V
The price of the shadows

Days passed slow and boring for the old griffon general. When he was a rookie he used to dream about old age and live of a juicy pension from the Government. He dedicated the best years of his life to serve the nation, and he was proud of it. Now that he achieved his goal everything seemed pointless and boring.

All that was left for the old General Garan was to wait to reunite with his wife and his unit in death.

“Sometimes I wonder why the Gods let me live this long.” sighed Garan, as he took a sip of a canteen.

He looked at sunset when he saw six shadows moving unnaturally toward him. The griffon smiled.

“Aw, shadows of silence. I never thought I would see them again. Hahahahaha! Come on, are you telling me that you’ve been waiting for me to be too old and weak to give you a fight? You could have same a few years, you know? Just end me already.”

The shadows stopped and then materialized one by one. The Undead Knights have appeared.

The griffon was surprised that they were ponies but he shrugged it off. “You are not what I expected, did the Order escaped to Equestria after we finished them here? Are you here to seek vengeance on behalf of your Great Master?”

Undash’s eye twitched, and she took the griffon by the feathers of his chest and smashed him to the ground, as Jack the Reaper kicked his chair destroying it.

“You speak more nonsense than Pin-Kill-Die.”

Midnight nodded. “Yes, we’re not here on behalf of anypony, we’re here on behalf of ourselves. It seems that you know things about the Knights of Silence. For what we’ve investigated it was you who lead the massacre against the Knights of Silence. Why did you destroyed them? What dirty little secret does the Order have? What are they after? And most important, how do we get them out of Equestria?”

The old griffon smiled, as he took another sip of his canteen.

“So you are the reason why I’ve lived this long. Let’s make a deal. Since there’s nothing left for me in the modern world, you kill me right after I tell you what I know.”

“What? For real?” asked Pin-Kill-Die.

“If you want to die this much why don’t you just go kill yourself?” asked Fleshy Smile.

The old griffon seemed very offended by the suggestion. “Because there is not greater dishonor for an ex combatant than commit suicide. Now, do we have a deal or what?”

Midnight nodded. “Okay, no problem. Killing is what we do best. Now, can you please tell us what you know mister former combatant?”

The old griffon looked at what was left of his chair, and looked at the pony. “I need to take a seat.”

Midnight rolled her eyes and repaired the chair with her magic.

“Thank you!”

Gothic helped the old griffon to sit as the others came closer to hear him. The old griffon sighed deeply, as he began to tell.

“First you have to understand that the little civil war between the Knights and the Crown was because of the Crown’s own stupidity. Emperor Velkan was teenager with way too much power on his claws and ended up creating a disaster. It all started when we discovered magic and each family developed its own version of the magic. We were on a way to a new era of prosperity. But it wouldn’t last.”

“Why I’m not surprised! Griffons are stupid and quarrelsome!” sighed Pink-Kill-Die.

Fleshy Smile only ripped off Pin-Kill-Die’s tongue. “Sorry for the interruption. Please continue.”

The griffon took another sip of wine before continuing. Seeing that tongue regenerating was quite unpleasant.

“Where was I? Oh right! The problem began when our most powerful schools understood that magic meant power. And if used a certain way it could be used to dominate others. The most powerful Orders joined to create the Holly Council. They decided that only the Orders they considered worthy would survive. The others should be destroyed.”

“And the ‘worthy’ Orders were only the ones that were part of the Council or the ones that submitted to them. Right?” asked Fleshy Smile.

“One Order saw the incoming danger and decided to fight back. They gathered all the knowledge they could from the orders they could, and decided to do the unthinkable. They shared all their secrets with those who weren’t part of the Order. Their idea was simple, you cannot exterminate the Knowledge if this Knowledge is shared with enough people.”

He took another sip. “When the massacres began the other Orders shared their Knowledge with this Order who have perfected their method to teach everyone. And one day, they managed to steal the secrets of the most powerful Orders and shared them with the others. They made everyone as powerful as them, so they could fight. All the weaker Orders joined this one turning them into the Knights of Silence we know today.”

Garan looked at the Undeads with a sad smile. “I see that you can use Shadow Magic. Do you know something about the Knight’s doctrine?”

“Refresh our memory.”

“Shadows are not evil by themselves. Shadows are emptiness, the beginning of everything both good and bad. The base of magic itself. Shadow is the basic element of magic; this is why the Knights are so good at learning all kinds of magic and teach it to others.”

“But if they were that good teaching everyone, how did ya’ stopped them?” asked Jack the Reaper.

“I was young rookie at the military academy with a brilliant future awaiting. But I needed more power, but since I was not part of the families chosen by the Council, I could only get this power from the Knights of Silence, so I joined them.”

