Banishment from the Universe

"We should kill him while we have him here!" cried an unseen voice.

"No, that would be another variable," Said another voice, this one was deep, reasonable, and somehow held a ring of truth no matter what. "we have him in our captivity, he cannot escape because he knows there is no better alternative for him here, and the only thing that increase his will to escape would be threat of death."

"Then we should freeze him in Protodermis again."

"No, all it would take are a few rogue or confused toa falling for some future evil's trick." The reasonable voice said the word 'trick' with a hatred. "We must imprison him in a place impossible to escape from."

He would have smiled, but that would have ruined the effect. No place was impossible to escape from, not even your own body, not even your own soul. He had done it. No prison could ever hold him forever.

The reasonable voice stood closer, in his view. He had silver and red armor, incredibly bulky and strong, with a deep green glow in his eyes. His hands were around an ax that had been polished by millenia of sliced mountains and evil blood. He was Axonn, bearer of the Kanohi of Truth. And he hated him. But what drew his eyes were what was in Axonn's hand. "Do you recognize this mask, fiend?"

He did. "No."

"Lies. It belonged to my brother. A wise being, a loyal and proud soldier. But he allowed himself to believe the lie that Mata Nui would not return." That name sent shivers down his spine... if he even had one anymore. He couldn't tell. "And you used that lie to corrupt him. You filled his mouth with your blood and drowned him, and when his body got back up it was a savage, twisted, lying version of my brother. This is his mask."

"I destroyed that mask."

"And the Great Beings re-forged it." He leaned in closer, the blazing truthfulness, goodness, and light in Axonn's eyes burned him. But he did not look away. "For this sole purpose, and then I will break it again. And Kanohi Olmak, the soul of my brother, will never be used by or against evil ever again. And perhaps Brutaka's spirit will someday be able to go to rest."

"What do you plan on doing?"

"I am going to throw you into the multiverse, to a place filled with light, where you will not die, but cannot stand and cannot escape." Axonn let out a sigh that betrayed his true age. "And I pray the people of that universe forgive me."

"And you leave me in the body of an unarmed Rahkshi?"

"A Rahkshi of Darkness, a Terahk, a last mercy to you." He growled. "The last mercy."

His eyes widened as Axonn took off his mask for the first time... well, since before time had begun. Axonn peeled it off painfully, the organic parts inside struggling painfully to keep the mask that was his face from being removed. After an excruciating moment he had removed the silver mask and placed the large golden one in it's place. "You have been declared guilty of treason, murder, kidnapping, conspiracy, cloning, illegal weapons manufacturing, and... this could go on for hours actually. So I'll shorten it. You have been declared guilty of being evil and doing evil to everything and everyone around you. Your punishment is exile and banishment, this will continue on for all time and space. You may never return to this universe, under any circumstance. Makuta Teridax, you killed my brother and defiled his still-living corpse, and you did it to kill your own brother. And now I use his mask to banish you forever."

Makuta Teridax looked down, his glowing red eyes quivering, and another figure walked toward him, he immediately recognized the slender, feminine, deadly form. "Roodaka?"

She got down on one knee to bring her elegant narrow head to his level, and she kissed his forehead. "You are the only one I never betrayed." She whispered, and she got up, Axonn narrowed his eyes as she walked.

"You know what the Matoran say now?" Axonn said. "They use her name instead of the word 'traitor'."

"You are cruel." Teridax said.

"The truth is cruel."

Then a matoran brought forward a dark shape Teridax recognized, "Kanohi Kraahkan?! It was destroyed with Icarax, was it not?"

"it's atoms were painstakingly brought together and reforged, you will be taking it with you."

"Why would you let me have my greatest weapon?!"

"Because it's too dangerous to destroy, or allow to exist in our universe, so you're taking it with you." Axonn's mask glowed a bright yellow, and the air in front of Teridax opened, revealing a blue sky. Axonn tossed in Kanohi Kraahkan, and turned back to Teridax. "Are you ready Makuta?"

"I..." What was this? Fear? Teridax was the master of fear, he commanded it, fear itself feared him! He can't be afraid, he wasn't in danger, he was being let free in a new universe! But... Roodaka... his empire... his body... the Plan... it was all here. In this universe. Mara Nui is here as well. He reminded himself. And Axonn, and billions who worship the light. It was better that he would leave. He had failed, the Plan had failed. And it was his brother's foolish mercy that had saved him. "I am ready, I will go." He lifted his head against the gravity lock. Meeting eyes with the great golden figure on the throne. "And I swear on my life, on my ambition. My ambition brother, I swear I will never return."

His brother, Mata Nui, being of light, life, wisdom, mercy, duty, loyalty... a being of pure virtue, who had accepted Makuta as his brother. And who granted Makuta mercy when he could have killed him. "I believe you." Mata Nui said.

Axonn growled. "I do not."

"You are not currently wearing the mask of truth. And I am the judge of the universe. I say that he is telling the truth, and that he will forever abide that word until he dies, and even then, he will still continue keeping his oath." Mata Nui raised his golden hand and made a gesture that signified to continue. "Throw him in, close the portal, and destroy the Olmak."

Axonn nodded immediately, a loyal servant of Mata Nui. He picked up Makuta Teridax without breaking the gravity lock, and Makuta cried out in pain. But Axonn didn't stop, and he threw Makuta through it faster than he had ever thrown anything before. And he had thrown mountains into orbit.

Makuta screamed and spinned through the air, and he saw the ground coming up toward him. He swung his spirit in every direction, trying to find a way to escape, but the portal to his universe was closed, no more than closed, it already never could exist again. And he was spiraling toward the ground.

He was going to die.

Or was he?

Makuta was free of the impossible gravity of the Kanoka disks, and after that, this planet's gravity was nothing. He quickly took control of the unfamiliar Rahkshi body, and maneuvered his legs forward and put his feet together in front of him, and the machinery of the body recognized the form and immediately began flying. He had designed some of the first Rahkshi himself after all, and he had perfected the most powerful.

He came close to the ground, and finding he had sufficiently slowed down, freed himself from the pose and began scraping the dirt and grass beneath his feet. He broke into a run, and crossed miles of distance in his mechanical body. It almost was more fluid than his original body.

He stopped when his eyes caught a large purple mountain in the distance, and on it's side was a tiny city that looked like a collection of castles. Civilization? That was where Makuta would head, that's where his new empire would begin. He jumped into the air and assumed flight position, taking off toward the city.

From her balcony she surveyed her country. Everything the light touched was hers. Even the light was hers. Princess Celestia sipped some wine and watched the ponies moving through the gardens. It was beautiful. Even after thousands of years she hadn't stopped enjoying the simplicity of Equestria. The ponies in her care were gentle, kind, intelligent beings. And their society had become the same. But after a moment she felt something change. She had a momentary shiver, as if the temperature has changed slightly and suddenly. Or perhaps a shadow had momentarily covered the sun? No, it wasn't either. It was like something very dark and cold had entered the world.

"Luna, did you feel that?" Celestia asked. The shivers slowly disappearing.

"...We did feel something..." Luna said slowly. "But We are currently not sure what."

"Something... alive... but very dark... almost like Sombra or..."

"Nightmare Moon." Luna finished. "We need to find it. If those two are the closest thing to whatever we're sensing... then it's dangerous as the very least. Shall We take the royal guards and search for it?"

"No... perhaps it would be better if I were to take it on alone."

"Sister-"

"It's a being of darkness, like those two... but it's not just that... I feel that it and I are opposites. It is the opposite of the sun."

"The moon?"

"No... not the opposite of the sun... whatever that thing is, it's an enemy to the light. Only I can face it. If something happens to me you're in charge." And Celestia took off into the distance without giving Luna a chance to respond.

"Why do I have to always stay behind..." Luna asked sadly.

Celestia quickly rounded up a group of her best Pegasi guards, and a few unicorns, and took off with her Pegasi pulling carriages to carry the unicorns.

She merely followed the sense in her belly to find the dark-thing. She came, unsurprisingly, to the Everfree Forest. And after only a few more minutes of searching, found a small crater in the ground. Celestia took a few careful steps up to the crater and investigated. Inside it was a piece of strange metal, unlike any kind she had seen before.

"My Lady... what is this?"

"I'm not sure..." Celestia tried lifting it up with her magic, but when the yellow aura enveloped it the mask quivered, and the magic became a deep purple-red, and Celestia screamed in pain as her magic was consumed in gigantic droves by the mask. She cut off her magic from it in time to let her fly back to the city on her own. But when she spoke again to her concerned soldiers her breath was ragged. "I'm... I'm fine." She moved back to the object and hesitantly touched it with her hoof, it sent chills through her, but she was able to touch it. She picked it up and moved it to one of the carriages. "Guard that... make sure it doesn't fall, but try not to touch it."

"Yes Princess."

Empress Cadence stood over her beloved Crystal Empire, and for some reason began feeling uneasy. Without thinking she made her way down countless stairways, eventually coming to a large prison cell. Her breath became clouds as she realized how cold it was. Cold, the Crystal Heart, and pure love were the only things known to stop Him after all. In a block of ice was a single horn, blood-red tipped and made of darkness. The last remaining essence of King Sombra. "Why did you bring me here?" Asked the Princess. But the horn didn't react. Cadence put a hoof to her head and shook it. "I'm working too hard. I'm talking to a frozen horn."

"oR Are YOu?" Cadence spun around, her gaze locking on the horn... and the melting ice. "YoU mIght bE TaLKing to a GreAt aND DaRK KINg!"

"You're dead! The crystal heart blew you to pieces... We burned the pieces we could and froze the rest!"

"YoU TaLK aS If I caN bE KillED."

"Guards!" Cadence shrieked, and two crystal ponies in refitted jousting armor came in running, but they skidded to a stop before the melting ice.

"Oh? YoU tHInk MorTAls cAN stOP mE NoW? BuT Why BOtHER? i Am nO LoNGEr tHe GreATesT foRce of DarkNesS iN EquEsTRIa." The ice had almost completely melted now, and the horn was glowing with new-found strength.

"What are you saying?!" Cadence growled. "A greater darkness? The only one who was ever more 'dark' than you is Nightmare Moon. Are you saying she returned?" She gestured to a guard. "Alert Princess Celestia."

"No... NoT NiGHTmaRe MoOn. EveN SHe iS LEss thAn iT."

"Less than what?!"

"I Don'T KnOW." The horn had begun growing, the darkness moving like an octopus and eventually revealing the inky silhouette of a large unicorn stallion. "BuT ThaT'S WHaT MakEs IT EXCitiNg!"

Makuta Teridax had been following the ground for a while now, and the mountain was definitely closer... how confining it is, being locked in a physical body. But soon he came to a small town. The houses were made of plaster and wood and nails and clay. And the roofs were made up of thatch. He decided to take things safely. He wasn't an all-powerful immortal able to kill almost anything whenever he wanted any more, he was only an indestructible killer robot able to control shadows and overcome gravity. He had to take things safe.

He sneaked into the little town in the form of shadow, and hopped from one to the next, moving along with the inhabitants within their own shadows. They were four-legged beings with no armor, just flesh, like weak rahi, but they were intelligent, and carried objects with them in their teeth, their wings, and with telekinesis. He didn't understand what powers these rahi... no, beings, they were definitely beings, could do. So he made his way to the largest building and shadowed his way in. Eventually he came to a room with a desk where a single being sat in a chair, despite being quadrupedal, and marked documents with it's hooves. He decided that this must be some individual of importance, and he decided it was worth revealing himself to it.

He moved into the shadow of the door frame, and rose out of it as if he were entering the room in an ordinary fashion. But when the being screamed he had the irrational thought that he hadn't entered the room right.

He moved faster than the creature's eyes could track, and he moved his hand over its muzzle, holding it shut. "Please don't scream." He said, almost purring. It immediately quieted, but its eyes showed pure fear. "I am a regal visitor from another land, and I would like to make an appointment with your nation's leader." He still spoke in the charismatic voice.

He slowly released its muzzle, not that he was gripping it tightly, and took a step back.

"W-well i-i-if you're a guest of the Princess's..."

"Princess? Yes. I have plans on meeting her, could you arrange something like that for me?"

"It's not as if I'm on speaking terms with our monarch..." It let out with a whimper of fear, but it put on a smile and tried to keep the twitches from showing in it's face. "But Celestia's student lives at the local library...."

"Then I will head there." Makuta turned away, walking to the door, and remembered he had to build a trustworthy image with the locals. "Thank you for your time." And he faded back into the shadows, making his way out of the building and back across the street, he spent almost an hour in that form in the little town, and eventually concluded that the library must be the gigantic tree with a door.

Resurrected Monsters

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"It is done." Axonn said with finality. He pried Kanohi Olmak from his face and crushed it in his hands. He then gave the shards to Mata Nui, who took them in his avatar's hand and created a liquid around them. They pulsed, shifted, and changed color, eventually becoming a broken kanoka disk. He then gave it back to Axonn.

"Axonn, keep this safe, from now on it is your responsibility, make sure it is never crafted into a mask again."

"This will be my sacred duty." Axonn bowed deeply, and placed his mask of truth back on his face. He then bowed again. "Mata Nui... I have doubted you. I find that Makuta was indeed telling the truth."

He turned to Roodaka. "But what seems strange is that you were as well... how? You betrayed the brotherhood of Makuta."

"I betrayed the brotherhood, the collection of blackmailed monsters, and pitted them against the dark hunters, a collection of greedy fallen warriors. Teridax may have formed and even controlled that organization, but even my meddling helped him accomplish his goal. He is the only one I admire, the only one whose life I consider greater than my own."

"Hmm..." Mata Nui said, causing both members of the order to turn to him. "I now have reason to doubt my brother's resolve."

"You do not. His life is worth more than mine. His species were killed, sacrificed so he could become the Great Spirit. And that plan, our millenia upon millenia long plan, failed. He has nothing here for him, even me. I'm part of your order now... perhaps that is betrayal in itself."

"You are not a traitor to help the brother of your lover."

"...Thank you, Great Spirit."

"So... we now live in a world without Makuta."

"But not without evil." Axonn said, thinking of his brother's corrupted form still at large.

"We have work to do." Mata Nui said, and he got up from his position and faded into light.

Roodaka looked at the gravity kanoka on the ground and frowned. She moved her hand to her breast, where a single shard of cracked crystal protodermis lie, forever embedded in her chest, the symbol of her sacrifice for Teridax. She knelt down next to the disk that held her lover in place and scratched a circle, and then made two lines in it, the first letter of Makuta's name. "Stay where you are Teridax, and prosper."

Luna paced uncertainly back and forth on the great balcony that served as the Princesses' personal landing strip. Her sister had left her in charge, and she could sense that the darkness was getting closer. She ordered her guards to their posts throughout the castle, the balcony, and the city itself. "Howler, have you received any message from my sister?"

Howler simply shook his head, his bat-like armor jostled in response. "No Mistress, but our magic detectors have noticed that your sister has spent a huge amount of magic in the last minute."

"What?! Was she in a battle or-" Luna let out a sigh of relief as she spotted her sister's carriage coming closer, but the relief became something else, she could feel the darkness emanating from whatever was in that vehicle. She flew out to meet it, and the Pegasi guards pulling it nodded to the Princess of the Night.

"What's that thing?" Luna asked, inspecting the source of darkness, an alien metal.

"I'm not sure, but Celestia said that it ate her magic."

"What?!" Luna lifted it up with her own magic, but the blue began turning to a purple-red. Luna screamed, and then laughed, her magic being eaten and then replenished with stronger, darker, magic. With a great push of will she managed to drop it into the carriage again. "Th-that was incredible..."

"Sister!" Celestia shouted, painfully taking to the sky to meet with her sister. "Please don't tell me you-"

"She lifted it." the Pegasus guard said quietly.

"With magic?"

"Yes." Said Luna. "And it was incredible... and addictive. I think we may have to get rid of this thing. I don't know how I'll be able to stand being in the same building as it... you don't know the magic this thing holds sister..."

"Well, it knows mine, I lifted it up the same way and it started eating my magic."

"Eating it?"

"That's what it felt like... like something was pushing into me and taking bites out of my magic."

"Hmm... should we have our unicorns research this object or-"

"Your Highness, a visiting dignitary has made an urgent request of your presence." A Guard flew up to her, panting.

"What? I didn't have any plans for today... who is it? A dragon lord? Saddle Arabians?"

"I... don't know. It looks like something that crawled up from Tartarus..." The guard shivered. "He says it is extremely urgent, or he would have made an appointment before hand... please come quickly, the servants are afraid to be in the same room as him..."

Celestia looked at the mask, and then to the guard. "Luna, please take care of that mask, have it analyzed by our specialists and then locked up somewhere, have nopony use their magic on it directly, only indirectly, to scan it."

"Of course."

Celestia sighed and made her way down the steps. "What's the likelihood of two things of this magnitude happening at once?"

Makuta decided he would try and be courteous, so he waited inside the tree's shadow for the street to clear, and then rose out of it. He knocked on the door three times and stood at attention. The head of an archives was a very important position, one that could belong to only the most honored of Onu-matoran. And a student of the princess as well. This must be a very important individual, and deserves a show of respect. So as the door opened Makuta gave a short bow. "Hello Archivist."

"Eeeeekkkk!" The purple being slammed the door shut, so Makuta sighed and shadowed his way in. The purple horned creature turned to him, a strange object pointed at him, and she was breathing quickly, close to hyperventilation. "WHAT ARE YOU?!"

Makuta answered in a quiet voice. "I am a royal from another land, I've heard that you are very close to the Princess, and I need to make a meeting with her as soon as possible."

"Wait... you want me to talk to the Princess?"

"Yes. As soon as possible."

"But... so, you aren't here to kill me?"

"No. Do I have reason to?"

The being slowly got up and moved to the other side of the room, letting the object she was holding float back to the desk. She took out a parchment and a bottle of black liquid, then pulled out the object again, she dipped it into the liquid, and then dragged the object across the parchment. It was a pen. Makuta silently came closer to watch what she was writing, and it wasn't a language he recognized. "What's your name?"

"Makuta Teridax."

The being gave him a surprised look and then flinched to see how close he had gotten. "Really? That's... an unusual name."

"What is yours?"

"Twilight Sparkle."

"Hm." Teridax nodded. "It's a fine name." He looked back at the pen and the parchment, and was curious to see how the pen was moving, was it automatic? Or was the being controlling it with telekinesis? "How are you sending this to Celestia?"

The being gave him a nervous smile. "I'll show you. Spike! Could you come in here please?"

"Sure Twilight, what's the -Oh sweet Celestia what is that?!"

Makuta looked at the small being. A child? Perhaps they start out as bipeds, then as they age they lose their scales and go down to four feet... seems like it should be the other way around. Twilight noticed Makuta simply staring at Spike and whispered "Spike is a dragon, but he's just a baby dragon, he's harmless."

That thing was not a dragon. He had killed dragons, he had been dragons, that thing was not a dragon. "Ah, of course."

"This is Mahkuuda... Tare-dacks? He's a foreign royal who wants to speak to the princess."

"So he came to Ponyville library?" The Dragon lifted his eyebrow.

"Was this not the correct course of action? Archivist Twilight Sparkle has a way to directly contact the princess. Who else in this town could do that?"

"He has a point." Twilight let a little smile of pride show.

"But why would a royal visit Ponyville in the first place? It's not exactly an important place."

"If it's not why is the Princess's personal student here?"

"To study the magic of friendship," Twilight said.

Makuta stared at her. "Magic... of 'friendship'?"

"Yep, I stay here and have adventures with my friends and then I send letters to princess Celestia about them."

Teridax looked from the Dragon to Twilight. "But the Princess does listen to you, right?"

"Of course, I'm her most faithful student."

So she's staying here with her friends, sounds reasonable. "Tell the Princess the matter is urgent. It has to deal with relations between her and my empire."

"Alright." Twilight scratched a bit more at the paper with the pen and then placed it back on the desk, and wrapped up the message. "Spike, if you would." The Dragon sighed and blew a stream of green fire over the scroll.

"Thank you miss Sparkle, I will remember your services." Makuta turned as if to go.

"You don't want to wait for her message back?"

"This is very urgent, I simply didn't want to arrive unannounced."

Twilight considered for a second. "I'll go with you."

"Huh?" Spike asked.

"I want to learn more about him... or her, I... can't really tell." She said, embarrassed.

Makuta turned his head up. "I am above simple things like 'gender'... but I was born male, and have male organic DNA."

"Then 'him' will work?"

"If it must."

"See, so much to learn!"

"Twilight, it's a death machine. Obviously. It has spikes, it's made of curved black and red metal, it moves silently, it has claws like mine." Spike held up his hand. "And it mysteriously shows up in your library not knowing it's a library."

"Spike, you're just being paranoid." She turned to Makuta, "You wouldn't hurt a fly." She didn't have time to gasp as a finger was flicked across her forehead. Spike yelled as Twilight landed next to him, a flick somehow sending her across the room.

"Twilight!?!" Spike turned to Makuta. "What did you do to her?!"

"She'll live." Makuta said simply. "Just like you."

"What!?" Spike was sent against the wall as well, a large bruise on his forehead. Makuta checked the door to make sure it was locked and shadowed his way out. It was almost night, and the shadows were getting longer and darker, allowing him to travel across the miles from Ponyville to the city on the mountain in minutes. He arrived and quickly found the gates to the main castle, appearing before a crowd of beings, who dispersed and screamed when they saw him.

He marched to the main desk where a single secretary remained bravely at his post. "I need to see the princess." Makuta said in a dark, deep voice. "Now."

The secretary only nodded and marked several documents, then pushed them to the side, "G-g-go to the room on your l-left. Sh-she'll be with you sh-shortly."

"Thank you." Makuta walked up to the door and faded into shadow, just in case there was a trap in there waiting for him.

"This... this is great! Finally, another being of pure darkness! Together we'll rule the world!"

"Shut up Sombra." Cadence said, standing outside the cell, concentrating on her spell keeping Sombra inside it.

"Never. You'll tire eventually, you'll collapse, and then I'll be free, and this new power and I will conquer the world!"

Cadence called for the nearest guard. "Has a message been sent to Celestia yet?"

"No ma'am. I apologize, we've been trying to keep the citizens calm, and our crystal messenger hawks are busy flying messages between guard posts."

"Why do you call yourself an empress, Cadence? You don't even have a standing army, heck, you don't have an empire, a single, powerful, fortress-like city, but that's it. You might be a queen, but not an empress."

"Shut. Up. You over-glorified witch."

"Witch?! Really Cadence, I use dark magic, but I haven't made a contract with anything. Are you really so paranoid as to believe that whatever you don't understand is witchcraft?"

"Whatever, just... please be quiet so I can contain you in peace."

"Maybe we can bring your husband here, did he ever really heal after I crystallized all the alicorn in his horn?" The field shook. "Oh? Not so full of love now, are we?"

"Be quiet...."

"Silence!" Cried the guard.

Sombra reclined in his cell, his inky form beginning to solidify, becoming a gray coat and a black mane. The unicorn that single-hoofedly conquered and enslaved an entire race and their 'empire'. He bared his carnivorous teeth, reminding her that the thing before her was no pony. It was a monster, maybe not a witch, but something evil and dark and monstrous and pretending to be a neighbor.

"Oh Cadence, that look on your face is priceless, and the longer you make it the more clearly I can see it, after all, your shield is fading because of that." He stepped up to the shield and put a hoof up to it, it sizzled and a bit of smoke came off of it, but Sombra didn't change expression or even flinch as his hoof was partially eaten passing through the shield. "You know Cadence, I've always wondered why it is your magic hurts me. I think I've found out why." He gave her an evil grin. "You love everything, even Changelings I've heard. But not me. Because I tortured your crystal pony ancestors? No, because I'm scary? No." He came closer, his face pressing on the shield. "You're afraid to love me, because you think, even if I love those other creatures it won't hurt me. But if I sympathize in the slightest with... this, you'll be corrupted into something you don't want to be. Well Cadence, I have only one thing to say. You're right." He rammed himself through the shield and didn't flinch as he was partially burned away.

Cadence and her guard looked at each other as Sombra regenerated in an instant. He licked his fangs and smiled at the two of them. "Hello, my crystal slaves."

"Hello, I apologize for your wait." Celestia had stopped by her office and received a letter of introduction from Twilight, strangely, it was pertaining to her newest guest. "So, Mack-you-duh Tear-rid-axe, Twilight's letter said you wanted to speak about your empire's relations with mine... what empire exactly?" She lifted her eyes to the monster before her and din't flinch. She had seen things that were scarier.

"I'm here to ask you how to get started with that." Makuta looked at her and frowned, she was a familiar of the light. But she was powerful, he could tell that at least, and sensible, and capable of fear.

Celestia raised an eyebrow. "Please explain."

"I propose an alliance. I plan on creating my own empire, probably nearby. And I'd like to assure that I don't plan of making an enemy of Equestria if I don't need to."

"As long as you treat your subjects well, don't openly attack any of our allies, and it's outside our borders you won't have a problem."

"Now, I have several problems with this. We most likely have different definitions of 'well', 'Equestria's allies'. Also, I do plan on including a portion of Equestria in my empire." Makuta said, eyeing the map behind Celestia. Drawing borders in his mind.

"Why have you come into my castle and make multiple threats against my country and people?!"

"Simple, I propose to you a deal. You agree to allow me to become part of your court, your closest adviser... or you make me your greatest enemy."

"Leave my office."

Makuta got up and walked to the door. But as he turned his spines tingled, and he felt the need to obey. Something was wearing the Kanohi Kraahkan, and his Rahkshi body was trained to obey it. "You have my mask." He said quietly.

Celestia raised an eyebrow. "You mean that twisted piece of evil metal?"

"YOU HAVE MY MASK! MY SOUL!" Makuta didn't know why he was so angry about this, is it because of his Rahkshi body's worship for it? Or is it that it was his sole possession in this world? "RETURN IT IMMEDIATELY!"

But another being like Celestia walked in, tall, one with a horn and wings. And she wore Makuta's mask. And she had a black coat.

"Luna?" Celestia asked, all the breath sucked out of her.

