Lost Chapters

Welcome to the deleted scenes! I consider these cannon; but didn’t include them in the final draft because; I didn’t have a way of tying them in, were unnecessary and made the chapter too long, were illogical, or went against the mood I was trying to create at the time.

Enjoy!

Extra story of Storm’s past that has no relevance to the story.

Silent Storm squatted in a narrow, freshly dug trench with five Rangers on either side of him, hidden under a camouflaged tarp that blotted out the full moon. It was two years since Silver had died; Storm had barely spoken a word to another Ranger since then, and not once had he left the forest. However, on his last stop at Uthraig to collect supplies, he had been approached by several officers asking for his help.

After a series of defeats, a terrormonger force of unidentified size was coming dangerously close to the edge of the forest and was encroaching on the outskirts of a hamlet named Ponyville. Unless they were stopped, the terrormongers would massacre the town, and after that, keeping the secret would be nearly impossible; and could cause a tsunami of supercharged terrormongers that destroyed Equestria.

They had to be stopped.

Storm and the other Ranger captains had the numbers to do it, but currently the location of the terrormonger force was unknown. To make things more... interesting, tonight was Nightmare Night, a festival to Princess Luna, a night dedicated to scaring ponies, if left to themselves the civilians in Ponyville would draw the terrormongers to their town before the night was through... unless; there was another well of fear to attract the terrormongers, already inside the forest.

Storm crouched down a little further as he heard the approaching voice of Zecora and a hundred hooves behind him, on their way to Luna’s statue, right on schedule. Holding his polished blade in front of him, Storm could see them in the distance. Zecora’s mohawk had been replaced by a flat cascade of mane, studded with spiders; (Storm wondered briefly if they were rubber or if she had petrified real spiders into her mane) but her gold jewelry was completely unchanged, as always.

"This is the worst plan ever." Whispered a young Ranger beside him, slightly too loudly, as he twisted his stupid head around to look at the civilians rather than keep his eyes where they should be, "Some of those kids can't be more than seven years old, and we're using them as bait!"

Storm resisted the urge to kick the air out of the new recruit and leaned over in an appropriately whispered growl, "Zecora's with them."

"There's at least two dozen civilians out there;" continued the new recruit, "If just one terrormonger gets past us, it would be a massacre!"

Why did Storm have to get a recruit who was deaf as well as stupid? Storm leaned over again and whispered a second time, slightly louder; "Zecora's with them."

Thankfully the recruit shut up after that and got back to watching and listening. A little over a minute into Zecora's presentation, a tree fell with a crack about fifty meters to the north, meaning one of the other strike teams had spotted the enemy. Storm drew his blades and has one hoof out of the trench when a bright light issued from somewhere above the tree line; Storm looked up just in time to see a hooded figure in a chariot drawn by two thestrals.

What the hay!?

............................................................................................................................................................ This scene was meant to happen shortly after the search party was in the forest; they met another band of Rangers who had finished their tour and was on their way back to Equestria; Shining Armor says-

“I’m not Silent Storm. "

The stallion stared at Shining Armor in confusion for several moments his eyes opened wide and a huge grin shot across his face "I won" he murmured. Before Rainbow could get an explanation the Stallion had began jumping around the group in wide circles, similar to Twilight's happy dance and cheering in a sing-song voice "I WON! I WON! I won; I won; I won; I won; I WON!"

"No need to gloat Wind Whacker" grumbled one of his companions sulkily.

"I don't get it" complained Rainbow, "What did you win?"

Wind Whacker spun around to face her, sporting a smile so big it looked like his face would break. "Why, Storm's money of course."

"What!?"

"Most Rangers who get lost alone in the deep forest die or go crazy within a month. Silent Storm's been living at the front lines of the war by himself for who knows how long and so everybody knows it's only a matter of time before one or the other happens to him; but noone knows when it will happen and so we all make bets! My wager was yesterday, that puts me the closest meaning I win! I'M RICH!"

"That's insane."

Wind Whacker pointed towards Shining Armor, "He thinks he's somepony else, and I just won ninety-three thousand bits. Who are you calling crazy?"

"Does Storm know the Rangers do this?"

"Duh, who do you think we all bet against? Storm has a diamond dog bookie in Uthraig who manages all the bets. At the start of each year any Ranger who want to play, picks a day for two hundred bits and then Storm matches the total with his own money. Whoever gets the closest to when he 'looses it' gets the money; but if Storm makes it through the year then he keeps it. He's been fleecing us for years because he's never gone crazy; until now that is!"

