Surprise

Standing around the body of an unconscious or dead zebra were a group of griffins, they were wearing suites of odd black armor that Shepard hadn’t seen before. He quietly motioned for Garrus to take up a sniping position and pointed at the Griffin who appeared to be the leader, Garrus nodded in acknowledgement. Before he could make any further directions one of the griffins looked up from the zebra and noticed them, Garrus shot the leader causing his head to explode in a ball of blood and feathers just as the one who had noticed them shrieked an alarm. Shepard drew his Carnifex from its holster and the others followed suit, except Fluttershy who stood there glaring at the enemy. The griffins who were unfortunate enough to be caught in her gaze stood stock still while their legs twitched and their bodies shivered, hopelessly trying to escape the small yellow pegasus’s gaze. The griffins who had not been caught in Fluttershy’s stare had reached for their guns and opened fire, causing Twilight to throw up a
quick barrier over top of their position catching all the incoming fire.

“Twilight can you make it so that we can fire out of this thing?” Shepard called to the purple pony.

“No, I don’t have enough experience with battle magic to do anything like that, although I can teleport us to a better position if you want.” Twilight said, then she shuddered as a large shell bounced off of her shield. “You may want to specify a destination soon!” Shepard quickly scanned the area and noticed a large group of logs that seemed to be set up perfectly to use as cover.

“Put us behind those logs over there” Shepard told her and nodded in the direction of the logs, with a flash of magic Shepard and company found themselves behind the wooden barricades.

“Am I the only one who always wonders why there are convenient pieces of cover placed everywhere we go?” Tali yelled as she unloaded her M-9 Tempest into the chest of an enemy griffin, who staggered backwards clutching at his heavily bleeding chest.

“Are you really going to start questioning the universe now Tali, if you remember we’re ponies now?!” Ash yelled as she sprang up from under cover to throw a grenade which took out several griffins.

“Ash be careful with those grenades we still have to worry about that zebra!” Shepard yelled before sending several griffins flying into the air with a biotic shockwave. Dash was for some reason just leaning against a log with a faraway look in her eyes, it was almost like she wasn’t aware of her surroundings.

***

Dash found herself flying in a strange place surrounded by huge clouds that towered into the sky. The sun shone brilliantly from all directions, reflecting through the bodies of the clouds around her in myriad multi spectrum rays. Dash briefly considered that she was dead, but threw away the notion when she realized that she had felt no pain in the transition, nor did she remember any real injury.

“Nice place isn’t it?” Asked a large grey pegasus who had approached Dash without her noticing. The mare’s mane was almost the same coloration as Dash’s but it seemed more iridescent and it was in constant motion.

“Where am I, who are you?” Dash asked the majestic mare

“You’re technically leaning behind a log outside of enemy fire, but I’m guessing you mean where are you mentally. To put it simply this is a small corner of your subconscious where thanks to your new Paladinship I can enter and speak with you. I’m Shika by the way, and if you want to be specific I’m your times around four thousand times great grandmother.” Dash stared at Shika for a few moments before she burst into ruckus laughter.

“Oh Celestia I’ve finally gone completely insane, which is weird because I always guessed that it would be Twilight.” She said between ragged breaths. Shika sighed Shalkan had told her that this would happen but she hadn’t cared.

“You realize that the longer you laugh the higher chance of a bullet hitting you in the forehead is right?” Shika asked Dash her tone serious yet amused, that sobered Dash up immediately.

“Let’s go under the assumption that I believe you, who are you?”

“Like I said I’m your really great grandmother, who also happened to serve with what was possibly the second greatest squad of Paladins to grace the land that you now call Equestria in history.” Shika said proudly, but not boastfully just self-confidently, Dash found that she was starting to like this mare.

“But how are you appearing to me?”

“Well Paladinship isn’t really genetic, but those who serve are given the honor of assisting our ancestors who become Paladins, you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to try this.” Dash nodded to herself, it made a kind of sense she supposed, but she would have to run it by Twilight for confirmation.

“So how’s heaven?” Dash asked Shika offhandedly, Shika let out an exasperated sigh

“Terrible, the food sucks, the lines extremely long, and to top it off they don’t let you do much. That’s why I jumped with joy when you became a Paladin; at last I would be able to get out of the place, if only for a while.”

“But if heaven sucks then why should I strive to go there?”

“Because if heaven sucks then the other place must be absolutely horrible, the only thing that it has on us is that both its legal team and its musicians are better.”

“So can you instruct me on how to use my Paladin abilities?” Dash asked her much greater grandmother.

“Sadly not yet, your abilities haven’t developed to the point that I could be helpful.” Shika sounded both sad and frustrated.

“Then why couldn’t we have had this conversation when griffins aren’t trying to kill me!” Dash yelled in annoyance.

“Because I just now got permission from higher up, also it’s more fun this way.”

***

“Dash can you hear me!” Twilight yelled shaking her friend with her hooves, when Dash began to groan and look around sluggishly Twilight let out a sigh of relief before she turned back to the ongoing battle. From behind cover their force had gone from being adapt to being true masters of warfare. Shepard would launch out a shockwave of magic, which would interrupt the griffins who were flying around above them causing them to stutter mid flap and be shot by Garrus. Tali and AJ worked quickly with their Scimitar shotguns taking out the targets that Fluttershy had caught in her stare which had become far more powerful as the battle raged on around her. Twilight sent a fire ball spiraling out of her horn which caught a griffin in the chest causing him to burst into purple flames. He tried desperately to put out the magic fire that was consuming his flesh but he could not. The incoming breeze brought the sickly smell of burning flesh to Twilight’s nose which wrinkled in disgust.

“What did I miss Twilight?” Dash called as she picked up her vindicator and rushed over to lean next to Twilight behind the logs.

“Not much, but we could use you to break up their formations.” Shepard called as unleashed yet another headshot from his Carnifex.

“On it!” Dash called as she leapt into the air and headed towards the enemy positions.

“Twilight darling do you think you could offer more some assistance over here, I can’t take on all of these brutish louts by myself.” Rarity called to Twilight as she sent out magic attack after magic attack, none of which seemed to do much good. Before Twilight could react however Ash had already covered the distance between the two and smashed the butt of her rifle into a griffins head before swiveling and unleashing a large stream of bullets into the enemy surrounding Rarity. Before Twilight knew what had happened the enemy forces had been reduced down to one griffin who had decided that the best course of action was to take Zecora hostage.

“Don’t come any closer or I’ll kill her!” the griffin squawked in fright, the gun shaking in his talons.

“You may have a hard time upholding that bargain bird.” Zecora told the griffin as she slipped out of his grip and proceeded to break his neck with a quick snap. “Twilight and friends, to what do I owe this lovely visit?” Zecora asked Twilight “and who are these others?”

AN
And to answer the obvious question, no none of the other Mane six have Paladin ancestry

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