A primitive axe was blocked by the strong, wooden staff of Blossomforth’s spear, after she lifted it high above her head. Squadron Seven’s designated leader then tilted her weapon down toward the left, sending the offending axe and the furred arms of the Diamond Dog holding it down to the ground. Blossomforth spun her spear in her hands and took a step back before batting the blunt end of her weapon right on her doberman-like opponent’s neck. The Diamond Dog yapped in pain before collapsing to the ground.

Blossomforth barely got the time to catch her breath when she was tackled by a massive, bipedal Bulldog. The Jupitarian conjured her white wings mid-tackle to flip herself and her opponent so that the large Bulldog landed spine first on a edgy rock with a sickening crack. As the Diamond Dog let go of her, Blossomforth used her wings to gain a little altitude to observe the scene around her, she was quickly joined in the air by Gale who had picked her spear up before giving it back to Blossomforth.

“Remember when I said those maneuvers were boring?” Gale asked hurriedly as the head of her axe was surrounded by electric sparks. “Next time I say that, slap me!” she added without giving Blossomforth the time to respond before diving toward a large Diamond Dog that was about to lunge on Silent.

The beast was cut in two by the lightning-enhanced guillotine strike of the redhaired Jupitarian when he was about to strike the crossbow-woman in the back. Silent turned around to see Gale with one knee on the ground before slashing the torsos of the Diamond Dogs that were trying to climb on top of the rock from which Silent was shooting. A strong gush wind coming from above them blew the other attackers that threatened to encircle the rock.

As Blossomforth flew down to her teammates’ level, the three initiates of the Golden Sun Order were fighting back to back, forming an impenetrable triangle with their large, yellow shields. They let the enemy charge them and break their claws, teeth or primitive weapons against the hard surface of their equipment before pushing them off. Shaken by the sudden and strong shoves, the Diamond Dogs were defenseless against the lethal blows dealt by the three future knights.

“Sentry!” Blossomforth called loudly as she catapulted a few Diamond Dogs that stood between their rock and the one on which the three initiates had been surrounded. “Rally to us!”

Blossom, Gale and Silent then charged their right fists with lightning before punching the air before them. Three bright, yellow lightning bolts rebounded on the many Diamond Dogs, charring them nearly instantly and thus opening the way for Flash, Black and Lucky to retreat toward the three girls.

“Where are Cloud and Sunset?!” Black shouted as Silent shot a crossbow bolt in the eye of a Diamond Dog that was about to lunge on him while they were halfway from the three Jupitarians. “They stopped bombarding them a while a…”

His shout was interrupted by Sunset Shimmer appearing between them in a bright, blue-green pop, her cloak half ripped to pieces and her face showing traces of fatigue. The Titanian took the small, leather hood off one end of her staff, revealing a brightly teal gemstone on top of it.

“Stick close to me!” Sunset barked as the gem on her staff glowed brightly as her eyes shone in a magical, teal hue. “Whenever you want, Kicker!” Sunset shouted in direction of the skies as the six other guards moved closer to her.

They all looked up as Sunset’s magical aura surrounded all six of them, seeing the darkest and largest thunderhead they had ever seen shaped by a Jupitarian. After a quiet wow from Gale, they spotted Cloud holding the center of her lightning-filled namesake thanks to a hazy, white gauntlet that was surrounding her hand.

With one powerful flap of her wings, Cloud flew down the bottom of the canyon, stretching and pulling the thundercloud behind her. The blonde Jupitarian reached for the ground long before the dark mass of steam and lightning that was following her. Cloud then made a sharp thrust with her fog-surrounded arm, ripping the end of the cloud she had been pulling down, as the Diamond Dogs started to retreat underground with terrified whimpers. A second later, Sunset activated the spell she had been preparing with a loud scream that teleported the squadron seven away from the rain of thunderbolts that ravaged the Great Rift of Las Pegasus a blink of an eye later.

The three Initiates and the three Jupitarian corps’ soldiers re-appeared on top of the canyon’s Eastern edge in six flashes of teal light. Flash, Lucky and Gale wobbled on their feet for a few seconds before they fell on their knees and brought up their respective lunch. Teleportation sickness was a fairly common occurrence and one of the reasons not many Titanians could master the spell in question, its complexity notwithstanding.

“Wait a minute…” Silent let out with worry when she counted how many they were. “Where…”

Black, Blossomforth and she didn’t wait for her to finish her sentence and rushed to the edge of the canyon to look down. In place of the path they had followed at the bottom of the Great Rift now laid many craters wherever the lightning storm had struck, some filled with charred Diamond Dogs bodies from which came columns of black, stinking smoke. Muttering an insult about somebody’s mother, Blossom conjured a small breeze to clear the smoke.

