"Tell me where the rest are." Makuta asked quietly, the squirming bloody Toa in his claw groaned out an answer. "I didn't catch that." Makuta was hit at that moment with a fireball.
"He said that we were right here!" The brave Toa of Fire stood, four other toa standing behind him. "We are the guardians of the city of Koutou Nui! You have no place here demon!"
Makuta simply looked at them all, and without warning took his other hand and grabbed the Toa of Air's face. He turned his claw and his hand in opposite directions, and with a satisfying crunch dropped the corpse on the ground. "Well, there goes your hope at stopping me."
The five remaining Toa charged at him, screaming bloody murder, and he took their attacks without flinching. He reached down and snatched the Toa of Stone's arm, he pulled it a little harder, then he threw it at the water Toa, who screamed along with the stone Toa. He silenced them both. They were annoying.
After another two minutes only the bleeding Fire Toa remained. "Y-You Monster!"
"You refer to your future Great Spirit in such a way?"
"You are not the Great Spirit, he is who I dedicated my life to, and he is the one who is now receiving his gift." The Toa shouted, and for the first time in the fight Makuta jumped backward, spiriting himself as far away as possible as the Fire Toa started an atomic reaction in his own heart. Makuta dived behind a mountain, and waited out the explosion. He turned around after a few minutes and saw the blackened landscape. He walked to the center and picked up the only things that remained, six masks. A shivering Matoran walked up to him. "Why did you kill them all?"
"They had very unique masks, ones I needed for my plan."
"Are you going to kill me now?"
"I don't have to, besides, someday you will be my subject."
"... No. I will not, you are too cruel."
"Do you want to die?"
"No, I do not. I'm too much of a coward."
"Is it cowardly to not die?"
"It's cowardly to continue living after having made your stand, if you need to forsake it to live." The Matoran put his hand in the middle of his chest. "Unity, Duty, Destiny. Those are the virtues of the creatures of Mata Nui. I know who you are. You forsake your destiny, abandoned your duties, and betrayed your comrades and creator. I will someday be a brave Toa, and you will someday be weak and sad that you had ever given up your virtue."
"What is your name?"
"I am Takua, an Av-Matoran."
"You look like a Ta-Matoran."
"Someday, I will kill you, I can tell. But today, you are a mere Matoran, who knows of my greatness. Tell my story little hider, and fear me. Just as you feared the Great Spirit." Makuta took off to the sky, reminding himself to remember the name Takua. It might be important later on.
"Former Princess Cadence, Former Captain Armor. We, the Brotherhood of Makuta, have discussed this at length, and are willing to release you and your husband in exchange for your loyalty and service to the extent of thirty years, a term that will be lessened with good behavior. Any of your future children will not be bound by this document. Your official positions will be for Mia Amore Cadenza; Ce-Turaga. For Shining Armor; De-Barraki." Cadence couldn't believe her eyes. The Crystal Pony before her was well-fed. And although the dark circles under his eyes told of his past insomnia, she could tell he had also been sleeping comfortably. She almost didn't recognize him.
"Rhine?" It had been almost a month since they had seen a guard. Entertainment and food would be sent to their cell daily, but otherwise they only had each other to speak to. They were afraid that Nightmare or the new monster, the 'father' of them, decided to remove Rhine. But apparently he was being treated like a King.
"Please allow me to finish former Princess." Rhine looked back down to his paper. "The position of Ce-Turaga entails; overseeing the Crystal Ponies, taking down censuses on various aspects of the kingdom, collecting and making taxes, and rectifying problems within your authority. You will have authority over the Crystal Pony classes of 'farmer' 'engineer' 'slave' and levels 1-5 of 'citizen'. But you will answer to the Brotherhood of Makuta and cannot refuse an order from any member of it's group. You are allowed to revise it with permission, or make argument against it before carrying it out. You may also make petitions for orders which must be approved by a certain number of your subjects, and a member of the Brotherhood. Success in these tasks will shorten the time you are required to hold this position from thirty to fifteen years. At the end of which, you must appoint a successor from any of your subjects." He turned to Shining Armor (the gravity spell finally wore off a few weeks ago). "The position of De-Barraki, or Warlord of Sonics, is authority equal to a Brotherhood member in times of war, and otherwise your subjects include 'soldiers' 'guards' unless especially hired by a member of the Brotherhood, 'engineer' and 'citizen level 0'. Once again, you will answer to the Brotherhood and cannot refuse an order, but you are allowed to revise one with permission, or make a petition which must be agreed upon by a certain number of your citizens and a member of the Brotherhood. In times of war you must make council with the rest of the Brotherhood except in emergencies. In exchange both of you may lay claim to any two square miles of land you wish and will receive a large paycheck above even level 6 citizens. Once again, your children will be exempt from this contract and will be given the honorary position of level 7 citizens, as will you. Do you accept this Contract?"
