//------------------------------// // Chapter Fifty-five: Marshal, Captain, and King // Story: A Rather Large Adventure // by BradyBunch //------------------------------// Wind stung at his eyes. The chariot sped along a mile above the earth, pulled by the twin gold-armored pegasi in front of him. On all sides were similar chariots, loaded with troops and specialized equipment. Shining Armor held on tighter to the edge of the chariot and took a few deep breaths of cold, rushing air. He wasn't too comfortable up high. Flying was for pegasi, not for ponies unaccustomed to the height difference. To take his mind off the possibility of falling and splattering on the earth far beneath, he recalled the instruction Celestia had given him before his departure to Maretania. “Take care not to run into any advance scouts on the way. We can only assume the Noxxa are going to scout the southeast shore of Equestria to come at us in two directions. Better to be cautious, Captain, than confident.” “Yes, Princess. Um, Princess?” “Yes, Captain?” “I'm... worried.” “I know you are, Shining Armor.” “She'll die down there if her oxygen runs out, or if she'll starve. How can I be sure…?” “We are never entirely sure what the future holds, Shining Armor. No matter how well a decision might be at the moment, there is no way to know if it's right until after the consequences. Twilight’s fate is in your hooves now. What you can be sure of, Captain, is that Twilight is doing her absolute best to bring about the downfall of King Solaris.” “Who?” “The Eternal Enemy, who rules above the field marshal of the Noxxa. Solaris was once the husband of Faust, our Eternal Mother. When he proposed a plan to rid us of our agency, he was thrust out of heaven by his wife and became our Unseen Adversary. Every nightmare, act of darkness, and sin is committed because of him.” “This...was before the creation of Equus?” “Indeed.” “And is this tale true?” “Yes, Shining.” “... Why?” “Why what, Captain?” “Why is Faust not interfering? She hasn't been helping us. We didn't even know her. Why did she separate herself from her children?” “Don't you think she wanted to make herself known? She closed herself off so that we would choose our destiny without divine intervention. Not to mention keeping Solaris's influence at a minimum. Now that Her will is to be surfaced in Equestria, Solaris will try his hardest to destroy his children. “Shining Armor. Listen to me. Though She cannot appear to us, Faust will never abandon Her children. Twilight will be rescued. You will fight for those you love. Trust in Her, and your mission will succeed.” The conversation replayed in his head as he kept a sharp eye out. So long as he believed in Her, his mission would succeed? Shining Armor snorted. He had succeeded in other missions before without believing in Her, hadn't he? Saving the Crystal Empire, saving his wedding--That was all him, right? And the girls, and their magic, and… He shook his head in sudden astonishment. What if She had played a part, and he just didn't know it? All that new magic they all got in times of need--they didn’t just pop out of nowhere, right? It had to come from someone. I still don’t know if I should… he mused. But I'd rather be safe than sorry. The princesses seem to know what they're talking about. Besides, it'll be a good way to tick off Marshal Malice if I bump into him. So I'll try it. Fake it till I make it. So now the problem is, what's the first step towards making it? Keep your eyes peeled. The advice came into his head without a voice, and out of nowhere. As it did, he felt a constriction of his chest for an instant. Then the advice disappeared and the feeling was gone. “Keep your eyes peeled!” Shining parroted out loud. “There might be danger up ahead!” “Understood, sir!” the two chariot pullers, Raining Sky and Winter Gleam, responded in unison. They beat their wings harder, but kept their eyes open, watering at their edges as one of them stared ahead, while the other scanned the ground. Raining Sky, brown-coated, who was strong and clever at manipulating weather clouds, and Winter Gleam, white as his name implied, who aimed well and could slip into nooks and crannies easily. Both had high strength and endurance and were stallions that stuck out above the rest in his line of service, and he was glad to have chosen them for his flight companions. The only ones, in his opinion, who were better than them in combat were the legendary Guardians of the Sun themselves. “Sir!” Winter Gleam shot out. “Approaching Maretania!” Shining Armor steeled his resolve to peer over the edge. Indeed, far below him was the smashed and ruined city, looking like a foal had stomped on a cookie. Ruined buildings were scattered about and falling to pieces. The seashore it was bordering had become polluted and murky. And in the middle of the whole thing, a collapsed sinkhole had opened up and had filled up with rubble. The chariots ran into a cloud bank, and the arrowhead formation disappeared in the frigid air. It felt like speeding into a cold shower. Shining Armor felt a lump form in his