Scales of Time

by The Psychopath

Darkness Overwhelming

"This is the mountain range?" Celestia wondered.

"Seems like it. It's what the witch said," Twilight responded.

It was the fated day, one that everypony at the castle had been preparing for. An enormous group of ten thousand ponies had been gathered from all around to Equestria to be sent to a line of mountains far to the east and over the borders. The long walk had nothing on the training and workouts Twilight had forced upon the guards who still ached all over. Celestia, though, took the brunt of the pain. Because of her animosity, Twilight put Celestia through multiple, personal workouts and sparring sessions. Regardless of her armor, Celestia had still been bruised and severely wounded on several occasions, but she used her magic to mend the broken bones and torn skin as much as possible

"Alright," Celestia confirmed. "Everypony, prepare yourselves. Pegasi and earth ponies need to stay behind while the unicorns and Twilight's dragon hunters attack the King Dragon and whatever retinue of its appears."

There was a quiet sound, and the sky was only a bit cloudy. It wasn't a setting for anything 'dramatic' that could occur, but it did give a bit of a chill to everypony despite the warm temperatures.

"Princess!" one of the guards called out. "The ejge are here!"

In quite literally every direction, the flying serpents came. Filling the sky in a plethora of rainbows, they hovered around the mountain range, awaiting the awakening mentioned by the ponies. The ejge grew restless over time, and a weight in Celestia's throat grew. She was nervous and worried that the dragon queen lied about the occurrence being on that very day. For several hours, everyone waited, and for several hours nothing happened, then the boredom and suspicion of the ejge was destroyed by the arrival of dozens of shadow serpents crashing into them and throwing them down onto the surface of the mountain.

"It's here!" Twilight shouted.

The dragon hunters Celestia mentioned only numbered twenty, but they were fierce. Twilight fashioned special armor for them and left all the spares behind. Why she would do that when she made enough for a hundred and fifty ponies was due to her personality and expectations. However, because of her choosiness, these ponies were the near equivalent of her comrades from the apocalyptic times.

"Get ready. You'll all see the fun we have to put up with in the future, but this will only be a tastler of it all."

"Tastler?" a guard wondered.

Her comrade answered. "I think she means 'sampler', but I'm not sure in what context."

"She mixes up a lot of terms, doesn't she?"

"It's not really her fault. I mean, she--"

The guard stopped after a powerful quake rumbled through the ground, followed by another and another in slow intervals. The ponies and ejge looked around for the source, then witnessed not the only the source, but the incoming shape of it. It was an immense beast of pure black color surrounded by a swirling mist of shadows gradually rising above its head like a swarm of flies. Its two long, bony arms reached all the way to the floor and dragged along it. Attached to the heads were quadruple-segmented claws that served as fingers and whose size were about the length of a four story building. The main body was long, wide, and hunched over as though the beast were in pain. The head connected to its long neck was pyramidal in shape, with the two rear corners curving inwards and the top corner bent left and back. Mid-way across the head, the flat surfaces rounded out into a half-cylinder, and upon this shape were three, pure-white eyes that were practically closed. Whatever the creature was, it didn't like the sunlight. It was a unique, tripodal creature, but the leg structure was incorrect, for lack of a better term. The frontal leg was the shortest of the needle-like appendages with the rear two being longer than its main body and pushing it along. Because of its size, the creature was easily capable of walking along the top of the mountains.

"What in the world is that thing?!" Twilight shouted.

"I have no idea!" Celestia turned towards Twilight and grabbed her intently. "I told you: We haven't surveyed most of Equestria. I can't know everything!"

The ponies watched helplessly as the ejge fought off the shadowy creatures that broke off of it every time they tried to hurt the creature. The monster seemed more annoyed and whined when they would try to slice it.

"It seems very unhappy," one of the dragon slayers noted.

"Of course it is. It's being attacked by those things," another answered sarcastically.

"No. It was already miserable before. I could see it."

"Great theatrics, huh?"

Twilight and the surrounding ponies jumped back in surprise. The Dragon Queen had teleported right in front of the dragon ponies and was eating a carrot, by the looks of it.

"How did you--" one of the slayers tried to ask.

"Teleportation spell."

"Is that the 'shadow' you mentioned?" Twilight asked.

"Yes. It is the Yuhis."

