-The Game is the Chased and the Chaser-

This forest was new and different: new smells, new terrain, new prey, new competitors for territory, new trees, new soil. Even in the carefully scheduled start of winter it remained with only spatterings of snow, and the air was humid and heavy even as it chilled the throat. The stars and moon were hardly present past the patchy canopy of branches that were still shedding leaves. The forest was ready for its own winter, and would commit to it at the time of its choosing only.

That mattered little to the forest's newest residents. They moved carefully through the underbrush, as silently and methodically as they could. A large wolf led the trio, his paws silent even in the piles of dry leaves and grasses. His grey speckled, dark coat fit well with the nocturnal forest, and perhaps with more snow he would be all but invisible. A long dark tongue hung between a double set of sharp fangs, the only definitively unusual characteristic of the huge wolf. Two ponies followed the perfect predator, much like wide eyed puppies on their first hunt which was exactly what this was. Their eyes reflected back what light there was and more, one of their many gifts from their new master knight.

They even felt as if they could move more quietly in the wood than they would have before. It was a strange feeling, like their hooves knew where to step and how on their own, though they were limited to hooves rather than paws. The Unicorn and Earth pony felt a strange union in a sense of anticipation, like they could both feel the rush of the hunt that their leader promised before it had even begun. Though he had said there would be little chasing in these thick woods.

Coalback never spoke as they crept through the wood, he only employed body language to point out certain details in the surrounding. He silently taught them how to pick out the trail: a set of broken twigs all in the same direction; a tiny tuft of fur; the subtle but distinct scent of pony sweat; even, especially, fresh piss or droppings. Their noses and eyes found all of it, in need of all but a direction to search.

They were close on the trail of another pony that had fled the town, the third that Coalback would have caught but the first of his descendants'. With a growl that barely ruffled the still night air, Coalback crouched and his squires followed suit quietly. Coalback’s grey head turned slowly to point for his followers to their prey.

With a rustle of brush that was like a thunderclap in the silence that had been there before, a pony stumbled through the forest. "The ca ..." he mumbled, breath quick and cloudy in the air. "Where did ... where was it?" He walked past them, too caught in his own mind to look for threats. He must have been wandering this part of the forest for hours, lost and more importantly; alone.

With only a glance Coalback was able to convey an order to remain. Silently the giant wolf stood again and slunk away. Iron Bar and Filibuster were left, bright eyed and anxious, in wait for some sort of signal. Hearts beat heavily in anticipation, it was all they could do to keep themselves from shivering in excitement.

It came suddenly and loudly: A bark and a snarl cracked through the night. The pony’s scream was piercing and set the hearts of Filibuster and Iron Bar racing. With the thunder of a dumb animal barreling through the brush the pony approached, chased forward by the herding of the snarling wolf behind him. Chased straight into the bottleneck that was where Filibuster and Iron Bar waited.

Blood rushed in their ears, the pony was in sight. The thud, rush, thud of their hearts filled them with anticipation, but they waited until the whites of their prey's eyes could be seen by their superior sight.

Filibuster moved first, the closest to the pony as he tried to rush past their hidden forms. His teeth closed around furry hide instinctively and he tumbled into the prey bodily. The panicked pony tried to keep running even with Filibuster clinging on and a good chunk of its neck being ripped out by his dull yet tearing teeth. But Iron Bar's much heavier frame soon joined him and they dragged the pony to the ground with growls and snarls. The pony went down with a panicked scream and a whimper of pain as they settled.

Soon, panting happily, their leader rejoined them. In a rare show of affection the large wolf gently licked each of his ponies behind their ears. It was only when he realized their prey was still alive that he regained his fearsome facade; bared teeth, tongue, and gum sent their prey squealing again.

"Filibuster, first to kill is first to eat," Coalback growled with liquid words, they slid strangely on lupine lips. Filibuster looked down at his captured prey, it shivered and shook in shocked silence, but his stomach growled. "If I have to do it, neither of you will eat it," Coalback barked.

"Must we be turned to cannibals, Sir?" Iron Bar whimpered, an expression of how they both felt.

Coalback’s growl turned into a chuckle. "No, I suppose not. We will hunt other game for food later," he rumbled. His glowing green, iridescent eyes fell on the pony between them and what hope their prey had gained died with a sob as his last, weak protest.

With a growl and a snarl Coalback lunged forward. His jaws closed around the whimpering pony’s neck and pulled him away from Filibuster as easily as somepony would a rough bundle of cloth. He whipped his head to the side and, with a crack as the pony’s own body twisted on itself, the whimpering stopped. Coalback dragged away the limp body between his front legs, his converts followed.

This one would join the growing pile of bodies that he had gathered just within the edge of the forest. Outside of sight of ponies. Soon though, Coalback would employ them as a deterrent for any further attacks. There were still more to find; the Pegasi and remaining monster would be the highest priority.

No horror could escape the Everfree, and it seemed that the forest was content in keeping it that way. The sun rose on a quiet and once again peaceful Ponyville.