"So... how much money does Storm have?" asked Rainbow curiously.

Wind Whacker did some quick calculations in his head "Well, Storm's been serving at the front line, earning maximum pay non-stop since; forever.  He only spends money when he goes to civilization which is; never; and for the last few years he's been making heaps of bits by betting that he won't go crazy; so I'd say he has about... a zillion bits! Time to celebrate baby!" Wind Whacker stopped briefly and looked Rainbow up and down, "You look OK. Wanna come with me to Uthraig while I collect my prize and then go party?"

"No thanks."

The stallion's face fell slightly, but then a glint re-entered his eyes when he caught sight of Twilight, "What about you?" he offered sliding up until their noses almost touched, "Do you need a big, strong, rich stallion to show you around in this big, bad forest?"

Twilight began turning bright pink and took one hesitant step backwards, "Um, well.... that's very kind of you but... but..."

"Buttttt?" asked Wind Whacker, seeming to take great delight in the word.

"I think, what the mare is trying to tell you," said Shining Armor firmly, as he stepped into the narrow gap between Twilight and Wind Whacker, "Is that she does not intend to attend your 'party' and that goes doubly so because there's not going to be one. I really am Shining Armor, on Monday Storm and I preformed a body swap."

"That's just what you would say if you had gone crazy!"

"He's telling the truth" confirmed Twilight, still pink around the ears "I have a letter from Princess Celestia herself which proves it." Twilight retrieved the second letter the Princess had sent to her,  and presenting to Wind Whacker whose face fell as he read it over for the second time.

Given issues of; what happened next and a soldier acting so immature and I’m not sure how cannon I can take this, but the lottery is definitely real. Since Storm did think he was Shining Armor for a while, he did technically go crazy and lost the lottery, but he hadn’t bet all his money on it. By the end I’m thinking he roughly broke even for however much he won in previous lotteries, (but since he didn’t think he was Shining Armor for a couple days after this, it wasn’t Wind Whacker who won it, it someone sensible.)

............................................................................................................................................................This was meant to be in the prologue of Rainbow Dash complaining about the Wonderbolts, but it was getting too long and this paragraph wasn’t really necessary.

Rainbow still hoped that, one day she might form the Wonderbolts into the team they all pretended to be; but so far her efforts had been met with nothing but a series of abysmal failures. Once, for example, she had tried to get the Wonderbolts to practice their performances during thunderstorms. “There’d be no point” the other Wonderbolts had all insisted, “nopony would come to watch us in a thunderstorm, so why should we waste our time and energy getting a skill we could never use?” They just didn't get it! The idea wasn't because it would be instantly useful, the idea was to do something because it would be hard and would force them to become a stronger, more cooperative team. Another time, she had even suggested breaking the Wonderbolts into two competing teams, to motivate new flight innovations, but if they thought her other ideas were silly, this one they simply took it as a joke. They were all unquestionably fantastically gifted fliers, but they just didn't want to work any harder than they had to, to keep their positions on the celebrity flight team.

............................................................................................................................................I wrote this one night, completely on spur of the moment and thought it was hilarious at the time. Since then I've decided it doesn’t fit with how I wanted to develop RD in the lead up to her quitting the Wonderbolts. This was meant to come in chapter 7, right after Firestreak asked if Apple Bloom had 300,000 bits.

How could they have done this to her!? How could they have let Dash spend her entire life dreaming about becoming one of them and then turn out to be so bitter in real life. The most merciful thing they could have done would have been to kill her the day after she joined, that way at least she could have died happy. But the monsters had let her live, they had made her one of them and now she had become a part of their lie!

With a scream of frustration Dash lunged at Fire Streak, wrapping her hooves around his throat and squeezing the life out of him as she bashed his skull repeatedly against a rock, each blow drawing more blood as it poured down his face past his bulging, fish-like eyes. The other Wonderbolts tried to drag her off him, but she turned on them, tearing their wings off with her bare hooves and throwing them head first into trees where they made a satisfying “crack!” before falling limp and lifeless to the ground. A few of them did the smartest thing they had done since they met her and tried to run, flying away as fast as their wings would carry them, but Dash went after them, ripping a ten foot branch off one of the trees and using it as a club to bat each of them out of the sky with flawless precision, to the delighted cheers of Apple Bloom.

