Chapter 3
Why are u guys going to the castle?” Shadow asked. Me and Glowstick decided to let him come with us to the castle. He told us his name is Shadow, he woke up in the middle of the forest. He said he knew about the castle because of a passing Changeling patrol. He told us they said a group of people were making a town out of the castle and plan on living there. I believed him but Glowstick doubts him. Since ya know. The passing Changeling regiment didn't see him and he is able to understand the language of them. I don’t blame him.
“wait be quiet .” Glowstick said. This time, I knew not to argue with him. We stopped and listened. Nothing.
“what I don’t hear anything.” Shadow said.
“shhh!” Glowstick interrupted. This time we heard it. In the bushy area to the left there was a slithering noise. But wait, there was another noise coming off the path to the right. we all turned and got back to back. I lit my horn. Glowstick got in a fighting position. And this time. I think Shadow showed his true self, because he got into a fighting position. But there was something off about this position. I swear I saw it before. Recently to. But this was no time to think about that. We were surrounded. We didn't know what but something surrounded us. And then IT slithered out if the darkness.
They were Everfree forest vines. But not normal ones. These ones had large clamps on the top of them with large fang like objects.
There was a stand off for a second there, I swear time froze. I could hear the heavy breathing of the others. You couldn't tell that they were nervous from the outside. But I knew they were nervous. Well Glowstick at least. But Shadow. He seemed to be handling this like he does this every day. There was something off about this pony. My train of thought was interrupted by a loud screeching sound. I swung my head around to see a vine lunging at me. I acted fast and shot a magic bolt straight through its open mouth. Creating a hole and causing the vine to collapse. This triggered the other vines to attack and they all lunged at us. The battle had begun. Each of us had 2 vines to deal with. Since one of mine was already dead, I went for the other one. I got a sudden urge of energy as a blue colored cone of energy formed around my horn. It created a point and I decided to use this to my advantage. I jumped at the middle of the vine as it lunged at me. my jump was successful and I hit right in the middle of the vine. The energy cut the vine in half. As I landed on the ground the top park of the vine fell in front of me.
With my vines gone I looked at the others. Surprisingly, Shadow was great at fighting and I swear, I knew that fighting style. I looked over at Glowstick to see in my horror that one of the vines had wrapped around him! I ran to go help him but out of nowhere he got a arm gauntlet that had a knife attached. He extended the blade on his arm and sliced the vines grip. Killing it since the vine wrapped its body around him. He then swept at the other vines body make a shallow cut. Not enough to kill it but enough to make it flop onto the ground. He then flew up the dived down. Blade first at the head of the vine. Stabbing a clean hole into the middle of it. I then look over at Shadow , he has already killed one of the vines and is flying backwards up at the face of the vine. He folds his arm in and hits the vine in the middle of its mouth with his elbow. The vine collapses to the ground and weakly screeches before giving out and dying. With all vines dead, we sat there panting. Then it hit me. Shadows fighting style. Was the fighting style of a Changeling! I think Glowstick noticed to because he was walking up to Shadow with anger in his face. Glowstick grabbed Shadow and punched him in the face. Causing Shadow to fall flat on his back.
“what the hell?!” Shadow exclaimed.
“your fighting style! Is the fighting style of a Changeling!” Glowstick said with anger in his voice as he approached shadow. He went to hit him again. But I ran and held him back. “your a spy!” Glowstick yelled struggling to get past me.
I pushed Glowstick away and yelled “stop!” it went quiet. Shadow and Glowstick facing each other. Me in the middle.
“now. Shadow he is true you are using the fighting style of a changeling. Can you explain that?”
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Shadow explained everything. It turns out he was raised by Changelings. He said Queen Chrysalis raised him from fillyhood. Taught him how to fight and told him that all other ponies are bad ponies that do horrible things. he even said Princess Celestia killed his parents! He said that he snuck in the library when the Changelings took over Canterlot and Discovered that the ponies are good and the Changelings were the ones that invaded and enslaved the citizens. So in the middle of the night he ran away. His goal is to find what happen to his parents since he knows that Celestia didn’t kill them. I could tell he was telling the truth, but Glowstick. Ah Glowstick. He is still convinced that Shadow is a spy. Well off that topic, that was 20 minutes ago. Now were walking through the Everfree making our way to the castle.