throat. He was certain that sinkhole was where Twilight was. Buried deep beneath the earth. In the day it had taken for him to speed to the city, she had probably run out of supplies. Air would be another issue entirely. She could even be...no, she couldn't be dead… “CAPTAIN!” a Royal Guard further ahead in the formation screamed. “CAPTAIN, DIRECTLY AHEAD!” The hoarse desperation snapped the Captain out of his rumination. He half-drew the short sword hanging at his violet-armored flank and prepared for combat. As they flew out of the cloud, Shining Armor looked around, searching for the danger. He could see nothing but a wall of darkness in front of him. Then he noticed the way the darkness undulated and flapped in place, and appeared as individual stitches in a garment close together, and he blankly realized that each stitch was an enemy soldier. In front of them, all was still. Centered ahead of the wall of black troops was a large white dragon flapping in place, with burning red eyes and ferocious bone-tipped claws all over his body. Seated on top of the dragon was an albino centipede with a draconic head and needle-like teeth, holding a shiny black broadsword in one of four outstretched, bony arms. And he grinned at him! He leveled his sword at the pony formation. “SCATTER!” Shining Armor bellowed, drawing his sword. As the dragon let loose a stream of white fire into the formation, each chariot swerved and juked up, down, left, and right. Two of the fifteen chariots were incinerated into twisted lumps of molten gold that fell to earth, dragging down the charred bodies of the pegasi pulling it. “We're outnumbered!” Raining Sky shouted, flying so hard the sores under his tired wings opened up and began to bleed. “Sir, what do we do?” Shining Armor whirled around. The remaining chariots were forming up in a line behind him like a train, and the warriors inside were drawing up crossbows and spears. He could not see each of their faces, but he knew each of them wore a terrified expression. Their lives depended on him now. He would not let them die. “Fly higher!” he roared. He raised his hoof higher, giving the signal behind him to the twelve other chariots. They rapidly ascended, each one trailing behind like a line of string. “FIRE!” the pale rider hissed to his army. A barrage of arrows sailed past the chariots, splintering into the sides and bottom of the elaborate vehicles. The ponies inside were protected from the arrows by the bottoms of the chariots. The downside was, the pegasi pulling them were exposing their bare chests and legs and wings to the cruel arrows of the enemy beasts. Several squelches were heard near the bottom of the line of ascending chariots. A pegasus had been shot in the chest and neck, and the shafts of crossbow bolts were deeply embedded into his flesh. The other pegasus pulling him reached for him in shock, but this, combined with the loss of power, made the chariot stop in place. The Royal Guard inside were hanging vertically out of the chariot, and one by one, they lost their grip and fell out, plummeting to the earth and screaming. The remaining pegasus craned his head around in horror to see his mates falling to their death, and as he did, an arrow sank into the bottom of his chin, piercing through his jaw into his brain. The entire chariot fell through the sky, trailing blood and the cargo inside, and disappeared from sight. Shining Armor’s heart jolted upon seeing it. Pushing aside the thoughts of the injured pegasi, he stuck his arm to the side. “Ready crossbows!” As they ascended above the cloud line, a shout reached his ears. “Crossbows readied!” “On my command!” Shining roared back. Now that they were above the flat cloud line, the Noxxa would have to breach it to fight them, or else they would lose the Royal Guard in the clouds. “Hold!” came the order from the chariot behind him. The chariot line leveled out and shot along the tops of the puffy clouds like a speeding train. The guards in them were peering over the edge, waiting for the enemy to make a move. As the line circled around for another pass, the clouds were breached from behind, and Shining Armor whirled about-face. Black bugs with long, curving legs and feral yellow eyes and thin, jagged fangs popped out of the clouds like daisies. They held long pikes and curved swords and hooked, serrated saws meant to torture and hurt rather than kill. “Fire!” he commanded. The crossbows sang their deadly tune and pierced chitin, and away crumbled the bug's decomposing bodies, scattering about like leaves in an autumn wind. On they came, unremorseful towards their fallen companions, hell-bent on killing and ripping and tearing flesh apart, muscle from bone. One of them descended on an exposed soldier in the rear chariot and gleefully picked him up with his legs. He tossed him once, twice, three times in the air, and as he came down he slashed a hacksawed halberd right through his spine, halving his body and spraying scarlet blood through the pristine white of the cirrus clouds like spilled wine on the fresh snow. Shining faced the Nox who had done it