Chapter 1: Humble Beginnings
It was a day like any other. I, being the humble writer that I am, was enjoying a bright and sunny summer's day, gently writing on some story about whatever at a local café in Ponyville.
When all of a sudden a most peculiar winged pony came up to me, dressed up in the royal Canterlot guard uniform, save for the fact that the known blue colors were red instead.
This peculiar pony said to me "You're that writer, right? Scurbel Wroter, or something? Ugh.. You're pretty well known throughout Equestria, right?"
"Well, if you must know..." I replied, obviously taking notes about the peculiar pony, as I always do "My name is indeed Scribble Writer and I am indeed quite known as a writer of tales and a writer for the Equestrian Tides, yes. But why would you want to know, if I might ask? And maybe stating your own name wouldn't be too much of a problem either?"
Before I could do anything, the bloke suddenly grabbed me with a hoof around my neck and started to drag me towards Celestia knows where, walking forward on his two hind-legs even! He replied with a voice sounding like he stated a fact "The name's Sergeant Alucard and you need to come with me!" Of course, the severe strength of the hoof around my neck disabled me from asking any further question and all I really could do was just hang on, trying not to be choked and see where this rough and tough Sergeant pony will bring me. Taking notes along the way of course, as I always do. While we're at it, why not put a small description of me and this pony right here?
My name is Scribble Writer and what I do most of the time when you see me is indeed implied by my name, writing scribbles. Small notes that I could use later for in my books that I have written, or maybe to be put into my journal I write in everyday or whatever I feel like writing at the moment. I am a unicorn, but most magic I use is for the levitation of my pen, quill and notebook. I'm not really trained in any other kind of magic, to be frank.
Anyhoof, my fur is a light-tanned brownish color, my mane is like a feather quill, pure white all over with only a few spots of black at the ends. I wouldn't count myself as a big stallion, but I'm not small either, you could say average size, I guess.
Furthermore am I a gentle stallion, not one to pick fights all that quickly and enjoying a cup of tea every now and then whilst writing whatever I can think of at that moment.
Now for the rude pony that suddenly managed to grab me and drag me along, his name would be Sergeant Alucard it seems. Dressed, as I already told you, in the royal Canterlot guard outfit, save for the red colors instead of blue. His fur seems to be full white and through his armor I could see mane and tail colored a bright orange, maybe even some streaks of yellow. I couldn't see anything past that, but who knows what other mysteries that armor of his might conceal?
Now that that's out of the way, let's continue our story...
So there I was, being dragged along by a, to me, unfamiliar pony seemingly walking on his two hind-legs with no effort whatsoever, a feat that even to me is quite a surprise to be honest. As we walked along the streets of Ponyville, I soon enough came to know our destination, Ponyville Hospital.
We arrived inside and this Alucard pony asked the mare behind the desk for the room where one 'Miss Helios' was residing, to which the mare replied with a saddened look, a quick standing up and a telling for us to follow her. Before I could even utter a word of protest, I got dragged along once again by the big and strong stallion locking his hoof around my neck.
We arrived at what seemed like an empty hospital room, except for the one occupied bed standing against one of the four walls surrounding it and the two other ponies standing on the opposite side of where I and my captor would stop walking and stand still. He released my neck from the lock of his hoof and stood on his own four hooves again before I lifted my head up and stared straight into the eyes of what seemed like a gravely wounded and rather small-sized pony.
I quickly broke the eye-contact moving my sight up and down the seemingly frail body that lay before me on the hospital bed. I looked down and noticed her fur had a very light buttery-yellow color and I could just barely see a pair of wings pointing out from under the sheets that concealed the rest of her body.
I looked up towards her head again and looked upon what one might call an interesting set of hairs on her head. It was completely white-colored, except for the occasional candy-caramel colored streaks of orange molded into her hair. Before I started questioning myself if this could be her own natural hair color, I suddenly noticed something pointy protruding her head, right around the beginning of her hairline. And at the same moment my mind made a link between that pointy thing and her wings and my mouth starting to say "You're a..." She looked at me and spoke with a voice that was sweeter and kinder than anything I've heard before...
"Yes, I am indeed an alicorn, my dear. Please, you may call me Everlight, Everlight Helios." She looked around the bed and turned towards the brute that dragged me here "I see you've gathered the ponies I've asked for, thank you for that." The brute nodded fiercely before she continued "Well then, why don't we introduce ourselves to each other... Please state your name and profession, if you will."
