A Hero Untold

As the horn of the monster began it's journey toward Wolfram's chest, Wolfram thought that it all seemed to be going very slowly. Then surprisingly he thought a lot more things before it hit. He had never been stabbed in the chest before, maybe it wasn't all that bad. He'd probably survive it, and then get up and shrug off the pain like he always did. Of course, that was simply fantastic, and he soon realized that in actuality a stab to the center of the chest would at least be temporarily crippling, if it didn't kill him. But then the poor child who Wolfram was trying to save would fall victim to the shape changers, and Wolfram would have gone through all that for nothing. He couldn't let that happen.

Wolfram looked back to the horn which was still descending toward his sternum. My sternum? The sternum wasn't a good place to deliver a coup de gras. The throat, or stomach are much softer and they rest very nearby. What was this monster getting at? Was it just not very smart? Wolfram didn't know, but he did know that even if it hit his sternum it would still hurt a lot. He clenched his teeth and pulled his lip back, because the horn was getting very close to his chest now. He squinted, making a face which he imagined didn't look very dignified, and then it hit.

A loud clang, and a crack rang out. A chip off of the monster's horn broke off of the tip, and it screeched in pain. Wolfram looked down at his chest, which was only sporting a small poke in the skin, near the center, looked back up and laughed. He began wrestling, no longer feeling hopeless. But he wasn't breaking out any time soon. There were at least four of the things on each of his limbs, and that wasn't easy to fight against. Another one stood over him, while the first that attempted to stab him  writhed in pain on the ground. This new shape shifter was sure to have learned from the first one's mistake. Wolfram was certain it would stab him in the throat, and then it did. Or it tried to anyway.

A rock struck the side of it's head, and fell to the ground. The shape changer followed suit, unconscious. Wolfram looked to the source of the rock, and saw Moxie standing proudly with a pile of rocks at her front hoof just a few meter away.

"Need some help?" She asked calmly, while kicking another rock at one of the creatures on Wolfram's front left leg. It only hit it in the shoulder, causing pain but not unconsciousness.

"A little would be nice." Wolfram said, and at that moment every one of the monsters who were surrounding him took his form and charged at Moxie. Leaving him completely unguarded, he got up quickly, and looked for his sword, he could see that there was a bug with his form holding his sword standing back to back with Moxie, acting as if it would strike any of the others should they attack them. Wolfram knew this was a ruse, but Moxie clearly didn't.

Wolfram charged into the swarm, unarmed, and began doing his best to pummel his way through them, and get to the one holding his sword. He fought his way through pretty easily, but when he dove at the one holding his sword, he was struck in the jaw with a rock. Moxie had just hit him.

"Moxie, it's me!" Wolfram shouted angrily.

"Don't listen, they're trying to trick you." The one at her six o' clock said in response.

Moxie sighed, and said "Every time this happened in a play or book it was just two copies. This is just stupid."

"Look, if I'm not really me, then I wouldn't be able to quote exactly what you said to me the afternoon of the day before I left. Go ahead and ask me." Wolfram suggested.

"Hey idiot, Why'd you get yourself kicked out?" The copy of himself with the sword said. "Looks like they can read surface thoughts, too."

Just as Wolfram was about to pummel the monster to a green, slimy pulp, it screamed in pain, and a green splatter shot out of it's knee. A bang was heard, it collapsed to the ground in pain, and it's head erupted with more green blood before another bang was heard. Amp could be seen again, and waved from down the street.

"These things are cold!" Wolfram could just barely hear her yelling.

Wolfram grabbed his sword back up, and began fighting off the monsters, who had just gotten over the surprise of their ruse gone terribly wrong.

"So, where have you been?" Wolfram thrust right through the abdomen of a leaping shape changer.

"Trying to find someone who knew what was happening." Moxie dodged a right hook aimed at her head.

"How'd that lead you to the square?" Wolfram took a hoof to the gut, and grabbed it in response. Yanking the striker off of it's balance and on to the ground.