At the edge of the forest Filibuster and Iron Bar slept in their tents, exhausted from the nightlong hunt. But Coalback sat nearby, a whetstone to his sword. On the edge of the town, behind a hill, it was almost possible for him to believe he had simply found a new pack to run with and that he was alone.

But then he would simply catch sight of his hooves, or the blade and its blood red pearl. The whetstone hissed across the metal, the wavy patterns in the metal shone with oil in the early light. And he remembered the situation he had allowed himself to become tied to.

This alone was different from the solitude of the wild valley or the pine forest, this alone was familiar and choking.

He had to take a deep breath, the sword’s tip sank into the soil easily and he left it there for the moment. With a groan he cupped his ears, his hooves were hardly comfortable to him but he felt stress leave him as he rubbed them. The spikes of ivory stung with the fresh stimulation. He thought of his accomplishments for the night, a common meditation for him:

The night had been successful, as much so as he could expect from the relatively inexperienced Blood-Kin. They had managed to find the insurgents’ camp and track down every last ground-bound pony that had fled there in an attempt to regroup. It was a simply matter to pull information from some of them after that, at least until they experienced the same rapid and unplanned death that had ended his first interrogation.

Something else was in play here, this ‘Discord’. It seemed his familiar knew of the demon, but would speak no more of it. A strange instance; that Fenrir would keep quiet on something. It was disconcerting, but it didn’t matter:

He had all the information he needed. The pegasi would have dropped back to ‘Las Pegasus’ and Cloudsdale, where they could remain relatively anonymous - but Coalback had the scent and would begin sniffing them out soon. The monster’s scent was also fresh in his mind, but the beast had been slippery in the night and would take much longer to track down. The pile in the forest had grown into a mass grave of bodies that, for once, had not all been desecrated by him.

That was it; simple. The danger was not quite passed, but Luna’s contract would soon be fulfilled and he will have earned his freedom.

He stood with a growl; he despised the deal that had been forged with her. He had more hoped she would simply kill him for his supposed ‘crimes’ and his insubordination that had followed, Fenrir stirred in the depths of Coalback’s mind at the thought. The hollow sound of glass and metal against tooth echoed in his mouth as he pulled the gem from his hiding spot. It had taken his last captors almost a full year to discover one of those hiding places, his stomach, and he had suffered a long surgery in which he was fully lucid for. He held it in his hoof and stared, Fenrir huddled quietly as the ‘pony’s’ thoughts raced, angrier and angrier with each moment.

“I was wondering where that thing went.” Rainbow Dash’s voice was a surprise among the silence of the morning. Coalback flinched, the broken hilt piece suddenly held tight in his hoof, protectively. “So you didn’t actually swallow it?” the Pegasus asked as he finally turned to her.

“No,” Coalback said, his artfact was tucked into his gorget. “Did you need something?” he asked in return.

“I was being serious about the flying lessons, I’m not making my errands with a pegasus that can barely stay off the ground,” Rainbow said, though if she was teasing him or not was difficult to tell. “And, also, you know, we’re all pretty freaked out. We wanted you to stick around after last night, but you guys just took off. What did you do with that guy anyway? He wasn’t moving when you left …”

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to,” Coalback growled. “I am on watch while the other two sleep, I cannot leave. We were in the forest all night hunting down those attackers that could not fly away. The Pegasi among them are still running free, so no ‘errands’ until I dispatch them.”

“Really? But where are the- Wait. ‘Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to,’ right?” Rainbow said with a roll of her eyes even as Coalback opened his mouth to give that exact reply. “But I’m really serious,” Rainbow deadpanned. “You could fight in the air better if you knew how to fly properly,” she offered with a smile.

“I find it hard to believe that you only want to help me,” Coalback said in an equally deadpan tone.

“Okay, first of all,” Rainbow groaned, “not everypony has some sort of secret agenda against you, dude.” She paused for only a moment under his continued blank stare. “But yeah, I sorta need to fly all over town to do the weather, and … you’re going to make me say it aren’t you?” she growled. The barest ghost of a smile appeared on his face, but he waited. “I don’t want to be alone”- he waited, and though his deafness was feigned, he was unashamedly enjoying her discomfort -”I don’t want to be out there alone. Okay? Happy now?”

Coalback huffed through his nose, but he nodded and turned around toward one of the tents. He pulled aside the door flap much to the occupant’s discomfort. “Take my shift, I’m needed … No, we’ll discuss everything tonight. Once you both are rested and hungry again,” he whispered inside. He left the tent and as he left with Rainbow Iron Bar staggered out.

Far to the south, armies continued their deadly clash hidden from the world by a bowl of mountains that drank in the sound and the smoke and let nothing pass them.

The Wolves fought with a fury that had not been seen in thousands of years. The Great Pack had been gathered, and every Clan, pack, and outcast had joined the call for honor and a glorious place among the spirits above. Drums and wolfsong filled the air where clashing metal and the roar of fires did not. The wolves sang almost as passionately as they fought.