"I'm so sorry sister. I couldn't keep away. It called for me. And it said it loved the night, and would make it last forever... and it gave me the power to do so." A bolt of blue lightning shot at Celestia, who was knocked to the other side of the room. Makuta however, wouldn't let this bother him, and jumped foolishly for the mask, whisking it off the being's face and onto his own. It cried out and tackled him, but he barely moved, he was almost a ton of metal with perfect balance and a gigantic amount of power, why would a horse tackling him bother him in the slightest? Lighting bolts were another matter entirely though.

Makuta was shot backward by a few bolts, And then the other being tackled him again, and he got a clear look at her turquoise, dragon-pupil eyes. He then reached forward and took her neck in his hand, and began crushing. The other one stormed at him, the princess he thought, and began burning him with a beam of pure light. He kicked a hole in the wall and threw the sister through it, jumping after her. Celestia screamed. "LUNA!!!" Makuta turned around and assumed flight position, readying himself for impact on the many towers and pedestals of the city below. He noticed that in a second she'd meet with one of the spires. And her death, impaled on it. He considered it for a few miliseconds, and dove forward, grabbing the unconscious being moments before she would have met the spike. With his mask, a captive, and a new enemy, Makuta decided to make a tactical retreat.

Luna and her guards were making their way toward the magical investigation lab, and she was trying her hardest to ignore the object, but the feeling inside her, calling for the object, was gnawing in her belly. But about halfway down she began hearing a voice in her head. 'put it on.'

"Did you hear anything?" Luna asked her guards quickly, the all said no silently. 'Put it on.' "Are you sure? It sounds like someone's calling to me..." 'Luna, put it on, it's a mask, put it on. It'll look beautiful on you.' Luna had stopped and began looking around for the source of the faint voice. Her guards also began searching and listening for what was upsetting their princess. 'It loves the night, Luna, it shapes the stars as well, it sees beauty in darkness, and uses it's power just as you do. Put it on Luna.'

"Shut up! Be quiet!" Luna screamed. She realized she was holding the mask, and in fear she threw it to the side. She fluttered to the opposite side of the hall and looked at the curves and holes in the object. 'It forgives you Luna, just put it on, and everything will become clearer, just put it on Luna. Put it on Luna, put it on I command you! I spent a millenia on the moon for you Luna, put on the mask!'

"No, nononononono!"

But she had begun lifting the mask to her, and she frowned as the voice in her head laughed at her. 'I have more power than I thought. You are truly weak Luna, to let me take control of your magic like this...' The mask was lifted to her head, and it sealed itself to her face, her magic being recycled by it, being replenished by it. Inside this mask was more magic than every unicorn and alicorn and zebra in Equestria put together. And it was pure darkness, the abyss. Kraahkan. It said. Forged in the bowels of Artahka, blessed with control of pure darkness, gifted to the greatest of all of Mata Nui's creations, his only possible heir, and now, now she was part of it, a servant of it, of Makuta. She bowed to her invisible master, and thanked him for the mask. Her guards gasped as her coat turned black, as her wings became sharpened, as her eyes narrowed and became dragon-like. She was their dark and beautiful queen Nightmare Moon.

"Hello, my little ponies, remember me?" She said in the royal Canterlot voice. "I would think you should run outside and look at the sunset. It's the last time you'll see it, after all."

The guards looked at each other and galloped away as fast as they could. "What good little sun-loving cowards they all are." And she wrapped herself in her mane and spirited to the other side of the castle, to where her sister was. She reappeared outside of the office. She opened the door, and at the sight of her sister, Luna broke free just a little bit. "I'm so sorry sister. I couldn't keep away. It called for me. And it said it loved the night, and would make it last forever... and it gave me the power to do so." But Nightmare Moon pushed her back down and launched a bolt at Celestia, who was too shocked to dodge, then a mechanical hand, one that was familiar in the mask's memories, reached out and ripped it from her face, she cried out in pain and tackled the mechanical being. But after it barely gave she launched a few bolts at him, then tried tackling him again as he was in the air from the hits. But he grabbed her neck and crushed the air out of it. She gasped and fell into unconsciousness.

She thought she heard Celestia crying for Luna.

Then something was pulling her away from falling. And then there was grass. And she awoke, but not giving any sign that she did. Just observing through sound. Heavy, but balanced and graceful footfalls, and from the longing inside her she knew the mask was near. When she was sure that the creature was facing opposite from her she got up silently. It was a Rahkshi, a fellow servant of- fellow servant?! When did she become it's servant?! The Rahkshi was one of darkness, she was no longer connected to the mask, but she managed to grasp that memory among the ones that were slowly disappearing from her. Including her servitude to him.

The Rahkshi turned around, and it was wearing... no, its face was the Kanohi Kraahkan. She was standing before Makuta. But she did not bow, she was free of the mask now. But she let a shiver go up her spine.

"What are you?"

"My name is Nightmare Moon. I am the Queen of Equestria, and not Regent, but owner, of the night. Though many know me to be the insane alter-ego of Princess Luna."

"You have an essence of darkness in you only present in Makuta." Teridax said. "Tell me, makuta of this dimension, or closest thing to it, will you serve me?"

"I am a Queen, you are nothing but a-"

"I was a universe once." He said. "And even if I may never be that again. I am still the most powerful thing I've come into contact with in this universe. And if you aren't with me, I think you would be too dangerous to allow to exist otherwise. Be my soldier, and my daughter, or be my victim. Your choice." Makuta was emotionless in feature, but his glowing, deadly red eyes showed an evil and power that frightened her.

"I... I will accept being your daughter... But I will not bow to you."

"Will you try and betray me?"

"N-n-no. I... I have too much love for my own life."

Makuta's eyes frowned. "Fine. You are Makuta Nightmare Moon. Act as such, with pride, and to fulfill my will and your own." He put a mechanical hand on her shoulder and gripped it. "You are also my major source of information in this world." He took one step toward the horizon, and the sunset made his body a silhouette of black. A monstrous, commanding shadow appeared behind him. And Nightmare Moon stepped out of it in fear. "So... where do we begin in our new empire, Nightmare?"

The Crystal 'Empire' fell in an hour. Every single citizen was traumatized. Every single one. They all feared him, he crippled the Emperor and nopony had seen the Empress in the entire time. The guards fought bravely, but Sombra merely made himself into a wave of darkness that washed over the guards. When it passed they were filled with a liquid blackness that made them cry out their various fears. He was proud to note that many of them in fact screamed 'Sombra' when they faced their own fears.

He spirited up the many staircases and when he came to his throne, he smiled, and reclined into it. He raised a piece of crystal into his sight using his darkness as a tentacle. He examined it in every direction, the crystal heart. It was the crystal incarnation of love, just as the elements were the crystal incarnations of harmony and friendship. He wanted to destroy it, but he found it was impossible... at least for him. Perhaps this new darkness could figure out a way. He almost giggled at the thought of there being another evil overlord around. But he caught himself and did a gravelly evil laugh instead.

He spun it around and around, he wanted to throw it into a pit, or bury it in a completely random spot in the desert, so remote that nopony could ever find it by chance. But he needed it close by... or did he? He looked around the room, trying to find anything that could be spying on him. Satisfied that there was no such spies, he brought a book into existence. "Evil Overlording for Foals" by Author Unknown. He flipped through the pages and came to the section on superweapons, then went down to 'secret weaknesses-your's, and why they have to be kept secret.'. He looked the section up and down until he found the phrase he needed. "Every weakness has a special place, if your weakness is an ancient artifact, don't leave it in a temple guarded by traps and labors and monsters on the other side of the globe, keep it close to you, but very well protected, and unable to be accessed by anypony but you. Suggestions; a simple, or rather, as complicated as possible safe, magically and physically locked, even permanently sealed. If your weakness is also your super weapon, then keep it in the safest place possible, and only use it when absolutely necessary."

Sombra examined the heart and began making preparations for the safe. He had kept it fairly well-protected before. He had a trap that forced the rebel trying to take the heart to stay imprisoned, and whenever one of his friends helped it would stab them and drive them off, a betrayal machine! And he wiped out all traces of the heart's existence. All except for a lone history book, which he left in existence at the begging of the librarian. And even in that he ripped out all the important parts relating to anything that could beat him. Heck, all that he left about the festival were the stupid party games. He brought his checklist into existence and wrote 'remove all traces of stupid party games and festival activities'. It might save his life the next time he was overthrown. Though, to be fair, being overthrown had helped him quite a bit. He had been given an extra thousand years to live, and he had been given the ability to store his soul in his shadow as part of his imprisonment, and by keeping just a tiny part of him extremely well protected, his horn, even if he was burned to death, his horn would survive, and it's shadow. And thus him.

He wondered if the other evil had an overlording hoofbook. Probably not. Sombra sighed. Not everypony was so naturally terrible at evil that they needed a guide.

He was scary to Cadence and the crystal ponies though, and he did re-conquer the Crystal Empire. And he did all of that without checking the guide.

Maybe he was a worthy evil overlord after all.

Brotherhood of Makuta; Equestrian Division

View Online

"So, these are Makuta's fortresses?"

"Yes, Great Spirit."

"They... the design is familiar, I know where he found his inspiration."

"Where?"

"Did I ever tell you how Makuta and I met? It was in the creation of the matoran 'universe'."

"Your body."

"Yes, the Great Beings constructed me, and created a multitude of races to keep me functioning, but as soon as my brain began working, I was allowed to fine-tune myself, as it were. I created several species to keep the Matoran working, species to bring variety, or to increase efficiency, in the end, I was being very selfish. I created the Makuta, or rather, Teridax in particular, planning on him being my body's immune system. They would oversee all the other creatures, and increase efficiency and destroy threats to my body, like the barraki, to do this... they were given ambitous, selfish, charismatic, and demanding personalities, ones that became more corrupted and evil as time passed. But they were supposed to keep even themselves in check. And they did... but it was reversed on me. When one Makuta stood up to the others and kept their impulses in check, I commended him, gave him more responsibility, one of the greatest Kanohi as well. But because of this added power, he turned against me, used his control of the makuta and rahi and Matoran to put me to sleep and steal my body."

"I apologize for my lack of patience, for truth, not patience is my virtue. But what does this have to do with the construction of Makuta's fortress?"

"It is like a tiny version of my body. The same complex simplicity, the same clunky perfection."

"Those are paradoxes."

"As is the nature of life." Mata Nui sighed. "He knew my body better than even I knew it. Even as I called him brother and put him above all the others of my creations, he knew my body better, and kept me safe from everything beside himself. I still am recovering from my reliance on him and the Makuta, I fear that I may have to create something similar to them in the future though."

"Surely the order is enough?"

"Perhaps... but I doubt it. Maybe the Skakdi or the Vortix."

"Those monstrous-"

"They are my creations, just as the toa are. I created them with just as much purpose and virtue. It takes selfishness and ruthlessness to keep me alive, as does mercy and selflessness."

"I... apologize, Great Spirit."

"I don't care, I just want you to know that. That inside Makuta lies the potential for him to be greater and more virtuous and yes, Axonn, good, than any Toa." He gestured toward the gigantic, almost living structure. "Imagine if I made him a architecture specialist before it was too late? He would be considered a legend among the Matoran, and they would aspire to be like him."

"But he chose the path of evil."

"He chose to protect my body, his purpose that I gave him, even if he had to erase it's mind and soul. But through that desire, yes he became, and is, evil." Mata Nui put his hand on the giant structure. "My brother, why couldn't you have simply retired and built towers for your lifetime?"

"Guards, come here immediately! Princess Luna has been captured by a creature called Mahk-yu-duh, and... put through a forced transformation into Nightmare Moon. I want you to disperse our troops, cover the entire countryside, and find them!" Celestia shouted. She turned to another guard. "I need you to contact Spitfire, I need to know how many Wonderbolts are ready to go at this moment."

"Yes your Highness." The two guard said in unison, and then galloped off in two different directions.

Celestia then readied her wings, and was about to take off, but another guard stopped her. "Princess, we need you here, in the hub of information."

"If we do manage to locate them... who would be able to take on Nightmare Moon other than me?"

"Nopony, but until it comes to that you must stay here."

"Hm. Thank you Rear."

"Think nothing of it your Highness."

"We should head to Everfree Forest." Nightmare Moon decided. "I have a fortress there. It hasn't been used in more than a thousand years but-"

"What does the age have to do with it? Could it have been overrun while you've been away? If so, it's not much of a fortress, is it?"

"It's more of a fortress than you have right now."

"That's fair. Lead the way."

"We'll have to fly."

"I can fly."

"You can hover."

"Lead the way, and I'll follow."

Nightmare Moon nodded and took to the air, Makuta assumed flight position and followed after her. Soon they came to a forest, they made their way over a river and forest and cliffs Makuta had to jump. Eventually they came to some stone ruins. Nightmare Moon landed and looked over the ruins frowning.

"This is your fortress?"

"It's had a thousand years of disuse!"

"So? Perhaps our versions of years are different."

"What do you mean?"

"I've had buildings that I spend millenia apart from sometimes." He walked up to a stone pillar and pushed it over without effort. "When I come back, there's been no difference. The materials in this universe are weak. Nothing is eternal." He suddenly turned back to Nightmare. "Tell me, what is the name of your race?"

"I am an Alicorn. A pony with wings and a horn."

"What is a pony?"

"Um... all the creatures like me, but most don't have wings and horns, they just have one or neither."

"So all of them are ponies. How old are you?"

"Um... well, I'm not sure myself, but Luna's body is easily thirty thousand years."

"Ha, you're younger than the youngest little ones. This is a very strange world, to be so young and yet decay so quickly."

"What do you mean, the world is young?"

"You're only thirty thousand years old."

"And?"

Makuta was dumbfounded. "The world was created, and then you were, to raise the moon, and then all of the other ponies, right?"

"I... I have a lot to talk to you about."

"Princess, are you comfortable?"

"Go away."

"Come now Princess, you're being unreasonable. I've been a gracious host to you, given you everything you need, I even let your husband stay in the same room as you."

"Let me down!" Cried Shining Armor, stomping on the ceiling.

"You can thank your sister for the gravity spell." Sombra gave an evil grin. "You'll all be happy to know I've been a kind King to your subjects, only four have collapsed of exhaustion so far."

"Monster!" Cadence screamed.

Sombra merely smirked and licked his fangs. "Why thank you, but beside your 'comfort', I have an actual reason to speak with you."

"I don't want to speak to you at all."

"Did you send a message to Equestria?"

Shining Armor smiled. "So, you're fighting against my men." He shook his blue mane out of his eyes. "May the devil have mercy on you when you see him in a few days, or maybe hours."

"Oh please, he'll be begging me, and I'm not afraid of your team of over-glorified bodyguards, I'm reasonable about the size of a threat Celestia could potentially be." He brought Cadence close to him and breathed a cloud of smog into her eyes. "Did you contact her?"

"I won't tell."

Sombra pulled a spear of shadow out of nothing, and threw it at the ceiling, it collided an inch away from Shining Armor's hoof. "No? Then you don't really love him." He made another spear appear, and he swung it back and forth maliciously. "Because, if you don't tell me, and make me believe, whether you contacted her or not, I'm going to cut off his legs, one by one."

Cadence shrunk back and let out a gasp, but the shadow held her. "Don't even... speak about something like..."

He brought her face close to his. "You know I'd do it Cadence, you've heard the stories about me. Heck, you've heard the stories from the few SURVIVORS of me. Now then, which do you like the least Armor? Your front or your back? Left or right? Do soldiers really name their front hoofs?" He was grinning madly, not showing any response to the sizzling of Cadence's tears on his shadowy form. They burned a ways through before he threw them to the side.

"I... we tried to contact her... I don't know if it went through."

The spear was jabbed in Armor's direction, and Cadence cried out, credit to Shining Armor though, he didn't wince when he saw it coming for him. But Sombra didn't let go of it, and it didn't touch him, but sat a foot away from Shining Armor's head. "Not good enough Cadence. Make me believe."

"I promise you! I promise on my life! I don't know! I gave the order, but I was reported that the messengers were all too busy! You came before I ever received confirmation, I really, really, really don't know." Cadence blubbered out. Shining Armor was swearing and trying to jump downward at him.

"Cut off my leg and I don't care, but make my wife cry?! For that I'll beat you into the ground!"

Sombra was silent, and his face became very dark, the purple mist and green haze that covered them faded away with the shadow, and Cadence was released. "I... believe you." He opened his eyes, but they were still narrow, but Cadence thought she saw blood flowing from them, she couldn't read the look on his face. He turned around. "Tell my guard if you need anything... the gravity spell will also wear off in a few days. That will be all."

Sombra walked all the way back to his throne room, and he walked up every single stair. By the time he had gotten to the top, he collapsed. He had made the stairway long ago, when he first decided to become an evil overlord. He had lacked the resolve, he found himself unable to do what he had to do, unable to access the dark, evil, magic. So he climbed the stairway, and by not giving up he built resolve, by exhausting his body he needed to rely on the dark magic, and thus, he made sure he always had it with him. He would not fail like he did the month before. He was about to take the crystal heart, but when he saw the sacrifice of the unicorn and the dragon, and of Armor and Cadence, his magic left him, and he was trapped on his crystal, a sitting duck for Cadence to hit him with the Crystal Heart's power.

He had made sure to crack down on himself harder the moment he regained consciousness.

He regained his shadow magic and moved to his throne. He needed to set up a meeting with that gigantic dark force. That had to be his first priority, no, that's a bad idea, keeping your kingdom intact is always an evil overlords top priority, above even your own life, because even if the heroes kill you, if your kingdom still stands, you still win! Or as Author Unknown likes to think, the hero still loses!

Sombra began constructing a spell to locate dark magic, though he would have to destroy it afterwards, if Celestia managed to get ahold of it... he would never be able to escape her. The guide says that he shouldn't be doing something like this unless it's absolutely necessary. But if this thing could join up with him... he'd have to risk it. Besides, the magical-talent unicorn inside him had already began constructing the spell. After a few minutes of silently sitting in his chair he was ready. "Experiment!" He cried. And the room's jutting-out crystals turned black, and beams came out of them, creating a large circle and a complex design on it in the floor. Out of it rose multiple machines and contraptions made of darkness.

He immediately called in the various tools needed for his experiments, magical artifacts so ancient they don't have names, bottles, fibers of millions of species.

He constructed his spell and separated part of himself and put it into a bottle, he did this twenty more times. And then he did a different variation of his spell on each one, and then assembled them in a room, and tested each one. Eventually he perfected his darkness tracker, and destroyed all the shadow fragments and all the other spells. He was a magic-talent who had experimented for millenia. And not even that upstart Sparkle could match him in his ability.

He set up the spell between two gigantic black crystals. And it quickly identified the top three sources of 'living darkness' in the world. Number 1 was an unknown signal in the Everfree, second was himself, and third was an alicorn next to the first. An alicorn? Princess Luna, perhaps? He didn't want to deal with one of the princesses, perhaps she and the new darkness were having an epic battle in the Everfree, he could tell that they were both expending large amounts of magic, mostly on the surroundings. Everfree... in the heart of Equestria. Sombra shivered. He hadn't built up an army from anything. He was pretty sure that if he brought a skilled guard in from among his crystal slaves that guard would let Cadence and Armor go, and besides that he had no need for staff, just two prisoners, everything else was automated and controlled by his magic directly.

He paced for a while and came back to his greatest dilemma, one that was noted as his greatest long-term weakness in the guide. He had no second opinion. He couldn't watch his two prisoners constantly, so he took the most scared and cowardly of the crystal ponies to guard them, one who would never- no, the guide warned not to use that word, one who was extremely unlikely to betray him, one who had too much fear for his own life, who had betrayed fellow slaves before and who was likely to do it again to save himself. But besides him, his castle was empty. He had slaves, but that was it. He couldn't confer in them. He couldn't confer with his single guard, he considered speaking to Cadence and Shining Armor, but that wouldn't work either. They hated him. He got the information he needed from them. According to the guide, unless they were absolutely necessary... he should kill them. Or worse yet, execute them publicly before their former subjects, unless that would provoke rebellion.

But then comes his second biggest dilemma, Sombra just couldn't kill. He just... couldn't. He could terrorize ponies... but not kill them. He could threaten them and talk scary and make them cry... but he couldn't bring himself to make good on any of it. He had the power, so it wasn't a bluff, but he still didn't... no, couldn't make do on any of those threats...

Sombra collapsed on the floor, his shadows leaving him. He sighed and moved toward the stairs, making his way downward. He didn't usually have to do the stairs more than once a day. In his best years he could go weeks without purifying himself on the staircases.

As he made his way down he considered his risks and benefits. He would be going to the heart of his greatest enemy's land, confronting possibly both princesses, all to meet up with a force that he thinks might help him. But on the other hoof, by possibly gaining an ally he would be erasing his long-time weakness. He would have somepony to meet and discuss ideas with.

Sombra told himself he was letting his loneliness influence his rationality, but he did need that force. As a second opinion, as a way to leave the empire and still have it be protected.

He left a large portion of his power behind to protect his country, and then he shot off in his shadow form, aiming for Everfree.

"It's unfortunate that Shining Armor isn't here." Said her unicorn guard, Shield Wax, "I'm nowhere near the level of his magical power."

"But I am." Celestia said.

"Are you sure you want to go through with this Princess?"

"Of course! We must retrieve Princess Luna at any cost!"

"Then brace yourself." And Shield Wax cast his spell. Celestia fueled it, and all of Equestria was bathed a in a thin gold light. "Princess, do you see anything?!"

"I... I see..." Celestia's face contorted with concentration. "They're in the Everfree Forest... and... oh dear."

"What?"

"Something just crossed over the border into the field. It's dark... It's Sombra."

Shield Wax fell to his knees. "A death machine, Nightmare Moon, and King Sombra... all at once?!"

"We'll have to defeat them."

"Well of course we'll have to! We'll all be freezing, starving, slaves if we don't!"

"Gather our top guards, our most elite. And... gather the elements of harmony. I'm heading to the royal armory."

"What for?"

"To check on Nightmare's armor. And to put on my own." She walked to the exit of the room before turning around one last time. "We march on Everfree in thirty minutes."

"Be careful with that, you oaf!"

"What is an 'oaf'?" Makuta then slipped slightly and the stone pillar broke in half.

"A clumsy idiot!!"

Makuta looked at the broken pillar and growled. "You insult me?"

"You have proven yourself to be an oaf, so I call you that!"

The Kanohi Kraahkan glowed and the stones that made up the castle glowed and shifted. "Fine, I'll prove myself then, bring me metal, tons of it."

"What for?"

Makuta turned back toward Nightmare Moon and smiled with his eyes. "I'm going to make a fortress worth something. Bring me as much metal as you can. I may not have any matoran to build for me, but I've learned a few skills in my eons."

Nightmare Moon frowned and took to the air, and locating a mountain with a large cave on it's peak, she decided that it was likely a dragon's home, the only location where that much metal would be in one place.

She stopped by the entrance and let out a roar with the Royal Canterlot Voice. She smiled as a gigantic emerald-colored dragon stood over her. "Give me all of your metal."

"A pony dares to give me commands?" It roared down at her.

Her eyes flashed pure white and her ethereal mane shot forward, grabbing the dragon's tail, she cracked a smile and flung him up and down against the ceiling and floor of the cave over and over. She stopped after a few minutes and brought the dragon's head to her level. "Give. Me. All. Of. Your metal."

"NEVER!"

She flung him out of the cave, smiling as he soared out of the Everfree and onto the roads beyond. Crushing a certain obnoxious traveling show-pony's cart.

She then turned to blue mist and possessed the entire horde of treasure, Makuta could have the gold and silver and iron, but the gemstones were a good bonus for herself.

She flew the horde to Makuta and looked upon the contraption he had transformed her castle into with horror. "What did you do to my castle?!"

"Oh, that amount will do just fine." He summoned a gigantic black and red storm from his mask, and it shot from him, becoming a gigantic hand. It grabbed the horde of treasure, and condensed them into a solid mess of metal, it vibrated, and all the gems fell out. Nightmare let out a sigh of relief. The sphere quivered and shook, and became billions of tiny parts, they attached themselves to the stone frame, and Nightmare watched it being built up, it looked almost as if he was building a giant clock, it was filled with giant gears, cogs, and other simple machine parts. But soon she couldn't tell what it was.

Makuta Teridax fell to his knees, panting. "It's finished!" He looked up at the gigantic stone and metal egg-shaped structure.

"It's... a blob."

"It's a work of art you are too inexperienced to understand!" Makuta shouted, causing some birds to flutter up from the nearby trees, Makuta reached up with his shadow hand and caught them all, and absorbed them without a sign of caring. "They might have given away our position if they got far enough away." Nightmare Moon let a shiver go down her spine.

"Ah...of course, Teridax." She turned to his mechanical blob. "So, explain your work to me."

"It's a moving castle, it has no weaponry currently, but it does have mechanisms to fire dark bolts, but that requires energy output from us. Actually, until we find a better fuel source one of us will have to be in it's core whenever it's active."

"A moving castle? Like an airship?"

Makuta looked it up and down. "Where the heck did you get the idea that this could fly?!"

"I don't know! How else could something that big move?!"

"How could something that large fly without Kanoka!?"

"I have no idea what you're saying half the time..." she sighed. "If it doesn't fly, how does it move?"

Makuta's eyes became wild and gleeful. "It walks."

"This was a stupid idea!" Sombra shouted at himself, dodging another onslaught of shockwaves. The Wonderbolts had mobilized military reasons for the first time in almost a year. And they were itching for a fight. Most simply considered the Wonderbolts an over-glorified flight show, but in truth they were Equestria's most elite fliers, and Celestia had converted the team into a reserve air-force long ago. And now they were tasked with one job; capture or destroy Sombra, how they did it was up to them.