and fired a magic blast into his gullet. He blasted apart on impact, and his ashes blew into the eyes of his comrades behind him. As they scrambled at their eyes, Shining Armor fired more individual shots at them, and one by one they hit their mark. Raining Sky and Winter Gleam screamed as a large black bug appeared from the clouds directly in front of them and leaped for their lead chariot. He sprawled on the front and reached for Shining Armor with his front two long, serrated claws. Shining Armor wheeled around with his sword and severed both of his front limbs. While the Nox roared, Shining reversed the sword grip and sank it into his shoulder. The enemy drew with his middle legs a long, shiny black sword that rippled and undulated, and swung it down with colossal force. The front of the chariot was almost split in half. The sword had cut through it with astonishing ease, and the bug ripped it out with equal ease and swung at Shining. The prince parried, or at least, tried to. The Black Blade shore through his own steel like he was cutting paper, and the upper third of his sword spiraled away, falling towards earth. Shining Armor knew he would not risk contesting that sword in combat again. The next time the sword swung at him, he shore off that arm with the shard of his own sword, and the black sword fell to the floor of his chariot. He then plunged his jagged-ended blade into his face, and he rapidly disintegrated and blew into fine ash that flew past his face and dispersed like flurrying snow. Shining Armor whipped around, his blue mane flapping in his determined face, and swished his broken sword to the side. “We can't face them head-on! Split up into four teams and scatter away from here! Spread the word of their advance to all you see on the way back to Canterlot! Estoc, you lead the northern team! Nanaba, take the west-” A surging updraft in front of him burst through the cloud line like a whale breaching the ocean, and Shining turned around to face the front once more. Up flapped the thick, leathery wings of the white dragon covered with ivory talons, his eyes burning with hate and glee. All his prey were laid out for him in a perfectly straight line. “DIVE!” Shining roared, gripping the edge of the chariot. “DIVE, DIVE, DI-” The dragon fired a stream of white fire, blasting through each of the chariots like he was ripping through lined-up sheets of paper. Three of them had swerved out of the way in time, but the remainder were blasted into incineration almost instantly. Armor welded itself to blackening flesh, gold began to drip and melt, and leather bindings snapped and sizzled into nothingness. One of the three to survive was Shining Armor's. The two pegasi pulling it had disattached themselves from the chariot and were plummeting down as if they were corpses. Shining knew this trick well. Attempting it himself, he quickly threw himself from the falling vehicle and was now tumbling towards the earth. His broken sword flew out of his hooves and spiraled away. Shining looked up as wind roared past his face. If he were to simply keep still, they would suspect him of being just another corpse falling from the sky. But seeing the damage above him, the burning chariots, trailing smoke as they descended like comets, made his heart ache in his chest. The lives of those ponies were under his command. So many lives, wiped out in an instant. If he was standing, Shining Armor would be trembling in his knees. “Sir!” Raining Sky screamed, falling nearby with his limbs outstretched like a parachuter. “To me!” Shining Armor imperceptibly maneuvered himself through the roaring air to slam hard into Raining Sky. The brown pegasus wrapped his hard limbs around Shining Armor protectively as they tumbled. “Are we the only ones…?” he loudly asked, barely distinguishable over the whistling and roaring wind. “Don't think that!” Shining Armor admonished him by shouting in his ear. “Whether it's true or not, we need to act like it is!” All around them, debris rained down, fiery and black. Some were simply machine parts and burnt supplies, but others were severed, blackened limbs of the Royal Guardponies. It ranged from larger than Shining Armor to a fleck of sand, and it was everywhere. It was like descending into Tartarus. “We're nearing the ground, sir!” the nearby Winter Gleam bellowed after some time of this hell. “Slow down!” Winter Gleam and Raining Sky spread their wings when they were five hundred feet above the rooftops. Wind whistled through their feathers as they stretched them, pulling their muscles and veins. Their heads screamed in pain and agony. Finally, the trio gently crashed into the roof of a thatched hut, and they collapsed the building into a pile of sticks and hay. The three of them rolled off and into the main road. Only a foot away from the head of the stunned Raining Sky, the Black Blade in Shining Armor's chariot embedded itself point down in the cobblestone road. High above the cloud altitude, Marshal Malice looked down upon the falling wreckage with disdain. Slowly, he folded his arms as he stared straight down over