Eclipse: House of Frostmane's Few

Chapters

1.1 "Curtain Call"
1.2 "Ballet of Shadows"
1.3 "Black Dawn"
2.1 "Gray Horizons"
Prologue: "Nightmares and Daydreams"

1.1 "Curtain Call"

CHAPTER 1.1

"Curtain Call"

The soft light of a low moon danced with the gentle ripples of a calmed lake that stretched and wove though the dense, wild hills surrounding the small village. In the fresh absence of Celestia’s bright sun, an unusual serenity seemed to fall over the vast expanses of the Everfree. The feral, unchecked clouds of the wood sailed a smooth, silent course across the brightening blanket of stars painted throughout the Night Princess’s indigo heavens. The breeze carried the aroma of campfires from other villages nestled along the opposite lakeshore to the east, ripe in their duty of mealtime.

On a hilltop overlooking the draconic settlement from the south, a devoted corn snake made her way carefully though the underbrush, tracking a rodent her deft tongue had discovered a few minutes prior. She rounded a rock outcropping and pursued the scent between a pair of thick bushes nestled amongst the gnarled trunks of a crop of trees. The tiger-marked serpent paused for a moment to catch her bearings after she slowly slithered onto a moss-covered limb protruding along the ground from one of the shrubs. A few flicks of her forked tongue rewarded her patience with a renewed trail to follow, and she wasted no time in disembarking from the oddly straight, cold branch in pursuit of her quarry.

An amused pair of lavender eyes watched the reptile slide from the barrel of her well-concealed weapon from under a web of mesh-netted canvas strips and peat-moss.

“Bet she is following something tasty.” The other canvas and peat-moss shrubbery whispered with a giggle to match the mirth of the shooter’s eyes next to her.

“Maybe that little grey field mouse that passed by a while back?” The first shrub mused in her ever-confident silky voice as she returned to scanning the village below.

The huts in the valley below lay different in the dim of night than they had in the haze of pre-dawn when the pair had first arrived. The fire pits that were but smoldering embers then were now full of vibrant life as they licked and nipped at the meat on their spits. All around them circled the bipedal dragonkin waiting for the first taste. Like vultures of the buffalo plains, they loitered hungrily and yet patiently all at once for their chosen chef to declare the entrées complete. Where but a few warriors paced in their appointed rounds in the sleepy dawn, dozens now skittered around the paths and porches busy finishing chores for the day.

Staff Sergeant Skylancer panned her optic with skilled hooves over the scene. The heavily enchanted crystal lenses captured every detail for her in brilliant clarity as she noticed movement from a doorway. “Two more casters just came out of the tall eastern hooch, Patchy. You see ‘em?”

“Yes.” Corporal Patch Up replied in her softer tone while she looked from her binoculars down to the small notebook between her elbows. With the deftness of tooth shared by all ponies, the grease-paint covered maroon pegasus plucked the pencil lying beside it to scratch down two more tallies under a map she had scrawled throughout the long day. “That makes thirty-four magi and only nineteen warriors…how peculiar.” Her thick, regal Manehattain accent had faded somewhat over time away from the city, but it still spiced her voice like fine cider in the late summer.

“Maybe we actually got a reliable tip for once…” The commentary of a pair of rolling eyes grumbled back as they completed their scan. A long pause followed as those eyes twitched into a cringe and a frustrated whimper, “Ack! It’s back again… just below my wing! Get it! Get it! Get it!”

The smaller mock shrubbery giggled at the muted pleading of the similarly grease-painted white pegasus. With expert care and guile, she slithered a steady, unseen hoof under the ghillie of her shooter and scratched the reoccurring itch left by a hungry insect earlier in the day.

Sky nearly lost grip of her elegant, though well camouflaged, long boltlance as she melted into the grass in a pool of bliss. A groan of relieved pleasure was all she could offer in thanks to the ever-caring hoof of the team’s medic as she struggled to maintain her gaze on the village. The snowy white pegasus was glad her form and façade were so heavily concealed when Patch finished her treatment, her tender smoothing of feathers and coat evoking a blush far brighter than she ever would have admitted.

“Thanks.” She finally sighed after a long recovery and a delightful shiver.

“You really should remember to spray yourself next time.” Came Corporal Patch's amused reply.

“I didn’t want to risk it,” Sky retorted once she had regained her composure and resumed her casual scan, “what with the dragonkin having such good senses of smell and all. I figured bug repellant wasn’t that important this time.”

“You say that as though it helped a fortnight ago.” Patch teased back with a giggle.

“Hey!” She shot a glare through her mesh hood at the Corporal, “How was I supposed to know changelings weren’t actually insects?!”

The medic seemed to brighten up at the mentioning of the creatures before she swooned as softly as she could, “Oh! Speaking of that, did you see the big piece in Clothes Horse Magazine about the wedding?”

“The only info I have of that day was from the Commandant’s debriefing.” Sky replied dryly. She had lost count of how many sabots she had fired that particular day in the battle far north of Canterlot, but she was fairly sure it was more than there was confetti at the reception that night.

“Well! First off, it was lovely! If nothing else, the Royal Guard is at least good for a quick cleanup after a scuffle.” They shared a snicker before Patch Up continued. “Anyways, did you know that the Bearers of Harmony were the planners? Lady Fluttershy’s avian chorus sang over the precession, Pinkie Pie hosted the reception under one of Rainbow Dash’s fantastic rainbooms, and Lady Applejack cooked for the entire event!”

“Mmmm…” the marksmare interrupted with a watering maw at the thought of Sweet Apple Acre’s cuisine. Zap-apple jam was one of her favorite treats, and the season was fast approaching again for its harvest.

“And the gowns, “Patch sighed at the image locked away in her mind’s eye, “I didn’t think it possible, but Lady Rarity once again outdid herself.”

Sky hid a soft smile to herself as her teammate dove into another Rarity Praise Cascade. “Oh?”

“Oh yes! The cuts were flawless! The frills, the lace, the tiaras to the shoes!" Corporal Patch Up's intensive training was all that kept her volume in check, though none of her exuberance was lost to her friend. “Oh what I wouldn't give to have one of her dresses made just for me…”

Skylancer chuckled at a thought as she mused in jest, “Oh yes! A lovely little skirt and blouse to run about the battlefield with your magical wand of bandages. Praise the graceful Medic Fairy!”

Patch Up screwed her face into a friendly scoff, “Oh ha ha, Staff Sergeant,” She paused for a moment as her expression faded with her tone to an almost longing dream, “You don’t know. Maybe I’ll get to attend a fancy ball someday. It could happen.”

Skylancer was just about to answer when movement caught her attention across the dimly-lit arcane reticle of her optic. She quickly and smoothly slid her support-side hoof to the dial on the objective and twisted evenly. The view on the perfect crystal magnified further to define an ancient dragonkin slowly making its way down the steps from the largest of the huts in the center. From gnarled-horned head to talon-clad feet he was lavishly adorned in gold and jewels of every shape and size. His magi robes, though tattered from age, were far more elaborate than the others they had recorded around the village and his staff was bristling with feathers and charms of all flavors.

“That’s Fek’Tawny One Eye. “ Patch had immediately read her shooter’s intent and snapped back to duty in time to watch the old drake ponderously trudge towards a hut across the square. She took a moment to confirm her suspicions from a photograph tucked into her notebook. It matched right down to the jagged scars that raked over where an eye had once been.

Sky’s mood continued to brighten as she watched the archmagi slip into the guarded hut between a pair of sentries. “Our informant did say he was supposed to be here. This is…”

“Mako Two to Raptor, Situation report?” A painfully eloquent male voice echoed into her head, cutting her sentence short. The enchanted, ruby-crowned platinum bud laid a bit too naturally in her ear and she often forgot it was there. Sky flicked a hoof-tip over the matching ruby on the platinum collar pressed to her throat but didn't trigger it as her partner spoke using her own matching device.

“Raptor confirms presence of primary tango on-site. Update personnel count, three-four castors and one-nine warriors mixed melee and archery capable.” Patch paused for a moment to let the network of mana-communications shuffle its encryption enchantment patterns again. “No sign of the Package yet. Primary infiltration approach still green… you’ll know when we know Monocle Two.”

“No need for the business Raptor, Mako team standing by.” The tone painted over the Kensinghoof stallion’s words were positively dripping with annoyance and they couldn't tell if it was the week-long failed hunt or their degrading professionalism over the com that was to blame.

“Oh for Celestia’s Sake!” Sky snarled quietly, “That arrogant jerk needs a kick in the flank.”

Patch Up blinked a few times at the sudden outburst before she could wrangle a reply, “Oh, Keen Edge is just getting a touch edgy from all these dead ends.”

“He has been insufferable for weeks, Patchy!” Her honed whisper was sharp enough to cut a sapphire. “He has been on my case about Everything! My marksmanship, my swimming and flight times, my equipment! Two Tuesdays ago, he scolded me on my swordsmanship! My swordsmanship! My hoplite ancestors didn’t fight like dainty little Kensinghoof pixies and neither will I!” She took a moment to ground herself by slipping a wing over the antique darkwood and ivory hilt of a gladius sheathed to her side. The ancient relic brought her comfort, her long family history carried on with pride by her hooves at the end of the still-very functional mithril blade.

The medic beside her had been suppressing a snicker for a time before she found the right moment to respond to the rant, “You sound more flustered than frustrated, dear. I think you like him.”

If pegasus eyes could burn through canvas, they would both be ablaze from the glare chiseled across Staff Sergeant Skylancer's face. “I do not! Blehk! Could you imagine being Mrs. Keen Edge, docile little house-nymph of a pompous Barron? Pass.”

“Ok. Yeah. Eww.” They both shared a defusing giggle as their conversation fell to tranquility once more. “Though you must admit, there is something charming about the thought of romance and marriage, Skylee.”

The shooter froze for a moment as she always did when Patch used her little nickname, and she desperately fought down a hitch in her voice as it tried to creep past a couple of butterflies that somehow found their way into her stomach. As on other occasions, she was grateful that they were usually stalking the brush in camouflage when she spent time close to her alone out of combat. Grease paint and thick net cloaks served wonders to hide red skin under a stark-white coat. “I… I suppose, heh heh.” She quietly cleared her throat and shook off a chill before she could regain her silky composure, “…but not to Sir Stiff-Lip McWindbag.”

Another tempered little giggle-fit struck the shrubs in the treeline before Patch spoke teasingly, “You know, I’m pretty sure the Commandant is still single, and still very handsome despite his age.”

Skylancer shot an incredulous glance to the prodding medic before retorting, “I don’t think there has ever been a mare in Eclipse who hasn’t had a crush on Frostmane, but,” She paused to collect her voice into a disturbed melody, “He has been like a father to me since I was just a little filly, so…Gross.”

The smaller pegasus often forgot how much younger most of the house’s members were indoctrinated than she was and how much different their relationships to each other and to the command structure must have been. She dismissed it with a bemused chuckle as she set along another sweep of the village with her binoculars. They shared the next few moments in bright serenity and silence.

“You know, I…” The marksmare’s next conversational piece was slain on the spot when she noticed Fek ‘Tawny emerge from the hut a few moments later with a noticeable spring in his old steps while the two guards disappeared inside.

The relic of a dragonkin seemed to waste no time in pleasantries as he limped his way back towards the main structure he had embarked from earlier. Two senior warriors loitering on the steps outside snapped to attention and briskly fell into the archmagi’s wake as he passed. The procession was swept out of sight and calm soon washed back over the valley, even if only for a glancing moment.

The ambience on the hilltop to the south was so deathly silent that the air passing through felt like it was trespassing in an unwelcome home. The pair of recon ponies had switched effortlessly back into a working mindset, and their focus was un-shatterable as they surveyed the camp, keeping a careful eye on the small hut all the while. It was only seconds before their week-long vigilance was finally rewarded.

“Skylee, Eyes on the guarded hut.” Patch directed as she watched the iron door swing open though the grace of her binoculars.

The marksmare was on it instantly and wasted no time zooming her extravagant optic in once again to view the guards returning to sight in perfect detail. The two reptilian bipeds drug a body between them, its arms hooked over each shoulder to allow the rest of its form to drag along the ground like a sack of flower.

It was a unicorn.

“That’s the package.” Patch Up stated with flat certainty as she glanced down at the pictures in her notebook once more. The smiling royal guard in the photographs was a far cry from the wretched beaten form being lugged along the filthy roads of the town. His horn was snapped off at its base, and his once perfectly ivory coat was riddled with crimson ruin and bruises. Her medical background was in full swing as she took in every flaw and deformity from missing ear to mangled legs. “His hind legs are broken.” She remarked in disappointment, more to herself than anything.

“But he’s still alive.” Came the reply of her shooter as she watched the stallions eyes blink weakly and look around in a daze. “Call it in, Patchy. It’s show-time.”

Patch nodded and keyed the gemstone on her collar while her eyes remained trained on the trio’s march towards some wooden cages near the main hut. “Raptor to all units, we have confirmation of package Romeo Gama six-eight-zero-three. Package is non-ambulatory but conscious. Raptor standing by.”

A male voice pinged back into their ears a moment later. “Raptor one this is Aurora, we copy your traffic, wait one.”

“Copy, holding.” Patch replied.

“Mako, Holding.” Came Keen’s voice a split second later.

They waited for what seemed like eons while the pair watched the dragonkin hurl the heap of destroyed pony into a cell. The gentle rise and fall of his ribcage was promising news to the pair as they then set quickly to work locating every living being they could lay eyes on. When the communication gem finally chimed back to life, they knew why the wait has been so long.

“Raptor, this is Aurora Actual.” The heavenly voice of their Princess of the Daylight sang like righteous fire through the airwaves, filling their hearts with renewed resolve. “You found him?”

“Affirmative. Romeo Gama six-eight-zero-three is present in scaly encampment two-eight, non-ambulatory but alive. Presence on the ground is hostile.” The medic repeated to the concerned monarch. “Alpha Six is on station and standing by for green light, over.”

There was a long pause before Celestia spoke again, her tone authoritarian yet spiced with concern. “Alpha Six, you are clear to engage. Be careful, my ponies and good luck. Aurora Actual, out.”

The airwaves erupted with chatter a moment latter, among them their team leader’s bubbly, feminine voice, “Ok Raptor! You heard Anya, let’s get this rodeo started! Mako is hoofs wet in two, ETA ten mikes.”

Second was the regal voice of the commander of their aerial assets, “Alpha Six this is Grace Actual, be advised we are on station. Hurricane Flight is on standby for close air support if needed.”

“Solid copy, Grace.” Captain Steelwing’s news was a welcome slice of peace in their minds.

“Poise to Alpha Six. En-route to primary extract point. ETA two-five mikes.” The voice of the communication officer aboard the smaller of the two airships in Eclipse’s arsenal confirmed next.

“Copy, Poise. See you at the LZ.” Patch replied while her partner had begun calming her breaths and heart rate for the task set before them. She too spent a moment to consciously quell her excited nerves and settle in tune with her shooter and shift comfortably into her binoculars. The maroon mare locked in on a single dragonkin standing on the edge of the pier over the water and glanced down at her map. “Target. Range four-hundred seventy-two meters. It’s a melee on the end of the pier. Wind eastbound, push one and a half left.” She whispered to the marksmare.

Staff Sergeant Skylancer shifted her boltlance gingerly on its resting point to bring it in-line with the unsuspecting reptilian loitering on the water’s edge. A twitch there, a shifting hoof here, and her reticle came to a perfect rest just above and to the left of its long forehead. With a satisfied little grin, she slowly released the weapon’s bolt, allowing it to drive a perfectly crafted, diamond-tipped tungsten sabot from its cozy resting place in the magazine to its temporary home in the battery. With her lance primed and ready, she forced her excited grin to fade under a trained regimen of deep breaths before she finally muttered a reply. “On target.”

