Ch1: What hides in the shadows
The sky was a brilliant dark blue and the stars were shining brightly as the small group of ponies marched towards the edge of the Everfree forest. The air was cool and a slight fog was created as they drew closer to the forest. There was a totally of ten soldiers in the scouting party that was sent into the Everfree forest in order to look for a suitable location to establish a base were the forces of the Solar Empire can launch a campaign to drive out the forces of the rebel force “The New Lunar Republic” from where they have taken refuge in the forest to avoid the wrath of Celestia’s powerful army. Little did they know that the rebels knew about their plan and little did they know of the force of Luna’s shadow guards that were waiting just inside of the forest, patiently looking for the perfect opportunity to ambush the scouting party and send them running back to their commander in failure.
Unlike the soldiers of the Solar Empire, who were clad in gleaming golden armor to protect them, the shadows guards wore cloaks that were a similar color to the night sky and had deep cowls that hide the wearer’s face in shadows. The cloak was designed to help the pony wearing the cloak blend into the shadows and avoid detection from enemies; there was even a rumor among the people of the Solar Empire that the cloaks were enchanted so that the shadows guards could turn completely invisible.
The small party was now moving further into the forest and the soldiers were nervously scanning the surrounding trees for any of the enemy. One of the shadow guards, a gray coated pony, couldn’t help a small grin spread across his shadowed face as the group of sun loving ponies cautiously moved deeper and deeper into the forest reacting to every little sound; a twig snapping, an owl taking flight from a branch, as if they expected to see an army charging at them lead by the queen of the night herself.
Where did shining find these little fillies? He thought to himself. They look like they’re going to run away screaming any minute. He knew of the horrors of the everfree forest, everyone in Equestria knew, but the followers of the New Lunar Republic have learned to avoid and even coup with the hostile environment. They have even come to except the forest as their home after years of living there.
“Anyone else getting weird vibes form this place?” One of the members of the scouting party, a pegasus, asked.
“I’m with you there, this place screams death.” Another pesasus said.
“No kidding. The weather changes on its own and the animals fend for themselves, this place is just … unnatural.” A third one, this time a unicorn, joined in.
As the three ponies were talking one of them, the captain, thought he saw something and was looking in a bush. The dark blue clad pony was a statue as he felt the captain’s warm breath brush against his checks. When the third soldier finished talking the captain turned towards them.
“Would you three fillies shut up and focus, we have a job to do and I want to see it done.” He ordered.
He could not have picked a worse time to turn his head. The grey pony saw that the captain was distracted and used the opportunity to draw his short sword on his side with his mouth and deliver a swift side cut across the captain’s throat. He let out a choking yell and fell to ground, at that moment the trees and bushes came to life as a dozen shadows guards seemed to come out from the surrounding vegetation.
The soldiers of the scouting party were paralyzed in fear, one moment it was relatively quiet the next thing they knew their captain was dead and they were surrounded by what they seemed like ghosts. The shadow guards on the other hand pressed their attack and charged at the scattered soldiers, the guard with the grey coat ran toward the pegasus that had spoken first and easily cut him down before he could figure out what was going on. As he withdrew his sword from the pegasus’s side he turned toward a unicorn that had drawn his own sword with his magic and was moving to confront the grey shadow guard. The cloaked pony took a defensive stance and waited for the unicorn to meet him but when the unicorn was five meters away an arrow flew past the grey pony’s shoulder and buried itself into the soldier’s chest, there was a surprised look on his face as he fell to the ground his sword landing close by.
“You just have to show off don’t you?” The shadow guard said to himself knowing all too well who had shot the arrow. “Next time don’t cut it so close, I almost took that thing in the shoulder.”
He made a mental note to talk to the owner of that arrow when this was over and turned his attention to the small skirmish. Out of the original ten members of the scouting party eight lay on the blood-stained ground, the remaining two realized that there was no hope in winning and that their only hope of survival was to retreat back to their outpost in the nearby town of Ponyville, they dropped their weapons and ran back to where they have entered the accursed forest that has become the tomb of their fallen comrades. As the soldiers started to run a shadow guard with a light brown coat ran next to the grey one, a brown glow came from inside the cowl revealing that the new shadow guard was unicorn, the unicorn used his magic to pick out and arrow from a small, satchel like, quiver on his side and aimed for one of the retreating soldiers.
“Don’t waste your arrows.” The grey pony said “we need someone to send a message and a couple of terrified ponies that have no idea what happened to the rest of their party are bound to exaggerate the facts.” The brown unicorn pulled back her cowl and smiled.
“I don’t think it takes more than one pony to deliver a message but you’re in charge Kingsley.” The voice was soft with a hint of a australian accent showing that the unicorn was a female.
“Trust me by the end of the week those sun lovers will be talking about how ten shadow guards butchered one hundred of Celestia’s finest men.” The grey pony named Kingsley said returning the smile. The brown unicorn stomped her hoof in frustration.
“I just can’t stand just sitting in this forest doing nothing while that tyrant tries to figure out how to smoke us out.” Kingsley just simply nodded his head and looked at the moon.
“One day we will take the fight back to the Solar Empire and when we do, we will burn Canterlot to the ground and Luna will take her rightful place as princess of Equestria.”
“Did you see how those ponies ran like little fillies after I picked off four of his buddies, ha so much for Celestia’s “Royal Guard” my mum would have picked a better fight then them.” The brown unicorn joked, causing a ripple of laughter to spread across the small group of ponies walking around her. Kingsley looked back toward her.