Shining Armor and Cadence simply stared at the Crystal Pony dumbfounded. "What?" Cadence asked.
Rhine sighed and held out the contract for them to see through the bars. The two of them spent an hour looking it over again and again and discussing it. "Will we be able to leave the Empire?" Shining Armor asked hopefully.
Rhine wondered for a few seconds. "I think you'll have to talk to the Brotherhood about that."
"Should we sign?" Cadence asked. "We could do a lot of good for the Empire."
"But it wouldn't be our Empire."
"It never was, it was always the Crystal Empire." She turned to Rhine. "I'll sign."
"Cadence, please, we should discuss this more."
"We'll be working under monsters, but we'll be doing actual good work as well, and just look at Rhine. A month under the monsters has done him more good than a month under me..." Cadence looked down and felt her heart darkening just a little with failure. "We can do more good with these jobs than we could in a jail cell."
"I will not go to war against Equestria for them." Cadence blinked. She had almost forgotten her husband's position.
Cadence sighed. "You're right. Thank you for your patience Rhine, but we won't sign."
"If it's war against Equestria that's the problem, all that's already over."
"What?!" Shining Armor was pressed against the bars.
"Yeah, and we won."
-----------------------------------------------One month earlier.-------------------------------------------------------
"We gather the troops at dawn, at noon, we march North." Celestia was once again in her golden battle armor, she had been appearing in public more and more like that. Most believed it was to show that Equestria was at war, but really it was to hide Celestia's fatigue. She had been keeping the day and night going normally for the three days after Twilight woke her up, while her... sister... was trying to make the night come faster and last longer. She could only hope it was wearing down Nightmare Moon just as much.
"Princess, we have come to a halt for several supplies. We have been hoping of using the train to take soldiers to the battlefield but..."
"The tracks are an open weakness."
"All the train tracks out of our border to the North have been bombed, stripped, sabotaged, or laid with traps."
"How were you able to tell about the traps?"
"An Earth Pony scout lost his left back hoof on a mine. And a Pegasus scout lost his mind from an especially powerful fear spell. Both are being cared for in a local hospital. And though the hoof can't be replaced, the Pegasus is eventually going to be fine."
"Hmm, when this is over we must give that Earth Pony a medal, he was the first injured in the war against the Brotherhood."
"Yes Princess. We have also had trouble with materials. We only have enough winter gear on reserve for about a sixteenth of the forces your strategy plans on sending into the snow lands. We also don't have enough Air Ships to carry the entire force to the border. And even after that the Unicorn soldiers haven't all passed their shadow-neutralizing tests."
Celestia sighed. "Give this order to the treasury." A quill and paper began writing quickly as possible. "I might have to make another nationalism tour."
"Ugh. At least get a better speech writer for this one. I remember the last one fifteen years ago."
Celestia blushed. "...I wrote those."
"MYDEEPESTAPOLOGIESPRINCESS!" And her Captain was behind a chair.
"...apology accepted. Shield Wax, the treasury note?"
"Ah yes, of course!" Shield teleported the piece of paper to the treasury front desk. "What was that anyway?"
"The military budget has just been tripled. And I'm going to be the target of a lot of anger after this for years." She laid back down at her desk, comfortable despite the heaping mass of gold, she had her armor padded a long time ago. "Order winter gear for at least the first and second wave, and send a message out to Equestria's farmer's association and the Pegasus weather Control agency. Also send.... this, message out to the U.N."
"Celestia, you can't mean..."
"I do. My sis... Nightmare Moon has been attempting to bring Night Everlasting upon us since that monster released her, and now I have to counter it for the war effort. The Daylight Protocol."
"For how long?"
"From tomorrow at four PM til the Sunday after the next at four PM."
"Why?!"
"I'm going to initiate global warming in the North during our attack. We'll know where the ice will melt first, but Sombra might not. It will also mean our soldiers will be slightly safer even after the second wave."
"hmm... I don't like this."
"Nopony in Equestria will, but it's necessary in order to save our fellow ponies in the Crystal Empire."
"And your sister."
"And my niece, and my long-time friend and former Captain."