"You bet it was!" Cried one of the Wonderbolts as she blasted past him, leaving a thundercloud path behind her, and as she turned the shockwave turned as well, and pulled the shockwave into him, he couldn't shadow around it and was pushed back with the impact. A little blood escaped his mouth, but it hit his shadow and was consumed. He used that energy to fuel his counterattack. He threw his shadows in a wide arc, but the Wonderbolts scattered like flies before reforming on the opposite side. Sombra merely smiled and moved them back like a wave, destroying the clouds in their wake, and eventually making contact with the Wonderbolt's formation, he felt a sick feeling in his throat as three were filled with fear, and clenched their wings to their sides. He told himself that they would fall into a cloud or regain their strength before hitting the ground. But the sick feeling wouldn't go away, he felt his magic slipping, and he brought it closer to him. He would have to rescue them. He dropped himself and shot a burst of energy from his hind legs, getting below the falling Wonderbolts. He then created gigantic wings of shadow, expanding them and catching himself and the three wonderbolts. He tossed them to a nearby cloud before flying back up, his conscious satisfied.

"H-he's an Alicorn!" One of the Wonderbolts screamed, but another quickly slapped him before he could panic.

"No, he's just pretending to be, those wings are fake, and nothing will stand up to the Wonderbolt's real wings!" A shadow beam shot from Sombra and impacted the Wonderbolt who was reassuring the others, and covered her with a bubble of darkness. She screamed out in fear as her worst nightmares filled her head, and she dropped. Sombra knew the bubble would protect her. And it also had the effect of shaking the Wonderbolt's formation. He quickly picked off two more with his fear bubbles.

But then three shockwaves hit him simultaneously. A bolt of fire, a bolt of thunder, and a bolt of... rainbow. "The heck?" Sombra let out. He glared at the new three combatants as the remaining Wonderbolts cheered. "What's with this poor display? The Wonderbolts defeated this easily? That would be an academy record." The cheering stopped as they realized how badly they were losing to the cursed unicorn. "Hey you, are those black wings built for speed?"

Sombra foolishly began shaking his head no without thinking.

"Too bad." The rainbow one crashed into him. "Because we are going to take you out in ten. seconds. flat. Remember me from the crystal empire?"

Sombra blinked. "Who are you?" The rainbow-maned pegasus fumed in anger and dashed downward. The flame-maned one and the blue-maned one both cried out when she did so.

"Code Rainbow! Code Rainbow! Scatter!" Shouted the fire-maned one. All the Wonderbolts then changed directions and began speeding away from Sombra. Did he win?

Nope.

He was deafened as the rainbow Pegasus flew past him, breaking past the sound barrier as she did. The Shockwave knocked him backwards and blinded him with light. He was filled with it, his senses were overloaded, his darkness was dispelled and he fell toward the earth without his wings, blind, deaf, and without magic. "Oh yes! Oh crap." The pegasus circled back and caught him a few hundred feet before he collided with the ground. "Whew, if you died I'd feel guilty."

His eyes shot open as he caught the pegasus's scent. His sense amplified by the lack of the others. He still couldn't see, but the sight of his eyes was enough to make Rainbow Dash yell and drop him. He let his magic refill him, the rainbow was far enough away now that it could exist openly. He re-created his wings, and filled his eyes with the magic. They turned green and expelled purple haze. He could see through them though, but it was strange, almost bas-relief, and the colors were all too dark sometimes. But he could see enough to get all the Wonderbolts in view. "Perish while facing the darkness of your hearts and minds!" He yelled, and launched a high-speed volley of fear bubbles at every member, including the three new Pegasi. He single-hoofedly defeated all of the Wonderbolts. He did a little dance of glee where he floated, and then stopped, looking around in embarrassment to make sure nopony saw him. Nopony did. He continued his dance another minute before continuing his flight toward Everfree.

"Wax, are we prepared?"

"Yes Ma'am. An assault by ground would be careless and risky, so we've equipped six airships with magic shields. Each airship has room for twenty Earth ponies, and ten Unicorns. Twenty Pegasi guard each one. We can leave at a moment's notice."

"Good. Let the troops know that we are commencing our attack. As of now Equestria is at war with Makuta Teridax."

"Yes Ma'am. Will you be staying with the airships?"

"No, I'm flying myself."

"You're low on magic."

"That won't be a problem... but still, have the elements of harmony and their bearers standby."

"Um..."

"What?" Celestia snapped. She was getting anxious about the battle.

"Rainbow Dash, the element of loyalty, is a reserve Wonderbolt. She was at the academy with Spitfire and Soarin when they were called to fight Sombra."

"So she's by the border, fighting... Him?"

"Yes, your majesty."

"Then we can't count on the elements of harmony finishing this for us." Celestia shook herself slightly, trying to get her armor in a comfortable position. "I'm off. Center the airships around where we located them, not where I am. Understood?"

"Yes Ma'am."

"All forces, our number one priority is rescuing Princess Luna! our second is capturing, or if impossible, killing Makuta!" She shifted into the royal Canterlot voice. "Pegasi, stay by your Airships, Earth ponies, be prepared to drop and attack as soon as the enemy is in sight, Unicorns, have capture spells prepared! And remember, if Luna has still not come out of her forced transformation, I'll handle her myself. Focus all efforts on Makuta!"

She was answered with praise and confirmation. Giving a final nod to Shield Wax, she took off. A ring of rainbow passing her as she took off.

"How in the world, could that thing walk?!"

"You'll see." Makuta turned to the horizon in time to see a wave of rainbow light and burning sound pass by. "What is that?!"

"A sonic Rainboom." Nightmare frowned. "One of the elements of harmony's weapons."

"Elements of harmony?"

"Yes. We should watch out for them. They're six ponies-"

"Six?"

"-who each represent an element-"

"Oh no."

"-of harmony. When they combine their power they create a powerful beam of light that surrounds their target and turns him... or her, in my case. To stone, or can be used to fuel banishment spells."

"They are six heroes, who each have an individual element, who combine their power to encase their opponents in unbreakable mineral. They're Toa." He stomped his foot into a tree, causing it to splinter. "We'll have to kill at least one of them."

Nightmare blinked. "Kill one of them?"

"Of course, I can't allow them to exist as a team."

"Then why not break their spirit and trust for each other?" She said hopefully.

"Well of course that as well, but when they go their separate ways, if you can't corrupt one of them you have to at least kill another."

"Um... I don't know what a Toa is. But I think you're wrong about the elements of harmony."

"LUNA!" Rang a voice.

"Celestia?" Nightmare whispered. "How fast can that thing move?"

"I don't know how you measure distance in this world, but it can move faster than I can hover."

"That'll have to be enough, let's get inside!"

Makuta nodded and flew up to the only entrance, which required dark energy to open. He waited til Nightmare was safely inside, and then hovered to the core, he sat in the stone throne, recycled from Nightmare's 'castle', and gripped the two steel coils. He filled them with dark energy and listened with satisfaction to the clanking and hissing of his moving castle. He imagined what would be happening outside. Four spikes would appear on the bottom, and the entire fortress would raise on them, once it was high enough the spikes would bend and pull out the rest of the heavily armored legs, and those four visorak-like legs would move expertly, reacting to Makuta's mind and make it's way across all terrains. It crawled over the forest in seconds, making it's way North, but after a few minutes Celestia was blocking it's way.

"Nightmare, if you would."

She smiled. "Gladly." She made her way to the exit and dived out, unfurling her wings and flying up to her sister. "Hello Celestia, it's nice to see you, though I'm sure you've been praying that you would never see my face again."

"Luna, I know you're in there, please Luna, come back, fight her, fight her with all of your strength."

Nightmare actually winced visibly as Luna tried to take back her body. But she was stronger, she always had been. "Too bad, guess she wasn't strong enough."

Celestia howled and fired a bolt of sunfire at her. Nightmare countered with a beam of moonlight. "Release her!"

"Then what would I do?! I'd like nothing more than to be permanently separated from that foal! But what can I do? If I let her go free I'll never be allowed to come back out!"

"We'll figure something out Nightmare, just please, let my sister go."

Nightmare stomped her hoof on nothing. "You don't get it, do you Celestia? Me and Luna have the same body, I'm just as much your sister as she ever was! The only difference is that I'm mean." She said the word 'mean' in the snottiest and most sarcastic way possible.

"Attempting to freeze and starve the world because of your jealousy is a little bit more than 'mean'."

"That doesn't mean you should seal me away inside Luna forever! It's unfair to both of us! You banish us both for a thousand years for what I did, and sealed me away in Luna's mind, driving the two of us almost crazy for what Luna did!" Nightmare was throwing one attack after another at her 'sister' while she screamed out her rage. "When you abused Luna's feelings and the people abused her powers she created me. And you didn't notice! She's never been right in the head, she created me after all, and I came up with the stupid idea that eternal night might make ponies like the night more, and then I acted on it without a single thought!" Nightmare Moon dodged a banishment spell. "Really?! You aren't even going to banter with me? Just banish us again?!"

"Just until I can deal with Makuta, and then we can bring you back and seal you away with the elements again."

"Really?! Really?!" Nightmare frowned then unhinged her jaw, her entire body was made up of dark magic, similar to Sombra's actually, and she could manipulate features like muscle and bone placement, or the type of eyes and teeth, or even the coat color, quite easily. She dived for Celestia and sank her teeth into her neck, or at least tried, bu her fangs met with enchanted metal. She drew away and looked in horror as Celestia had donned blood-red armor. Similar to her old blue armor, but a full set instead of just the chest, hooves, and helmet.

"Nightmare Moon, release my sister this instant. It's true that it's unfair for Luna to have to be punished for your sins, but I'm sure she'd agree that you need to be stopped, and that she'd be willing to spend a little more time on the moon if it meant that she could be free of you when she returns."

Nightmare turned her head to the side and smiled. "What's that Luna? Sorry Celestia, it seems she doesn't quite agree with you on the whole banishment thing, actually, she hates the moon more than I do." No I don't! Celestia don't listen to her!

"Liar, I know Luna."

"So do I."

"In a twisted way."

"So what shall we do? We are evenly matched. Why don't we both call off our troops and you let us get away?"

"What 'troops' you have that ugly mishmash metal monstrosity, whatever Makuta is, and yourself, what else? My airships can destroy your spider-lump easily, that's for sure... truthfully, I think I could right now!" Celestia's mane shot out and grabbed Nightmare, and their ethereal manes mixed together. "With a little bit of your power, sorry if this hurts you Luna." Nightmare screamed as her ethereal mane was torn off, leaving only her dark blue real mane, and as the dark magic slipped away she felt the color returning to her coat, and leaving her eyes. Her teeth melted away and her wing feathers lost their edge, and began to look like a normal Pegasi's. You helped her, didn't you Luna? Yes, I did. You'd give up your magic and feel my pain just to be rid of me? Of course I would. I hate you with all of my soul. I'm part of your soul! No! You... if you're part of me, then you're all the worst parts! Shut up! I don't have time for you I have to- not hit the ground! Nightmare Moon caught herself in the nick of time, and then managed to dodge the banishment spell Celestia threw after her. Nightmare turned to the castle and shouted in the Royal Canterlot voice: "A little assistance please!"

"What is that hunk of junk going to do?" one of the spider legs slowly rose up toward Celestia, who quickly dashed to the side. "It moves too slow to-" It then swung the leg toward Celestia impossibly fast, colliding with her. Celestia couldn't even let out a breath as she was flung incredibly fast toward her airships. Nightmare then watched as one of them exploded upon Celestia's impact.

"That's hilarious!" The Queen of the night laughed out. No it isn't. "Shut up Luna." At that moment she was covered by a shadow, and when she saw the silhouette of an Alicorn on the ground she looked up with a nervous smile. She couldn't have come back that quickly, could she? But she was greeted with something else entirly.

"Y-You're Nightmare Moon... You're Nightmare Moon! I'm a big fan! We haven't met, have we?"

"Sombra." Nightmare's throat tightened. "What are you doing here? Aren't you... you know, dead?"

"Oh, I can't die. Believe me, they've tried. But then again, I could say the same of you!"

"I was sealed away, the elements of harmony only seal away, never destroy. I think the whole idea is that everything can exist together peacefully, they don't kill, just make them unable to affect anything."

"Um..." How should he go about this? A legendary villain, and veteran evil overlord, was standing before him, and most likely also had made a deal with the mysterious darkness. He had to make sure the first impression was done right... he couldn't sound to prideful, but he couldn't be submissive... unless that was the only way she'd let him work with her... she was apparently jealous and stubborn, but he didn't know anything about her other than that, just that she made the world fall under eternal night during his time, inspiring him to become a global overlord as well. "I-" A burst of sunlight was fired from behind Nightmare and he swung her to the side with a shadow claw, while spiriting around the beam. He fired a burst of fear, wrapped with smoky billowing darkness, and fired it at Celestia, who had sneaked up on them under the canopy.

"That.... thank you..." Nightmare said, shocked.

"Uh... I... I apologize for throwing you, it's just the beam-"

"N-no! I need to thank you. what was that you threw at Celestia?"

"A fear/shadow bolt. It blasts and attacks with shadow magic, while paralyzing the victim with pure fear."

"Hm... Sombra, King Sombra, I mean, how would you like to join up with me and a... friend, I suppose. We are currently in need of safe haven, my castle..." she mumbled something. "... is no longer a suitable place. Celestia knows our location, the Everfree is no longer safe for the two of us. Could we possibly form an alliance?"

"Of course, actually, I was about to offer a similar deal as well, I have recently re-conquered my Crystal Kingdom, soon to be empire. I would greatly appreciate some company." Sombra caught himself too late. He said it, he was only looking for them because he was lonely.

"Great! I will give the news to my... ally."

He let out a silent sigh, she either didn't notice or didn't care for his reasons.

She disappeared into the giant moving castle, and then came back out, and gave him a fanged smile. "Lead the way, your Highness."

"Of course, your Majesty." He winced and hoped it didn't sound to patronizing. He flew off, a giant mechanical beast being driven by a more fearsome mechanical beast following him. He still hasn't met the new darkness, but he supposed that would have to wait until they came to the Crystal Empire.

Celestia screamed as Twilight was frozen in front of her, the frost covering her body, and then cracking. Slime dripped down on her from above where Changelings spun their cocoon, her prison, she tried to turn her eyes away from the shattered pieces of Twilight, but a lion and eagle paws turned her head and kept her eyes open. Then Nightmare Moon, dressed in full armor walked over the pieces of Twilight, and she heard cracking sounds. Nightmare held a chain in her mouth, one connected to a filly Luna. And she was crying. Then Sombra walked past her, followed by a parade of hundreds of other demons and monsters, every murderer, serial killer, monster, and revolutionary in thousands of years. Then at the end of the line, after the first murderer Celestia ever ordered executed, was the newest threat, even though he was at the beginning of the line, where the ghosts that haunted her past belonged, it stood. Makuta, she could tell, but he was different, almost four times taller, his body wider, his limbs thicker and more protected. There was life under the shell, she could tell, not just more metal, but that just made him look more fearsome. He had the built of a giant armored minotaur, and he held strange weapons in each hand. Then she tried to back away as another claw, a storm of darkness launched from his chest and engulfed her in pain, and then, blinded her. She couldn't see, there was no light, but it wasn't cold. It was uncomfortably hot. And then his mask appeared before her in the darkness, just the red-blue light of his eyes remained, only his eyes illuminated the dark. She took in a breath, and found the air poisonous. She choked to death, the only thing she could see was Makuta's eyes, watching emotionless as she writhed.

A hoof touched her side and she shot upward. It was Twilight, and she had a bandage. Wait... she had died, hadn't she? Celestia didn't differ between Twilight and herself, but just wrapped her hooves around Twilight and brought her close. "I... saw you die... oh my... Twilight I-"

"Princess, please, you just had a bad dream. The guards found you in the middle of Everfree screaming. They sent for me, and called me back here from the hospital-"

"Hospital!?" Celestia looked over her student searching for the cracks she saw in her... dream.

"Yes, but that's not important now... I found the deactivation spell for your nightmare-" Celestia winced again. "Sorry... your bad dream, it was a fear spell, mixed with an imprisonment spell, I think you deactivated the prison on your own. I just had to clear away the remaining bits of the fear spell." Twilight finally stopped talking and noticed the relieved look on her teacher's face. "Um... Princess, are you alright? I've never seen you this shaken..."

"Yes it's just... every demon I've ever met, paraded before me and... never mind, it was a very effective spell, let's leave it at that." Celestia got up. "Where are the rest of the element bearers? We need to use the elements of harmony against Nightmare Moon, King Sombra, and Makuta."

"Makuta?!"

"Yes, you know of him? Did the guards tell-" Celestia's eyes widened. "Your letter of recommendation. Did that thing put you in the hospital?!"

"Hehehe..." Twilight gave a nervous laugh. "He only flicked me in the forehead. But I was out cold for seven minutes. Spike got up after only two and sent a letter to the hospital."

"Don't worry, I'll bring them down... where are my guards, no, you still haven't told me about the other bearers."

"Well, Rainbow Dash had a similar spell done on her, and she's still in the royal hospital, she's fine though, and had a much weaker spell used on her. As for the others, they came to the forest when you called for them, but with two of us missing they had to run back to Ponyville and figure out where me and Rainbow were. Your guards let me in after I told them I knew how to disable the fear spell, but I don't know anything about the situation except that were were fighting the three of them."

Celestia got up with a creak and moved to the door, she knocked on it twice and a guard walked in. "What has occurred during my... paralysis?"

"Sombra appears to have joined up with Makuta and Nightmare Moon, they took out all of the airships with surprisingly zero casualties. Then them and their contraption moved due North, toward-"

"The Crystal Empire, send a message to Cadence immediately."

"We have your Highness, but we aren't sure the message went through, there was no answer, or even confirmation that it had been received."

"Did you already send Pegasus scouts?"

"Yes Madam."

"And their findings?"

"...The North has been filled with a dark cloudy smoke. In a much larger amount than we've ever seen before. The contraption hid in it, and the two Pegasi we sent in haven't come back out."

"...Load up two more airships, but have every pony there armed, understand? We might be at war with the Crystal Empire... and it's three new rulers."

The New Dark Lunar Crystal Empire of Makuta

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"Great Spirit, I must ask you, why did you give so much power to Teridax? I think I understand why you created the Makuta, but why give them the strength to almost overthrow you?"

"They did overthrow me. And banished me, nearly killed me as well."

"You are the Great Spirit, you cannot lose or do wrong."

"Of course I can Axonn. Of course I can. You need to doubt me more. That was what Makuta's secret was. He wasn't all-powerful like I am. He was simply a good ruler. He knew how to make cities and peoples successful. Even without my power he seemed like a better ruler. I think that was what started his bid for power. When the Barraki tried to conquer me, I destroyed them, but Makuta and I questioned if I was the best leader for us all. He decided he would be a better one... and I agreed with him, but I didn't relinquish my power or my position. I just gave him a little more, and then spent my years free to do whatever I want with less responsibility. And whenever he asked for more power I trusted him blindly and gave it... until the day he put me to sleep and tried to kill me."

"But Makuta is a good ruler?"

"Yes... for a while. But he went mad with power... or perhaps he felt that what he was doing was truly right, but he forgot his past vows, assaulted his brother and creator, and instilled unjust fear in the world's people. He was no longer a suitable ruler. If only he had been born with the power instead of having it thrusted upon him, or later on, without him having to kill and steal it."

"So, this is King Sombra's shield? Are you sure we can trust him? I can sense a huge amount of power hidden in the smoke."

"He's one of the worst villains in history, he conquered the crystal empire and was a major pain against our forces a millenia ago. One Unicorn versus the Equestrian military, back when we had a military... anyway, it's impressive, and he said that he was... a fan of mine."

"A 'fan'?"

"An admirer."

"Ohh, well, just keep an eye on him until he takes the oath to serve me."

"Why would he? Back in the glory days he was almost the living god of darkness. When I covered Equestria in eternal night the crystal ponies never noticed because he already kept them in the darkness and gave them their own light himself. He has more magical power than me... well, Luna, or Celestia at the time. After I... took control of my body for the first time I did everything I could to stay away from him, he's dangerous. But I think we have to trust him for now, if there's anywhere in the world that's safe from Celestia, it's Sombra's Crystal Empire."

"Hmm... call him inside."

"Alright." She turned to blue mist and spirited down the halls, eventually siding out of the door and reforming behind Sombra, who had been guiding them North. "King Sombra!"

"Ah, Queen Nightmare Moon! we're almost there."

"My ally would like to speak to you... and, well, don't be offended by his offer, but if it means anything, I took the same deal."

"What are you talking about?"

"Just come talk to him." And she flew back to the door, opening it with her magic, she would have to make it magic-proof someday... if they were still using the mish-mash. She dashed down the halls, Sombra easily keeping pace. She was impressed, he wasn't even being aided by his magic. This unicorn had stronger legs than any Earth Pony she had ever met, and they were natural. "Your legs are very fit, did you enchant them, or just train daily?"

She could have sworn that he blushed under the helmet and dark gray coat. "I have my own training regimen, but I regularly do magical check ups on myself, keeping myself as healthy as possible."

"And we're here!" The 'throne' room wasn't very spectacular. Just the chair and the control mechanisms, no windows or decoration yet... but honestly it was still a mash of stone and steel.

"King Sombra." Makuta greeted.

"I... haven't had the pleasure to know your name."

"I am Makuta Teridax. Lord of Shadow."

Sombra raised an eyebrow. And Nightmare looked nervously between the two. Makuta had made somewhat of a provocation after all. "I am King Sombra, Emperor of Shadow." He decided now was not a good time to back down if he was going to be accepted by these two. "And King of the Crystal Empire and it's outlying territories. You are currently guests in my country."

"Ah, of course. I thank you for your... hospitality. Now tell me Emperor, how does one obtain your title?"

Sombra didn't show any outward sign but he winced inside. He had really hoped it wouldn't come to this. "There is no greater master of shadows and darkness than I, in all of Equestria's recorded history. Perhaps Queen Nightmare Moon could be considered greater than I, but night isn't exactly the same thing as shadow, is it?"

"Hm. Do you control your own shadow?"

"Easily, I can become shadow, and control and consume others. I have mastered every art of darkness. I am the master of fear, shadow, dark crystals, corruption, and all black magics."

"Hm. So to obtain your title, I would have to show greater ability in those? I must say, I know nothing of this world's 'magic', but as for shadow..." Sombra collapsed to the ground, and he saw that his shadow had knelt to Makuta's. "dark crystals..." Sombra felt an incredible pain in his hooves but he didn't show any sign of pain. He could see the shadow of a black crystal consuming his legs, but they weren't of any kind he dealt with before. "...corruption..." Sombra's vision was dulling, he was actually dying from whatever Makuta was doing to him. He felt his magic writhing inside him, but somehow Makuta was keeping it inside Sombra. "... and, tell me Sombra, are you feeling fear?" Sombra didn't even notice what Makuta said, but not because of his ears going deaf from whatever 'corruption' is. His mind was racing, analyzing Makuta's magic. Doing experiments with his shadow magic. Ah, there it is! He freed himself from Makuta's magic and rose up, despite his hooves being frozen in place. He blazed with black fire for an instant, and he phased through the crystal, his magic located the 'corruption' microscopic robots. He captured them all in a dark bubble and ejected it from his chest. He then walked up to Makuta and gave a fanged smile. "What were you saying about 'fear'?" He launched a fear spell at Makuta, and frowned as Makuta didn't even flinch at his worst fear.

"That I am it's master." His eyes blazed and he made contact with Sombra's eyes. Sombra immediately bowed to Makuta, his magic fled deep inside him, and he couldn't keep his knees from shaking. He had never been more scared in his life. "Tell me, do you relinquish your title?"

Sombra almost said 'Yes! Of course! Please stop looking at me!' but he caught himself with what emotional control he had. And that was more than any other pony. "You... have a very powerful fear spell, but it would require an epic duel to settle this once and for all... but I think we've proven ourselves to each other quite well, haven't we? Queen Nightmare Moon said something about an offer?" Makuta simply stared at him, but Sombra felt the fear washing away.

"Yes. Become my son, you are one who is truly of the darkness, perhaps not it's ultimate master... but you have great shadow power and control. Would you like to become a Makuta, as Nightmare has? Makuta Sombra, it's a beautiful name, isn't it? Become my son, my brother, just as Nightmare has become my daughter, my sister. And pledge to follow me and act in my interest?"

Sombra blinked in surprise. This was a big decision... this wasn't just an alliance with a great power... this... this was like being in a family... unpleasant memories rose up inside him. This would be a lifetime commitment, becoming Makuta's son. And Nightmare Moon's... brother?

"I,,, I pledge, as long as our loyalty goes both ways. You and Nightmare must work as much in my interest as I do in yours."

Makuta smiled with his eyes. "Rise, Makuta Sombra, and lead us to our new home, the first territory belonging to the Brotherhood of Makuta in this world."

"Y-Yes." He spirited his way outside and flew into the darkness that covered his home. He saw that Nightmare Moon had followed him out. "Tell Makuta to continue heading North, I'll tell him when to turn."

"Alright... I'm surprised you accepted the deal to become his henchman."

"Henchman? We are brothers... or at least family now. Just as we are family now, Queen of the Night. We are either equal, or all gain something from whatever happens. If I follow Teridax's orders, then I gain from them as well from now on. We all share victories and losses from now on."

Nightmare frowned. "Makuta's in control, we aren't partners."

"We are allies though."

"Hm."

"Ugh! I can't believe this!"

"S-sorry Princess... he always showed me where to get the food... I checked, and it isn't there."

"Is he trying to starve us out now?" Shining Armor growled. "Does he still think we're hiding information?"

"I don't know... K-k-k-k-k-in-g-g S-s-som-br-bra... He left, a while ago, didn't leave me any directions..."

Cadence put on her most sympathetic look. "What's your name?"

"M-my name is Rhine, Princess...."

"Rhine, let us go. Please, we'll get the crystal heart and dispose of Sombra as soon as he gets back."

"What?!"

"Please, just get the key and bring it here."

"Princess! Please don't make me do this..."

"I'm not making you do anything, I have no power inside here, but if you let me out you will have helped save the Crystal Empire, the true Crystal Empire."

"Princess... I'm sorry... I can't."

"I understand, you have to think of your own well-being after all. Nopony would blame you."

"It's not like your'e a soldier after all. You never took an oath to protect the Kingdom even at the cost of your life." Shining Armor tossed in. "Your name was Rhine, isn't it? I trained a stallion by that name in the time I had him. You obviously aren't him though." Rhine winced and turned around.