“Look!” Silent shouted, pointing at a small, smooth white sphere that came into view amongst smoke. “It must be one of Cloud’s shapes!”

Blossomforth and Black sighed in relief as the nimbus-sphere slowly dissipated itself thanks to the former’s conjured breeze, slightly revealing an unarmed Cloud who had her large purple wings wrapped around an exhausted-looking, but seemingly okay, Sunset. Since the two that had remained down below were fine, the trio quickly went to take care of the vomiting rest of the squadron.

“...P-phew,” Sunset let out, panting softly to catch her breath. “That...That certainly was something,” she added as she nearly collapsed in Cloud’s arms.

“You okay?” Cloud asked softly with worry.

“...Don’t worry,” Sunset replied as casually as her exhausted state permitted it. “I’ve never teleported so many people at the same time before, that’s all… I’ll be fine once I’ve rested a little....You can let go now,” Sunset added uneasily as she noticed the warm and soft mass of purple feathers wrapped around her.

“Hmmmmm, nah!” Cloud slyly smirked as she brought the tired Titanian closer to her with her wings. “I’m rather enjoying this proximity,”

“Cloud!” Sunset warned softly.

“That’s my name!”

“Let me go!” The red and yellow haired girl demanded sternly.

“Are you capable of magiking me off of you at the moment?” Cloud asked playfully, leaning her face closer to Sunset’s flushing one.

“....n-No,” Sunset shied away by looking down with her cheeks as red as her hair, only to see Cloud’s chest tightly pressed against hers.

That certainly didn’t help in her hope to bring her cheeks to their usually tanned complexion. Against all what her common sense dictated her to do to get away, which involved a knee in the groin among other things, Sunset looked back up Cloud’s face, only seeing the same playful grin from earlier when she had tricked the squadron into picking Blossomforth as a leader.

“You’re not going to let me go, are you?” Sunset whispered with a sigh.

“Not until you thank me for saving your life,” Cloud replied with a wink.

“Thanks for saving me from YOUR thunderbolts after I teleported the others according to YOUR brilliant plan!” Sunset stated with a roll of her eyes.

“Well, YOU had found that plan brilliant, and YOU had claimed that YOU could teleport the others away from the impact zone along WITH yourself,” Cloud reminded softly. “You’re lucky, I noticed that you had remained behind!”

“....Fine, I’ll admit that,” Sunset conceded softly after a short, embarrassed silence. “Thank you, Cloud,” she added in a volume that was barely above a whisper.

“Hmmmm, I would have preferred a kiss on the cheek, but that will do,” Cloud replied with a bright smile as her wings vanished into thin air at her command and that she gently let go of Sunset. “No need to be too greedy!”

“...You think you’re some sort of prince charming or what?” Sunset asked with a cocked eyebrow. “Hoping to get kisses from damsels in distress like that?”

“No!” Cloud replied instantly as she looked around the craters and the smoke. “Prince Charmings are nothing but goody-two-shoes heroes that can’t do anything besides kiss their damsels… I do a lot more than kissing usually,” she added with mirth.

“Pervert!” Sunset muttered under her breath.

“Guilty as charged, Honey. Prince Charmings after all are too good to stoop down to my uncouth behavior.” Cloud admitted with a shrug before she pulled her sword out of its sheath. “Then again, they’re also often too good for our job as Guards of Equestria…” She stated in a low tone as she gave a soft poke on a corpse’s torso.

“What are you doi…”

Sunset’s question died in her throat as the corpse jerked at the contact with Cloud’s blade. The corpse wasn’t totally a corpse after all. The Diamond Dog, a beige pitbull whimpered slowly in pain as Cloud leaned above him. The blonde Jupitarian sized him up, wincing at the smell of burned fur and the sight of his charred lower body, while he let out heavy and labored breath.

“Sunset, do you know a spell that can stop the pain?” Cloud asked softly.

“No. Medical magic isn’t part of my arsenal,” Sunset replied slowly as she approached the wounded Diamond Dog with caution.

“Too bad,” Cloud stated with genuine regret before she crouched near the wounded Diamond Dog. “That would have made the questioning a lot more humane.”

“I say we return to base camp!” Flash suggested with vigor after the questioned Diamond Dog succumbed to his wounds, not before sharing some useful information with squadron seven.

“And leave a group of forty Equestrian citizens at the mercy of a Diamond Dog’s pack?” Gale asked back with anger. “That’s absolutely out of question!”

“I don’t like it either, but what can the eight of us honestly do against a pack the size that thing mentioned?” Flash argued sternly, pointing at the now dead Diamond Dog that Cloud was carrying to the pile of bodies with the help of Black and Lucky.