Very few had fallen. Many were injured, or even lamed, but none stopped the fighting until they had fallen dead in the dust. And even if they were not fighting, they were singing: their voices reached the heavens and further, to call out for strength from their far away holy land.

However, the impregnable exclusion zone had been breached, and pockets of the Enemy fled past the wolves over the mountains - only to die a coward's death at the sight of The Empress in all her eternal glory.

She stood without armor, without weapon, without even a snarl of warning to her foes. She merely stood in the harsh light on the only pass for leagues; her regalia, made from chains of gold and silver woven like ropes of silk that braided small skulls and bones carved from blood red gems along it. Her feathers, of the huge hawk wings that spread in the only sign of her agitation, ruffled in the stiff breeze. Her paws, the size of boulders which sported claws that could rip through steel and bone alike, rested on the sharp stones of the desert mountains. Her rack, a huge crown of bone that truly connected her to the symbol of her great mother, hummed gently with power.

Clouds boiled angrily on the distant horizon, held back by only the loosest of grasps.

"Clever, Demon," she mumbled even as another twisted one of his creations was obliterated. Its soul fled at her behest, and with it she destroyed its vessel. "Fine, you will have your wish. But not yet. Soon."

Clearing clouds tended to be boring when toting around a new trainee, it was worse so considering Rainbow had to coach Coalback as well. She'd never realized he couldn't hover until he'd started circling her. Not to mention that he flew about as well as a refrigerator.

"No! You have to lean into your turns!" she yelled to him as he followed her around a cirrus that was about to clump into a cumulus if she didn't flatten it back out; no snow scheduled for today. "You got big wings; you gotta use your surface area for control! You fly like a drunken filly!"

Though Coalback had not worn all his armor, it seemed that he had reconsidered the idea of flying without it. His chest plate and gorget glinted in the afternoon sun as he dodged around another potential cumulus. The blue sash around his flanks flapped wildly in the winds. His wings batted at the air, and while there was an attempt at control he merely proved to her that he had never truly flown before.

"I don't get how you can grow up never flying once," she exclaimed as she pounded down the clump of clouds.

"It was simple, I could not," he shouted over the wind. His wing dipped into a cloud as he tried to bank hard and he flipped into the cirrus as it caught.

"What is that supposed to mean? Did your parents tie your wings down or something?" Rainbow asked. She darted over and helped him stand again on the thin cloud layer, his unshorn hooves nearly sank all the way through.

Coalback hesitated, and for a moment Rainbow feared she'd touched on a sensitive subject. "It is very cold where I come from, my wings would have frozen the instant I tried, so I never did," he grumbled, his eyes looked wearily around them. Though Rainbow could not tell, it would not be the last time Coalback would blatantly lie to her. Thankfully Coalback could remember the comment that Soarin had made about him.

"Really? That must be really cold to freeze Pegasus wings." Rainbow grimaced at the thought. Pegasi were naturally resistant to the cold, part of the reason they could live so high above the ground without all having chronic hypothermia. But totally frozen wings was not a pleasant thought, and Rainbow felt that with a danger like that she might have opted out of flying as well. "Alright, I'll give you that then. But if you wanna be as good at flying as me you gotta start thinking of this aerodynamically."

"Aerodynamically," Coalback parroted.

"Yeah. You're not as streamlined as me, so you gotta think about how you cut through the air. You're also a lot heavier than ... most Pegasi, so you gotta consider how your momentum is gonna play into your turns."

Coalback hummed in thought, but only for a moment. "So it is like swimming, but in the air instead?" he offered.

"Whassat?" Rainbow sputtered. A Pegasus that swims? She'd heard weirder but she'd never expected it from somepony like him, plus he couldn't have a talent for it: not without a Mark.

"When you swim, you have to keep your body in a very straight streamline if you want to go fast. Strokes stay close to the body and kicks use the whole leg," he explained. In a surprisingly limber display Coalback stood on his hind legs and stretched his arms over his head, suddenly much taller. "So I should do that, but with wings?" he finally asked as he fell back onto all four hooves.

"Um, yeah. I guess," Rainbow muttered. "But you don't want to use your legs, only foals gallop while they fly. Keep them close, like tuck 'em in, but use your wings. You gotta grab the air and push it down, like it's a ball. But don't sweat about altitude so much as control," she said with a slow demonstration using her own wings. "You gotta think of it like walking almost: you push your wing back, you go forward; push forward, you go back; push down and you'll go up; and so on," she explained.

Coalback took a thoughtful look at his own, speckled wings. "What about clouds?" he asked abruptly.

"Well, what about 'em?"

"Why can we stand on them? Can everyone stand on them or just Pegasus?" he rattled off. Rainbow had to remind herself yet again that Coalback had literally no experience.

"Only Pegasi can walk on clouds without a special spell from a unicorn. I don't remember all the technical jargon around it - something to do with false surface area, or rapid redundancy, or something - but it's Pegasi magic that lets us walk on them and shape them the way we want: but that last one takes some talent to get right," she explained.