“are you sure we not lost” asked Glowstick. “Yes I know were it is and im pretty sure were on track” answered Shadow.
“yea right” Glowstick said under his breath. I shot him a look saying “really?” he just rolled his eyes.
“say Glowstick. Were did you get that knife gauntlet?” I asked Glowstick.
“I've had it for while. Just back when we first met, I was to blind by cowardice to use it.” Glowstick answered with a still angry face . A gauntlet is a brace that goes on a ponies leg. A knife, sword, ax, or a spear can be attached. The chosen weapon stays lined up with the ponies leg and a cord goes up there inner leg to a switch that when the move there arm a specific way the blade flicks out, and extends over the ponies hoof(like Baraka's blades from Mortal Kombat.)
as we got deeper into the forest, Shadow said “wait. Look” he pointed over to a tree. But it wasn't a normal tree. It was larger and had 2 windows and a door. Well had a door. The door was torn off, and the windows were smashed. “well lets have a look.” Shadow said nearing the tree. Me and Glowstick followed close behind. We entered the tree. It was creepy as hell. “sweet Celestia!” Shadow exclaimed as he walked in. the trees walls were lined with creepy masks and shelves that seemed to be holding ingredients and potions. In the middle of the tree there was a cauldron full of green mucky water. The whole tree looks like somepony brought vandalism to a whole new level. i walked around looking at the shelves of potions. There blue ones red ones. Even white ones. Then, I heard something crunch under my hoof. I looked down to see I stepped on a faded, partly ripped photo. I picked the photo up and wiped the dirt off. The photo was a picture of a zebra and she was standing smiling next to a young girl filly. The filly had red hair, with a pink bow in it. She had yellow skin and. hm. No cutie mark. I kept looking at the photo, then my heart sank when I realized that the zebra was the zebra nightmare moon took hostage. My thought twisted in to wonder as I wondered what had happen to the young filly. I was then surprised by a loud crash, I whipped my head up. Glowstick was glaring at the door. Knife drawn and Shadow was in his Changeling fighting stance. I then looked over the door to see 4 ponies wearing the same kind of armor made of what seemed like iron. I swung my body around and lit my horn for a fight. The dead stares everyone was giving each other was interrupted by one of the ponies.
“Glowstick? Is that you?” he asked, taking his helmet off to reveal his mane. It was a white Pegasus with a blue and black Mohawk.
“oh my Celestia, Ice!” Glowstick exclaimed. Glowstick retracted his knife and trotted over to 'Ice'. I looked over to Shadow and nodded for him to stand down. Ice did the same to his ponies. The mood of the room calmed down as Glowstick and Ice hoof bumped. They started to get into a conversation as I walked over to Shadow.
“whats going on?” Shadow asked.
“i don't know.” I answered blankly. Ice peeked over Glowsticks shoulder and did a double take as if he just noticed me. Glowstick turned around with Ice and walked toward me. The other ponies in armor following, still confused.
“this is Ice Storm. He was one of the ponies I was in a group with before we were attacked, separated, and I found you.” Glowstick explained, his angry mood replaced with a joyful one. Ice smiled and waved at me, then immediately looked back over to Glowstick.
“so, what are you guys doing all the way out here?” Ice asked.
“we were heading over to the old abandoned castle because we heard ponies have set up a small town there.” Glowstick explained. Ices eyes widened as he said
“that's funny. After we got separated I wandered into the Everfree until I found the castle. They were really nice and they took me in. actually, right now i'm leading these other ponies on a scout mission to find some ingredients for potions.” he pointed to the other ponies in armor. They waved nervously as if they had just met a cousin for the first time. Then Ice spoke up again “you guys should head back with us. We can get that leg bandaged up.” he pointed to my still injured leg. Sweet Celestia, I've completely forgot about that.
“How did I fight with an injured leg?”i thought. I wish he wouldn’t of reminded me, because now all the pain started to come back and it probably wasn't gonna go away.
“come on guys ill lead you back” ice said waving his hoof to the door. Glowstick and Shadow looked at me like they were looking for answers.
“what?” I asked.
“its your call” Glowstick said. I looked over to Shadow and he nodded at me. Then I realized. These ponies. Looked at me as if I was there leader. As if I led them out of tyranny and saved there families.
With my new sense of confidence and morale, I answered “yes lets go to the castle.”