the edge of Bloodlust. “Shining Armor.” He tsked softly, like an agitated grandmother. “Rescuing your little sister from the grasp of death? You should know that family cannot be saved. I know better.” Marshal Malice’s mind wandered off into the old, murky confines of his mind, generations past, to a time period that not even he entirely recalled with clarity. “I had to fight my own brothers and sisters. Did you know that? No. See, they had decided to allow their destinies to be subjective to their own whims, fondled by their own inexperienced and foolish hooves… Solaris had offered a way out of that torture. But no... No, my sisters, my brothers, they decided to separate themselves from me.” He sighed almost wistfully. “It was a pity that I had to kill them. I almost loved them.” He watched the falling rubbish some more. He was somewhat surprised when he saw one of the pieces maneuver itself to another and cling hard to it. “You poor thing,” he mourned. “Have the sense to die now so I don't have to involve myself even more.” As he watched, he noticed the audacity of Shining Armor: he didn't! Marshal Malice groaned and sheathed the Black-Bladed broadsword across his insectoid back. “Fine. Have it your way.” “Sir!” Marshal Malice closed all four of his eyes and groaned. “What?” Tagra, his second-in-command for this expedition, flapped next to him. “Two chariots are fleeing northward. I have archers ready to engage.” “No,” Malice allowed, swishing an arm. “A message must be sent to Canterlot. Let Celestia weep in despair. My heavenly sister needs the disheartening slap from reality that her hope is gone.” Tagra looked disappointed and sulkily crossed his front two legs. Marshal Malice smiled grotesquely at his discomfort and decided to reassure him. “How many ponies does it take to deliver a message?” Tagra’s expression brightened as a wicked grin found itself onto his face. “One.” “See to it.” He snapped Bloodlust's reins, and the dragon dove. Shining Armor weakly raised his bloodied head, gritting his teeth. He and Raining Sky had landed in a wide street in the center of the city itself. To his left was a pedestaled statue of a pony in wizard robes firing down upon an indistinguishable mass. In front of him was a major street with rows of homes on either side. Debris was raining from the sky and impacting the remnants of the city. Fires caught in open areas. The ground was littered with all sorts of muck and garbage. And alighting gently and straddling the road between the rows of homes, and leering down at him hungrily, was the nightmarish white dragon with his insectoid master loosely holding the reins. The white dragon was gripping the apex of the roofs so hard the wood splintered and partially collapsed the houses. Shining Armor grunted and pushed himself up on all fours. Grasping for the black sword embedded next to him, he picked it up after an attempt and held it defiantly in front of his face. As if giving a petition, the dragon let out a whine of want, looking up pleadingly to the albino centipede on his back. “Not so fast, Bloodlust,” the creature whispered to his dragon. “I will attend to him personally.” He raised his voice. “All troops! Search the city for the entrance to the catacombs! The prince is mine.” The swarm of bugs settled down all over the dead city like alighting birds and began to pry the houses apart, piece by piece, in every street. Sewer gates were jerked open, doors were ripped off their hinges, and cobblestones were pried open and hurled away. They did manage to give Malice and Shining Armor a wide berth for them to engage, though. None of them thought to look into the statue of Star Swirl the Bearded. Drawing his broadsword from across his back with a single spindly arm, Malice whipped it to the side like it weighed nothing, glaring down upon the three guards. Then, pressing hard on the beast to gain power, he leaped from his saddle. Spinning in the air like a loosed arrow, Marshal Malice shot at the group with his sword flurrying like a whirlwind. As he landed, his legs scurried his body forward, and he blazed like a zigzagging bolt of lightning towards Shining Armor. Shining Armor could only put the sword in front of his face in time. A tremendous crashing sound from the colossal impact rang forth, buzzing in both of the combatant's ears. The blades formed a black, shimmering cross between them. Shining Armor could see the Marshal's devilish face, baring teeth like needles in gums deeper than scarlet blood. “A Black Blade. You dare fight me with a comrade's weapon?” The Marshal sniffed imperiously. “Be it on your own head.” He whipped the sword away from Shining Armor and swept it down for another strike. Shining lept aside and batted the Black Blade away, then lunged to pierce him in the side. He missed. Malice had scooted away like a recoiling snake. Malice then came forward again and delivered a devastating blow on him. Shining Armor blocked it, but the force made his arms ache. He quickly guided the blade away so the blade forcibly sank into the cobblestone ground. Then Shining slashed the stolen blade