back first. He fell off and onto the ground as I heard the unmistakable noise of a magical attack nearing me, I turned to see Cattleprod and the nameless unicorn, now much closer to me, combining their efforts. With no time left to fight back, I erected a magical shield around myself, straining myself to maintain against their coordinated assault as they exerted the same amount of effort to destroy it. Seaweed waited outside the shield for it to break under the pressure, looking very impatient, but got no such luck as I stood firm due to no lack of trying, but he did present me with an opportunity. I quickly gathered as much energy as I could whilst maintaining enough of the shield's power to defend myself, realizing I wouldn't have the leisure of doing this discreetly. Seaweed quickly noticed and turned to run, but by then, I had just enough stored up power. I released it, pushing back their magical attacks and hitting Seaweed, allowing him to get reacquainted with his old friend, the wall. Impressively, he got back up, I stopped to catch my breath momentarily as they all regained their composure.

"Impressive. But pointless." Cattleprod said, encircling me with the other two, forcing me to frantically looked between them making sure none of them made a move.

"Speak for yourself, ol' green over here took two hits. He's fortunate to still be on all fours."

"You will have no such pleasure." The red unicorn said, charging up a magical attack in tandem with Cattleprod. They fired them at me simultaneously, not realizing the folly of their ways until it was too late. I dodged out of the way, leaving the attacks with nowhere to go except Seaweed, who stood there, still as a statue. Holding up his amulet...his magically resistant amulet...which simply absorbed the blasts....Very clever....

Again, I had no time to congratulate them on a job well done, as the red unicorn attempted to murder me. I dodged her magical blast, and in turn Seaweed's tackle. With Seaweed between myself and the other two, I rammed Seaweed forward, toppling over the unicorn duo with him. Leaping at Seaweed, I had the idea of putting the big guy down, they had others, teleporting out of there and taking him with them, I turned around to find them, seeing both of them, but no Seaweed. I spun around for a quick moment, not finding him, and he wasn't very hard to spot, that's when I realized what they had done. I looked directly up and shot a volley of lightning off, connecting with Seaweed directly and sending him careening off, down for the count, this time.

The magical duo at the other end of the corridor wasted no energy, using their colleague's defeat as a distraction, firing off more magical attacks. I managed to dodge one, but got hit directly by the other. I skid across the floor, holding where I got struck, which was, funnily enough, the spot where Cattleprod patched me up. Life's little coincidences, eh?

I rose to my feet, dashing off and avoiding more magical attacks. I swerved between them, aiming to put Cattleprod, the more powerful of the two, down for the count. I charged at him, straight through one of his magical attacks, his face contorted to one of worry, he teleported away, leaving me dashing through nothing, the red unicorn beside him did not, however. I quickly turned around, to face her, as she did to me, she fired the first shot, which I deflected comfortably, my retaliation was not dealt with so well. It hit her in the face, causing her to clutch at her eyes in pain, I took my chance and dashed directly into her, sending her across the hallway leaving a trail of blood behind her. One left, and I was going to enjoy beating him senseless.

He was in the exact same position on the other side of the hallway, I decided to go through the same routine, I charged from one end to the other, through and around his attacks, and as I neared him, he teleported away once more. I turned around, seeing him exactly where he was before. I was beginning to see a pattern, and if this kept up, I would get tired much quicker.

I charged once more, he teleported once more, the fight had took a lot more out of me than him due to the numbers game being weighed in his favour, and he knew that, he just had to outlast me, and he was. I stopped panting, and rose up, ready to charge one more time. Weaving in and out of attacks, and just as he went to teleport, I skidded to a halt, turning to face where he would inevitably be. I slid along the ground and shot a bolt of lightning straight ahead, this all happened too fast for him to react to, and by the time the lightning was fired, he had already teleported, right into it's path.

It collided with him and sent him accelerating along the ground. I dashed after him, not giving him room to breath, and caught up to his sliding body as it came to a standstill.

"Regret patching me up now, Cattleprod?" I asked him, breathing heavily as he looked up at me with what was once a perfectly fine face.

"No...."

"What?" I confusedly said. Did he not get there part where he was going to die?

"You will die....one way or another....Whether it's to your own foolishness...or Andrum...mark m-"

I dropped an electrically charged hoof on him, cutting him short. "Yeah, we get it. World domination." I never was one to hear out my enemies last words. Seemed redundant, being that they were my enemies. I lay down for a brief rest, before realizing the situation was still the same. Same old invaded palace, same old ponies needing protection. I walked over to Celestia's quarters, regaining myself. I have to give them that, it was a pretty good fight. It's pretty rare I find myself out of breath. Andrum trains his guys a darn sight better than Celestia trains hers. Still, I couldn't tell her that, war time isn't the best time for militaristic criticism. I knocked on the door, looking through the peephole to see everypony rush over towards the door.