“Hold scope. Stand by.”

<==========})===0 ~~*~~~*~~~~*~~~*~~ 0===({=========>

1.2 "Ballet of Shadows"

CHAPTER 1.2

"Ballet of Shadows"

“Finally! We can be done with all this bloody empty-hooved searching!” A stalwart, tall unicorn breathed in relief as he made his final adjustments to his buoyancy control vest and riggings. His golden eyes contrasted somewhat sharply to the grease paint surrounding them as they darted from latch to latch.

A pair of sparkling bright amber eyes regarded Master Sergeant Keen Edge’s with amused agreement, though they seemed more excited than sated that the time had come once more to wade downrange. Lieutenant Commander Cutpurse wore an almost unending smile on her ever optimistic face while she set about her own last minute checks to the dive gear covering her petite frame. Like the others, every inch from hoof to mane was concealed under a drab and effectively camouflaged wetsuit and loaded with the equipment needed to see the mission through.

“Hey LT, can I get a hoof with this strap?” A stout, solidly built mare inquired as she shuffled in front of her commanding officer and pointed at the unbuckled strap of her explosives bag on her back. Corporal Shockwave, a native to Las Pegasus, was the team’s newest member. However, the talented demolitions expert already had several missions logged with the busy group.

Cutpurse artistically corrected the problem her fellow earth pony was having with her deft hooves wearing a winking grin, “All set!” Shockwave shuffled away to fetch her boltlance waiting patiently on a rock while the bubbly leader trotted over to give the final member of the team a hoof.

Sergeant Steel Rain was a mountain of a stallion. Standing several hooves higher than most at the withers and positively chiseled with finely honed muscle, the massive unicorn was nothing short of an unfair advantage for the team. After all, carrying nearly double the ammunition to gorge a hungry belt-fed heavylance than any other support gunner in Eclipse was no small bargaining chip!

“Ready to rock, big guy?” Cutpurse grinned to him as she looked over his kit. It was in absolutely immaculate order as always. Every latch stowed. Every lanyard squared away in perfect knots.

“Yes ma’am.” He replied in his disciplined, mild country drawl as he hefted the masterfully engineered heavy weapon he called his own into its place against the air tank with his horn.

“Ok,” Lcdr. Cutpurse cast an administrative gaze around the gathered operators as she keyed her communications collar, “Alpha Six, sound off comms check and ready.”

“Keen. Tally ho.” The unicorn wrought of noble blood remarked to the network as he made a final adjustment of his beautifully engraved sabre strapped to his side under a camouflaged flap.

“Shock, ready to rumble.” The explosives specialist declared as she primed and safetied her boltlance carbine.

“Steel, five-by-five.”

“Patch and Sky, one-hundred percent. We have a tango primed and waiting your signal at the end of the first pier, possible rover on the second.” The Medic’s voice came in over the airwaves.

“Copy. Keep it tight, Alpha.” Cutpurse concluded to the team at large, “Let’s get in and out and home for dinner.”

She let her hoof slide free of the ruby and the forest around them returned to its tranquil serenity. The night creatures went about their grand chorus to the gentle beat of the waves lapping ashore before them. They all knew their next task to the letter, and there was no need for words. The rest of the sub-team Mako shared gazes with one another and traded hoof-bumps and nods before loading their respective boltlances and wading into the calm waters of the vast lake.

With the skill and flow of a synchronized swimming team, the operators smoothly transitioned to the dry air of their regulators and slipped into their fins as one unit. With a last look about, each pair of goggles came down and the four ponies disappeared below the calm surface. The water was brisk, but their suits effortlessly drank up a perfect share of it to warm against their bodies. Within moments they were as comfortable as pegasi floating on a bed of clouds during a summer day while they slipped calmly along.

Cutpurse led the skilled swimmers through the clear, dark waters with only occasional glances at the compass strapped below her watch. Though she knew her team was always at her back, she did twist about every few moments to be sure they were still behind her if only to enjoy the lack of gravity earth ponies so seldom experience.

The Lt. Commander was grateful Princess Luna had graced them with a decent moon this eve, for it was always difficult to spot her comrades even with the trademark exhale bubbles they had in training. Their mission regulators, however, utilized a series of enchanted filters mounted opposite to the air line that broke down their breath into their base elements, allowing them to pass unseen into the water. Unnecessary to the average diver of Equestria’s many lakes, it was vital to the team sliding just deep enough below the surface to mask their very existence from the draconian fishing boats passing overhead.

Bah! No interesting fish again! I really must ask for leave to dive a proper reef… Cutpurse thought to herself as she checked her watch and compass again, shifting the team to a new heading around a bend in the lakeshore. They were getting close.

Another few moments passed before she slowed to a hover and spun on her team. They circled around in a perfect formation to await her command and she gave it promptly. A flat arm with a hoof peeking up from below signaled them all to slip their weapons into their pasterns and check for boats in all directions. Satisfied they were clear, she gave the hoofs-up to ascend for a look.

The team broke the surface with perfect grace and speed, their readied boltlances and hooded crowns barely breaking a ripple on the smooth wake. They took in every detail around them, from the boats in the distant east to the silhouette of the aforementioned guard standing lazily on the edge of the pier before them. In seconds, they were again slipping silently below the waves towards the beginning of a wild night.

The invisible warriors closed on the slick, moss painted pillars marking the old wooden pier that defiantly struck out into the lake and on command split into pairs. Cutpurse and her demolitions pony veered off towards the farther, unoccupied dock while the stout stallions stalked up to the base of the guard’s footing. Keen Edge carefully secured his carbine to its place slung on his side to free his hooves for the task at hand.

MSg. Keen could see the unfortunate fellow gaze out to his right onto the tranquil lake, completely unaware that his life was so near its end. His years of experience had dulled him to the deep absolution of the fact, but as his father and all good Kensinghoof gentlecolt officers did, he took the time to appreciate and remember the lad’s existence like every enemy he had ever smitten. He felt a tapping at his finned hind leg a second later and knew it to be Steel’s signal from the Lt. Commander.

It was time.

On the tree-laden knoll, the marksmare team waited in perfect calm for the sign to begin the storm. Sky held her complex, heavily camouflaged weapon in perfect line with the warrior pondering his existence across the water while her partner scanned the shore. Only a few moments after Cutpurse had told them they would be in position, she noticed movement in the water just below the sentry. Amid the calm wake lapping against the pier a slender, armored unicorn horn slipped out of the waves and waited patiently for them to oblige.

“Send it.”

Nature rolled in tranquil harmony all around Skylancer as she cycled through another deep, rhythmic inhale. Hers was one with the breath of the world and she could feel the very heartbeat of the earth coursing through her veins. As she reached her apex and began the all-important decent, she smoothly closed each of the doors in her mind’s eye. One by one, she shunned the diversions of life and narrowed her focus on the ever-crucial first shot from the cold bore of her lance. A master of her chosen instrument, she rotated the heel of her hoof along the weapon’s frog notch from its safe resting place against the frame to its cherished poise before its beloved trigger with all the grace of a violinist readying her bow to the bated breath of a concert audience. As the last of her breath wove its way past her tender grip and her reticle came to rest, she finally allowed the forbidden kiss.

Enchanted horseshoed heel met matched steel in a perfect embrace that slipped an eager mechanism into motion. In a span of half an eye-blink, the crisp trigger broke from the sear like a thin glass rod and sent the runemagiked hammer flying home to strike the opposing rune etched into the arcane primer outside of the mana crystal chamber. Crackling magical energy blasted forth in protest from the precisely shaped battery before being harnessed and channeled into an amplifying conduit. Infuriated by the compression of the coil, the energy exploded into white-hot arcane fire and smashed its way out of the flux into the breach. The only course left to the desperate pressure was to rocket the waiting sabot from its resting place and escape from the muzzle behind it. Force slammed into tungsten and the dart was spun away before the manafire could even pursue it into the night air. The determined flame would have exploded in freedom after the supersonic flechette, but every wink of it was arrested by a heavily spelled suppressor attached to the muzzle, silencing the shot with a series of baffles and dampening enchantments while the excess energy was channeled back into the lance’s overflow ducts.

Once free of its sabot casing, a perfectly spiral-cut diamond helped stabilize the beefy spike it topped in perfect concert with the grove-fletching on the tail as it screamed through the air so violently swift that Sound itself struggled to even parade in its wake. Like a chisel once struck, it sailed with irrevocable absolution on its voyage of little more than a third of a second towards its unsuspecting goal.

The red-scaled fighter standing his last moments on the tranquil dock never knew what happened when the deadly dart effortlessly passed through his skull and continued on its unerring way into the shoreline beyond. The cackling shockwave following just behind was the real cause of damage and his light was extinguished before he had even begun falling backwards towards the Master Sergeant’s waiting horn in a corona of pink mist. A carefully placed golden aura caught the falling dragonkin by his leather baldric and gingerly lowered him noiselessly into the wake.

A second warrior hadn’t heard the hypersonic dart crackle past, its sound lost amongst the bustle of the villages many campfires. However, he did notice that the pier now stood empty where seconds before a companion had been stationed. He took a curious step towards the edge of the wooden planks and his last step upon the earth. A trio of much smaller, ruby tipped, copper hollow-point slugs smashed and tore their way violently into his armor and flesh and brought him to his knees. In his last moment of consciousness, he spied his deliverer of death bobbing on the surface under the pier, her compact, suppressed sublance still trained on his form like a leopard clenched to the throat of prey long expired just to be sure of its work.

With the shoreline clear, Cutpurse gave an advancing order while stowing her weapon and slipped out of her scuba rigging with the others. As one unit, they sunk their unneeded kit after activating a return rune that would have it home the moment they called for it after the mission was seen through. Satisfied they were ready, the operator ponies all emerged from waters onto the rocky shore and regrouped near the remains of the second sentry.

“Nice shot, Sky.” The Lt. Commander voiced with a grin as she reached the others. “Where to from here.”

“Head left around the hooch to your front and make your way down the alley.” Patch replied over the earpieces as the rest of the team prepared their much quieter, suppressed lancepistols. “It’s clear for the moment.”

“Copy, you’re clear to engage any immediate threats we don’t see, but keep it to our pos.”

“Solid copy, L.T. We have you covered.”

“Ok, let’s dance.” The perky leader could hardly contain her mounting smile as she gave the move order to begin her cherished specialty… silent infiltration.

On specially crafted rubberized horseshoes, and falling back on months of tedious musculature training, each of the four ponies hoisted themselves to a bipedal stance to better manipulate their weapons. The suspended rearing, awkward and clumsy at absolute best to most ponyfolk, was as natural as trotting on polished stone to the members of Eclipse and they flowed naturally between them as the needs arose to forge extraordinary agility.

Her team formed around her and elegant sidearms at the ready, Cutpurse shouldered her sublance and set the intricate waltz of a Rolling Tee into motion. The team danced and flowed through the shadows of the village, every sector covered at all times. As a crossroad appeared, the ponies at the lead branched off to cover it while their teammates flowed past, effortlessly swaying back into the dance when the last one slipped by and tapped their shoulder. It was a ballet of trust and familiarity bred by countless hours of training with one another to the silent music of enemies unaware.

Thanks in no small part to Patch Up’s careful directions, the team met no resistance they couldn’t quietly avoid beyond one poor magi whom had chosen to take supper atop his thatched roof that evening. He had just noticed the presence of strangers below when another perfectly placed sabot zipped by from afar and robbed him of his ability to report the fact. After the body slumped to rest for its final slumber on the bundled reeds, the equine ghosts washed past towards the cages beyond.

Two warriors were discovered guarding the only occupied cell of woven planks and branches as Cutpurse stacked the team at her flank and peeked around the corner. The young males seemed lost in a conversation about a recent fight and couldn't notice the perfectly camouflaged face taking in their every detail before slipping back behind shadowy cover.

“Patch,” the Lt. Commander whispered as she keyed her throat gem, “do you have eyes on the tangos guarding the package?”

“Only the one on nearer to you.”

“Ok, reverse pincer on Keen’s signal.”

“On target. Rock and roll when ready, Bossmare.”

Cutpurse was confident in her accuracy and speed, but she still took a couple deep, calming breaths to wash away the worry of all the loose variables involved in such an assault. Keen was stacked at her side a moment later. When he was ready to cover her, he reached up and gave her shoulder a deliberate pastern squeeze before slipping it back inline to support his pistol while the remaining members watched the rear.

“Mark.” Keen echoed to all as his team leader slipped around the corner, weapon leveled to the enemies whom spotted her the moment she stepped into the torchlight. A third powerful longlance bolt ripped into the night and found its mark while the stealthy mare’s short weapon clicked away its own controlled torrent of deadly cargo to silence the scaled being centered in the holographic rune of her unmagnified optic. Both fell almost in unison as the first and second in command continued assaulting past where they lie to be certain the area was secure.

“Clear, move up.” Keen’s voice rang softly forth a moment later to gather the team at the pair of scaled heaps in the dirt.

As they approached, he noticed the one hit by Skylancer was still alive. The wounded reptile tried desperately to find breath for his lungs to finish his duty in alerting his kin, but none could make its way past the mangled wreck that was once his throat. Partly out of pity, and partly from training, the Kensinghoof officer swiftly ended the futile struggle with a skilled thrust of his beautifully engraved mithril sabre before slipping it back into hiding in its covered sheath.

Cutpurse blinked as the blade caught the moonlight and flashed briefly into her eyes on its way back to its hiding place. She made a mental note to give him a hard time about it while the crackling groan of the cell door announced its surrender to Steel’s powerful hooves and lurched to the side. Satisfied the cell was clear to enter, the burly unicorn shuffled aside to allow his fellow horned equine and the Commander to slip by and tend to the sorrowful disaster of flesh and shattered will lying within.

“Captain Stonewall?” Lt. Commander Cutpurse shifted her tone to its sweetest octave. Spiced from her soul’s ample stock of knowing sympathy and genuine concern, it rang like angel’s song against what was left of his ear.

“Wh… wha… who… who are…?” Stonewall's voice fought past his pain and fatigue just enough to be audible as he struggled to focus his blurred vision on the beings that surrounded him. He couldn’t be sure what stood before him, but her gentle hoof’s touch on his cheek was heavenly and her smiling eyes were enough to make him weep in relief.

“We’re here to get you out of this place, sweetie.” Cutpurse explained quietly as she lined up her thoughts with the briefing they had all attended. “I just have to ask you a couple questions. Where did you meet your wife?”

“D… D… Dodge Junction.” He knew the protocol behind the inquiry and forced an answer as clear as he could.

“How old is your son?”

He blinked his already squinted eyes a few times in confusion before replying, “Son? I… I don’t h… have a son… I have a little seven-year-old filly.”

“Good boy.” Cutpurse grinned as Captain Stonewall fell over the finish line, successfully proving he wasn’t a cleverly polymorphed magi waiting in ambush. “Get him mobile, Master Sergeant.” She ordered as she slipped out of the way to give the stallion room to work.

“Let’s get you all ready for the parade then, shall we?” Keen Edge coaxed encouragingly as he set to work with his telekinetic spells, deftly maneuvering a pair of wire cutters from his kit to vanquish the bonds around the guard’s gnarled legs. Cutpurse quickly set to work fashioning splints while he continued his work.

“Wh… who are you ponies?” Stonewall squeaked in pain and confusion to the completely alien face covered in grease pigments.

