Look! I'm not dead! Well the truth is really is that I've been very busy of late finding jobs and stuff that my writing has been forced to be put to one side, and it is unlikely that I'll be updating quickly at anytime soon unless something comes up that is. So here we are then with the second chapter and this is where we return to the hero of the story, Blue Arrow! So without further ado, READ!


Chapter 2

The Warning

While the country of Alaccan was getting over the brutal punishment of the four now deceased commanders, things couldn't be different up on their northern borders in Farachan. The population of Farachan and the mainland, Equestria, had all been relaxed since their last victory over the Alaccans and the elite Red Hooves could finally sit back and look at what they had all accomplished as an army.

What did the future hold for not only them, but for the final outcome of the war? On that night of the death of the four Alaccan commanders, up north, the Red Hooves slept soundly, unaware of the fate of the commanders, during the night in the knowledge that they seemed to have this war in the bag. Well the truth was that nearly all of them were fast asleep; the one in question was a certain blue Pegasus stallion with a red and white mane tail that kept twisting and turning in his restless sleep.

You see, this stallion was Blue Arrow, a stallion that only sometime ago had been involved with a bitter fight with another Red Hoof solider that nearly caused him to be deported back to Equestria, while in turn, the other troop was sent back home instead. That stallion's name was Peppercorn Tornado, though he always liked to be called Shadow. This stallion had not only sneaked his way into their ranks, but was also under the age of fighting, all of which made Blue Arrow want to stop him.

In his nightmare, Blue Arrow was seeing flashbacks of that brutal fight that nearly killed both of them in the process, but it was the last words that Shadow mentioned that seem to stick out.

"I wanted to be part of it! Don't you get it? Think about us guys about my age still be trained up? What if by the time I had reach eighteen and had been training since then only to discover that the war was over and there was no need for my type and all our efforts would be all for nothing…Sometimes, even if it's illegal to do so, you have to take matters into your own hooves."

Then Shadow suddenly charged forward to impale Blue Arrow, only for the blue stallion to awake from his sleep.

He sat up breathing heavily with sweat dripping down his face. He then notice that the dorm was filled with light, it was the morning and he glanced round to see his other roommates all still fast asleep, no doubt all having a better sleep than what Blue Arrow had.

He let his hind hooves hung over the side of the bed and rubbed his eyes to feel fully awake. "That bloody nightmare again…" he uttered to himself coldly. He glanced over to a desk nearby that had a small alarm clock on it. The time read 6:33 am and Blue Arrow could only just sit there and think over his current dilemma, he couldn't tell his friends how he was feeling out of embarrassment, even if they were his closet friends that he'd trust 'till the end of the world.

He sat there pondering looking out through their dorm window; the sun had already started to rise on yet another spring morning. Also on his mind was, along with all his fellow Red Hoof troops, was what was going on in Alaccan? Though they had not heard of anything from the Alaccans since their last battle, many rumors were being told not from the ranks of not Red Hoof troops, as Blue Arrow knew about, but surprisingly from the city folk of Coltfast. At first Blue Arrow didn't think nothing of the worrying talks of people, but each day whenever he would be out of patrol with several of his fellow comrades, the locals would say that the Alaccans were preparing for something big.

By now, all of this was really making Blue Arrow seriously think how much information the commanding officers were keeping from them. If they were, why would they be? He and all the other troops there were the Red Hooves, Princess Celestia's secret service and her finest warriors!

"You up already?" suddenly said a voice from above him.

Looking up with his head leaning upside down was Blue Arrow's oldest and best friend, Dynamo. His dark green eyes were only half open with him likely just woken up and his neat blue mullet was sticking out in all different directions.

"Oh, hey Dynamo," Blue Arrow replied jadedly as Dynamo moved off the top bunk and landed down beside the blue stallion.

Dynamo was silent for a moment as he looked at Blue Arrow in contemplation. "I say, something wrong dear chap?"

Blue Arrow rolled his eyes; Dynamo had a knack for noticing something wrong almost immediately such as a moment like this. "You noticed?" He muttered with a small sarcastic grin.

The brown stallion stroked his chin. "Is it about, you know, him again?" He bit his bottom lip on mentioning the word 'him'.

"Say nae more," Blue Arrow replied unenthusiastically getting off his bed. "I don't know what's wrang wi' me, don't say I'm losin' my mind or somthin'?"

Dynamo sighed sadly. "I don't want to think of it like that, maybe we've gotten a sense of cabin fever with not being able to fight them. Maybe then a fight with them might clear your mind."

The blue stallion nodded. "Aye, that's true…still, that and no' hearin' a peep from the Alaccans is just makin' act crazy, unless that's what they want."

"Then in that case they're doing remarkably well," Dynamo joked, enough to keep their moods up.

"Hey who's wakened at this hour?" Came another voice from across the room. Looking over to their left was their fellow roommates, Flying Sunstar and Macca waking up from their slumbers. The voice itself belonged to Macca. "Oh, it's you two, is it a call for action?"

"No," Dynamo replied. "Just Blue Arrow going over a few things."

"Oh that's ok then," Macca said and went back to sleep, only for Sunstar to jump down of his top bunk and startle the younger Red Hoof troop.

"Time we up anyway," Sunstar ordered Macca, who groaned as he slowly pulled himself out of bed.