She no longer had a flight team but that wouldn't matter soon. She would hire Twilight to build her a new flight team, of robots! Android pegasi who would always put the fans first, would wouldn't be afraid to try new routines, wouldn't waste their money buying truckloads of their own merchandise,  and best of all, she'd have Twilight make her a remote control for them with a mute button on it! She could fold them all up at night and put them in a box under her bed where they'd be out of the way for her and Storm.

Ever so slowly, Dash opened her eyes; and the grin she had been wearing the last thirty seconds vanished, when she saw that all the Wonderbolts were still there, in a line looking back at her with their typical stupid expressions.

............................................................................................................................................................This was just a random quip that was meant for chapter 14 after Shining Armor’s two hundred word sentence rant against Twilight.

"You're brother has an amazing lung capacity!" grinned Rainbow after Twilight had fallen back from Shining Armor's side.

"Well I suppose it's really Storm's lung capacity with the body swap and all."

Rainbow missed a step as a slight glint entered her eyes, "Even better."

............................................................................................................................................................This was another part of chapter 14 where Storm and Silver are telling Straight hack about their past; I wanted to convey that they weren’t just victims but did do some horrid things, even if they were in understandable circumstances, and make the idea that Silver wasn’t just a Princess Peach character to be saved by Storm over and over again, but had some initiative of her own. The chapter was getting a bit long and I think I already conveyed that Storm and Silver had a rotten life. I’m considering a short side story a few years in the future where Storm is struggling adjusting to civilian life and this story might come up then.

They told Straight Hack… almost everything. Storm kept telling himself that one day he would tell him everything, but of the five ponies and one griffon that they had killed in their two years living off the street, one of them had been innocent. They trusted Straight Hack not to tell anyone what they’d done, but didn’t want to incriminate him as a silent accomplice if anyone found out what they had done, found them living with Straight Hack.

The winter before Straight Hack; the train lines had frozen, leaving them stranded for over a week in Port Mane. After exhausting the town’s dumpsters on the second night, they resorted to begging; but this proved equally fruitless. There’d been a bakery there, run by an older earth pony stallion who had seemed nice and smiled at them when they came in, but when he learned they didn’t have any money only gave them one hot cross bun to share.

That the heating in the shop had been on minimum, suggested that the stallion wasn’t rich and didn’t have much to spare; but he had so much more than they did, and after looking around Storm believed stealing from that shop had the lowest likelihood of getting caught. Storm broke in through the window around midnight and began filling his improvised saddlebags bags with as much food as he could carry. He was almost finished when the lights went on and the baker stallion was coming for him. Storm jumped out the window he had come in and began running. The stallion came after him, calling for him to stop, but Storm knew better; he wouldn’t go through being beaten for stealing again.

With the snow making everything white it was hard to find a place to hide, but Storm was quick and had almost outran him, when Silver came out of nowhere and used her magic to pelt a jagged rock at the stallion’s head. The stallion went down and began flailing; they should have run, but Storm knew the baker had seen both their faces and if they couldn’t get out of the city that night, police might come looking for them the next day, and they weren’t the sort of ponies that the world would let get away with stealing.

They just wanted to live.

Thinking and acting in the same moment; Storm turned on the stallion, drew his knife and began stabbing him with untrained blows, trying to find his heart in that giant earthpony chest. It couldn’t have lasted for more than a minute; but the stallion put up a fight that made it feel like a war. Silver held him down and tried to keep him quiet; when a few kicks to the head didn’t stop his cursing, she tried stuffing his mouth with snow, then smothering him with her belly and eventually stuffing her hoof down his throat right up to her shoulder; that worked.

When the stallion stopped kicking the orphans looked at each other; realizing what they had done. They stripped the stallion the jacket he no longer needed, disappointed to find only four bits in the pocket, than set to getting rid of the body. He was too heavy for them carry, but the ice was slippery and so they dragged him to the river where they combined their magic’s to melt a hole in the ice large enough to slide the body through. Three days later, when the trains were running and they were about to leave; they found a newspaper saying a local baker had gone missing, leaving behind a wife and three children.

They ate the newspaper.

............................................................................................................................................................This was meant to be another discussion for Storm and Cadance in chapter seventeen, it was unnecessary and I like to just vaguely allude that what Cadance said in chapter 13 was the same memory Storm recalls in chapter 17. I also thought about inserting this when Twilight was quizzing the stallions, but instead asked about Smarty Pants or Heu-jass.

Cadance nuzzled Shining Armor affectionately, "Do you remember how we met?"