"Hm. Well, we'll follow your plan and continue acquiring supplies. I'll send notice to every household in Equestria to support their army with whatever they can... Princess, if I might ask, where do you plan on having the Elements of Harmony?"
"They won't be with the main force."
"I thought not, the Elements work the best on single opponents, right?"
"Yes. Though me and my sister have used it on armies before."
"Really?"
"Yes. You know the stone horse army of Han Longma?"
"Yes....?"
"They weren't always statues. Once they were a force marching on Equestria. But I am more reserved now than I was before. The entire world frowns on bloodshed. I also do not want to turn an entire army of innocent Crystal Ponies into stone."
"So where are they being put? The Wonderbolts has one of them in their ranks..."
"But only two of them are Pegasi, no, the Elements of Harmony are going along with me, and are going to infiltrate the city."
"What?!"
"I plan on fighting the Brotherhood myself. Along with help from the Elements of Harmony, we should be able to seal away the three of them at once."
"That's very dangerous Princess, if you die..."
"Then you are in control, Shield Wax. You will put Equestria under your command... and slowly move it away from the idea of monarchy."
"Hey! That's my throne! You can't just move it... it-it was built into the wall!" Sombra tried helplessly as Makuta tore apart the room and put it back together mechanically, forging gears from crystals that he was cutting mid-air with other crystals. "This castle is millenia old! Stop it!" Makuta stopped his work to turn to Sombra.
"...Fine. I was just trying to make it more defensible."
"I don't need a gigantic cannon over my head!"
Makuta somehow reattached the crystals and placed everything back where it belonged. "I apologize for my... impatient? no... well, premature actions. Why don't you show me the defense systems the castle already has."
"Fine. As long as you promise not to take anything apart." Sombra had been annoyed constantly by the machine for the past three days, it wasn't as if he was an irritating person, no, he was definitely an irritating person, but not the same way a pony is. Makuta restructured anything he felt like, whenever he felt like, on a whim. And besides looking into his eyes, there was no way to see any emotion at all. His.... 'Rahkshi Body' as he calls it, had no body language that he recognized. So having Makuta in the room always made him nervous, he just couldn't be sure Makuta wasn't mad or happy. Docile or dangerous at that moment. He was just so.... well, alien. That and his habit of acting like everything belonged to him. It wasn't as if he wanted you to ask his permission to use your own stuff. It was just his way of talking. He didn't even assert ownership of anything, but from the way he talked, you knew back in your mind, that he was in complete control.
And he had already restructured the Crystal Ponies. He made a series of tests and created several castes. Engineers, farmers, scholars, soldiers, and strangely transportation technicians all had their own social classes, and lived in their own parts of the Empire. There were also 'citizen' classes. With the lowest being 'slave' and then rising up to 0, a low-paid laborer, or 1, which was basically a peasant. Then 2-4 are about regular pay by Equestrian standards, and 5 is 'middle class'. After that is 6 which is his declared nobility. Which he gave swaths of land and told them that they controlled taxation on any citizens in that land. It was chaos. But already it was starting to work. Sombra could tell.
Nightmare Moon helped a bit, she was more relatable, being a pony, and she was genuinely nice to him sometimes, and acknowledged that he was the King. Even if the Empire was ruled by the Brotherhood, he was still the King. He considered showing her his experiments and his guide. But she would either be bored, horrified, or laugh at him. So he kept them to himself for now.
"Sombra. Sombra, you haven't moved for two minutes."
"Oh! Sorry, sorry, lost in thought. The castle's security, right?" He led Makuta down the stairway, the both of them shadowing down, and came to a large room where a crystal reflected a scale hologram of the entire empire down on a gigantic table. He led Makuta to a portion of the table and adjusted the setting on some crystal knobs. "From here I can control the defenses for the entire city, from putting up force fields, to laser turrets." To show his point he highlighted a certain region. "These can also be activated directly by dark magic." the higlighted region then showed several dozen pillars of light. "Each pillar has magic and motion tracking, and can fire bursts of light capable of blowing up a carriage. And if an airship came into an area that's active it could be blown out of the sky in less than a minute. The castle itself has similar turrets along the outside, and can also fire magic shockwaves from the top, which is a magic enhancer. I could put in a fear spell and it could send it to half an army in a single shot. And finally... the Crystal Heart. It's kept at the roof, in my own special security, but when placed in the bottom of the castle it fires a huge burst of emotional magic that covers the entire country side. I've loaded it with tons and tons of fear magic in the time since I've come back, if I put it in now all of Equestria would be writhing in pain... but it's a last resort, and also the reason why Celestia never went near the castle herself. She doesn't know how the heart works, so she was afraid of what would happen to the entire area if she accidently used it. However, it feeds off the emotions of the Crystal ponies. Enough joy was made at the last festival to temporaily destroy me, but I have a long-time store of fear and hate locked up." Sombra let out a breath as he stopped talking.
