//------------------------------// // Chapter 1: Time to Put All That Training to Use // Story: An Heir to Legends // by mattchilly //------------------------------// Even after one thousand years, I am always amazed at how annoying it is to have the sun shine its light right into my eyes first thing in the morning. “DAMN YOU TIA! I KNOW YOU DID THIS ON PURPOSE!” “Do you mind not shouting so early in the morning? I think they heard you in Griffonstone.” “Sorry Discord. Hopefully this will end soon, and when we get free please take my advice. DON’T try to take over Equestria but try to talk to Tia to find a way you can make chaos without getting stoned. I know you can be a good person. Heck its thanks to you I am still sane after all these years and learned more control over my powers.” I said. “I make no promises on that but I’ll think about it.” “Thanks Discord.” After that small conversation, we were both silent. After a few hours, a couple of guards walked past us doing the daily rounds, one had a grey coated unicorn the other had a white coated earth pony. At least these two were talking and not the normal silent ones. “My daughter is coming to see Canterlot with the rest of her class later today, it’s going to be nice to see her again.” The one with the grey coat said.  “Good for you man! My family is all the way in Manehatten. We rarely get a chance to see each other.” Mr. White Coat responded. “Where are they coming from?” “Ponyville. How about I introduce you to my little Sunny during our next brake?”                 With that last comment, they walked out of hearing range. “Well Discord, I think today is the day. I think today is the day of Freedom!” I said excitement evident in my voice. “I hope your right! One thousand years can give you such a crick in the neck!” Right after Discord said this a group of fillies and a magenta mare with a pink mane and tale with a lighter pink streak down the middle. Seeing the fight between the Cutie Mark Crusaders in person was somewhat depressing, but at least it didn’t last long and Discord was free. “Well my friend it looks like you were right. So, allow me to set you free as well.” With a snap of his talon my stone prison shattered letting the intimidating ten-foot-tall, and heavily armored, form of Mordekaiser the Iron Revenant stands tall with a large spiked mace in my right hand. “Yes! Now I can finally look like myself again.” With that an ultramarine flash of light shone for a split second and the imposing form of Mordekaiser was gone. In its place, was a smaller humanoid figure. Standing at a solid six-foot-tall, none of his features could be seen because of this full-length dark purple rope that hides the face in shadows. “Thanks man. It’s great to be me again. Now are you going to listen to my… and your already gone, aren’t you? Damn it. I hope he takes my advice. hmm now then I know what I am going to do! Time to sit here and do absolutely nothing!” Sitting down on the stone pedestal I was standing on for the last 1300 years and waited, knowing that eventually Celestia would come look to see if Discord was free if he didn’t take my advice. Plus, I didn’t want to risk being attacked by her guards if I roamed around the city. *five hours later* “Place Discord back onto his pedestal.” Huh? Oh, crud I fell asleep! What happened? Slowly I got off the ground and looked around. what I saw didn’t make me happy. Turns out Discord had ignored my advice and was once again a lawn ornament. Well might as well talk to Celly. “Hello Celly long time no see!” I said causing Celestia and her guards to turn in surprise. “Great Mordekaiser is free now I need to find him as well. what else can go...” “Celestia I am only going to say this once. NEVER say that cursed phrase. Nothing good EVER comes from it. As for Mordekaiser your looking at him, this is my true form. Now before anyone dose anything drastic I would like to say. Sorry about ‘attacking’ you all that time ago even if all I did was walk up and make a cliché villains speech. I would like a chance to explain exactly why I did.” As I was saying all this Celestia went through a few different expressions. First annoyed at the interruption, then shock at the fact I was Mordekaiser and finally a more neutral look. Before she could say anything a small wisp of green fire came flying down from the sky and stopped before Celestia and turned into a rolled-up scroll. “So, that’s what it looks like from this side, not really sure what I was expecting though. So, what’s the letter say Tia?” I’m glad Celly’s guards are just standing there waiting patiently. Even if they are pointing their weapons at me. Now that’s interesting. That Pegasus has a war hammer didn’t expect that. “Celly please tell me that even if you didn’t finish that cursed phrase. Murphy’s Law was still invoked?” I asked worried since looking at Celestia I could see the fear etched into her eyes. “It would seem so Mordekaiser. Ponyville is being invaded by being the likes have never been seen before.” “Please describe them so that your guards can get the word out to be on the watch and I know what we are dealing with, and before you think I had anything to do with this. I could have left at any point after Discord set me free. By the way Discord I am very disappointed you didn’t take my advice in not trying to take over Equestria.” I shook my head at that last part.                 “My student Twilight reports that most of the creatures stand on two legs like you. Most have green skin, are as muscled as a Minotaur, and armed with pick axes and spiked maces. They are also clothed only with a leather belt with some kind of skull like design on the silver belt buckle. They also seem to have orange tusks” Crap! Why are the orcs from Dragon’s Crown here?! “The rest are a mix of three different kinds of monsters. The first are a green slug like creature with two arms that end in a four-fingered hand with giant lips. What can only be described as walking fungus with faces. Twilight only caught a glimpse of the last kind. Small beings in brown cloaks with simple wood bows, but there were only five of them and they disappeared moments after Twilight saw them.” Great as if the Orcs were enough. We also had Bodkin Archers, Funghoul, and Lips from Dragon Quest, running around Equestria this could only mean bad things. How the hell did they all get here?  “Celestia I know we have had a somewhat rocky past but please believe me when I say I never had any intend on harming any one and will defend this land with my life. I promise to explain later but right now I am going to get over there to save Ponyville.”  Celestia looked at me for a moment then finally nodded. “Very well but only because short on options right now, and know this I WILL hold you to that promise.” With that done Celestia turned to one of her Unicorn guards “I want two battalions moving out as soon as possible and the word sent to all city's and guard stations to be on the look out.” The Unicorn saluted and ran off. “Thank you Celestia, but Mordekaiser is not my name. please call me Thrin. Looks like it’s time to put all that training to good use. CHAMPION TRANSFORMATION. SHEN!” at these three words and another flash of ultramarine light my form had changed. Standing just over six foot tall I was clothed in navy blue robe and mask, simple brown leather boots, and gloves and two mid length wakizashis strapped to my back. “Glad I managed to memorize Twilight magic signature when she first used the Elements.” I thought before saying, “STAND UNITED!” When I was training with Discord in the realm within my mind I learned many things, a few being that I could unleash a champions ‘ultimate’ at any time, another was that with the right amount of focus I could make skills that had a charge time, work almost instantaneously but at the cost of being a little more unfocused and sometimes fail completely. From training with Discord I knew that if this spell became unfocused I could arrive anywhere from three feet to two miles away from my desired location, so I waited the 5 seconds for the teleport to Twilight's location. When the five seconds was up my body glowed purple and disappeared leaving no trace of where I was standing. I reappeared right in front of Twilight facing away from her. That was way to close! I'm now staring strait at a seven foot tall orc mace raised in the air who had a look of surprise on his face. “Wow I knew you guy were ugly but I didn’t know how ugly! You orcs want to take this town? WELL YOU HAVE TO DO IT OVER MY DEAD BODY! CHAMPION TRANSFORMATION ALISTAR!” A flash of ultramarine and instead of a six and a half foot shinobi, stood a seven and a half foot dark blue furred Minotaur. Lifting my right fist above my head I proclaimed. “Time for evil to be Pulverized!” Instead of smashing the ground I brought my fist down onto the orc’s head crushing his skull. Glancing back at Twilight I saw she was in shock. “Snap out of it Twilight! Now is not the time to space out.” That worked with a shake of her head to clear her thoughts. “Thanks. I don’t even want to think of what would have happened if you didn’t show up in time, also who are you?” “My name is Thrin. I’ll explain more later. Right now, I need to kill as many of the orcs and monsters as I can until the Royal Guard gets here to help. In the meantime I want you to get as many ponies as you can to someplace safe.” “No need everyone else is already inside town hall.” Twilight said. “Then why are you out here?” I asked. “I was trying to get to my home to see if I had missed any magic books that might help.” She replied.  “In that case, I want you to teleport to town hall and put up the strongest barrier you can.” I order. “All right.”  With that Twilight, teleported away but I could tell she was still shaken up from the experience.                 