The Healer, The Thief, and the Painter. Act 1 The Healer

Chapters

Of Royal Beginnings
The Mystery Man
The Meeting of the First of Many
The Background of the First
The Escape
Dreams Reveal
The Voice of Reason
The Escape
Darkness Hides Death
Healing the Sun Princess
Revenge is served with rope.
Interrogation
A Guard for a Guardian
The Tower

Of Royal Beginnings

The Healer, the Thief, and the Painter

Act I: The Healer

“The greatest healing therapy is friendship and love.”

(Hubert. H. Humphrey)

Dawn rose above a sloping hill, slicing through the thick morning fog like a carving knife through tender meat. As the sun rose even higher it illuminated many houses of which many were not even higher than a typical hay barn, with roofs of straw supported by heavy wooden beams. There were about a hundred of these houses arranged in a circle, spiraling out form a huge tower looming over everything. This tower was the embodiment of art itself with flowing arcs of pure ivory, balconies jutted out perfectly flat with rails to prevent anything from falling off and curtains of pure velvet, colors ranging from bright sunshine yellow to a deep, even unnerving purple. It ended off at a peak that was a beacon in the sky.

The serenity of the scene was cut short by a blood curdling scream that echoed from the highest room in the tower. Inside the room was a bed that took up half the space, with a table with scrolls piled upon it next to the bed and with a small pot of ink and an eagle feather quill, and nothing else. The occupant of the bed was a pure white alicorn with ever flowing hair of blue, pink, green, and purple. She again opened her mouth and unleashed a scream of terrified agony with sadness mixed in as well. As this scream faded into the early morning air, the doors of the room burst inwards on themselves and a second alicorn rushed into the room flanked by four guards. This alicorn was a dark blue with a mane exactly like the alicorn on the bed, but hers was darker with shades of purple and blue. The guards were a mix of unicorns, pegasai, and a pony that looked just like a normal pony, except for the fact that the coat color was a shocking electric blue. “Sister“, said the dark alicorn, “how are you feeling today?” “Like this disease has spread.” the bed ridden alicorn replied painfully.

“How can that be?!” questioned the dark alicorn “The medicine that Zecora gave to you should have slowed the spread down to a crawl.”

“Well it didn’t”, replied the light alicorn, “remove my covers and you will see how much the medicine helped.” The standing alicorn motioned for one of the guards to remove the pristine bed sheets that obscured the bedridden patient’s lower half from the rest of the congregation.

The electric blue guard stepped forward and grasped the sheets with his teeth. As he slowly pulled backwards on the sheets, an overwhelming stench emanated from the bed. It was the stench of decomposition that made the guards and even the other alicorn nauseous. The diseased alicorn clenched her teeth and took in a deep intake of breath at the pain that even the slightest touch brought her. As the sheets slid further down a horrifying sight, her skin was an furious red covered with disgusting black scabs that oozed a nauseating liquid that had the properties of blood but was a dark green color that stained the feather mattress beneath her. “How is this possible?” asked the dark alicorn suppressing her gag reflex as was every pony else in the room was. “I don’t know,” replied the light alicorn, “All I know is that this sickness will overtake my body unless you summon him, the only one who will be able to heal me.

“Not him”, replied the dark alicorn, “his time is not ready. His powers will not be fully developed.” “Fetch him little sister,” snapped the larger of the sisters,“fetch the Healer, the one that can heal diseases with ease”.

“Fine.”spat the little sister; “I will fetch Him.” she turned towards the guards. “I want a full 24 hour guard at this entrance, if her condition gets worse, notify me immediately.” "

Yes Princess Luna.” replied one of the Pegasus guards, and followed Luna out of the doorway as she closed it with magic. As Luna left the guards posted at the double doors she descended some stairs and scowled with every sound of her hooves on the ivory steps. “Celestia is so stubborn,” she scowled “she thinks that the Healer is ready, but he isn’t, he could be unstable.” As she reached another set of double doors she sent them flying open with a bang. She had no guards at her doors because she was still able-bodied and able to use her magic, while her diseased sister was sick with an unknown disease, which was corroding her magic and body at an ever-quickening pace, leaving her weak and defenseless.

As she looked around her quarters, windows covered with thick azure curtains so that only small fragments of light fell into the dark room. The ceiling looked like the universe putting on its best show. A dark sky with small stars, comets, and even planets showed in the amazing sight. She approached a large circular bed with shadow blue sheets, as she climbed onto the mattress she laid down with her back legs being tucked underneath her barrel and her eyes screwed up in concentration. She focused on her objective. “Find him,” she said in her mind,“find the Healer as my sister commands, quickly, before she becomes too far gone.” A small tendril of midnight blue magic emanated from her horn and phased upwards towards the universe ceiling, slowly moving until it disappeared in a flash of dark blue light. This action left Luna drained of magical and physical stamina and she tucked her head into the crook of her leg and slowly her eyelids fell. “Please,” she said slowly in her mind, “before it is too late.”

The Mystery Man

The tendril of blue magic flew through the blackness of space for an un-measureable amount of time until it came upon a blue orb with green patches, as it continued it flew towards a green patch of land where the sun did not shine at the moment, and even further towards a small town where small lights shone even though it was early in the night. Finally, it stopped at a large house where no lights shone, until a faint ringing sound emanated from one of the highest rooms. A light in one of the upper rooms was abruptly switched on and thumping could be heard from the window. The magic tendril went closely to the lit window and peered inside. Inside the room there was a man, a man about twenty-eight who was rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and was quickly getting dressed in powder blue scrubs, white tennis shoes, and a black trench coat. The tendril tapped against the window, but the person inside did not take any notice, so the magic flowed down to the base of the house. Where it waited, the light switched off and steps could be heard coming down some stairs towards the bottom of the house. As the same man exited, the magic followed him to a very large machine, apparently very well built with a blue base paint with purple and pink horizontal stripes.

As the man opened a side door and climbed inside, the magic flew in unoticed. As he gripped a wheel set to the left of the vehicle, the magic slipped between the two seats and into the huge bed of the truck. It was stocked with medical equipment especially for equines, and for some reason on the wall was mounted a rifle, sleek and deadly in the early moon. The magic curled up in the back of the vehicle in a bag of surgical equipment. It would have to wait; it could sense the urgency in the way that its target was traveling. Whatever he was doing it was important.

The man was me, I was a country vet who specialized with equine medicine, I also shared the house I lived in with my boss, Mrs. Harbottle and her other employees. I was the only vet that treated horses in this particular village. So therefore I was always either treating patients from huge looming racehorses with broken hooves to small foals with pneumonia throughout the day and night. As I sped down the road in my loyal Bronco, a clap of thunder shook the large car and huge drops of water started smacking against my windshield liked it had paid them a personal insult. Yorkshire was known for extreme rainstorms, but this one took the cake. I sped down the road until I could see my destination, a small house at the end of a hill lights ablaze in all of the windows.

As I finally pulled into the drive way, I could see my client, Mr. Springsteen standing in the relentless torrent with full rain gear. As I stepped outside the rain soaked me to the bone with chills to boot. I had not been expecting this rain, so I had only brought my warm trench coat instead of my rain coat.“Hello!” I yelled over the pounding of the rain. “Good morning to you too Doctor!”he replied with a thick Yorkshire accent that nearly everyone in this village had except for me. “The mare and her foal are down in the creek bed, follow me!” he yelled. As he walked off, I followed him with an air of awe. Mr. Springsteen was a very well-known horse owner, whose racehorses went off to the track and netted him an enormous profit which he used to expand his herd. As we reached a deep dip in the valley, I could see a river that held my current patient. There was a beautiful mare standing by the banks of the river, but she was not who I was searching for.

She was snuffling at the river and whinnying with annoyance and fear, and I knew what was happening. This mare had just had a foal about three months ago, which I had actually helped deliver. He had been an adventurous foal, and I had visited him multiple times to treat him of various injuries that he had brought upon himself, from broken ribs to extreme lacerations. This time, it looked like he had tried to cross the river and had fallen into the deep part of the water. It was suicide, the water was icy cold even in the warmer days and even Mr. Springfield’s children didn’t challenge the rushing current. A burst of water brought my attention back to the task at hand. It was the foal, who had somehow gripped a shelf of rock with his hooves just enough to push himself up to take a precious breath of air before plunging back into the icy grip of the river. I stripped off my trench coat and prepared to jump into the dark water.

“You’re not thinking about jumping in there are you?” asked Springfield with worry in his voice. “Yes, I have to if that foal wants to live.” I replied as I ran and jumped down into the gripping abyss of the water. The current started to pull me as soon as I touched the water, but I swam deeper down to try to find the small foal. As I searched, a lone leg shot out of the darkness and smacked the wind out of me, forcing me to resurface. “He is still alive and kicking!” I yelled and dove back under the churning water. I waved my arms around and found the foal still struggling against the powerful current that threatened to even pull me under. I wrapped one arm around his small barrel and kicked my way to the surface. I burst through the river and anchored myself on an outcropping boulder protruding from the river like a beacon of life. I gripped the boulder with all my strength while still holding the foal that was turning limp with exhaustion with the other arm, current pulling at my legs like gravity had gone sideways.

I slowly edged my way up the bank that my boulder was set upon until I could stand up without much effort with the limp little creature still wrapped in my arms. As I laid the seemingly lifeless form on the soaked grass with the rain pounding on my back, I felt that I had actually lost the foal, until it gave a heaving cough and water exploded out of its mouth. “He’s still with us Mr. Springfield!” I yelled with joy. I felt a nuzzle at my back as I slowly lifted the small creature onto his legs. As I turned around I saw the mare, she was a soft chestnut brown with white speckles like someone had spray painted her with little drops of white paint. She lightly moved me aside from her foal and slowly snuffled his hair and snorted so that the foal’s hair blew sideways. The little colt whinnied in delight at his mother’s touch and returned the affection.

I turned to Mr. Springfield, “There you go,” I said with an air of pride around me, “he should be fine now.”

“Thank you kindly doctor,” the old farmer replied,“he wouldn’t have survived by the time I called anyone else. We both slogged up the hill back up to my car, as we approached it we both shook hands vigorously.“I’ll be off Mr. Springfield, just keep that little guy out of trouble, and don’t worry about a bill, this is a selfless profession we both live in.” He nodded and slowly started to walk back to his brightly lit house as I climbed back into the old Bronco. I threw the coat into the bed of the truck because it would not do me much good now. My scrubs were no help against the rain and the river, so I was shivering and soaking wet as I started up the old engine. It gave a couple coughs before turning over up, and I slowly drove out of Mr. Springfield’s driveway and onto the main road. I decided to take the upper path to the house this time because, even though it was a longer drive, the rainwater collected down in the path I had taken during these kinds of rains and I didn’t want to flood my engine.