"It didn't, somepony named Amp told me you guys were stuck here, and I offered to help. She also had some idea what was going on, these things are changelings, according to her." She tripped a changeling as it tried to step in toward her.

"Amp sent you here, eh? Maybe not the best choice. We're losing this kinda bad." Wolfram kicked a changeling in the stomach before it could hit Moxie's flank.

Just then Stone plowed through the wall of changelings toward Wolfram and Moxie, Lance followed close behind, and Wolfram could here the distinct sound of necks snapping off in the crowd. Shadow had survived, that was sure.

"Amp's got a plan to get these guys off of you, but we have to stick together!" Lance shouted, spearing a changeling in the flank.

"Clarify?" Wolfram requested while parrying a barrage of strikes from three separate changelings.

"I shield us all while Amp drops a bomb on top of us." He explained with some worry.

"Sounds good, regroup on me everyone!" Wolfram responded, now taking strikes at all three of his previous attackers.

Stone and Lance moved up beside Wolfram and moxie, then Shadow materialized in the rear.

"Ready, Lance?" Wolfram asked, pushing a changeling back into the swarm.

"Ready, no-name."  And with that Lance's horn began to glow orange. his spear and armour disappeared in an electrical burst, and he sent out a wave of energy to push the changelings out of where the bubble would be. A loud whistle could be heard from above, and Lance grunted, forcing an isometric sphere of hexagons to form around them, folding out of each other one by one, starting at the top of the bubble. They all glowed orange like his magic, and were semi-transparent like his armour and spear.

The changelings hissed in anger at the display, and a flash of light went off around them. A loud rumbling and boom, then an eerie silence. When the blinding light cleared, Lance's shield had completely shattered, a few of the hexagons kept floating there but most had been obliterated. The ground around them was completely charred and covered in soot. Only the exoskeletal husks of a few changelings could be made out on the ground around them, and the building closest to them had a smoking hole in it's front wall. Lance opened his eyes cautiously, and once he saw they were mostly safe he exhaled loudly and let the remainder of the shield down.

"Good job, Lance." Wolfram patted the unicorn on the back. For once Lance didn't take this as an opportunity to call Wolfram a no-name. He just sat down, there were few changelings left, and they were being dealt with by brandy and the others.

"You've got the coolest family friends, even if you don't have much of a family." Lance finally said.

"Amp's something, all right." Wolfram said. "Come on, we should go back to the blacksmith and help clean the rest of this square up."

"I don't think I can do any more magic today. That was one strong-ass bomb." Lance complained.

"Don't worry, I'll happily take your share of heads." Shadow offered helpfully. Wolfram ignored their comments and took the lead on the short trek back to the building in the center of the square.

Once the rescue squad and Moxie arrived there were only three changelings left. Out of panic they all assumed random disguises, that looked unrealistic. Colour combinations and cutie marks that didn't make sense at all. Then, they bolted in random directions.

"Time for a new spell." Shadow said contently. He charged up his magic, and vanished. Wolfram expected that much, but what he did not expect was what happened next. Shadow appeared instantly under the farthest changeling, he kicked it in the stomach. Then in another instant he was standing beside the next farthest one, and tripped it. Wolfram blinked his eyes, and in that time something happened to the third one that left it lying on the ground. Then in reverse order, Shadow appeared on one's head, and broke it's neck with his hind legs, kicked the other in the nose so hard it's snout collapsed inward, and used some kind of vampyric spell on the third. It shriveled up, and Shadow began to look stronger and more imposing.

To put emphasis on this scene, each of the changelings had been running in directions completely different to each other. All the ponies who had saw this feat were staring at Shadow with a mix of cautious impression, and utter awe. He had just teleported more than six times in a span of less than a second. Very few unicorns had ever gotten so good at teleportation before they were middle aged.

Hey, Wolfram. Amp wants to talk to you!" Wolfram heard Thunder shout from the blacksmith. She had failed to witness Shadow's feat. Wolfram shook himself out of his stupor and went over to the black smith. Once inside, Thunder gave him a guard's helmet, which was functioning as a radio.