Shining Armor nodded, "I had been working at Doughnut Joes and Twily bet you that she could get me to give you two free food while I was on shift. You came in with two, free pretzel 'coupons' that Twily had drawn on napkins and when I didn't cash them you started pretending to complain about the, 'bad customer service'. I asked if you thought you could do a better job and we ended up having a baking contest to see who could make the best giant pretzel back at my house. Twily tasted them both but couldn't decide who’s was best, then you offered her a new magic book and she declared you the winner.

We started cleaning up the mess we had made when you passed, your pretzel to have a bite and in the moment you hovered it between us Twilight suddenly lit up like a horn and said we were so cute together. Two days later, she got up early and stole my lunch and bits out of my bag before I went to the academy, and when you came to foalsit, she told you I had forgotten them, but not to worry because she had already started making me a massive chocolate cake to replace it, coercing you into helping finish it and bring it to me at lunchtime. One week later she told me it was your birthday and convinced me to help plan a surprise party."

............................................................................................................................................................This is a modified version of the speculation on Zecora at Uthraig that just went a bit extreme. I like it, and consider it cannon, but for setting up the end of the chapter I wanted Zecora to be more mysterious/ wise/ epic and this made her more mysterious/ crazy/ nightmarish.

I got this idea from one repeated guess in the comments that Shining Armor and Zecora had been having an affair; not that this would be anything close to realistic to how that would turn out, but maybe how Shining Armor would have seen it when he was being trained by Zecora, (keep in mind, at that stage he believed that Storm had been raised by wolves.) Shining Armor is loyal to Cadance, (At least in this manner of speaking), and Zecora… has her reasons.

A lot of strange stuff was said about Zecora, and about what she did in her spare time. One subject of interest is that despite having been in the forest for decades, (no one was quite sure how many) she had never been in any romantic relationship that anyone knew of… at least… no one had ever been in a relationship with her and lived to tell the tale. One story Twilight heard twice was that Zecora was part spider, and after mating, cooked stallions into stews and ate them. Another issue was that apparently, making potions was just one of many jobs Zecora did to help the Rangers, for which she was paid a fortune by the royal crown. Estimates of her exact salary varied wildly, from six digits to eight, while speculation on what she did with her money was even wilder. Theories ranged from the mundane such as saving it or sending it to her family, (whoever they were), to bizarre legends of feeding it to her dragon lover(s) and/or their half-breed child(ren); possibly, to fatten them up before she ate them too. (Some theories were even weirder.) The only consistent rumor was that she employed selected elite Rangers, sworn to secrecy, to run private errands for her in between tours, but even this couldn't be verified by any real evidence.

............................................................................................................................................................This last scene I consider utterly cannon and takes place two months after chapter 23, but I liked ending the story with Derpy so I put this as a second ending here. Think of this as the two minute clip some movies have after the credits.

Twilight sat on the front porch of the Apple’s farmhouse with Granny Smith, waiting patiently for the rest of the Apple family to assemble. Apple Bloom was the first to come outside, remarkably clean for a filly who lived on a farm and wearing an elegant little dress Twilight recognized as something Rarity had made for Sweetie Bell for her last birthday. For a split second Twilight wondered if Sweetie Bell had outgrown it already, and given it to Apple Bloom, but realized instantly that that would never happen. Sweetie Bell loved and idolized her older sister and cherished everything she gave her... with how erratic Rarity had been acting lately, and how little time she was spending with Sweetie Bell, this may be one of the last thing Rarity ever gave her. Twilight could only imagine how much it would have meant to Sweetie Bell lending it to Apple Bloom, whose vigilant steps showed she appreciated the magnitude of the gesture as she stepped gingerly onto the front porch. It fit the occasion well.

After her came Big Macintosh; his dark russet fur cleaned to even greater lengths then Apple Blooms, wearing a suit that looked old but very well cared for. Last came Applejack who, like Twilight, was wearing her Gala dress. Her neck still bandaged enough that she probably shouldn't be taking a long journey, but she’d insisted and the rest of the family wasn't about to try and stop her. It had been three months since Applejack had gotten hurt; she was healing, slower then she would have liked, (mostly due to not resting as much as she should), but was strong enough to take the day trip... to visit her parent's graves.

Twilight was confused; Shining Armor was still Captain of the Royal Guard, and that meant Celestia should be the only pony that could order him to do anything, but he still seemed to be taking Zecora's banishment from passing any dragon wall seriously. Nevertheless he had promised to send another Ranger to guide Applejack and her family to the Ranger graveyards, and if at all possible, he would send someone who had known Lasso Mac, and could tell them about his life in the Rangers. A day and time had been set, that day and time had now come.