“We didn’t do that bad during their ambush,” Sunset let out casually.

“You’ve got to admit that without Cloud’s plan, the outcome could have been a lot more different,” Silent commented slowly. “Underground, there’s no way to conjure a shape that big… Also the Diamond Dogs would have the advantage in a direct confrontation in their tunnels.”

“It would be suicide to attempt a rescue mission just the eight of us!” Flash added after nodding at what Silent said. “We don’t even know if there’s someone left to be rescued! They could be in the pack’s stomachs for all we know.”

Gale, Silent and Blossomforth all winced in discomfort at Flash’s suggestion, earning a derisive snort from Sunset. Cocked eyebrows and dark stares were thrown at the only Titanian of the squadron who shook her head in response as Black and Lucky joined the conversation with puzzlement.

“Did you find something funny in our discussion, Shimmer?” Blossomforth asked with narrowed eyes.

“Oh, yes!” Sunset nodded firmly. “The fact that you know nothing! Diamond Dogs don’t eat people, they enslave them!”

“Enslave them?” Silent asked in a disgusted tone.

“Hmm-hmm!” Sunset nodded once again. “They need labor force for their excavations. Usually it’s the lower-class pack members that work in their mines, but they aren’t dumb enough to turn down free workers,” she explained matter-of-factly. “It’s a good thing for us though,”

“Slaves are a good thing for us?” Lucky asked in confusion.

“That means they’re keeping them alive,” Cloud stated with patience before she walked to one of the craters that had uncovered a Diamond Dog tunnel. “We’ve still got someone to rescue!”

“And an A+ for the blonde!” Sunset snapped her fingers then pointed them at Cloud. “Never thought I’d ever say that in my life,” she added more to herself than anything else.

“When you’re done with jokes on blondes, maybe we could think of a plan!” Cloud called sternly. “We’ve wasted plenty of time already…”

“What plan?! There is no plan!” Flash argued angrily. “There’s nothing we can do!” he added pointing at all eight of them. “We’re not enough to free the prisoners if there are any…”

“While I’m sure we could think of a way to do so if you would stop shitting in your pants at the idea of going underground, that’s not what I had in mind,” Cloud replied in a conversational tone.

“How is you becoming a sex slave going to solve anything?” Flash snapped furiously at Cloud’s insinuation.

“Hey!” Gale shouted angrily at the initiate while Silent threw him a dirty glare and the rest of their comrades stared at him in shock. “How dare you say that to her?!”

“What?! Don’t tell me you’re not thinking that that’s what she meant!” Flash shouted back with venom in his voice. “You’ve implied it yourself: she only thinks about sex!”

Cloud sighed softly before rubbing her forehead with two of her fingers and turning around to face the initiates’ leader. With one wave of her hand, Cloud ordered Gale to remain quiet.

“You know, Flash, I’m willing to agree a little with you,” Cloud stated slowly. ”Like, right now, somewhere in a relatively small part of my mind, I’m imagining myself lying naked on the fluffiest cloud-bed there is while these four girls…” she pointed at her four female teammates. “... are crawling to me, all wearing the sexiest pieces of lingerie ever made, and all four of them staring at me with the hottest bedroom eyes that could only indicate they’re more than willing to eat me alive, and with their cheeks as red as the ripest red galas.” She paused to look at the four girls in question. “...Kinda like they are right now as a matter-of-fact,” she added playfully as Sunset, Gale, Blossomforth and Silent tried to hide their brightly red cheeks without much success.

“How’s that proving you’re not…” Flash started, his blush matching the girls’.

“But, while I DO keep this little fantasy of mine in mind, along with thinking of plans to actually make it happen…” The blush on the four girls’ cheeks surprisingly deepened tenfold. “Saying that everything I do is related to my sex drive, which might be intimidating for a fair squire like you, is hardly fair to me after I saved your ass not two hours ago when you were yapping at Blossomforth for having the lead of the squadron and were waiting for her to come up with something instead of showing signs of leadership yourself during the ambush!”

Flash opened his mouth to protest but got silenced by Cloud raising her finger before his lips with a dark glare.

“So, what you’re going to do now is remain silent until you have something of relative importance to say, and only if you can formulate it in way that doesn’t make you look stupid!” Cloud let out coldly. “I didn’t go through two and half years of hard training with the best people I have ever met to be looked down as a common whore by a wannabe knight who’s more preoccupied with his safety instead of the ones of those he’s supposed to protect!” she added angrily before shoving her palm on Flash’s armored plate, making him take a few steps back.

“Girls. Is it wrong for me to get so turned on by this?” Gale whispered to her three blushing comrades pointing at Cloud who was glaring at a speechless Flash.

