Star-Strider

The faint sounds of predators surrounded the brigade. Despite their stoic faces, Nebulous Sky knew her troops better. They were scared. She was scared. The cold rain pattered on their silver armor leaving small dinking sounds to indicate where they were relative to her. She shuddered in her armor. Growing up in Gloom Hollow, she had basked in the night same as her ancestors. But this night did not feel friendly in the slightest.

“Keep your eyes open and ears clear soldiers; the sooner we find our princess, the sooner you get a bellyful of mead and a warm bed!” She barked the order mostly in an act of reassurance. The troops mumbled a ‘yes ma’am’ barely audible over the rain and fear. The forest seemed to sway around them, bending into twisted faces and sending plumes of darkness out in front of her. “Unicorns, light it. Dawn Setter, signal our pegasi to report here. See if we’ve found anything.” The company of well-trained ponies did little to steel her own nerves as she could hardly see ten of them. She prayed to the moon that the two-hundred ponies sent in to scour the woods for Princess Luna all made it home.

They halted under a larger canopied area as she took a headcount. Waiting for the thirty pegasi to return, she made out one-hundred and seventy ponies after a bit of counting. She breathed a sigh of relief as a flare beacon went out to bring the scouts in. She brushed up against a lean, white-coated stallion in her ranks. “Sergeant, how are they holding up?” He saluted her, smiled, and bumped her shoulder.

“Shaken up, but just fine Nebulous. Stop worrying so much. Trees are hardly the scariest thing you’ve led us against.” She chuckled but still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. She felt watched.

“You feel it too.” The stallion’s tone had shifted to low and serious. She nodded.

“Something is watching us, Marble. Something that isn’t just night-owls and timber-wolves.”

“I’ll have the unicorns set hex walls and torches along a small perimeter. We’ll wait for the pegasi and it’ll be fine. I’m sure it’s just an ursa minor or something.”

“The fact we’re hoping it’s just a giant cosmic bear doesn’t exactly reassure me.”

A lightning bolt cracked across the sky, briefly illuminating her troops gathering into smaller groups. She looked up to see a group of pegasi punching through the canopy above. A couple of them stuttered in their flight pattern as they likely clipped their wings on branches. The lead Pegasus came to a salute as Nebulous approached them. “Ma’am, we’ve spotted nothing. The woods are too thick in this dark. If there was any sort of clearing, we missed it.”

“No worries Lieutenant. Did you all make it back?” The Pegasus shook her head.

“We lost Starry— I mean, we lost three soldiers to snatchers and branches. I couldn’t see where they fell in the woods. I wanted to keep searching, but your flare—”

She took notice of the correction for naming the missing troops. Personal attachment to the losses during a campaign could be dangerous to the mentality of officers. She knew the feeling all too well.

“It’s okay, we’ll find them. I think we need to take a little time to recuperate, and we’ll start back up in an hour or so.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Another flash of lightning. Nebulous swore she saw slitted pupils behind the tree line. She shook off the feeling. This forest is already getting to me. She began sweeping her camp, stopping to chat with a few soldiers. Cawing could be heard from some badger-crows as the hex walls went up. She felt a little safer as the camp became enclosed by the magic. She smelled the familiar scent of tobacco as a few soldiers undoubtedly lit some packs they smuggled with them. Nebulous, being a more relaxed commander, understood the need for a release. Especially under such strenuous circumstances. As she came close to the unicorn line holding the walls in place, she noticed some sections of the wall were dimmer than others. She made her way over to those ones first. She came upon two unicorns, both of them panting with their eyes closed.

“Soldiers? Are you alright? If you need a break, we can get someone else over—”

“Give. Yourself. Him.”

Both unicorn’s spoke together as their eyes shot open to reveal a murky blue overlay. They approached Nebulous as she readied herself against them.

“Stop! I’m warning you troops, I’ll do what I have to!”

“Listen to your Captain!” She felt the rush of her troops gather behind her as the unicorns continued their approach. She glanced to her left to see three more unicorns and an earth pony walking in unison towards her.

“One more step and I’ll be forced to subdue you. Stand. Down.” She lowered her head and rolled her shoulders, ready to strike.

“And why should they listen to such a weak pony? I offer power to those who embrace it. Shall you join the ranks of the wise? Or fall prey to foolish whims of freedom?”

The cold voice creeped down her back, raising her hackles. Her soldiers shifted in equal discomfort as the disembodied voice came from beyond the trees. “Unicorns! Flare shots directly ahead!” Without delay, six red shots flew forward into the woods. Two of them passed by a rather tall and particularly bendy tree. A tree that smiled at her.

Her eyes went wide as she began shouting orders. Her voice was drowned out by the cackling and screams that filled the air. Tendrils of white shot from the figure and wrapped around the pony that stepped in front of her. “MARBLE NO!” His body fell to the ground, but just as quickly rose and turned to her, a blank expression, and faded eyes to meet her. Ponies all around her began falling with the tendrils enveloping them. She kicked away her friend’s hoof as it reached out to subdue her. She ran as fast as she could, shouting at her troops who had yet to respond. “MAKE FOR THE EXIT OF THE FOREST! REGROUP NOW!” But her cries fell on ears surrounded by stamping hooves and panicked shouts.

