"Phoenix: These Wars We Fight" Original Version. And Have A Happy Easter!

If you have the time, please tell me if you think the rewrite has improved.

Phoenix
Chapter  4
Twilight walked down the long hall, having been summoned to Canterlot along with her friends. She had arrived this morning and had a meeting with Celestia. This was her free time.
You could never truly get use to the massive size of Canterlot Castle. She always walked through here to catalog old wall designs, she always managed to find new areas of the castle to walk around. New things to catalog.
The old castle was beautiful. There was no denying that. The castle loomed high over all of Equestria. A decision Twilight remembered reading was intentional, of course, for both show and tactics.
This part showed the importance of Canterlot to Equestria, being the central part of Equestria.  The tactic part was that in any direction, Canterlot Mountain was protected by invasion by five hundred miles of land.
Twilight continued down the hall, amazed at the size of it, bigger than any of the other halls she had seen. And if she had to guess, bigger than the throne room.
She was all alone, on the clip clopping of her hooves hitting the marble floor keeping her company. She paused to look at a lone doorway. This was odd, Twilight knew that.  This was the only door she had seen in this hall. She pulled herself closer to the door. There were no markings on it to identify it, and it was painted a similar color to the walls surrounding it. There was no candle illuminating its position and it was level with the wall.
Twilight was about to turn away, maybe it wasn't a good idea to mess with this door. She began to turn away, but stopped mid-step. She paused.
Should she go in? The door was hidden for a reason, but she wasn't specifically forbidden by Princess Celestia to go in.
She turned back around to face the door, her horn lighting up and the doorknob moving. She moved into the open doorway, leaving the door open behind her as she moved deeper into the room.
She kept her horn lit up, as she mumbled to herself, pausing occasionally to draw some sketches of what looked like wall designs.
The walls themselves were a dull gray, dusty with age. Twilight continued walking forward, the floor undeniably metal as her hooves thunked hard against it.
She looked back, unable to see the door she had went it. She had begun to turn around, however a sound made her turn her head around. As her head turned, a bright light caught her in the eyes, blinding.
She reacted quickly, bringing her right leg to cover her eyes. After a few moments the light died down, as she slowly brought her let down. She was met with a strange sight.
A dull grey room, with hundred of buttons on tables connected to the wall. A suit of armor rested on a table in the middle of the room.
She slowly peeked her head in, checking both sides of the door. She walked in, going to right, planning to make her way around the room.
However, after a few moments of attempting to mess with the button on one if the tables connected to the wall and failing to produce a result, she decided to look at the suit of armor on the table.
The suit of armor was obviously designed for a biped. But it was too small for a minotaur. Whatever creature this armor was designed for, she had never heard of it.
She slowly moved her hoof to the helmet of armor, poking it as she pulled back quickly.
The helmet, instead of rolling off the table, stiffly rolled to the side.
Twilight gasped in shock. That wasn't just a suit of armor, it had the creature inside of it.
She froze. What should she do? Twilight slowly focused again. She enveloped the helmet in her magic. She tugged, however the helmet refused to move.
She tugged even harder, but she only managed to make the entire body move a bit.
However, she was surprised as a small hiss escaped from the helmet, as she flew back as the helmet loosened up from the head it was connected to.
She got up from the crash, as she levitated the helmet next to her. She walked back to the table as she examined the helmet. The inside was covered in some strange substance that seemed as though it would fit the contours of a face. She had never seen technology such as this. It wasn't pony nor gryphon, not even minotaurian. She carefully set the helmet down on the table, deciding to come back to it later.
She examined the head that had been covered by the helmet. The face was strange light pale. The mane of the creature was short, a brown color. Its face devoid of hair save for the mane. Twilight moved to the other side of the creature. It's face was scarred by quite a few marks, hide that had been damaged and healed over. The biggest scars Twilight noticed was a scar running diagonally from the bottom of its right eye to the bottom of its chin. A scar slicing through its right eyebrow, leaving a streak of missing hair and thick pinkish hide.
Twilight moved to examine the creature again. If she had to guess, she'd call the unknown creature male based off of its square, robust face.