Cadence put a hoof up toward Shining Armor's face, just barely able to touch his mane from where she stood on the bed. "That was a little harsh."

"If he has any sense of remaining duty, he'll do what he knows is right."

"And what is right, Shining Armor?" All three ponies in the room shivered at the sound of the voice, and held their breath as Sombra walked up to the guard.

"Shining Armor, he was Celestia's former captain of the guard, wasn't he?" Cadence let her mouth drop open as Nightmare Moon walked forward to stand by Sombra. "Well, I guess you wouldn't know."

"Yes I do, Shining Armor and Cadence have been kind enough to bring me up to speed on a millenia of Equestrian history. And Shining Armor personally trained my army for me before he stepped down."

"Ha! He 'stepped down' did he?" Nightmare bent down to look the two of them in the eyes. "Hello Cadence! My nice little niece! You've never met me before have you? A new Alicorn." She bared her fangs at the two of them. "I'm your Aunt Nightmare! What does that make you Captain? Nephew in law to Nightmare Moon?"

"H-how can you be alive?!" Shining Armor sputtered out. "My sister destroyed you!"

"Your sister sealed me. And then Luna caved in to her own weakness and accepted a giant force of pure darkness, which broke the seal."

Husband and Wife glared at Sombra. "What did you do to my Aunt Luna?!" Cadence growled.

"Nothing, it was all our new... hmm, Father's doing." He turned to Nightmare Moon. "I remember that some Equestrian gangs called the ring leader 'Father'. I think that would be acceptable now, especially now that we're part of a 'brotherhood'."

"Our 'Father' then, was the one who awakened me, or rather, Luna taking his mask."

Shining Armor was lost. "Mask?"

"So, Sombra, what are we doing with them?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, do you plan on keeping them prisoner forever? Or perhaps you have some kind of mind control spell to make them useful to us?"

"Hmm... Armor would need to keep his smarts and experience, for his magic and military smarts. That would be a complicated spell, I know a few, but they just leave them a mindless zombie."

"Hmm... I too would like to see how it would effect Cadence, truthfully she's nowhere near as powerful as me or Celestia, in a fight she would almost be on the same level as Armor, but I suppose that would be useful."

Cadence and Armor were too freaked out for words. Nightmare Moon was discussing how they would be brainwashed.

"There are other kinds of duties that require magic beside military. I for one am tired of keeping an entire city state running on my magic alone."

Nightmare's eyes widened. "What do you mean running it alone?"

"I have no allies among the Crystal Ponies. They are my slaves, not my subjects. I provide for them, protect them, and discipline them, but they don't keep the city running. I do, alone. It was one of the reasons I agreed so quickly to an alliance."

"In the hope that somepony could keep your empire running while you're away?"

"A babysitter for an entire empire, it sounds strange, but it's truly a job that requires intelligence, strength, and a huge amount of power and determination."

"Oh?" It was a new voice. Cadence struggled against the bars while Armor jumped downward to see through them as well. "Is that all you needed us for, Sombra?"

Cadence gasped as she took in Makuta. He walked on two legs, with gigantic steel feet, but his body hunched forward. Two arms of red metal came from opposite sides on the machine, and they seemed to hang there, dangling as he moved. But his face, that strange shape of metal with the emotional red and blue eyes, that face would haunt her nightmares. "Is... this your 'father'?" Shining Armor asked. "He's a strange creature."

"Tell me Sombra, who are these... ponies?"

"Princess Cadence and Prince Shining Armor. The former ruler and military leaders of the Crystal Empire, respectively."

"Why are they here?"

"Excuse me?"

"Why would you keep the ruler and a military leader alive?"

"They might be useful to us in the future, me and King Sombra were discussing a possible method of brainwashing them."

"Hmm... Sombra, tell me who they are exactly, anything I might need to know about them. What purpose would having them continue to exist pose?"

"Well, as I've said, I'm currently keeping the city running by myself... Having Princess Cadence or Shining Armor rule and control the city under me could be very beneficial."

"You'd put someone you've taken everything from put in a position of power?"

"I've done it before." He motioned to the shivering 'guard'. Cadence had almost forgotten about him.

"Who is he?"

"One of my slaves, a former soldier. He's been acting as guard for my only two prisoners."

"Hm." Makuta walked up to the terrified Crystal Pony and bent down, grabbing it's hoof. He lifted Rhine into the air and shook him a little, the former soldier let out a whimper. "We need to desperately remodel this entire system you have here Sombra. You can't have everything on the shoulders of one individual unless that Individual is an actual Great Spirit. Your guard is weak, incompetent, he fears his ruler justly, but he fears the prisoners he protects just as much. He's a general coward. Why did you hire him?"

"Chose him, he's one of my slaves. Also, he has done work for me successfully in the past."

Makuta looked at the shivering pony for another second before promptly dropping him. "Fair enough. But you need subjects, soldiers, builders, farmers, lords, and slaves. Just having one group will spell the end of a Kingdom."

"So what exactly would you have me do?"

"Walk with me." Makuta gave a smile with his eyes. He motioned for Nightmare Moon to follow and the three of them got out of earshot of the prisoners. "Give me a tour of the kingdom. Perhaps you could make me and Nightmare Moon citizens, and then we'll go about granting citizenship the the best of your slaves, and then negotiating with the two in the cell."

"Negotiate?"

"Well of course, you want to operate a Kingdom with only three nobles?" Makuta considered for a few seconds as they walked to the balcony. "How many 'crystal slaves' do you have?"

"Um... truthfully, I'm not certain. The numbers fluctuate."

"Well, you have been working them to death, at least according to the rumors."

"Those rumors are generally greatly over exaggerated." He tilted his head away so he wouldn't have to meet their eyes. "I don't really keep track. All Crystal Ponies are my slaves. The numbers are above 200,000 and haven't met the 300,000 mark the last time I counted."

"Hm. Go around, make... fifteen large families into nobles, give them large houses near the castle, then make about two thirds of the remaining population 'citizens'. Give them houses. Then tell the others who are still slaves that if they work well enough, then they can become citizens too."

"I'll have to completely change the way I've had them living."

Nightmare raised an eyebrow. "How have you been having them live?"

"Whenever I need a project done I recruit laborers, otherwise I just supply the houses with food, and I assume they simply choose a dwelling to live in. Besides providing food and recruiting labor, I mostly just keep them from leaving."

Makuta blinked. "You are a terrible leader."

The First 'Day' of the Crystal-Equestrian War

View Online

"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.

The Crystal-Equestrian War Part 2

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"My brethren, we must continue to fight! For our Great Spirit! For our Virtues!" The Makuta cheered. "Now go, emissaries of the night! Guardians of the Matoran! Nightmares of the Barraki! And make the Six Kingdoms fear us!"

Hundreds of black demonic figures rose into the sky, meeting with the genetically engineered soldiers of the Six Kingdoms. Makuta Miserix watched as they began dropping from the air after one especially powerful explosion, and then how hundreds of the soldiers dropped from nothing. Killing the opponent without touching them, that was the Makuta's specialty.

"Sir." Makuta Miserix turned toward the new voice.

"Ah! Teridax, do you have the new supply of battle Rahi ready?"

"...Not exactly, Sir." Teridax turned to the ghostly white Makuta behind him. "Krika, kill him."

"Treachery?!" Miserix reared his head, his dragon-like body writhing with rage. "Just because the Great Spirit calls you Brother doesn't mean that you have the right to overthrow me! I am the destined master of the Makuta!" Krika then jumped forward, eveloping Misirix in ghostly white mist, and they were both gone. A few minutes later Krika reappeared.

"Well?"

The ghostly Makuta gave a tiny smile. "The... official report will say he died in a 'Rahi-building accident'. But I did something a little worse and more illegal."

Makuta Teridax smiled. "Good. Now then, let's win this war shall we?"

Shield Wax was flying through the air, and into the cold inky blackness. He wondered if he would die on impact. He had rather hoped he would die by getting speared, but he found himself being carried. "What-what is this?"

The two Pegasi from the front of his carriage had caught him, they were full decorated, and were covered in full body-concealing armor, and face-concealing helmets. "D-don't worry sir... It's all right, now we need to get you to the b-battlefield..."

"You're a mare?!"

"Yep!" The other one piped in. "You should actually already know who we are." The two of them lowered him to the ground, he noticed their tails, one was messy and rainbow, the other long and pink.

"Are you two-" His Unicorn carriage puller then floated upward and put a hoof to his face.

"shh, we don't know the capabilities of the cloud yet."

"Sparkle?"

"Yeah, but don't talk until we get you to the soldiers." The seven ponies then walked a ways, he wasn't sure how they knew their way through the darkness, but then, these were Equestria's saviors, warriors who had bonded to the force that petrified the hordes of Longma, the great spirit Discord, and Nightmare Moon, surly they had great powers. After less than two minutes one of the Earth Pony guards, one with a bouncy pink tail, led him out of the cloud, and he looked with despair as the gigantic stone/crystal/steel monstrosity continued to wander through his troops, scattering the careful placement of ponies, he could tell the machine was being harmed by attacks, or would be, if they were coordinated. But if there was the one thing his army wasn't at that moment, it would be coordinated.

"Go on your mission, I'll take care of things here."

"Alright, please win."

"You too." And he saluted them. The Earth Ponies and one of the Pegasi saluted back before disappearing into the darkness.

"Alright, troops, you've had your fun! Now follow my commands!" Every Pony heard the Royal Canterlot Voice, and he had their temporary attention. "All Unicorns, fire on the farthest leg where it's connected to the sphere, Earth Ponies, Pegasi, try to get it to support it's weight on that leg, push it, lift up the other legs, whatever, go go go!"

Nightmare got up, wincing as her wing moved. She braced herself and turned to look at the damage. A charging Alicorn does about as much damage as a meteorite, she should be glad that she only lost her wing. She focused her Alicorn magic on the stub, willing it to grow back, but it wouldn't. It was physical damage, done to Luna's actual body. Nightmare felt some rage rise within her. Celestia had just crippled her. She would have to get an artificial wing, or she would have to spend a fortune getting a transplant or magic clone made.

She got up shakily and tested her Pegasus magic, even with only one wing she should be able to get into the air. She fluttered up a few feet, only to be knocked back down. "Release Luna."

How had she not seen her? "Ugh... do you still want her now that you crippled her?"

Celestia took a step back, a look of horror going over her face. "You're lying, just regenerate."

"It's a wing Celestia!" Nightmare rose back to her feet, her horn pulsing with magic. She reached out with a Lunar scythe, and Celestia didn't have time to dodge. "Ha! Don't worry, a horn will grow back. But I think I'll cut off some things that won't now." Celestia let out a gasp of pain as her horn fell to the snow.

She raised the Lunar scythe, but Celestia's spear knocked it away, and they both faded back into non-existence.

Celestia couldn't use much magic, and Nightmare couldn't fly that much. Nightmare conjured several moon bolts and fired them one by one at Celestia, who dodged them but wasn't able to do much more than just tackle her in retaliation.

Nightmare became aware of a pounding in her skull, and could tell that Luna was trying to take control of her magic. "Stop it!" Celestia delivered a kick to her jaw while Luna grabbed control of her horn. She found herself fighting hoof-to-hoof, with her body sometimes pausing suddenly as Luna put magical locks on her feet, or getting pushed to the side or having to dodge lightning from Celestia's Pegasus magic. She was losing this fight. Her Earth Pony magic was useless except to keep her moving even after taking all these hits, and she was crippled in both her other skills. It just wasn't working.

She was knocked to the ground by a burst of wind, and looked up to see Celestia standing above her. A thunder cloud Celestia had summoned exploded with thunder as Celestia's outline flashed into her eyes. She had lost. Celestia was going to kill her now, or try to free Luna... free Luna. Nightmare sent a psychic message to Sombra, and then let out a gasp of pain, real pain, she simply started allowing herself to feel it. She screamed and cried and eventually she couldn't take it, and her disguise melted away, leaving Luna lying in the snow with one wing gone.

Celestia collapsed next to her sister, and Luna smiled before fainting from the pain. Nightmare waited patiently inside her skull, trying to be as insignificant as possible, she would wait until Makuta and Sombra came for her.

Pinkie Pie navigated like the darkness was nothing to her, and it probably didn't mean much. Twilight had identified misdirection spells interlaced in the smoke, but she found it had absolutely no effect on Pinkie sense. She was keeping them hidden with dark magic, similar to Sombra's and what she had seen with Celestia, but the blackness was overwhelming. She looked down and she couldn't see even to her hoof, the only thing connecting the six of them was the magical rope tied to each of their armors.

"This is terrifying." Rarity said in a hushed whisper.

"Yes, Rarity, I know the dark is unsettling, but we have to do this in the dark or Sombra will sense us." Twilight reassured.

"Oh sure, yeah, the dark is bad, but do you know what's worse!? What this helmet is doing to my mane! Why couldn't we have gotten the little ones that sit on your head like a hat?"

"Because then Nahtmare Moon woulda killed us." Applejack said, becoming irritated from not being able to see.

"And that!" Rainbow said, picking up the conversation. "Why didn't we blast her when we had the chance, then we could have two Princesses fighting Sombra!"

"Rainbow Dash, we've been over this, if Nightmare saw that we had the Elements, even if we did blast her, then Sombra would know that he had another target." Twilight sighed and put her hoof forward, expecting it to make contact with Pinkie, who was their only way into the empire. But it didn't. The magic line continued to move forward though. "Pinkie Pie?" Twilight was beginning to panic. "Pinkie, are you still there?"

No answer. "Twilight, what happened?" She turned around toward the new voice, was it Applejack's? No... Rainbow Dash's. "What happened to Pinkie Pie?"

"I don't know! She isn't answering me!"

"What are you talking about?"

Rainbow started screaming at that moment, and Twilight began turning backward, but the line kept being pulled forward. "What the hay is happening!?" Rarity whispered. Rainbow stopped screaming and began sobbing. "What is that screeching?! Is that you Pinkie!? Be quiet!"

A shout from Fluttershy blew away some of the inkiness, and though they were in complete darkness, at least they weren't obscured from each other. Twilight noted with relief that all six of them were there. "S-s-sorry... but you were all being crazy."

Twilight turned to Pinkie. "Why didn't you answer?"

"I did! And then you kept acting like I was invisible!"

"Everything's invisible right now..." Rarity said. "But Rainbow, why were you screeching?"

"I... everyone just started screaming, and didn't stop and..."

"...I think I know what happened." Twilight said. "We need to pick up the pace, this cloud has a very subtle insanity spell laced into it. I didn't notice at first, it's very weak, but continuous inhalation..."

"You mean we all went insane?"

"For a second." Twilight turned to Fluttershy. "How come you weren't affected?"

"I... I'm sorry, I don't know..."

Twilight's horn glowed for several seconds, before she sent a wave of light over each of them. "This is a respiration spell, it'll let you breathe it in without much problem now."

"Okie Dokie Lokie, are we ready to move on?"

"Yep."

As they continued trotting in the darkness Rarity whispered to Twilight. "It didn't affect Pinkie either."

Twilight considered it for a second, and was about to say the obvious before catching herself.

"Curse it all!" Makuta growled as one of the Viso's legs broke in half, sending his entire machine to the ground. "Fine. I may not be powerful enough myself right now to finish an army... but I am powerful enough to at least beat one." He said it loudly, gathering attention from the ponies below. He jumped down, knocking two of them away. He stopped himself from chasing after them and breaking them, it was easy, they had false armor, only metal hanging loosely, not even attached to their skin, and their flesh was weaker than even a Matoran's. He swatted them, literally, to the side. Took their spells with stride, and deflected their spears. He considered picking up one of them, but if he did he might not be able to hold back his instincts and he might kill a few of them. He was having fun simply knocking every pony that came at him, which was a lot, considering he was the only enemy in a tunnel filled with soldiers, when he noticed one unicorn standing still. That's something most people wouldn't notice, but he had been in battles where hundreds were attacking him at once, and the ones you really had to watch out for are the ones who stayed back and charged their super attacks. He began walking toward the unicorn, careful not to trample any of the attacking ponies. And the unicorn knew he had been spotted. It had purple armor, signifying some high rank. He took a leap toward the pony and blinked as it was engulfed in yellow light. He felt a terrible nostalgia as he desperately tried to slow his descent. When he landed, there was no pony there. Makuta quickly looked around for where he had been teleported to. And stumbled when the pony fell out of the darkness above him, landing on his face.The Unicorn's horn was still glowing and Makuta tried grabbing him, but the unicorn was dancing back and forth on his back, evading Makuta's hands. After another second the unicorn stabbed his horn into Makuta's eye.

"Boom." The Unicorn said.

And Makuta couldn't look away as everything burst into light.

Shield Wax let out a sigh of relief as he got up from where he had been flung. He trotted over to the machine thing and smiled when he saw that it had been blown apart. There was the torso and the back over there, half an arm over here, and Shield Wax let his smile fade as he found the shattered head. The first enemy casualty. Even if it was just a robot like Celestia said, there was no way to know if it had a soul or not. He noticed that the strange black design on it's face was completely intact. He grabbed it with his magic, and fell to his knees as it ripped magic away from him in droves. He let out a grunt as he released his hold on the thing. It was dangerous. And fed off of magic. He created a force field around it and then gathered his troops. It was too late to hope their formation could be salvaged, but maybe they could still begin their siege on the city.

Shield looked up and saw the darkness was closing back in, it had come down completely in some areas, and he was sure he had lost some ponies to it. But they would have to come back for them after forcing Sombra to dispel it. "Come on Unicorns! Start pushing away the dark, we need to keep a path open for the next wave!" He shouted in the Royal Canterlot Voice. He then screamed as a robotic arm grabbed his throat. It was silenced quickly.

"Here we are~!"

"I can't see anything!"

"Ouch, watch who's tail you're stepping on you ruffians!"

"S-sorry..."

"Don't worry, I'll be back in a flash." And Rainbow Dash flew upward, crashing into a wall of diamond. "F-found it."

Twilight walked up to the wall, examining her darkness-tainted reflection curiously. "This... shouldn't be here..."

"What are you talking about?"

"This is supposed to be outside a hilly field. I expected a force field, sure, but an actual wall this far out in the country?"

Applejack turned around and gave the wall a heavy buck. She cursed and then limped back around. "Whaddya know, diamond is harder than wood, go figure." Rainbow teased.

"Shut it, do you have a better plan?"

"Yeah, me and Fluttershy take turns lifting you guys over it."

"How do you know it doesn't go all the way around and above the city?"

"I guess we'll just have to try it." And Rainbow began readying herself to fly upwards.

"Rainbow Dash, wait!" Twilight yelled, but Rainbow Dash took off, firing straight upward, and away from the protection of Twilight's spell. "...crap."

Sombra blinked a few times as a pony's signal appeared suddenly right next to the city. It was impossible. How could they have gotten that close? He should have been able to see their every move, but it appeared from out of nowhere, and how did they navigate so close to the city in pure darkness? He turned to shadow and sped his way along the ground of the city, a line of darkness and black crystals marking his path as he flew past in shadow form. He made his way to the force field and peered out at the darkness and the diamond wall. He saw it!

A rainbow colored Pegasus. One of the Elements of Harmony Nightmare mentioned. She was there when Cadence blew him up with the Crystal Heart too. He made a tiny hole in the shield and whipped a shadow arm through. He grabbed the Rainbow Pegasus's tail and forcefully dragged her up to the shield. He brought her halfway through before stopping. "All of you, come out or I'll turn the shield back on. Who knows' what'll happen to her then?"

The Pegasus, to her credit tried bucking at him with her hind legs and didn't say anything to give away the friends hiding in the shadow, hidden from his sensor. "You don't care about her then? I guess I'll just be keeping this one for my collection, I've never seen quite a colorful tail in my life, is it natural or died?" He monologued, waiting for the other Elements to show themselves. "Oh well, I guess the power of friendship doesn't hold for very long does it? All right then, you're coming with me my multi-colored mustang."

He slowly dragged her through the hole when an Earth Pony soldier with a blond tail stepped forward. "You put her down this instant!" She was followed by four more ponies. The Elements of Harmony. He'd be doing Nightmare's job for her.

"Come and get her." He swished her around and then made a gigantic hole in the shield. He created five more shadow hands and picked up each of them, he closed the shield and flew toward the castle with them in tow. "Ha! Nightmare Moon and Makuta are going to love this! I've saved the day!"

The Crystal-Equestrian War Part 3

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Makuta felt a deep pain as his head collided with the moon above. He was dying! He had achieved spirithood, and now he was dying!

Everything he had worked for...

He had to give it all up, or die. He pulled his essence from the machine moments before it went brain dead. He looked at it hopelessly as the world around him shifted and pulsed. Sky scrapers fell as the ceiling caved in on the city of Metru Nui, the city that was his actual brain a minute ago. He felt despair clutch his heart as the city was slowly destroyed. He felt a bright light behind him and his immaterial form turned toward it. It was a glatorian, the mostly organic creatures of bara magna. He could maybe posses him? Start again from the bottom. But as he saw the mask on the glatorian's face he shivered. "No... not you! How could it be you! What are the chances!? I threw you into space!"

"A mercy... that I will not forget, brother."

Makuta's antidermis soul shivered without a body. "Well, what are you going to do to me?"

Mata Nui's golden arm reached toward him, and Makuta decided he wouldn't even run away. His ultimate plan, the one that he had sacrificed everything for, it was all gone. It had failed. "Brother, I forgive you, but you have done crimes that the rest of the universe can never forgive and forget."

"You are the universe!"

"No. I was a giant robot. One constructed by the True Great Beings. The organisms within me decided my body was the universe, and thus it became so."

"No! I was the universe!"

"My poor, unfortunate brother, come to me now, my son, my brother."

Makuta floated forward, intent on possessing the mask of life and discarding Mata Nui's soul. But as he came closer he let those thoughts go and only embraced his Great Spirit, his brother, his creator, the one who he had tricked, but now who forgave him. Mata Nui's mask came to life, and he extracted the tiniest bit of Makuta's essence, and gave it life. He then gently pushed Makuta's soul into the new life, making it permanent. He took another tiny bit, and created a machine. "Brother, when you had me in your grip you put me in a mask and sent me into space to start a new life... I can't have you in this universe, but I think I know how I could do something similar for you."

Makuta's arm released it's hold on Shield Wax's neck as Makuta lost his hold on the mechanical limb. He was blind, and he was slowly losing his sense of touch as his spiritual connection to the separated parts faded. Soon he would just be a torso. He didn't want to risk spiriting out of the broken Rahkshi, there was little hope of there being another body capable of holding his essence in this world. Makuta cursed as each piece of his body lost connection. Leaving him a soul in a hunk of metal.

It was so very, very dark. He tried moving, but the mechanical 'muscles' pulled at nothing. The joints were the weakest places, and thus, had been ripped out first in the explosion.

He shuddered to imagine what his head or neck would looked like.

He wondered if the unicorn lived.

Makuta's body was savagely kicked, or possibly thrown, he couldn't tell. Yep, the unicorn probably lived.

Celestia carried Luna on her back, using her magical mane to heat her sister and keep the snowfall off of her. She was walking as fast, but as carefully as she could. Unfortunately, when Nightmare said that Celestia's attack really did take her wing off, she wasn't lying. Celestia would never forgive herself if Luna never flew again. She knew through her internal compass that she was heading South, and that was good enough for her. One of the three things that started the war, one of their few objectives, had been obtained. No one would blame her if she temporarily suspended the attack to care for her sister.

"Oh, Luna, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry." She whispered. She tried not to, but she glanced backward at the bright red trail following her. She had sealed the wound, at the very least, but that didn't stop the persistent wound from dripping off Celestia's back and onto the snow. She shuddered, as much from the cold as disgust as she continued her march across the snow. She didn't dare fly right now.

But maybe if she brought down a cloud and carried Luna back to Equestria that way... Celestia searched the sky and frowned to find it to be nothing but feral snow clouds, too brittle and wild for Luna to lie on, except the thunderstorm far in the distance she had called from nothing. She sighed and continued her trek.

Shield got up slowly, his neck aching, but he had just survived one of the main battles of the war. He should be relieved he only had an aching neck. He edged away from the robotic hand and began calling out orders, trying to get the soldiers back in formation. But with a few looks around he saw it was hopeless, they were less than a fourth of the wave. The darkness had fallen on all sides, and who knows how many more were lost.

Then Shield realized the main problem.

He had forgotten which way they were going.

They were stuck with cursed fog on all sides, in chaos, with no idea which way was the target or which way was home. The attack had been a failure. He had no choice but to lead his army on in a straight line. Hopefully out of the smoke. He began calling for his troops to gather and follow him, and in a few minutes they started off in a random direction. He did a spell to search for ponies, but it was a simple one, and told him the largest and closest group of ponies was this way. Whether that was the rest of the army, or the Crystal Empire this was the direction he was going.

"Bwa-ha-ha-haagh!" Sombra chuckled, he turned dramatically, his cape swishing to the side, and the smoke emanating from his eyes billowing around his mane. "Finally, I have the Elements of Harmony, Equestria's ultimate superweapon, and their users, within my evil grasp!"

"boo." Pinkie shouted out from a few feet away, within her pink crystal cage.

"Oh be quiet... it was scarier than the last time, right?"

"You're trying too hard." Rainbow said, sighing.

"If I might make a suggestion?" Rarity piped up. Sombra gave her his attention. She straightened out as much as she could from within her cage. "As you turn make one eye wider than the other, to give you a more maniacal look for that moment, but make it go to a normal eye the moment both are in sight to make you look dignified."

Sombra turned back around and then turned dramatically again, making the eye facing them maniacal the second before both were in view. "Like that?"

"Hmm... better, but keep your chin up, you're threatening me, not seducing me. And as you turn place both fore legs completely on the ground. It makes you look nervous and well, mare-ish."

"But..." Sombra raised his hoof threateningly. "It looks like I'm about to stampede, you know? Or it's supposed to be imposing."

"Please darling, listen to Rarity, she knows best." Rarity assured. "If you actually got up and did the whole 'about to stampede bit' it might work, but frankly that won't work for your dramatic turn. Just keep your hooves on the ground, it'll look more... stable."

"Stable?"