“That reminds Arrowhead, what’s the big idea stealing my kill back there, you knew I could of handled that unicorn by myself.” He asked.
She and Kingsley have been on many missions together throughout their years in the republic, from ambushes like this one to assaults on enemy bases, and have always argued about who was the better fighter, so they made up a game to find out. The rules were simple, who ever had the highest body-count won.
At first they treated the game as if they were competing to become the greatest warrior in Equestria, but as the war between Celestia and Luna dragged on it became difficult to keep track of who had the most wins (it also didn’t help that a majority of the time the two would tie creating a big “who killed who” debate between the shadow guards) so the compation turned into a game that gave the winner bragging rights until the next mission.
Technically speaking there was no rule about stealing a kill from the other pony but it was seen as dishonest by the other shadow guards, making it hard to brag if one won a round by taking a kill from his or her opponent. Which is why the two rivals never stole from each other (or if they did they would deny it) so it was no wonder that when Kingsley accused her of cheating Arrowhead pretended to look confused.
“Oh I didn’t even know you were near him.” She explained. “To me he was just standing in the open wondering what in Equestria was going on.”
“So you really didn’t see me at all” Kingsley asked raising an eyebrow, although with his hood up nopony could notice. Arrowhead made a cross on her chest with her hoof.
“I swear to you I did not see you at all. I had a clear shot when I fired that arrow.
“You had a clear shot alright, right at my shoulder. If I hadn’t moved at the last minute you would have to explain to my brother why I didn’t come back from a simple ambush.” Arrowhead glared at him.
“Ah come off it mate you know more than anypony else that I’m the best shot out of everypony in the republic, there was no way in the pits of Tartarus that I could have miss that shot and you know it.” She exclaimed.
Kingsley just gave her a small grin.
“So you confess that you stole my kill?” Arrowhead’s expression suddenly changed from one of anger to one of nervousness.
“Umm, no, I mean yes, I mean, DAMIT.” There was a roar of laughter from everypony in the group, not including Arrowhead who hung her head in defeat.
“So as it stands I have two kills and you have four kills,” Kingsley stated, Arrowhead just gritted her teeth, she hated to lose. “But since you stole a kill from me that means that we both have three kills.” As he said this, the remaining chuckles from the surrounding guards turned into one drawn out groan.
“Great another tie. How many is that now, anypony still keeping track.” A blue pony asked to nopony in particular.
“Dude last time I checked they tied forty six times and that was a few months back.” A pony with a red coat answered.
“It doesn’t matter how many times we tied as long as I have the most wins.” Kingsley proudly stated.
“Horse apples everypony knows that I’ve been kicking your flank since we started this thing.” Arrowhead protested after recovering from her setback earlier. Kingsley opened his mouth to speak when a familiar voice cut him off.
“By the stars I can’t let you two do anything together without me having to foal sit you both?”
Kingsley actually recoiled as he found himself looking into the light blue eyes of a grey/green unicorn pony with a short cut mane and tail that matched her eyes. Kingsley swallowed nervously with Arrowhead next to him as the rest of the group scattered into the medium sized camp which lay in the middle of a clearing that Kingsley had failed to notice while he was arguing with Arrowhead.
“Weepingbell, hay sis, I umm, didn’t notice you there,” Kingsley flipped back his hood revealing a short, black, shaggy mane and two bright green eyes. “How is things go-”
“Of course you didn’t notice me, by Luna’s mane Kingsley you didn’t even notice when you walked out of the forest, you could have walked into Canterlot for bucks sake and you still wouldn’t notice a thing because you two are too busy playing ‘Who’s Better’ to look at what’s in front of you.” She yelled.
Arrowhead couldn’t help a short bark of laughter from escaping her lips, which she quickly tried to pass as a cough to avoid receiving the same fate as Kingsley to no success, two lightning blue eyes shifted from Kingsley to her.
“Oh trust me, you won’t be laughing when I’m done with you, you are just as blind and stupid as he is.” She continued on her rant. Arrowhead’s eyes started to flare with rage.
“Hay take it easy, I was fully aware of where we were until your brother here got all saddle-sore because I killed more sun lovers then him during the ambush.”
“Well you decided to argue with him instead of just ignoring him so what does that say about you?” Weepingbell shot back. Kingsley knew this was heading south way too fast and decided to intervene.
“Whoa, ladies there’s no need to start fighting each other over something as stupid as”
“STAY OUT OF THIS!!!” Both unicorns shouted. Kingsley’s eyes widened in a mixture of surprise and fear, but as the two unicorns started fighting again the expression quickly turned into one of annoyance.
“Fine if you two want to kill each other go ahead see if I care.” He turned and headed toward the camp. “Jeez a colt can’t do anything without pissing off a mare.” He grumbled to himself.
When he was out of earshot the unicorns instantly stopped their arguing and started to giggle.
“I can’t believe he fell for that.” Arrowhead snorted.
“I told you he would believe it.” Weepingbell replied between short bursts of laughter. “Maybe now he will learn to never tell a mare she’s wrong.”
“Too right bell, too right.”
After a few minutes the mares were able to control themselves enough to walk back to the camp but they still couldn’t help but smile at each other when they remembered the little lesson they taught Kingsley. The two unicorns were like sisters and they never could pass up an opportunity to trick the colts in the camp in order to get their way, even if it was their brother Kingsley, especially if it was their brother Kingsley.