"Interesting," he rumbled with an eye on his own hooves. In the moment that he took to do that Rainbow flipped back over to the clump to smash it flat again. For a while he seemed content to just watch her work, which was fine by Rainbow as she could finish faster. When she was done she circled back around to him.

"Did you give up?" she asked with a frown. It would have been a strange thing, she'd almost been certain that he was a bit more stubborn than that.

"I learn better by watching, I think," he said. "But one thing I don't do is leave favours unpaid: So since you helped teach me how to fly better, if you want I can show you how to fight better." He nodded respectfully to her and Rainbow was surprised by his sincerity.

"You're serious?"

"Absolutely. I would like very much to teach you to fight. I think you might have an appreciation for it that most ponies lack," he rumbled with a smile.

"You really don't have to. Besides, you're already doing a lot: you fought off those guys ..." Rainbow protested. However Coalback shook his head.

"I owe that to Luna, not to you. You helped me with this, so now I want to help you."

Rainbow only had to think about it for a moment. "Alright, I'll give it a shot. But on one condition," she said.

"Name it," he said without hesitation.

"You have to stay with us tonight at Twilight’s house." The gentle smile immediately left Coalback's face and Rainbow had to scramble to try and find some better justification. "It's just that after last night Fluttershy never even left Twilight’s house, she's too scared to even sleep. Can't you just come and stay there for the night? I think it would make all of us feel safer if you were close."

"I can stay until midnight, but if I wait much longer to go after the Pegasi they might regroup and try to make it back to their master. Or they could come back with a better plan than last time. But yes, I agree to these terms," he said and stood from his seat on the clouds. Water soaked his blue sash and Rainbow almost thought she caught the glimpse of something on his flank through the fabric, but it could have easily been a fold in the sash. “I will meet you all during sunset.”

Discord hummed to himself as he worked, his jaguar sat nearby. He'd broken her will just right and shaped it into the useful and unbending tool that he needed. She would do well, even if she failed to kill the Elements or the Blaidd that waited at their sides, she would weaken the foundation that held him back from his prize.

His Gryphon's claw sparked against blackness in an unusual bout of distractedness. So much going on, so little time to keep it all in its unrecognizable but distinct path. No plan of Chaos ever went perfectly, that was its nature: Celestia remained a powerful piece on the board, but she had realized his play too soon it seemed and had made herself somewhat less useful to him; the insurgent ponies had been ineffective in their original purpose, though their failure left an opportunity for the Blaidd to be revealed for what it was and driven out by the ponies it protected, which in turn would leave the Elements vulnerable again; Luna remained a wild card, astride the lines of reality as he knew her to be. And all the while he struggled against a growing storm and a stubborn, poor excuse for a god.

His jaguar let out a gentle hiss and only a moment later the Queen's palanquin came into his dark chamber. He had created the tunnel to this chamber himself, and if not for his presence the hive might have used its natural geothermal warmth to incubate their young. He turned slowly, his dragon’s tail slithered across the ground as he lowered into a relaxed, seated position.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" he said in his silky smooth voice, one that taunted as much as it assumed to seduce.

"My warriors grow stronger in number by the day. Why do you not send them to the front lines?! They could cut through those animals in mere hours!" the Queen bellowed. The cracks in her chitin glowed with an inner fire, a furious green ember. She may have been injured, far past the point of wasting her energy to walk even though she found plenty to shout. All of her energy went toward multiplying the power of her hive.

"In time, my dear," Discord said soothingly, suddenly perched upon the palanquin beside her. His body wrapped around her in what would have been a loving embrace if not for the scaly tail, eagle's claw, and solitary yellow fang. "We must wait. The point now is not to break through the line, but to hold it, keep it occupied and tiring until the time to move is right," he whispered into her ear. "First the settler towns will fall, then the few military outposts will crumble. Then Ponyville and the Elements will be plucked up and eaten," he mimed the action, yet somehow managed to swallow some tasty morsel that could have been meat as easily as it could have been something scraped right off of the wall. "Then we take Canterlot and fell the false gods, and you will have every single little pony in your grasp! We both win," he grinned.

"But what do you get from this, oh God of chaos and ruin?" Chrysalis asked, surprisingly sober considering Discord’s influence.

"The world," he hissed. "I want Her!" he bellowed.

With a roar the chamber filled with light and the true purpose of its existence was revealed: Carved out from its stony prison was a blood red ruby that defied definition in size. It took up an entire wall, and through it no opposite end could be seen, it was as if it existed all the way into the fiery core of the earth. Light emerged from the gem in waves and within it the light flowed as if from a river. A crack stretched across its face, laden with a material so black it simply sucked away the light of the gem.

And for the slightest of moments, a form revealed itself in the light of the gem.