As I drove my way up the slick hillside, a loud rumble shook my car, me, and even the mountain-like hillside I was driving on. I sped up as the peak of the hill was visible barely through my rain drenched windshield. The rumble came again, louder this time, like a giant clearing his throat. I peeked over the hill and sped down the other side, the trees below were the only things enjoying this weather. A flash caught my attention and I looked around only to see lightning in the distance, where it soon faded away. “There’s the lightning.” I said with a breath of relief, which I quickly sucked back in as a third rumble louder than the first two combined rattled me like a bead inside an enormous maraca. This one sounded like it was right above me. “What the hell…” I said but the rest was lost as an explosion of light at my left blinded me and sent my vehicle careening across the slick pavement towards the guardrail overlooking the dense forest below.

I let loose a string of curses as the side of my car screeched on the old metal rail, one arm covering my eyes trying to get the spots out of my eyes, while the other arm was trying to skid my Bronco back correctly onto the slick tarmac. Another explosion hit my car and forced the guardrail to cry with protest, but it still held… barely. As I was trying to pull myself together, I saw the third flash, and knew that it was over. As it hit the pavement next to me, the guardrail ripped free of its supports and I flew off the side of the tall hill towards the dark forest below. As I flew through the air, time slowed down to a standstill and only one thought filled my brain. It was that even though I was about to die, I still saved an animal’s life, and that was good enough for me. As I lost velocity gravity took its course and the hood of my car started to point earthwards and I gained speed, hurtling towards the unforgiving trees. As they loomed closer, I tried to close my eyes, not wanting to see what happened next. But before I did, I saw something dark blue dart out of the car, like a bird or bat yetI did not acknowledge this due to my incoming death. As I shut my eyes, I was wrenched forward and hit my head against the dashboard and began to lose consciousness with only one last image in my head. The clouds had broken up to show the perfect full moon.“God, that’s beautiful.” I murmured as the world faded to black.

The Meeting of the First of Many

I felt like I was flying. It was stupid of me to assume that though because I knew that I was dead. Yet at the same time I felt like I was soaring on the wings of eagles. Was I in heaven? Yes, that was the only explanation. I had died and gone to heaven. As I was contemplating how heaven was going to look like, a sharp stabbing pain went through my left leg and I felt like I was falling slowly but surely. The light was getting dimmer as I fell lower and lower. Soon it wasn’t a lazy fall, but a full out plummet into the dark abyss, which reminded me of the crash that had killed me. I could feel myself hit the ground, yet it was surprisingly soft, like a comfortable mattress. My eyes were soon fighting a losing battle against sleep, and as they surrendered, I became oblivious to the rest of the world.

When I opened my eyes again, the scenery was strikingly different from where I had last been. There were trees everywhere, but not regular oak trees like in Yorkshire. These were thick trees, nearly jungle like with moss thickening on the rough bark. I noticed that I was still in my car, which was imbedded into one of these trees the windshield wasn’t there. It had shattered on impact and small glass shards were littering the dashboard, the passenger seat, and even me. The sun was shining and the small glass shards twinkled ironically with all the destruction. The hood was also pretty well caved in, and by the belch of black smoke rising lazily from it, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to fix it. It was a real shame, because this was my dad’s old car, and it reminded me of him. Also medical equipment was strewn al around the cab.

Syringes, surgical equipment, IV bags, salves, tonics, bottles, and powders were strewn about, as if a tornado had passed by to say hello. The stabbing pain brought me back to my right mind, and I looked down. Legs weren’t supposed to be pointing that way were they? As I tried to move my leg the pain returned with a vengeance, and I diagnosed my injury.

Broken leg, I should try to not move the affected area, but I needed to get outside. If I could reach my equipment in the bed, I could fix myself up quickly. I had treated worse in my practice. As I tried to open the door, I felt the seatbelt fasten quickly around my middle. I fumbled to undo the buckle and finally clicked the release button, the belt retracted with lightning speed and I opened the door into the outside. As I slowly slid out of the damaged vehicle, my leg screamed with protest, and I had to lean against the car for support. As I caught my breath, I admired where I was.

The trees formed a small ring around where I was, and my car had plowed straight into one side. A small breeze rustled past me, bringing with it the sweet smell of wildflowers. I regained what strength I had left and shimmied along the wrecked side of the Bronco to the bed. As I pushed the release button, the smaller portion of the bed fell out and I could see my medical equipment piled on one side. I reached over and grabbed some gauze, a syringe, a bottle of anesthesia, and a roll of deep tan bandage.

As I sat on the ground I rolled up my scrubs leg and grabbed my broken leg. I examined the point of impact. It was a compound fracture, and the bone had broken evenly into two pieces, which I could feel as two lumps under my skin. I filled up the syringes to three ccs and jammed the needle into my flesh. As I pushed the plunger home, a numbing sensation came over my entire leg and reduced the pain to only a dull throbbing pain. I removed the needle and grabbed the bandage roll and stuffed it in my mouth. As I grabbed my leg again, and with a jerk, I twisted it 90 degrees to the left. The medicine dulled the pain but didn’t get rid of it entirely. As the bone twisted back into its former position

A yell emanated from my being and was stopped by the roll of tan bandage stuffed into my mouth. A few bits of it did wisp around the bandage and dissipated into the early afternoon air. As the bone slid back into place I looked at my handiwork. The bone had slid back into its original place. I wiggled my toes and felt them move inside my tennis shoes. “Good”, I whispered for my voice was gone, “no nerve damage as can be seen at the moment.” As I finished this, I started to wrap the bandage first around the base of my foot, then the ankle and finally to my upper leg to provide support so the bone would not move anymore. As I finished wrapping my leg, I stood up shaking and placed my injured leg on the unkempt grass. There was only a twinge of discomfort where there had previously been a searing pain. “Medical practice strikes again.” I said to myself with a small chuckle at the end.

I placed the used medical equipment on the open bed of the car and started to walk around the cleared area to see how my leg stood up against my full body weight. I also observed where I was so I could get my full bearings now that my mind was taken off of my leg as I made my second loop around the ring of trees I heard a small rustle coming from the thick trees to my left. I whipped my head to that area but I saw no one. But as I continued watching, the rustle started to get louder. I did not know what the thing approaching me was, but I knew that it could be either good or bad news for me, more badly because I did not know where I was because this place was most definitely not Yorkshire. I needed something to protect myself.

As I hobbled myself back to the car, I stopped and rested for only a few moments. Yet in those moments the sound got louder, sounding like someone or something was crashing through the underbrush. I reached up towards an old 22 caliber rifle mounted on some brackets on the wall of my car. I grabbed the butt of the rifle and tried to yank it down from the mount. But the loading lever disengaged and latched itself on one of the mounts. “Damnitt…” I said to myself and pulled on the weapon with all of my strength. With a screech of tearing metal, the rifle removed itself from the wall of the car, brackets and all.

As I positioned the rifle against my shoulder, I leaned against the bed of the Bronco to give me more support in account for my recently repaired leg. As I lined up the iron sight with the area where the sound was approaching me from, I cocked the loading lever and various ideas of what this thing could be started flashing through my mind like the beats of my racing heart. Was it human or animal, friendly or hostile? I put these thoughts out of my mind as I slowly pulled the trigger towards the approaching thing. The kickback dug the butt of the rife into my shoulder, and one of the brackets into my arm to bring a new round of pain to add to my array of injuries. As the bullet flew from the barrel, it raced into the forest and impacted the thing with a sickening ripping sound of flesh being hit with a supersonic projectile.

Following this sound was one that I for one did not expect to hear, it was a sharp cry of pain, female in tone. “Oh God,” I said to myself, “I just shot someone.” As I threw down my rifle, which was still smoking, on the lush grass, I heard the person I had just shot crash back into the depth of the forest. I hobbled my way to the edge of the clearing where the bullet had entered and plunged into the thick mass of greenery. This part of the forest was different; the sun could not punch its way through the thick canopy of leaves so it was much darker. Also the trees seemed to trap the heat inside their thick overhanging leaves so the air was thick and muggy.

As I tracked the continued crashing through the jungle, my leg kept getting caught on small roots and downed branches, but I was still able to stay close to the person. But after about two minutes of pursuing, the person I was chasing fell with an almighty crash by the sound of breaking branches and tearing vegetation. As I caught up to the subject, all I saw was an indent in the enormous ferns and overgrown plants that occupied this jungle. As I moved the obscuring plants out of the way, I saw something that took my breath away. The thing I had found was most definitely NOT human. It was a medium sized creature about four feet in length and about three feet tall, a shockingly vibrant green an equally green mane, equine in body type, and was wearing some kind of leather armor with a sheath and a sword handle sticking out of the sheath. I stood in awe at the creature before me, until I noticed the deep red blood staining the vegetation underneath the creature’s body. As I slowly and carefully rolled the medium sized horse onto its other side I realized that this was the thing I had shot. A deep groove had been made by the bullet punching through her armor like rice paper and burrowing itself into her meadow green flesh, staining it with fresh red blood. She needed medical attention, and fast or else her own heart was going to slowly kill her with every wave of blood it pumped to that gaping wound.

As I draped the unconscious form onto my back, I gripped the front hooves with my hands and started to walk back to the improvised medical station that was my car. It took me nearly three minutes to find the clearing again in the dense vegetation and in that time, my patient’s blood had soaked through the back of my scrubs and had started to drip down my back. As I reached the Bronco I slowly let down the barely breathing body onto the clearing floor. I cleared all of the loose equipment from the fold out section of the bed and reached for my trench coat. It had dried from the early morning sun, and was even a bit warm. I laid the coat out onto the section and lifted the limp body off the ground and onto the soft fabric. The black sun warmed fabric immediately soaked up the blood from the creature. I left her there and reached back onto the grass for the recently used syringe and the small bottle of anesthesia. As I set medical equipment near the coat, I picked up the syringe and examined it. There was a small amount of blood, about one cc, in the dispenser from its last use, but I ignored that as I stuck the needle into the small glass bottle and started to extract the numbing fluid.

I did not know how much of the medicine I needed for this small creature, so I stopped the syringe well below the normal dosage for a regular horse of this size and stuck the needle into a vein on of her flank and pushed down the plunger. As I watched the clear liquid flow into the bloodstream with my other hand I started to undo the straps that attached the ruined leather armor to the limp form. As I undid the strap under her barrel, the leather garment fell off with a small clunk. As I slid the armor out from under the pony the sheath turned towards the ground and dropped the sword it had been carrying. I ignored the dull thunk of the weapon hitting the ground and focused on the task at hand.

I could see the bullet lodged into the flesh, a shimmer of bronze in a canopy of red muscle. I grabbed a pair of forceps lying in a pile of jumbled equipment and opened the clamps. I clasped the tool around the bullet head and slowly pulled on the handle. The bullet relinquished its grip on the muscle with a sickening squelch and a fresh wave of blood. I discarded the small object and returned to my patient. As I tried to decide what to do next, a small glimmer caught my eye. It was a small light, amber in color, and appeared to be sealing a small vein that was leaking blood before but now had completely stopped.. As I watched, more sparks appeared to be emerging out from under the skin by and under my hand. I panicked and tried to remove my hand, but it appeared to be stuck on the flank as If glue had been applied to my palm. I could only watch as more sparks erupted from my palms and skipped across the meadow green skin like stones across a pond and targeted the wounded area.