The first pony to reply was the one standing on the opposite side of the bed, in the same position as me. She looked joyfully towards the others and said with a smile "Well, my name is Spirit Crystal and I'm the grave keeper of the Ponyville graveyard! Or as I'd rather call myself, the caretaker of the spirits of Ponyville... Nice to meet you all!" I immediately sensed that the strange unicorn standing before me had a strange aura surrounding her. And her mild grayish fur and black with white streaks filled mane were only adding to that aura of mystery as I watched her smile.
Maybe even as if the words that she just spoke were not just words, even though I know how preposterous that may sound, I mean, nopony can talk to dead ponies, right?
Right, the next one to introduce himself was the pony standing next to her, a pony with a light-brown, maybe more like dark-caramel colored fur and an almost gold colored mane with slivers of silver. "Greetin's, I guess, the name's Iron Merch and I'm a blacksmith extra-ordinair, if ya need somethin' fixed, I'm the pony ya'll should go to, ya hear?" He ends his sayings with a small chuckle before looking concerned towards the small pony laying in front of us again.
Next in line was of course the big and strong stallion standing next to me, stating his name as if we're in the army itself "Full Name: Sergeant Alucard Ponytail, profession: Sergeant of the Equestrian Royal Guard, Ma'am!" I snickered a little bit at the mention of his full name but a quick angry look from him made me stop immediately and quickly say my name and profession "My name is Scribble Writer and my profession is being a writer, Miss! And could somepony now please explain what's going on here?! And are you allright, miss? You don't look too good..."
This made her chuckle gently and softly, as if her weakened body just barely could manage the effort "Hihihi, oh don't worry, I'll be fine Scribble... I just need some rest... My name is Everlight, Everlight Helios and as for an explanation, I'll start with the fact that I am one of the last known living members of The Protectors of The Light..."
Chapter 2: Helpful Hooves
That was the last thing she said before suddenly going unconscious and into a deep sleep right in front of us. Leaving all of us, especially me of course, in a slight panic and wonder what exactly these 'Protectors of the Light' were. Sergeant Alucard, who was still standing next to me at that point, decided that Everlight would need rest right now and that we could all get to know each other better over a little drink or something. 'Music to my ears!' I thought before we all left the room and went to the hospital's coffee/waiting room.
Once seated and some drink in our hooves to boot, I immediately started to ask questions "The Protectors of the Light? Who's that? Who are you? What drove you to get here? I mean, I got mangled and forced here by this big hunk of iron here, but what are you all doing here?" As I said that I was planning on putting a hoof on the pony I mentioned but after a quick and dark glare, I decided that it would not be in my best interests if I did that.
The darkly coloured, but brightly mooded mare started talking first "I'll go first, since, you know... I found her and stuff... So, there I was minding my own business and chatting with some of the spirits at the graveyard..." I rolled my eyes as she continued "When all of a sudden this bright and light and seemingly young mare trots in from the bushes surrounding my graves all cut up and bruised! She said something about 'The darkness is coming! We need to do something!' or something like that before she collapsed and went unconscious, in the middle of MY graveyard! So I quickly began to run towards town, looking for a guard to take that crazy lunatic out of my graveyard before she scares the spirits away! As I ran about, I suddenly came to the realisation that Ponyville doesn't really have any royal guards around so there won't be anypony to help me with this weird little mare in the middle of my graveyard... But JUST before I started slumping back towards my poor spirits I saw a big guard pony leaving the smith in town and I got all excited and ran towards him and immediately started to talk to him..."
She suddenly got a hoof against her muzzle from the this Sergeant Alucard as he said "I'LL take it from here, miss Crystal... You're probably wondering what I was doing there, aren't you?" I nodded quickly and he continued just as quick "I was visiting at that smith to get my armor reworked and repaired, to explain, my armor was ruined in a big fight with some thugs, me against 10, I think it was. Sadly, in my stupidity I forgot that thugs are the weakest of the weak and... I killed one of them. And of course, being a sergeant of the royal guard, the very princess that wants love, tolerance and friendship all around convicted me to a 2-month stay here in this little village to, and I quote 'Learn the true meaning of my lessons from my most faithful student!' Bah, as if I'd need some young filly to teach me how to behave, that wretched mare!"
Before I myself could react in a shocked way, a sudden stomp of a hoof on the table in front of us was enough to catch my attention. It was the smith stallion who looked angrily at Alucard "'Oy! Don't you be disrespe'n our goddess, you hear?! She may not be to my direct relationship or nothin' but I sure as hell don't like no ponies who're just dissin' her for nothin'!" Alucard waved a hoof at him "Aaah, calm down you, she deserves to be called that after sending me here while I only protected this country and myself!" The gentlestallion sat down with a bit of a grumble but seem to quiet down as Alucard continued.