“The Great Master knew he would need some insiders in the army so he welcomed me with open wings. I would give him insight of the new plans of the Crown to defeat them and in exchange I would become more powerful and when I get to the top I would do everything to stop the Crown from chasing the Knights. My intentions were pure… idealistic. Foolish.”

Finally, the griffon general emptied his canteen.

“I was the one who betrayed the Knights of the Silence. I told the Crown where to find them and pointed out the soldiers who were working from the inside with the Knights. I’m not proud for what I did, but in the end, I felt so betrayed when I found their secret that they gave me no choice.”

“What secret?”

“I told you, remember? Shadows are the basic element of all magic; it is extremely strong and because of it causes lots of stress over the body. Prolonged usage of Shadow Magic would have very serious consequences.”

“Which type of consequences?” asked Midnight.

The griffon coughed. “Are you worried about what could happen to you?”

“I am technically immortal. But I have a son. A dumb son who…”

The griffon shook his head. “Then I’m sorry about him but maybe is not too late for him yet. This is a secret protected by the Great Master of the Knights for generations. I just happened to overhear when the Great Master from my time told his successor right before he died out of premature old age.”

“Premature old age?” asked Midnight.

“I told you. Using Shadow Magic puts too much stress on your body. You can use it, sure. But if you use it for too long you’ll end up aging twice as fast. I’m actually surprised that they managed that they were able to keep the secret for that long. The Old Master didn’t care about what could happen to us, all he wanted was to spread knowledge.”

The griffon sighed sadly. “I betrayed them so I could get my revenge. I stopped using Shadow Magic and you know the rest. We chased them to extinction, but I always had the gut feeling that they were still alive and were going to take their revenge against me sooner or later.”

The undeads exchanged a confused look.

“Did we witness any of this in our timeline?” asked Gothic.

Midnight shook her head. “We killed every Knight on the Silence we saw, so we didn’t give them the time to notice.”

The griffon coughed calling for attention.

“There you go! I told you what I knew. What about my part of the deal?”

“One last question, how did the Great Master kept this as a secret for this long? Knights can read souls, damn it!”

“Oh, those who have completely mastered the Shadow Magic are able to hide their true intentions even from those who know how to read souls. Also the Great Master was convinced that he was doing the right thing so hide his intentions was not difficult. In the end stupidity is more dangerous than pure evil.”

The undeads didn’t know what to think, but in the end they nodded.

“Pin-Kill-Die, go on!”

The pink undead walked toward the griffon, and then she broke his neck.

General Garan left with a smile.

“What do you think?”

“I highly doubt that East Wind knows this. Neither Irish Coffee.”

“I don’t care about those morons! Spike, he is the one who worries me!” said Midnight. “It is already too late for Night Terror, but I can save Spike. I will save Spike even if that means chase them to extinction! They may not be bad but they are stupid, and as this griffon said, stupidity is more dangerous than pure evil.”

And they disappeared in the shadows, ironically. But they didn’t mind since they were dead already. Now they just had to think in a way to destroy all the Knights of Silence.

…

It was very late in night when Spike returned from his talk with Night Terror. Now he knew what to do, but it would be difficult. He had to defeat the monsters no matter what.

“Spike!” called somepony behind him.

He turned to see his mother.

“Oh hi Twilight. What are you doing awake this late at night?”

“Oh, I don’t know… waiting for you obviously! Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been? Where were you Spike? DO YOU KNOW HOW DANGEROUS IT IS NOW THAT THEY ARE BACK?!”

Spike just looked down.

“I am sorry, okay? I had something to do. Something important.”

“Spike please! Nothing is more important than your life, and now that the Undeads are back the Knights of Silence are no longer safe. And you are a Knight of Silence! Please, you need to be more careful!”

Spike sighed. “I am sorry Twilight, but you have to stop worrying about me!”

“I am your mother! Is my job to worry about you!”

Spike sighed. “Look, I wish I could stay and help you to calm down but there’s something I need to do. If there’s something I can do to save my family, I will. Being useless it’s a sin, and I am not a sinner. Not anymore.”

He ran to his room. “In fact I just came to grab my stuff. There’s something I need to discuss with the Hight Council. I leave to Canterlot immediately.”

And before Twilight could react, he fused with his shadow and got lost in the night.

Twilight just watched the door he escaped and fell on her knees as tears began to show in her eyes. This was the last straw, she realized something horrible. Something that she refused to see back on the days when she realized Spike had become a Knight.

“I am losing him!”

Author's Note

I know the conflict with the Knights of Silence was a bit forced, but in the end it would help to wrap up the resolution of the whole story. I hope you liked it and well, as usual

Read ya’ later!

The final battle would take the three fronts at the same time but this time it would be definitive.