She cautiously lifted the creature's top lip and peered into his mouth. Both flat grinders, and sharper canines. An omnivore, then. Twilight lowered her head to hsi mouth, paused. She heard nothing and felt nothing. So it was dead. Bur for how long had it been dead?
Twilight was moving to inspect the creature more, maybe even get the barrel piece off of the creature and inspect the technology. The secrets they could hold!
Twilight pranced in excitement at the possibility. She spoke to herself about all the new secrets she could unlock. An entire new species! Found in Canterlot Castle no less!
However her experiment was cut short as a bright light filtered into the room, blinding her as she once again brought her leg up to shield her face.
The bright light receded, as she lowered her leg to be greeted by an unexpected sight.
“Pr-princess Celestia! How are yo-“ Twilight was cut off as Celestia’s horn flashed and they reappeared in the empty throne room.
"Princess! Why did y-" Twilight was cut off again, this time by Celestia.
"I've no time for your questions. Stay here no matter what happens." Twilight watched as the Sun Princess hefted a piece of armor designed for her barrel with her magic. The hinged two piece armor sliding over her back and latching together under her belly.
"What's happening?"Twilight frantically questioned, having never seen her mentor suit up for what appeared to be battle.
"An invasion," Celestia answered. Lifting a helmet over her horn "Outer pegasi guards spotted massive gryphon movements two hours ago near Los Pegasus. Their messenger only just got to us.The Canterlot Guard has less than ten minutes before they're upon us."
Celestia stopped talking as she moved over to Twilight and bent down to her height. Their eyes met as Celestia continued talking.
"This is why I need you to stay here in the throne room, it's the safest place right  now for you. And we'll talk about the creature later."
"But I can help!" Twilight answered, stubbornly refusing to cede to her mentor's wisdom.
"I've helped defeat Discord and NightMare Moon, and Chrysalis. Let me he-"
Twilight was cut off.
"No." Was all Celestia said. As she got up, levitating a longsword and sheath towards herself from a corner. She quickly buckled the sword to the left side of her barrel.
"Please Princess! I can help."
"No. And that is the end of this discussion. Those situations are easy and nice compared to what could happen in one single battle."
"But," Twilight paused, as she strained her ears. A deep rumble filled the ground as she put her ear close to it. "Do you hear that?" Twilight asked.
Celestia lowered her ear to the ground, listening as the world went silent around her.
Her eyes widened as she began to shout, but was interrupted as a hole was blown in the wall and a blue skinned biped wielding a massive hammer rammed into her.
She was slammed into wall as the minotaur wrapped its massive hand around her throat, slamming her into the wall several more times.
Twilight froze, unsure of what to do as the unusually large minotaur dropped Celestia.
Celestia attempted to get to her hooves as the minotaur lifted up its hammer. She was nearly up, nearly able to get away. But the minotaur allowed its hammer to fall with the added power of the minotaur.
The hammer fell upon Celestia’s back, as the armor snapped and her body folded. A crack resounded from her back as her spine punctured her hide. Celestia cried out in pain.
Twilight, before she could think to look away, vomited at the sight.
From the hole in the wall, a group of gryphons made their way in. The lead gryphon was surveying the damage, unmoved by the gory princess and the vomiting unicorn. The lead gryphon, wearing shining steel armor.  A cave waving being him, and a bronze colored helmet adorned on his head. The feather crest on the top his resting to the side, his dark brown fur giving contrast to his white feathers.
The unusually large minotaur stood where it was, its over-sized hammer resting on its shoulder.
As the gryphons head up the back of the group fanned out to secure the massive throne room, the lead gryphon moved to Celestia.
Celestia squirmed a bit, she could feel the bone beginning to reform, but it would take a while before the lower and upper spine fused back together.
“Why hello! My dear Princess, how are you doing today?” The lead gryphon spoke.
Celestia struggled to pull reposition herself using only her front hooves.
“Who are you?” Celestia demanded. The gryphon looked surprised. As he moved around, inspecting the throne room.
“Oh, I have not yet introduced myself yet? My apologies. I am Lord Grand Marschall Egonhard Wolfram Hildrebrande Starkhahn, of Her Majesty’s Army. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” The Lord General said.
