The six made it through the Everfree with surprising ease and quickly found themselves at an ancient and decrepit castle. The moat of the castle was empty and bridged by a fallen drawbridge that looked ready to fall apart.
They made their way across the bridge one by one for fear of it falling out from under them and met at the entrance of the throne room. "Alright, where are the Elements at in here?" Asked Starlight.
"Well I would assume that such important artifacts would be kept in the treasury." Chrysalis said with her ever present disdain.
Making their way to the treasure vault, while trying not to get lost, Antijam chose to voice a question that was bothering her. "Anyone else think that this has been to easy so far?"
"What do you mean?" Tirek answered her question with his own.
"She means is that we are in the Everfree Forest, something created by the natural balance of the world from 'evil' magics, and the only creature we have encounter has been a Jackalope that fled at the sight of us." Fizzlepop said obviously on edge as the entrance to the treasury came into view.
"Well it means one of two things," Discord said as they entered the treasury. "One: we are extremely lucky. Or two: We have-"
"Just walked into a trap?" A voice said as a cloaked figure dropped down in front of them.
The door slammed shut behind them and when they looked they saw five more cloaked figures though none of them had there hoods up and revealed them to be a light green Earth Pony with a seafoam green mane, a pink Hippogriff with a light blue mane, a Yak with long braids on the sides of her head, a Changeling distinguished from others of her kind by a pink frill and oppressively bright blue eyes, and an adolescent orange Dragon with dark pink spines and upwards facing horns.
"You know how hard it was to make sure you didn't run into anything that could kill you?" The figure in front of them said gaining their attention, his hood now down to reveal an unusually colored blue Griffin. "I'm not sure why the boss wants you alive but he dose. Something about a connection to a powerful weapon or something like that."
>>"Yeah, there was a Bugbear, a giant Manticore, three Chimeras, a Cipactli, a Hydra, a tribe of Pukwudgie, a full pack of timber wolves, and four Cockatrices. Or is it Cockatrici? Cockatrices, Cockatrici, Cockatrices, Cockatrici, Cockatrices, Cockatrici, Cockatrices, Cockatrici...">> The pink Hippogriff practically vibrating with energy said and continued to say as everyone tuned her out.
"Yeah, now make this easy on yourselves." The dragon spoke up while pulling out a battle ax and putting a helmet on her head, an action the others copied with their own weapons.
"The boss wants you alive, he never said anything about how many pieces he want's you in." The Changeling said as they all began to circle the six ponies.
The six ponies shared looks with each other and seemed to come to a silent agreement.
With out warning Discord threw his fore hooves in the air and yelled "WE SURRENDER!" at the top of his lungs throwing their aggressors, and the three who didn't know him very well, off guard as they all looked at him. Providing a distraction for both Starlight as she charged at the Dragon and Fizzlepop as she used her Earth Pony magic to dive below the ground and come up underneath the Griffin with a devastating buck to the ribs.
The highly trained group, and Antijam, swiftly shook off the shock as Discord began to cast a spell. The four unoccupied ambushers charged at the four still in between them with their weapons at the ready and had to dodge each other as Discords spell teleported them to the other end of the room.
The distance between the two groups of four gave the three civilians time to prepare to fight. Chrysalis charging her horn with one of the few useful ones she had for such situations, Tirek bringing his magic out to surround his massive frame and increase his already incredible strength, Discord charging his horn with a dark purple bubbly magic with streaks of black electricity and green bubbles that gave off an uneasy feeling and his eye changing to red and green with a purple smoke coming from them, Antijam pulling a number of devices from her bag the most notable being a pair of wing blades and a pair of hoof blades that she attached with practiced ease in less than two seconds.
Fizzlepop stood upright before the Griffin in one of the Minotaur hand to hand, or in this case hoof to claw, combat stances that she had learned over the years.
"I've been bucked by Bar and many others over the years, but I don't think any of them have hit me as hard as you just did." The Griffin said rubbing his side as his cloak fell away to reveal he was wearing a light armor, his metal breastplate having a large noticeable dent in it, showing that he most likely had a few broken ribs. As the Griffin looked up ready to continue his monologue he was instead met by the sight of the Royal Legionnaire flipping through the air with one of her rear hooves spinning towards his head and just barely managed to avoid it.
Starlight was strafing through the air around the Dragon who was hovering in one spot swinging her battle ax when ever Starlight got close and breathing fire when she wasn't. Starlight didn't have any weapons or armor, but she did have exceptional speed and skill fighting at such speeds. The Dragons armor and scales protected it from most of what she could do and she could easily avoid the Dragons attacks, so their fight was more one of endurance and stamina.
The Hippogriff, Changeling, Yak, and Earth Pony were slowly approaching Discord and allies. They had ditched their cloaks showing what armor they were wearing and what roles they likely played in combat. The Yak was wearing heavy and thick Cold Iron and had Cold Iron blades attached to her helm that went over her horns. The Changeling was wearing Mithral, likely enchanted so as to change shape when she did, and was carrying three spears, two swords and two daggers in her magical grip marking her as an Orochi style fighter. The Hippogriff was not wearing armor but was wearing belt after belt of enchanted daggers, having at minimum a hundred on her. The Earth Pony was wearing typical battle mage armor and his hooves were glowing a sea green with his magic.
"It's not illegal," Discord said as he finished charging his spell and cast it. "I have a license." His spell dropped to the ground as a blob of animated tar, it began to sink between the stones of the floor before spreading around him in a bubbling and boiling circle of dark violet and green, arcs of black electricity shooting out and around it and connecting his horn to the circle. His eyes unchanged.
Chrysalis, Tirek, and Antijam moved away from him so as not to get zapped by the Dark Magic and to avoid the sudden spikes of rock rising around him in an attempt to impale him. "I got the Dark Mage." The Earth Pony said and used his Geomancy to fully separate the opposing four and approached his selected target while the other three each went after one of the precious moon lovers.