"Yuhis?" The lavender unicorn scratched the back of her head in confusion. "I've never seen it before."

"That's because you foals were hiding in chasms and caves. The Yuhis travels along mountain tops and thick forests. I've seen it wander about the mountains in our time before."

Celestia interjected herself. "But it doesn't get attacked by the dragons and ejge?"

The dragoness laughed loudly, nearly dropping her carrot. "Don't be absurd. They DID try to attack it before or even ignore it during their many fights."

"You used the past tense."

DQ pointed her carrot at the alicorn and nodded in agreement. "Very astute. Yes," she started as she put her meal back in her mouth. "The Yuhis, as I learned the name from an almost-intact library, is a Hecatonchires class."

"Hecatonchires?" Celestia repeated.

"Yes. It's above titan class."

"ABOVE?!" many of the ponies bellowed.

The kirin reeled in pain at the sudden explosion of sound. "Yes. Don't howl like a timber wolf." She adjusted herself and smiled again. "The only creatures in the world unaffected by the 'apocalypse', as this foal calls it," Twilight frowned and threw the dragoness a glare "are the hecatonchires. This is one such beast, and it seems that it was attracted to Equestria to look for food and shelter."

"Shelter? From what?" a slayer asked.

DQ remained silent and instead opted to point at the sun.

"It's afraid of sunlight?"

"Yup. At least, that's what I've concluded. However, as there's nothing big enough for it, it wanders eternally across the mountains, hoping to find what it seeks on the tallest peaks. Plus, the more they attack it, the more of those shadowy creatures are going to come. If they keep doing that, the creatures will become innumerable and barrel towards us. I hope that doesn't happen until--"

DQ's sentence was interrupted by the sound of roars. The sounds came from dragons coming from over the mountains and attacking the ejge. Another, more familiar roar came after a blue bolt of lightning sliced through four adult dragons, causing them to compress into singularity.

"And there's the Royal Ejge," Twilight observed.

Everyone keeled over after yet another roar deafened nearly everypony and caused most of the fighting to stop.

"What's with all the roaring?" a guard complained.

The mountain peak started shaking, attracting the attention of the Royal Ejge who bolted in front of the giant of nature and waited patiently. An enormous, golden claw erupted from the peak and slammed into the back of the Yuhis, making it shuffle forward uncontrollably and causing more of the shadow creatures to come forth and start chopping at the dragon's arm. Irritated by the small pains being afflicted upon it, the golden reptile erupted from the mountain top, throwing debris everywhere. Celestia and the unicorns joined together to create a wide shield of magic to shield themselves from the incoming mountain pieces.

The King Dragon was completely golden in color and twice the size of a fully grown, adult dragon. Its claws were enormous and its body was extremely bulky. Two large horns stretched out from the top of its head and pointed backwards at a slightly elevated angle. It was a very blocky looking beast, and to announce its reawakening, the dragon belched out its flames in the air. They took the appearance of golden flames surrounded by a crackling bolts of yellow. Most ejge and dragons managed to dodge the breath of fire, but not all were so fortunate.

"Incoming plasma!" Twilight shouted.

The kirin focused magic into her claws and released it upon the shield, reinforcing it immensely and allowing the King Dragon's fetid breath to bounce off the bubble and onto the ground to the right of the group. Most of the guards backed away in horror when they saw the golden substance, both solid and liquid, melt through the ground.

"Huh?" the dragoness hummed.

The Yuhis had actually spun around to backhand the King Dragon, blasting it out of the mountain peak and interrupting its shout. Several more of the smaller shadows came off of it and started to attack everything in sight, including the mountains. A wave of them rushed over the rocky giants and towards the group of ponies, causing Twilight to grip her spear in bizarre eagerness. Celestia put a hoof to the mare's shoulder and shook her head.

"Looks like we'll be having a multi-way battle instead of simply two-ways," the Dragon Queen said. She was bouncing in place and being as giddy as ever. "I love multi-way battles! And we'll be having titan classes fighting a hecatonchires class, too!"

"To Hades with your 'classes'. They're all monsters in my book!" Twilight spat. "And they will all die for my future!"

Comments

[Dlaf rferg]

Damnit why does this have to be so serious yet so comical

[The Psychopath]

7535718 It's part of who I am.