"Hey, Wolfram. Did you like the white phosphorous clusterbomb?" Amp's voice said over the radio.

"What? Nothing like that has ever been approved for battle by the Canterlot Defense Convention!" An unidentified voice said over the open channel.

"Oh boo hoo, I probably just saved the lives of twelve ponies with it." Amp responded sharply.

"Foxtrot leader, this is Whiskey leader. Amp's operating under the government's sanction for normally unapproved testing. She has the licenses." Ferrous said over the radio.

"To answer your question, yes. The bomb was extremely helpful, Amp. A bit excessive, but still." Wolfram said.

"Wolfram, is that you? Where in Equestria have you been?" Ferrous asked.

"Open channel isn't a great place to discuss it, dad. I'll see you after we take the city back." Wolfram said, he didn't want to talk about personal matters with every guard in Canterlot.

"All right, but you aren't getting out of this. Until then, can you and your team move all the innocents in the area to one location? I'm coming with Whiskey squad to help you, but the ETA is 15 minutes." Ferrous informed his son.

"Sure thing, we'll get on that right now. See you soon." Wolfram said, and put the radio down.

"So Thunder, you going to give the order?" Wolfram asked his superior.

"Oh yeah, of course." she said. "All right team, the guard's asked us to get all the civilians to the smithy in one piece! This should be an easy job without any buggers to slow us down. Split into teams of two, and get on it!"

Shining Armor was at his wedding. His bride stood in front of him, looking worried and covered in filth and scrapes. He felt like he had just woken up after getting knocked out by a kick to the head, and the only people in the hall other than those previously mentioned were his sister and her 5 friends. He had no memory of what happened for what seemed like a several hours.

"Wh, where a..." He stuttered shakily "Is the wedding over?"

His previous observations about the occupants of the room proved false however. A tall equine landed heavily before him and Cadence. She appeared sleek and black, covered in chitin, and her wings were like that of a fly's. Her limb's had holes straight through them, making her look like she was actively festering, and her horn looked like a burnt piece of drift wood.

"It's all over!" She said menacingly, like villains always did.

"Your spell, preform your spell!" Shining Armour's sister shouted. Barely registering what he had been told to do, and still in a hazy headache, Shining Armor was about to begin when he was interrupted by the insect-like alicorn.

"What good would that do?" She laughed. "My changelings already roam free!" She gestured out the window.

Down below, in the streets there were guards being pinned and stuck to surfaces with goo, and civilians were being hunted like prey by smaller versions of the alicorn in front of Shining Armor now. Shining Armor couldn't give up.

"No." He said simply, glancing around hesitantly for a moment. The pills. He had taken the pills before the wedding! He should be better at magic than ever before, even though he felt like he was suffering from a concussion. He went through the steps he had made, all on his own, to make such a massive barrier spell. He forced the energy within him upward, and began collecting it in his horn. But nothing happened. After straining for some time, he released his breath, and panted. The spell had failed.

"My power is useless now... I don't have the strength to repel them!" He explained shamefully.

"My love will give you strength!" His bride said to him. The Changeling laughed at that.

"What a lovely, but absolutely ridiculous sentiment."

In spite of the Changeling's arrogance, Cadence embraced Shining Armor. At the touch of his love, he felt a warmth and strength run through his body, and he began to cast the spell again. In a calm sort of solace, that only Cadence could bring to him, he felt the power to begin casting a spell.

He closed his eyes in concentration, and just let the spell flow through him. He felt a sharp jolt of static hit his horn, but didn't flinch. He just kept focusing, like every one of his teachers had always said. He felt his hooves leave the ground, and that was unnerving enough to open his eyes for a moment, to see that he and his bride were floating upward. The magic had spawned orbs of light that swirled about them, and they were both emanating a light, not unlike the sun, from their horns.