“Marschall? Her Majesty? The Empress,” Celestia paused to grimace as her spine continued to adjust itself. Coughing up some blood. “ The Empress dares to declare war on Equestria?”
Egon paused, but soon guffawed.
“War?” He laughed. “This isn’t war, this is slaughter. We took Canterlot in a matter of hours. But invasion isn’t the main reason I’m here.”
“So why are you here?” Celestia questioned as Twilight lay quietly. Trying to keep herself as small a target as possible, shocked by the violent way her mentor was taken down.
Egon moved closer to the paralyzed princess. His claws removed something from his chest piece.
“A Treaty, the Empress has laid out. You surrender Equestria to the Empire,” Gale allowed the folded document to unfold, holding it up in his claw. “And continue to raise the sun as a prisoner of the Empire. In return, we shall not massacre ponies. Although, they may be made slaves…” The gryphon failed to suppress a small smile at the end of the explanation, and Celestia did not miss it. The gryphon holding a wet quill out for her.
She stared at the document, her head lowered, as blood continued to pool her in her mouth. She lifted her head. Staring the Marschall in the eye.
And then she spat. The blood hit him in the face, as the room went even more silent than it had been.
The gryphon slowly moved away, wiping the bloody spit of with the cloth of his cape/
“Right, well since you want to be so disrepectful to your captor, and by proxy, the Empress herself, you shall be punished for it.” Egon calmly said.
“Minotaur!” Egon shouted. “Kill her.” he said as he pointed his talon at the shell shocked purple unicorn.
“No! Don’t you dare touch her!” Celestia yelled.
“I’m afraid this was your choice, Celestia. I offered you a peaceful agreement, and you spat in my face.”  Egon spoke, smugness evident in his voice.
“I’ll kill you, you fucker!” Celestia threatened, far out of her usual calm demeanor. She watched as the monster minotaur moved over to the immobilised Twilight. Raising his hammer as he prepared to bring it down on the purple unicorn’s head.
Celestia attempted to pour more magic into her spine, hoping to save Twilight. But she knew it was futile. The injury was far from fatal for her, but Twilight would certainly die from this attack.
The minotaur pulled the hammer down, Celestia watched as the hammer slowly came down, coming to end the life of a pony she considered a daughter.
Her eyes shut, not wishing to witness this gruesome execution, as she yelled in a futile attempt that it may save her student’s life.
“No!”
Celestia’s eyes remained shut, waiting for the sure sound of death. The popping of the head and the splattering of blood. The cracking of bone and the squishing as the hammer was shifted around.
Instead, all she heard was silence.
Celestia slowly opened her eyes, only to be greeted by a welcome sight.
The hammer frozen in air, not even a foot from Twilight’s head. Held in place by a gloved paw, a paw similar to the murderous mintotaur, but far smaller.
Connected to the body was the Creature, as he had been called. His name turned into a great position. Dawn Bringer, Dawn-Tay.  The same creature that had saved her as a little girl, has just saved her student from certain death as well.
The murderous minotaur blindly attempted to continue its task. The muscles in its upper legs stressing to push the hammer down. But Dawn-Tay stressed none, as it brought it’s right lower leg up in a sweep, easily bringing the massive minotaur down.
The gryphons in the room back up in fear as this supposed feat of strength. Dawn-Tay’s relatively small, six foot frame body compared to the minotaur’s fifteen foot frame, shocked them. Surely a small creature shouldn’t be able to stand up to a mighty minotaur.
But stand up he did. His body giving off an even more threatening aura than even the minotaur could muster, as he ripped the massive hammer from the paw of the minotaur, slamming the handle into the minotaur’s left sidehead, the force so great, the steel handle snapped.
Dawn-Tay brought the handle down again, the previously thirteen foot handle was now only eight feet.
The rod made contact with the head of the beast. The monstrous minotaur collapsed from the blow to the head.
Dawn-Tay turned around to face the remaining group. All of them, including Egon, just stared at the beats. As he stood there with the intimidating aura. His eyes locked with Egon’s as they stared each other down.
Dawn-Tay said one thing, but that one word would change everything to happen on this planet and this universe.
“Leave.”

---

Also, Happy Easter to all!