“Oh, just good Samaritans, Old Boy. We were out strolling along the lakeshore with a whistle and a tune when the smell of cooked chicken flesh tickled our fancy we thought we might stop in.” The cultured officer never did seem to lose his humor even as he coursed his eyes and hooves over the grizzly scene to check for more damage. Satisfied that the only serious problems were his useless hind legs and a plethora of lacerations he replaced his cutters and fished a vial from another pouch. “We were just about to settle for tea when we came across your cage and figured you could use a spot of it yourself.”

Confused and wracked with hurt as he was, the battered pony in the dirt still managed a glimmer of a smile.

“Now then.” Keen spoke curtly as he coaxed the small container to the stallion’s lips within his magic’s golden aura, “This will keep any of those nasty little scratches from breaking loose and stoke your furnace a bit Lad, but it’s going to burn like Celestia’s fiery sun.”

The battered stallion nodded and braced himself before sipping the concoction down in one dreadful swallow. Teeth clenched, he grimaced and fought the urge to cry out in agony as the immolation burned through his veins. Wounds still lightly dripping away into the dank earth closed and scabbed loosely over while the rest of the potion rushed into his heart, snapping him awake in a torrent of energy. Cutpurse dove for his maw to capture a scream in her hoof when he involuntarily bucked with one of his shattered legs and nearly passed out again from the pain despite the secure braces now in place.

The operators both supported his frame and held him still until the potion had run its course. When he settled, they relaxed their holds and Keen brought Stonewall’s face level to his for a look with proud eyes.

“There’s no doubt anymore, Old Sport. You are definitely a Captain of her Majesties’ Royal Guard.”

Through tear streaked eyes and a quivering lip, Stonewall took the compliment and locked it deep into his resolve. He didn’t know who the strangely equipped ponies were, but they were warriors and loyal Equestrians in his eyes. That was good enough for him.

“Let’s… go home.” Stonewall nodded back at the fellow unicorn and allowed himself to be hoisted onto his neoprene-covered back.

Keen Edge spent a moment adjusting his hold until it was perfect, and inadvertently knocked the flap loose from the hilt of his jeweled sabre. Cutpurse smirked as she trotted up and flicked it back into place.

“You really need to have Smithy blacken that thing. You can see it from the moon.”

“I’d sooner steal Celestia’s crown from her brow for a diamond dog.” He grunted as he finally got comfortable.

“That actually sounds kinda fun.” The talented former thief jested as she imagined the challenge of such a heist. “Perhaps a series of mirrors and a darkness spell, or a distracting flock of phoenix! Or a rampaging…”

She brought her runaway pondering to a close as Keen nodded his ready and she stepped back into the clearing and into her role as Commander. Her stalwart heavy gunner and demolitions experts had both been silently safeguarding the trio behind ready pistols and eagerly awaited the command to move once more. When it was given, they were instantly away, rolling down the opposite alley of their infiltration to scout a path towards the sanctity of the forest south of town.

“We have the package, Moving to primary extract point.” Cutpurse whispered across the net.

“Copy L.T.” Corporal Patch Up replied from their hilltop resting between the two points. “Be advised, you have two rovers on your six and nine o’clock alleyways on course for your downed tangos. We have no shot.”

The news of patrols wasn’t unexpected, but Cutpurse cursed the luck all the same as she tapped Shockwave on her flank and explained a dual ambush in hoof signals. The stallion trio kept on their stealthy march towards the southern edge of the village as the two mares split off to deal with the new problem. The stocky explosives guru found a dandy pile of barrels to slip into and ready her suppressed sidearm while her commander had all but disappeared beyond the shadows after the other one.

The first dragonkin, an older magi, strolled casually into the small prison clearing and had only just spotted the remains of his brethren when Shockwave opened fire. Round after silent, subsonic round zipped into his unarmored robes until he was satisfactorily plummeting towards the dusty street before she dared move from her concealed position. She stood a bit too rapidly, however, and found herself aiming at a neutralized threat while a still very real one dashed into view from the other alley way.

Grinning like a puma preparing to pounce upon an unwary deer, the young warrior tightened his grip on his spear and prepared to hurl it at the wide-eyed rookie as she fought her surprised nerves to bring her pistol into the fight. His javelin would be loose long before she could have her strange weapon bared and he would eat well tonight. A perfect kill.

Or so he thought.

In the span of a lighting flash, he found his hand could no longer feel the rough shaft of the spear though the fiery pain of a deep cut along his wrist. He followed his spear on its fall to the earth soon afterwards when he discovered his knees had been harshly bucked out from under him by what could only be Death itself for its swiftness. The agile pony was upon him before he could blink. A hoof caught him by the horn, and another by his shoulder and his vision was snapped to the sky as she wrenched his head back to clear a path the tender scales over his throat. The last visions of his brief life were of the gem encrusted heavens twinkling over a neoprene coif as Cutpurse’s signature diamond-edged dagger plunged into his jugular.

Struggle though he may, the dagger held fast by the teeth of his assailant would not err in its mission to deprive him of consciousness. There was an intimacy that came with such an assault that was so opposite that of a ranged attack or even a face to face melee. It had been extremely hard to cope with the first few times she had done it years ago. Held in a tight embrace, she could feel his lungs fighting for air while his panicked heart beat franticly against her chest. Clawed hands futilely scratched and griped at her limbs with waning strength as doom settled into his mind. As the last of his lifespark faded away and his body fell limp in her arms, she allowed herself to relax and pull the elegant blackened blade from the fatal wound.

Cutpurse did not hate the young draconian now lying on the cool earth at her hooves. Neigh, she in fact held the poor fellow in high regard for fighting until his very final breath against her as an honored warfighter. However, he was a threat to the safety of the team and the mission and the choice was an easy one to the seasoned Eclipse operator.

“Thanks L.T.” Shockwave breathed finally in a sigh of relief while watching her commander clean and sheath her most trusted companion back in its nylon home across her breast. “I…I thought he had me.”

“You were tunnel-visioning again.” Cutpurse observed as she took up her sublance once more, taking a moment to perform an administrative reload. The long, slender, partially depleted magazine was swapped with a fresh one by deft teeth and put to rest in a spare pouch. A few spare jeweled treats saved for later to slay more bodies should they arise.

“Sorry, Ma’am.” The demolitions expert drooped a bit while taking her lead and reloading her own sidearm.

“It’s ok, Corporal.” Cutpurse whispered as she set her poise and stalked past her down the path that the stallions had taken.

“Just work on keeping that awareness sharp.”

“Aye, Bossmare.”

With the All-Clear from the overwatch detail, the mares wasted no time slinking silently along to regroup with the males. The gap was quickly closed by the much less burdened pair and the assault team found itself back to full strength just shy of the last hut on the southern edge of the village. Nods were exchanged before the team stacked up on the final wall behind the Lt. Commander in preparation to cross the clearing into the tree line beyond. Starting from the heavy gunner at the rear, each pony reached a support hoof up to squeeze the shoulder of the one before them until the readiness signal reached Cutpurse.

“Clear to the trees.” Patch Up called to their collective ears.

“Stay on my flank, Keen.” The team leader whispered before she briskly trod across the barren zone with the master sergeant and cargo in hot pursuit just behind.

The rest of the team slipped across the moon-drenched clearing a moment later. Shockwave trot quietly at a bit slower pace as to not leave the bulky stallion at the rear too exposed. She was nearly to the treeline when Steel noticed something flicker at the edge of his vision.

It was then that the night took a turn for the worse.

“Shock, FIREBALL!” The gruff stallion's voice shattered the serenity of the night as surely as the arcane explosive that screamed into their midst. Thinking quickly, Steel Rain willed his natural magics into motion and snagged the mare’s vest by its drag handle at the base of her neck. With no time to spare, the green aura yanked her off of her hooves backwards and into his forelegs before they both threw themselves at the deck.

The hot orange blast lit up the night in a deafening roar, snarling and licking at the protective suits of the equine warriors grimacing against the showering dirt and ash. Before the last of the flames had even began to dissipate, the clever magi that had launched the assault from behind the cover of a tanning rack moved to cast another at the immobile pair.

“Contact Left!”

The clear alert from Keen Edge’s crisp tongue was the last words the reptile ever heard.

Muffled plinks of the Commander’s sublance beside him were lost in the sounds of the brewing storm beyond their sight in the village. The shrill drone and holler of a symphony of war horns rose to a crescendo among the shrieks of a dragonkin war-band in sight of fresh battle to be joined. The noise spurred the two remaining ponies from their huddle in the charred earth as though bull whips chased their every step.

“Multiple tangos inbound your pos, Mako. Hard contact in 30 seconds.” Patch’s voice was clear and calm, tempered by training. However, there was an electricity of rising adrenalin at its core as she prepared to truly go to work.

“Solid Copy, Raptor.” Cutpurse acknowledged as the rest of her team crashed through the brush and joined their circle. She kept her hoof on the communication gem as she addressed the entire assault group. “Alpha Six is going loud. Raptor, you are clear to engage at will.”

The team calmly and swiftly holstered their sidearms to ready their primary lances as the hoard’s rumble drew closer. The crackle of heavy supersonic darts had already begun to punctuate the advance from Skylancer’s skilled hooves when they were ready to move once more. Keen, primary boltlance hovering across his breast in his golden aura and precious cargo on his back, was the first to break for the sniper’s position along their exfiltration route at Cutpurse’s order. She clapped shockwave’s arm a moment later and she followed right on his heels, her slightly heavier-equipped carbine ready in her shoulder and hooves as she strode on-end.

“Steel, give me base of fire from the main road on the right all the way over.” The commander directed him with a poignant hoof over his shoulder he readied his massive support system. As the shots from on-high carefully rained in on the closing shadows and roar of armored talons and steel, Cutpurse took a deep breath and opened the pouch of one of her mana detonators.

At her right, the titan unicorn lugged the long, cumbersome device from his back to rest on a tall stump that was long ago cut short by a mischievous lightning bolt. With his emerald telepathy, he pulled a long, merrily jingling steel belt lined with devastatingly long, sharp and heavy solid tungsten sabots from his bulky pack. Strong teeth unlocked and threw wide the top cover to reveal a polished and hungry feed ramp. The line of ecstatic ammunition chattered with metallic anticipation as they were draped into place and the lid slammed shut over them. The last step as the first enemies charged into view was to hook his powerful hoof over the charging handle and rip it back before locking it forward and digging his shoulder into the elegant wooden buttstock. Calm determination painted his grimace as his hoof heel hovered over the stiff trigger and waited for the order.

The steel-brandishing warriors and magi with spell ingredients at the ready that rushed into the clearing around the smoldering circle of the recent fireblast expected to find a pile of pony-shaped cinders in golden armor or at the very least a beast of the Everfree. Instead they found yet another of their comrades’ bodies silenced by mysterious wounds and a trail of horseshoe prints leading into the trees.

They could not fathom the depth of destruction their imminent counter-assault held for them just behind the first row of foliage as they charged.

The village had good reason to believe the enemy was nearby. However, the entire lake basin knew that battle had been joined when Cutpurse’s order annihilated the peace of the night. Like the ear shattering billow of a dragon’s fiery roar, the heavy machine unleashed a torrent of withering wrath beyond a massive tongue of blue-white fire. The concussion of the huge mana-crystal driven weapon shook the very earth below their hooves and lashed a terrorizing swath across the ranks of their attackers.

The first wave was cut down without mercy by the long, skilled, and well controlled bursts of fire form the pair before the remainder of them sought cover to retaliate with bows and magic. Though their cover stopped the slow, heavy copper bullets fired by Lt. Commander Cutpurse's compact sublance, it was ruthlessly torn asunder by the powerful automatic cannon at her side.

This did not stop a few courageous archers and magi that were shivering in a hole from finding their nerve and screwing it tight to their hearts. Soon, the easily spotted report of the heavylance became the focal point of a slew of clumsily placed lightning bolts and wickedly tipped steel arrows.

“Go on my deto!” Cutpurse shouted over his fire as she fished one of the small brass spheres from its pouch and harshly peeled off the tape that protected the pin beneath with her teeth. Satisfied she had a target, she readied her throw and took a breath. “Deto out!!” She called out before she ripped the pin away and immediately hurled it downrange.

She was rewarded for her throw by an arrow that streaked in to bite at her shoulder as it glanced past. In return, the warrior and his companion hiding behind an overturned wagon were allowed to witness their demise slowly bounce down next to them in the form of a curious ticking brass orb. The arcane timer inside the orb decayed to termination swiftly and with its last breath ignited the delayed fireball spell trapped within the purposely cut and fragmentable metal shell.

Judging from the tiny splinters that were once a solid oak wagon, Cutpurse was sure they were not going to have the chance to shoot at her again. She continued raining fire in carefully aimed rapid single shots as her support gunner enveloped the carry handle and hoofgrip of his massive platform in green energy and displaced after the others. Though her shots were placed with lethal precision, it didn’t take long for her enemies to overcome their fears and realize that the hellish cannon had moved off. Such was the down side to well-suppressed weapons.

A lightning bolt snarled past too close for comfort, scorching the neoprene over her back all the way down to her mocha hued coat below. The castor was put down promptly after she moved to the side and regained her fire with the last rounds in her magazine. Still without word of her partner’s ready, she chose to forgo reloading the empty primary and instead transitioned with flawless haste to her pistol to keep the suppressing fire flowing.

“Set!” Came Steel’s gruff voice an instant before the deafening thrum of his system re-engaged.

“Moving!”

“Move!”

Cutpurse holstered the partially depleted sidearm and broke into a gallop towards the unicorn, who was laying prone on a rock outcropping with his heavy lance supported on its bipod accessory. She could see the other two of her assault team making slow progress across the meadow towards another outcropping ahead of them as she arrived adjacent to the gunner. She wasted no time hopping back on her hind legs to work her weapon. The empty magazine was flung from the mag well like a rotten apple found in a cider batch to be replaced by a fresh source an instant later. It chittered to the ground, adding a bit more character to its healthy collection of scrapes and scars as it came to rest. The impact activated a simple enchantment that verified it was empty before it dissipated into smoke to make its way lazily back home.

“Set!” The team leader called out as she sent the weapon’s bolt home and brought it back into the fight.

“Moving!” Steel hollered over his short, deafening bursts.

“Move!”

He was up on his hooves and galloping in an instant. While he held concentration on manipulating the weapons grip and carry handle to keep it close to his chest, he fished a fresh belt of ammunition from his pack with a third green arcane aura. He draped the new chain across his back to expedite the complicated reload he knew was coming soon. He was nearly caught up with the trio on point when they dove for cover behind the rocks they had just passed to avoid a volley of arcane missiles that cut across from the tree line to their right.

“Contact Right!” Keen hollered as he set his carbine to work. With the collapsible stock tucked tight to his shoulder, he focused his mana-handling on the specialized front grip attached to the bottom rail in order to keep three hooves on the deck to support his precious cargo. A bipedal silhouette found itself behind the enchanted purple dot and ring superimposed on the unmagnified lens of his reflex optic and he deftly flicked his hoof heel into the trigger as many times as it took to drop the target.

His loud shots were joined only a second later by Shockwave's own unsuppressed lance and a troublesome report. “Contact left!”

Cutpurse skillfully slowed the main advance, but the moment she heard Steel Rain’s massive weapon ignite she was off like a shot towards the outcropping. Their position was a blossom of fiery rage with the three blue-white unsuppressed muzzle flashes striking into the dim night air in every direction. The petite pony slid into the group and quickly assessed the situation.

She had feared from the onset that this might come to pass. The dragonkin had expected a rescue assault, and they didn’t intend on letting them leave alive. From nearly every direction, the enemy had been lying in wait to stomp out an attempt to retrieve the imprisoned guard. It was, however, a fear that she could conquer and cast aside with discipline and experience. Their foes were prepared to stop the Canterlot Royal Guard and all the relative might they could bring to such a fight.