"Do you want to go for the maniacal look? Or the evil dictator look?"

"Is there a 'demonic overlord' look?"

Twilight let out a long aggravated sigh. "He's the enemy! Stop talking to him! He's not one of your customers! He's a monster!"

"Not one of my customers? But he said that he'd buy a bigger, more dramatic cape from me! Oh, by the way Sombra, have you thought of having a purple or green theme? The red clashes with the 'demonic aura' in your eyes."

"I don't know... the whole green and black theme is kind of too... Changeling, I suppose. It's been done."

Twilight put her face into her hooves. "Oh my... this is ridiculous! You are all ridiculous! We got kidnapped, the enemy has our weapons-" She gestured to the proudly displayed elements of harmony on the wall. "-and you're making friends with him?!"

"Um... I don't mean to be mean... but aren't you the one who fights enemies with the 'magic of friendship'?" Fluttershy offered.

"Between us! Not with the enemy!" Twilight let out another sigh and laid on her side. "You know what, just keep on talking, never mind that we've been imprisoned, failed our important mission given by the princess, and lost the most powerful artifacts Equestria's ever known, Rarity has to talk to a monster about what color cape he needs!"

"Twilight, calm down, you're overreacting."

"I'm not overreacting, you all are under-reacting! He's and evil overlord who kidnapped us, made us fail our mission, and has us in cages!" She turned to Sombra, glaring. "Sombra, I don't know how, but we are going to get out of here, and we are going to defeat you and bring your evil empire down!"

Sombra turned and suppressed the gleeful expression on his face, a hero wanted to stop him! He had had revolutionaries coming after before, he's had military forces coming after him before, even lone assassins... but never an actual hero! He was a real villain! He has a hero coming after him! "But how will you do that while you're in a cage? And without your precious elements? Face it, Twilight Sparkle, I am the victor, my allies will destroy your precious army and your precious Princess will fall!"

He smiled and evil smile as Twilight backed away, and a look of fear crossed over her face, and then rage. She was going to actually try and stop him! He glanced at the others, they were beginning to look scared too as well, they knew he wasn't fooling around any more. They had seen him defeated before, they thought that he wasn't a threat, but now their eyes were telling them that he was. "Monster!" Twilight went into unicorn rage mode, turning bright white, with her mane in flames. She fired a beam from her horn, but it was consumed by darkness and bounced around inside the cage, teleporting away from hitting Twilight, and unable to leave the cage. It was a maze of blasts inside the tiny purple diamond box, and Twilight couldn't move, lest she be hit by her own beam.

"Hahahahahaha!" He began laughing uncontrollably. He tried to stop himself, but he was too giddy, this was perfect! He had a hero trying to kill him! A 'hero'! "Do any of you others think you can stop me?" He reached out with his magic and picked up the six necklaces. "Now... which is which?" He held out a red lightning bolt crystal. "I assume this is the element of... honesty?" He picked up one with a purple star. "I know this is the element of magic, any hints? Perhaps I should put together my own team of element bearers..."

"It would never work." Rainbow Dash assured. "They're entwined to us. If you want them, you have to make a deal."

Sombra raised an eyebrow, Twilight did as well, she looked at Rainbow Dash confusedly, and Sombra noticed Dash wink at her friend. He glanced back at Sparkle and noted that a look of understanding, a quick smile, and then an obviously fake angry face appeared in that order.

"Don't tell him anything at all about the elements!"

"Oh yeah?! Well they're no good to anypony if we're just sitting here. I'm cramped, I need to fly." Rainbow edged closer to the bars. "Let me out, I'll tell you all about the elements." She winked. "I'm the element of honesty, you can trust me."

Applejack put a hoof to her forehead.

"The element of honesty huh?" Sombra bent down and looked into her eyes. "How old are you?"

"T-twenty"

"Where were you born?"

"Cloudsdale"

"What is your element of harmony?"

"Ah-honesty, of course."

"There it is."

"There what is?"

Sombra did a spell on the cage, revealing a crystal monitor. "This is an emotion detector, it can also sense lies. You're not to be trusted, and you don't know anything about the elements." He smiled maniacally. "Goodbye Rainbow Dash. Element of loyalty, you served it well." He then flicked his horn, and the ground underneath Rainbow's cage evaporated, letting her fall into what appeared to be pure darkness. She flapped as hard as she could, but the cage was too heavy, and she screamed as she fell into the darkness. The floor reappeared, and Sombra turned toward the others, who were looking at the floor, unbelieving.

Fluttershy was the first to speak. Though at first it was too quiet for any of them to understand. "Fl-fluttershy?" Twilight asked hesitantly. The pegasus took a long, slow breath through her nose. And when she opened her eyes they were blazing red and gold.

"YOU WILL BRING HER BACK HERE RIGHT NOW!" Fluttershy screamed, knocking Sombra to his haunches and bringing him to his knees, unable to break eye contact with the goddess of rage the Pegasus had just became. "I am going to count to three, and if I'm not seeing Rainbow Dash, then I'll... oh, then I'll... do something... bad!" Fluttershy threatened.

"You want to see Dash? You get to see Dash!" he flicked his horn and the ground under Fluttershy dissipated as well.

"Oh dear." She said before screaming adorably as she fell.

He turned to the others. "Do you want to join them?"

"I do! I do!" Pinkie fell as well, yelling out; "weeeeeeeeeeeee"

"Anypony else?!" He roared. "No? Alright then." He turned dramatically away, "Now then, I'll be checking on the war, don't do anything stupid while I'm gone."

He made his way down the stairs, letting himself skip a little bit once safely out of view.

King Sombra stood over the holographic model, and watched the cloud and the city as much as possible. The defenses were ready, but Makuta was handling the Equestrian army fairly easily. He did constant searches, but after a few minutes he got bored.

He shadowed away and checked over the crystal wall, the solidity of the force field, and the readiness of Makuta's troops. Which was sadly made from the new 'soldier' class. Basically, all of the ponies formerly part of Shining Armor's army, and Sombra doubted that they would fight their best against Equestrians, and he had to put them under an aggression enchantment. The ponies were growling at each other and stomping their hooves angrily. They were also the Crystal Empire's warriors of old. You wouldn't see very many cutie marks for crossbows, or spears, or torches in the peaceful Equestria. But in the Crystal Empire there were many who's special talents were for war.

He came back to the control room after only a few minutes, but he had noticed three main things; the first was Nightmare's signal was gone. She had either left the field... or died. The second was that the Equestrian Army was completely messed up, the lines of pony soldiers and the lines of unicorns pushing away his smoke were no more, and the giant tunnel they made in his smoke had become a series of bubbles, and over a hundred ponies were lost in the darkness individually or in small groups that had to stay together so close they had to touch, and the close contact and the pressure would just accelerate the insanity spell, which would send the ponies heading into the darkness alone.

It was working perfectly, that is except for Nightmare not being on the field, until he noticed the third thing. Makuta's war... thing... had been destroyed, and his signal was all over the place and fading.

He paced for a few seconds, unsure what to do. He considered asking the element bearers or Armor, and frowned at the idea, they wouldn't help. He made his way back out to the army and looked over the soldiers. He took in a deep breath, and he began charging his spell. "Attention Crystal Army! I am about to do three things, the first is that I am going to activate the crystal heart." He didn't tell Makuta, for fear of how he would react, but the crystal heart was the actual heart of the empire, and all crystal ponies, and it's presence, when activated, allows the crystal ponies to adopt their crystal form, as well as change the emotions of the ponies. The crystal forms would make them nearly invincible in melee. "The second, is that I am about to put a navigation spell over you, you'll be able to find your way through my fog as if it isn't there, you'll also be immune to the other effects..." He fired the spell, and it covered the entire army. "And finally... You are to drive the Equestrians out of the smoke! And then out of the Crystal Empire! Drive them back to their borders!" He opened a hole in the crystal wall. "Attack!" The enchanted crystal ponies roared with agreement and charged out of the gate.

Shield Wax heard the stampeding of hooves and ordered for his men to form ranks, but as he saw the glimmering, crystallized forms of the ponies, armed with spears and lances and crossbows, bursting out of the darkness screaming. He hadn't expected this, no one had, not even Celestia, that there would be a crystal pony army of such a size. "Hold your positions!" He screamed, readying his spear and his spells. He blinked as an arrow rushed past his face and back toward his army. "Attack!"

It was suddenly chaos. Ponies screamed in rage or pain, there was blood and sparkles and smoke and metal in the sky. A shattered crystal sprayed him, and he tripped on a bloodied spear. He roared and joined the fight, blasting and sending fireballs at every crystal pony he saw. He was hit across the face by a crystal hoof, and he had an arrow in his flank.

He looked up and narrowed his eyes as the smoke had fallen to just above his head. The darkness was closing in, but the Crystal Ponies didn't seem fazed by it, dashing in and out of the smoke. He noticed that he couldn't see his remaining soldiers. He fired one darkness dispelling spell after another, but it only succeeded in expanding his bubble slightly, he began seeing shapes in the smoke, and then seeing them disappear. They laughed at him and screamed and he fell to a heap, crying and laughing. He saw three armored crystal ponies and fired an attack spell at them, they dodged it easily. One of them held out a spear, he laughed at it, it was hilarious.

He felt a pain, and then he decided to forget about it and sleep. yes, sleep sounds nice.

Makuta slammed above him, and again and again, until he began getting dizzy. Then he struggled some more, the joints of the Rahkshi writhing. He pushed and pushed, even after separating himself from the Rahkshi's nervous system, he found that he couldn't move his essence. When Mata Nui 'captured' him, it had been more than a mere toa seal or a cursed Rahkshi body, they had put his entire essence into the 'pilot' of the Rahkshi. A Kraata. Once again Mata Nui was generous, it was a 'darkness' Kraata, level 5 out of seven, but not bad. If he got himself free he could travel in a field of darkness, and be able to snuff out light, fire balls of darkness that completely destroyed all light within it if he hit something's face he could blind them. And with his field of darkness there was no way he could be hit.

But he was stuck in the Rahkshi body. And he wasn't sure whether or not to escape. He could wait for Sombra to gather all his parts and see if the unicorn could put him together, or he could risk it and try to get back with his slug form. He could probably make it, snuffing out all light in the area, he would appear to just be a batch of Sombra's smoke. But how would he get back to the Crystal Empire. There were no biomechanical beings whose face he grab onto and control. He didn't know where to go if he got out, having your head explode can really disorient someone.

And then there was the issue of getting out. He had managed to disconnect his nervous system from the machine, but he was still a slug in a metal box.

But his savior came in the form of a magically thrown spear, that had apparently missed, making a crack in the armor. He pushed on it, and eventually managed to push the ceiling off of him, and crawled into the opening. He crawled until he saw the smoke outside seeping in. He took a breath, a strange feeling, and found the air outside was cold. He had never been scared of the cold before. He chastised himself for being so weak and crawled out of the opening, then falling out of the opening and onto his back onto the snow. He writhed for a minute before righting himself, and cloaking his body with darkness, but he was already in the darkness of the smoke. His power was useless here. Everything was already as dark as it could be.

He then made his long trek in the direction he thought was the direction of the Crystal Empire, he crawled for hours, a terrifying effort that left him tired and cold. He wished he was an ice-resistance Kraata rather than a darkness Kraata. He decided he would continue his trek after a little while of rest, but an attempt to burrow for heat was useless, just expending more effort and getting even more covered in snow.

He continued his blind painful trek toward the empire when a hoof landed startlingly close to him. He looked at the pony attached to it, it was an Equestrian Earth Pony soldier. "What the hell is this thing?"

Makuta was unable to answer, but he decided his best bet would be to remain as still as possible while slowly concealing himself more and more in the darkness. "Is it a rock?" The pony nudged him, and he fell over onto his back, resisting the urge to wriggle and right himself he remained absolutely still. "It's... squishy, and warm." The Earth Pony then bent over and was about to eat him. He was told the monsters were herbivores! He wriggled as much as possible but the Earth Pony had only picked him up in his mouth, still it was uncomfortable. The soldier placed him inside his armor's breast. "hmm, even better than a hot water bottle." The soldier then began walking in the opposite direction.

Having no better plan, he decided to bite the pony and then wriggle away as fast as possible, the pony screamed like a mare and threw Makuta in a random direction, and Makuta had even less of an idea of where the Crystal Empire was.

He was also on his back in the cold snow again.

He also decided that when he conquered the universe he would light whatever part of it was snow-bound on fire.

"Princess!" the soldiers yelled, and she was flocked by them before she knew it. Within minutes she and Luna were both in hospital beds, on IV's, and had Doctor's examining them. The stallions around her audibly admired her battle scars, and told each other stories of how she could have got them. She ended up pretending to be asleep a half hour longer to hear the ending of a particular lieutenant's creative story on how she got her horn lopped off. As the doctor came in and began shooing away the soldiers Celestia caught his eyes and said. "You should write a book."

"I.. I will your Highness." And he galloped away blushing that the Princess had heard the entire story.

The doctor eyed her up and down, feeling her wings and touching an exposed nerve in her horn, and marked down that she winced when he did so. She never did feel comfortable with Doctors, what with being immortal. "Well, you'll heal. You might have some scarring, but it's mostly just minor cuts and gashes, and a few already mending bones." He nudged a painful spot on her thigh. "Stay off this leg."

"...What about my horn?"

"It'll heal slowly, but you should be able to use magic again in a few months."

"Months?!"

"Well I'm not accounting for your alarming rate of regeneration..."

"And?"

"I'd say, three to six."

"Days?"

"weeks."

"Crap." Celestia looked him in the eye. "What about my sister?"

"Oh, she has much more serious injuries, those monsters must have done something awful to her while she was kidnapped, she should get a medal."

Celestia stifled the rush of guilt. "Will... she ever be able to fly again?"

"If she were an ordinary Pegasus, definitely not. I'm sure you understand the basics of magic-based flight, right? A pony's wings couldn't possibly support them, but they are required in order to properly harness active Pegasi magic. A normal Pegasus surviving these types of injuries would be only capable of passive magic. Like cloud walking and cloud manipulation. Things like air manipulation or flying is now beyond her at the moment. I'd say permanently, but I've never had an Alicorn patient, so I won't say anything's definite."

"...t-thank you doctor, what about her other conditions?"

"She's lost a lot of blood, but I can see you sealed the wound properly, you might have saved your sister's life by doing that. Right now she's on an IV and we'll be giving her a lot of liquids for a good while. Otherwise, besides a few broken bones and a few already healing cuts, she's fine."

Celestia let out a sigh of relief. "At least she'll live."

"Yep, what good fortune both of our Princesses on the front lines have come back alive, it must have been some fight."

"...Yes."

The Doctor looked disinterested for a while, but he slowly began casually, "So, who did it? Sombra, that other thing?"

"Nightmare Moon."

"Both of you?"

"...Yes. But in the end Luna managed to incapacitate her, and I did the finishing strike."

"Wow..." The Doctor then excused himself and made his way out of her hospital tent. She wondered where Luna was, and if she was still asleep. She frowned as her mind asked her if Luna would tell them a different lie. But it wasn't really a lie. Nightmare's magic was being held back by Luna's mind... and Celestia had done the finishing blow.

Sombra walked in circles for a good six minutes before going to the hologram again, the first wave was definitely finished, the forces were fractured and spread out by Makuta's machine and his army of Crystal Ponies. And they were now making their way back to the safety of the Empire's walls. He checked again and again, but Nightmare's signal was nowhere to be seen.

He had gone over the recordings, and found that after she made contact with one of the soldiers, probably Celestia, they were both carried off the screen... and she never came back, but then again, neither did Celestia. Perhaps they were still fighting, or maybe Nightmare was captured, and now in Equestrian control.

He just didn't know!

He checked again on Makuta and frowned that he was moving perpendicularly toward the Crystal Empire, but very, very slowly. Was he limping? Injured? He decided to increase the automatic defenses and go out and get him himself.

He was about to leave when he realized that his place was here, making sure the kingdom was being defended. Makuta would at best scold him for leaving his post, at worst the Equestrians would get in while he left his post, and he'd cost them the war. Sombra let out a relieved sigh that he caught himself before going out and looking for Makuta on the off chance that somepony actually managed to harm the indestructible machine.

Makuta was so, so very cold.

Final Part of the Crystal Equestrian War

View Online

Makuta looked over the city of Metru Nui, the millions of interconnecting tubes, kanoka disks being shifted from system to system, being turned into masks for the millions of Matoran that kept the greatest city in the universe running. All gone now. He had ruled over it for hundreds of years, and now it would be the last time in his life he would be allowed to see the city that was his responsibility.

It was a mercy in a way. Seeing the city torn and crushed, flattened by earthquakes, decayed from not being used or taken care of, and the 'cieling' that was the sky pressed down, apparently having destroyed most of the skyline a few days ago. In some places he could see the skyscrapers and towers still falling apart.

When he had been struck in the head by that moon it had fatally damaged his brain.

And when he had been the Great Spirit of the universe, his brain was this city. It would only be fitting that his trial would be carried out at the place of his greatest and final failure.

His new body was weak, and held his spirit in. He could not escape, could not move without great force of will. Even moving his eyes over the horizon required great effort on his part.

He mentally sighed and closed his eyes to the destruction.

With that signal his captor, the brutish-looking Axonn, pulled him along the floor roughly. And through the reverberations in his armor he could feel some pain in the bumps and shakes of being pulled down flights of stairs.

Teridax was placed in the center of the Great Colosseum of Metru Nui. Here he had spent ages watching Kohlii and Akilini games. He had watched gladiators battle, trained soldiers, held cultural events in the huge arena. But now this was where he would face his judgement. He saw no way out of it. The body he was in could not escape the gravity Kanoka, and he could not escape this body.

"Turaga of the Universe." Mata Nui finally said. "You have been brought here to oversee the last trial of greatest criminal in the Universe." The Great Spirit's golden Avatar kneeled on one knee before Makuta, bringing more than a hundred gasps from behind, all clearly audible in the silent, dead, city. "My Brother. Do you have any statements you would like to make before the gathering of all Turaga before the trial begins?"

Teridax's neck creaked against the insane pressure of the Kanoka beneath him, and he made direct eye contact with the Great Spirit, his wavering crimson meeting the glass-like blue. "I do. Will you repeat it to them for me? My voice is hard to throw in this gravity."

"Of course."

"I was, for a time, the Great Spirit."

"Makuta would like to offer his statement for you all, it goes as follows; I was, for a time, the Great Spirit."

Cries of blasphemy, gasps, and even some condescending laughter came from the crowd of elder Toa, but was silenced by a glare from Mata Nui. "And before that I was the supreme leader of Metru Nui, the most powerful Makuta in the Universe, the most powerful of the most powerful race ever created."

Mata Nui repeated.

"I am now, here, lying humbled before you, the shattered Toa, failures, elders, weaklings, false heroes."

Makuta was surprised that Mata Nui said it to them word for word.

"I will face my judgement with pride, knowing I exceeded my station, while my captors gloat in falling beneath theirs!"

Mata Nui repeated it without emotion.

"I am done. You may move on with my trial."

"Thank you. Though I have only one thing to say to you before we begin."

"Oh?"

"The toa exist to fulfil their own destiny, many do not, some fall, some die, some are changed along the way. But those here who became Turaga, the most honored elders of the Matoran, all were able to ascend to that state either because they failed with honor, or achieved their destiny. You have no place judging whether they fulfilled their destiny after you spent so long fighting against yours."

He turned around and made his way to his throne. "Axonn. You may begin the trial."

Sombra flew through the smoke, it becoming part of his body. He followed the smoke, and it led him to Makuta's signal. "There he is!" He solidified and looked around. There was nothing there. Just snow, and the smoke. No mechanical parts.

He looked around for about six minutes before finding a strange object buried in the snow. It was an animal of some kind, it had rubbery skin, and a design on it's head. It was rolled into a ball, and was shivering. He put it in a bubble and put a healing spell and a heat spell on the strange creature, probably some kind of monster that drifted North from Everfree, he could do experiments on it later. Sombra sighed after searching another two minutes, but after being unable to sense Makuta's prescence, gave up and flew back to the Castle with the strange creature in tow, maybe he'd be able to get an accurate reading on him then.

~~~~

Teridax sighed with relief as the bubble began to slowly warm him. The numbness going away, but leaving a pain from having his skin nearly frozen off. He looked around to assess the situation, with Sombra flying below him, and they were heading back toward the Crystal Empire. So the unicorn had left his post to save him. He would have to commend him later. He then tried to call out to Sombra, but only a hiss got out. He tried making some more sounds, just hisses and screeches. Crap. Now he was mute too.

He decided to make the most of it and bask in the heat, going into a cautious sleep.

~~~~

The Equestrian First Wave was doomed, it was as simple as that. It's leader had received severe head trauma several times, it was dispersed, and most importantly, they had failed at containing the inky smoke, and had began to breathe it in. They were blind, slowly becoming insane, but one lone Pegasus, barreling her way through the smoke, managed to get above it without losing her mind, and better yet, with an idea of what was happening. She flew as fast as she could toward the second wave, which was only half way in, and hadn't reached the part where the smoke collapsed in on their 'tunnel'.

She dropped to the ground in a snow bank and relayed everything she knew to the lieutenant.

~~~~

"I need to have a word with Princess Celestia."

"I'm sorry, but I won't be having it. She expended a lot of magic and energy, and went through a lot of injuries in her battle with Nightmare Moon, and needs to rest and heal." The Doctor looked smugly at the soldier but was simply pushed aside. "Guards!"

Two spear-wielding Earth ponies moved in on the Messenger, but with a flash of a badge they stopped. "I need to see the Princess... we just got word that the first wave was wiped out... the second is preceding blind without the first wave's tunnel, and is slowed by having to keep getting the survivors of the first wave moved back to the front... you might want to take a look at them, that magical smoke has hallucinogenic properties." The messenger then pushed the doctor to the side and moved into the tent. "Princess?"

"I heard." She said quietly, lying on her side facing away from him, her mane reverted to it's pink 'mundane' form. "Any word of Shield Wax or the elements?"

"...No Ma'am. Captain Shield Wax hasn't been located yet... but we do not think we have caught up with the first wave yet. We had to carve a whole new tunnel.... and, beg your pardon, your majesty, but I don't know which elements you refer to."

"The Elements of Harmony of course. Or rather, the bearers of them. Six mares... they were wearing specialty armor, and were the Captain's ceremonial guard."

"I... I don't know. There have been many recovered mares, but in their state of mind... well, let's just say they can't identify themselves."

Celestia gave a grunt. "So why are you here? To give me bad news?"

"No Ma'am. Lieutenant Quiver requests a new strategy... for some reason the first wave fell miserably, and we don't know why... he suggested surrounding the smoke on all sides and planting magic bombs to dispel it."

"It wouldn't work, it's too massive... and it regenerates."

"What do you suggest Princess?"

Princess Celestia didn't stir for two minutes. "Bring me some pen & paper, I need to write some desperate messages."

~~~~

Spike burped a blaze of green fire while organizing the library. A scroll fell into his claw. "What would the Princess be doing sending a letter? She knows that Twilight is with her."

He unfurled it and read the words with growing disbelief. He then grabbed a pen and began furiously writing the letter and then when he was satisfied, lit it on fire with a green burst.

~~~~

Luna's eyes opened slowly. She waited for Nightmare to get up and start their morning ritual. But after a few minutes she realized that she couldn't feel Nightmare's mind. She hesitantly blinked, and a smile formed when she saw she could control her own body. She got up slowly, testing everything out. Everything was sore.

Right hooves, left hooves, left wing, right-

She turned to her right and almost fainted again. It was gone. Completely gone. Luna sank to her haunches. She tried to remember what had happened inside Nightmare Moon.

The battle came to her in a rush that left her gasping for air. Celestia did it... to Nightmare. She didn't know Nightmare couldn't just regenerate it. Luna flapped her remaining wing and floated slightly off the ground before promptly falling back to the ground. "No..." She whispered.

At least Nightmare was gone.

~~~~

Sombra gave the final command and it was done. The second Equestrian wave was dispelled by the Crystal Heart, and his legion pushed back the Equestrians to the border. He had done it. And mostly by himself. Well, Makuta wrecked the first wave, and Nightmare took care of Celestia, but he fought the Elements of Harmony all by himself!

And won!

"That reminds me... was I supposed to be doing something... oh crap." He teleported down to the specialty cages where he kept the elements of Harmony. "Have any of you done anything stupid while I was gone?" He found Twilight's cage completely obscured by the dozens of constantly bouncing spells inside, Applejack was lying on her back groaning from boredom, and Rarity simply glared at him from where she was sitting in her cage. There was also the three holes in the ground. "No? Good. I'd like to let all of you know that I won the war, just now, all by myself. I beat back the entire second wave." He waited for a gasp, but it appeared that Applejack and Rarity didn't care, and Twilight was still surrounded by her spells, so he couldn't gage any possible reaction from her. "Hello? I just beat your army, you don't care?"

Still no reaction from any of them. He trotted over to Twilight's cage, the closest, and glared into it, but the purple beam had completely filled the cage, had she vaporized herself? "Twilight?" He asked. He began sweating now. A tendril of darkness rose from his mane and unlocked the cage. He extinguished the beam and let his mouth hang open as he looked at the empty cage.

He turned on Rarity and roared. "WHERE DID SHE GO?!!"

Rarity continued to glare at the doorway. He waved his hoof in front of her and felt a twitch coming on as she merely kept glaring into space. He did a little burst of light in her face, but she didn't flinch. He unlocked her cage and sighed as his hoof phased through the illusion. A quick magic burst dispelled both her and the bored Applejack.