"Her power will be mine! I swear it by my nature! She stole my power and I will have it back and more!" he bellowed. His voice shook the chamber, and as if beckoned by his words the choking black churned and grew. With a grin the chimera unwound himself from the palanquin and lunged toward the crack. His paw pulled free a chunk of the impossible black and added it to a growing pile beside him, a spare piece was snapped up like black liquorice by the jaguar.

"Soon, my dear," Discord roared, his silhouette ringed in the sunset red of the gem. "Soon you will have the revenge you seek! When the storm rolls, the bells of death will call your enemies to the grave!" he promised even as the Queen's seat bearers scrambled to make their way out of the chamber. "CHAOS! WILL REIGN!"

Though all he had done was stare at the fireplace, Coalback's presence was surprisingly reassuring. He exuded a certain calm strength in his silence, one that said nothing could disturb the safety of the tree. His deep blue cloak had never left him, though it seemed his armor was at the ready beneath, and a large bulge revealed that his sword was with him. There was no question now that he was taking protecting them seriously. His wolf’s head helm sat beside him, at the ready.

Applejack and Rarity both had brought their families with them, though Rarity's parents were away on one of their many vacations. And the three fillies had all but demanded the presence of the third Crusader in the "sleepover". And although Spike remained upstairs, bedridden with his continued sickness, which still made twelve heads turned toward the darkly clad warrior Pegasus for protection and assurance.

Shaky at first, the necessary sleepover had begun with a strained silence broken only by the strangely happy voices of the fillies. They seemed the only ones unable to see the danger they had just been in, though most might have labeled it off as the norm living beside the Everfree. Unfortunately this had been no rogue hydra, or a surprisingly playful three headed guardian of Tartarus; this had been a planned attack with the malicious intent of violent murder. Somehow the Crusaders had come to the conclusion that the attackers had been pirates and that the only one Coalback had killed had been the beheaded monster.

The fillies hadn't seen the bloody mess that had left the basement that night, and none of the ponies present had seen what Coalback had done to the bodies of the rest.

However, once Coalback had arrived the tension had quickly dissipated. Big Mac had even taken the liberty of gifting the equally large pony a bottle of their best aged cider in thanks for keeping his family safe, and both sat silently near the fire. Twilight, Fluttershy, and Rarity had taken a corner to console and comfort the delicate yellow Pegasus. Pinkie happily kept the fillies occupied while Applejack sat with Granny Smith with the intent of following the older mare's example and sleeping. Rainbow had taken the time to curl up with her Daring Do book, which she was nearly finished with.

Inevitably the three fillies' curiosity overwhelmed their ability to be distracted by a pink party pony. He was a new pony, and certainly not some boring old anypony just passing through: no one in town would deny that, even if they hadn't been there they had heard all about the battle in front of the tree. It was Applebloom who first approached, with a simple question of Coalback’s name. He gave it bluntly, in a low growl that could have meant he was displeased by the question or the answer but certainly not both. However, the answer was all the three intrepid friends needed as an excuse to bombard him with yet more questions.

Where had he come from? Why was he still wearing his cloak? It was awfully warm in here. What did he mean that he was wearing armour? Could they see it? Did he like apple cider or apple juice? Did he like Ponyville? Was he friends with their sisters?

Some he answered, some he didn't though with each new question he seemed to grow less and less comfortable with the little fillies. Applejack stood to attempt to relieve the poor stallion, but Rainbow stopped her with a grin: A small payback for her flustering that morning that he had forced her through.

"Do you have any stories?" Scootaloo finally asked, a question among them that sparked a storm. Within a moment each filly was all but demanding a story from the large Pegasus. He had to have been on adventures, surely. Nopony could be so big and tough without at least a few. Oh! What about one about pirates? Or fighting evil wizards? Or a scary story, did ponies like him even get scared?

"You don't want to hear my stories," Coalback eventually grumbled. "Go play," he dismissed them with a wave of his metal-clad hoof.

"Maybe it would be a good idea, Sir Coalback," Twilight spoke up. "You're probably going to be here for a while. Why not let us get to know you a little better? I know I'm a bit curious to know more about you," she said. It was a bold move, to call out their guest like that. But Twilight felt that the best course of action was to make an effort at friendship, or at least friendly acquaintance.

With the assent of voices rallying the idea Coalback snorted in frustration. "Fine," he huffed. "I ... suppose I could tell you about the time I hid on a ship without realizing it was about to depart and ended up stranded in ... a faraway land where no one spoke my language," he consented.

In a blur Pinkie had already gathered pillows, blankets, and popcorn for all the ponies present so they could all gather around and listen intently. Coalback growled in the back of his throat in frustration as the ponies did just that: although he did not object.

"Why'd you have to hide?" Sweetie Belle squeaked.

"Someone was chasing me," Coalback grunted. He shifted under his cloak and thrust a rear leg from underneath. "There, you can see the scar their first trap left." He used a hoof to spread apart his fur to reveal the pale, deep, jagged lines of a fading scar. "They managed to hide it from me, a bear trap with huge metal jaws snapped shut around my leg while I was out in the woods one day. The silver teeth cut right down to the bone. I managed to get away that time, but I was on the run for awhile afterwards. I couldn't stop to eat or sleep or drink, I just had to keep moving," he rumbled.