They had never heard of Eclipse.

“Grace, this is Alpha Six!” Cutpurse called into the communications network over the roar of her team’s fire. “Assault team is cut off along primary extract route! Requesting immediate close-air support!”

“Copy traffic, Alpha.” Came the calm voice of the airship’s comms officer. With just three simple words a moment later, her entire team was put at ease to deal with the fight at hand.

“Scrambling Hurricane Flight.”

<==========})===0 ~~*~~~*~~~~*~~~*~~ 0===({=========>

1.3 "Black Dawn"

CHAPTER 1.3

"Black Dawn"

The cackling thunder of lancefire tumbled and rolled through the forest and diminished with each new obstacle it collided with. Over countless dales and peaks it echoed until it was nothing more than a whisper in the breeze. Miles from the embattled lakeshore the distant rumble rolled past a group of thick storm clouds making their way along a lonely mountainside.

In the winding river that cut a lazy swath through the thick woods below, a solitary lavender sea serpent paused in his dutiful nightly grooming to consider the cumulus mass. He stroked his perfectly trimmed blonde mustache with growing disappointment at the thought of a rainstorm cutting into the brilliant moonlit night. A dejected sigh found its way past his lips as he ran his freshly manicured claws though his luscious mane and settled back into the water, stopping just short of submerging his new necklace. A gentle claw twirled though the shining purple curls of the pony tail, so graciously given to him those score and more months ago, that now dangled on a golden chain over his fine scales as he watched the storm parade by. However, something odd caught his notice after watching for a few moments that began to puzzle him.

The largest of the clouds in the formation was drifting against the winds.

***

“Gah! I fold.” A quintette of playing cards showered down into the pile of bits littering the center of the table from the frustrated hooves of a truly massive pegasus. Even in the dim light of the launch bay, Lieutenant Typhoon’s shining silvery coat and lightning-blue mane glimmered where it wasn’t covered in the drab grey of his flight suit. He huffed at the other three players as he stretched his grand wings and a symphony of huge, perfectly honed muscles rippled about his frame to control their every motion. When he brought them to rest, he shifted in his chair to adjust the light nylon harness that they all wore on alert, which housed their side-arms and various emergency kits that might be needed should they be brought down. He looked with hopeful aqua eyes at the identical sea-green pair across from him focusing intensely on their cards.

A mirror image of his twin brother in every way except the bizarre reversal of their coat and mane hues, Lt. Storm Surge was a similarly mammoth sample of pegasi lineage. A powerful arm broke from the hoof of cards just long enough to bring a wooden cider mug to his lips before he returned to his disciplined focus. A glance shot to either side yielded him no assistance as the other two players glared at each other and tossed another handful of bits onto the mountain. He had a good hoof, but not good enough for another ten bits. “Sorry bro, I’m out too.”

The two leviathan ponies sat back in their stools to enjoy the rest of their drinks and watch the silent battle rage on between their two other squadron mates and mourn the lost bits on the table. The tension between the pair was positively palpable as they struggled to read their opponent’s body language each time they raised the pot.

Ponyfeathers! He must have a royal flush or something. This is ridiculous! Captain White Squall, the flight’s leader, thought to herself as she seriously debated folding her cards. She peered at the delicious straight arrayed over her dainty little cream-yellow hooves and back at her final opponent several times, unable to take even a whisper from his expression. After a long spar of stares, she finally ran a hoof through her short, messy, navy mane in defeat and tossed her cards into the pile before the statue across from her. “You win little brother.”

His ridged yellow beak finally broke in to a grin, the first physical change in his face since the hand was dealt. It wasn’t entirely their fault, after all... It was difficult for anypony to read the face of a gryphon that didn’t want it read.

“You say that like it’s a surprise, Squall.” Lt. Gauvain mused back to his adoptive older sister as he ruffled his spotted white and tawny feathers in a chuckle and mixed his winning hand into the pile before they could catch a glimpse. Three hundred bits wasn’t bad at all for a pair of fives.

“Remind me again. “Typhoon grunted as he finished off his mug. “Why do we play this game with you?”

“Because we know he’ll buy us all a round or three of real cider after our shift.” Storm Surge answered for the gryphon with a friendly hoof nudge. “Isn’t that right, Lil’ Brother?”

“If you’re lucky.” Gauvain replied wearing his trademark suave grin and quirked eyebrow. Long ago, he had resented the nickname that had caught on like wildfire amongst the House, but he hadn’t taken long to realize it was a term of highest endearment by his very large adopted family.

“That’ll be nice. You can buy the rest of the flight-deck crews’ drinks with my money as well.” The petite White Squall laughed as she watched her fellow Xiphos airframe pilot greedily stack and count his small mountain of gold coins like a dime-book villain.

A few of the more alert support ponies milling about the hold overheard the claim and beamed their silent anticipation... Captain Squall rarely jested when generosity was the order. There could be no cheering, as would normally have occurred, however. The cunningly disguised dreadnought carrier was at Combat Operation: Dark, and general quarters had been issued the moment Celestia had approved the mission. The entire flight operations crew had been called to their stations in the bow of the airship, along with the four pilots gathered around the makeshift poker table, in preparation to assist the elite Six-team on the ground at a moment’s notice. Only the soft drone of the auxiliary mana-thrust props astern and quiet conversation could be heard throughout the length of ship, interrupted only occasionally by the chug of a cloud generator touching up their blanket of camouflage.

It was a disciplined serenity spiced flawlessly with anxious readiness until the hammer of duty demolished the calm, provoking a jeweled-clockwork symphony of ponies into action.

“Hurricaine zero-one through zero-four, Scramble!” The clear echo of the Flight Operations Director boomed through the overhead speakers as an array of red lights replaced the soft white glow from a moment prior.

“You heard him, boys. Let’s rock and roll!” Captain Squall called out as she leapt from the table and grinned to her pilots.

The titanic brothers were already bolting towards the bow as she exchanged a nod with Gauvain and darted to her preparation platform on the starboard side of the bay. The victorious gryphon paused to scoop his winnings into a hat loitering on a nearby work table before he thrust himself back on his wings toward his own launch bay to port.

Awaiting the gryphon were a pair of crewmates, ready and poised on either side of the struts suspending his compact Xiphos frame. He wasted no time slipping into the modified lunar royal guard plate barding, taking just a moment to adjust his under-harness to comfort with a curt grunt. The pink mare to his right exchanged a nod with him when he was settled and handed over his flight helmet and mask while the other stallion diligently checked all of his straps and buckles.

The helmet, a lightweight composite contraption, did not really offer much protection from weaponry or spells. However, it had a very important purpose nonetheless as he slipped it over his ears and all the noises of the world were filtered away into a dull mumble. Much like the mask that he clipped into place a moment later and hooked into an air duct on his peytral; it was more meant to help him communicate clearly over the howl of wind and the roar of the twin heavylances mounted to his sides, below his broad wings.

“Hurricane zero-three, Comms check.” Lt. Gauvain spoke into the mask to the bubblegum mare.

“Go flight.” She replied as she prompted him to the next phase on the short pre-flight checklist. “Lance one?”

“Green.” He replied as he ripped back the charging handles of both of them at once. “Lance two is green.”

“Hud?” She inquired as the bay doors before him were slid aside by a pair of stallions on gear cranks, flooding the bay in frigid night air moistened by the cloud generators.

Gauvain twisted a dial on the small device resting on the struts housing the triggers for the cannons. On the tiny crystal panel resting below a glass wind screen; a reticle, not unlike the ones found on the reflex optics of a boltlance, materialized to display the aiming point of his arsenal. His final check before launch was complete.

“Hud is Green, Ready to go.” He verified as he tapped his right cannon’s barrel twice and saluted the mare.

Without another word, he was shot out into the night sky to wait on the true bearers of the squadron’s power.

***

“Hurricane zero-one, Comms check.” Typhoon spoke into his mask as he activated the much more complex array of controls and gauges on the nose-cone console of his larger Spatha frame. The crew was a blur around him as they attached the various sections to his grizzly carriage. All while he rattled off the pre-flight check as quickly as his honed skills and smooth voice could possibly muster.

“Comms loud and clear.” His crew chief, a yellow earth pony, answered back. “Stabilizers?”

“Check.”

“O.E’s.?”

“Green!” Ty answered as he checked the flex and snugness of the Over-Wing Extensions. The mithril-skeletonized, indigo canvas sheaths fit snugly over his already massive wingspan, doubling their surface area to help hold the bulky equipment aloft.

“Console instruments?”

“Check!”

“Starboard lance bank?”

“Primed, three green!” Typhoon answered as he harshly cranked on the small, cable operated charging lever.

“Port lance bank?”

“Primed, three for three!”

“Manticore status?”

“Green, safe and stable.”

“Ammunition?”

“Showing one-hundred percent!”

“Hud?”

“Online.”

“Zero-one is clear for launch!” the crew chief called back to the director in his control booth. He then turned back to the bulky pegasus crammed into the complicated air frame and clapped his hoof over his helmet. “Floor in four and out the door!”

Typhoon grinned at the little flight crew ditty under his mask as he tapped the nose cone twice and gave a salute. Then, with practiced haste, he hooked his hooves back around their control levers inside the nose fairing and tucked his hind hooves into their fin-stirrups, preparing himself for a sensation unknown to pegasi outside of the Wonderbolts and other daredevils of the clouds.

The massive doors before him began to part as the platform he had been standing on was lowered away, leaving him dangling from the catapult chock hooked into the frame. Above him, a massive steel rail that guided the steam-powered launcher extended out and pierced into the faux clouds past the bow, like a solemn bridge between worlds.

“My crew wins again, Storm!” the twin laughed into his mask as he noticed his brother’s doors only just now sliding free. They raced around his brother’s frame, but Typhoon’s victory was secured as he watched his chief crouch down on his haunches and signal the booth to launch. With teeth clenched and breath carefully controlled, he tucked his modified wings to his sides while he jammed his helmet back against the aerodynamic magazine pod on his back… one wouldn’t want to be launched out of an airship while knocked unconscious, after all.

At the signal of the crew chief, the chock rocketed forward on the ramp. Typhoon’s lungs fought to keep from bursting as the frame’s harness dug into his body. His toned muscles and hardened sinew strained near to their breaking point to keep his limbs in check as the inertia from such a radical acceleration wracked him to his very bones. It was only a pair of seconds before a jolt of the frame told him he was loose and he wasted no time wrenching his wings open to catch the cloudy air.

“Hurricane zero-one clear and locked, rolling to one-nine-four.” He announced as he erupted from the cloud bank. Trailing wisps of mist chased behind his body and wing tips as though determined to follow him into battle. The fresh moonlight shimmered ever so softly on the satin indigo finish of the mithril fuselage as he made his wide arc though the matching night’s sky. Corresponding with the gyro compass that dominated the center of his console, he brought himself along the path to rendezvous with his squadron circling the disguised carrier in their lighter frames.

“Hurricane zero-two clear and locked, coming up on your four-o’clock low, Ty.” Storm Surge reported a moment later as he blasted forth from the cloud bank and spread his matching dark purple-sheathed cloth wings. “And I had an issue with my Manticore status light, jerk.”

“Then I still won.” Typhoon replied on the flight’s private channel as his brother closed the gap into formation. “They should ‘a caught that before you ever suited up.”

Storm was going to reply, but was sharply cut off by Captain Squall, “Coming up on your seven low, boys. And, I agree with Typhoon. You need to file a report when we get back. If something had happened to detonate that Manticore, the Grace would be a raining fireball of splinters right now.”

“Yes ma’am.” Storm answered in defeat.

“Now that that’s all settled, shall we go to work, boys?”

The quartet of heavily armed fliers closed in together to form a tight, staggered diamond before banking west towards their objective. They could see the moon’s reflection in the lake from their cruising altitude, and the beginnings of smoke columns and flashes of orange fire from the enraged battle on the eastern shore still miles away.

“Hurricane Lead to Alpha Six, Inbound to your pos. E.T.A. two mikes. Activate runemarkers and update sitrep.” White Squall commanded into an open channel.

Only a moment slipped by before their goggles, enchanted with a simple filter, registered six small green circles in the distant chaos. Four were grouped tightly a few hundred meters north of the other two, separated by a dense tree line exactly as they had reported before.

“Alpha Lead to Hurricane, runemarkers active! Confirm six I-D’s?” Cutpurse’s shouting reply was clear as Celestial daylight, despite the loud reports of her team’s weapons in the background.

“Hurricane confirms.”

“I need a heavy lance run on the tree line between my assault team and my marksmares! Attack direction two-five-zero!” There was a pause that the pilots knew to be her neutralizing a threat before she continued. “Be advised, enemy has aerial assets and arcane capabilities! Recommend nap-of-earth approach!”

“Sounds like the little lady needs herself a natural disaster.” Storm chuckled into his mask as he shared an almost gleeful nod with his twin brother to port.

“I would hate to leave her wanting.” Typhoon shot back.

“Solid copy, Alpha. Rolling in hot.” Squall replied to Cutpurse before nodding her amused agreement with her Spatha pilots. “I couldn’t agree more. Ty, take the first run. Storm and I will drop back for the follow up.”

“Aye ma’am.” Typhoon replied as he flexed his powerful muscles to pull ahead of the formation. “You ready to go, Lil’ Brother?”

“Right on your six high, Ty.” The gryphon replied.

“Sixty seconds out. Drop to nap-of-earth.” Squall commanded and the unit, now spread wide into pairs, smoothly dove down to skim the canopy close enough to groom the trees of their loose boughs if they so wished.

The small green markers, visible despite the terrain blocking their actual view, paved a perfect target path like the goal posts in a game of sky polo. Lieutenant Typhoon noted his distance to target and spent a moment to calm his nerves while his tense muscles masterfully fought to steer the heavy mithril frame over each hill and valley. He took note of the array of analog gauges on his console with trained awareness and checked off each system in his mind. Satisfied that they all showed full and normal, he reached up and flicked a large, covered switch in the center. At once, his gauges dimmed and the softly glowing purple reticle in his hud phased to red.

“Zero-one is master-arm on. Ten seconds to objective.” With a determined grimace and a grunt, he flapped his broadened wingspan hard to rise up to the minimum altitude to begin his strafe. With his wingmate hard on his wind-whipped tail, he arched over the final hilltop to spy the broad line of trees that was his future swath of devastation. Even at his blistering pace, he could make out dozens of projectiles and spells cascading from the forest onto the jade markers hiding in the rocks, beneath the broad amber manashield being maintained by their master sergeant. He drifted over the apex of his short climb, and smoothly lowered the nose of his frame toward the nearest edge of the strip of brush while his hooves prepared to violently pitch the tide of the battle back into their favor.

“Lance, lance, lance!” Typhoon announced calmly as his hoof heals flexed into the heavy triggers his control bars.

Alpha’s lance fire, the draconian fireballs and war cries, even the very melody of the earth at large, was muted as the Spatha’s compliment of heavylances roared to life.

The six weapons, each pod of three interlinked to fire as its partners cycled, produced an ear-shattering groan of unbroken fury as they bathed the line of forest in merciless annihilation. Nearly every inch of the swath was saturated by either the ruthless tungsten bolts, the molten debris from their impacts with the earth and rock, or the splinters of full grown trees blown to nightmarish, fiery bits as they fell.

The burst only lasted a couple of seconds, but it was enough to shatter the world of the enemy forces blocking the assault team as the pair screamed past. The few survivors had only a moment to contemplate what had happened before Storm dove into his attack run and poured a second helping of destruction into the mix. Where once a lush, thick growth of foliage stood; there was but ash, flame, and rubble that remained.

“Good hits, Hurricane!” came Cutpurse's praise across the network as the shield fell and the green markers began their rolling retreat once more towards their recon team to the south.