"Anyhoof, that's why I was at this here blacksmith when all of a sudden this crazed grey mare comes at me and starts to talk to me like there's no tomorrow and before I knew it I got dragged along by this surprisingly strong hoof that belonged to the same mare!" Alucard chuckled a bit at his own story "Of course, I let her drag me with her, I mean, a citizen in need is a citizen in need, right? But as I got dragged on, I started to make sense of all the talking she did and she seemed panicked because somepony was disrupting the peace in her graveyard, something about heavy wounds and horns and wings...
I immediately jumped into action and sped right past her and saw this small and frail pony just laying there unconscious and grievely wounded. Of course, my duty as Equestrian Guard immediately made me pick her up, put her on my back and run toward the Ponyville hospital, yelling towards miss Crystal to come along with me and explain everything to me, SLOWLY..." As he said that, Alucard glared at Crystal for a bit before looking back at me again, continuing his story "We arrived at the hospital, she immediately got taken care of by the wonderful staff of this hospital and as they went on and performed their magics, me and miss Crystal here sat down to talk about what happened. She explained most of it, with a lot of details added to it which were, though pretty interesting, not helpful at all.
And not before long, the waiting was over, the hospital ponies had done their job as best as they could and led us to her chambers.
She still looked pretty frail and little but her wounds were mostly gone and she seemed a lot healthier at that moment. We both sat on one side of the bed and watched her for a few minutes, staying silent to respect her rest, when all of a sudden she opened her eyes wide and looked around in panic, yelling 'GAAAAaaah, what?! Where am I?! Who are you ponies?! What am I doing here?! What about the Enforcers of the Dark?! Did they get me?! Do you belong with them?!'
I quickly put a hoof on her muzzle before she could get herself into a panic even more and told her 'Woooaaah there, little miss, calm down, you're safe now... Whatever attacked you is gone now and you're in the Ponyville hospital, you were wounded badly and needed medical attention. This mare here found you and asked me to help her get you to the hospital, allright? No bad things going on here...'
The filly seemed to calm down a lot and I removed my hoof as I continued 'Now, little filly, you're obviously too young to be wondering about on your own and now do you see what happens when you do? Where are your parents?' The filly sighed a bit before suddenly fainting again from exhaustion and Crystal and me looked worried at each other before that filly's eyes opened up widely and glowed a menacing white light and she stated 'The writer, the fighter, the smith, the caretaker and the fifth! The fifth shall bring together the four that remain, make haste and complete the ancient armor once again!' She then collapsed once again and her eyes closed again.
Of course, both of us were quite surprised before the little filly opened her eyes again with a groan, the eyes being normal again 'Urgh... I... Am the fifth... Search for... The four... Bring them here... Please... Hurry...' She then fainted once more and Crystal and me looked at each other and I said 'You go get that smith we were just with, I'll go check around to see if I can find that writer...' Crystal nodded at this and we both trotted out of the hospital, Crystal hinting me that there was some writer called Scribble Writer on a visit in this town and that he was known throughout Equestria. By the time I found you, Mr. all-important writer, I forgot the name and didn't really feel like wasting anymore time than necessary so I just dragged you along! And so that's how we all got involved!"
As he finishes his story I notice that he grabs a big cup of water and downs it in one gulp before Iron Merch adds "Well, Crystal came ta me and ask'd me kindly t'follow her, explain'n in a rapid tempo what had happen'd until now, only caught half of it, but now it's all crystal clear ta me, hehehe..."
I sat there in wonder as I realized how extremely coincidental this all was, maybe it was fate that brought us together? Nooo, that's just silly, nothing can be this pre-ordaned in some kind of plan for the universe, right? Anyhoof, I sat there in wonder and we all got a bit silent as we waited for any news from the small filly that brought us all together before I realized I missed some info "Wait... That still doesn't explain what the hoof these Protectors of the Light are! I mean, it's a good story and all, but... What about the reason she got us together?!"
The three of them looked at me blankly before looking at each other and then looking at me again as they shrugged in unison and Alucard declared "Your guess is as good as mine there, kiddo!" The four of us then seemed synchronized as we all sighed simultaneously and relaxed a bit, wondering about the small filly that brought us all together, not knowing that which was about to unfold would change our lives...
Forever...