The sparks attacked the wounded flesh, and wherever they touched, the wound seemed to heal itself. The sparks seemed to be replicating the lost skin and remaking lost blood. As most of the sparks traveled across the wound, some of them diverted towards the head of the small pony. As they traveled across the forehead they sank between the eyes like small amber torpedoes. As they worked their way into the skin the eyes of the small pony shot open. They were a sapphire blue and were filled with a terror beyond any I had ever seen before.“She can’t be awake.” I said in my mind, “The drugs plus the loss of blood should have kept her under.” But I appeared to have healing sparks flying out from my palms, so what did I know? As I continued watching the eyes started revolving at an abnormal speed and suddenly stopped. Then the small mouth opened and the most horrible scream emanated from the pony. I would have cupped my ears if one of my hands wasn’t glued to the flank. This scream too faded and slowly the small sparks faded away from sight. I tentatively tried to remove from my hand, and this time it obliged and removed itself from the small pony.

I leaned against the bed of the car and examined the area where previously had been a horrible wound. The skin was unbroken, and if I had not extracted the bullet, I would have thought that the injury had been a figment of my imagination. There even wasn’t a scar. I looked at my hand, and there appeared to be nothing special about it. Just the same old hand covered in freckles just like the rest of my body. Suddenly a wall of fatigue erected itself in my brain and I stabilized myself against the side of the car. Why was I so tired? I managed to push the pony farther into the bed of the car and shut the door until another wave of fatigue hit. I could barely keep my eyes open, and the stuff I could see looked like my eyes were covered in flowing water. I made my way to the edge of the clearing and leaned myself against the thick trunk of a tree. I tried to catch my breath but all that I could manage were short shallow breathes. The edges of my blurred vision were slowly fading to black.

My grip loosened on the trunk and I stumbled into the dark canopy. The heat mixed with the darkness made me feel sleepy and I fell on my knees. I slowly lay down further until it hit the ground. My eyes slowly closed until the entire world was solid black.

The Background of the First

(30 minutes earlier)

“Hey, Crystal”, a voice whispered, “Wake up.” “Shut up Blade,” said Crystal, pulling covers over her head.

“It’s your fault that I’m so tired. Blade ripped the covers off her small form and looked at her shivering with his intense brown eyes.“Why is it my fault?” he asked. She rolled out of her bed and rested on all four legs. She looked at her battle partner and admired how incredibly handsome he still was early in the morning. His tan mane and tail were always perfectly brushed and complemented his brown body and wings perfectly. His eyes were also fantastic, brown like his body but still deep. So deep that she felt that if she stared into them long enough, she would be hypnotized. Now though his eyes were filled with a sort of laughter as she tried to explain why he was the cause for her being so tired. “The reason it’s your fault,” she said, “is because of that drug bust job at the train station we were put on. The White Muzzle members didn't even show up, all there was were some late-night passengers. But no, you wanted to stay longer, so we did until near dawn.” “I've only had about three hours of sleep until you…”

“Ok I get it!” he laughed with his deep laugh. She couldn't help but smile at her battle-partner.

Blade Fury was a free spirit, always wanting adventure, to throw himself into the heat of combat. She was his anchor however, the thing that kept him grounded firmly in the reality that if he threw himself into the heart of a battle without her, that he would die in vain. She shook the sleepiness and anger out of her eyes which she could see from her partners expression was replaced by a cool calm.

“Why did you wake me up early?” she inquired, “I usually wake up about noon.”

“Special project from the princess’ themselves for the entire police force.” “A high value target has been brought to Ponyville, but the princess’ do not know where he is. They have sent out a town-wide alert to everypony in Ponyville.” She whistled loudly,

“That is a high value pony.” She said with admiration. “You and I,” he continued,“are going to check the Everfree forest.” “Well what are we waiting for?” she said, “I will suit up and meet you outside.”

“Ok,”he replied, “be quick about it though, time is of the essence.”

“I always am.” She said. “I know.” He laughed and galloped out of her room pulling the door shut as he left. She quickly grabbed down her leather armor off a hook on the wall and made sure to keep her lime-green mane out of the buckles as she secured it. As she made the final touches, she looked under her bed and drew out her sword with her teeth secured around the hilt. It had a regular oak-wood handle and a simple blade guard, the interesting part though was the blade itself. It started off straight and curved in around the middle, which then tapered off to a deadly point, which would have been normal for any normal police force sword if it had been made of steel. Instead the blade was composed of the purest star blue crystal which reflected in the early morning sunlight creating a prism effect brighter than any sapphire.

She had obtained this sword from her father who acquired it from his father so on and so forth until it reached her great ancestor Silver Shield. He had been the only non-crystal pony to ever serve the Crystal Empire and had been given this sword by the Crystal king himself. It had protected her in many battles and was stronger than the average steel sword. Snapping back to reality, she quickly sheathed her sword and observed the untidiness of her room. “I’ll clean it afterwards.” she told herself and sped out of her room, slamming the door shut behind her. A few minutes later Crystal was blinking at the early morning light, Blade was next to her in the same leather armor that she wore. “Come on!” he said excitedly and flew off to the west of Ponyville towards the Everfree forest. “Wait up!” she called and ran after Blade. Ten minutes later, they both were standing outside the entrance to the forest. “If we don’t find him or her in fifteen minutes, we meet back here.” Blade said.

“Agreed.” she replied.

They both split up and entered into the dark depth of the forest. Crystal was basically sweating by the time she made it a couple minutes into the dense forest as she continued trotting along, she had to constantly avoid protruding roots and constantly had to flick her everywhere mane out of her eyes. As Crystal continued walking though she heard a yell come from her right. It was muffled, like the owner was gagged, also it was a deep male voice like… “Blade,” she whispered to herself, “No…” She knew that only Blade was capable of making that yell and instantly honed in on it. It had come from her right and she trotted slowly in that direction. She tried to be stealthy but her hooves kept getting caught on protruding roots and overgrown vegetation. So her attempts of sneaking were reduced to just crashing through the vegetation. She had to get to the origination of that yell however. If this high value had been able to take out Blade, Crystal knew that she was the only one to save him.

If she went for backup it would waste precious time. So she kept walking along until a sound rang out among the trees. It was a sound she had never heard before. As Crystal racked her brain to figure out what the sound could be an extreme pain erupted in her left side. There was also a tearing sensation as if her skin was being torn off the muscle on her side. Crystal felt blood run down the inside of her armor. She tried to call out for Blade if he was near, but all she could manage was a small yelp of pain. Crystal turned back to the way she came from and stumbled again through the dense forest floor. Crystal could feel the blood pooling in the bottom of her armor and her vision was tinged at the edges with red. Finally, she could take no more. She tripped over her own hooves and fell head first towards a growth of huge ferns. As her head connected with the hard-packed earth of the forest floor, the red blurriness was joined by blackness slowly overtaking her vision. “This is the end…”Crystal thought, she was going to die here, in this forest and not even being able to save her battle partner. “Goodbye Blade”, she thought as the blackness overtook her sight.

The Escape

(Approximately 10 minutes later…)

Crystal’s eyes snapped open to an environment where she wasn’t before. She was in a metal box and was laying on something warm and sticky. As she rose to all four hooves, she realized two things. One was that her armor and sword were gone, and what she was laying on was some kind of coat of warm black fabric. As she looked at it in the morning light she realized that it was covered in a thick congealed layer of blood. “Was that hers?!” Crystal thought in her head, “or Blades?” “Blade!”she called, but to only the response of her own echo in the metal box she was imprisoned in. Sunlight side streamed in from Crystal’s right side, so she turned to that side and observed the continuation of her prison. It extended about three feet forward where part of the front was crushed around the bark of an old tree. Small trickles of black smoke were curling around the metal and wood like evil fingers. Crystal stepped over a small blue cushion flanked by two curved L seats made of the same glossy blue material. She heard glass crunch underneath her hooves and made the connection to the shards and the wide window in the front of the prison with no protection.

She considered escaping through this large window, but quickly dismissed it. If she had her armor, she could have probably made it through unscathed, but she didn’t and when she had to crouch to pass through the window, the glass would cut through her flesh like tissue paper. She observed her surroundings more and saw two more windows, high up and set on some kind of door like she had never seen. It was fully metal and was a dark blue color with deep purple stripes racing along the sides. They also appeared to have some sort of handle protruding from the side of them. Crystal tried to fidget with the handle on the right, but she could not get her hooves around the cold, hard metal. A creature with claws might of, but not her. So Crystal resorted to turning her flank to the frustrating obstacle in her way and kicking it with all of her strength.

The metal bent slightly and Crystal lined up her legs for another kick aiming for the spot that was already bent inward by her last kick. As Crystal delivered another kick with only the strength that earth ponies possessed, the indent grew again and the door seemed very unstable. “One more kick should do it.” she said in her mind and reared back for one final devastating kick. As she thrust out her back legs with all of her strength, the door flew open with a shriek of tortured metal and crashed into the side of her prison with a bang, which reverberated throughout her now empty prison. She nearly cheered for joy from escaping but Crystal held her tongue in case there were more hostiles waiting to ambush her and throw her into another prison. Crystal readied herself to jump out of her enclosure until a glint of bright silver caught her left eye. As she looked she saw two pieces of bright metal. They were an L shape, slightly bent at the bottom of the L. They were also about three inches thick with a singular black stripe running down their side.

Also there was a small hole at the end of the longest part of the metal L. “What are these?” Crystal asked to herself. She reached down to retrieve them and then realized that there was a trigger system where the two ends of the metal met.“Oh horsefeathers,”she said, “weapons.”She reached down tentatively and picked them up one at a time by the shorter end (and they were HEAVY) making sure to keep her teeth away from the trigger that did Celestia knows what. She wondered where they had come from, until she saw a compartment door that was open. “Must have knocked it open when I kicked the door.” She mumbled to herself. She rummaged around in its depths and within a couple of minutes laid out what she had found. One of these things was a small box containing small brass objects. The writing on the side said that there were 20 of these things in the box. The other was a piece of leather construction like she had never seen before.

It had two large rings of leather that were secured to a main body piece. Also it had two large leather pouches on the rings of leather. It was built for a very large creature, maybe twice her size. Crystal jumped of her gloomy prison with the leather piece, the box, and one of the weapons on her back. The other weapon she kept in her mouth. As soon as all four of Crystal’s hooves hit the ground, she was instantly alert. She panned the clearing’s edges that led into the dark forest. She trotted slowly around the clearing with her cargo still on her back. Crystal heard a hissing sound and whipped around violently awaiting a fight, but realized it was only her previous accommodation giving off another stream of black smoke. She nearly shrugged it off until she saw a familiar flash of sapphire and a mound of leather near the back of the prison. As she approached cautiously Crystal saw that it was indeed her sword and armor. Crystal trotted over slowly to her belongings.