Twilight and her friends shielded their eyes and smiled at Shining Armor, while the Changeling gaped in horror. And then he felt it. All the energy which he and Cadence had been building up, was released in a wave of discriminant kinetic energy. Now  the Captain of the Guard had to focus harder than ever, to limit the blast to changelings and their creations. He felt the presence of every creature that the spell passed over, and had to protect the innocent minds he felt. He didn't let a single changeling stay, and he didn't kick a single pony out.

He had executed the spell perfectly.

Wolfram spotted his father down the eastern street. He was being followed by eleven other guards. All of them were somewhat battered up, missing sections of their armour, and looking generally low on morale. Ferrous being the only exception to the last part. He stood at the front of the group, with his head held high and his gate kept straight.

"Wolfram! You're still alive?" Ferrous asked when he spotted his son, running up to him quickly and extending his hoof.

"I think so." Wolfram returned the gesture dubbed as a 'bro hoof.'

"On to business then?" Ferrous asked, and Wolfram nodded. "Well how many civilians did you find?"

"Six adults, and two children in the immediate area. We needed to tend to some wounds so we had to cut the search short." Wolfram explained. Amp trotted proudly out of the smithy now.

"I dare say they'll all live. Thanks to my medical expertise, of course." She boasted.

"You deserve a medal, doc!" One of the civilians called out enthusiastically from the smithy.

"Sounds like you did a good job, Amp." Ferrous congratulated. "We'll be securing the area, and taking over the rescue operation for now. You should all stay here until we have everything under control, you've all risked your lives far too many times in one day for teenagers."

"Nah, I'm going to go find some more buggers to slaughter" Shadow said. His cloak was about halfway done crawling across his body when he dropped the spell and gaped at something toward the center of the city. After a moment the rest of the ponies outside followed Shadow's gaze, and saw a tidal wave of purple energy expanding from the castle toward them. IT was carrying hundreds upon hundreds of changelings with it, and it was going fast.

"Should we be worried about that?" Wolfram asked nobody in particular.

"No, that's the Captain returning to active duty!" Ferrous shouted happily. "That spell's going to knock everything changeling related out of this city, and leave us in tact."

"Well, shit." Thunder exclaimed calmly, now exiting the cover of the smithy.

"Over all ready?" Brandy asked disappointed, and attempted to take a sip from his bottle. He quickly realized the bottom was broken open, cursed loudly, and tossed it on the ground. Spitting on the shattered remains for good measure.

Then the blast hit them, the husks and corpses of the changelings around them were sent flying upward and away from the city. A large collected swarm of changelings could be heard flying above them, screaming in there defeat, and the fear of slamming in to the ground outside of Canterlot at several hundred meters per second.

That was it. The fight was over as quickly as it began. Wolfram thought for a moment, and realized how much had happened in the last hour. How many times he could have died in such a short period of time, and how many times he had to use lethal force in that amount of time. For a moment he thought it was absurd. He thought that much fighting was ridiculous, and that no pony should ever have to do that. But then he thought a bit longer, looking into the bright heart of the repulsion spell. He thought of what might have happened if he didn't fight. Amp might have gotten paralyzed and taken away in there first encounter. His entire team might have been killed in defense of their city without him. A child and a father may have been stolen or slaughtered. Moxie wouldn't have ever returned to the group, and might have gotten in trouble all alone. His own father would have had to fight that whole time not knowing where Wolfram was, or if he was even alive.

That was why he would fight.

The day after the fight for Canterlot. Amp, Ferrous and Wolfram were all sitting in the living room of his house. Wolfram was sporting a good number of bandages covering abrasions from falling over so much, burns from Amp's bomb, bruises from punches and rocks, and a particularly large gash on his chest. It went to the bone, but no further.

Amp was there because she had already put herself in charge of dealing with injuries. On top of that, as soon as she had heard the story about the changeling's horn breaking on Wolfram's sternum she wanted to inspect him.

"You're sure I can't take a sample of bone tissue?" Amp asked pleadingly.

"No, I'm not letting you use a diamond saw to break a piece of my bone off." Wolfram said.