"She... tricked me." He made his way to the message pipe and called for a search of the castle grounds. He turned toward the wall where the necklaces and crown were placed, and finally sank to the ground as he saw that all of them were indeed gone.

~~~~

The Smoke had finally stopped at the border with Equestria. It was official, the Crystal Empire had officially forced the the Equestrian forces out of their territory. Celestia looked to the South and watched the horizon, waiting for the cavalry. Which appeared in a flash directly behind her, dressed in an aloha shirt and a straw hat. "Celestia! I just got your letter. Where's Fluttershy?"

"We don't know Discord. The smoke is too dangerous to enter at the moment so we haven't been able to send for a search party." The Draconequus spun in the air a few times before eyeing the smoke and nibbling on his claws.

"Celestia, I can smell the black magic from here, why did you send Fluttershy into that thing?!"

"We need the Elements of Harmony to defeat the thr- two of them. And to be fair she was with a large force who were continuously beating back the smoke."

"Not good enough! Go in there and find her!" Discord kicked her in the flank, making the Alicorn Princess jerk forward suddenly. She glared at the Draconequus before taking in a breath and letting it out to calm herself.

"Discord, I can't send in any more troops. Two waves have already been lost, we've just been taking care of the stragglers who find their way out. "

"Then I'll go!" With a snap of his claw a snowmobile appeared underneath him.

"Wouldn't teleporting directly to them be the fastest way?"

"Ahem, all powerful Spirit? I know what I'm doing, sheesh."

He took a deep breath and plunged into the smoke.

"Discord!" Celestia shouted. She ducked as the Snowmobile crashed into a cloud above her head, Discord falling back down.

"What."

"Could you perhaps clear the smoke for my soldiers?"

"Ugh, if you want to take the easy way out, but I'm warning you, a few minutes and it'll be well on it's way back, with a vengeance."

"I'm sure we can take it."

"I'm not sure you could take it, let alone a bunch of tired unicorns. Just trust me Celly, I'll have your precious Elements back here before you can say the name of that one swedish hill a dozen times. And no cheating! This might take a while." And with that he was off again, disappearing in a flash, taking the wrecked snowmobile with.

"Are you sure this is wise Princess?"

"Discord is the most powerful creature in the world, we are simply lucky that we managed to contact him. I really need to begin thinking about honestly employing dragons in the royal archives."

"Princess... now that we have Discord working for us, why did you even bother with the military? We could have sent Discord in to get Empress Cadenza out, and that would be done. We'd still have to deal with Nightmare Moon, but we have the Elements of Harmony now too."

"I... understand. But I don't want to rely on Discord. The Elements of Harmony are what they are, tools meant to be used to restore peace. But Discord... he's essentially a force of nature. Having him around will benefit us, but really I have no control over him, in fact, the only reason I think I can rely on him now is because of his connection with the Bearer of Kindness." She gestured toward the explosions finding their way out of the cursed gases. "If anything he's a natural disaster that happened to strike only our enemies."

"But still, why didn't we contact him to start out with?"

"I couldn't reach him. He's literally constantly teleporting wherever he fancies. I find it a wonder that Spike managed to get the letter to him during a time where he's holding still long enough to notice. Just be glad he's here now." She trotted away from the border line and moved back to the medical tents where her sister was. She had the apology of an eternity to give.

~~~~

Sombra was in full panic mode. He had soldiers combing the castle, but they were honestly just galloping around hoping to spot one of them. He himself was flying straight toward the lower dungeon where he dropped the two Pegasi and the pink one. He came to the entrance via an array of secret tunnels and readied the spell to remove his centimeter thick wall of diamond, but found it partially shattered. A vein on his forehead expanded enough to become visible. He flew past his experiments in a blur and burst into the room, his eyes darted immediately to the suspended cages, all three occupied. "Oh thank goodness."

"You mean badness." Pinkie corrected.

"I'm not going to rework my entire language under the pretense that everything bad is good. It'll just make a bunch of paradoxes, say, have any of you seen Twilight in the time since I dropped you down here?" All three of them nervously looked away. "It's a good thing all six of you are horrible liars."

"You mean it's a bad thing that all of us are great liars?" Pinkie asked hopefully. Sombra rolled his eyes at the mare and ignited a fear spell.

"I'm going to give you your worst nightmares continuously for six hours each, and not at the same time, so you can hear the others scream. Now then, which of you are going to tell me where they went, and why they didn't free you when they could?"

Rainbow Dash stared down the stallion of darkness. "None of us are going to tell you anything."

Sombra choked down the beginnings of doubt and made the shadows emanate from him. They filled the room, surrounding and slowly suffocating all sources of light in the room. He steadily grew, the whites of his eyes shifting to a deadly green, purple haze emanating from his tear ducts. He opened his mouth enough that Rainbow Dash could see the fire building inside of him.

"Good. Then you're first."

~~~~

A few minutes earlier

Twilight had been calculating the angles of her laser spell bouncing off the shield of the cage. And she had begun understanding how exactly her magic was being counteracted. She could overload it. She began focusing her reserves into the simple act of teleporting between the bars and the shield, a tiny space that if she actually teleported into would probably mangle her, so she had to trust that her instincts were right and that the shield would push her back as long as possible.

After a few minutes of constantly pushing back her teleport, as well as redirecting her beams around her, the shield had begun overheating. It was too many variables, too much excess energy. The shield was becoming more and more unstable, and was getting slower at forcing her back.

When Twilight thought it was weak enough she changed targets and teleported through and impact site of the shield and her laser, this time pushing outside of the shield entirely. With a flash of light she was outside the trap, panting, despite the fact she wasn't aware of anything during the instant of teleportation, she could tell it was a close shave. The laser was still bouncing, obscuring the inside. Sombra was unlikely to catch on any time soon. The other two were going to be harder.

"Twilight! You got out?! How?"

"I don't really have enough time to explain, magical mathematics and other boring stuff, right now though, I need you to look as bored as possible for a few seconds."

"Wh-" Applejack began. But a pained look from Twilight got her to recline back and groan softly.

A few seconds of Twilight making her horn glow later she let out a sigh of exhaustion. She made her way to the cage and pulled it open with magic.

"Just like that?" Applejack asked incredulously.

"It's meant to be unbreakable from the inside out and easily controlled from the outside in."

"What was the point of her slouching?"

"You'll see." Twilight said slyly. "Come on out Applejack."

The Earth pony complied, looking back with shock that she was both outside and inside the cage at the same time. The one on the inside notably more bored.

"What in tarnation?"

"It's an illusion, might by us some more time. Rarity, get into a pose that you could hold for a long time, and that Sombra might believe was you for a few minutes."

Rarity promptly lied back in her 'woe is me' pose. But a snicker from Applejack made her sit up and aim a glare at the Earth Pony leaning on the door.

"Done" Twilight gasped out, the last of her reserves depleted.

"Wait!" Rarity cried, looking at her glaring face. "I look so inelegant!"

"Quiet, yer supposed to be a prisoner, now come on." Applejack flipped up her hat, pulling out a spare length of rope. "We got to find the others." She looked down the hole Pinkie Pie fell through. "Should we... jump?"

"We'd never survive a fall that far." Rarity said, before realizing exactly what that entailed and bit her tongue. "I mean, Rainbow and Fluttershy are both Pegasi, so they'd be impact resistant. And Pinkie Pie probably has an even greater impact resistance considering how many times she's fallen from her flying machine without getting a scratch. We don't really have that power."

Twilight nodded, attempting to relight her horn, but a pink spark sprouted off from it and sizzled into nothing. "Sorry girls, but I don't have the magical power to lower us down safely."

Rarity eyed Applejack's lasso. "How much rope do you have on you?"

"Not much, less than six yards." Applejack replied. "Not enough to lower us down."

"Hmph. Figures, we'll just have to find some stairs then."

Twilight winced at the mention of the immense number of stairways that covered the Crystal Palace. "And no gravity spells to help us cheat..."

"We better get going then." Twilight turned toward the door before Applejack made a dignified 'ahem'. Twilight turned around and finally locked eyes on the Elements of Harmony proudly displayed on the wall. She blushed. "We should... probably take those with us..."

~~~~

Discord was having fun streaking blind through the darkness in his snowmobile, but when he crashed into a crazed unicorn in purple armor he decided to stop riding the thing. He looked around at the growling crystal ponies, an aggression spell making their eyes glow faintly red. He stooped down and looked at the pony he had hit with his snowmobile, a blue unicorn wearing mangled purple armor. A captain. An Equestrian. He blinked as he seemed to get much closer to the ground, not noticing the crystal pony that had tackled him until after it had crushed his spine.

Discord righted himself, cricking his neck until he popped it off. He reached inside of his seemingly hollow body and padded the area of his spine and clearing out a little dust before reattaching his head. "That wasn't very nice." he finally said. The Crystal Pony soldiers eyed him warily before he began snapping his claws, turning the first soldier into a scarf, the second into a dragonfly, and the third a foot above his armor, which he crashed into. But as they were still all still made out of impenetrable crystal they were no worse for wear. "Now then, what shall I do with you?" He said, looking down at the horribly beaten up Captain.

A sly grin wrapped around his face.

~~~~

The three mares stealthily made their way down the castle. Stopping at every corner, checking for guards. But the castle was suitably empty. They made their way down to the dungeons via secret tunnels that Rarity had found her gem-tracking spell could find.

They came to the dungeon and made their way down the black crystal pathways, the cells were mostly empty until they reached a solid wall of diamond, one that Rarity had to spend twelve minutes finding the weak point of for Applejack to buck several times. By the end of their journey both unicorns were at the edge of their magical reserves, and Applejack was limping.

The three made their way slowly through the new hallway. Covering the walls were magical diagrams, vials containing a variety of substances, and huge desks covered in samples of millions of magical elements and creatures. Twilight could have stayed for hours simply browsing Sombra's collection, but the sound of a certain party pony cheering around the corner brought the three of them to their goal.

"Pinkie!" Twilight yelled, jumping up toward the Earth Pony's cage. She turned and smiled at the two Pegasus on the other sides of the room. "You're all alright!"

"Yep, just bored." Rainbow said sighing, "how did you guys get out? Did Rarity whine until he caved in?"

"Hey, it's a legitimate method of getting what you want. And no, I didn't."

"Twilight here found the weakness in the cage and broke us all out. We even left some nifty tricks back there so Sombra won't notice we've left."

Rainbow Dash held in a laugh. "Nifty? That's weird even for you Applejack."

"Be quiet, we're here to rescue you."

Pinkie felt a series of twitches go through her body. "Uh oh, you need to all hide right now." The three free mares rushed to hiding spots around the room seconds before Sombra materialized in front of the three still caged. "Oh thank goodness."

"You mean badness." Pinkie corrected.

"I'm not going to rework my entire language under the pretense that everything bad is good. It'll just make a bunch of paradoxes, say, have any of you seen Twilight in the time since I dropped you down here?" All three in the cages nervously looked away, carefully locking eyes with the mares in hiding. "It's a good thing all six of you are horrible liars."

"You mean it's a bad thing that all of us are great liars?" Pinkie asked hopefully. Sombra rolled his eyes at the mare and ignited a fear spell.

Rainbow Dash stared down the stallion of darkness. "None of us are going to tell you anything."

A wave of different motions shot through Sombra's face, a sequence that disturbed Rainbow Dash. "Good. Then you're first."

The glow began wrapping around his horn, and Rainbow Dash realized what he was going to do. She had been hit by the same spell a few days ago. She shivered as the black and red glow came close and closer to her forehead.

"Are you sure none of you want to give any information?" Sombra offered one last time. Fluttershy opened her mouth but was silenced from a hardboiled glare from Rainbow Dash.

"No."

"Six hours of screaming it is." He said grimly, he brought down his horn, but it only made contact with the ground. "Wha-" He looked up to see Applejack lowering her hind hooves.

"Don't you touch my friends."

Sombra smiled maniacally and whipped a shadow hand upward to grab the two Elements of Harmony Applejack wore around her neck, Loyalty and Honesty, but it was pushed back by an instant of bright light. "Curses, they're still connected. Oh well." He grabbed her by her tail and shoved her into the jail cell next to Rainbow Dash.

He prepared the fear spell again. "Rarity, Twilight, come out. Are you going to leave your other friends to live out their nightmares? You saw what this spell can do to someone as mentally stable as Celestia, what about your weak-willed friends?"

The last two slowly complied. And Sombra wasted no time in placing them in cages of their own.

"Now then, you're going to tell me how the three of you managed to escape, and how you managed to navigate down here. And as you know, the cage can tell if you're lying."

Before any of the mares could begin speaking however they were interrupted by a stallion in full armor bursting in.

"King Sombra!!"

"What. Is. It?!" He growled.

The soldier gulped twice before Sombra's glare tightening made him spit out the information. "We have confirmed sightings of the Spirit of Disharmony in our territory. He already dispatched one of our patrols."

"D-Discord?" Sombra choked out.

"Yay!" All the ponies in the room turned toward Fluttershy, who realized she was cheering. "Uh... sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt."

"Looks like you lose Sombra." Twilight said with a proud grin. "Discord's one of our close friends."

Sombra blinked. "You- you're kidding me!" He sank to his haunches. "That... what the heck could have possibly happened to that monster while I was frozen? The great Spirit of Chaos, coming to the aid of Equestrians?"

The Crystal Pony backed out of the room slowly. Not only was he the bearer of bad news to King Sombra, he was in the same room as ponies who were allied with the Spirit of Chaos and Destruction! He immediately ran as fast as he could to the surface to begin spreading the news to the rest of the Crystal Army.

~~~~

Makuta watched from his tiny cage on a high shelf as three mares made their way across the room. One of them, a purple unicorn, stopped several times to look at some of Sombra's collection. He thought about blinding her and trying to hint to Sombra he was, well himself.

The lord of darkness watched with interest as they made their way to where the talking was coming from, likely Sombra's dungeon, and a conversation began. Teridax was only able to grab a few words out of the conversation. But after Sombra rushed into the room he could hear it slightly more clearly, Sombra being so loud. And even louder once one of Sombra's soldiers showed up. But just two words of that conversation were truly important.

The words 'Great Spirit'.

Makuta felt the flame of ambition roaring within him. He had a new goal.

And it was time to start a new Plan.

Great Spirit

View Online

"Brutaka, my friend, welcome back into the Universe."

"It is good to be back, Great Spirit. We have been told of the trial a few weeks ago, it's a shame we couldn't see the look on the monster's face when you tossed him into the void."

"The Void?" Axonn asked cautiously.

"You were the one who executed him, correct?"

"I didn't execute him. I simply threw him into another world."

Brutaka stopped and turned toward Axonn.

It had been a while since Axonn had seen his brother, reliving Brutaka's fall at Voya Nui at the trial a few weeks ago had put him on edge, and even after Brutaka rejoined the order, their meetings have been... tense. He couldn't read him any more. Brutaka had apparently inherited the will of the Makuta, (as a species, not Teridax) and begun referring to himself as 'we'. Brutaka's personality changed, he had become depressed in Voya Nui, and falling into the antidermis had filled him with evil. But now his personality had changed once again.

Axonn had come to terms that he would never have the jovial warrior he grew up with at his side again. But he took comfort in that at least they were on the same path again. "Axonn, you've made a grave mistake."

"What do you mean? I banished him, not executed him, if we were going to kill him he would have escaped."

"What are you talking about?! We have seen the will of the Makuta, all that they are and existed to be! Makuta had no way to escape Mata Nui's prison, you could have killed him and have been done with it!"

"We should not dwell on the past. He has no way to come back, he's gone forever from our universe- no, our realm even."

"Fool." Brutaka growled. "He could come back, there could be another Olmak in that universe! And what of the inhabitants of that universe?! You left the greatest monster to ever exist in a prison that has a back door, and without a warden! He is likely slaughtering and conquering the poor beings of another world at this moment. And once he's done, he'll have the resources of an open universe to use in his revenge against us."

"Brother, I think you're over thinking this-"

"You choose now to underestimate it?!" The great golden being drew back slowly, regaining his composure. "We apologize for our outburst. We need to speak to Mata Nui immediately, he must know this, we must reforge the Olmak!"

Without warning Mata Nui's avatar rose from the ground with a golden light.

"I heard. What would you suggest?"

Sombra had managed to once again pry away the Elements of Harmony, and successfully put the bearers to sleep. As he made his way through the experiment hall he heard an incessant screeching coming from the top shelf. "What is it?! I don't have time for you right now, I have the spirit of chaos to deal wi-" He was interrupted by a burst of darkness striking his forehead. "Oh Celestia I'm blind!" He screeched, stomping around, making all the candles in the room go to their brightest. "Stop it you little monstrosity!!" He roared, grabbing the cage with his telepathy and beginning to crush it. "Stop it!!"

~~~~

Makuta winced as the bars began push into him. A few more seconds would be all it needed.

A Great Spirit! Of course there was a Great Spirit, this universe had too much energy to not have a spirit. All he would have to do was make contact, somehow show the spirit his intelligence, and gain favor with it. In a few short millennia of hard work and loyalty he would rise among the Spirit's ranks, become trusted... And in that time he would locate the Spirit's weakness, and eventually find a way to steal his body.

But that was going to be a long way off. His first priority was revealing his existence and obtaining a body.

He saw the hinge crack and tackled the bars out of his way. He landed on the crystal floor and began sliding.

He gripped the floor with his many tiny feet and found purchase. He began running for the stairway, he needed to avoid Sombra for now. He didn't know any way to reveal himself to the unicorn, he couldn't possess him, and it was possible considering Sombra's fear of the Great Spirit that he wasn't held in much favor. Being associated with King Sombra might not be good for Teridax.

He began the work of climbing the crystal stairway, it was slippery, and Makuta wasn't making much progress. It wasn't until a screaming Sombra barreled past him that Makuta decided to risk it and grabbed his tail as the blind Unicorn stampeded up the stairway screaming. As Sombra turned a corner Makuta lost his grip and flew through the air. At least he was out of the dungeon. He could navigate the palace- his eyes widened slightly as he realized he wasn't going to fall on the palace floor. He was flying toward one of the towers many windows. He prayed it was closed, but as he was greeted by open skies and the tower wall getting farther away behind him.

He looked down to greet his fate. Even naked and small he would not cower before death.

His eyes stayed open even as he came a few feet from the ground, but fate smiled on him that day. Or rather, a Great Spirit.

The gray equine face looked at him with mismatched eyes as he dangled Makuta between his claws. "And what are you my creepy little worm?"

~~~~

Discord teleported into the Crystal Empire carrying the now polka dotted unicorn over his shoulder. He spooked some guards and quickly decided that it was not time for fun and games, what with Fluttershy on the line. So he set the still unconscious captain on the ground and readied a little chaos magic that would turn the great palace into rock candy. After that all it would take would be the threat of a downpour to make them release Fluttershy. Or he could just teleport everypony to safety and clear a way for Celestia in the smoke, but what fun would that be?

He was about to snap his claws and do the tasty deed, but was interrupted by a demonic howling quickly rising through the palace. He blinked as a tiny screeching object fell from a third story window.

He teleported forward and caught it a foot above the ground. He turned it over and gave a crooked smile at how weird it was. "And what are you my creepy little worm?"

His smile grew wider as it actually tried to answer.

"Silly worm, only ponies, draconequus, dragons, griffons, minotaurs, cows, diamond dogs and... Wow, this could go on for a while.. But you clearly don't talk."

The creature then began slowly trying to construct a pattern of sounds to show it was capable of intelligence. But Discord merely chuckled and gave it a tiny trumpet.

~~~~

Makuta looked down at the metal object that had come into existence in the beast's paw next to him. He attempted to question the beast, but he still hadn't found any way to construct sounds beside his hissing and screeching.

"No no no!" The beast said, pushing the instrument closer to Teridax. "You're supposed to blow on it!" He summoned his own trumpet and preceded to play a few notes, alerting the guards to his presence. "Oops."

With a snap of his eagle claw they were at the bottom of Sombra's dungeon again. Makuta turned around to observe the new surroundings, and realized that the mares before him included the Archivist he had met when he first arrived. He could also feel the link between the six and the necklaces on the wall across from them. He could also sense the power inside each of the jewels.

Oh no.

These were the toa of this world, the six necklaces on the opposite wall might as well be their kanoha. And while some of them weren't color coded to their masters they all shared the same design as one of the mares marks.

"Fluttershy! It's so good to see you!" The beast cried, jumping at the cream and pink mare. But as he came close to the bars he was violently rejected, spazzing slightly as he was flung back across the room, into the necklaces, which also flashed him and shot him into the floor. Teridax and his instrument were launched toward the cieling, hitting it and coming to a crash on top of the Archivist's cage.

The beast waited for another burst of pain, but none came. "Urrghh.... why is everything Discord-proof?!" Cried the beast. He jumped up and slowly stretched a paw back toward the mare's cage, the mare telling him to be careful. The beast frowned as the cage rejected his claw once again.

"Well, this is problematic. Hey, sergeant Polkadot, get up." He snapped his claw and the Equestrian Captain that-

Teridax looked closer at the slowly waking Unicorn and saw that it was the same captain who had destroyed his Tehrahk body. He hissed at the Unicorn and slowly climbed down from Archivist Sparkle's cage.

~~~~

Shield Wax got up and noted with horror that his body and armor had been completely covered in neon pink polkadots. He took in the sight of the Bearers of Harmony captured and Discord standing before him and almost fainted again.

But Discord caught him before he could. "Polkadot, I need you to carry Fluttershy's cage to the palace entrance, then come back for the others. Celestia will find a way to free them." He looked at the necklaces for a second. "Oh yeah, and carry those too."

"Wh-" He tried to get out.

"Nope! Go, carry, now." Discord pushed him toward the crystal cage and forced him underneath Fluttershy's prison. Discord felt something on his foot. "Oh hello my little wormy! And I see you've lost your trumpet."

Makuta screeched once.

Discord patted him on what he assumed was the head and summoned the tiny trumpet yet again. "Now come on, I've already told you that you can't talk. How about this, if you give me a little toot on the horn I'll give you the power to speak full sentences."

The creature stared at him for a second and turned to immediately begin making noise on the tiny instrument.

It stopped after a few seconds and stared expectantly at Discord.