"Eventually they got me cornered," Coalback continued. "I thought I could lose them in the big city; lots of people, lots of noise, easy to lose one in a crowd of one thousand. They still managed to corner me at a dock, my last options were to either jump on the ship or wait for them to leave or to see how long I could hold my breath. I picked the boat," he confirmed when he noticed the confused look the fillies gave him. "Next thing I knew the ship was off, thankfully some kind farmers took me in and fed me," he said with the slightest smile.

"How long were they chasing you? You make it sound like it was days, nonstop," Rarity asked.

"Were they bandits? What did they want so badly?!" Sweetie Belle added, much to her sister's chagrin.

"It was months. And they were not bandits, they were hunters after my hide," Coalback said. "They had the most experienced trackers and persistence hunters in the world after me, a bounty of enough money to buy Canterlot city three times over," he explained. "But I gave them the slip there and it took them much longer to find me, even among all the people I looked nothing like. It was a search for a needle in a haystack the size of a sport's field."

"You said 'persistence hunters'," Twilight said, suddenly caught on the story. "What do you mean by that?"

"Oh, now that's a scary story," Coalback said with a grin. Perhaps he enjoyed telling the story more than he let on. "Persistence hunting is what turned those people into the single most successful species on the planet. Their bodies were always designed for it, it only took a bit of skill to really put it to use. You see, unlike a wolf, that hunts in a pack and picks off the weakest of the herds, these people hunted alone and could hunt the same animal for weeks on end where a wolf would have left for easier prey."

"You're not talking about ponies, are you," Twilight said. She knew the answer but she felt she needed to hear it.

"Of course not," Coalback snorted. "Ponies are prey, these were predators cut from a whole new cloth. Imagine it; you run from one only for it to catch up to you before you have a real chance to rest, and it keeps finding you, tireless even as you struggle to stand because you've been running for days with barely a chance to stop to drink or sleep. It carries both with it until it simply runs you into the ground! Then all it has to do is walk up and give the killing blow," he expounded, his excitement somehow shown in his slight pantomime of an arm tossing a spear.

"You lived with these things?" Twilight asked, her voice hollow and her face pale.

"It is surprisingly easy when you don't stay in one place long. But yes," Coalback said, nearly gloating.

"And what exactly did they look like?"

"Great tall things, gangly looking and not particularly fast or strong. But, again, they don't have to be. They are natural born distance runners," Coalback said. He took a moment to think, to put together a description that would work. "They're not like ponies. Flat faces, and their ears don't move like yours. Mostly hairless as well, no fur coat to call their own."

Coalback paused. His nose twitched and he examined the hollow look of fear on the ponies' faces around him. The old mare in the corner made a warding gesture with her hoof and mumbled a prayer to Celestia under her breath. Even the muscular Earth pony sitting beside him seemed shaken.

"Coalback," Rainbow finally said, her book forgotten, "do you realize what you're talking about?"

"Of course I do, but I wonder if you do," Coalback said. He shifted under his cloak, armor slid against itself and his sword's hilt was revealed.

"There's only one thang that's like that," Applejack assured him.

"Thousands of years ago, before Luna became Nightmare moon, ponies fought in a huge war with them. We both nearly fought each other into extinction, in the end they were the ones that disappeared though. They fought like demons if the legends are true," Twilight explained.

"Name them," Coalback commanded.

"Don't you dare!" Granny Smith wailed from her seat. "It's the worst of luck to mention their name!" she warned.

"Tell me," Coalback insisted. "It's important."

Twilight looked around the room nervously. Most turned toward her with fearful glances, the fillies turned their alarmed curiosity to her, and Applejack shot her a warning with her eyes. But under the pressure of Coalback’s gaze she decided:

"Man."

"Well," Braeburn sighed as he scratched under the brim of his hat. "Now ain't that just the strangest thing?" he grumbled toward the sky. The clock tower chimed the late hour nearby.

A snowflake gently fluttered down onto his nose, it melted instantly in the temperate air. It certainly wasn't cold enough on the ground for the snow yet; but there it was. Far above, wispy clouds sat lazily in the quickly darkening sky, the apparent culprits in the otherwise clear sky.

Being a frontier town, Apploosa tended to lack proper weather control. A small Pegasus population meant the most they could really do was encourage what rain they had to fall on the farms. It also meant that there was nopony available to attempt to steer the incoming weather away.

"A storm's a'comin'," one of the older mare's of the town commented from a nearby porch. "My ankles are achin' somefin' fierce!"

"Eyup!" Braeburn agreed in an uncharacteristically dry tone. "Don't bode well," he said.

Braeburn wasn't sure, but something in his bones sensed tragedy in the air. His eyes were drawn south toward the distant, impassable range of the Macintosh Hills. If his ears had been sensitive enough, he might have heard the distant sound of drums.