I looked around. Good thing town hall is the tallest building in town. “Alright, town hall is to my right. If I had to guess, most of the monsters are heading their now. So I should try to get their first. CHAMPION TRANSFORMATION SHEN!” Using Shen's superior athletic skills I jumped onto the closest house and ran across the roof tops. Good thing to as a few Lips had managed to climb there way up and were heading in the direction of town hall. With the element of surprise all the lips in my pass fell in one strike each. Surveying the area from atop the house I could see two main details. First what that a lavender dome of magic was covering the town hall preventing any of the invaders from getting in. Second was that, if my quick head count was correct there were at least 35 Orcs, 20 Funghouls and 19 Lips but where are the Bodkin Archers? (Looks like Twilight got the barrier up. I better try to finish this quickly. Ok, gotta think quickly, I have three more champion ‘slots’ and two summoner spells for today. Annie’s fire spells and Tibbers could help. Ahri is always a good choice against multiple foes, but then again Ekko’s rewind ability could help... no better go for the magic on this one besides Ahri’s charm spell will help here, even though I HATE using it. So the last slot is going to Master Yi his Wuju style and speed should be able to tare through them easily besides I really want to use that sword in real combat. Glad Mordekaiser doesn’t take up any of my ‘slots’ for the day, since the transformations only counts the ‘slot’ of the day I turned into them, because there is no way I’m turning in to him again if I can help it.)                 (For spells, Ghost might be able to help keep me safe and Flash will allow me to teleport around the area quickly. Or should I save it for my Healing spell? Hmm no time to think this through I’ll just have to wait and see with one of the two I need.) I thought before giving a quick nod of my head I jumped aiming to land on one of the orcs more in the middle of the town square. “TIME TO DIE MONSTERS! CHAMPION TRANSFORMATION ALISTAR! PULVERIZE!” I landed right on target. Alistar’s weight and his Pulverize ability, not only caused the orc I landed on to die but with the added momentum from my jump, when I brought my fists to the ground for the shock wave all of the Lips and Funghouls around me got sent flying into some of the other monsters.                 “CHAMPION TRANSFORMATION! ANNIE! COME ON OUT TIBBERS!” In a sprout a fire a bear appeared. Just as tall as Alistar, his body was a light in flames and i had changed to a young girl with dark red hair, a pink cat ear head band and wearing a purple dress under a dark blue tank-top with a pink backpack, dark purple and pink striped socks and black shoes. Tibbers immediately began tearing into the Orcs in the area, and the monsters that were to close to him were getting hurt just by being near him do to a vortex of flames that surrounded him. The Funghouls around him simply burst into flames and were burned to ash in mere moments. “Tibbers don’t go near the houses. We don’t want to burn this place to the ground.” I yelled my voice now a slightly higher pitch. and a little more feminine. Then I threw a Disintegrate spell past a couple Orcs to hit a third in the face burning the two it past and making the third scream in pain as he dropped his weapons and grab his face. “Hehe you smell like… burning!” Taking a quick look around I saw that the fire emanating from Tibbers had turn all of the Funghouls into ashes and a lot of the lips were now dried up husks, but there were still 15 orcs and 6 lips left. Now seems like a good time to change things up, but then I heard a sound that filled me with dread, a scared child's yell. “HEEELP!” Looking to my right I saw one of the lips closing in on a small grey Pegasus. Immediately I yelled “CHAMPION TRANSFORMATION! MASTER YI! FLASH!” In a burst of golden light the lips found its self with a sword sticking through its face. Pulling my blade out of the corpse I swiftly and gently picked up the foal in my left arm. “Don’t worry little one. I’ll get you to safety.” Now that I closer, I could tell that this is a young colt. “Ghost!” With that both myself and the foal in my arms became intangible just a moment before an orc’s pick-ax passed through my head. Ignoring the Orcs I turn and ran as fast as I could towards town hall. Unlike the few orcs who were bashing the barrier with all their might, I passed though it as if it wasn’t there. “Your safe now young one, go find your family.” I whispered as I gently placed the foal onto the wooden floor. The front doors opened up and a fully grown dark gray male Pegasus with a came rushing out. “RUMBLE! Oh thank Celestia your safe! Thank you!” “Your welcome. I’m glad he isn’t harmed.” I responded glad to have a moment to catch my breath. I turn to look past the Orcs and was glad to see no enemy reinforcements had come. “Aren’t you going back out there?” The older Pegasus asked. “The spell I used to get Rumble and my self, inside the barrier can’t be used in rapid succession. You could say it has a ‘cool down’ period. As much as it pains me to say this, I cant use it again for the next 3 minutes, but that gives me a little more time to plan a counter attack.”                 At this I heard not only Thunderlane’s groan but many others from inside town hall. “Don’t worry Princess Celestia has already ordered for solders to mobilize. Once the cool down ends I will head out again and hold off the monsters until the guards arrive, if not wipe them out entirely.” a sigh of relief this time as I thought. ‘If I can get behind them, then use Ahri’s Charm spell on one of the orcs. He might be able to kill one or two of the others before they swarm him maybe more if I send him after the small fry first. I’m to close to the building to call for Tibbers again and I really don’t want to miss with fire magic so I guess Annie’s benched for the rest of the fight.’ A new voice spoke up, a cocky one this time but I could hear a little fear. “So big guy whats the plan?” Turning my head to the left I saw a blue Pegasus with a rainbow mane and tail. “First I need wait for the cool down to end. I would say more but I don’t want to let them know my strategy, if they can hear us.” I could tell Rainbow didn’t like the fact I couldn’t tell her but nodded her head understanding my point. “You should go back inside. I want you and your friends to try to keep everyone's spirits up, and keep the kids from watching. They are to young to see this.” Rainbow bobbed her head in agreement and went back inside closing the door behind her. “Ghost’s cool down is just about done, and Flash will be done in about 2 minute. Time to see if my plan works.” I take a few steps back, take a breath then run at the barrier. “CHAMPION TRANSFORMATION! AHRI! GHOST!” once again my form shifted, this time was a slender women with black hair braided down to mid back, in a red kimono like dress, two fox like ears on the top of her head and what seemed to be one very fluffy white tail. While intangible I dashed through all of the monsters who had gathered in front of the barrier. For some reason none of the orcs or remaining lips didn’t seem to notice me. Once behind all of the monsters I stopped and turn around. Luckily there was one orc at the back of the group who would make an easy target. ‘It’s a good thing these monsters are dumb. If they surrounded the barrier instead of huddling in one place this could be a lot harder.’ Bringing a hand up I blew a kiss right at the orc’s back. “Charm. Now be a dear and kill your former allies will you? Feel free to start with the small ones.” Yup no matter how many time I use this spell, whether in training or real combat, it is always awkward. As soon as the spell hit the orc he immediately forgot all about trying to push him self closer to the barrier and started to kill the Lips with brutal strikes.                 In a matter of seconds the rest of the lips were dead and the Charmed Orc was attacking his kin. While they were dealing with the traitor I had moved to the left side of the group and sent the Orb of Deception into the group. I threw it through the hole group getting about 9 Orcs and when I called it back all 9 died. ‘This is weird. My attacks are cutting them down to easily. Is it because of all the training I did with Discord? Or is it because the Champions from League of Legends are affected by different rules then the characters in Dragon’s Crown?’ I had little time to think on this because remaining 5 orcs had finished killing the one I Chamed and had turned to face me. As one they charged. “SPIRIT RUSH!” I dashed around them in three short bursts firing a ball of pure spirit energy at one of the orcs with each burst. “Oh look its down to just the three of you and the bodkin archers who apparently ran off. I’ll have to hunt them down later, but for now time to end this. FOX-FIRE!” With that three blue balls of fire but into life. Each ball of Fox-Fire flew at a different orcs and just like the the battle was over, or so I thought until an orc twice the size of the others appeared on the other side of town square. Unlike the others this orc had leather armor with a metal shoulder pad, and had a Zweihänder in one had. “So that’s what a Dragon’s Crown style Orc Chieftain really looks like. I always wondered. Glad its not just a palette swap like it appeared to be in the game.” As I was saying this the Chieftain roared a battle cry and charged. “I think I’ll need some more muscle here. CHAMPION TRANSFORMATION ALISTAR!” Out of the corner of my eye I saw that some ponies had come out of town hall. Probably to get a better view of the fight. Before I could do anything else I felt 5 burning sensations pierce my back. ‘DAMN IT! This that to be because of those archers! They must have been hiding or getting in position so they could help this Chief!’ Right as I was thinking this the Chieftain raised his blade and brought it down slicing my from right should to my left hip. I dropped to a knee and held my chest. I could feel my blood seep out of the wound. When I got injured all the ponies who came out to watch gasped in horror. Before my mind could fully comprehend what had happened my body acted on its own. “CHAMPION TRANSFORMATION SHEN!” While the ultramarine light temporarily blinded the Orc Chieftain I activated my Flash spell again. In a span of a few seconds after I vanished all five of the Archers flew head first at the Chieftain and as they collided with him everyone heard five loud *CRACK* as their necks broke. The Chieftain shrugged of the impacts like they were nothing and looked around the area trying to find me, but when I threw them I never intended to damage the giant orc. I just wanted get rid of the archers. While the Chieftain look around trying to find me, I was sneaking up behind him one of my wakizashis in my hand in a reverse grip. When I got right behind him I jumped with all my might. Gripping my blade in both hands I brought it down stabbing it right though the crown of his head. With a mighty thud the Chieftain fell with me still standing on his back, his blade lying next to him on the ground. I pulled my blade out of the orc and jumped off my fallen foe.