“Copy Alpha. I- WOAH!” Typhoon exclaimed as a lightning bolt streaked past his starboard wing, singeing the mithril plating across its leading edge. He banked hard to dodge a second volley of arrows that struck skyward immediately after. “Anti-air confirmed. Zero-one engaging ground forces north of friendlies.”

As Typhoon swooped around to bring himself in line with the mass of troops crossing the meadow below, a winged magi took careful flight to gain a clear line of sight on the devastating new threat. He remained low in the tree canopy to await the pair of Equestrians he saw banking around the water to fly at him. His excitement welled at the almost-perfect opportunity of the pair screaming down directly towards an easily cast and aimed fireball as he ascended for his attack.

Almost perfect.

The gryphon that trailed just behind his burly partner, however, was vigilant in his sole duty of protecting him. He spotted the magi just as the creature thrust up into the sky ahead of them to begin casting his spell. “Ty! Roll left!”

“Copy!” His trust in Lt. Gauvain was absolute and he immediately torqued his body into a sharp spin, clearing the way for the Xiphos’ twin lances behind him.

The magi had just begun forming the flame in his scaled claws when an unexpected and overwhelming pain washed over his body. All at once, to the loud tune of azure flame tongues, his right wing was torn asunder accompanied by several other impacts. His confusion was all-encompassing as he plummeted to his demise, a hundred and more meters below, at the unexplainable power that had defeated him.

The scythe of Typhoon’s frame harvested another column of souls under the roar of apocalyptic horror before White Squall announced a puzzling observation. “Alpha, be advised. There is another force moving in from the east, as well as a detachment moving away from the village towards the northwest on mounts.”

There was a moment’s pause as the leader of the strike team on the ground considered her options before she spoke. “Raptor! Equip designators and vector targets for Hurricane! Prioritize on the assault team’s pursuers!”

There was a long silence before Patch Up’s voice answered the command over the net in a calm murmur, “Hold one, L.T. Raptor has a possible shot on the primary tango leaving with the group heading away from the village.”

There was another brief pause before Cutpurse answered curtly, “Take it.”

***

Far from the fighting, Fek ‘Tawny lead a contingent of axolotl-riders up a switchback trail to the summit of the small, but treacherously steep mountain before them. The large salamander beast beneath him grunted as it rounded another of the tight hairpins on its stocky, yet powerful limbs. The versatile amphibious creatures, native to Frogy Bottom Bog, made quick, obedient work of the trail to rush their draconian riders away from the danger behind, and toward darker endeavors ahead.

The interrogation had proven fruitful, though he had not at all anticipated the severity, and swiftness of the unknown attackers that had hastened their departure. Even now, he held some reserve in his confidence at the unusual capabilities of his new foes, which were tempered further as he rounded the next bend. His mount had just leveled off from its turn to race up the next incline when his keen old ears heard a sharp buzzing drone, rapidly growing in intensity from back towards the village.

The sensation was like nothing he ever felt before. An electrifying tingle washed across his nose as the unseen force screamed past to slam into the rock cliff at his right side. A shower of stone and dust nearly blasted him from his saddle as his axolotl screeched and reared away from the impact, halting the convoy.

From just over a kilometer away, Staff Sergeant Skylancer cursed under her breath at the near miss in her optic. “Horseapples.”

“A half-meter left.” Patch confirmed as she gazed though her binoculars.

“Two ‘till purge.” Sky recounted her weapon’s mana-overcharge status as she fought to keep her calm behind the glass. The range was stretching her accurate lance’s effectiveness towards its limits and her mind to similar extremes, but she knew she could make the hit. She had to make the hit.

“Slow and smooth, Skylee,” Patch encouraged as she laid a gentle hoof on the shooter’s shoulder, “You’ve got this.”

The staff sergeant’s racing mind cooled, like water to the parched lips of a desert wanderer at the calming cascade of words and touch of her spotter. A soft smile found her lips as she ran through the trajectory adjustments in her clearing mind, using Patch Up's support as an anchor against the chaotic storm of combat. The medic had that effect on everypony since her acceptance to Alpha, but Skylancer’s pride would never allow her to admit just how much she had come to rely on her presence during stressful moments like these.

Once more, Sky began to close off the doors of her mind to the outside world, though with great care this time to leave them cracked ajar just enough to warn her of the dangers of the battles abound. Slowly, the approaching lance fire of the assault team dulled to an echo, along with the blasts of their enemies’ spells and wailing shouts. The target in her field of view was tiny at this range, barely larger than the numbers that floated beside the mil-hashes they quantified on her softly glowing violet reticle. The shot was a challenge, but not an impossibility, for one who’s marked calling was the very art she was now performing. The Arch Magi was stationary, his mount recovering from the shock of the impact blast from before. The wind was settling. Her calculations were perfect. She was about to send him his own personal dose of tungsten doom when one of her mind’s doors shifted on its own, forcing her to remember the most basic rule of warfare.

No plan survives contact with the enemy.

There was a very unnatural rustling of steel and leather far too close for comfort behind them. She ripped her eyes from her optic and glanced backwards just in time to see a very sneaky dragonkin at their flanks, his massive axe poised to end her spotter’s life in one brutal stoke.

“Patchy, LOOK OUT!” Sky shouted as she saw the axe begin to fall. With reflexes honed through years of field operations, the ivory pegasus exploded into motion, rolling onto Patch’s back just in time to bring her canvas-wrapped lance between them and the finely sharpened blade.

The steel axe clove through the suppressor’s brass mana return coil mounted under the weapon like a hot blade through snow, but was stopped cold by the vastly superior mithril accessory rail below. Sky grunted as her limbs and chest absorbed the bulk of the force. She fought to keep the broad blade at bay while her attacker curled his green scaled lips into a razor-toothed grin and pressed his weight down on her. He had the high ground and clearly the physical advantage.

However, she had a teammate.

“NOW!” Skylancer growled as she focused all of her strength into one mighty push, shoving her attacker’s balance askew just enough to clear the way for Patch Up’s tightly wound hind legs to erupt into motion. Her hooves struck squarely into the reptile’s chainmail laden chest in a bone-cracking buck that sent him staggering backwards in shock. That was more than enough time.

Sky brought her long weapon to bear from her awkward position lying across her partner’s back and fired her final two muffled shots the moment his chest was in line. A thick fount of sparkling, dimly glowing blue arcane smoke rushed from the wounded coil below the barrel. It splashed up from the ground like ocean surf against a cliff face, shrouding the ponies in a bank of swirling luminescent fog as the dragonkin’s three brothers-in-arms rushed in to finish the job.

They were met by a sight that betrayed their confident natures. A white tornado burst from the sparkling blue mist, wearing a terrible gleam in her grimacing eyes as the glistening mithil blade of her gladius spun into work. With ivory handle firmly gripped in her pastern, she wasted no time on pleasantries before smashing ungracefully into the closest adversary. An effective, if not entirely elegant grapple had the creature into the dirt before it could react and she plunged the deadly short sword into his ribs.

Satisfied that her thrust was fatal, Skylancer ripped the blade it from its work just in time to parry the incoming swing of the second attacker’s morning star. She redirected the heavy weapon’s momentum safely past her and allowed it to throw her opponent off balance. Hers was not a melee of deflecting moves, feints, and careful strikes, but instead a fierce, and accurate flurry of offense.

The draconian knew his own weapon could not hope to match the unarmored, lightly armed pony in speed. As he fought to recover his swing, Sky bucked him harshly in the stomach and spun on her hooves to tackle him from her flesh striking point. He was strong, but even the mightiest trees will fall when their roots are unearthed below them. He felt the underbrush crumble below his girth as they both crashed to earth before he was met with the cruel pain of a blade unceremoniously forced through his exposed armpit and into his chest.

Sky pinned the struggling creature to his end while the third warrior rushed toward her, only to realize too late why there was no worry painted on the oddly camouflaged pony’s face. A symphony of deafening reports erupted from her partner’s carbine as Patch Up escorted the lizard down to embrace the waiting ground below with his face. He slid, lifeless, up to Skylancer’s hooves as she stood up and recovered her composure with an equine huff.

“Thanks Patchy.” She breathed in a rough pant as she sheathed her ancient sword and rubbed her freshly elbowed jaw.

“Always.” The corporal replied as she brought their packs and Sky’s lance from the compromising arcane haze. Patch tossed the longer weapon to her shooter as she heard the rumblings of enemy reinforcements from the trees surrounding them, “Let’s get moving before they try for round two.”

They both shared a grin while Sky slung her rifle to her back and drew her pistol before keying her collar, “Window on primary tango closed, Raptor is engaged and moving to secondary rally point to vector air support.”

“Move your tail-feathers, you two!” Cutpurse echoed back.

They were both off at once, galloping towards a nearby clearing at the foot of a rock cliff face. They could hear the rustling of the undergrowth as the draconians charged towards the glowing beacon and the last loud blasts and chose to use their stealthy advantages to help them slip by. Once at the base, they each ruffled their ragged ghillie cloaks together enough to allow their wings to breath fresh air once more and shot up to the precipice. They could see the azure flashes of Steel Rain’s billowing heavylance in the forest to the north as the assault team moved toward them. They swiftly fished the designators from their packs. Sky met some resistance in removing the damaged flux conduit while her partner smoothly replaced her own spellshell launcher with practiced ease.

“Raptor two, marker online.” Patch spoke as she plugged the device into the accessory node on the weapon and powered it up. She pressed a measured hoof against the designator’s trigger switch and received a strong, invisible beam of infrared light as her reward.

“Hurricane Zero-two confirms.” Storm Surge answered back as he and Captain Squall circled high above the chaos and spotted the beam in their enchanted goggles. “Be advised, Hurricane is armed with two-count Manticores. We are clear to engage your primary tango on your order, Alpha.”

Cutpurse’s reply was almost instantaneous and partially drowned out by the impact of several fireballs around her current cover, “Negative Hurricane! Our primary objective is recovery of the package, and I need you here, clearing my exfil corridor!”

Patch took her team leader’s prompt and searched for a group of enemy from the lofty vantage point that most threatened the embattled Mako group, and aimed her beam directly into their unknowing midst. “Target, infantry. Commence lance run, attack direction zero-nine-zero.”

The heavy spatha pilot complied without delay, and a moment later another ear-shattering torrent of lancefire clove a new blazing wound in the forest floor.

“Raptor one, marker online!” Sky voiced in relief as she finally fixed her own device to her longlance and brought it into the fight.

“Sky, we have heavy resistance at our front! Send some bloody firepower our way if you could be so kind.” Keen’s dry humor flowed calmly, even over the chatter of lances and steel.

“Copy.” The marksmare calmly replied as she took note in her optic of the teams’ runemarkers and placed her beam just south of them. “Hurricane Zero-one, give me a long lance run. Infantry spread out amongst the undergrowth on both sides of my center-mark. Attack direction two-five-zero, danger close.”

“Copy your danger-close fire mission. Zero-one rolling in hot.” Typhoon’s reply was the assault team’s cue to hunker down behind their cover for the impending destruction. In a broad dive from the east, the vehicles’ lance banks unleashed a long, droning roar that saturated a massive stretch of the forest below. Like surgeon with a scalpel, the burly pilot’s incision across the flesh of the earth was placed precisely to cut away the infectious enemy without so much as nicking the precious artery that was the strike team.

“Good hits, Hurricane!” Keen Edge mused into the comms. “Though you could have gotten closer… There are still a handful of follicles you missed on my flank!”

“You’re welcome, Master Sergeant.” Ty’s gryphon wingmate answered back with a snicker as they shot back into the sky.

The cast of players, so versed in their improvisation, continued to press the deadly act forward towards their final scene. A grand menagerie of calculated demolition presented by performers that live and breathe their art, lead the embattled assault team though the brambles of Tartarus’s fury to finally reunite with their wayward pegasi guardians. Following the script of trained proficiency, they smoothly flowed back into the main group as they passed by.

“Hurricane, Raptor has rejoined the assault group. We need the rest of your available ammunition to clear L-Z at primary extraction point. Focus on the tree lines surrounding the clearing.” Cutpurse spoke as her marksmare and medic emerged from the trees and slipped into the rolling tee formation.

“Solid copy, Alpha lead. Enveloping coordinates.” Captain White Squall confirmed as the four pilots changed their focus to a meadow that lay ahead to the south and set about their noisy work.

“Sky, I need my hooves.” Patch Up demanded as she came up alongside the brutalized royal guard captain, uncomfortably perched on Keen’s broad back. She skillfully slipped her carbine’s sling from her neck and handed it off to her partner.

“Miss us?” Sky grinned to the master sergeant as she tucked her heavier longlance once again and took up the much more mobile weapon so Patch Up could perform her duties.

“Like a thrown shoe, my dear.” Keen Edge shot back with a toothy grin as he trotted as smoothly as he could for the doting medic and her patient. Their smirks, matching in their abrasive respects of one another, shown in tandem with their sharpened skills as the enemy continued to advance on their flanks from the shadows despite the careful cover fire.

“Alpha Lead, this is Poise, we are on final approach. E-T-A, thirty seconds.”

“Copy, Poise!” Cutpurse exclaimed as she put down another silhouette at their backs with her quiet weapon. “Alpha is moving to the L-Z from the north with multiple hostiles in close pursuit! This will be a hot extraction!”

“Understood, Alpha.” The communications officer answered even as the team could hear the faintest of echoes of the unusual airship over the fighting and the aerial devastation being sown ahead.

“Cover!” Sky announced instinctively to inform the rest of the team she was reloading. The spent magazine clattered into the dirt as she ripped a spare from one of Patch's exposed flank pouches and jammed it onto place. “Up!” The much less magnified, compact prism optic resting atop the medic's carbine functioned far better than her telescoped marksmare lance to pour carefully aimed shots onto their pursuers.

“Form on me!” Cutpurse shouted to them as they crashed through the now smoldering wreck that was the forests edge against the meadow beyond. She had to shout over Steel’s continuing suppression efforts as the five gathered around her to listen with cocked ears while they engaged any movement they saw emerging from the rear. A massive collection of war cries rolled across the meadow from the west announced that the approach of another wave of combatants was soon at-hoof. “Poise is going to hit hard! Sky and Steel, when they touch down, you need to haul flank under their cover and set up! Patch and Keen will move as soon as your set and we’ll button up! Clear?”

“Aye, Bossmare!” The entire team voiced in unison over their own controlled fire as the hum of the ship’s massive mana-rotors grew louder.

Across the meadow to their right, a swarm of dragonkin burst from the trees to tear across the field towards the now-stationary ponies. A few of their rank began to fall at the unseen will of the strange weapons of their foes, but they roared onwards. Until, however, their billowing war shouts were quickly outmatched by a sight and sound that few beings in Equestria had ever seen, and fewer still had lived to tell about.

From what seemed like nowhere, the ground began to tremble in humility before the presence of the Luna’s Poise. The small airship, painted from bow to stern in a likeness to her namesake, exploded from the canopy it had been skimming along to race over the clearing. Its dirigible balloon tucked safely away, the airship remained aloft by a quartet of massive turbine rotors, articulated with perfect symmetry to give the heavy craft unmatched maneuverability for its size. The sleek vessel, commanded by arguably the most hot-headed officer in the House, roared into a violent side-long slide though the air to slow its approach and, more importantly, to bring the dozen and more heavylance ports bristling along the edges of the craft to bear while it rotated in to land.

“Moving!” Sky shouted for both of them as the airship spun to bring its closed rear bay in line with them.

“Move!” Cutpurse shouted as the ear-shattering mob of automatic tungsten-spewing machines tore into the forest on every side.