"Show me the Crystal Heart. And also, is the turrets all we have? The turrets and an unstable emotion bomb?"
"Y-yeah... and the magical ability of it's rulers, you're also forgetting the spell enhancer."
"Fine. Nothing else though?"
"Not really anything worth mentioning." Sombra thought back to his countless magical experiments.
"Then take me to the Crystal Heart."
"Here it is."
"It's a box."
Sombra sighed and teleported it out of the box. "It was inside of the box, it's there to keep it safe."
Makuta grabbed the heart and held it in front of him. "There really is a huge amount of energy in there..."
"Yes. A few decades of pure fear, a thousand years of hate, and then a wave of crushed joy from three days ago."
"...It is horrible, when the unhappiness of your subjects is your greatest strength..."
Sombra wasn't sure what to say about that. Makuta turned it this way and that, looking at his reflection in it. "Does it work with any emotion?"
"The most current emotion will be the one that it releases, but as long as it doesn't contradict with fear it should be fine."
"Will ambition contradict fear and disappointment?"
"I'd need to do a few experiments."
"Tell me if it works, because I have millions of years of ambition stored up inside me."
"May I take a sample?"
"...Of my ambition? How?"
Sombra produced a crystal from somewhere, a very small one, the same color as the crystal heart. "Just focus your ambition, it should be able to pick something up from you."
Makuta focused on his ambition, he focused as much as possible. And as always, he could feel it, that he would always be rising toward something bigger. That he would eventually become bigger and greater than himself. That he will be greater than himself, until there is no greater thing to be achieved. But then that led to what he bet on his ambition. His brother, the greatest thing to achieve. His goal. And the other thing... the other one, he regretted leaving behind.
"That should be enough, I'll get right on this."
Makuta watched as the crystal containing his deepest emotions was carried away by the pony.
"What's this?" Sombra looked deeper into the affectuscope. "plenty of ambition, that's expected, a huge amount... but... regret... and is that love? It'll just dilute the whole mixture... oh well." Sombra took off his glasses and began mixing fear and Makuta's ambition. They mixed perfectly. If only there wasn't so much love in there as well.
"Ponies of Equestria!" Celestia shouted in the royal Canterlot voice. But the army before her was so silent she could have spoken normally. "Our long-lost kin, the Crystal Ponies, are in need of us. A thousand years ago they were our closest ally, but they were nearly destroyed by a monster, who Equestria defeated. Once again the Crystal Ponies are threatened by a monster, but that's not all, what has this monster done? He has kidnapped your Princess! He has broken into the homes of ordinary citizens and assaulted them, and he came into the capital and laid waste to our efforts and our dignity!" She took in a breath. "But will we stand for it?!" A few noes appeared among the crowd. "These monsters brought warfare back into our land and the land of our neighbors, will we stand for that?!" A few more noes than before. "He has come into our houses, brought back our greatest shame and nightmare, attacked one of the Elements of Harmony, your savior, has kidnapped Princess Luna, one of your leaders, how could we stand for this?!" Surprisingly, less noes and cheers. "They have insulted and done crimes against Equestria, and against our friends and neighbors the Crystal Ponies, will we tolerate monsters?! Will we tolerate enemies?! No! No we will not! Fight with me, Equestrians, for great justice, for your neighbors and family, fight with me!" Now the soldiers knew they were supposed to cheer, and did. "We march on the Crystal Empire, through the cold, but it will not be cold for long! Look to the sky! As long as we are at war the day will not end! Equestria is bathed in light, and with that sunlight we will destroy the three monsters who did these crimes with darkness! For the light, for Equestria!" She screamed. And then she turned, knowing it was now noon from her internal clock she marched forward into the snowy plains.
She knew her army followed behind her.
"Nightmare, how goes your... campaign?"
"Not so good. I've been trying ever since we got here, but she has too much control."
"Hm."
"But I was able to find one thing out."
"What do you mean?"
"My 'sister' really can't change the stars."
"What help does that give us?"
"If she banishes us to the moon we'll be able to escape immediately."
"What?" Makuta narrowed his eyes. "What are you talking about, the moon?"
"If she catches us, she can teleport us all to the moon, and normally there'd be no way to get back down. But I created a network of stars that teleported me back home."