“No, it isn’t,” Silent, Blossomforth and Sunset simultaneously whispered back discretely.

“As for what I was saying prior to being interrupted,” Cloud continued in a more casual tone, turning her back to Flash. “We survived the ambush, forcing the dogs to go back underground. If they’re anything but stupid, they’ve realized that we’re likely to come back here in force,” she stated uneasily.

“You think they’re going to leave the Rift?” Silent asked after a few seconds of thinking, her blush slowly diminishing as the conversation turned to a more serious matter.

“Along with their slaves, yes!” Cloud nodded slowly. “I don’t know how much time it’s going to take them, but if we wait to come back with reinforcements, and only then start searching for their mines, we will not find them in time!”

“You’re thinking of going down there to look for the mines, aren’t you?” Blossomforth asked with worry. “While one of us go back to warn base camp?”

“Well, I wasn’t thinking of sending anyone actually,” Cloud stated slowly. “I was thinking that Sunset could burn the bodies of Diamond Dogs!” she added, pointing at the pile of cadavers. “That should make a nice smoke signal for the search parties.”

“What search parties?” Sunset asked in confusion.

“We should have reported to base camp an hour and a half ago,” Cloud reminded softly. “Which surely means that Lieutenant Maverick is probably pissing Captain Armor and Sergeant Pagétonas off to get the authorization to go look for us in order to kick my butt for being late. It’s only a matter of time before she gets it.”

“So your plan is that all eight of us go down here to locate the Diamond Dogs and their prisoners?” Black asked curiously.

“Well, not all eight of us,” Cloud replied slowly. “Someone need to stay here to explain what’s going on when the search team arrives…”

“Couldn’t we send one of you four to base camp?” Flash suggested slowly. “To warn them so that they come directly in force.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Blossomforth stated matter-of-factly. “But, I don’t think we can do that…”

“Why?” Sunset asked with curiosity.

“Well, it’s an infiltration mission,” Gale explained slowly. “That means we need to be able to move quickly and swiftly, which means that our three Initiates are out of it,” she added pointing at the three heavily armored soldiers.

“It would be better,” Lucky conceded slowly. “We’ve been trained to be front line fighters, field fighters. We’re not going to be of much use in those tunnels.”

“But we need enough fighting power to be able to resist and escape if we’re discovered,” Blossomforth added slowly. “Silent must come with us, since she’s the best scout of the compound. Sunset would be our main firepower, since we can’t conjure too big shapes underground. My spear could be useful too, and Gale is one of the best melee fighters I know…”

“So, you want to send Cloud fly back to base camp?” Sunset asked with a frown.

“Well, after seeing her fight the Diamond Dogs, I’d rather have her with us, but she relied on her shapes to fight from what I saw… “ Blossomforth explained uneasily.

“I understand, Blossom,” Cloud stated with a comforting smile. “If I have to do it, I wi…”

“Why not Flash instead of her?” Sunset interrupted brusquely. “He’s a Jupitarian too! He could make the flight to base camp.”

“He is?!” The four Jupitarian corps trainee and the two Initiates asked in shock, all turning their eyes toward the navy-blue-haired initiate.

“Huh… I suppose I could,” Flash replied sheepishly as a pair of orange, light-made wings appeared on his back.

“When were you going to tell us that?!” Blossomforth snapped angrily. “That’s kind of important to know!!!”

“...Huh…”

“You know what, I don’t care!” Blossomforth pointed an accusatory finger at him. “Go call for back-up now!”

“Yeah, about that…”

“INITIATE SENTRY, I AM ORDERING YOU TO TAKE OFF THIS INSTANT!!!” Blossomforth yelled so furiously that everyone took a step back from her.

“Well, I’ve never managed to take off with my armor on,” Flash explained sheepishly.

“FOR FAUST’S SAKE!!!”

Her eyes full of furry, Blossomforth spun her spear in her hand and slammed the blunt end at the feet of Flash, who was catapulted in the air by a column of ascending wind that got caught in his wingspan. When he had reached a good forty meters of above the canyon, Blossomforth swiped her hand in the air before her, causing another gust of wind to propel a shrieking Flash toward the East.

“NOW FLY!!!!!” Blossomforth barked at the desperate flier before taking a deep breath and facing her other teammates. “You two will remain here to cover our exit,” she said more gently to the other initiates who nodded solemnly. “Shimmer, light the fire.”

“Aye, aye!” Sunset replied with a brief salute of her two, glowing fingers before she pointed them at the pile of corpses.

“Alright girls, you’re ready?” Blossomforth asked after a teal fire started to consume the Diamond Dogs cadavers. “Then, let’s go!” she stated firmly when they all nodded with determination.