In an instant, the sergeants were both off like a shot towards the ship as its keel came to a gentle rest on the violently blowing grass below. Balanced on the thrust of the turbines and a pair of retractable landing struts, the rear of the ship settled enough to allow its bay doors to slide open, allowing a compliment of ponies to pour out and bring their own carbines into the torrent of covering fire.

“Set!” Sky called into her necklace over the maelstrom of fire and noise as she slid to a stop and reared up to engage her weapon along with Steel Rain.

The attackers from the west could not have hoped to survive the onslaught in their exposed state, and those that did found themselves alone, wounded, and running away with the fear of oblivion nipping at their scaled heels. Focused communications, overwhelming firepower, and strict training all played a vital role in accomplishing a mission that would have crumbled to dust in less-capable hooves.

Skylancer allowed herself to grin as the contingent of ponies and their ship poured a relentless cascade of suppressing fire into the forest all around them. As Patch and Keen Edge started on their gallop to carry the package to the Poise, she knew they would soon be sailing the clouds at peace. Though she did not consciously lighten her focus on the job at hand, her mind did relax for a split second at the thought.

It would be a mistake that would plague her soul for the rest of her life.

A lone magi, huddled behind a bolder that broke the ebb of withering fire at the edge of the clearing near Alpha, had spent the time in relative safety to prepare a special spell. He cringed as he watched another of his kin charge past, only to be torn asunder by the forces wielded by the mysterious equines. Just a few incantations more and he had a sparkling, cracking ball of concentrated light dancing within his sheltered palm. Far more potent than a normal fireball, the spell would surely allow him to complete the sole task his master, Fek ‘Tawny, had appointed him… Kill the prisoner at all costs.

He took a few deep breaths, savoring the flavor despite its ashen taint from the fires all around, for he knew they would be his last. With one final push, he broke the anchor of fear in his heart and burst into motion. Around the boulder, he quickly spotted his prize. Galloping away from him and toward the strange flying boat was the prisoner on the back of a stout unicorn stallion and a pegasus mare alongside.

Skylancer had spotted him, but her grave lapse in concentration had slowed her reaction time just enough. He felt the ripping pains of the unseen projectiles into his flesh, but there was only joy on his sharpened smile as he watched his deadly spell sail free and true to his target.

“FIREBALL!!” Cutpurse screamed over the chaos at her exposed team.

The world slowed to a dire crawl for the inhabitants of the valley. Patch and Keen both looked back at the alarm to see the blue-white burning sphere loping towards them. There was no cover. There was no time. All that mattered was the mission.

Captain Stonewall was the mission.

In one motion, Keen Edge wrenched his armored head around to cover Stonewall’s front while Patch dove over them both and shielded the battered guard with her ghillie-cloaked body and an outstretched wing just as the energy ball slammed into the ground at their hooves.

The foundations of the Earth itself seemed to wince and shutter at the empowered blast. In a blinding flash, all the sounds of the battle were lost as the concussion knocked all of the operators nearby to the ground. Although the heavylances still fired from the Poise, the world was a dull, humming blur to them as they fought to recover their senses. Above the ringing haze, and the muffled sounds of the lances above, a single, panicked, desperate scream eventually cut through to everypony’s very core.

“Patch!”

Skylancer’s pupils were but trembling pinpricks in the tearing, wide eyes resting over a visage frozen by shock as she cried out to the smoking wreckage and fought to stand. She knew she had not been wounded, but she could swear that a jagged piece of shrapnel was lodged in her chest as her heart twisted in despair. For that brief moment, she was no longer an elite member of Eclipse’s most decorated and accomplished Six-Team; she was once again a helpless little filly being told by a complete stranger in a pair of hospital scrubs that her mother and father were gone forever.

“Patchy!?” She screamed again as she struggled against the shackles of her heart to gather her shaking legs beneath her. You can’t be dead! Please, Celestia! Patchy please… Her mind begged and pleaded to everypony and nopony to spare her from her past as she drew herself into a gallop towards the impact point, tears streaming from her eyes as she searched for her team mates.

The three ponies lay in the grass a few meters from where they were launched, motionless. Skylancer slid to a stop over them just as Cutpurse and Shockwave burst through the smoke column in a mad sprint towards the site. Her panic, however, remained in place as she hysterically examined the carnage. Keen Edge was wrecked. His face, neck and chest were horribly burned and his horn was broken off at its base where the blast had torn his helmet from his brow. Patch Up’s ghillie had absorbed much of the heat, but the parts that were left still smoldered around a blackened nub that was once a beautiful maroon wing. The only one to stir was the already-bedraggled royal guard, who coughed as he regained consciousness, having been saved from anything more than a few extra bruises by the ponies lying beside him.

“Medic!” Skylancer bellowed into the night air before she dropped to her haunches next to the pegasus on the grass.

“Patch! Patchy, talk to me!” Sky begged as she threw her carbine against its sling and pulled the unconscious medic into her lap. Her limp form couldn’t answer back to the marksmare’s uncharacteristically growing desperation. “Come on, girl… wake up! Please!” Skylancer subconsciously cared for all of her teammates’ well-being, but something within her had seized control of her every fiber and blinded her to the world beyond the mare in her embrace. However, a battle still raged, and she was an operator of Eclipse. Her commanding officer had to remind her of that fact.

“Sky?!” Cutpurse called once while checking over Keen's wounds before she keyed her necklace. “Poise exfil crew to my pos, Now! Keen and Patch are down!” When the ship’s crew arrived behind Steel Rain, She directed them into action before she hooked her hooves around the dazed shooter’s shoulders and gave her a rough jolt. “Staff Sergeant! Pull yourself together!”

The defeated anguish and shame in Sky’s quivering eyes when she looked up almost shattered the Lt. Commander’s resolve.

“Come on, Staff Sergeant! On your hooves!” Cutpurse coaxed as she slung her sublance and prepared to help Sky carry their wrecked medic to the waiting airship.

“A…a…aye, L.T.” Sky forced out at last as she regained enough composure to step back into the world and do her duty.

Under the continued fire support of the crew around them, the ponies were hauled by their teammates back to the boat. The bay ramp was like the welcoming shoreline of an island to a mass of shipwreck survivors as they all trudged onboard and collapsed at the apex. With swift, crisp motion, the landing ponies boarded behind them, save one that took an extra moment to gather up an item he spotted in the field.

“All hooves on deck, let’s get the hay outa’ here!” Cutpurse called into her comm-piece and the ship immediately rose back into the air. The observant pony that had taken an extra moment in the grass set Keen Edge's helmet down beside him and his bearer, Steel Rain; his broken horn still protruded from the mangled metal that had torn it off. Cutpurse looked over to check on Skylancer, who had resumed apologizing to Patch while she beseeched her to wake. She was going to say something to her when she felt a tap at her flank.

“Ma’am… I… need…” It was Stonewall, his voice was barely audible over the drone of the rotors.

“Shhhh.” Cutpurse hushed him as she leaned in to talk, “Save your strength, Captain.”

He emphasized his dire need with a poignant grip on her shoulder, “No. You need… to hear… Fek ‘Tawny…” He struggled to gather his strength, but more importantly to try and structure his jumbled mind enough to communicate his worry. “He knows about the class…”

Cutpurse gave him a confused eyebrow for his efforts. “The class?”

He grimaced though the pain from a bump of turbulence as he nodded, “The class… the class tonight in the… northern Everfree Forest… The class that Twilight Sp… Sparkle is attending with an administrator from the school in Canterlot…”

The speed at which Lt. Commander Cutpurse's eyes narrowed in familiar shock was unsettling to the guard captain, and without another word, she shot up into a reckless gallop towards the bridge. The ship was a canoe compared to the Celestia’s Grace, but it still seemed far too vast to traverse with such urgent orders weighing her down.

“Captain Nightwatch! We need to change course!” She blurted out as she barged onto the bridge.

“I am well aware of your situation, Lieutenant Commander. We are making for the Citadel at best possible speed” A well-dressed, dark indigo pegasus answered back from beneath the golden crest of his station on his hat. “We will have your ponies in…”

“Black Dawn.” She cut him off flatly, silencing the room as she shared a deathly serious glare with the midnight-maned stallion. “We need to divert to Serpent Fall Cove.”

The usually laid-back captain didn't hesitate for a moment at the utterance of the critical scenario before he began barking orders to his command crew, “Helm! Come around to three-four-two and drop to low assault! Maintain red alert! Engineering, I need every ounce of speed you can possibly give me!”

2.1 "Gray Horizons"

CHAPTER 2.1

"Gray Horizons"

"Thanks for the rope, Mrs. Twine!" Spike called back to the shopkeep as he raced out the door and into the bright afternoon sunlight.

Hours before Celestia's solemn order struck death into the depths of the Everfree, the true dragon of Ponyville raced towards the arboreal library under a different set of commands. His little red wagon bounced and skipped after him, nearly spilling the small stack of supplies he had been gathering.

"Excuse me! Pardon me! Coming through!" He shouted as he raced through the market street, narrowly dodging many a pony's tail or hoof in his blur of movement. "Boy... I really need... to take the... back way... next time," He panted to himself, as he wiped yet another advancing wave of perspiration from his brow, and powered onward. Only with the library's crimson door finally in sight did he allow himself to relax.

"Hey, Twilight! I'm back with the..." He trailed off when a purple blur blasted past him in a wake of frayed mane and scattered books. "Uh, Twi?"

"Spike!" Twilight yelled, while she screeched to a halt and spun to face him, a half-crazed panic in her eyes. "Where in Equestria has my small notebook gone? Have you seen it?"

"Uh, you mean that one right there?" He retorted, with confusion painted across his face as he pointed to a spiral bound book on her desk.

His answer came in the form of a nervous tick in her left eye as she fought to suppress her frustration. Grumbling all the way, she stomped over to the desk and ripped the book from its resting place. Wrapped in her sparkling lavender mana, she waved it before him. "This is my medium-small notebook. It is five cubic centimeters and two-point-three ounces larger than my small notebook!"

"You know how much your note..." He immediately shook his head in realization and moved his wagon over to the saddlebags she was preparing. "... Of course you know how much your notebooks weigh."

"I have searched everywhere for it," She sighed in defeat, as she replaced the medium-small book and trotted over to inspect his bounty. "Did you find the hay braids I asked for?"

"Got 'em," He called back as he set to search for the elusive travel pad. "I got everything on the list; the hay braids, the rope, travel stationary kit, canteen, bed roll and bag, and I even got everything for the first aid kit you wanted. Nurse Redheart insisted I include sutures and more iodine than you asked for, but everything else is there."

"Good job, Spike," She replied, as she began organizing the materials to be meticulously packed away, stopping frequently to compare an open reference tome placed nearby to the checklist in front of her . While The Savvy Saddlepacker's Guide didn't mention the sutures in its basic supplies section, she could understand the wise nurse's logic for including such a handy and lightweight addition. With a silent appreciation, she stowed the packets away in the aid bag, hoping she would not have to call on them during her short excursion.

"I could have sworn that I put it over here," Spike grumbled, as he milled about in a crate of supplies in a futile hunt for her elusive notepad.

"That's ok, Spike," Twilight said at length. She cringed to the sound of a stack of books toppling under the dragon's relentless search. "I'll just use this one. Do me a favor and read me the letter again?"

His head popped forth from the pile of literature strewn about the floor with a shine of relief in his eyes. He set quickly across the library to her main desk to fetch the scroll that had come several days before. With practiced ease he slipped it from its binding and read aloud as he paced back into the common room.

"My Dear Twilight,

Due to the escalating nature of the recent events around Equestria, and your frequent involvement in them; I am extending an invitation to the next Royal Guard Combat Casting course, to be held in one week's time. This course, I hope, shall give you new skills not found in regular study. Thereby, enabling you to protect yourself and your friends in the very likely event that I must call on you to serve the nation once again.

The instructor of this course is rather eccentric, but his experience should not be taken lightly. Learn what he has to teach, but don't be afraid to add your own knowledge if it warrants... you are both students of the Eternal Lesson, and he is a good listener.

The class will meet at the Canterlot Sculpture Gardens, Friday at sunset, and shall take you to the wilds for a three-day excursion . Pack light but thoroughly in preparation for saddlepacking woodland trails at a Royal Guard pony's pace. The invitation is extended to Rarity as well, assuming she hasn't business to attend otherwise.

This is a Royal Guard function, and beyond the Wielders of Harmony (and Spike, of course), none are to know the nature of your trip. You may tell curious ears that you are coming to Canterlot to oversee repairs to the school.

Sincerely,

Princess Celestia

P.S.- Pack a sharp mind and rested legs, and adventure will surely find us well. -Frostmane"

Twilight looked to be seconds away from boiling over with excitement. She listened intently, while meticulously rechecking the gear arraigned before her waiting bags. Like a commander before her loyal troops, she issued orders to load with her deft magics and the packs began to fill as she beamed with anticipation.

"Didn't your brother take the Commandant's course last spring?" Spike asked, while he watched the ranks of items file into their tight places.

"Yes!" She blurted with joy. "And, when he came back, his shield spells were more powerful and efficient by tenfold! I can't wait to learn the technique!"

"Shining never showed you?"

"He wasn't allowed to. Royal Guard orders and all that."

"But you're the Most Awesomest Master of Awesome Harmonious Magics!" Spike flourished, as he rolled the scroll up and slipped it into one of the bags. "I'm just surprised he kept it from you, being so open and all."

"He failed to tell me about his own wedding until it was almost happening," She retorted curtly.

"... Oh yeah." He replied at length with a chuckle, suddenly remembering a certain letter being tossed into a pool of molten lava during his wild migration. "To be fair, I think Queen Chrysalis probably had a lot to do with that..."

"I suppose," Twilight mused with a sigh, while her marching items finished their embarkment, still somewhat unconvinced of her big brother's tardiness.

"I-Urk!" Spike's next words were cut off in a gout of emerald flame and a belch that could have emanated from his toes. He quickly fumbled about to catch the letter before it clattered to the floor, and chuckled with amusement as he unrolled it from its seal. "Speak of the devil."

"Shining?" Twilight asked in confusion, while she secured the final straps of her bags and checked her list for perhaps the fourteenth time.

"Yeah," He replied, blinking, and flipped the parchment over a few times, as though trying to conjure some hidden script. "It just reads:

Twilie, Meet me at the northwest guard tower before you go to the gardens.

-Shining"

"That's it?"

"Uh huh." Was his only reply. He checked it once more for good measure.

"He probably just wants to have me brush up on Guard etiquette before I go embarrass myself in front of the other students," Twilight mused with a shared shrug, testing the weight of her packs on her back.

" As if you haven't read Pie Card's Proper Placements and Protocols twenty times this week. The way you went on about him, he must have been an amazing captain,"Spike shot back, though his voice was tinged with concern.

Twilight shared a brief chuckle and a fond smile with him as she steeled herself for the experience awaiting her, "Are you going to be alright here for four days by yourself?"

"Don't you worry about a thing, Twi!" He saluted with a wink, "Rarity gave me a pile of gems to cook with over the weekend, and I'm gonna try a few new recipes!" He seemed to drift off into a daydream as he stared through the wall and hungrily licked his lips. "Emerald and charcoal scones, a jewel cake, ruby fritters..."

"Maybe Applejack can come by and help with the baking," Twilight chuckled, as she finally surrendered her checklist to the desk in satisfaction.

"Oh!" Spike blurted as he snapped out of his delirium, "That reminds me, Applejack said that she would meet you at the cafe by the train station for lunch before you leave."

"I know," Twilight replied, as she made for the doorway, "Fluttershy told me over afternoon tea yesterday at her cottage." She paused at the threshold as a strange chill raced up her spine. Some intangible worry still nagged at her as she looked over her shoulder at the loyal young dragon, already preparing to tidy up after her final packing mess. She shook it off at length, assuming it was just false concern for her very capable assistant. "If you need anything, she will be in the area tending to a family pet up the lane."