Crystal was expecting a trap, but nothing reared its ugly head, or heads. She shrugged off her current load and re-equipped her armor. As she pulled the big piece of leather over her back she kept watching the dark realm of the forest. She had heard many tales of basilisks, hydras, and even chimeras that live in these woods. Crystal quickly re-did the strap closest to her, and cursed softly when she couldn't reach the back strap. She then tentatively picked up her sword and slid it back into its cozy home. Finally Crystal replaced her found items on her back and walked slowly again into the dark depths of the forest with the back part of her armor hanging sluggishly off her flank and her findings weighing heavily on her spine.

Dreams Reveal

The smell of burning flesh filled my nose and smoke obscured my vision, I was lying on the ground with rocks digging into my ribs and face. “Where am I?” I croaked as I stood up and looked around the sun glared bright and high in the sky and forced me to look down at my feet. I then realized that I was wearing old combat boots and dusty desert fatigues with a red cross emblazed on my right shoulder. “What the?!” I cried exasperated pain and horror rising in my chest like a balloon. Yet I knew this was my old life again, the one that I wanted to leave behind forever. I turned around and saw a horrifying sight. A torched battlefield lay before me, dotted with fires and wreckages of vehicles and army buildings. Craters were everywhere. Then there were the corpses. Hundreds of them lay in the wreckages with carrion birds and maggots already eating at their decomposing flesh. They all had on different styles and makes of desert camo. As I looked on horrified, I saw a lone figure hobbling towards me. He was a head shorter than I was and was wearing the same uniform minus the red cross.

His leg was in a splint and he was hobbling along as best as he could on his crutches. I ran out to contact him, my brown hair blowing in the breeze. As I neared the lone soldier I recognized him.“Alex!” I called out. The soldier looked up and indeed it was him, I could see his cinnamon hair poking out from beneath his helmet. As I ran closer to him, I could see the terror in his wide green eyes. As I came to his side I placed a reassuringly hand on his shoulder.“Soldier,” I said“where is the rest of your squad?”

“They're dead sir,” replied Alex with tears forming in his eyes, “the enemy came in with something different than we have ever seen and destroyed the entire base; I only survived because I was in the underground medic cabin.” “My doctors went to investigate the first hit and were killed by a second barrage. After the rumbling stopped, I picked up a pair of crutches and headed out here, where I saw you.”

“It is good to see you soldier.” I said as I gave my old friend a tight hug. As I released Alex, I heard a slight rumbling sound emanating over the sand dune to our left. I picked up an automatic rifle from a nearby corpse and aimed it towards the sands as the minutes stretched on I ordered Alex to get behind me. He leaned against one of his crutches and pulled a Desert Eagle out of its holster and aimed it where I was aiming my automatic rifle. Silent seconds passed and the engine rumbling grew louder. Then eight ATVs roared over the sand dune and circled us, coughing up sand and grit reducing our vision to nearly zero. The engines stopped and the sand slowly settled back down again. We observed our guests with horror. There was one man to each ATV and there was an AK-47 strapped to their back and .45 caliber pistols strapped to their legs in holsters. They yelled angrily in Arabic and jumped off of their vehicles and strode towards us with their rifles withdrawn.

“Sir,” Alex said with fear in his voice, “sir, what do you suggest we do?”

I looked down at his Desert Eagle, which was shaking violently. “Drop you weapon.” “What?” he said questiongley. “Drop it” I said slowly as the enemy raised sights on us. As he did we both raised our hands up in surrender. 5 minutes later Jenkins and I were blindfolded and tied by our wrists and ankles, each riding on the back of one of the ATVs with the sun burning the skin on our neck slowly but surely. After what seemed like forever, we were hoisted off of the vehicles and thrown onto the scorching sand. “Well, well, well.” Said a very unfamiliar voice, “What do we have here? Intruders?” My blindfold was ripped off and I was left staring into a face that I would most apply to that of a wolf. Piercing stormy grey eyes stared back at me. The man was very thin and very tall, wearing an expensive black suit with red fringe and golden buttons. These buttons were undone just enough to spot a red undershirt peeking through the suit. His short scraggly black hair was combed over fancily. His mouth was curled up into a barely sneer that struck an pick of ice into my very soul. “Well we should welcome our guests boys”, said the mystery man “bring them into the facility; I want to know exactly what they know.” He reached down and re-applied my blindfold and barked a command in Italian.

Strong hands picked me up by the waist and slung me over their backs like a sack of grain. And based by the whimpering to my left they also had Jenkins. We started moving and as our captors walked an unexpected rifle but slammed into the base of my skull and rendering me oblivious to the world.

The Voice of Reason

As I opened my eyes, I wondered if I really had. There was darkness all around me, nearly suffocating, and I wondered if I was in the real world or dream world. I was secured to a chair with ropes tied by my chest and legs. I could also feel a lump on my forehead. “Where the hell am I?” I asked to myself as I struggled against the ropes.

“If you shut up for a moment and listen to me you might know.” said a cool and collective voice in my head. Great now I was hearing imaginary voices.

“I am not of your imagination mortal,” said the voice angrily, “I am as real as you or anypony else.” “You mean anybody right?” I said. “No,” the voice replied, “I know what I said, and I said what I know.”

“And an elephant is faithful one hundred percent” I said followed by a small chuckle. “What did I say that amused you?” the voice said sharply.

“Nothing,” I quickly replied, “so where am I Mr. Voice?” “For your information, the name is Allumere and you will address me as such, and secondly you are in Equestria.“Equesri-who-ha?” I said“E-que-stri-a,” said the voice slowly, “God you’re daft.” “Hey,” I shouted,“say that to my face you lousy no good…” “Now is not the time for such language,” said Allumere “and keep your voice down or they will…” he was cut off by thumping coming from right above me.

“Oh goody,” said Allumere sarcastically, “I’ll just leave you to these ones and come back later.” “Wait what?” He did not respond. “Oh you MOTHER….” I practically screamed, but stopped as a door was opened and quickly shut. There was a beam of light when the door was opened and was extinguished when it closed, but in that instant, I saw a flash of brown and blonde dart into the room. I could hear a slight flapping of wings as I tried to make out the thing in the darkness. “Who’s there?” I asked expecting no answer. I did not get a voice answer, instead I got something grabbing me in by my hair and slamming my head into a table in front of me that I had not noticed in the dark. I thought I heard something crack. As I brought my head back up, I felt something warm run down from my nose and onto my lips. I stuck out my tongue and tasted the metallic taste of blood. “Greaaat,” I said quietly“another injury to add to my repertoire.”

“Who are you?” said a gruff voice out of the darkness, definitely male.

“Well”, I responded,” I usually don’t tell anyone who has just broken my nose my name until they tell me theirs.”

“The name’s Blade.”

“Well Blade, why am I here?” “I am not allowed to disclose that information.” He said, “But I’m here to find my friend.”

“Well you might want to go look for him then.” I shot off.

“I would”, Blade said, “But I just wanted to see if you knew where she was.”

“Oh I see, is she your giiiirlfriend?” I said in a mocking tone cocking my head slightly to the right. His silence for a moment gave me the answer I needed.

“N-no,” he stuttered, and I could hear his tough guy persona crumbling. I’m the one asking the questions here,” he boomed, “so have you seen her or not?”

“Nope,” I said plainly.“

"That’s funny,” “he said,“because we were sent to the same forest to find you and she still has not come back.” “I’m losing my patience with you!”he shouted.

“And I won’t answer any more questions of yours until I see your face.” I shot right back. He paused for a little while until he spat out his response,

“Fine.”, and I could hear the flapping going away from me. A single light bulb sparked and then flashed with a painful light in the enclosed area that I was trapped in. As I shut my eyes against the blinding light, the flapping came towards me and stopped followed by a little clunk like ivory on stones, I opened my eyes tentatively and then reared my chair back in shock at what I saw.

There was a horse, no wait scratch that, it was smaller so it had to be a pony, standing in front of the table with my blood on it, staring at me with frighteningly deep brown eyes. I blinked several times and shook my head again before I looked again. He was still there and was looking at me with one eyebrow cocked. As I looked at him closed I realized what had been making that flapping sound. He had a pair of wings. Like actual BIRD wings resting on the sides of his barrel. His mane and tail were blonde and shortly cut and he had what looked like a tattoo on his left flank that looked like two crossed swords. I could see his muscles under his short brown fur. “Now will you answer my questions?” he spoke, oh God he actually spoke!

“Ss-sure,” I said tentatively easing my chair back on four legs. Why did he remind me of something I had seen before? “Wait,” I said remembering the thing I had seen in the forest, “your friend, is she like you?”

“Yes,” he said (how could he do that?!), “just without wings and with a green coat and mane, why?”

“I have seen her.” I said tentatively, “She is still in that forest, I saw her wounded. There was too much blood.” I didn't want to tell him what really happened in case he lost his temper and broke something other than my nose.

“Dear Celestia,” he said with fear shrinking his pupils frighteningly fast. “I need to find her, what did you do after you found her?”

“I took her to a small clearing I woke up in.” I said (I still can’t believe that I’m having a conversation with a pony for crying out loud.) “And I put her in my transportation; look for a cuboid shape that is blue with stripes and wheels.”(Sue me, I didn’t know if they had cars or not).

“I will be back, just to make sure that you’re telling the truth,” He huffed, “if you are lying to me and I do not find her...” His silence said everything. Returning to his tough guy phase, this “friend” of his must be very important, I noted in my mind. He ran up a set of stairs towards an oaken door and pulled it open. As he did, he pushed the light switch on the wall off, and I was again plunged into complete darkness. As the door shut with a thud, Allumere spoke again.

“Quite a brutish fellow isn't he?” he said.

“Yeah a real Chuck Norris,” I replied back.

“Who is that?”

“Just someone from my world who is very good at beating the crap out of others.” I replied. “By the way is this a dream Allumere?”

“No,” he replied.“Now what do we do?” I asked him. “Do you want to escape from this confined stuffy dungeon?” he asked.

“No,” I replied sarcastically, “I just wanted to stay here until I grow old and die. Of course I want to escape!”

“No needs to be rude,” he huffed, “just follow my lead.”

“Yeah of course,” I replied because you just didn’t abandon me about five minutes ago.”

“That was a purely defensive need”, he replied defensively, “Now shut up and do as I say.”

“Fine,”I sighed, what do you want me to do?”

"Fall over to your right,” he said plainly

I did as he commanded without complaint even though my body was yelling me not to. I rocked until I finally fell over onto the cold stone floor with the chair still attached to me. “Now what oh smart one?” I said sharply.