"Who is it...?" Rarity asked tentatively as she stepped forward.

"You know, there's an eye-hole in the door." I said, tapping it with my hoof as all of their eyes darted towards it. I found it funny that this bypassed both Celestia and Luna. But this was probably not the best time to berate them on forgetting a tiny glass window in a door. I'd have to remember that for later.

They unlocked the door and opened it. "Are you okay?" Luna asked worriedly, levitating a cloth to my mouth and wiping a droplet of blood that had trickled down from the edge of my mouth off my face.

"I'm fine."

"And them?" Celestia asked, looking at their bodies.

"Big green one is out, on the upside, probably won't remember this though. The red unicorn over there will probably die from blood loss, and the old pony is mostly on my hoof." I spared no detail. Probably not a wise decision being that the elements were present. Oh well, if I didn't teach them about these things, who would?

"Charming...." Luna sarcastically replied. "I hate to skip the pleasantries, but the guards won't be able to keep them from her much longer. Those three breaking through must have weakened the defensive. Shall we get going?"

"Right. To the carriage yard then, do we have a battle plan or am I just running out of a hostile palace with high priority targets?" I bantered, the carriage yard wasn't far, I suspect Celestia kept it close to her quarters for times like this, it always seemed like somewhat of a design flaw earlier. But of course, I wasn't factoring in murder.

"Sadly, yes. We'll have to rely on the guards to come to our aid." Celestia gave me the worst possible answer, trusting the useless.

"Lovely, I'll just kill myself now, shall I?" I quipped as Celestia scowled, not liking my insulting of her guards. What are you going to do, Princess, send me to the dungeon? You can't, it's not yours.

We took off, running through the halls. Not a word was uttered, we were all too busy doing our part in protecting the Princesses and not dying. Me, the Princesses, the surrounding guards, even the elements with the lack of combat training did their part, we didn't need to get into prolonged conflicts, just repel the enemies, and that's just what we did. We reached the carriage yard quickly, working as a cohesive unit well enough to make it there unscathed, and I must give props to the guards. Apparently, when taking direct orders from a Princess to, and I quote. 'Don't let us die.' They served as rather good distractions. Suck-ups.

We ducked into cover, surveying the area. Around twenty hostiles huddled into three different groups near the carriages at the end of the yard, a large drop to the world below Canterlot accompanying them, had to be careful there. But past that, my goal, clear, blue sky. I can deal with that, given there's not too many higher ranks among them. I took the three on earlier, but anymore than that combined with the rest of the grunts around me might not go over too well. They all checked out though, cutie marks and all. The problem still stood though, twenty of them, that we had to get through. With Princesses. We didn't have that time to spare, we were on our own as it was, and I didn't want to count on reinforcements in hostile territory.

"This don't look too good." The ever observant element of honesty informed me.

"Andrum was here. He sectioned off the area. Fortunately he must have left, but I doubt for long. He'll want to eradicate any chance of escape we have. We must move quickly. Crimsonlight, what do you want to do?" Celestia laid it out, however bleak the situation was, I had a task. That task was taking out twenty ponies before one really big pony showed up and murdered us all. Simplicity personified.

I pondered for a few brief seconds, before realizing something. If they wanted the carriages, why not give them the carriages? "Okay, you all hide here, don't make a peep. I'll deal with them." I feigned confidence to soothe them, it was hard to actually be confident when you know that at any time a much, much larger pony could decimate you, or even be waiting in the shadows right now to do so. But their feeling safe was just all the more encouragement to keep it that way.

I slipped my magical grasp around a carriage near one of the groups, a group of six. The carriage was positioned just right, I rammed it into them, causing them to cry in pain, they weren't light things, these carriages. But more importantly, they went flying off the edge, something rather dangerous without a carriage. The other two groups stumbled backwards in shock, a couple seeing me and fleeing, great, that's just what I need, tattletales. Seven more of the remaining twelve were met with the same carriage whilst still in shock, being pushed off the edge and knocked out respectively. The remaining group mobilized for a fight, something I hadn't time for. I hurled the now damaged carriage at them, taking one and and causing the rest to dodge. I sped forward, capitalizing on their surprise, placing a well aimed buck on one of their chins, causing him to crash into his earth pony colleague, who went hurtling off the edge with him, scratch that, perfectly aimed. The remaining pegasi stuck to tradition, taking to the air, whilst the unicorn scrambled to get a spell going, I put an end to that, backhanding him with a thunder imbued hoof, one left.

