Author's Note

Hello everyone!

You don't need to read this bit, but it will give you some info about how Holy Crusade was made, as well as his general skill set.

See ya later!

Prologue: The Shadowborne Initiative

File: SI107
Author: Emperor Hyperion Sombra
Subject: The Shadowborne Initiative: Spartans

Greetings reader,

If you are reading this then you more than likely already know of the more populous lines of Shadowborne, the Centurions and the Gladiators, but most that are newer don't know about the ones who fully went either KIA or MIA 10 years ago, at the climax of the Shadow Wars. I would talk about their feats, but that will come in a later report.

I will be talking on more of the specifics of their creation, as well as a specific case study on 001, since this will be the ten year anniversary of his demise, alongside Nightmare Moon's. This file will be going over the following,

-The Creation of the Spartans

-The abilities of Spartans

-The downfall of the Spartans

-The Final Trial of 001

Read on, dear reader, and revel in the mythos of the greatest warriors to come from the Shadowborne Initiative.

Creation and Building

Spartan creation is rather simple, first you take a core of concentrated darkness, passively created by our citizens, alongside a core of light, from the same source. This would create a stable condition for the extracted soul of a severely injured soldier. They volunteered, because they wished to fight again, I hated it too, but back then we had no other options.

Anyways,then I would relocate the soul to one of the ten bodies we had grown for the Initiative. Our Spartans were physically complete, and would come out of our growth tubes at the mental age of about four, but about as big as a teenager. They learned quickly, and would grow beyond normal soldier in prowess, in fact, they probably out shined even the greatest Sentinels of the time I write this.

They would be trained in all manners of combat, and I would teach them how to tap into their inner light and dark, as I had with my students before the Shadow Wars. This would lead to one of the things that lead to their downfall.

Abilities

Spartans are masters of combat, if it is solid, they can kill a pony with it. They possessed massive strength and speed, enough to match the Cosmic Diarchs, but magical power is where they fell short, even though their caability was well beyond average, it was still not enough to match myself or the Diarchs.

Spartans could tap into their inner light and darkness, allowing them to use several abilities, which are dictated in Dark Magic tomes 1-17 and Light Magic tomes 1-17. They were unable to use mega tier spells at all, but could cast powerful status spells, enhancing themselves and allies, as well as debilitating foes.

Alongside enhanced speed and strength is their greatest combat asset, their mind. Their reaction speeds far surpassed our greatest warriors as well as the abominations created to serve the Diarchy. This allowed them to be excellent in single combat, as well as grand strategy, and they would help in all areas of our war.

Downfall

The Spartans had one great folly, of which I blame myself for. I had ingrained in their heads early that loyalty and honor were above all else, which led to them taking on more missions with less and less personnel to assist. They wished to save as many lives as possible and believed that a life that never touches the battlefield is a life saved. They would fight entire units on their own, engaging the Diarchy's forces in defiance. All ten of them were heroes, saving more lives than I bother to count, and killing many more, but their blood is on my hands I believe, because I made them value our lives over their own, including other soldiers enhanced by the later research of Shadowborne.

001

001, or Holy Crusade as he liked to call himself, was amazing. Even when I first saw him fight, I felt something different, I felt his fury surpass all others I pit against him, even his "brothers" as he liked to call all he fought with. He would move on to turn the tide of the war with his rampage. After the unfortunate demise of 002 (aka Furious Hammer), by the hands of Nightmare Moon, he took up his blade and rallied the remnants of Hammer's forces, alongside a small portion I allowed him to take, on a "crusade" as he called it, to reclaim the "holy lands" of Equestria.

He would slay all Nightmares before him, and push back part of the Diarchy's border defense into Equestria. He would then proceed to battle Nightmare Moon in a duel. What no one expected, was that he would win. In her vanity and bloodlust, Nightmare Moon swore a blood oath not to use magic aside form levitation, which gave the last Spartan just enough of an advantage to somehow push through and defeat her, later dying from his wounds.

Conclusion
This concludes this file on the Spartans, I hope you have found it useful, and educational,

Sincerely,

Sombra