“Rub your restraints on the rock on the wall directly behind you.” He said

“Ok.” I replied and pushed my feet against the rock floor, which propelled me into the wall also in turn cracking my skull hard on the cold stone.

“Oops,” he said smugly, “a bit too hard on your part there.”

“Why you little…” I started but gave up and started rubbing the rope on the stone. After a couple of minutes the ropes frayed and snapped enabling mobility to my upper half. I tried to untie the bonds around my feet but could not find where the knot started. “What I would give for a little light…” I sighed.

“One second...” I heard Allumere say, and in a couple of seconds sparks, the same amber sparks from the forest appeared at my fingertips. “What the hell?!” I cried exasperated.

“Will magic,”Allumere said as if that explained everything. “What’s that?” I whispered as I finally found the knot and started undoing the complicated rope. “Will magic, as the name states it is magic conjured from the very power of the will inside of you.

“So you’re saying if I…” I said focusing on the sparks. Then they abruptly turned bright neon pink. “Cool.” I said and flicked through different colors from daisy yellow to emerald green. I ultimately returned to the amber color and began to work on the knot again. After about thirty seconds my legs were finally free, and I stretched until I felt my muscles tingle with delight.

“What now Alluemere?” I asked.

“Well, did you see that door?”

“Yeah…” I replied knowing where this conversation was going “Well based on research, if you open that said door, you should be able to make your escape.”

“Are you always such a smart-ass?” I asked him.

“No, just when I need to.”

I walked towards where I had seen the door open. I only stopped when I banged my shins against a set of stairs. I hopped silently, keeping my yell of pain deep in my gut.

After the stinging stopped, I tentatively took a step forward. My sole made contact with the rough wood of a step. I took another step with the same result. I kept going up the stairs as silently as I could, until I saw the smooth wood of a door reflecting in the amber light of the sparks. I moved my only light source up and down the carved wood until I saw the handle reflect with a firelight glow. It was a rounded knob at about hip height and I turned it slowly. The locking mechanism slowly unlocked as the knob was turned. A corona of golden light surrounded the doorframe, rendering my sparks absolute.

“How do I turn these things off?” I asked Allumere.

“Focus and you will receive oh, stupid one.” He replied back. I shrugged off his sarcasm and willed the sparks to go out. In a heartbeat the little lights had extinguished themselves like someone had thrown a blanket over them.

“Still pretty awesome.” I said to myself as I opened the door carefully. I ducked my head to clear the doorway and entered into a library with tall shelves filled to the brim with books, thin and thick with covers with any color imaginable, with a small pedestal sitting in the middle of the room with a large tome splayed perfectly on top of it. A second floor was present above me, into which I could only glimpse a small bed and table.

There were a set of stairs leading up to this floor, and windows were displayed proudly on every wall. As I admired this scene though something came down the stairs. I stood rigid as I processed what I saw. There was yet another pony coming slowly down the stairs, eyes drooping from sleep deprivation. She, I could tell by the tone of the body, was female with a bright lavender coat, with a violet and pink striped mane falling from her scalp, and with a tail of the same color on her flank. She also had a small horn protruding out of her forehead.

“How many species of these things are there?” I asked to myself quietly. She must have heard me because her eyes snapped to attention and stared at me. I stared right back. She opened her mouth and spoke calmly.

“Aurora?” “Yes dear?” A male voice softer than Blade’s but stronger then hers emanated from the second story. “Our“guest” has escaped.

A thud of hooves followed and a pure white stallion dressed in what looked like golden armor came trotting down the stairs. He was also a unicorn with a slightly larger horn and had a spear secured onto his back. As his hooves hit the ground, a green aura surrounded the shaft of the spear and removed it from its sling. He brandished the point at my chest and trotted closer. “Get back in the basement sir.” He stated clearly.

“What if I don’t want to?” I said back nearly whining. Man I could get annoying when in danger. My heart was beating at about a thousand beats per second and various scenarios raced through my mind none of which would end with me not getting a spear in my guts.

“Then I will have to put you there…forcefully.”

“Grab the spear.” said Allumere in my mind. “What?!” I thought back, “Are you crazy!? I do that, and I will end up with a new hole in my chest!"

“Who led you through this entire predicament so far?” he said questiongley.

“Only the severely annoying smart-ass stuck in my brain.” I thought back as Aurora spoke again.

“Well?”

“Fine, I’m going…” I said and as I turned towards the door again I whipped around in a full circle and shot my hand out towards the wooden shaft of the spear. I ripped it out of the aura and lashed out with my injured right foot. My leg screamed at me for being an idiot as Aurora flew backwards and collided with a bookshelf dislodging a tidal wave of books which crashed down around his limp form. Holy shit was violence fun.

The Escape

“Aurora!”the smaller unicorn yelled and galloped to the pile of books that held Aurora. She reached him just as his head breached the leather bound novels. He had one of them impaled on his horn in a comical fashion. I would of laughed if the female unicorn hadn’t turned stiffly and focused her eyes on me. They blazed with an untold fury, and the tip of her horn erupted with a small sphere of light. It was purely white and I could feel heat emanating it like a miniature star

.“Twi…don’t…” Aurora said weakly, “we need him alive. What would Celestia do?”She breathed out slowly and the small star diminished and changed until it was topaz yellow and crackled with electricity. “Twilight!” he cried.

“Only a stunning spell…” she spoke calmly, “not even close to being lethal.” My eyes raced around the room looking for a route freedom. My sight finally rested on a door about a yard and a half away from me. It was a deep purple with what looked like vines carved into the wood. Twilight saw the door and growled, “Try it, I dare you…” I did the only thing anyone else would have done if they had an infuriated mythological creature pointing a stunning star at them. I ran.

I nearly made it to the door. But nearly, as my father used to say, nearly doesn't win you shit in the real world. As I reached out for the handle of the door, the stunning spell impacted my right arm and within a heartbeat my arm fell limp at my side. I shifted my newly acquired spear into my right armpit and wrenched at the handle with my left hand. The door opened and a warm breeze flowed into the library.

“Go!” Allumere practically screamed in my head. I didn’t have to be told twice. I burst out of the doorway and sprinted/hobbled as fast as I could across the cobblestones. I never looked back, but I heard a scream of frustration emanate from the library. I moved the spear into my left hand and tried to will its partner to move. All I could get from the arm was a mild twitch.

“Dodge left!”Allumere warned. I sidestepped and felt my hairs rise on my back and the heat of another spell speed by. I turned and saw Twilight looking at me with pure hatred and horn alight. Dear Christ, she really did want to kill me! I then noticed something in that moment of terror. The library was a tree, an old oak tree with knotted bark and leaves that were in the middle of their spring splendor. I then said something very, very stupid.“Well, I guess I’d better leaf then...” I tried to say without giggling manically.

“Really?” Allumere huffed, “Puns at this time of danger?”

“Hey,” the guy with the bad sense of humor runs the show, not you.” I said as I turned. And immediately stopped in my tracks and stared… as about fifty pairs of eyes stared right back at me.

Their owners were also ponies from the ones like Blade with wings, to the ones like Aurora and Twilight with horns. Some didn’t even have either of these extremities and looked like any other horse that I would have treated any day in Yorkshire, except for the fact that they were incredibly smaller, and I don’t think that I have met any horse with a blue coat like freshly poured water. They had formed an untidy half circle around a pegasus mare that was lying on her side on the uneven cobblestones. Her coat was ash grey, and her mane was butter yellow. It appeared that she was hit by the spell that I had just dodged because there were little arcs of yellow lightning coming off of her one outstretched wing.

“Sorry Derpy!”Twilight yelled, “This time I won’t miss.” and I could hear the crackling of another spell behind me. I then ran through the crowd of ponies, keeping my spear aloft as to not impale any of their small forms. They were still shocked about Twilight’s spell and made little resistance against me. I didn’t feel or hear any more stunning spells aiming towards me as I kept running and assumed that it was because Twilight didn’t want to hurt any more innocents. My limp arm flopped uselessly behind me as I kept limping quickly through the alleyway between two lines of small houses with straw roofs and beech wood walls.

The shade kept the early afternoon sun off of the back of my neck but did not provide much cover. I could hear small protests from behind me as Twilight apparently tried to worm her way through the crowd. I was more worried about Aurora following her, based on his uniform and calm dialogue in the time of an emergency he appeared to be military. This meant that he probably had more training in magic and specialized in long weapons like the spear in my hand. The alleyway abruptly ended and I flung myself into what appeared to be an open-air market. More ponies trotted by the stands and dealt out piles of gleaming gold coins. About twenty of these ponies stared at me as I kept limping quickly. “Stop him!” I heard Aurora cry out behind me. “Damn he recovers fast.” I muttered to myself and didn’t look back.

The ponies who weren’t shocked at my arrival reached out with their hooves to grab my scrubs, but hooves weren’t the best things to grab fabric with and I escaped them without much effort. “Look up!” Allumere stated quickly, and as I did a tower of ivory with a cap of pure gold caught my eye.

“Good defensible position,” I said, my military side kicking in, “one way in and one way out.”

“Yes,” Allumere stated, “now go!” I started jogging, which left my leg crying out in terror and left the creatures leading a futile attempt to capture me.

Darkness Hides Death

167 steps. That was how many steps it took me to reach the top of the tower let me just tell you, that is a hell of a lot of steps to climb with a recently repaired leg. At around halfway, I heard the guard patrol yell at the civilians to stay outside until everything was sorted out and then give pursuit. It was also good for them that I was injured; they had more man er… I mean horsepower, than I did, and I was weaponless. Yet, the stunning spell on my arm had worn off at about the 153 step mark so at least I had control of both arms.

Their hoof beats advanced on me as I wrestled with the door that I had just found moments earlier with my face. I rubbed my sore nose with one hand and twisting and pulled at the doorknobs with the other. “Why won’t this door freaking open?!” I cried frustrated. “Well maybe if you…” Allumere started to speak, but I was distracted by a pony coming up after me on the stairs. “Hold that thought.” I said plainly as a yellow pegasus guard flew up the stairs at me, sword in hoof.

As he flew close enough, he swung his sword out at me. Three feet of singing steel flew towards my abdomen. Until at the last second I flattened myself against the wall, and the sword embedded itself a good inch into the hard wood. As the pegasus tried to retrieve his stuck weapon, I struck out with my hand pointed sideways. It struck exactly where I wanted it to, exactly where the patella was connected to the two leg bones. The tendons were stretched to their limits with a distinct crackling noise as the poor pegasus’ leg indented down towards the earth, exactly where it was not supposed to go. He cried out with pain and terror as he watched the lower part of his leg go limp. I wrapped my arms around his barrel, pinning his wings, and threw the disabled creature down the large flight of stairs. He cursed as he went.