"Oh please," moaned the younger Red Hoof. "When one wakes up, everypony wakes up."

The other three chuckled but nevertheless began to get themselves ready for the day ahead, one that would Blue Arrow wouldn't forget.

XXX

It was just after eleven in the morning when Blue Arrow and another Red Hoof solider named Tail Spin were out on their morning patrol around the far side of Coltfast that hadn't been investigated much by the other patrol teams. Blue Arrow did feel a sense of worry about going to a part of the city he hadn't been before as their had been rumors of suspicious activity over there. However, it wasn't helping Blue Arrow that he'd been ordered to work alongside Tail Spin, who in turn seemed excited about this patrol and wouldn't even shut up about this mare that Blue Arrow couldn't give a damn about, he'd giving up listening since they started.

The rules were with these missions were that Red Hooves would be selected randomly to work together for the patrols, why this was the case Blue Arrow didn't know, though he had been lucky to work alongside Dynamo once or twice, most of the time he was working with complete strangers.

Though he had never met Tail Spin before in his life, one thing was certain that with all this chatting that the fellow Red Hoof went on about, he was clearly rubbing off the wrong way on Blue Arrow. Tail Spin, like all the Red Hooves was a Pegasus with a Red Hoof cutie mark, he had a dark grey coat of fur, a short orange mane and tail and pale blue eyes, he also was not that much older than Blue Arrow himself, being one of the many Red Hooves that came along on the ship with Blue Arrow to Farachan.

"I'm telling you," said Tail Spin enthusiastically as they flew over the buildings. "She is probably the most amazing mare you'll ever meet!"

"Aye, aye, fine," Blue Arrow muttered uninterested, not paying attention to his fellow comrade and instead looking out where they were going.

"She has this golden fur that sparkles in the sunlight!"

"Right."

"She has a voice that can make your legs quake."

"Mmm."

"Damn her eyes sparkle too, I swear she's a goddess!"

"Tail Spin—"

"I'll tell you something, when this war is over, I'm gonna marry her!"

"Excuse me—"

"And we'll have three, no, five foals for our—"

"TAIL SPIN SHUT YER FACE! I don't want ta' hear about yer bloody life story!"

The grey Pegasus looked quite shaken by Blue Arrow's sudden outburst. "S…Sorry…didn't mean…to annoy you."

"Nah, it's alright lad," Blue Arrow replied in a comforting manner. "I'm just worried about what ta' do if we find what we're lookin' for."

Tail Spin smiled. "Yeah, if we did find him, we should be able to stop that pony, whoever it might be…" He then paused and stopped in mid air looking down at something on the ground.

Blue Arrow noticed this and stopped too in mid air before looking down. There he could see on a deserted street was a figure wrapped in a black cloak glancing around a few times looking for something.

The two Red Hooves looked at one another then back down at the mysterious figure. Then Blue Arrow decided to call down on him. "Hey you there!"

The figure looked up, they could just see that it was an earth pony stallion with purple fur and yellow eyes. The cloaked stallion suddenly ran away from them down a nearby alleyway and Blue Arrow and Tail Spin went on after him.

"Hey! Get back here!" Blue Arrow yelled as he flew as fast as he could down into the narrow alley.

The cloaked stallion didn't turn back and kept on running, then Tail Spin flew past Blue Arrow at quite great speed before tackling the stallion to the ground in a pile of garbage.

Tail Spin had to wrestle the unknown stallion to the ground in an attempt to try and calm him down, which thankfully became a bit easier when Blue Arrow came by to help. After what seemed like a minute of restraining action, the two elite troops finally managed to get this strange stallion under control.

"Don't you dare thinking about any more surprises for us," Threatened Tail Spin, only for the strange stallion to say nothing for a few seconds, then he laughed…a cold laugh.

"And what's so funny then, mate?" Blue Arrow asked has he held down the stallion.

"Oh you have no idea about how ironic that quote your friend just said there!" The stallion grinned, which Blue Arrow and Tail Spin looked at one another with concern before looking back down again on the cloaked figure.

"What'd ya mean then by 'surprises' then?" Blue Arrow asked as the gears in his head starting turning over by what this pony meant."

Unknown to the two Red Hooves however was that this person had just managed to pull out a small packet of pills.

Suicide pills.

"You can tell your precious princess Celestia," the stallion said as he managed to get out one of the pills into his mouth. "That a storm is coming from the south...and that Farachan and Equestria…is doomed."

Suddenly after swallowing the pill, the stallion began coughing terribly that made the two Red Hooves turn the stallion onto his back as his coughing only worsened. Franticly, they tried everything they could to stop the coughing, alas it was no use.

After one powerful cough, the stallion lay they limp, he had gone. Silence befell Blue Arrow and Tail Spin, as they couldn't believe as to what had just happened. By then they both notice the small packet of suicide pills that had only just come into view.

"What the hell was that all about?" Tail Spin asked in shock.

Blue Arrow though could only stare at the body of the stallion. There was no doubt that this person was from Alaccan, but the fact that this was none other than a warning to them and the Red Hooves was fearful for him.

The war was far from over, and even the Red Hooves would be stunned later on.


Oh my! What will happen I wonder?! We'll soon find out...soon...sometime...