A few ponies saw her and ran with her, some being roped back by the tendrils as they screamed for help. Nebulous’s basic training kicked in as she thought of preserving those she could first and coming back for the others later. She grabbed a younger mare that stumbled over a log and helped her up. Just as soon as she regained her footing, she was swept back to the ground and dragged towards the monster as she screamed in terror. Nebulous cried out and kept running. She was now surrounded by fourteen others… make that thirteen.

Twelve.

She rolled over a rock and slammed through a tree branch, leaving a gash in her shoulder.

Ten.

She kicked at a hoof that reached out to grab her. Whether it was friend or foe, she couldn’t afford to slow down.

Five.

The forest was going back to its normal noises around her. The rain pattering on her armor, the growls of predators.

Three.

The screams were becoming quieter as the distance increased from her troops. One final tendril snaked slowly behind, reaching out for what it couldn’t see. She tackled one of the surviving unicorns that were with her to avoid the snake-like entity. It darted past them and wrapped itself on a Pegasus that made it so far. It yanked backwards, crashing the large body into a tree with enough force to crack the trunk. The Pegasus’s scream gave out as he crashed into the ground, folding over himself.

Two.

She kept running, not knowing for how long. She couldn’t hear her soldiers anymore but did notice the tears running down her face. The rain did little to hide her crying as she galloped past the forest borders.

Two-hundred able-bodied ponies reduced down to three.

She had escaped covered in blood and mud.

A small earth pony stood to her left, shaking in her breath and limping from her left side. A unicorn to her right, his shins cut in so many angles it looked like he was wearing red shoes. They hobbled towards the road as the rain subsided, no longer in the Everfree’s territory. The earth pony collapsed and Nebulous hunched over to pick her up. She wasn’t breathing. The unicorn came to help without a word, and together they limped back to the town hall with the small body on their backs. Soldiers in casual fatigues, day-guard armor, and medical clothes lined up to gasp at them. It only took a few moments for three stallions to rush up and shift the young earth pony off their backs. A medical team came up to them with three gurneys to lay on. Nebulous gratefully accepted the much-needed rest.

They wheeled her into the town hall where sections were curtained off. No doubt other ponies who were injured. She hoped some of them were hers she had not seen escape.

Princess Luna watched as the earth pony captain passed out on her bed. Her whole body was shaking, Luna guessed from the cold and cuts that were inlayed along her coat. The medical ponies shut the curtain, ripping Luna back into the room. “What happened to her?”

“We don’t know. She and two others just showed up outside of the city limits about ten minutes ago. It doesn’t look good.”

“Where are the other two?” The medical pony gathered up a bag of instruments and moved past Luna onto the next patient.

“One of them was dead before we got to her, the other passed out from blood loss. My guess is that this pony here is your best chance for information, and she won’t be awake for at least a few hours.”

“Her name is Nebulous Sky.” Flash Magnus entered the room with an angry energy surrounding him. Even Luna was uncomfortable by his harsh demeanor. “And she was part of the search team. Princess Luna, a word if you will.” He motioned outside of the building. She followed him out into the night as troops were lining up to receive orders from their officers. The army was clearly in disarray from the sudden arrival of wounded troops. Flash Magnus spun around to Luna and lowered his voice to almost a whisper. “Whatever happened to them took two hundred of my best soldiers and tore them down to a dying unicorn and a comatose captain. What the hell are we facing out there?”

“I wish I knew general, but some decorum would be appreciated.”

“Cut the shit, Luna. My men are dying to something we had no briefing on. You are in just as much of a trench as we are. You may be a princess, but right now, we’re all soldiers. Now I need to know. What are we up against?” Luna thought of dismissing him for his brash address, but realized he was speaking the truth. Nothing mattered here except surviving against the Cosmic Sunder.

“Well, I would need to know what they came up against to fully describe it, but for starters, I doubt your troops are dead. If they didn’t escape, they most likely belong to Cosmic’s army now. Which is very bad if they are as trained as you said. My guess is they were caught off guard the same way princess Twilight was. He owns them now. We can’t keep sending men into the forest. It’s his territory.”

“Well, he’s not exactly willing to come out and fight on our turf. What do you suggest?”

Luna was stumped. The forest was nothing she knew how to handle. When she and her sister had built their castle, it was on the fount of the tree of harmony that held the brambles at bay. Now the forest was operating on its own terms again.

“We need to clear it out.” Star Strider approached behind Luna, resting a hoof on her back. She jumped at his approach, not expecting him to be awake for another few hours.

“What do you mean commander?”

“Precision strikes against critical points in the forest. Many of the trees are connected to a larger host. We cannot kill the entire forest but clearing out key points will allow us to advance into their land unhindered by nature. I noticed the parent trees on our search for Twilight. Get me any known maps of the forest from any time period.”

“The only pony who knows about that would be Starswirl. He was its keeper after the elements were destroyed.” Luna commented, suddenly getting an idea. “His cottage is not far. I’m sure he has some sort of map of the forest in his records. I say we search there first.” Star Strider nodded to her.

“Very observant. If you would, Princess, retrieve his records and meet us back here.” Her wings sank a little.

“You won’t join me?”

“We can provide you an escort ma’am.” Flash Magnus waved over four pegasi on duty.

“No, my dear, I am afraid that I must address the troops at this time. I only briefly heard of what transpired this evening, but if even a portion of it is true than my magic ward is of no use. I should have suspected this as Starswirl helped conjure it on the army and now belongs to the Lichen. I will do what I can to protect the ones we have left and figure some new runes I can use. Make haste Luna, it would be a shame should you miss the end of the world.”