“What were you saying?” I asked Allumere with a slight hint of pride in my voice. “

If you are done with your display of fighting and knowledge of equine anatomy,” he stated nearly bored, “maybe you would notice that this door is push and not pull.”

“No way.” I said, as I turned the handles and pushed in. The doors swung open gracefully with not even a whisper of protest. The inside of the room was dark and the air that flowed out against me was surprisingly dry. But with it the wind carried an evil scent, the sickly sweet shadow of decomposition and death. Yet something compelled me to walk into the darkness. As I stepped forward, I tried to retrieve the guard’s sword, but it was deeper in the wood than I thought. I closed the doors silently behind me, and the darkness fully consumed me in its silent grip.

Healing the Sun Princess

Standing alone in the darkness with only my thoughts, I lowered my breathing to barely a whisper, in case there was anything hidden by the darkness’ loving embrace. I focused my will again and the sparks burst forth, and brightened a small area around my feet. I swung my arm in a slow, nearly graceful arc until the sparks illuminated of a pair of heavy silk curtains. I walked towards them slowly until I could reach out and grab them. I ripped the curtains to one side, and blinked spots out of my eyes as fresh blinding light flew effortlessly into the chamber. A short scream emanated from behind me, and I whirled around just to glimpse a thin figure disappear underneath the covers of a four poster canopy bed. The lump of whatever was under the covers was very large and was shaking uncontrollably. There was a medium sized bedside table on my side of the bed. There was a pyramid of scrolls and an inkwell with an eagle feather quill sticking out proudly. Yet as I walked closer a small dulled sparkle of amethyst and gold from under the bed caught my interest. As I continued towards the bed, I got on my knees and reached into the shadows of the bed for the object. My hand grasped cool metal and I stood up with the object in my hands.

It was a crown of gold with three golden spikes sticking straight up from the middle of the headband. In the large center pyre there was a large diamond shaped amethyst. The crown was in a terrible condition; the gold was dulled and dented beyond belief. The amethyst was the worst part; it was cracked in dozens of places with the most deadly being a deep shatter piercing the center of the once beautiful gem. I stood with the wrecked crown staring at its once beauty. I could have stayed there until the world ended if a small whimper of pain and crying shattered the quiet. It came from the shivering lump of blankets in front of me. I reached out for the blankets and nearly pulled it away as there was heat like a bonfire oozing from the linens. The smell of decomposition I had smelled on the air before now wormed its way into my nostrils fiercly and nearly made me nauseous. I kept my stomach from doing advanced gymnastics and placed the crown in front of the scrolls before grabbing the blanket and pulled back.

A horrible image met me. There was another pony, yet this one differentiated itself from the others because of many reasons. One of them was that it had a horn and a pair of wings which were lying weakly at its sides, its hair was pink blue and green which looked like it weighed its head down. The second was that it was the size of a normal horse, at least my height if it was standing, and about six feet long. It also had a tattoo on its flank, which was the image of a blazing sun so life like that I felt that if I stared at it too long, my corneas would start to burn. It looked up at me and our eyes met. It had eyes like the amethyst in the crown, and they were just as broken. Then I saw why. Its flank, except for the area around the tattoo was layered with horrible black scabs up to the middle of its’ barrel, with more layering the bed beneath it. A horrendous acid green slime was forcing its way out of areas where the scabs had broken off.

As I watched the pony shifted slightly, and another patch of scabs scraped off its flesh. It cried out with another sign of pain, and a single tear fell down its eyes. As we met eyes again, it looked up and spoke three words, “Help me. Please.” with a feminine whisper. I stood looking at her for a while until Allumere spoke in my head softly.

“Cut your finger.”

“What?!” I whispered back as to not frighten the mare anymore, who had laid her head back down and continued weeping.

“Do you remember the forest?” he spoke. “Yes I do,” I said, “but that was a gunshot, this is something that I have never seen before.”

“Yes,” he continued, “but with my power and your's combined, you can heal any wound or illness except for those inflicted on yourself. Your blood infused with my magic will act like a transformer to the sparks, taking them and making them increase in power.” I slowly turned back to the scroll table and retrieved the crown again. The amethyst had a small chunk taken out of the middle, leaving a hole about a centimeter long and razor sharp at the edges.

I placed my finger on this hole and whispered “Here goes.” I pulled down my finger with all of my strength. Silver pain raced up my finger as the stone cut through my flesh like a blade. Blood welled out from my finger, and I reached down and smeared it along the recently revealed flesh beneath the scabs. As I watched my finger became stuck on the mare’s barrel same as the mare in the forest. The same amber sparks floated lazily out of my flesh as I willed them to heal this disease. I noticed that they were flowing too slowly, so I forced my hand down upon the mare’s sensitive flesh, which made her gasp with pain. The small trickle of sparks turned into a torrent as I forcefully willed them out of my body. They picked at the scabs ravenously, prying them up before healing the inflamed flesh underneath. A loud banging came from the wooden doors followed by a loud shouting. I didn’t know how they could not get in until I saw that the door was encased in a golden aura. I looked back at the mare, and saw that her horn was also glowing with the same aura. She was trying to help me. “Why?” I asked her. She leaned in close and replied softly “For you are the only one who can save my life.” I stared at her stupidly as the sparks continued their job.

They were completely finished with her barrel now, and began work on her flank. The scabs rained down upon the silken sheets with the sound of a soft rain. As the amber balls continued working, I could feel myself beginning to become tired yet again. No doubt, for I had no breakfast, and barely any sleep, I was running on adrenaline now, and that would soon wear off. The healing had finished on the mare’s flank and began finishing up on her hind legs. She shook her head slowly and gave out a small sigh of relief. I watched as the sparks picked away at the final parts of the disease until the last one fell to the ground. I tried to move my arm away, but to no avail. I collapsed on the cold ceramic floor breathing heavily with the mare sighing gracefully above me. It was almost peaceful until I noticed a scab near my left arm begin to move.

I slowly inched its way towards my fore arm until it was lying upon my flesh. Then it changed. It transformed from a hardened bit of blood and skin to a near black opalescent quality like obsidian. I watched unable to move as it began to burn with a small flame, red in the middle, but the outside flame being as black as a nightmare slowly consuming the small object. A burning sensation filled my entire arm as I watched horrified as it melted directly into my unmoving flesh. I would have screamed if I had the energy, but as I began to open my mouth, the pain vanished leaving with it a cooling sensation.

The endorphins that rushed from my brain to vanquish the pain, when arriving found no pain and instead threw a party in my cranium. It was too much, and my eyes began to cloud over yet again. The last thing I remember seeing was the doors bursting open and a guard patrol rushing in. The white body of Aurora trotted over my nearly unconscious form, and reared his back hoof back and slammed it directly into my face. As I fell back into the blackness, a sinister voice, definitely not Allumere’s whispered in my head. “Goodnight my vessel… tomorrow a new day dawns for me.”

Revenge is served with rope.

Crystal felt a cool feeling upon the middle of her forehead, and a cool liquid running down her the side of her face. She cracked open her eyelids slightly and gave out a soft moan. “She’s up!” a very familiar gruff voice called out. “Blade?” she said weakly. She felt his warm breath come to her side a second later. “It’s ok Cryssi.” he said softly. “You know I hate that that nickname.” She whined weakly. “Step away from her Blade, or else she will suffer a serious fate.” said a peculiarly rhyming voice behind Blade. He left her side to be replaced by a different presence. Crystal felt her head being pushed back and a warm broth being poured down her throat. The broth didn’t taste like anything really, but when it hit her stomach a surge of energy raced up her neurotic pathways and hit her brain. Crystal shot straight up and felt rough wool covers fall off of her form. As her eyes adjusted to the brightness, she saw that she was in a hut hallowed out of a short squat tree. A large iron pot squatted in the middle of the house, and frightening masks decorated the hard wood walls. She saw Blade with a look of relief on his face, and another figure. A zebra with a brown leather cloak that covered her body and face stood by the cot she was laying in.

Crystal guessed by speculation, and the fact that there was only one zebra in Ponyville based on the records at headquarters, that this was Zecora, the main source of ancient tribal medicine in all of Ponyville. Crystal had heard many tales about Zecora during her walks through the main market. She was from a small band of zebras living in Saddlerabia, and based on what the schoolfoals say, she took colts and fillies to her home to cook them into to stew. Yet Crystal speculated that these were rumors and not to be taken seriously. Blade lent her his hoof and worked her slowly out of the cot she was in. Crystal felt light-headed and had to lean against Blade’s warm body to stabilize her. “What happened?” she asked. Blade spoke up, “Zecora told me that she found you lying on the forest floor in an entire patch of Red Cap mushrooms. You were unlucky enough to be there at the time of their spore letting season. They cause seriousness drowsiness, blackouts, slowing of muscle reactions, and in extreme cases the spores close off the airway resulting in death.” She must have had an odd look on her face because Blade laughed,

“You look like a cow hit with a shovel,” he chuckled “Luckily you were only in the first stage of these symptoms when Zecora found you covered in dried blood, armor lopsided, with odd contraptions near your side. So she brought you here and cleaned you up.”

“How did you find me though? You were supposed to be flying over the forest to look for the high value pony.” The feeling in her head passed and Blade let her back on her own four hooves. Blade stared at her seriously and spoke to her clearly. “I found him but he is no pony, he was just lying in the underbrush when I found him he appears to be some sort of hairless primate and was dressed in some sort of blue cloth. I drug him back to Twilight’s library and interrogated him.”

“What for!?” she cried.

“I was looking for you,” he cried out suddenly, “I couldn’t find you anywhere… I thought I lost you.” His head fell down in sadness and his mane covered his melted chocolate eyes.

“Oh Blade, I’m sorry.” She nuzzled up against his brown coat lovingly.

She pulled away from him when she remembered what she had taken from her previous quarters. “Zecora…” she started, but stopped when she noticed the cloaked zebra next to her with the two silver L’s, the small box, and the odd leather garment resting on her back. “What are those?” Blade asked.

“Some items I found where I woke up.” she answered plainly. “It was an odd blue box with stripes, and had mechanics that I have never seen before. It is deeper in the forest, but enough about that.” She said, raising a hoof to Blade’s mouth when he tried to protest. “I want to see our target, so I can know that you didn't hurt him too much trying to find where I was.” She could see the flush of embarrassment appear on Blade’s snout. They both thanked Zecora and walked out back into the Everfree. About five minutes passed until they could see the border of Ponyville again, Crystal was ahead of Blade because of the immense load on his back, so she saw the guard first.

He was a very well-toned stallion with shocking blue eyes and armor that glowed with the power of the sun itself. The guard saluted as he saw Blade trotting up behind Crystal, he saluted towards Blade and spoke, “Sorry sir for interrupting your business, but we have a critical situation on our hooves.”

“How critical?” Blade responded. “Red level sir, the Healer has escaped and has incapacitated some of our best guardponies. We have him cornered in Celestia’s tower.”