"Come on, now!" I called out to everypony in hiding as they burst from cover and ran towards me. The pegasi stopped mid flight, turning and looking at them.

"Princesses! You're mine!" He seethed in a blood-lust, eyeing up the rulers of Equestria as what they were to him. A promotion. He charged at them hooves first as they recoiled in alarm. I intercepted him, tackling him from the air onto the ground before his targets.

"Look away." I ordered them, charging my horn and delivering a fatal blast of lightning to his face, boring through to the mushy stuff and the ground below. I didn't like taking lives, I wasn't proud of it, but I was proud of protecting Equestria, and how much more can you do to protect Equestria than save the lives of two Princesses from a threat as direct as that. I magicked the body away from unfortunate eyes, tossing it over the edge. Not a dignified service, but oh well. "Okay. Peepers out, we're out of here kids."

I jumped aboard a carriage, followed quickly by everypony else. Twilight instinctively took the reigns, so to speak, lifting the carriage off the ground. I wordlessly thanked Celestia for her clever design, normally Twilight, despite being the element of magic, wouldn't be able to lift eight ponies and a baby dragon, but the carriage was made of a rather helpful material, that negated, or at least drastically lowered the weight of the passengers. Magic, how would we live without it.

The carriage lifted off the ground as I leaned off the back of the carriage. surveying for attackers. Nothing too immediate, but five ponies were coming in from the right side, no pegasi among them, only earth ponies and unicorns, fortunately. I watched them approach a carriage, waiting for the right moment.

"You planning on stopping them?" Luna asked in a distressed voice. I remained silent, watching them get smaller as we moved into the distance, they were rapidly reducing to specks. But those specks had just reached my target, the carriage. I let out a ferocious bolt of crimson lightning, it cracked as it approached them, diverting all their attention, it soared through the air, crashing against the carriage, splintering it, and them with it. They flew off in many different directions, dazed and hurt. The unicorns among them too much so to try and follow us again for a while. "Oh....good job...Not like we were going to be using it anyway." Luna commented somewhat sardonically.

"To Stronghorn, Princess?" Twilight called out from her position at the front of the carriage as we whistled through the sky, Celestia's bright sun trickling through the clouds from above and shining over the carriage, blessing us with it's warmth. It was nice to be safe, however fleeting it may be.

"Stronghorn?" I asked in bewilderment. What did I miss this time?

It's a settlement east of Appleoosa." She informed me, answering none of my questions.

"I still don't think it sounds very inviting." Rarity piped up, maintaining her pickiness even in the current situation, but how long had they known about this? Oh well, at least she was consistent with her fussy behavior, unlike those darn guards, who just happened to wake up when the palace got attacked.....Okay, maybe I should ease up on them in the current situation. But the second Andrum dies, the hatred continues...Until then....it will probably still continue...but to a lesser degree!.....Probably.

"Mind telling me where it is?" I questioned, feeling considerably less safe riding a carriage and not knowing the destination. I know, compared to the things before it it doesn't seem like much, but I am, in some ways, a pony designed after Rarity, or is it the other way around.....Ah well, the point is, I'm fussy about the details

"Like I said, it is east of Appleoosa. It was originally founded by the buffalo. It became quite a large campsite over time, expanding to accommodate more buffalo, and eventually, the ponies that moved there. It soon morphed from a campsite into a village, similar in size to Ponyville, and similar in looks to Appleoosa. After you got locked inside the throne room, I gave the order to any messengers I saw to spread the word over Equestria that anypony and everypony was to evacuate there. I just hope that they got out, but if they did, I trust my little ponies will spread the word efficiently." Celestia explained as our destination thoroughly, I wasn't displeased. Dust for nothing but miles had it's own, albeit limited charm.

"I thought the buffalo and ponies didn't get along too well?" Spike asked, sounding part confused and part worried. I had heard of these quarrels, and gave this thought myself, so I was interested in Celestia's response.

"Not all buffalo and ponies are in the same situation as the ones at Appleoosa, Spike. Most actually get along rather well. The inhabitants as Stronghorn view each other as nothing more than neighbours, friends. Not enemies. You have nothing to worry about." Celestia assured him, he breathed a sigh of relief, as did I.

"Wait a minute!" Applejack hollered, leaping up with alarm in her voice. "What about our families?!"