across his torso. Or rather, where his torso was supposed to be, since Malice had again recoiled. Shining Armor, in frustration, ignited his horn and fired another pink magic blast at the Marshal, which missed. “My, my. Using magic, my boy?” Malice ignited his antennae. A pile of bricks that was once a home rose up, surrounded in a grey aura. “Let me show you magic!” The bricks fired themselves at Shining Armor like whizzing bullets. The white knight quickly put up a pink bubble shield, and the bricks struck the shield and ricocheted off, striking other homes and collapsing old straw roofs. Shining Armor was glaring hatefully at the monstrosity through the opaque pink shield. Malice sighed and stopped the barrage of bricks. They clattered to the ground uselessly and cracked apart. “You want to know the dark power of the weapons we use, prince?” Malice asked calmly, pointing the long Black Blade at the pink bubble as he slowly marched at him. “Let me demonstrate.” With a lunge, the demon pierced the magic bubble like a knife into a hollow egg. Dark energy bubbled and swirled out of the wound. Shining Armor screamed and clutched his horn, and the magic flickered and faltered before cutting off completely, and the shield, in the blink of an eye, dissipated. Malice swung again. Shining Armor brought up his own blade just in time, but it was hard enough to knock him aside. Lying on his face, Shining anticipated the sting of death to come quickly. Marshal Malice instead grabbed his head with one of his other arms and hurled him through the window of an abandoned building. The centipede followed after him, smashing the door off its hinges and barging into the abandoned house. “Prince Armor!” Malice roared, shaking the dust off the small and dark household’s interior. “You fight in vain. Death has already come!” His burning vision swept over the interior, searching for him. It was at this time that an evil idea came to him. Shining Armor was battered, bruised, and bloodied. In his life, he had never been as badly beaten as he was now. He was lying under an overturned table, clutching the deadly black sword like a lifeline, trying to keep his breathing at a minimum. If Malice were to find him now, it would all be over. “Had your sister known this would be her last day alive, she would have chosen a different path!” His chest compressed all of a sudden. No. No, not her! What had he done to her? If he had hurt a hair on her head-! “Did you think I could not send a force of my own into the cavern miles beneath me? I have taken her captive, and she is being fed the raw remains of her friends.” Shining Armor heavily exhaled and inhaled and exhaled again. It couldn't be true. It couldn't. But the graphic way he was talking made his insides lurch, made his eyes hot. His iron-hard grip made the sword tremble. “Now, I need Twilight to further the goal of my master to return to this wretched world,” he heard Malice say negligently. He sounded closer that time; louder and clearer, his voice both soothingly calm and malicious. “But after Twilight fulfills her singular purpose, she will be disposed of without regret. How will she die, I wonder? Beheading? Or being drawn and quartered like a wild deer?” His breathing became labored. Shining Armor’s horror quietly shifted to rage. He gently lifted the sword, reflective in the darkness like some crude shard of obsidian. Malice was right next to him. If he swung at the right time-! “But of course, none of that will happen until after she gets deflowered. Five or six of my underlings might be happy to volunteer for the job!” “AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!” Shining heard the bellow, and it was neither his nor Malice's. Malice felt a sharp pain in the small of his back, and he screeched in surprise. “DIE!” Winter Gleam bellowed, clinging to his rock-hard back. A long spear point was embedded between his chitinous armor. “Crawl back to Tartarus! Ngh! Die!” Malice's body cricked and cracked as his upper body slowly rotated around. Limbs became jointed the other way and his body reversed like he was made up of rotatable segments. As he slowly turned his body around, Winter Gleam halted his attack and stared up in horror at his slowly-turning head, twisting around like an owl with a symphony of pops and crackles. Finally, his entire upper half was reversed so he was looking on his lower back. Maalice bared his fangs and tongue, and lunged to bite him in half. Winter Gleam leaped out of the way in time so his needle-point fangs snapped on thin air. He galloped out of the dark house, with the irate Malice, still reversed, scuttling after him. As Malice emerged into the open sunlight, he blinked all four of his scarlet eyes. Then a colossal impact on his head made the chitin on his skull crack, and he looked up in rage. Raining Sky had hurled a flowerpot to gain his attention. Sitting atop the roof like a perching bird of prey, he was holding a puffy dark cloud above Malice's head. “This might come as a shock to you,” he warned him with a wink. And he kicked the cloud. Malice quickly raised the