"I'll be fine, Twi," He grumbled, shoving at her flank to get her trotting out the doorway, "Now go! You still have to go get Rarity!"

As though the thought had only just then struck her mind, she cringed at her folly and bolted off towards the Carousel Boutique, calling her farewells to Spike over her shoulder. Rarity's business was one of the few structures that competed with the town hall and her majestic tree-hewn library for mastery of the quaint skyline of Ponyville. The warm cloudless afternoon quickly rid her mind of any lingering ill will as a gentle breeze danced through her well-kept mane and tail, bouncing on her quickened gate.

She had to dodge more than a few curious stares and questions as she made her way across town. While she didn't like deceiving her neighbors, she knew how to keep a secret. One didn't become an apprentice to a Princess and not learn how to keep a few secrets, after all. She did however, make note to stop by the school after her training to help with any remaining repairs, just so it wasn't a total lie.

"Hey Rarity! Are you ready to..." Twilight's voice trailed off, to be drowned out by the door chime and her own shock as she set hoof inside the shop, "Rarity... what... is all this?!"

The blue diamond eyes of the shop owner blinked indignantly at Twilight. Rarity gazed back and forth, from her new guest to the mountain of luggage neatly stacked behind her snow white form. She flicked her perfectly groomed purple mane in a disarming guffaw, "Just the bare essentials for our weekend in Canterlot, darling."

"I did tell you that this was a saddlepacking trip, right?" Twilight replied, in exasperation.

"You said that it was three days outdoors," Rarity said coolly, still not seeing a problem, "See, I even packed extra sun hats."

"I said three days in the wilds!" Twilight barked, "This is a military class, Rarity! You have to be able to carry everything yourself!"

"The... wilds?"

"Yes."

"The... muddy wilds?"

"Uh-huh."

"The mane-ruining, hoof-chipping, dirt-caking, bug-infested, bathless, wild Wilds?"

"Yes!"

"Oh, nununununo!" Rarity quivered, as she violently shook her head to clear the thoughts from her mind.

"What do you mean 'no'?" Twilight huffed. She checked the clock on the wall of the shop, "We have to meet AJ in ten minutes to make our train!"

"I'm sorry, darling," Rarity sighed, "It would take hours to sort this down. Besides, you are a great student! I'm sure you can teach me the whole lesson in your sleep when you return."

"So... you're not going?" Twilight asked, somewhat disappointed, but not overly surprised at the news.

"Chin up, Twilight," Rarity said, in a sweet tenor as she wrapped a foreleg around her friend in apologetic hug, "I would just be a distraction to us both if I went and you know it."

"Just us?" Twilight smirked, with a returning light in her voice as she noticed a case clearly containing various articles of male attire over Rarity's shoulder in the pile.

"I thought the boys coming along, whoever they would be, would lend a hoof trying some new styles for me to finish while we were out," She chuckled guiltily.

"Don't you have volunteer models lined up across town square already?"

"They are ever so hard to size for! Every new, generous stallion in town is drastically different in measure," Rarity huffed with a longing pout, to no one in particular, "All of the Guard unicorns are so uniform in build and hue, I simply had to try and seize the golden opportunity, dear."

Twilight blinked for a moment, only just then realizing, that with the exception of her brother's mane, all of the Royal Guard's soldiers were either white or grey stallions of very similar stature, "Huh. I can't believe I never noticed that before."

"Perfect neutral modeling candidates, if you ask me," Rarity replied with a giggle.

"I think they prefer platemail and spears to silks and top hats," Twilight mused, as she made for the entrance.

"There are other hats, too," rarity shot back.

Twilight could only join her friend in a hearty laugh as they stepped back out into the sunlight together. They shared a farewell hug before Twilight turned her gaze on the train station across town.

"We shall go to the spa as soon as you return, darling," Rarity said, "My treat. Then you can show me all the wonderful tricks you learned."

"Deal," Twilight smiled, "See you then."

"Take care!" Rarity called out to her, as she galloped off out of sight. Just as she turned to head back inside and begin the arduous unpacking, an unexpected chill raced up her spine. She gasped as her heart skipped a beat and she looked back to the empty bit of road where her dear friend had gone. "Twilight..." She whispered, to the gentle breeze dancing past. It was a fleeting feeling, swift to arrive and swifter to depart. But it was dark, and deeply forlorn, "Please take care."

* * *

"I was startin' ta think you weren't gonna make it!" Applejack called out to Twilight, from a table set outside the train depot cafe. The farm pony placed her sturdy, old, trademark Stetson she had used to wave her friend down with, back atop her head with a freckled grin, "Where in Equestria is Rarity?"

"I mentioned dirt again," Twilight snickered.

"Well, that'll do it," Applejack shot back, with a matching chortle, "I ordered you a daisy and daffodil, if that's alright?"

"That sounds perfect!" Twilight replied, while she slipped from her overstuffed saddlebags and sat across the table, diving into a glass of cider that Applejack slid to her, "Thanks for coming all the way out to see me off."

"It ain't nothin' Twi," Applejack replied, "Big Macintosh an' Apple Bloom both lent a hoof to gimme the afternoon off."

"Aww," Twilight smiled, "Tell them thanks for me, ok?"

"Well, it ain't all tea times an' sun bathin'. I do have some errands t' run after y'all are on your way," She explained, as the server brought them each a sandwich and topped off their cider glasses.

"Try and give Spike a little room on his own," Twilight smirked, reading the dutiful pony's hidden intentions, "He really wants a chance to prove himself alone."

"Oh alright, Sugar cube," Applejack replied, caught in her farce, "I'll only swing by if I see smoke. Pinkie Promise."

"Speaking of Pinkie Pie," Twilight wondered aloud, "Where is she? I haven't seen her or Rainbow at all today."

"Beats me," AJ answered flatly, "I told 'em we were meetin' ya at the station round this time."

They both scanned the sky briefly, while they sipped at their drinks, before returning to their meal. The rest of their lunch was filled with talk of the happenings around Sweet Apple Acres. Applejack also shared a number of camping tips, which Twilight wasted no time or dignity in jotting down in her, regrettably, medium-small notebook. She was sure that the Guard ponies and Commandant Frostmane knew all the ins and outs of roughing it in the wilds. Nevertheless, AJ's wisdom was as valuable as it was encouraging to hear.

"Aw shoot!" Applejack blurted, after finishing a tirade about the importance of cleaning mud from one's hooves before bedding down for the night, "Is that your train?"

"Gahh!" Twilight yelped, as she caught the sound of a chugging steam engine in her twitching ear. "Oh no! I hope it's just arriving!" She hastily threw her saddlebags over her back, and without the support of a swift Applejack, would have launched herself into a sidelong tumble through the cafe window.

"Whoa there, girl!" Applejack laughed, as she helped steady her admittedly less stout unicorn friend. "Now, Hustle up! We got us a train ta catch!"

The pair galloped together into the train station, barreling through the gates like a loose Cloudsdale supply tornado. They were both relieved to find the train idle, though it was set to depart in a moments time. Ponyville was never a long stop for the Canterlot Express. Even now, on a relatively bustling afternoon for the town, the platform was nearly devoid of life. Twilight rushed onto the train to deposit her bags in her car before racing back out to wrap Applejack up in a warm hug.

"Thank you for lunch, AJ," She said, panting a bit for air.

"Anytime, Twi," Applejack said. She returned the hug with the firmness only a working earth pony could muster. Twilight would have to continue to want for air for a moment more.

"All aboard!" The conductor called out over the steam pistons of the locomotive snarling and hissing against the strain of their filling pressure chambers.

"Tell the others I'm sorry I missed them, and I'll see you all when I get back!" Twilight called, hopping onto the steps of the car just as the train began to slowly roll into motion.

"Have fun, and be safe!" Applejack shouted back, straining to be heard over the blasts from the engine, finally catching traction and rumbling off towards the royal city. She watched as her lavender friend disappeared into the car, and at that same moment, an icy claw caressed her neck. She shivered as the chill bristled the fur on her back. She could not have known that she was not the only one to be visited by this subtle wave of dread and foreboding, but she knew it was not a trick of the wind.

"Wait!" Came a shrill cry from behind her, jolting her from her shadowy thoughts. She turned to see a curly pink mane galloping at full tilt towards her, nearly bowling her over as she skidded past. Hot on her heals, though gliding above on wing rather than pounding against the ground on hoof, was a familiar blue and rainbow streak of fur and feathered lightning. Rainbow Dash did a much more impressive job of halting her momentum, and avoided slamming into the pillar that Pinkie Pie was staggering away from.

"I had to finish up a Weather Pony meeting in Town Hall!" Rainbow blurted out regretfully, "Maybe I can catch up to the train before it reaches..."

"She'll be back in four little ol' days, Dash," Applejack tried to chime in, with a soothing voice.

"Yeah! but..." Rainbow Dash trailed off, as her wings drooped down to sweep against the worn wooden planks of the platform. She shot Applejack a glance that brought back the unearthly chill from moments before. The illustrious daredevil was always one for hiding emotions and brushing issues away like unwanted dust on her shoulder, but if she was trying to mask it now, Applejack could have lied better.

"Y'all got a bad feeling about this too, don't cha?" Applejack asked, in a hushed tone.

"I keep having this messed up dream," Dash explained, "I can't make heads or tails of it, but it's bad. And Twilight's always the star."

"Ouch!" Pinkie yelped, pulling them both from their conversation as her front leg buckled, sending her face into another hard embrace with the pillar. "There it is again!" She groaned as she shook away the second hit.

"There what is, Pink?" Applejack asked with eyebrow furrowed.

"My knee got stabby again."

"Stabby?"

"Yeah! it's not like when something scary is gonna happen," Pinkie said, "My knee gets pinchy when that happens. This is different. It hurts. But, it's not burny, bitey, blistery, sore, stiff or sapped... It's just stabby."

"So what does stabby mean?" Rainbow asked, as all three of their gazes went to the train, disappearing around the hillside in the distance. Even Pinkie Pie, the fount of limitless joy and optimism, wore a mask of solemn concern. She Looked back at her two friends and spoke in a voice so heavy, it threatened to deflate her mane.

"I don't know."

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Prologue: "Nightmares and Daydreams"

Eclipse
House of Frostmane’s Few

Witten by W C Yeaman
Edited by Foxwolf Firebane

Prologue

There must always be Heroes.
Stalwart Beacons of Hope for Equestrians facing World-Shattering Evil.
Clad in Gold they Battle before the eyes of All,
Righteous Symbols of all that is Good in our Mighty Country.
We are not They…
For every successful Tyrant that meets the Steel and Magic of Champions,
There go a thousand Threats unheard of by the Innocent Many.
Unheard because We have Silenced them.
We are the Shadows of Vigilance, The Unknown Guardians.
Swiftly and Silently We serve the Will of Day and Night.
We are the Nightmares of the Wicked.
We must never know Fame and cannot be remembered by the World,
To do so is to have Failed Our Mothers of Light and Shadow.
Honor. Valor. Truth. Courage. Righteousness.
Virtues we may still call Ours, shared amongst an Extraordinary Few.
The Forgotten Peacekeepers of Equestria,
We are Eclipse.
-Commandant Frostmane

There were few aromas more intoxicating, more alluring than Ivy Rose’s sweet cherry pie as it rested cooling on the window sill of her Canterlot home. At least not to her husband, the robust white unicorn clad in glistening golden plate barding trotting up the street, anyways. The succulent berry scent frolicked and danced in concert with the mouthwatering smell of hoof-rolled piecrust down the lane to greet him. Like a siren’s song to a sailor’s ear, it caressed and coaxed Captain Stonewall’s nose and guided him to his intricately tooled front door on hooves lighter than air. The only thing out of place on such a perfect afternoon was the faint taste of copper on his pallet, which he couldn’t seem to be rid of.

The soft, captivating tune of a mare and filly singing reached his ears as he quietly cracked the door and slipped inside. As silently as he could muster in his heavy armor, the Captain snuck to the archway that lead to the kitchen and the jovial hymn. He paused at the entrance and gingerly leaned against the frame of the portal to admire the scene before him and take the weight off of his aching legs.

Across the wooden sea of the floor, with their backs to him as they sang to a captivated audience of simmering pots and stove flame, stood the most beautiful ladies he had ever had the privilege to know. His wife, a creamy purple earth pony beneath a luscious mane of deep blue, carefully stirred the concoction brewing in the largest pot whilst she carried the melody, in acapella harmony, with the little filly standing as tall as she could on a step ladder by her side. Lily Vine’s little curly locks were as brilliantly blue as her mother’s and bounced with each note against the sharp contrast of her purest white coat.

In the past, some of his peers had teased him for dating an earth pony before they had met her. A small few particularly pompous aristocrats had even made the mistake of vocalizing pity at the news that his newborn daughter had taken after her mother before they had mysteriously checked into the Canterlot Hospital. The thought that Ivy wasn’t a unicorn had never entered his mind all those years back when he had first laid eyes on her that fateful day at the Cherry Hill Ranch Rodeo. As he gazed at the pair in his cozy kitchen, giggling in glee as they tasted the steamy broth on the wooden spoon, he held no doubt in his mind that they were more magical than all the power he would ever muster in all his days.

“Please forgive my uninvited invasion of thy beautiful abode, fairest maidens.” He finally spoke at length to catch their attention with a soft grin painted upon his lips. “I am but a humble soldier, weary of a long road from distant fields. Ensnared, I was, by thy enchanting beauty and gorgeous melodies adrift on a delicious breeze. I beg simply of time to rest and bask in your heavenly graces.”

“Daddy’s home!!” The little white filly squealed in delight as she leapt from the step-stool and raced into his waiting forelegs.

His wife glided over on graceful hooves wearing a romantic smile and gently slipped his helmet from his brow. His carefully trimmed grey mane, askew by a long day beneath the armor, was brushed straight with a loving caress. “You may stay as long as you wish, my handsome Captain.”

He shared a tender kiss with her while his daughter clung tightly to his breastplate and allowed himself to be lost in the moment of pure bliss. It was these glistening times that the Logistics Commander of the Royal Guard lived for, even despite the sour taste on his tongue and the weary ache in his legs.

“And what are my lovely ladies brewing this evening? It smells delicious!” He inquired as he hoisted Lily onto his back and trotted over to the stove to drown out the metallic taint from his nostrils.

“Your daughter insisted she help me make your favorite veggie and pepper soup.” Ivy replied behind sparkling azure eyes.

“Mmmm. Wife soup. I must have done good.”

“You done good, Dear.”

“And how about you, little lady? How was school?”

“Oooo! Ohh! Oh!” Was her only reply before she launched from her perch and raced down the hall in an intangible blur of excitement.

The parents shared a chuckle as Ivy took his helmet to the rack by the door and hung it up.

“It’s career day at her school next week. I’m sure the children will be much more ecstatic about a royal guard’s presentation than a florist’s.” She chuckled as she trotted back past him towards the stove and playfully swatted his nose with her tail. “I know Lily would be, anyways.”

“I’m sure I can get someone to cover for me.” He mused with a toothy grin at her as she passed on his way to sit down at the table with a pained groan.

“Training day?” She asked over the chatter of stone bowls.

“No. I don’t know why but I am beat.” He replied, unable to remember what he had done to strain his limbs. He reached down to rub the burning pain in his rear legs when his daughter’s huge jade eyes overtook his vision holding out a piece of drawing paper.

“Is this the piece you did for the school contest?” He asked as he took it in his hooves and poured the image into his soul. Brilliant beyond her age, the colored sketch depicted their family enjoying a picnic under a mystical sunset as Princess Luna carried her veil of twinkling night across the sky.