As if on cue, two easily recognizable ponies walked up the lane towards the gate, Rainbow Dash and Silent Storm. The ponies on the porch each took a bouquets of flowers from the railings and went down to meet them, Twilight consciously hobbling her pace to what AJ should be going as they met the Ranger duo at the gate.

"You?" asked Applejack suspiciously to the red pony.

"Silent Storm" nodded the unicorn; looking from one Apple to the other like he'd forgotten why he was there.

"I told em about the Rangers” imposed Applejack, “You can lock us all up later if you want but you are going to show us where our parents are first.”

Silent Storm said nothing but gave a faint shrug.

Twilight felt nervous and thought it would be a good idea to introduce the family to Storm. “These are-“

"Applejack, Apple Bloom, Big Macintosh and Mrs. Smith." said Storm, nodding to each family member in turn.

"Did Shinen Armur tell you about us?" asked Apple Bloom.

"Your father did."

"You knew our pa?" asked Apple Bloom.

"I knew him very well. He was one of the few friends I had until he died in battle. I wasn't with him."

They began walking towards the forest; the going was slow, due to Granny Smith’s age, AJ’s injuries and Apple Blooms admirable efforts to keep Sweetie Bell’s dress clean, but no one minded this as it gave the family time to pepper Storm with questions about Lasso Mac which he answered as best he could. A few months ago, Twilight would have been more then eager to hear some war stories but now… they seemed much less glamorous now that she had been there, and it seemed better to hang back and let the Apple family get the answers they’d waited so long for.

Rainbow Dash seemed to share her sentiment; staying back close beside Twilight, limping onwards on two of her legs. Twilight hadn’t seen her since the day she resigned from the Wonderbolts and was glad to see her again, but Dash didn’t seem talkative; she seemed… older as though these last months had taken a lot out of her, and under her tiger striped chain-mail Twilight could see tightly wrapped bandages.

Several times, Dash opened her mouth like she was going to say something, but never did so Twilight spoke for her, "Looks like AJ healed some injuries and you got some” she said gently, “Was it a terrormonger?”

"I don't want to talk about it." murmured Dash without stopping. A minute passed with none of them said anything, until Dash breathed quietly under her breath, "It's not as easy as I thought it would be."

"It‘s OK Rainbo-"

"I said I don't want to talk about it!"

The trees rolled past, giving the impression of a treadmill; until they finally gave way to a sweeping forest of stone statues; each life size standing a few feet apart from each other. "Many of the Rangers here didn't officially exist" said Storm evenly. "Few in Equestria knows about the ponies here, but we have some skilled stone masons who have done what they could to give their graves some dignity.”

Storm led them a short way into the graveyard, navigating it like he had been here many times before, to the statues of two ponies, a stallion and a mare, standing side by side. The stallion’s cutie-mark was a lasso. "Lasso Mac was killed in an ambush in front of an Ursa’s cave at a battle called Forest Jaws ten years ago. I wasn't with him when he died; but while I knew him he talked often about you, and about how proud he was of his children. A few weeks after his death, a patrol found the body of your mother, mauled by timber wolves on the line of the first dragon wall; someone recognized her and so they buried her beside her husband."

The Apples sat down silently except for Big Mac who stood motionless, staring into the stone faces of his dead parents. Twilight, Storm and Rainbow Dash stood well back, allowing the family their long overdue time to grieve as they lay their bouquets one by one at the bases of the statues and slowly began reminiscing of all the times they had once had. After a few moments, Storm turned away.

"You’re leaving?" asked Twilight.

"It’s been a while since I’ve been here; I have some more stops to make. I'll be within ear shot." With that turned and strode off into the maze of stone. Rainbow Dash looked wistfully between Storm and the Apples and then limped off after Storm. Storm stopped when he heard her hoofsteps, and waited for her to reach him before starting off again, moving slower and caressing her in his telekinesis to ease her limp, the two of them moved off into the maze of history.

Applejack lay sprawled out over her parents graves, no sobs shook her body but Twilight could see tears trickling down her face as she looked at the lifelike statues of her parents. Then Applejack began looking beyond them, her eyes blinking as though she were having some kind of a vision. "Twilight," she asked soberly, "Why’s there a thirty foot statue of Derpy in the middle of the graveyard?”

Paths not taken >>>