Luna’s tears…” he whispered, “Can you take these items back to the PPF headquarters for me?” he asked the royal guard.

“Of course.” The guard responded, “Make sure you bring him back alive Fury, we need him later.”

“Of course.” Blade sighed as he dumped the items onto the grass below. “C’mon Crystal” he told her, and took off into the sky towards the center of town. As Crystal started to follow him, the guard stopped her.

“Make sure he follows orders,” he growled, We’ve had trouble with him in the past.” “Yes sir Crystal replied, shakily saluting him before following Blade’s blurred form.

Crystal reached the tower last due to Blade’s air superiority and the crowd of ponies that had clogged the streets with bodies. So she arrived just in time to see hospital workers pulling out a wounded pegasus on a stretcher. He moaned pitifully and had bandages on his knees, barrel, and wings. Blade was talking to the nurse on scene with a look of pure disgust on his face. As she approached him she asked “What happened to him?” motioning her head towards the stretcher. “Grabbed, sword immobilized, kneecap pointing about ninety degrees in the wrong direction, and thrown down a flight of stairs. She winced with every description. “We need to get up there and support the guards and the rest of our EPF personnel.” He continued and trotted quickly up the stairs.

“Why is he in a hurry?” she asked herself, “The Healer is trapped, and can’t go anywhere, why rush?” yet she put these thoughts out of her mind and followed Blade shortly.

About halfway up the steps, she heard the crash of the twin double doors and appeared just in time to see the horde of guards and police force alike, weapons shining in the light burst into Celestia’s quarters. What everypony saw shocked them. There lay Celestia, white skin shining with the brilliance of the sun, sleeping in a pile of what had been three weeks’ worth of blood, scabs, and tears. On the side closest to them was what Blade recognized as their prisoner. Light blue clothing, brown hair, and white skin sprinkled with brown spots. “I think we need a bigger stretcher…” one of the police force cadets said.

“Nonsense,” said Blade with a cruel smile coming over his face. “We have rope, and the hospital is only about sixty yards from here. The staff won’t notice a couple more bruises. The cadet looked at Blade for a second, then shook his head and called out,

“Bring in some rope! We’re gonna drag him out of here by his body!”

Interrogation

I didn't know how many hours had passed since Alexander and I were taken. As I woke up for the first time I only saw blackness and felt scratchy feel of wool around my entire head. I didn't know why they had taken us, we had no secrets and we had no military intelligence. We were only two soldiers looking out for one another. I heard the sound of a door open and close slowly and slow footsteps approaching. A wave of cold water flowed over me, soaking through my camouflage and chilling me to the bone. I cried out which was muffled by the wool sack. When the ice water stopped I sat shivering for at least a minute until the covering was pulled off of my head. I was staring back into the grey eyes that had kidnapped me. He had changed clothes and was now sporting a black buttoned shirt with matching pants and red suit jacket. "Hello sir." he slurred. "Welcome to my humble abode."

That's when I tried to head butt him. My head was about halfway to his nose before he grabbed my nose with one hand and jerked it too the right and pulled a small box out of his pants pocket and jammed it towards my neck. It was black and had two metal prongs sticking out of it and for some reason it had a small neon lit battery like object on the side. Before I could register stun gun, he depressed the button on the side and excruciating amounts of electricity racked through my body disabling the electrical impulses in my body, the water only allowing the electricity to run rampant through my system. I sat there convulsing until the electricity wore off and the smell of singed flesh filled my nostrils. He let go of my head and it hung loosely on my chest. "As I was saying," he continued, "I hope you enjoy your stay and all of my little toys. You can get out of here alive you know?" he asked.

"Highly unlikely you sad sack of shit." I snarled

"Oh but you can Mr..."

"Like I would tell you my name, you underestimate me sir."

"Do I ?" he asked and jammed the stun gun back into my neck again. Once I had stopped shaking he grabbed my chin and jerked my head so I could see his eyes. The grin he wore a second ago was now replaced with a snarl. "Since I do not know your name, I will give you a nickname until we can dig up information about you. How does Doctor sound? Based by the cross on your armor you must be a medic of some kind." He grinned at his own wit and then focused back on me. "I do know one thing about you though."

"What is that?" I groaned.

He slugged me in the face, fracturing my nose and sending blood from my mouth. "I know that you...", he said slowly, "have my weapon."

"I have never seen you before," I said to the floor, "So how could I steal your damn weapon!?"

"October twenty second 7:50 PM Mission Quickstrike. Does that ring any bells? he stated.

I froze,those specifics did mean something. That date was only two months ago. A small team including me, were sent to investigate a disturbance at a local laboratory. The townsfolk said that the plant had become despite being shut down for violating health regulations that had killed several children. Over a span of two weeks passed and armored trucks were carrying who knows what into the labs depth. We went at night and pried the doors open, gaining access into the quarantine area where the most disturbance was reported. What we found was horrifying at least. Areas had been isolated with cages with thick glass walls, and in those areas were corpses in varying stages of decomposition, yet every group of bodies was different. One group would be bloated beyond recognition, while another would be be basically skeletons covered in skin.

Then someone opened fire. The bullet only grazed one of our squad member's calves, but we all pulled out our weapons and shot to kill. Somehow we missed all of the quarantine tanks. The shot had originated from a small office in the back of the lab. What we found was high end medical equipment along with distillers, centrifuges, and what appeared to be the baby of a Tesla coil and a wind turbine. A huge steel cylinder lying on its side, with arcs of lightning bounding inside. We found the shooter.

He was in a bright yellow haz mat suit and a Glock in his right hand. His suit was stained red with blood. The only other thing in the room was a desk with a small rack for holding vials of liquid on the surface. There were ten slots and they were all full of vials with white liquid inside. Commander Leonard Polonski, aka Bulletime, walked over to the rack slowly and picked it up as if he was holding a pair of nuclear warheads instead of chemistry vials. "Take this to the vehicle," he said walking over and handing the rack to me. "Make sure it is safe, we don't know what the hell this is. The techies at base might be able to figure out why he was so diligent to protect these."

"Yes sir" I said saluting him. I walked quickly through the nightmare daring not to look at any of the corpses. I gasped in relief as I reached our line of Humvees and the fresh night air. I made a beeline towards the heavily armored one in the center. I fetched the keys from my left breast pocket and fitted into the passenger door keyhole. It popped open and the small overhead light dinged on. There were two rows of seats and a small panel with a keypad in between the row. I tapped the combination, 9372 and the door swung open with a pull. There was nothing inside, but a small .45 caliber colt pistol in case of an emergency. I pulled the gun out and slotted it in my hip holster opposite my other identical pistol. I had just fitted in the vials when I felt the cold barrel of a gun press against the base of my skull. I froze and I heard a man's voice behind me. "Open safe now." he said in broken English.

"Give me a second," I said, "The safe a a thirty second cool down period before it can be opened again."

"That man you kill in there," he continued "That man was my brother. He getting married in a week. Not anymore, you kill him, now when I get stuff back in my possession, I kill you." That was all that I could take. I flipped around suddenly and pinned his gun arm between his body and mine. I grabbed the fingers surrounding the hilt of the gun with my left hand and pulled them back with a satisfying breaking noise. He screamed and pulled away from me clutching his disabled hand with the uninjured one. He dropped the silver weapon onto the sandy ground, and at the same time, I pulled both pistols from my holsters, pointed them at his head, and switched off the safety. I looked into his eyes and I saw only sadness, a brother mourning for his lost sibling. But then it was consumed by the fire of hate and revenge for that person who had cut down one of his loved ones. He lunged at his fallen weapon and I pulled the trigger. He moved no more.

The corpse flopped onto the sand and started bleeding, infusing the grit with the life water of another human. I was holstering the weapons when I heard yelling coming from the laboratory. I looked and saw my entire squad except for Bullettime and some redhead new kid who were on my side, yelling and pounding against the thick set glass panes of the door. I didn't know what the matter was until I approached closer, and I saw that somehow the doors had shut, and thin titanium bars had sealed off the lab from the cars. "What happened!?" I yelled at Leo.

"Trap system!" he yelled back, "we were heading back to regroup when we heard the gunshot, when Jenkins here and I stepped over the threshold, the doors sealed tighter than the General's wallet!"

He and Jenkins stopped pounding at the glass when they heard one of the trapped soldiers yell. "Sirs! Get out of here! A countdown has been announced over the audio. This place is rigged to blow in thirty seconds!" Leo's face became white as the blood fled from his upper body. "I'm sorry..." he started.

"Don't be," the soldier replied, "We all signed up for this. Take the Humvee and get out of here!"

"Goodbye soldiers." he cried, and put his palm against the glass. The doomed personnel copied his movement, then pulled away back into the death laboratory. I grabbed Leo's arm and Jenkins and I had to drag him from the doors. We stuffed him in the back row where he curled in a fetal position. Jenkins took the passenger seat as I fit the key in and turned over the engine. I drove like a maniac until the lab was a small building in the distance. Then the explosion went off completely obliterating the lab and the squad inside. The shock wave rattled us like peas in a tumble dryer. We didn't dare look back until we reached our base two hours away. By that time Leo had fallen asleep in the back of the vehicle. When we arrived at the base, Leo was put on a stretcher and was carted away.

As Jenkins and I exited the vehicle, I felt heavy footsteps approach us, and even though I knew who it was, I turned around anyway and was left staring into the face of our General Ash Kenwood. He was only a couple inches taller than me and was a portly man with a thin mustache that jutted out from his upper lip like two brown razors. He opened his mouth and his voice boomed over me like a tidal wave on a field mouse. "Now what the hell is going on!?" he boomed, "I send you out with a full squad of some of my finest men to investigate a laboratory! And you come back only with their mentally challenged commander, and the communications boy!?" At this point we had gathered a crowd, Ash was spitting all over me, and his face looked like a ripe grape with veins. "Excuse me sir..." Alex started, but was stopped by one of Ash's massive hands. "Not now boy! I am teaching this soldier what happens when he loses my best men!" Then he started hitting me with his free hand. Welts formed on my flesh obscuring one of my eyes and forcing me to the sand.

The other soldiers just stood there, watching it happen, and I felt the fire of rage building with every blow. But fire can also strengthen as well as destroy and what happened in the next moments forged the chains of friendship and loyalty between the communications boy and I. With my one good eye, I saw Alex as an orange blur jab forward with both hands and seized Ash's huge palm, and before anyone could stop him, he opened his mouth and dug his teeth into the General's palm. The obese man cried in pain and pulled his hand from Alex's mouth, leaving a fine trail of saliva and blood, then slammed his uninjured palm into the kid's face. He only hit him once, but it sent Alex sprawled on the ground with blood pouring from his mouth and nostrils. Ash did not beat him like he did me though. Instead he gripped his wounded palm and hissed. "You're dead soldier, do you hear me?! Dead!" He then limped away with his pride tucked between his legs to the medical tent. He would never tell the truth of what happened. He would make it seem like he had fought a lion with one hand and was shooting terrorists with a LMG in the other hand.