This part of Las Pegasus was well and truly abandoned at this hour, all except for a single soul who walked slowly down the paved road. The warehouse complexes were barren and seemingly lifeless around him. His armored hooves echoed off the walls and spread far in the still, cold air of the night. Thankfully, for his purposes, even in the large city ponies tended to retreat to their homes at nightfall.

The hooded stallion blended well with night, dressed in his dark blue cloak with only flashes of his pitch black armor revealed step by step. However, his intent was not to hide.

He halted with a heavy stomp of a hoof that boomed like thunder in the quiet street. He snorted and a billow of steam whipped out from between the teeth of his snarling helm. His armor glinted in the moonlight where the thick cloak could not cover it; a quarter moon to keep him on his task.

Cloudsdale had been completely devoid of their scent, an interesting find since the clouds tended to amplify what scents there were. But now he could clearly smell the dust and musk that marked his quarry. There was already blood in the air.

He stepped into a complex of buildings, the scent of blood only stronger. Every nerve stood on edge, he stepped carefully and slowly. They would already know he was there, it was a matter of reacting faster than they could spring a trap.

This was the kind of hunt that truly required skill; when neither party was predator or prey, nor did they stand on equal ground. It might have been comparable to a form of guerrilla warfare if there were truly a difference between attacker and defender. This was truly the greatest hunt, where luck played as much a role as strength or cunning. Nothing like hunting down scared and confused prey, with their eyes that stared back in a dumb haze; or a battle where victory might be determined simply by who ran away first.

No rules. No sides. Only the one who chases and the one who is chased, neither prey nor predator.

Gravel crunched under armored hoof as Coalback tracked the scent through the warehouses. He'd played this game before, from the other side however. It was a strange feeling for him to be the one intent on capture rather than escape. It had always been him who felt chased, with short episodes as the chaser to gain distance from his enemy.

It had never felt so right before.

A puddle, black in the darkness but clearly blood by its smell, seeped out from the doors of one building. Coalback approached carefully, fully prepared for a trap. Perhaps they'd kidnapped an killed someone in the hopes to draw him out, and like a fly to the fetid meat Coalback approached. With a snicker of the scabbard he drew his sword. He gave a grunt as he used its hardened point to shatter the wooden bar that held the large doors shut. With a groan and a rush of air that brought the stench of death and decay with it the door creaked open.

Coalback jumped back as body after bloody body fell out into the gravel road. They splashed out in a waterfall of gore, their blood spattered the ground and onto Coalback's hoofguards.

The bodies settled and the silence that followed was heavy. Coalback lifted his eyes from the pile of dead, all of them Pegasi and if he had to guess most of which were the ponies he was after. But something didn't sit right. They were piled against the door; had they been trying to escape? Or had one of them piled up their comrades in hope that Coalback would stumble upon what they had wrought.

Coalback lowered his stance, ready for a rush from the darkened interior, and let out a challenging snarl that shook the panes of the windows all around. Silence was his reply.

A quick count proved that every missing pony from the band of attackers lay at his hooves. Perhaps their Discord had simply gotten tired of them and destroyed them the same way that the captured pony had been. With a snort in a vain attempt to relieve the stench of blood from his nose he turned away from the bodies.

He found a still puddle of murky water, rimmed with ice. Luna had given him specific and cryptic instructions on how to contact her "if he were to require more supplies or to make a report." He snorted in frustration as he attempted to remember the process.

"Luma arcterra," he hissed as he touched the edge of the puddle with the tip of his blade. Ice rippled across the full face of the puddle until it was completely solid. The ice rippled again as magical forces smoothed the surface into a perfect mirror. But when Coalback leaned over it, it was not his frightening helm he saw, Luna stared back out of the glass.

"Good evening, Sir Knight," she greeted. The ice vibrated subtly, leaving her voice tinny and slightly muffled. "Doth thee require something of Us?" she asked, her voice was honey but Coalback sensed the mixed feelings of annoyance and hope that he brought good news.

"Forgive me for not contacting you sooner, it has been difficult to settle in," Coalback rumbled. He could hear the faint murmur of voices from the ice-mirror, and hesitated to reveal what had transgressed should someone else hear it. "I bear news of an attack that I have thwarted, I spent my last two nights attempting to hunt them down and have just succeeded in locating the last of them." He hoped that whoever Luna was meeting with was trustworthy, or at least ignorant enough to not fully understand who had been attacked.

If a ponies' face could have paled, then Luna’s certainly did. "The Midnight Court is concluded, leave," she said coldly, the murmuring ceased almost instantaneously. "There was an attack? Explain," Luna demanded once her guests had left.

"It seems your concerns were well placed, my Princess," he growled, he had to fight himself to keep the words from seething with hate. "Not twelve hours after our arrival a band of rogues attempted to capture, and I assume execute, the Elements in their homes. I was away, escorting Lady Rainbow Dash, they were able to hide with Lady Twilight Sparkle until I could arrive and dispatch them. Some escaped, but I found them all dead in a warehouse in Las Pegasus," he summarized.