“Ms. Starlight said it wasn’t fair to give me the blue ribbon ‘cause mine was too good.” Lily explained, obviously holding back some piece of news behind the loose cover of modestly. She looked pleadingly at her mother with a bashful flush on her cheeks to finish her report as she brought the bowls to the table.

“So her class agreed that it should be hung in the school’s trophy case above the main entrance!” The lavender mare explained as her daughter exploded into an earth-shattering smile.

“Wow! That’s incredible, Sweetheart!” He beamed as he scooped her into a tight hug regardless of his aches.

The guard captain felt lighter than air as he shared another moment with his favorite mares. With heart aflutter and a lump growing in his throat behind the insatiable taste of copper coins, he couldn’t help but swell with pride and allow a tear to roll down his cheek. It flicked off if his chiseled jaw and landed squarely on the table, causing his wife and daughter to go deathly silent. Something was out of place.

“Celestia’s Grace! Are you ok, honey?” Ivy gasped with face writhe of concern.

“Yes! These are happy tear…” He cut himself short when he looked down at the liquid on the polished walnut surface.

It was deep crimson.

His bewildered stare of utter confusion at the drop of blood was only broken when his daughter screamed in fright and wrenched herself from his embrace just prior to her mother doing the same. They held each other before him with looks of shocked panic tainting their normally beautiful faces as their eyes filled with horrified tears.

The pain had grown too great to ignore in his legs, and when he looked down at them, he found they were mangled and twisted to grotesque, unnatural angles. Despair gripped his heart and clenched down tight as he witnessed all of the little aches of the day manifest in deep lacerations across his pristine coat. He looked back to the loves of his life as they cried out to him, desperate and helpless to stop it. Suddenly a wave of pain wracked the base of his horn and spun him swiftly towards the blackness of unconsciousness. The last vision in the waning pupil of light was of his dearest wife in an agony of sorrow crying out in futilely as she shielded his daughters sobbing eyes from the sight.

* * *

Gone was the blissful paradise of his unconscious dreams as the disheveled pony groggily awoke. The dark, metallic sour of his own lifeblood wetting his pallet still remained as he forced a blurry, bruised eye open to survey his surroundings. His head felt like the earth beneath the hooves of the Running of the Leaves and it kept his senses dim to the dank, dark hovel that entrapped him. Out of the corner of his vision between narrow beams of bright sunlight filtering in through the shoddy walls, a shadowy figure stirred behind a desk laden with vile instruments of pain.

“Ahh, Captain.” A guttural, scratchy voice pierced through the silence after a long calm. Its tone rang familiar in his ears, dripping with cruel, amused evil in every syllable. “I was beginning to suspect that my last round of… persuasion… had killed you. What a pity that would have been. You still haven’t answered any of my master’s questions.”

<==========})===0 ~~*~~~*~~~~*~~~*~~ 0===({=========>

“It is a simple question.” The coaxing voice hissed over the torque of yet another cruel piece of steel into his flesh.

“Stonewall.” The battered unicorn answered as he glared up through swollen eyes. “Captain. Royal Guard serial number six-eight-zero-three.”

Inquisitor Zal ‘Brek was a hard creature to weary, but even he tired of the same answer he had received for every question posed to the stubborn pony over the course of the week. A quiet snarl betrayed his frustration as he removed the tool and set it carefully beside its kin on a pain-soaked tray before standing to stretch his lithe form. The sun had long set and its rays no longer accented the dim light of the torches flickering off of the draconian biped’s brilliant, though soiled, emerald scales. His long, slender, horned reptilian visage fought to stifle a yawn as his joints cracked and popped beneath the corded sinew of his war-honed muscles. Unlike the warriors that carried him from the filthy primitive cage he slept in each night, the interrogator wore no armor or adornments save for a silk cloth over his loins secured by a belt laden with tools and a short sword. Stonewall took a small shred of satisfaction when the tall being flopped into his chair and rubbed his aching temples.

“It pains me to admit, but you are a credit to your otherwise worthlessly soft species.” Zal ‘Brek spoke at length to break a long silence of haggard breathing and dripping fluids.

The battered captain was going to spit a reply, but a commotion outside the shanty door robbed him of the opportunity. It flew open to present an unexpected sight to both him and the Inquisitor, who wasted no time throwing himself to a submissive knee before his chair.

“Indeed. A true testament to his very name.” A deep, melodic voice rich with wisdom and an otherworldly clairvoyance agreed from the gnarled lips of a very different draconian stepping through the doorway.

“Master, I…” The emerald reptile began to explain before he was silenced with an outstretched palm of absolute authority.

“Be seated and be at peace, Inquisitor ‘Brek.” The elder creature commanded. The disciplined servant complied instantly, though his façade remained troubled at his lack of progress for his master.

Ancient beyond natural order. That could be the most fitting description in Stonewall’s mind as he took in the imposing sight of the being filling the room before him. Clad in scales of ruby red, faded somewhat by time’s ravages, his antiqued hide still lay tautly over his old, gnarled frame. Charms and tokens from a thousand campaigns dangled from the boughs of the majestic wizard’s staff and adorned the many folds of his extravagant blue mages robes. Each limping step he took, with the aid of the unnatural oak staff, caused a cacophony of jingling. Beneath an impressive array of horns, adorned in all manner of jewels and gold, lay a surprisingly concerned grimace. From the depths of this cracked and weathered face a single deep orange eye looked him over, its partner long replaced by an empty socket and a score of scars. Perhaps the most striking difference was his leathery cape, which the unicorn quickly realized was actually a pair of tattered wings folded neatly around his shoulders and secured with a pair of hooked talons acting as a broach. He was the first of the already unusual bipeds the captain had seen with this trait.

“I must first apologize for the necessity of depriving you of this.” The ancient dragonkin explained as he gestured to a sickeningly familiar charm on his staff. All at once the source his relentless headache was made clear and he fought his queasy stomach to retain what little contents remained.

It was his own severed horn.

“As a humble student of magic, the decision to deprive a being so rich in natural arcane gifts his ability to connect to it was not an easy one.” Stonewall had expected the farce of a sympathetic protagonist as an interrogation technique. He had not expected, however, to hear an unmistakably genuine condolence free of any seedy undertones.

“Who… who are you?” The destroyed equine mustered at length on a ragged breath.

“I am Arch-Magi Fek ‘Tawny One-Eye.” The old lizard answered matter-of-factly. “And you are a troublesomely loyal Equestrian who seems bent on making my poor inquisitor molt months before his season.”

“Sorry to… inconvenience you, Sir.” Stonewall spat with the widest smirk he could conjure at the pair.

“On the contrary, Captain. Your resilience is fascinating and I always strive to challenge my soldiers.”

“Why… me?”

“Because I have a scheduling conflict that only the head of Celestia’s Logistics Command can square for me.”

“You’ll… get nothin’ from me, Sir.” The captain groaned defiantly.

“So you have made abundantly clear. Your mate and daughter would be proud of your dedication.”

Mention of his family ripped the breath from his lungs in a rush of fear and then mounting rage. “You stay away from them!” He threatened as he fought weakly against the chains that bound him to his chair.

The Arch-Magi could only laugh in amusement at the reaction, shaking his head as he marveled at the display of defiance. “Oh calm yourself, Captain. I assure you, they are quite untouched. My agents were given the strictest of orders to leave them be and they would dare not disobey me.”

The bedraggled unicorn shared a glare with his captor then. Amber eyes, blurred from the pain of his missing horn, locked into that one blazing orange window of the dragonkin’s soul in a fierce meeting of the minds. Long he searched as he bored into that fiery chasm to its very deepest depths, seeking a falsity in his words. To his reluctant sigh of relief, he could not find one.

Fek ‘Tawny’s gnarled lips curled into a smile, not of victory, but instead of pure admiration at the iron will locked beneath the frail body of a pony. “It would do me no service to lie, Captain. Nor would I disgrace my ancestors by bringing pain to innocent bystanders. Such cowardice is the desperate and fleeting technique of lesser creatures squabbling in the mud to exact control over one another.”

Stonewall relaxed his futile battle with his bonds and settled back into his uncomfortable chair, “It would seem that you’re at an impasse, One-eye. I’ll not betray my Princess.”

“Yes, I can see now that your sense of honor and duty far exceed your life’s threshold. However, that does not change the fact that I require answers to a series of very prudent questions.” The old reptilian rubbed his forehead as he considered his final option. “Perhaps we can come to an agreement that will negate the need to destroy your integrity and pride, hmm?”

The captain was not exactly sure what the wily wizard was hinting at, but he noted with some dread that the Inquisitor seemed to pale at the very mention of the alternative.

“Master, no.” Zal pleaded in the closest tone to concern that Stonewall had ever heard from the beast in the last week. “Surly I can break him without that. I have never failed to deliver results. Please reconsider…”

Fek ‘Tawny silenced him once again with an outstretched palm, though this time it came to rest on the emerald draconian’s shoulder to make way for a calming voice, “You have performed your duty admirably, Zal ‘Brek. However, I sense I am short on time and his will is beyond our usual methods to surpass.”

“Master, I…”

“The order is given, Inquisitor. Fetch the brazier.”

Emerald scales blurred into obedient action around them as he gathered materials. A wooden chair, free from the pain wrought filth strewn about the rest of the shack was placed across from the royal guard. Next, a tall, empty iron brazier was set atop a winding staff and arranged between the two chairs. Fek ‘Tawny, meanwhile, took the time to carefully set his staff aside, pausing to remove the twisted white horn dangling from it before he slipped into the seat with an aged groan. Comfortably at rest, the Arch-Magi allowed his great and tattered leathery wings to unfurl and stretch before coming to drape unceremoniously at his sides. Stonewall had a feeling he knew the nature of the ritual about to be performed, and he allowed a smug grin to creep onto his lips that lasted only until he noticed the wizard grinning back.

“I know of the wards that the Daystar Princess has placed over your resolute mind, Captain.” He chuckled in bated confidence. “Three, to be exact. Powerful and sophisticated, but not unbreakable.”

“How… did you…?”

“Do you not think I planned for this possibility? I did not select you at random, Captain Stonewall. I had only hoped that your willpower had not fit your name quite so… flawlessly.”

“All is prepared, Master.” Zal ‘Brek interrupted as he gently poured oil into the plate between them and slithered off to the side to fetch something from his desk. He came back and stood at a disciplined attention beside the old red draconian with a rough file and a saw in either hand.

“Then we shall begin.” The old magi spoke as he cast a simple prestidigitation to ignite the oil and breathe life into a gentle orange flame between them.

Stonewall gulped down a dreadful lump in his throat. He watched the wizard took up the file and ground away part of his severed horn, while muttering in an incomprehensible language. The dust sparkled and hissed as the flames consumed it, flaring up hungrily before settling into a now bluish hue. He then traded the rest of the horn to his subordinate in exchange for the fine-toothed saw and quickly set to work slicing the end from a rather elegant horn of his own, just above his brow. The guard captain noted with both satisfaction and admiration that it seemed to pain him physically to perform the act. Once removed, it too was filed to dust and fed to the starving fire. Like a beast of the wilds it viciously engorged and swallowed whole the ingredient before settling into a contented lavender flicker.

Ice to the soul. The captain felt the deathly chill run down his spine and he knew that one of the wards had been shattered.

The completion of the spell seemed to have taxed the old serpent, and there was a moment’s pause between the steps filled only with the flutter of oil-fueled flame. When the chanting began again, it was followed by the second pair of components. Blood was easily gathered from the battered stallion on a beautifully tooled dagger’s blade before being handed off to the wizard. That one glowing inferno of an eye stared into his as he mumbled the spell and slowly drug the crimsoned blade through a clenched fist. After the two fluids had properly mingled, they were squeezed into the fire, causing it to snarl and nearly die out before slowly returning as a green ember.

Fire to the mind. A searing pain at the base of his skull assured him of the second ward’s defeat.

Stonewall thought there would be a third component, and he waited with no shortage of dread to discover what it would be. Instead, he watched the old lizard grumble those incomprehensible words into the flame, with a growing exhaustion etched on his face and woven into his voice. The jade fire danced and furrowed to the incantation and began to entrance the captain in its soothing display.

He tried to shake away the calm with eyes squeezed shut, but the tranquil green warmth called to him with irresistible sweetness. With his mind soaking in the gentle radiance as it washed his pains away, he couldn’t notice the wizard opposite him falling into a similar lull. Then all at once, the world went white.

***

“What? Where am I” Stonewall asked, eyes trying desperately to blink into adjustment with the unending white all around. He found himself lying on an unseen surface, and to his surprise completely healed. He stood on healthy legs for the first time in a week and attempted to catch his bearings when a familiar voice caught his ear.

“We are in the Mens Pontus, the mind-bridge between our two selves.” The wizard answered as he approached, his taloned feet echoing against unseen walls.

Realizing he was healthy, the guard captain scowled as he prepared a charge. “I’ll have your head for this…” He was cut off and disarmed with a simple laugh.

“Oh please, Captain,” One-Eye laughed, “Save your energy. You can no sooner harm me than I can you in this state.”

Stonewall calmed at the idea… An idea that for some unexplained reason, he already knew.

“There is no way to break the Ward of Free Will, so instead I had to sacrifice to step around it.” Fek ‘Tawny answered the question the captain had yet to send to his tongue.

“This isn’t a telepathic probe.” The stallion reasoned more to himself than the draconian. “We are linked to one another.”

“Permanently, I am afraid. Your death will be a difficult bridge to cross.” The wizard sighed as he mused matter-of-factly about the inevitable consequences. “A shame too, you have such an encyclopedic mind. It is no wonder you achieved your rank and position so soon after your field work on the frontier.”

“Facts and figures have a way of keeping fresh in my mind.” The pony answered as they both glanced at the mark on his flank of a chiseled stone tablet. “It is my special talent, after all.” Already, the sharp mind of the analytical stallion began to delve deeper into the similarly broad ocean of the Arch-Magi’s. A vast sea of history had been witnessed by that old eye, which was separated from its twin by a true dragon years ago, he discovered. Wars in far off lands that he had never heard of against beings he would never have imagined existed. A wife and clutchlings long since dead by cruel misfortune blackened a corner of his mind closest to his heart. Of all the patterns, none were clearer to Stonewall in his delving than the old wizard’s lust for arcane power and the lengths he had gone to attain it. With the concept of having a hand to play for the first time since his abduction strengthening his resolve, he allowed himself to hope for the chance of rescue. This information was vital to the defense of his kingdom.

“No one is coming for you, Captain.” The dragonkin spoke in reply to the surface thought.

“Princess Celestia…”

“…Would not risk sparking open war with my people by ordering an attack by the royal guard.” Fek cut him off with a diabolical grin. “Even if she could find us this deep in the Everfree, she would never be so politically foolish and aggressive in such times of peace. Draconian blood on the golden armor of Canterlot’s finest? You’re not worth that risk and you know it.”

The clever wizard’s words cut him to the bone, because he knew in his heart of hearts that it was true. So perfect had his capture been executed, so subtle in its every facet that there was no way she could even know where to begin looking. And even if she somehow found him, the old one-eyed lizard was right. She would never sign off an order to charge in, banners waving and spears swinging to rescue one pony at the risk of endangering the entire nation.

Arch-Magi Fek ‘Tawny One-Eye beamed in final victory as he soaked in the despair of his new other half. He drummed his bony old fingertips together in wicked anticipation as he watched the equine slowly pale and sulk into the arms of unerring fate.

“Now, Captain Stonewall, “He started at length, “Tell me about the six mares living in... Ponyville, is it? The Wielders of the Elements of Harmony.”