"And it's still there?"
"Yes, it moves slowly, so as it would take a thousand years to attach to the moon. That way if I plotted a rebellion after a thousand years there would be no way to banish me... sadly she caught on after only a little while... two days."
Makuta would have sighed and walked out of the room, but this was good news, one of Celestia's main weapons was now useless. "I'm going to begin sending out scouts, now that we have a military, we should do the very minimum and post guards on our borders, it'll be a little difficult, sending supplies to hundreds of guard towers, but hopefully it'll work out."
Makuta walked down the hall from Nightmare's room, a room of pure black crystal she had taken a liking to when they first came to the Crystal Empire. He shadowed and crossed the kingdom's expanse in a second, coming up to where he had placed his King Iron Viso, as he had christened the vehicle made from the stone castle in the forest and the steel from a dragon's horde. Very impressive materials, and what he did with it could also be impressive, it had been gigantic when compared to trees, not so much when compared the the crystal skyscrapers. Makuta had taken the liberty of taking some materials from the armory to outfit the Viso. It now had the same crystal turrets, and Sombra had been kind enough to give it some diamond armor.
He then stopped by the camp, and spoke to the military of the Crystal Empire, apparently Shining Armor and Cadence had restructured the the Crystal Ponies similarily, Shining Armor had made and trained his own soldiers, and Teridax found they were competent soldiers. He gave two the position of scout and sent them out with winter gear with a built in protection spell from Sombra's black smoke.
They came back an hour later, around ten in the morning. Equestrian forces were being built up along their Northern border. Makuta immediately notified Nightmare and Sombra, and he sent out men to sabotage the railways to the Crystal Empire. luckily there were few, and the soldiers returned unseen and unharmed.
It was noon now, and Makuta could see the massive Equestrian army move slowly across the frozen wasteland toward the black smoke through Sombra's telescopic spell. "What is this madness?!" Nightmare shouted when she was first notified. "We haven't been a country for a week and already Celestia's attacking?!"
"Don't worry, this city is a fortress. Makuta, we have one more weapon, now that I've thought about it. I can create almost indefinite crystal anywhere in the city, if we need to, I think I could spear close airships and create barricades."
"Can you make a shield around the city?"
"Out of crystal, yes, but it would hinder our weapons more than anything else."
"Hmm... activate the force field, I'll mobilize our own troops." Teridax pointed to Nightmare Moon. "You are about equally as strong as your sister, correct? Able to control the celestial bodies, do immense feats of magic?"
"Y-yes..."
"Sombra, you are in charge of the city's safety, otherwise, defense. Nightmare, you will personally locate Celestia and capture her or kill her... and the... what were the Toa called in this world? The Harmony?"
"The Bearers of the Elements of Harmony."
"Find those six, find Celestia, and end them. I will personally handle the rest of the Equestrian military... can they breach your shadow cloud?"
"In groups."
"Then I'll pick them off group by group."
"Um... Teridax.. You should know, even in my time, even in Nightmare's, warfare has been played down over time. If a soldier dies it's big news, no longer do we try to kill the enemy, we just defeat them."
"That just means that we have an advantage, and will be able to surprise them."
"You don't seem to understand my reasons. If you suddenly bring back the old violence into modern warfare, the results would be disastrous. Right now we are facing an enemy that probably won't try to kill us... but if you pick off legions at a time, then the entire world will react viciously."
Makuta considered this. "Alright, no killing, you might want to change the turret's settings back then."
"You changed the settings?!" And Sombra stormed off toward the control center.
"Nightmare Moon, will you require anything to fight Celestia?"
"...I had some armor made. But otherwise I'll be out in a minute."
-13:45-April 26th-4 L.R.- Crystal Territory North of Equestria, coming into contact with 'BLACK CLOUD'-
Celestia flew toward the cloud, leaving Shield Wax to command the forces, and lit her horn. It blazed with golden power, and she let out a cry of triumph when the sun bolt collided with and dispersed the closest of the blackness. She then let out a cry of pain as Nightmare Moon collided with her.
"Nightmare!"
"Hello Celestia."
"Shouldn't you be leading your army?"
"Shouldn't you?"
The two Alicorns floated at the line of battle, and Nightmare took a moment to let it sink in. A black and purple-armored Alicorn surrounded by the murky blackness, and a white and yellow-armored Alicorn surrounded by crisp white snow. Dark and Light, facing off between a bold army and a hidden fortress. Now's not the time to be poetic, but she did remember the scene as clear as she could, so she could describe it to a painter afterwards, and forever keep the beautiful beginning of the war.