The crowd slowly dissipated and I picked myself off of the ground and gingerly touched the area of bruises where the right side of my face used to be, and looked where the kid was. He had sat up and was cupping his nose. "You ok?" I slurred as I helped him up with one hand.

"Yeah..." he answered, "has he always been like that?"

"What a douchebag? Always." I replied, as we started to walked to Leo's "hospital".

"Wait..." he started and moved back to our Humvee. "We forgot the vials." He pulled them out and I mentally slapped myself.

"Good thinking." I said, "Though you do know that now we have to watch out for each other right? Ash is going to make our lives a living hell now. So friends to the end?" I stuck out my hand and it was only a split second before he shook it.

"Friends to the end." he answered.

We then went to check on Leo and the memory faded to black. I was still looking into the kidnapper's face and his lips were moving but I couldn't hear. He pressed the gun against my neck and shocked me again, but nothing could stop my body shutting down for repairs. My head slumped and I passed out.

A Guard for a Guardian

Crystal could only stare at what was on the bed before her. The Healer was no pony as Blade had told her, but some kind of bipedal creature with only a small amount of hair on the top of what the doctors assumed to be his its head. The doctors had fixed its small broken nose that Blade had given it, and the various, uh accidental, cuts and bruises that had occurred during the trek to the three story Ponyville hospital. About half of its body was layered in bandages and the other half was white with small brown spots littered all over its flesh. It was very tall, so tall that its legs stuck out a good eight inches over the end of the bed. The thing was snoring peacefully, and Crystal could not take her eyes off the thing, she felt drawn to the creature, like some sort of connection. Yet they had never met before. Then he began to whisper. Crystal was taken aback and looked around for anypony, but nopony else was in the sterile white hospital room. She walked up to the creatures head and heard the whisper.

"Protocal Alpha Gama Foxtrot..., Alexander, virus, entire nervous system shut down." Crystal almost turned away. What were these things it was muttering? It was frightening... But she kept her ear where it was and kept listening. "Full moon, Lunar light able to sustain without burning, Operation Lightning Strike, thousands dead, Arika... ARIKA!" At this word, its eyes shot open showing teal eyes fractured with fear. It opened and closed its mouth like a dying fish and its limbs began flailing. One of these appendages struck Crystal in the snout and she tumbled onto the hard linoleum. In a flash it was on top of her, arms splayed on either side of her. She looked up into its face and saw something. It was the cold sneer and the dead in its eyes that made Crystal feel like it would kill her, and keep smiling that same cruel smile as her blood ran and stained the tiles. He reached up onto the end table and brought the lamp peacefully resting there hurtling at her head.

Crystal screamed and swerved right and felt the shards of ceramic become entangled in her mane as the lamp shattered into a hundred pieces. It then grasped a large wickedly sharp piece of ceramic in five small appendages on one of its arms forming a fist of flesh and bone with a deadly point at the bottom. Crystal was trembling by this showing of such horrible violence. It paused, then laughed brought down the shard, but never made as it seemed like it had woken up and managed to divert its fist into the tile, released the shard and rolled onto its side to her right, passed out cold. Blade and three nurse ponies scrambled into the room and were shocked by the destruction. Crystal was laying on the cold ground curled in a ball, and the Healer passed out on the ground next to her. It took all of the nurses to push it onto the bed again and to secure the form with ropes tied around its middle and around the hospital bed successfully securing its entire form to the unmoving steel bed. Blade managed to pick up Crystal from her position and started working on picking the pieces of lamp out of her mane.

"What happened?" he asked her as he picked the last pieces of blue out of her green mane. She told him, and with every sentence tears began welling in her eyes and she thought Blade would explode. He swung a hoof violently at the resting figure, but was stopped when a midnight aura covered his entire hoof. Nopony had seen the Princess of the night enter the room, much less heard her. There was a cold fire in the air as she spoke her chosen words. "You will not hurt my sister's savior..." at this last word the aura bent Blade's hoof backwards slightly. Blade never cried, but Crystal swore that she saw tears form in the corners of his brown eyes. Luna released him, and he did not fall, but limped out of the room slowly with two of the doctors. Luna had a small object behind her head, which she moved with magic and placed it upon the small table where the unfortunate lamp had been resting. She said nothing but instead summoned a pot of ink and a small sponge with a teleportation spell. She moved closer to the Healer's head and brushed back the hair on its head with more magic. As Luna dipped the sponge in the ink and pulled it out partially blue, she began brushing a circle delicately onto its flesh. Crystal trotted over and looked at the small object carefully it was a band of cold silver with an outcrop from the surface of a wolf head in mid howl, as if the creature was to pull itself from its metal prison.

"If you don't mind me asking Princess..." Crystal started.

"I don't." replied Luna, not taking her eyes off the ink creation.

"What are you doing exactly? And what is the ring for?"

"I'm sorry", Luna replied, still focused, "As you can see, the one that we call the Healer is not ponykind at all. In fact, he appears to be from a different kind of species all together, so since we know nothing about it, or it's kind and if they have magic or not, I have had a "special" ring made that can cancel out any magic type. They were used in the Olden war between the dragoneques and our kind to deal with prisoners." (Crystal hadn't been expecting the history lesson, but she paid attention anyway.) "I will attempt to fuse its memories with the ring's placement where it won't notice the change. A simple memory rearrangement spell will suffice, yet the spell needs flesh contact, hence the spell circle. Now if you could be so kind as to bring me the ring." Crystal obeyed, clamping her teeth around the precious metal band and bringing it to Luna's side. As Luna lifted the band with magic, she slid it onto the second largest appendage on its fist. Luna flashed away the ink and sponge and lit up her horn with dark blue magic.

Luna tilted her head slightly so her horn touched lightly upon the small ink creation. The ink flashed with a blue fire, and Luna screwed up her face in concentration.

Luna could see the creatures entire memory as a library filled with books, shelves upon shelves, novels in corners and stacked upon each other. A large double paned window with curtains drawn tight dominated one side of the room, allowing sunlight to flood the room. Yet Luna felt two presences, one of purity, and one of disease. Yet she saw nothing, she knew that any kind of magic this creature had was locked away in the ring, so she shrugged it off. Shocking back to the reason why she was here, Luna began lifting tomes and sorted through them by subject. She searched for keywords, RINGS brought her nothing but some memories of a book written about several creatures of apparently the same species heading towards a goal to destroy a small ring in some sort of volcano. The keyword FRIENDS brought her closer with several pictures and memories of what was apparently this thing's friends, including a slightly short redheaded creature smiling from a memory. Luna shook her head, she was being too broad, so she went directly to the keyword GIFTS. There she found the perfect memory. It was from a third person perspective and showed the creature wearing thick sand colored clothing in a small room with a apparently female of their species.

Luna could feel that there was a connection between these two and saw a passing of arms, they were hugging. When it ended, the female pulled back and Luna could see slight tears in her amber eyes. The female pulled a small package from a table and handed it to her creature. As he opened it, Luna paused the memory and looked inside the package, inside was a small vial of a strange pearl liquid, Luna magicked an exact copy of the ring inside the memory and placed it next to the vial. She did a quick scan as the memory re-asserted itself, and came up with a full memory synchronization. She breathed a sigh of relief and replaced the novel where it belonged. Then everything went horribly wrong. The curtains on the window snapped shut, severing all light from the room as clean as a knife. Luna lit her horn, and swung the light at the advancing darkness, slowly working on a spell that would extract her from the memory room. She felt fear enter her heart for the first time since her banishment, and her memory self began sweating ferociously.

"Who goes there?!" she cried, feeling the spell grow stronger, she felt something crawl up her hind legs, freezing the muscles in place. She was close to crying from the cold when her spell flared up and teleported her back to her real body. Luna fell back into her own body yet still felt the cold sensation around her flank remained, she shot a look at what was happening and could not believe what she was seeing. Something had scratched a large spell circle around her body, and from it black magic had poured solidifying around her back end. She tried to move her legs, yet to no avail for the magic had now spread to the middle of her barrel. She tried to scream, but the magic was constricting her airflow, cutting off screaming. It spread quicker now rising up her neck and started wrapping around her face. Luna was terrified that she was going to die alone until a shattering sound resounded and the magic splintered and exploded.

Air flooded Luna's lungs as she took a glorious breath and looked down at what had saved her. What she saw was a small white-hot spark that seemed to have erased a section of the circle, breaking the connection of the spell to caster. Luna shivered on the tile for at least a full minute, the guardspony, Crystal seemed to have left to leave Luna to her work Luna was barely able to lift a piece of paper and pen from the table's drawer, and used up the rest of her magic scribbling a message and teleporting away to her room in the castle, where the guards would find her sleeping deeply due to an overexertion of magic. Crystal returned to an empty room, a scratched floor, and a scribbled note on the endtable.

She picked up the note and read it slowly, her eyes getting wide with every word. She fisished it and let the paper fall to the ground. Before it even hit the tile she was gone, looking for Blade to tell him the news.

It read:

Dear Crystal, you must stay near to and protect the Healer, before you protest, yes I do know about you and the entire police force's battle against the White Muzzle Gang, so in order to make this official, I am appointing you to Lunar Guard status. You will be able to enter the city at will and will be able to send information about the Healer by the message flame I will send along with your armor. Keep him safe, for if he falls in the wrong hooves, the consequences could be devastating.

Sincerely,

Princess Luna

The Tower

I ran until I could see the base of the tower which had a solid iron door set straight on the ground with two more armored guard ponies standing by each side. As they saw the riot of Technicolor equines behind me, they pulled out steel swords from sheathes strapped at their sides with their teeth and crossed them to block my path. For some reason, a small smug smirk slowly emerged on my face and as I still rushed towards the guards. I flicked the spear’s heavy butt forward and swung downward with all the strength that I could muster. The solid butt smashed into the X that the swords had formed, and drug them straight down to the ground. And along with the ponies’ faces which made a satisfying crack against the stoned streets. “Jerk wads.” I muttered as I pulled on the handled of the door. As soon as they swung wide enough I rushed inside and pulled the doors close on the other side. I fed the small spear through the two handles until they formed a nice little lock.

“That should hold them” I told myself smugly.

“No it won’t” Allumere said pointedly, “They will just use magic to burn through and them what master planner?”

“Working on it…”

“Really? Because it looks like you are just standing around like a trapped animal ready to be captured.”

“If you have any ideas, I’m all ears” I stated.

“Maybe you could go up the stairs right next to you and get to higher ground.” I looked to my left and there were indeed a flight of ivory stairs leading up the curve of the tower. As I admired them a small green beam of flame erupted from the top of the seams connecting the doors and proceeded slowly downwards towards Aurora’s spear.

“Let’s go then smart-ass!” I cried and bounded up the stairs.