"Oh my! She's right. Will they be safe?" Rarity stepped in, furthering the point.

Luna stepped in to field the question for her sister. "Not to worry. We had some ponies sent there preemptively, just to assure we had some line of defense in case Andrum caught us off guard. Which he did. Your families, and pets" Luna added, nodding to Fluttershy. "were included in the short list. We got everything in order to send them as soon as we heard of Crimson's...incident, needless to say, whilst we were too afraid to confirm anything, we were even more afraid to take chances. I know, it seems harsh, like favouritism, but we had to make the call. We needed the best of the best, and we know that your parents aren't the greatest warriors or the most powerful unicorns, but you girls have saved Equestria from Discord, from me, from a snoring dragon. You deserve to sleep knowing your loved ones are safe." The elements believed a collective sigh of relief. It did seem like favouritism, but...I couldn't argue with her logic. And I loved to argue.

"Thank you, Princesses." Twilight said, sounding like a load had been taken off her mind, unsurprisingly.

Something had been lurking in the back of my head for a while now, stirring up and begging to be released. I held onto it in fear of worrying the elements. But after holding onto it, allowing it to gnaw at me for a while now, I decided it was time for my troubling little thought to see the light of day.

"Doesn't Canterlot contain the location of every location in Equestria. Who's to say he doesn't have a contingent of his best waiting for us?" The second I said this, the elements went from relief to immediate worry again. I knew this was a bad idea.

The carriage rocked as Twilight's worry caused her to lose control for a split second. "Princess Celestia, is that true?!" She looked to her mentor for guidance and comfort as the other elements looked the same.

"What if they're burning the place down right now! I've got to go get them!" Rainbow dash said, leaping up and preparing to dart forward but being caught short by my magical grip on her tail.

"Rainbow, calm down!" I shouted at her, as she lowered herself back into the carriage, struggling the entire way. "I'm sure the Princesses have a backup plan. Right?"

"As a matter of fact, we do. Correct, Canterlot holds every pony settlement in Canterlot founded by ponies." She assured us....Well, me. The elements didn't catch on.

"....Well, spit it out, Princess! What's yer plan?" Applejack said impatiently, stomping her hooves in concern. I couldn't blame her, now was not the time to mess around with them and give them half cooked information. Luna disagreed.

"Who founded Stronghorn?" I asked Applejack, nudging her towards the answer with all the subtle tact of a Pinkie Pie as Luna pouted at me for ruining her fun.

"The buff...a...lo...." She replied, with a touch of embarrassment in her voice. "How d'we know there ain't any undercover bad guys there though?"

"We don't. We just have to hope Andrum doesn't know about it. We know he hasn't been back for too long, but we have no idea how long his agents have been set up for, gathering information, biding their time for his return. We just have to hope they view Stronghorn for what it is. A tactically and strategically worthless location, in the middle of nowhere, that provides no real income, as it is completely self sustained. Everything made there, stays there. Don't worry, I'm sure we won't be discovered for a while." She assured the elements, as they once again simmered down from their state of fear, as the carriage simmered down from it's bout of unstable rocking. However gifted a unicorn Twilight was, her worry about the current situation was reflected in her precarious flying. Celestia noticed this and took action.

"Twilight, why don't you let me take control of the carriage? We're outside the range of any andridium, so I can get us there faster, take a nap, won't you?" Celestia asked kindly, in a nurturing voice, seeming very sympathetic to the elements' plight, being thrust from paradisaical normality to, to be brutally honest, a war being rapidly lost.

"Don't mind if I do!" Rainbow dash yawned, laying down in the back of the carriage as Spike curled up too, supporting her in a truly magnificent display of laziness. Twilight remained fixed in position.

"It's okay Princess, I'm fine here." Twilight returned, remaining steadfast in her position despite her now completely lack of followers, as they had gone to join Rainbow and Spike in their lazy protest.

"Now Twilight, you've had a very hard day, and your last sleep was cut short saving Crimsonlight's life. Go sleep with your friends. You need it." Celestia bargained with her, finding many nice ways to say 'Move, now'. More than I could think of, that's for sure.

"Okay...But if anything goes wrong, will you wake me up?" Twilight bargained right back, determined to be as helpful as ponily possible.

"Of course, Twilight. Now go, I've got it from here." Celestia stepped up as Twilight moved aside. The carriage rocked for a second as the two changed control over, but that was soon steadied by the Princess. After finishing giggling at me almost falling over, despite the fact she did the exact same, Luna decided to speak up about some things.