"Fine, fine, you may now speak!"

~~~~

What kind of power did this animal possess? "My name... is... Dume." Makuta decided. He had gone by the title for long enough, why not return to something he was familiar with?

"Oh your voice is adorable!" The beast cheered, he bowed down toward the Archivist and gave a sly "I designed it myself after all."

Teridax coughed and began quietly experimenting with his voice. It was quite high. But he didn't think that mattered. Perhaps a deeper voice would be more intimidating? But at the moment he was a mere Kraata. With a bronze head and bright red tail he was the farthest thing from threatening any of these creatures have likely seen.

"I'm... well, I was captured by King Sombra, but I managed to escape. However I was quickly knocked out the window by him, leaving me like this. It was horrible. I've been stripped of my original form, merely a tiny portion of my original size, without a full mouth to speak with. I'm a shadow of the creature I was before. Um... my saviour, who caught me before I fell to my death, you were able to give me a voice, could you... possibly... give me back my original body?"

Fluttershy's eyes were wide with pity. But Twilight was more interested in what could have happened. "Are all of Sombra's experiments like this?"

"I don't know. But please.. er, what's your name?"

"I am Discord, the great spirit of-" the Draconequus began proudly.

But Makuta merely jumped toward him and tried to make a motion of bowing. A Great Spirit! Incredible, so soon, this is... could this be destiny? Teridax's thoughts immediately turned to his Plan. It would start sooner than he thought. "Great Spirit! I am honored to be in the presence of the avatar of the universe. And I humbly offer my eternal service and gratitude in exchange for you returning my original body."

"But you're so cute how you are right now." Fluttershy offered.

Makuta was quiet for minute, before deciding that the Pegasus had no ulterior motives. "But this isn't my natural body. I want mine back."

Discord frowned. "Maybe later, right now I need to figure out how to open these cages without using my Chaos Magic."

Makuta gave a devious smile, even without much of a mouth. "My original form is quite strong, it would be able to simply force open the cages."

Discord raised an eyebrow at that, but Twilight struck at Teridax's hopes; "No, that wouldn't do much. There's an extremely powerful magical forcefield holding us in. It only works with a sufficiently powerful Unicorn's magic- and even then it has to be dark magic."

"Capitan Polkadot, can you open it?"

"I know nothing about dark magic." Shield Wax said, trying to remain calm before the Spirit of Chaos and a talking slug.

"Then we need to find King Sombra." Rarity said with some dread.

"Don't worry guys, Discord can totally take on Sombra. Right Discord?" Rainbow said confidently.

Discord shrugged. "Sure, why not. But I always have had problems with dark magic..."

Makuta decided to give it one last shot before he would lay off for a while. "If you give me my original form I promise you, Great Spirit, that I will capture Sombra in no less than ten seconds."

"Ten seconds flat?" Rainbow asked, impressed.

"That's what I just said, isn't it?"

Rainbow smiled at him. "I like his guts, come on Discord, what harm could it do?"

Makuta managed not to laugh maniacally at Dash's words.

"Fine, but I'll be timing you." He summoned a stopwatch in his lion paw and readied to snap his eagle claw. "Three, two... one!" He snapped the claw and pressed the button at the same instant. Makuta roared as his powers returned to him in an instant. His body swelled and then became nonexistant. His Antidermis soul expanded to fill his new body, and the power that coursed through his veins improved his mood considerably.

Discord was not impressed.

Shield Wax managed to not faint. Fluttershy and Rarity did not.

Makuta grinned, but found that something was still missing. His Kraahkan had not returned. Oh well, he didn't need it for now.

He teleported upstairs to find a Sombra desperately trying to remove the tiny patch of blackness.

"Get off, get off, get off! Okay, I know I'm not blind, but this isn't magic... it's like some kind of... antilight has been glued to my head..." he mumbled. Makuta smiled and dispersed the darkness. "Oh thank Luna tha-" His pupils shrunk before the giant black mechanical titan standing a few meters away from him. "Mummy."

Makuta simply paralyzed him with a look, then extended his arm to grab the unicorn before teleporting back.

"And that's ten seconds!" Discord cheered.

Rainbow gaped.

Makuta dropped Sombra, who was as stiff as a board, upside down on the floor. "Done. Now then, Great Spirit, what do you wish of your servant?"

"Oh that'll be it for now. You're free to go."

Makuta's eyes widened. "You don't want me? But I've shown how powerful I am-"

"I honestly don't need or want a servant. So... thanks for the help, have fun with your life, you're free to go."

Makuta stood there for a few seconds. "If you ever need assistance with anything, Great Spirit, know that I'll be loyal and willing to serve." Teridax sighed inwardly. This was going to be more difficult. He had no idea how the bureaucracy of the Great Beings worked in this universe. And if the Great Spirit's name and... 'magic' had anything to do with it, maybe there wasn't one. Maybe the Great Spirit simply allowed the inhabitants of the universe to do as they pleased inside his body. Have it be pure chaos.

He considered whether that would make his job of taking over the universe harder or easier.

"Should I unparalyze Sombra so you can question him? If you want I could remove his magic."

"So can I!" Discord said triumphantly, snapping his fingers. Sombra's horn disappeared, but the was still frozen. "Huh. what do you know? What kind of magic did you use on him?"

"I don't know. I don't think it is magic. It's simply one of my powers." He lifted the paralysis from Sombra.

"What's going on?!" He growled. "I have half a mind to obliterate-" He noticed that he was in his dungeon. With both the giant mechanical monster, and Discord. "....crap." He finally stated. "Well, that doesn't matter! I'm the most powerful Unicorn in the world! I can take you Discord!"

"Look up."

Sombra did, "What? It's just the cieliiii- oh sweet sun and moon, where in Tartarus is my horn?!"

"Sombra, I'll give it back once you let Fluttershy go." This was answered by five 'ahem's. "Oh, and uh, everypony here?" Discord tried.

"Never. Even without my horn, I am in possession of the dark arts!" He stomped the ground, roaring. But nothing happened. "Fine... but I'll need my horn, and an oath that you'll release me right after!"

"Done and done." With a snap of the Draconequus' claws Sombra's horn returned.

Sombra placed his horn near each of the cages and gave an annoyed grunt as they all opened. "I did what you asked, now get out of my Empire!"

Discord reclined back on thin air. "Nah, I don't feel like it."

"Sombra! We are here to stop you... and this time, we have the Elements of Harmony on our side!" Twilight shouted, putting effort into levitating the necklaces around her friend's necks and placing the crown on her own head.

Makuta eyed the necklaces and frowned at the gathering energy he could feel in the air. Sombra was beginning to get scared. Makuta watched as Sombra slowly melted into shadowy smoke, and began flying backward, the process happened in less that a second for the ponies there, but they all stopped in surprise as a metallic claw held the gray unicorn. Makuta gave a wide smile, very horribly visible to the ponies without his mask hiding it. He was so fast! He was one of the fastest creatures from his old universe, being able to outrun a Toa of air with a mask of speed with no effort, his powers were godly. "Sorry, Sombra. I am an ally of the Great Spirit."

Sombra's eyes widened. "Makuta?" He whispered. "Help me! Please, just let me go, we're partners right? You said that I was your son! I'm Makuta Sombra!"

Makuta stopped, his grip was still solid enough to hold something a hundred times Sombra's strength, but it lessened slightly. "Yes... that's right... I killed all the Makuta from my universe... so that none could stand against me like I stood against my Spirit..." he whispered, too quiet for anything there to hear. "But... you and Nightmare..." He looked down at the writhing Unicorn in his grip, "Are so... so weak. And Sombra, you at least respect me..." Makuta looked at the bored Draconequus, and then at the...'toa'... they were just as weak as Sombra, weaker even. Makuta gave a grin. A very simple Plan.

But one that would work none the less. He set down Sombra, and then, faster than anyone there could see, moved behind Fluttershy, the one the Great Spirit treasured the most.

"Great Spirit." Makuta said in a deep, resounding voice. "You will transfer all your power to me."

"What? Why would I do that?"

"Or I will obliterate this one. I can kill her in over a million ways this given moment, over sixty percent of them will cause her pain," Discord raised a paw, but stopped as black metal shot toward Fluttershy, bending around her body, but threateningly close. "Try anything, anything at all Spirit, Toa, and I'll kill her, know I will. Now then, where was I? Oh yes, pain. Thousands of ways to kill this mare painfully. But that's not all, I can do even more, I can erase her. I can make her into a thought, and then forget her. I can turn her to electricity, trap her in a nightmare, force her to kill you herself." He lifted her into the air in a swift moment. "But... I can ensure her eternal safety in exchange for your powers. Or your body, if you wish, we can even switch."

"Bodies?" Discord asked. He wanted to crack a smile, but Fluttershy's look stopped anything resembling a smile from happening. "Sure," he snapped his claw and suddenly Makuta set down Fluttershy. "Well?" Makuta asked with Discord's voice.

"NO!" Makuta roared from Discord's body. "I mean your real body! The Universe! Not this stupid unsymmetrical avatar!"

"That is my body." Discord said pointedly. "I'm not the universe or anything."

"You... you said you were the Great Spirit! You could bend the laws of physics!"

"I am a great Spirit, the Spirit of Disharmony."

Makuta frowned, and watched with interest as a shadow formed around his paw. "At least I still have my spiritual powers..." He reached forward and grabbed what used to be his own face, and spurned a tornado of darkness and red energy. Discord screamed with Makuta's mouth as Makuta absorbed his own body, with Discord's soul attached.

Soon there stood a more serpentine Makuta, his body longer, one arm slightly longer than the other. And behind him there were two great black wings, one bat-like, the other a metal frame with blue feathers sticking out of it.

"D-discord?" Fluttershy finally asked.

Makuta winced. "His will is strong..." he reached behind him and ripped out a Kraata with a tiny antler and a tiny horn. He bent down and handed it to Fluttershy. "There's Discord, take care of him, I'll keep my promise, fly away right now and I won't hurt you."

Sombra had a slowly growing grin as his Partner stood above the six mares, a majestic hellish monster.

His 'Father'.

"Elements of Harmony," Makuta began, "surrender your necklaces right now and I'll-" with a stomp of Twilight's hoof the six necklaces lit up, a force field surrounding the six mares. "ugh.. well, you've forced my hand, everyone but the yellow pegasus dies." Makuta said with a shrug. He blinked as he did it again, he's never had the exact muscles to do that before. He pointed a finger at Twilight and grinned as a thousand lightning bolts fired forward at the field, before he began dodging them as they were reflected by the field. He looked to his sides, a double helix of rainbow was trying to circle around him, trapping him.

That wouldn't work. He pumped his powerful wings and flew backward, he scooped Sombra into his hand as he fired a laser at the ceiling, flying through the new hole in the ground below the castle.

"My castle!" Sombra shouted.

"I'll build you a new one." He snapped his claw as they teleported several thousand miles to a faraway island. "Discord has some interesting powers... I don't think I'll regret this form."

"That doesn't matter! What about my empire?! I finally won! I won a war with Equestria, and now..." He glared up at Makuta. "Take us back! We can take the Elements together!"

"No. I didn't get to test their forcefield... and the combined beams of six united Toa are enough to seal me in protodermis indefinitely... one of my only weaknesses. One you will never take advantage of course, correct?"

"O-of course..."

"Good. So..." Makuta's mind was racing ahead, those six toa were his only real enemies in this world now that he had his full strength (and more). His Discord-integrated body wanted to do a facepalm. "I need my Kanohi. Sombra, where-" Makuta stopped speaking and snapped his claws again, summoning his mask onto his face. "This power is incredibly convenient... he may not be the universe... but he had all the power of a Great Spirit, though not the perception... I'm not omniscient yet, but I suppose we can work on that."

"So... does this mean you've met your goal?"

"Not yet." Makuta made as if to sit and a chair formed for him. "I'm as powerful as I ever was... but I still need more. I need to be uncontested, I need a way to break through that forcefield." He turned to the gray unicorn. "Sombra... you had their Kanohi in your grasp, what do you know of their Elements of Harmony?"

"I... was too busy with the war effort to properly examine the elements..."

"Hmph. Oh well, looks like we'll have to go straight to the source. Perhaps I should've kept Discord in here longer, tried going into his memories. Ah well, Sombra, hang on, I'm teleporting us into an enemy camp. Be prepared."

"What?! Why?!" but he didn't get to say anything else before the black mechanical hybrid snapped his claws one more time.

~~~~

Outside the town of Ponyville, inside the Everfree Forest a portal opened. And two titans stepped out, followed by six....

heroes.

Tired of holding back

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"This'll go well." Kazi whispered sarcastically. "Just think, we're plunging to our deaths in a universe we know nothing about, accompanied by a former psychopath, in order to find Makuta after we sent him here so we wouldn't have to find him!"

"Quiet Kazi, this is an important task. And Brutaka is to be treated with the respect an Order of Mata Nui member deserves. Mata Nui selected the six of you for this effort, and bestowed upon you the power that would be necessary."

"Shame Velika couldn't be here." Piruk said.

"We will not mention Velika." Axonn growled.

"Still sore about how he tried to kill you?" Piruk said to the gigantic silver titan.

"Yes."

"I think it more has to do with him having the mask of truth, and yet he didn't recognize Velika as a Great Being until it was too late." Balta teased.

"Just because you're Toa now doesn't mean you can all suddenly act arrogant." Axonn chided. "This is a serious mission, and I and Brutaka are your superiors, you will treat us with respect and focus on the situation at hand."

"Of course, Balta, Piruk, Kazi, apologize." Garan ordered. "You are Toa now, that doesn't put you on any higher of a station in regards to our two companions, but it does mean you have a more important duty to accomplish. Understand?"

Three mumbled apologies were said, but the drama was cut off as the last two members of their party arrived. "Dalu, Dakar, is the coast clear?"

The two new Toa climbed into the portal. "Kind of," Dalu answered hesitantly. "We found a village quite close, but the villagers were... strange. Quadrupedal, completely organic, about the size of a matoran. The way they're living in the village, acting together, each doing their own job. I think those rahi are actually this world's matoran."

"Do we make contact?" Balta asked. "We don't really know how far Makuta's influence has spread... they might report us to him..."

Dekar leaned on the side of the dimensional hole Brutaka had carved, "I didn't see any weapons. If need be we could just escape. They'd have no way of stopping us, the only danger would be them alerting Makuta."

Piruk sharpened his claws noisily. "Excuse me? Master Spy here? With the ability to disguise himself as anything he wants? I'll go down, try and talk to them for a while, and then I'll come back with any information we need."

"Good plan." Garan agreed. "But get back as soon as possible, don't ask about Makuta directly, just observe for now..."

"Understood." the Le-Toa's Kanohi mask of Illusion, the Great Mahiki, glowed a bright green, surrounding the toa with a shimmering light that left a green pony with a gray mane standing there. "I'll be back in less than an hour." he jumped out the portal as the other Toa watched carefully out of the hole.

Brutaka growled. "We are wasting time here."

"Do you mean 'we' as in you, or 'we' as in 'we'?" Kazi asked, baiting him.

"We mean we as in we!"

The toa there blinked. "You know, I'm starting to miss Velika's riddles." Garan sighed.

"Now... onto the next order of business... Nightmare Moon." Makuta said, going over his mental map. "She left the barrier with the Princess, and hasn't come back since... she lost to the Princess once before, correct?"

"Yes, she was banished to the moon for a thousand years, but she said that won't work any more."

"hm. We need to find her, Sombra, I'm going to teleport you into the smoke, be careful, and be stealthy.Try to find Nightmare and explain to her that I've found my true power. I'm going to conquer Canterlot, I'll check back in with you when I'm done." Sombra gaped at how casually Teridax said that.

"W-when you're done?"

"Yes, Celestia's at the Northern front, and she probably doesn't know what happened yet, after all, her false Spirit won't be able to contact her." He stopped. "Sombra, how did you capture them the first time?"

"I managed to trap the Rainbow one separately from the others and used her as a hostage to make the others surrender."

"Well, try that again. Mobilize your forces in the city, but make Nightmare your top priority. After you find her start working on trapping those six. I understand your universe's... reluctance to kill. But it might be necessary to destroy their necklaces or at least incapacitate one of them. After all, without their unity their powers are useless."

"I'll try, Lord Makuta." Sombra said, bowing. Makuta raised a claw and teleported him. He then got up out of his throne, it crumbling behind him. He snapped his claws again and found himself in a garden, the castles of Canterlot towering over him. With a few beats of his wings he fluttered to the highest tower and phased through the wall, entering the tower. There was what appeared to be someone's room, a blue bed with star and moon designs covering the comforter, a telescope on a balcony opposite of the way he came in. A fairly typical room beside that.

He began to turn to shadow and slid under the door frame, finding two guards of a species he had never seen before. They had bat wings and draconic eyes. But he was able to bypass them quickly.

He flew down the stairs and down through every nook and cranny of the castle. He came back to what appeared to be the courtroom. A unicorn in full purple armor stood in front of the biggest two thrones, and there were ponies in booths up and down both walls, squabbling and crying out. Roaring at each other, attempting to buy each other out. It was disgusting. An entire hall of corrupt Turaga.

He decided this was the best place to be. He didn't know which of them were necessary or not. And he supposed it didn't matter, considering he would conquer the universe. But still, keeping them all alive would be the easiest at the moment. He rose out of the shadow behind the thrones. The entire court was silenced by his appearance. He decided to take an appropriate note from Discord and reclined in both thrones at the same time. "Now then, I'm sure you all know who I am. Makuta Teridax, leader of the New Brotherhood. You were at war with us. I personally destroyed your entire first wave myself. And now I'm here, in your throne room, with all my powers restored and not to mention the powers I've ripped from that weakling Discord. Fighting against me will be futile." He bent down and looked into the shaking Lieutenant's eyes. "Understood?" He said slowly. The unicorn nodded once before falling to his knees. "Good. Now then, as your new King I will require a detailed log of all your battle plans up to this point, and that you give me the exact location of your Princess."

"N-never." A lone guard said, raising his spear. He didn't have time to scream before he was teleported above an ocean somewhere far away.

"Wrong answer." He turned his head as a unicorn stallion got up from his chair, huffing and puffing out his chest he took a step toward Makuta.

"I'm Prince Blueblood. Celestia's heir, and her nephew. I'm afraid that I am in command. Now then, begone demon!" he shouted, pulling out a strange rune scribbled on a piece of paper. He lit it with his horn, and a flash of light fired out. Makuta raised a finger, bored, and struck the slowly charging rune with a lightning bolt. Blueblood looked from the ash up to the serpentine mechanical beast, and then back down. "How about we become partners?" He asked hopefully.

Makuta smiled and sat correctly in Celestia's throne. "You know, why not? Actually, I have a better idea. All the nobles here can fight, and the winner will be the new Lord over my formerly Equestrian territory. I don't need all of it after all, I'll control a universe soon."

He waited as the nobles looked at him with shock and fear, but surely, slowly, they were glancing at each other, first to their rivals, then to their superiors, then to their relatives. In less than three minutes the entire court was a brawl as unicorns blasted pegasi out of the sky and Earth ponies wrestled anyone they could reach into submission. It was hilarious to the dark lord, who began a slow hearty laugh. He slid out of his chair and walked through the madness. "I'll be back in ten minutes, I'm off to conquer the rest of Canterlot."

He closed the doors behind him, increasing their density and making them incredibly heavy. Far too heavy for any of the nobles to escape. He knocked out two guards and then began flying down the halls, paralyzing or simply knocking guards through the walls. He fired out two bolts of lightning into the sky, which quickly expanded and fanned out into hundreds of strikes that burned flags across the city. He walked to a courtyard and stomped on an image of the sun, it shattered beneath his feet. Soon there were guards coming down every street, rushing him from every direction. "Unicorns! At my signal!" A lieutenant called. He stomped his hoof and a hundred beams fired from every direction at him.

He used the Makuta power of dodge and his body automatically avoided every beam. "Is that all?" Makuta asked. He pointed directly upward, the ponies there looked up in fear of what attack he would use now, but they didn't have time to react as Makuta jerked around at incredible speed, his arm bending and stretching with the velocity like rubber. He spun in a circle, his improbably stretching arm knocking the entire circle of guards off their feet. He then forced his palm forward in a quick motion, a sonic blast firing off of it and knocking about twenty Pegasi out of the sky. He then finished the combo by putting a finger to his forehead and firing a burst of psionic waves, using the power of Confusion on the ponies for almost a mile around, leaving them all babbling mindlessly and looking off in every other direction.

He fluttered high above the battlefield and looked over the city, now officially in a panic. He shouted with the strength to shatter rock, and was heard across the entire city. "Ponies of Canterlot. Bow to your new King! Makuta Teridax of the New Brotherhood of Darkness!" He created a gigantic thunderstorm behind him for dramatic effect.

~~~~

Piruk trotted into town, looking around at the immaterial buildings, there was so little steel in the village. The ponies there were very kind and trusting to one of their own, and quickly guided him to the town hall. There he learned quite a bit, if even just from the words the ponies who worked there said to each other. There was a war on, against something called... the Brotherhood.

Nightmare Moon.

King Sombra.

....and Makuta Teridax.

Piruk sighed as he made his way back to the portal. He quickly relayed what he had learned.

"The creatures here are at war with a country to the North, one run by a 'Brotherhood'. And, Makuta, if he's not leading the Brotherhood, is at least definitely part of it. The creatures here, called ponies. Are our allies. Right now their leaders have gone North to help with the war."

"Good. Then we should reveal ourselves." Axonn decided. "We need to locate Teridax immediately, and having as much help as possible can't hurt."

"What good will a bunch of Matoran do us?" Brutaka said, becoming irritated with the strain of holding up the dimensional barrier.

"They aren't matoran, I was just saying they acted like them." Piruk corrected. "There are a few differences. About a third of them have wings, and could fly, and I saw a few with horns that could levitate things without kanokas. They could actually be useful."

"Well then," Garan got up. "Toa, with me. We're going to go meet the village's Turaga. Piruk, can you cover all of us?"

"...Definitely not Axonn and Brutaka... maybe three others beside me. I'm not really used to my Kanohi yet."

Garan nodded. "Kazi, Dekar, you both stay here with Brutaka and Axonn. Dalu, Balta, you're with me and Piruk." The five Toa saluted. The four chosen jumped out of the portal, turning invisible as they came under Piruk's kanohi's green glow. Piruk himself became a pony, and moved forward toward the center of town.

The other three watched the ponies curiously. Apparently a war was on, but the town was joyful and prosperous. Like Rahi they ate fruit and plants, which they bought and sold like tools. They spoke to each other softly, and several were singing or humming joyful tunes as they went on their way. It was some strange kind of paradise. "What kind of village do you think this is?" Balta asked Garan. "Ce-matoran? They're lifting things with their minds, after all. Or maybe Bo-matoran. There's plants everywhere, and I swear I saw one of draw a flower from the ground with just their leg."

"Quiet Balta." Garan whispered. "Piruk's concentrating, and I don't know how much of us they can hear outside the illusion."

"The answer is all of it. So please be quiet." Piruk whispered. He smiled at a pony who greeted him as he passed. "They're pretty friendly here. And really happy." Piruk stopped suddenly, and the three Toa in a line behind him bumped into each other, but careful not to disturb Piruk and his illusion. "Except those three." He looked at three fillies as they walked forward, one white, one orange, one yellow.

He bent down, hesitating. There was something off here. For one thing, those three were notably smaller than all the others, and they were the only ones without grins. "What's wrong?" He asked, hoping that the question was innocent enough.

The yellow one looked at him for a second before sighing. "My big sis went North to help in the North."

"So did mine." The white one sighed.

"And so did mine." the orange one sighed, the other two raised an eyebrow at her. "What? Rainbow Dash said she was my unofficial sister now!"

The other two shrugged. Piruk nodded, suddenly very grim and serious. "War is a terrible thing, I'll pray for your family's safety." They raised eyebrows at the strange phrasing of it, but accepted his condolence.

"Can we move forward again?" Balta whispered as quiet as he could.

Piruk gave no signal that he heard him, but moved forward normally to the town hall. As soon as they were inside Piruk looked to Garan, invisible to the other ponies inside. "Over the exit, we could really scare them." Piruk warned. Garan nodded and motioned for Dalu to go to the other window and Balta to go to the closest. He himself readied to jump backward to block the door.

"Excuse me, government workers." Piruk started.

"Yes, do you need anything mr....?"

"Piruk. Now, I'm about to show you all something that might scare you, but know that you aren't in any danger." He waited for at least one of them to nod before he motioned for the three Toa to jump to their positions.

The six ponies in the room simultaneously screamed, and Dalu sighed. "We are not here to harm you-"

"You're monsters! Just like that thing from a little while ago!"

"Protect the Mayor!" One of the ponies yelled, rushing up a staircase. Piruk glanced to Garan, who motioned for him to come closer.

"I'll see their... mayor? You guard the door."

"Yes sir."

Garan ran up the stairway, easily jumping five to six steps in one jump, he bypassed the galloping pony and slid up to the door, standing between the pony and the door. The pony looked up in fear and moved to the side, bluffing. Seeing Garan move to the side to block him, the pony decided to risk it, and dodged to Garan's other side. Garan caught the pony's chest in his hand, lifting the pony in the air with one arm.

"Please put me down." The pony whispered.

"of course." Garan lightly set him down and motioned for him to open the door. But Mayor Mare stood up and opened the door herself.

"What's going on? I heard screamiiiiiiiiiiiii......" Her voice faded as she took in the gigantic black mechanical bipedal figure. "Oh my Celestia, it's another one!" She yelled, slamming the door. Garan put out an arm to catch the door and hold it open, but the force of the mayor's push made Garan's arm go through the door.

"Darn it." Garan sighed, pulling his arm back through the hole and looking at the door knob. He put a hand around it and twisted gently, then slowly pushed the door forward. "I need to speak with you, I will not harm you. You see, I am a Toa hero, a warrior of the Great Spirit come to-"

"You're one of Makuta's friends! Aren't you?! I know what you did at the Library and in Canterlot, you're the ones who started this whole thing with the Crystal Empire!"

"Makuta? Where is he? We are here to bring that criminal to justice."

Mayor Mare blinked. "I... what?"

"We are Toa heroes from the Matoran Universe." Garan began, bowing on one knee. "We, perhaps wrongly, attempted to imprison Makuta in another dimension to ensure he would never escape."

"And... he escaped?"

"No. This universe was the Prison. We didn't... well, we were desperate and we didn't check if this universe was populated or not. But we are here to make sure he never makes trouble in this world, or ours."

"You... you're going to bring him back to your world?"

"No. But we are going to seal him permanently in stone forever." He raised an eyebrow and Mayor Mare rolled her eyes. "What?"

"A lot of things 'permanently sealed in stone forever' have been getting free nowadays."

The Toa blinked. "What?"

"Mayor... what... should I do?" The shivering stallion managed.

"We need to contact the Princess!" Mayor Mare began. "To the library!"

~~~~

Twilight was unsure of what had just happened. Sombra and... that monster... had just gone. She turned to Fluttershy who was obsessing over the new worm that creature created, the one with Discord's horns.

"Oh Discord, I'm so sorry... please speak to me." The worm made noises, but it was indecipherable. "Why can't I understand you? I can understand the other animals all fine..." Fluttershy was on the verge of tears. But she managed to hold it in and put Discord on her back. "Now hold on tight. I don't want you getting lost..."

The seven ponies climbed their way back to the surface and looked around at the streets that had become familiar with their consistent visits. But now the city was darker, the ponies fearful and attempting to avoid the main streets, like it was when the city first appeared.

One of the crystal ponies noticed the seven of them coming up and stopped in place. Twilight stopped at the same moment and the two mares locked eyes. Twilight slowly shook her head 'no, don't do it'. But the shivering Crystal Pony gulped and shouted at the top of her lungs "GUARDS!"

"Run!" Twilight shouted, galloping through the streets, Captain Shield Wax and the other five mares following behind her.

"We need to get to the border... Sombra and the rest of the brotherhood might not be here, but right now the entire Crystal Empire is our enemy."

Shield Wax slid to a halt, the mares stopping around him. "What's going on? We need to get going," Rainbow Dash grunted impatiently.

"Captain Shining Armor." Shield Wax whispered. "And his wife, if we found them and let them escape... they could rallie the Crystal Ponies back to their sides, then we could work on taking down the barrier..."

"Of course! Shiny and Cadence!" Twilight bopped herself on the forehead. "That's a great plan... but where would they be held?"

~~~~

Makuta walked back to the doorway, he smiled that it had not been damaged, but he could tell that there was efforts to break out. He opened the door and turned it's density back to normal. He gave a wide grin at the floor littered with beaten and unconscious nobles. Standing in the center, huffing and puffing, stood Blueblood, covered in sweat and attempting over and over to move his mane back out of his eyes.

"What's your name, my new servant?"

"P-prince... blueblood... the magnificent." He breathed out, exhausted. An older earth pony got up, but Blueblood screamed and levitated a throne, throwing it at the stallion, sending him back to the ground.

Makuta grinned, placing a claw on Blueblood's chest. "You're savage, ambitious, and strong... alright, I declare you governor of Equestria with my authority as it's King."

"Th-thank you... er... my King.." Blueblood said slowly... "now then, I think I shall retire for the nigh-" He slumped forward, unconscious and exhausted.

"You ponies tire easily don't you..." He made several steps forward and grabbed both Celestia and Luna's thrones, crumpling them together into a mass of ripped cushion, wood, and steel. A burst of dark light came from his palms and sank into the crumpled mass of former throne, and it became a liquid mass. He threw it onto the ground where the two chairs used to stand and formed it into one gigantic throne appropriate to his stature. "Guards!" He called.

Two beat up and despaired guards walked into the room. One of them looked Makut in the eye and grimaced. He pulled out his spear. "I serve Celestia! Not you!" He charged bravely.

"You know... I'm tired of all this." Makuta whispered. "Simple villagers, rahi-like creatures with absolutely no armor..." He shot a claw forward like rubber, stabbing through the charging guard and into the ground below. "I have decided I'm not going to hold back any more." His claw retracted and the white pegasus fell forward.

dead.

The other guard looked with horror at his partner. "Now then." Teridax almost whispered. "Get these ponies out of my throne room. Every single body that is still here after a half hour will become a corpse. Get to it." The other guard gave a slight nod and ran off as fast as he could to find more help. Teridax snapped his claw and Blueblood's k-oed body was teleported outside.

He had won the fight among the nobles, he deserved at least to be spared from his clean up if the guards weren't fast enough. Ponies flooded the room minutes later, rushing to get the beaten nobles out as fast as possible to spare them from Makuta's threat. A mare let out a gasp that was audible throughout the room, despite the work going on, when she found the dead guard.

Makuta frowned and shot his head forward like a snake from his neck, his eyes looking into hers. "First time you've seen death my little pony? You won't have to see much, I'll be a good ruler. But just know, and tell as many others as your can, that i'm not afraid of killing. Your lives mean little to me. Even less so considering how easily you can die. Spread the word, my faithful citizen."

She nodded, and the room quickly got back to work as Makuta's head slithered back to his body.