"I will send ponies to remove them, We cannot allow panic to take root on this. Dost though know of their motive?" Luna asked. Her horn blazed with light, presumably to dispatch a cleanup crew.

"I was able to capture one yesterday, he mentioned a name before his body was destroyed," Coalback growled.

"What was this name?"

"I would take caution in speaking it, I believe it to be some demonic spirit that had taken their souls hostage."

"Speak its name but once, I must know of it."

"Discord."

Luna's image froze, and for a moment Coalback thought that she might have cut the magic that allowed them to communicate. But in a moment he was able to pick out the subtle shudder she let out. "You are correct to call him a demon. Return to Ponyville, posthaste! Speak nothing of that thing's name again," she ordered. With a sweep of her wing the ice and the image that it had facilitated became brittle and cracked in a web across the puddle.

Coalback flinched as a few stray shards of ice bounced off of his helm. He snorted again, both to clear the smell of death and in frustration.

"A demon," he muttered under his breath. "How much stranger could this get?" he grumbled.

So enraptured with thoughts of this attack, and the subtle chiming of the ice as it continued to crack and melt back into water, that Coalback did not notice one of the bodies lift itself from the pile behind him. The gore covered pony, slicked by the blood of his fellows, was able to draw a thick blade from his belt silently. Even slicked with blood, the thick blade and sharpened point proved that this blade was only for stabbing, specifically through heavy armor.

Coalback roared in pain as the blade found its mark, only just deflected away from his spine between his shoulders by how abnormally heavy his armor was. He twisted, the light weight of the Pegasus attacker barely noticeable past the feeling of blood rushing into his lung. He turned to face his attacker only to find that another had stood and flung blood into his eyes.

Blinded and in pain, Coalback stumbled into the slush of the icy puddle. He snorted, blood filled the air and he coughed as he tried to clear his lungs of the blood that was drowning him from the inside. He blinked past the blood enough to fend off another attack, only realizing the blade was still in his back when he could not close his left wing.

Sword forgotten, he swung a hoof wildly as one of his attackers attempted to bring him into a grapple. His heavy coif caught the pony in the temple, enough to shatter his skull and break his neck. His fellow had begun his charge even before the first had realized his fate. Coalback dropped and attempted to sweep the other's legs out from under him. The Pegasus simply took to the air, a vain attempt to bail out of the attack. Coalback’s sword was already back in his hoof, all he had to do was flick the tip up and the pony's stomach split open from ribcage to groin.

The Pegasus flopped back to the ground, his entrails left a bloody trail behind him. The colt screamed and writhed, his hooves clawed at the steaming organs to try to move them back into his stomach even as his legs tried to pick him back up and run away. Coalback thrust his sword into the meat of the pony’s hind leg, the blade sunk into the gravel below him and speared him in place.

"No!" the bloody colt screamed, in so much pain that it had begun to fade to the inevitable fear of more. His brain was shutting down, attempting to survive the pain. "No, please!" he yelled, his writhing only cause for more pain to shoot through his body. "Please!" he wailed as Coalback stepped over him.

"Why should I show you mercy?!" Coalback bellowed, steam billowed from the jaws of his helm. "Why should I try to save you from your fate!? Why? When no one would save me from my own; why would you deserve better?!" His voice echoed across the city, as loud and imposing as a titan's. "I killed no innocents! I forged no bonds with gods! I freed a Giant and stole his soul! I have walked ten thousand miles and been the bane of a thousand lives! Still I live! I would have begged to be like you! To be mortal enough to die!" The colt had given up trying to scream, he only shook in fear of the tirade that Coalback had opened upon him.

Coalback ripped free his blade with a spray of blood. He let the blade fall again, this time to cut the wings off the colt's back. "I burned! And I suffered! And when I tried to leave for the safety of everyone around me," his blade sank into the gravel and he drew his other knife, "they dragged me back!" The sharp knife split open a nostril on his prisoner's face. "And now I'm here! Alone! More alone than I have ever been! And you beg me for mercy?!" The knife took an ear next, but the colt had lost so much blood already that he could not react to the new pain. "If I could have what I wanted, I would already be dead," Coalback growled, the knife found its place back in its scabbard. "But that's not how the world works. So why should I give you what I have been denied?" He replaced his sword and stepped away from the dying pony.

Without another word, Coalback turned and began the long trek back through the forest to his camp. There was a hospital in the town, he would raid it for medical supplies by morning. His wing hung limply at his side, forced open by the thick blade still lodged in his back.

He left his opponent to die a slow, pain filled death.

Author's Notes:

Okay, I had to start doing these on onedrive because gdocs would not work on my phone anymore. But in order to upload it I put it back on gdrive: so if there are any formatting issues or mispellings or other mistakes feel free to let me know and I will try to fix them.

I'm sorry it's been so long, lots of scheduling issues and things I have to do that I don't wanna do.

Hope this chapter was enjoyable, I read every comment so feel free to tell me whatever.