Amp huffed angrily, and trotted over to Wolfram, who was sitting on the couch. She began tapping areas of his body with thin skin, the forehead and sternum mostly. When she tapped wolfram's chest he winced in pain, and pushed her away.

"Please don't poke my wounds, Amp." He requested with a sigh.

Amp apologized half-heartedly, and went about tapping Wolfram uncomfortably.

Reportedly, very few casualties had occurred the day before. The changelings allegedly had the intent of keeping the Equestrians under mind control, and feed off of their energy. So most of their victims were only tranquilized and trapped. Stories had been told of what went on in the throne room. Supposedly Celestia herself had been defeated in sheer force by the Queen of the Changelings. And when the Captain of the Guard came to, he wasn't strong enough to repel the changelings. Then most of the witnesses proceeded to tell some sappy story about how the love of his life allowed him to save the day.

Wolfram didn't buy that last bit, of course.

After more quiet sitting about, which was nothing but what Wolfram wanted, a knock came at the door.

"I'll get the door." Ferrous said. Amp was to intent on observing Wolfram to care, and wolfram only nodded in polite response.

Some talking could be heard from the living room, it sounded like a high pitched female voice was speaking with Ferrous for a few minutes. Soon enough Ferrous returned to the living room.

"Wolfram, do you know a mare who appears to be both psychic and made out of candy floss?" Ferrous asked calmly.

Wolfram groaned to himself, and stood up with some discomfort. He ignored Amp who was still taking notes and tapping wolfram with various objects. Wolfram trudged over to the front door, and saw exactly what he was afraid to see. It was Pinkie Pie, and she was bouncing up and down at his door.

"Pinkie, how do you know where I live?" Wolfram asked putting a hoof to his face for a moment.

"Just a hunch. Hey did you know that Princess Celestia is looking for you?!" She asked excitedly.

Wolfram was about to say no when she spoke again.

"Because she is! She said that you were a hero or something, and that she wanted you to be there when she congratulated Shining Armor, who's my friend's brother, and his bride Princess Cadence! Then she sent out a bunch of big, scary guards to come and find you, but they weren't as tall as you, and then I was like 'Oh! What if I found him first? It can be like a scavenger hunt for people!' And then I found you, and I told you this!" She said very happily.

"That's great, but I'm tired and hurt. Can I talk to you about it some other time?" Wolfram asked, trying to be polite. He had completely forgot that Pinkie didn't understand subtlety.

"I don't know if you can. What if we never meet again, or what if you get cursed by a which and you can't talk?! Or maybe time will stop happening, and then there won't be an other time to talk to me about it at all! That would kinda suck. I like time! Without time we wouldn't have years, and without years we couldn't have birthdays, and without those we couldn't have birthday parties or after birthday parties! That's like two less parties a year! Booooring!"

"Wonderful. Listen, I'm going to close the door now, okay? You can stay, but the door will be closed and I won't be here." Wolfram offered.

"Okie dokie lokie!" Pinkie agreed contently. Then Wolfram closed the door and went back to the couch. Amp resumed the observations.

"Who was that?" Ferrous asked.

"A mare I met when I was away. I closed the door, but I think she's still there." Wolfram explained.

"Is she here because she's," Ferrous cleared his throat deliberately "Into you?" Ferrous coughed some more.

"I honestly don't know. She said that she was on a scavenger hunt for people or something. Also that Celestia sent a party to summon us a while ago." Wolfram answered.

"Wait, the Princess is summoning us?" Ferrous asked rhetorically. "That's kind of serious. Wolfram, do you have a jacket that isn't lined with steel plates?" Ferrous was beginning to worry about formalities. He did that too much.

"It's the day after a battle, I'm sure the Princess won't mind if we look a little roughed up." Wolfram said calmly.

"I can confirm that, she's surprisingly loose about hygiene." Amp piped in, having played poker with the monarch before.

"It can't hurt to leave a good impression on the monarch of your country, Wolfram. Answer my question, please." Ferrous demanded.