"Thank you." She nodded, sitting down on her haunches.

"For the obvious, or did I do something other than save the day that warrants your gratitude?" I flicked my tail at her jokingly, a great pony once said 'modesty is for people who don't wish to be proud of their achievements.' That pony was me, I'm great.

"You had to ruin it, didn't you?" She chuckled, turning her head to the direction of Canterlot as a look of sorrow dawned on her face.

"Sorry."

"It's not your fault....But thanks.....So, you should take my sisters advice and catch a nap." She advised me, advice I didn't plan on taking. I wanted to be awake and ready for any would be attackers. I'd been protecting these ponies with my life so far, and I didn't plan on stopping now. Though, in all honesty, I was rather tired.

"Oh please, after all you've done today you're not tired?" Don't you read my internal monologue, Luna? "The last considerably amount of sleep you've gotten was forced via near death injury. Then you spent the day walking around with a huge gash, escaping from alicorns or defending us from waves of attackers. You need the sleep, you can't deny that." She did seem to have my best interests at heart, and she was making a lot of sense, but I didn't want to fight ponies away from a flimsy carriage high in the sky whilst drowsy.

"What if I need to prote-" Luna cut me off, reminding me that getting into an actual debate with a being that you couldn't count to the age of more often than not ends with you feeling, and probably looking silly.

"How are you going to protect us half asleep? You gonna hope they take pity on you and leave?" Oh, must we rub the salt in the wound with petty jokes. Well, you started it.

".........." Unfortunately, I couldn't finish it. ".....Fine." I admitted defeat, she grinned and prodded at me as I grudgingly walked past, containing giggles...what, I can't be ticklish? To a nice, isolated corner. That's when Celestia decided to save me some shame.

"Sister, perhaps you should practice what you preach?" The Princess of the sun giggled, causing her sister's face to contort into one of annoyance. Aw yeah, here it comes, alicorn sibling rivalry.

"I'm fine, in fact, I think maybe you should have a lie down whilst I take a shift controlling the carriage." Luna countered, cocking an eyebrow and bracing for her sister's comeback. I know how hard of a day these two have had, and they must be a lot more burdened than they are letting off, so just in case it gets nasty, I'd like to make a formal request for some Andridium.

"Sister, I have been running Equestria for a long time, so have you, but since your return you have been having, completely understandable trouble slotting back into royal life. It's in your best interests you take a nap, you know I can take us to Stronghorn on my own just time, we need to all be rested, go, lay your head." Luna pushed out her bottom lip, glowering at being defeated by her sister. Celestia smiled at her sister, Luna returned it, acknowledging it was all in good fun. I guess they were just arguing with eachother to cope with the stress of the day, understandable.

"Fine, I will do it your way this time, but next time, I drive."

"Of course." Celestia smiled as Luna walked off to a corner. Not just any corner, the corner I was going to. The nerve!

"I had that spot reserved?" I pointed to my corner defensively. If there's one thing I value in a crumbling world, it's the corner of a flimsy carriage suspended in the sky by magic.

"We can share, the elements and spike are all sharing one corner, and there's five more of them than us. Stop being a filly." There she goes, calling me a filly again. I'd make a joke about HER age if I wasn't deathly afraid to.

"Don't think you can take it out on me just because your sister just put you in your place." Celestia tittered away as she heard this. Luna giggled too, simpering and feigning a look of annoyance. "And no, your place is not that corner." I said as she parked herself defiantly in MY corner.

"Tough." She tapped her hoof impatiently next to her. "Come, this is as close to the corner as you're getting."

"Just and fair ruler my flank." I lay down beside her, stretching my forelegs out and resting my head on them.

"You're thinking of my sister." She lifted a hoof towards Celestia. "I'm the-"

"Big dumb meanie head Princess?" I interrupted her with what was possibly the stupidest thing in my mind at the time. She stared my way, a look of amused disappointment crossing her face. Funny, I'd never received that combination of looks before. She must have been amused because I was an idiot. And disappointed because I was an idiot. Truly I was an aficionado in the art of multitasking.

"....You're a moron Crimsonlight.....I like that. Never stop being an idiot." This was a herculean task she was asking of me.

"I'll try. No guarantees." I replied, shutting my increasingly heavy eyelids as I felt the gentle embrace of sleep wash over my body in tandem with the warming rays of the merciful sun.

"Not like you have a choice in the matter." She laughed, lying her head down too. I began to drift off almost immediately, feeling a deep sleep coming on, I had but one thing left to say.

"Shut up and sleep, Luna."