"Release Luna!"
"...If I do... will you take your army and turn around, promising to stay out of Crystal Territory?"
Celestia was taken aback. No, it's a bluff. Nightmare is too arrogant and selfish to sacrifice herself for her cause. "Like you'd ever release her!"
"If there's no way I'll ever release her, then why are we talking?!" Nightmare shouted back. "Enough talk." She whispered. And dived forward, lunar magic coursing through her. She threw a giant scythe of pale white magic, Celestia conjured a golden spear and deflected it. Nightmare then tackled her, her horn actually piercing Celestia's armor. "For the Night!" And then Luna screamed inside Nightmare's mind as Nightmare punched Celestia in the face as many times as she could.
Celestia pumped her wings and moved away from Nightmare Moon, but the Queen of the Night was keeping up herself, their hoofs meeting with each other. They began firing beams of sunlight and moonlight, diving into the snow and the sky and the smoke. The soldiers closest temporarily halted their march, looking upon the epic battle unfolding in the air. But Shield Wax got them moving again.
"Release my sister!"
"Repeating the same lines sister?!"
Celestia breathed a wave of blue flame onto Nightmare's flank. "You are not my sister!"
"Yes I am!" Nightmare screamed back, breathing acid at Celestia's. The two Alicorns dashed across from each other, scowling and healing their flanks and wings and face. Nightmare decided to attack first next. She whipped her mane forward, grabbing Celestia and flinging her into the ground. She dived after Celestia firing moon beams from her horn.Celestia got up from the impact quickly and met the moon beams with her own sun bolts.
The two of them continued the back and forth volleys high into the sky, and then spun around each other in arcs. They began rapid-firing bursts of magic at each other, the world disappeared around them in flashes of moon and sun -colored explosions.
"You know Celestia," Nightmare shouted. "after I'm done with you I'm going after your precious Element-Bearers next." She dodged another fire-breath blast from Celestia. "I think I'll start with your most faithful student." Celestia went into Unicorn Rage mode, charging at Nightmare, too fast to completely dodge, with her death being the only possible target. "Oh sh--".
The soldiers marched on, trying to focus on getting inside the black cloud. Shield Wax gave the order to the Unicorns, who fired their anti-shadow spells at the darkness, burrowing their way through. He knew that the darkness would close in behind them, so he had a line of unicorns placed at intervals where they could blast the darkness again when it began flowing back into the empty space. Sombra would definitely prefer them attacking in small groups, but he wouldn't be prepared for an entire army.
He himself was slightly behind the first line of the first wave, on a carriage pulled by two of each race of pony, as is custom. He watched the inkiness suspiciously, and waited for the enemy to show up while keeping them perfectly straight heading for the Empire.
Another pulse of eighty Unicorn's horns. Another forty-something feet of inky darkness dispelled in every direction. There were more pulses behind him as the unicorns in each line kept the darkness above them and to their sides away. Another pulse. Another pulse. He could hear the muttering and whispering of the soldiers, who were already complaining about the cold and the dark after being at war for only two hours. Shield Wax had heard the stories, as did every foal in school. Of the ferocious Crystal Empire which alongside Equestria bested the world, and made sure that no war would ever be as bloody as those of the past again.
He had heard of their impregnable fortress, and now it was being ruled by a dictator... surely, if the ancients, who were experienced with killing and war couldn't defeat them, how could his small, scared, ill-equipped army stand a chance? No. If he thought like that he would doom them all.
At that moment the next pulse showed a large shape just slightly into the darkness. They couldn't possibly be at the city walls yet. "COMPANY HALT!" Shield Wax yelled in the Royal Canterlot Voice, which he learned for just this occasion. "Unicorns, identify this object!" The unicorn soldiers did so immediately. After two minutes of pulsing away the darkness a gigantic structure stood, a stone, diamond, and steel sphere about the size of a barn, suspended on four disproportional gigantic legs. "What the heck is that?" He said under his breath.
At that moment the leg swung forward, knocking forty or fifty ponies of the first lines flying back toward the others. It swung it's leg again, and once more it flung dozens and dozens of pony soldiers in all directions. That was when they began attacking it with spells, wind cutters, and thrown spears. It wasn't working very well. After two second the thing was directly above Shield Wax. "I served my country, my Princess, and my family." He said, taking off his helmet and putting it to his family crest. He held his spear with his other fore leg.
The Viso's leg collided with his six ponies, and then sent his carriage, and him, flying.