Thunder Spear

By Strong Copper

• December 23, 2013




Age: 20

Gender: Male

Species: Pegasus

Appearance: A grey pegasus with green eyes, Thunder Spear is a healthy weight for a solder of House Stormwing, but it is clear to those with an experienced eye that he lacks the built up muscles of a front line solder.

Cutie Mark: A lighting bolt striking from a storm cloud, the lightning taking the vague shape of a crown. Earned after he first got his hooves on a storm cloud, Thunder Spear seems to have a natural talent with anything electrical in nature.

Personality: More or less raised from the age of five onwards under the banner of House Stormwing, Thunder has a healthy respect for military service and earned authority. <br /><br />However, many ponies would be surprised to learn that Thunder isn't a royalist; To him, the Royal Sisters are merely a legend and their reign nothing more then a myth. He doesn't fight for them, instead dedicating himself to serving the house and its Generals instead.<br /><br />A Thunderer by training and nature, Thunder Spear has come to accept the fact that the rest of the House looks at him and his ranged brothers and sisters of lightning and thunder with unease at best and utter disdain at worst due to misplaced motions of honor in combat. <br /><br />After his last tour of duty, Thunder has started being a lot more vocal about the need to cast aside the notion that ranged combat was dishonorable because believing such lies was getting good ponies they couldn't afford to lose killed.

Backstory: Thunder Spear was five when the sisters vanished and the war began. He didn't understand what exactly this meant on a large scale, but what it meant to him personally was that he and his parents moved from where they had lived on the ground to a city in the sky called Cloudsdale. <br /><br />He had been heartbroken that he had to leave a few days before his best friends birthday party, but he took some comfit in the fact that while his parents were busy, he had slipped away and said goodbye to him, giving him the baseball bat he had gotten him as a birthday gift. <br /><br />That is the closest memory he had of life without the war hanging over them like a horrible smog cloud. <br /><br />From that point onwards, almost everything in Thunder's life was in dedication to preparing him for the day he would join the rest of his people in securing Equestia for the return of the Royal Pony Sisters. <br /><br />While he was more then happy to be of service to his House in anyway he could, the concept of bringing order to Equestia despite the heavy prices inflicted and paid with feathers and blood just to hand it over to two ponies who did nothing to help them and by all rights abandoned them without rhythm or reason left a very bitter taste in Thunder's mouth. <br /><br />The arrangement of Alicorns who did nothing to aid them taking their hard earned victories from them seemed far to much like House Moon and Star for him to be comfortable with. However, there were plenty of ponies in House Stormwing who had earned his respect and he would do his duty by them to his dying breath. <br /><br />When he was old enough to join active military service, Thunder was given a Discharger and pointed in the general direction of a number of different targets. Of the 23 targets on the firing range, Thunder nailed 21 of them, setting a range record for new Thunderer's to come. <br /><br />Thunder's first tour of duty was under Commander Hailstorm, a veteran of the war who had ambitions of becoming a Wing Commander, if not something more. Despite his ambitions, Hailstorm was an old fashioned, hard headed brute who allowed his pride in Stormwing melee strength to cause him to alienate and look down on his ranged fighters and those allies who weren't the elite of the house. <br /><br />Over the course of the two year tour of duty, Hailstorm's views caused an unofficial rift in his forces between his 'chosen paragons of Stormwing' and those who weren't; namely, the Thunderers, the griffins and the non pegasus members of Hailstorm's command.<br /><br />This state of affairs came to an end one stormy night when a patrol came across a Cult caravan that was passing through Stormwing turf. Bringing his whole command to bear, Commander Hailstorm was about to order an attack when Thunder pointed out that the Thunderer's would need about ten minutes in order to prevent the background storm from messing with their weapons.<br /><br />Clearly annoyed, Hailstorm assigned the griffons to protect the Thunderers while they, as he put it, 'Wasted everyone's time'. Since the Thunderer's and the griffons had long ago bonded over their mutual dislike of Commander Hailstorm, this worked out nicely. <br /><br />About five minutes into their preparations to ensure their disruptors didn't just explode due to the background storm, the Thunderers and Griffins were surprised to hear the sound of battle horns as Hailstorm lead his chosen into a charge without them being in a position to join or support them. <br /><br />The Caravan had been more the ready for the charge. Between stolen anti air weapons, their own insane pegasus fighters and the utter swarms of giggling ghosts that dropped out of the storm clouds above and behind the charging Stormwing ponies, it was a damn slaughter.<br /><br />The Thunderers were able to get their guns in a state that they could be safely fired, but all they could do was give what few lucky souls still able to flee under their own power the chance to do so. <br /><br />Pulling back to safety, the survives debated over what to do. They couldn't just leave this caravan unchecked, but they didn't have the numbers to attack it up front (not helped by the fact that most of those left were injured as well). Abandoning their duty was out of the question, no matter the circumstances. <br /><br />Thunder made a suggestion. An idea that flew in the face of Stormwing's honor bound tactics, but was the only option that dealt with the threat long enough for reinforcements to arrive.<br /><br />Sending off the fastest, non injured flier to get back up, the Thunderer's prepared to overload their disruptors and use them as makeshift bombs to drop on the Caravan with the griffins and any pony still able to fly and flight running escort. <br /><br />While the giggling ghosts claimed a few more lives during the operation, the plan went off as best could be expected; a number of Caravans and the cultists and supplies in them were destroyed, including (it was discovered later) the one that housed the stolen anti-air weapons. <br /><br />The damage done crippled the caravan, allowing the reinforcements from Las Pegasus the time to arrive and destroy what was left swiftly and brutally. <br /><br />With Hailstorm confirmed to be dead, along with most of his command, the tour of duty ended two months early for those few who were still alive. Escorted back to Cloudsdale for debriefing, no one is quite sure how the situation is going to be handled. It's a toss up being rewarding and promoting those who survived for their quick thinking in dealing with a major threat in the face of utter adversity, or punishing them for the dishonorable way in which they did it.