"About the jacket? No." Wolfram answered flatly.

"Well that's no good, I only have one." Ferrous began "Well, fine. You can look like a battle scarred homeless pony, I'm wearing my formal clothes."

"Fine with me, dad." Wolfram agreed to the terms easily.

Within a half hour another knock came at the door. This time Wolfram got up to answer it. He trotted over to the door, and opened it up, expecting to see Pinkie still bouncing up and down. This expectation was only met in part. She was in fact still bouncing up and down, and within the general area in front of his door, but closer than her was a troop of guards. The one in front, whose crest was a royal purple, as opposed to the usual white or blue, spoke up. He held a scroll in front of him with levitation, and declared strongly:

"Wolfram, and Ferrous of the Fortis family have been invited to the award ceremony for recognized heroes of the previous day's events, at request of the Princess of the Sun. Wolfram, your acts, alongside your combat training team, in preserving the safety of many innocents has earned you an official mention in the ceremony. Ferrous, your choice of morals over orders, and uniting the Royal Guard under the same act has earned you a spot there, along side your squad, and the leaders of all other squads. You will be called by name, and recognized for your bravery, and idealism."

At this point Ferrous stumbled around the corner and up to the front door.

"I'm here." He was wearing a sage green suit, with a badge of rank on the shoulders.

"Yes..." The guard continued "You both are hereby commended for your acts, and will be commended again at the ceremony, should you arrive. A personal message from the princess to Wolfram, and Ferrous has also been included. It reads as follows: I remember the day that Wolfram was taken in to Canterlot still. I remember you, Ferrous. I have not forgotten how selflessly you acted that day, and I will not forget how heroically you acted yesterday. Wolfram, you have shown not only that Ferrous has taught you well, but you have shown that you have learned well. I hope sincerely that you will both be present, you are the most interesting of the many ponies who I must congratulate today." The royal guard paused to show that the personal message had ended "The ceremony will be taking place today, at one in the afternoon precisely." And then he departed.

Amp appeared behind them. "Heroes, eh?" She poked her head out the door and shouted "I helped more than either of these guys! Where's my honorable mention?" The leader of the troop halted and turned back around.He approached Amp and apologized.

"My apologies, Ms. Degroot. We weren't aware that you were present in this house. The princess told us to give you this." And the guard levitated a small envelope over to Amp, who violently snatched it out of the air with her mouth.

"Thanks a lot, Mr. Speechy." Amp said angrily.

"Sorry, Ms. Degroot. The Princess did not provide us with instructions, or even permission to read the message. It is private." He then departed for the last time.

Pinkie Pie shouted off a ways, "I beat you guys buy a landslide! HA!" Jumping and pointing at the guards.

The trio went back to the living room, and Amp opened the envelope. She scanned over the letter with uncanny speed, and then put it down calmly, and returned to tapping Wolfram.

"Well? What did it say?" Wolfram asked while being prodded in the head with a candle stick.

"Hm? Oh, basically the same jazz as your guys' one." She began calmly "Except that I get payed, bitches!" Amp shouted happily.

"Wait, how much?" Ferrous asked cautiously.

"Depends on how much I do. Basically she just offered to buy a ton of my designs for the Royal Guard, and she wants to know every time I come up with a new one. Basically, I got rehired as engineer of defense!"

"I'm not sure if that makes me feel any safer." Wolfram remarked cleverly.

"Hey! My inventions are completely safe, it's only when I use them that they get dangerous!"

"Chainsaw armor?" Wolfram pointed out. There was a significant silence.

"Shut up, man..." Amp said eventually, folding her upper legs, and sitting slumped, but upright on the couch. They stayed that way. Enjoying the simple calm between the three of them after so much action. Even Amp stopped poking at Wolfram for a bit, but she wouldn't drink any tea. That was for 'Senile elders and tree huggers.' Ferrous didn't agree, and drank a large portion. Wolfram opted for coffee, and Amp quickly agreed that would be much better.