~~~~

Sombra flew back through the smoke, making sure that all the tunnels made by the Equestrians were completely filled in. He flew back to the city and entered the force field that kept the winter cold outside. He was worried about Windigoes. They absolutely loved war, and he definitely didn't need more snow around.

He smiled at his guards surrounding the seven Equestrians. He appeared in a mass of smoke and stopped in front of them. His eyes shifted from one pony to the other, before two gigantic hooves of black smoke came out of the pillar. His face sunk into the blackness as a colossal smoke effigy of King Sombra formed, towering over the seven ponies. "Which to get first..." his voice resounded. The pony made of darkness turned toward Rainbow Dash. "You were the weak link the last two times we fought, why change anything now?"

"I was the weak link?!" Rainbow growled, surprised.

"Well Darling, you were the first to get captured..." Rarity offered.

"And you lost when you were with the Wonderbolts and I had to heal you..." Twilight said hesitantly.

Rainbow puffed out her chest and had a determined expression. "Well this time'll be different!" She declared, shooting straight upward.

The giant shadow Sombra followed her rainbow trail with his head, but quickly turned back down to the ponies below. "Well, that got her out of the way, Earth Ponies first!" He growled, bending down like a predator and jumping forward, his dark gigantic maw wide open. Applejack and Pinkie both gave a yell as Sombra swallowed them.

"He just ate Applejack!" Rarity screamed.

"Pinkie!" Twilight yelled, getting into an offensive stance and painfully charging her horn. But she stopped when the giant Sombra dispersed, two cages made of swirling dark crystal floating above him. Inside both were an unconscious and scared-looking mare.

And around his neck the elements of honesty and laughter. "Well, that worked perfectly! It doesn't matter what happens to the rest of you now that I have these two, but..." He stopped dramatically, sneering down at the scared mares. His cape billowed and a lightning flash behind him lit up his silhouette. Fluttershy fainted. "Better safe than sorry." He said grimly. He stomped a hoof and black spikes surrounded the rest of them, shooting upward and encasing Twilight and Rarity's horns, and covering a fainted Fluttershy's wings with dark crystal.

He looked down at his prisoners. At the elements around his neck, at his loyal troops surrounding them. He had won, again! And this time he would keep winning! He was a real evil overlord now. He could feel it. When they looked up at him with fear he felt proud of a job well done, but none of the dread of what he was doing. He did it! He did it!

The large Kraata on Fluttershy's back jumped upward and fired a ball of darkness at his face. "Oh Celestia I'm blind!" He shouted, twirling around and pounding on his face to get the immaterial solid dark off his head.

"Incoming!" A voice screamed from above. Sombra looked up, and the darkness melted away from the gigantic burst of multi-colored rainbow light exploding in every direction. And the pegasus mare firing down at him faster than the speed of sound.

"Mommy." Sombra said the moment before Rainbow's hoof collided with his horn.

~~~~

Princess Celestia and Luna stood together, looking over the hundreds of tents that had been assembled for the war. Already the darkness was becoming immune to their spells. Celestia frowned. It had been dumb luck the last time. Or perhaps it was Sombra's overconfidence. But she and Luna flew above his smoke a thousand years ago, and landed at the top of the dome protecting the Crystal Empire. After that it was short work before they broke through the shield, and used the elements to try and banish him to the sun. But he escaped, transforming himself into a shadow. So the last thing they did was seal him into the ice.

A last minute-spell from Sombra of course hid away the city for a thousand years.

And now, less than two years since it came back it was at war again.

"Celestia... I don't know how we're going to do it this time.." Luna said sadly, she tried not looking, but her eyes shifted to her missing wing. Celestia nodded, looking up to her broken horn. It was lucky that she had already told everypony that the sun was going to be in the same place for the next few days. It would give Luna the chance to restore her energy, and for Celestia to eventually grow back her horn.

But it would have to be quick. Griffia, Saddle Arabia, Zebrica, and a multitude of other countries far to the south or on the other side of the planet of Equestria were shrouded in darkness for many more hours than was expected.

She frowned at the thousands of streams that were crisscrossing the camps, turning what was a day ago a tundra into a marsh from the unnaturally prolonged summer day.

Sadly, the smoke wasn't clearing in the slightest. If she had her magic she could have probably burned her way through, or Luna could have, if she wasn't in so much pain or so exhausted. A green fire appeared in front of her as she frowned. Spike knew that she was in the middle of a war.

She opened the scroll and was surprised by the message to say the least.

Dear Princess Celestia, this is Mayor Mare, Mayor of the town of Ponyville!

Anyway, I apologize for bothering you, but we've come across something that might greatly effect the progress of the war against the brotherhood. Eight warriors from Makuta Teridax's world have come looking for him, and apparently they have a way to stop him. Sealing him in an alien substance known as 'protodermis'. Now, I have no idea what protodermis is, or whether to trust them, but they seem to hate Makuta, and are law keepers in their world. They apparently sent Makuta here, another world, as a way of banishing him. But as soon as they found out what he was doing here they came to stop him. Or something along those lines. They are beings similar to Makuta, (they don't like being compared to him by the way), with strange powers and mechanical bodies. They call themselves 'towah heroes." Anyway, they're here in Ponyville, so you might want to contact somebody and have them sent up their.

Mayor Mare, mayor of Ponyville, it's an honor to write to you.

Celestia incinerated the message and frowned. "So... it's those thing's faults..."

"Sister, do not act hastily, their help might be beneficial, or even key, to defeating Sombra and the monster."

Celestia nodded. She pulled out her own message, giving instructions for Spike to send it from her to Canterlot. Her reserve guards would take the 'towah heroes' to the front, and then Celestia would question them herself.

~~~~

A message appeared in green flame next to the lieutenant's hospital bed, and a nurse picked it up, seeing the golden hoof mark on the seal, a message from the Princess!

She opened it, not caring if she was breaking the law, it was an emergency! She read through the message. There were things in Ponyville capable of sealing Makuta!

She hid the message and spoke with a friend, telling her to bring it to his friend. A weatherpony. The weatherpony flew out on his usual round, surprisingly not disturbed by the new leadership, and then started down the mountain.

He stopped by the local weather chief's house. Belonging to a 'Rainbow Dash'. She wasn't home, so he decided to fly to the mayor's office. That was when he saw them.

Black and silver, blue and iron, red and gold, green and silver, gold and black, white and blue. The six beings stood taller than Celestia. They were mechanical like Makuta... but the way they held themselves, he could tell they had power, but they didn't intimidate. They had muscle underneath, instead of the cold soul underneath the shifting black plates that Makuta had. They spoke to each other, their eyes were just as alien, but they were kind and determined. They carried strange tools and weapons, but... it was like that they were empty. Like the warriors had to give their tool the power to hurt before it could become a weapon.

And the other two... they were almost twice as tall as the other six, they were each in leagues of their own. Like night and day. One was clad in gold and blue. With red eyes that burned with determination and vengeance. One was clad in silver and red, with cool green eyes that showed strength and intelligence. The gold one held a silver double blade as tall as Celestia, and it shown with a blue ethereal light. The silver one held a gigantic axe that glowed with golden light.

He fluttered down to them, and he shivered as every eye there turned to him. He hesitantly pulled out a scroll.

"Th-th Princess Celestia sent a message to Canterlot..." He pointed toward the city on the mountain. "...Sh-she thinks that the one you're looking for, Makuta, is at the North front, but he's really in Canterlot! Right now! And he's attacking ponies and scaring everypony and..."

The giant with the axe kneeled forward. "Thank you." He said simply. His steel mask bent around his mouth. It was strange to watch, but the voice was deep and soothing.

"The message says.. that you can beat him... right?"

The blue and iron one stepped forward. "Don't worry. We are going to defeat him. Or we will die to the last trying." She assured.

Toa Heroes

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Dalu swung forward, bringing her twin Chargers down on Hydraxon's head. She increased his speed for an instant, causing him to swing too far and merely toss her to the side instead of striking her. She slid on the ground, grabbing the water at her sides with her spiritual power and throwing it forward at Hydraxon, heating it to as close as boiling point as she could without losing control.

The warrior didn't flinch as the water struck him. He jumped forward, his large clawed hands grasping at her mask. It's powers of translation were useless to her in a fight, she wished she had worn something useful like a Kadin.

No time to think, head being bashed against rock.

"Next!" The titan crowed. Dekar stood up. "Oh, this'll be fun." Hyrdaxon hissed. "How's it feel to get your own body, just to have to get used to a new one, Dekar?" The Titan slid forward, bringing one knee upward into Dekar's chin. "You may think you know everything I'm going to do. But that won't help you, because I know everything you're going to do. Strange, isn't it?"

Dekar frowned and brought both of his electro blades upward in a motion to rip off the titan's arm. Hydraxon snarled and bent his arm, dodging the blades and kicking the Toa in the chest. "I just told you I know what you're going to do, and then you do something as easily dodgeable as that!" Hyrdaxon chided. He then jumped up just as the rock beneath him shifted from Dekar's toa powers over stone. He finished the motion with deflecting a shot of solidified air fired from Dekar's shoulder mounted launcher. He flicked Dekar with one finger, pushing the Toa back about a meter.

"Next!"

One by one the Toa went down, Hydraxon defeating each without the use of weapons or powers. Afterward the new Toa were holding their bruises and catching their breath. "Well, it seems none of you have learned the first thing about being a Toa."

Garan sighed. "What are you talking about?"

Kazi nodded. "I've checked the records, we're making record progress, we're all from Voya Nui and Mahri Nui, and you know why we were sent there..." He looked down at his chest where when he was a Matoran had been a constant source of pain and shame. He had been repaired incorrectly, in fact, that was why he received his special weapon, the echo forks, as an apology from Karzahni. It was fortunate that being transformed into Toa healed his, and all his friend's injuries. "We had that stacked against us, but we've been Toa for less than a few hours, and already we're using our elemental powers and our Kanohi! Even the Toa Metru didn't get used to their bodies that quickly!"

"No, no, you're making record progress, but unless you understand the way Toa should fight, you'll never be able to beat me." Hydraxon sighed. "You have twenty minutes, then all of you will go at me for another two rounds, if you can't beat me then, another twenty minutes, and another two rounds."

~~~~

"I don't get it! He's not telling us, how are we supposed to figure out how Toa fight!" Kazi growled. "How does he expect us to beat him in single combat, he's a dozen times as fast, has about a hundred times the experience, and at least twenty times our strength..."

Dekar shook his head. "I don't know. We were once one being, but he never did have a high opinion of Toa, he tried not to think about them. In fact, I know for an absolute fact that none of us, except maybe Dalu on her best day and him on his worst, could possibly hope to face him alone."

Garan shook his head. "Mata Nui said we needed to go through this training before he sent us up against Makuta Teridax... and that fight will make this fight look like petty squabble between Rahi..."

Piruk shook his head. "When we fight Makuta, he's supposedly depowered, not to mention we'll have two of the Order's best warriors.We might actually have a better hope of beating Teridax than Hydraxon."

Balta laughed. "Hydraxon would love to hear that."

Dekar shook his head. "He'd throw us in a pile forty times and electrocute us if he heard we were underestimating Teridax like this.."

Dalu laughed out loud. "No, I don't think we're underestimating it. After all, we're Toa, we're built to be able to seal things like Makuta away. And we'll be fighting as a team when we go against Teridax." She swiped her chargers against each other for an instant. "I'm not underestimating Makuta for an instant, but a fight against him will be completely different than against Hydraxon."

Garan looked at her for a few seconds. "What did you just say?"

"A fight against Teridax is completly dif-"

"No, before that, about Toa... fighting as a team..."

~~~~

"Alright, which of you cowards wants to face me first?!" Hydraxon roared. Garan and Piruk nodded, both of their masks activating at once. Hydraxon's eyebrows furled as his vision was twisted around, the toa and ground around him becoming transparent and visions fluttering around him. He closed his eyes and jumped forward at the two of them. "You think you can take me without my eyes?! Ha! It'll take a lot more than that before you can-" His own voice was suddenly painful as Dalu's chargers increased his already remarkable sense of hearing. Then Kazi whipped his echo forks together, creating a horrible shockwave of pure noise and vibration at Hydraxon, who actually winced. He was blind and deaf, he felt the vibrations in the ground as Balta and Dekar ran forward, the others all using their weapons or masks. The two toa both pulled out their blades and began doing a dance of blows around Hydraxon, who was doing everything he could to avoid them with only his sense of touch. As soon as the echo forks stopped he dashed toward Kazi, wanting to stop him before the Ice toa could bring them together again. But Balta and Dekar both tackled him, knowing where he would be aiming. Hydraxon huffed and jumped back twenty feet to where he knew he'd be out of range. He slipped on the ice patch and water there, but regained his footing so that he could jump away from the stone that had shot from the ground below him. He rolled out of the way of a fire he couldn't hear or see, back, unfortunatly into the range of the echo forks. As soon as he was deaf again the elements began attacking him, he tried to jerk backward away from the oncoming heat of the fire, but only landed in ice and earth that grew around him, he burst his way out of the trap to only feel a blast of wind, sand, water, and fire, forcing him back into the growing trap.

"ENOUGH!!" The titan roared, spinning around and ripping the boulders through the ice. He tossed the rock at Kazi, who had to jump back and let Piruk block the blow for him. "I... see that you finally figured it out. Bunch'a cowards, but you aren't stupid." He admitted. "Well, not stupid enough that you can't learn."

"So, are we ready to fight Makuta?" Balta asked hopefully.

"Oh, definitly not. You all just graduated from worm, to tiny fish. I'm still a Muaka bear." He shot forward, almost too fast to see, and quickly landed a blow to the back of the head to every Toa there. He stooped above Garan. "Welcome to the beginner class."

"Are we ready?" Garan asked his team.

"Ready as we'll ever be." Balta replied.

"Alright then. Let's go." Garan then jumped from the portal and landed on the top of the tower. "Go!Go!Go!Go!" he began shouting, waving the Toa to move forward. "Dalu in front, Dekar in back!" The six Toa made their way off the roof and swung one by one into the window, finding themselves in a moon-themed bedroom.

Piruk shredded the door in front of them to splinters, and the six ran down the pathway. "Balta, scout ahead, send up a white flare if Makuta's there." Garan instructed. Balta threw down his twin repellers, long flat-bladed weapons which had grown with his Toa transformation, and began surfing on them as they pushed against the stairwell. His own weight created an impact against the steps, one which the repellers were deflecting downward. Surfing on his own gravity he shot far ahead of the rest of the group, preparing a flame to signal to them if Makuta was there, but at the bottom of the stairway was merely another hall that met with another stairway and a great room filled with thrones. He checked both rooms and sent a red flare up instead of a white, telling his team it was clear. He waited, weapons drawn, at the entrance to the throne room for his friends. Dalu nodded to him and quickly checked back on the other stairway before dodging to the other side of the door. Garan came next, weapons drawn and aimed for the door, ready to blast anything in the way with his pulse bolts.

They waited for the entire team to reach the bottom before Balta gave his spot to the second-best fighter, Dekar, and assumed the middle, his mask turning him invisible to all but a few select mask powers. He walked forward into the throne room, walking quietly and eyeing the chaos that surrounded him. There was a single white unicorn with a blond mane lying across a huge black throne, wearing a large, and surprisingly effeminate, crown. He sighed, contentedly. Balta looked around one more time before closing the doors on the opposite side of the chamber. He fused them shut with fire, and then turned on the unicorn. He nudged the unicorn gently.

"Where is Makuta?" Balta asked, signalling for the other Toa to enter the room.

The Unicorn woke with a snarl. "You damned servants are still waking me?!!! I'm your all powerful gover-" he stopped when he laid eyes on the mechanical being in front of him. "Oh! Ohh, ehehhe... I, was just keeping it warm for him, honest!" The Unicorn quickly moved to the opposite end of the room, inching for the door. Dekar was there in an instant, his dagger flashing with lightning power.

"Keeping it warm for who?" Dekar asked suspiciously.

"Stop threatening him." Kazi interrupted. "Listen, we're here to stop that monster. Just lead us in the right direction and we'll get everything back to normal."

"Back... to how it was before?" Blueblood asked hesitantly, beginning to shake. A smile crept over his face. "Of course, come this way, he's made me one of his servants, by force of course, to think, my prayers were answered so quickly!"

Kazi frowned. "Damn, he's a snake."

Blueblood stopped, frowning. "What did you call me?!"

"ugh, listen, I'm the realist, not the pessimist, like Dekar over there. But I can read people. You're one of those people who can't handle ambition, and who'd side with monsters in hopes of going up a rank rather than actually protect his underlings."

"A snake." Piruk simplified.

"I, I would never! I never! You come into my throne room and insult my loyalty?! I was the Prince of Equestria! I was the heir! And now I'm in charge! Understand?! You things care so much about justice, get out of my castle!!"

A charger was pressed to his neck as the Spirit of Water slid down next to him. "We care about justice, not law. Now then, lead us to Makuta or I'll make you go blind." She whispered. His coat got a shade whiter.

~~~~

Brutaka watched as the six Toa left, and then teleported back to where Axonn was in 'Pony Ville'. "They're on their way, we should meet with this Princess then?"

"Yes. Mayor Mare, you know her, correct?"

"Ah, well, I wouldn't say I know her exactly, we've really only met a few times, and then we didn't talk much, and-"

Axonn turned to the tiny purple dragon who was poking his foot. "Yes?"

"I know the Princess, I actually spent most of my life with her."

"Good." Axonn motioned toward the portal. "We'll need you to act as the map, we don't know her exact location at the minute."

"Just a sec," Spike said, reaching for a quill. "Dear... map... sincerely, yours, Spike the Dragon." he burned the message and wiped his paws together. "Alright, she got the message, now we just wait for her to send me a map."

It took less than a minute before it came into existence above Spike. "Alright, now we can go."

There was then a lengthy process of Spike giving distance measures, which had to be translated into Kio, and then they would get out of the portal and look around, before getting back in and searching.

~~~~

Makuta marched back and forth in front of the remainder of the guard. "Pitiful... weak, organic, incompetent, without any special power..." He snapped his claws and watched with interest that he could literally make anything he wanted appear. One of the guards turned into a visorak, and the others tried to stay still as they saw it crawl around on four insect-like legs, giant pincers clicking crazily in an attempt to speak.

Makuta frowned and transformed the guard into a Skakdi, then a steltian, then a Zyglak. But he decided that with his power, he didn't need guards. As long as they could keep the ponies in line.. He snapped his claws one last time and returned the pony back to normal.

"Lord Makuta!" Blueblood called from down the hall.

"What is it Governor?" Makuta asked, reclining back in the air.

"I have several guests who would like a word with you."

Makuta felt the inflections in Blueblood's voice. Makuta Teridax was a genius, he had incredible senses as well, so even without a Kanohi Rode, he could almost always spot a lie. However, with Blueblood, it was somewhat more difficult. Blueblood's words were the opposite of a normal being's. Whenever a normal being lied, they usually kept with it a grain of truth.Whenever Blueblood told the truth he kept a grain of dishonesty. As such, it was normally hard to tell when Blueblood was just speaking, or really lying.

But now... this was just obvious. These were the words of a traitor. "Give me their names." Teridax said casually, listening to the other side of the door for what kind of Equestrian creature it might be.

"They didn't give them, sir. If you'd just meet with them I'm sure-"

A leg shifted. A mechanical leg. No, bio-mechanical.

Bionicle.

"Toa." He whispered. "Real, actual Toa..." He snapped his claw and transformed each of the dozen guards into Rahkshi of various kinds. "Destroy the beings on the other side of the door. If you don't... I don't know, I'll murder a hundred ponies?"

The newly-formed Rahkshi were hesitant, but the last words sent them into a rage.

They blasted through the wall with their new powers and began to brawl with the six Toa.

Piruk chopped his way through one of them, then blasted two more into the cieling with wind.

Dalu and Dekar got back to back and quickly disposed of any of the former guards who came within arm's or leg's reach.

Balta and Garan were next to each other, firing pulses and fireballs at the Rahkshi. Kazi froze two of them and knocked out another with an echo-fork blast.

The battle took less than a minute.

"I don't recognize any of you..." Makuta said climbing into the room and transforming the Rahkshi back into ponies. "Did Mata Nui create new Toa for the sole sake of finishing me off? I kept my end of the deal! I wasn't going to return! But now... Mata Nui broke the promise first and forced my hand."

The Toa looked at each other nervously. "Now!" Garan shouted, shooting a black wave of energy at Makuta. It was followed by five more colors, but Makuta teleported away.

"Not so fast, Toa. Now then, how about we make a deal? Mata Nui sends me some Matoran laborers, a certain hostage from his order, and you all pledge to serve me, and I'll allow you to post a warden to keep me here. It's not like I hate this world... in fact.... I'm the closest thing this world has to a Great Spirit already!!" He shoved his hand in the air and the roof of the room, and the towers above it, were blasted to pieces by the force. He gave a savage grin as he pulled back on the sky with Discord's magic, changing the day to night. He glanced upward as he rearranged the stars to show his mask. "I'm all-powerful here... and I promise to never leave, as long as you meet my demands... how about it, Toa?"

Balta pointed a reflector blade at Makuta and took a defiant stance. "We refuse to allow you to victimize this universe's inhabitants! We are going to destroy you, here, today."

Each of the Toa voiced a similar opinion, and they stood their ground, creating balls of elemental energy around their hands.

Makuta frowned. "So... there will be no compromise? It is unlike me to have to be the first to ask for peace. Honestly, I'm content here. You should have heard the stories of how well-run Metru Nui was under my command, I will be a useful and efficient ruler. All I really want are Matoran workers, simply because they're better than these ponies, you six as my guards, simply to inflate my ego, and Roodaka as my... er... hostage."

"We'll never give into your demands. Mata Nui may have sent you here, but we are here to keep you here, and to stop you from harming any more innocents!" Dekar shouted, throwing his energy sphere at Makuta, who teleported behind him and kicked him through the wall and into the sky.

"Well what do you know, the six are separated." Makuta said jovially. "You have no way to harm me now." He taunted.

Dalu charged forward, actually managing to strike Teridax, but her weapon bounced off his armor, not sufficiently sharp enough. Makuta gripped her in his claws and sighed, reclining into the throne he summoned and dangled her in front of his face, his body and throne steadily growing. "Let me go, monster!"

"Not convincing enough, ga-toa." Makuta opened his now-massive jaw and lifted her above it. "Now then Toa. Swear allegiance and say you'll follow my demands, or I'll consume your friend." The Toa froze, looking at each other and Dalu. Dalu gritted her teeth and growled, swinging her blade into Makuta's finger. His hand unclenched, sending her falling down into his mouth. He closed it immediately, severing her leg at the knee. He made a big show of swallowing and licking his lips. "Well? What now?"

The five remaining Toa howled in anger, firing beams of fire, ice, water, earth, stone, and wind into him. The powers seemed to reflect off his armor, and he smiled, reclining further into his throne. "This is pathetic. You know, it's a wonder I ever lost to Toa like you... my ego always getting the best of me I suppose. But now... now I can afford to indulge myself. I'm immortal now, truly, truly, immortal. All-powerful." The beams were still going, the Toa not caring or noticing they were having no effect, they were just putting their all into keeping the beams going. Makuta blinked, he was surprised he had taken this long to notice it. He snapped his claw and the ga-toa was teleported outside, he gasped as he expelled the bits of protodermis that was forming inside him subtly. "You got swallowed on purpose!" he screamed, towering over the bleeding toa. "That's it! I almost lost again! And just because I sat there and took your beams! Gloating!!!" He growled, the rage dissipating. "You know what... you Toa have taught me a valuable lesson. Even when I think I'm invulnerable... when I think I'm immortal... I should never let my pride get the best of me."

The Six Toa cowered as a wave of energy passed over them. "It... it's a fear blast... shield your minds!" Piruk growled, resisting it.

Dekar frowned and stepped forward, unaffected. "Fear doesn't cut it for you fearless heroes... eh?" Makuta waved his arm as a different wave passed over them. This time Dekar actually faltered, his body groaning. "How about hunger... it hurts your pride, doesn't it Toa? Matoran don't feel hunger, absorbing everything they need from their masks.. you Toa don't feel hunger either. How does it feel, heroes, to endure the pain of lowly creatures like Rahi?"

Dekar frowned and stood up again, throwing an electo-blade at Makuta. "Fire again!!" Dekar shouted, and six beams rose into the air.

Teridax sighed and snapped his claw, Dekar disappeared in a flash. "Where did you send him?!" Garan shouted, firing a beam.

"To the same place as you." Another claw snap, another teleport. The four remaining Toa looked at each other before each disappeared in a flash. "And that." He created six crystal balls, each one containing a Toa. He looked at them all, his fingers dancing over them. He paused over Balta. His thoughts turned to the ta-matoran Takua, who grew up to disperse him, nearly killing him. And before that.. to Vakama, the foolish Ta-toa who managed to steal the mask of time from him... he only needed to kill one of the Toa. That would end their united attack once and for all. He could pick off the others whenever he felt like it. He wouldn't kill them all of course, after all, if they were all dead, they'd be united again. But just one or two... Yes. It would be the fire Toa. He swished his finger and the ball containing Balta fell. "Solves that." The other five screamed silently as Balta's orb shattered. The glass pieces melting into the ground before disappearing with another flash.

The New Brotherhood of Darkness

by JeckParadox

Banishment from the Universe

Resurrected Monsters

Brotherhood of Makuta; Equestrian Division

The New Dark Lunar Crystal Empire of Makuta

The First 'Day' of the Crystal-Equestrian War

The Crystal-Equestrian War Part 2

The Crystal-Equestrian War Part 3

Final Part of the Crystal Equestrian War

Great Spirit

Tired of holding back

Toa Heroes