Black Blade. A bolt of white lightning struck the edge of the shimmering black sword and absorbed itself into the magical weapon. Malice pointed the sword at Raining Sky and fountained the bolt of lightning out again with the power of the demon weapon. Sky teasingly zoomed aside just in time. Only for Malice to feel another pang in his back as he felt something slash at him. Winter Gleam had sunk that broken spearhead into a crack in his chitin, and it was wedged pretty solidly in there. Deep red blood was trickling down the wound and sticking to the cracks in his body. He had to give them credit; they at least made him bleed. Malice swung around with a colossal cracking of bones and batted Winter Gleam aside with an arm. He continued his rotation by shifting his legs, until he once again faced Raining Sky, swinging the Black Blade with tremendous vigor into the roof of the house and splitting a beam in half. Raining Sky missed the deadly blade by a hair. Malice clambered atop the roof by scuttling up the wall with his ten legs, and settled himself on the crossbeam. He took several more swipes at Sky, but he was great at evading the swings. “You cannot win!” Malice screamed at him. “As long as I fight, neither can you!” Sky retorted, ejecting a knife from a sheath in his hoof. He hurled it, spinning end over end. Malice took hold of the knife in midair, leaned his arm back, and threw it back at him, hitting him in his shoulder armor, piercing his flesh a bit. Raining Sky bellowed in pain and rushed blindly at the field marshal. Malice lunged for his throat with his three free claws. Sky raised his front legs and caught all three sets of deadly claws by crossing his arms. He was upraised, staring defiantly into the captain's four red pools. Malice grinned widely, displaying his impressive set of close-set fangs, and raised the broadsword with his fourth claw, ready to send his head flying over the rooftops. Raining Sky widened his eyes in plain terror. A pop appeared from behind him, and Malice whirled around to the source. A bleeding Shining Armor had teleported in the air behind him, the stolen Black Blade near his snarling face, and, with a roar, swung the long blade with all of his might. The left side of Malice's face was instantly disfigured by the swing. A single scarlet pool darkened as the slice went down his eye and across his cheekbone, splitting his nose in half and knocking out half a dozen teeth as it split like a knife into his puffy gums. Blood bubbled along the length of the cauterized wound. Malice screamed in fury and pain as he stumbled back, holding a claw over his face. Shining Armor landed on his hind legs, and Winter Gleam and Raining Sky gathered close together in triumph. With another roar of unhinged anger, his antennae sparked to life, and the ground beneath them began to quake and tremble. Raising another claw high above his head, he silently commanded the earth to do his bidding. A thin spike of stone erupted from the middle of the home they had been fighting on and shot into the air for a hundred feet, showering the ground below with bricks and splinters. As the house splintered apart, each fighter leaped off at a different angle and collapsed on the ground. Malice, however, landed on all eight of his other legs and, spotting Shining Armor, scuttled to his body, starving for revenge. Before the Marshal could reach the prince's semi-conscious form, Raining Sky leaped in front of his path with another bent spearpoint, aiming for the deep wound in his head. Malice didn't ignore the threat. He swiped his arm aside, and Raining Sky hurled to the ground with a thud, and the broken spearpoint skittered away. But Malice wasn't finished. Picking him up by the neck with his free claw, he slowly jerked his sword arm back before shoving it forward and running him through. Sky gasped in sudden pain. The last thing he saw before fading away was the black-scarred, snarling face of the Noxxa Marshal. From separate faraway places, Shining Armor and Winter Gleam shouted in surprise and outrage before speeding in for an attack. Malice negligently whipped his arm out to the side, and the impaled body flew off the sword and crashed into the side of a muddy-brown hut. He then ignited his antennae and caught both soldiers in a grey aura before pulsing his magic and flinging Armor and Winter back to hit the earth with heavy thuds that knocked the wind out of their chests. Malice snarled once again and touched his facial wound gingerly. He had inflicted many fatal wounds on other, lesser beings before, but never did he consider what it felt like, much less the possibility of being wounded himself. The powerful sword had sealed the blood inside from escaping, but the wound was burnt and had killed the skin and muscle cells beneath his thick chitinous armor. If the tip had entered two inches more, it would have went into his brain. Malice shrugged and made a growl, then spat out the blood from his split lips and gums that was flooding his mouth. It didn't matter. The Noxxa had taken their steps on Equestrian soil. Losses had occurred, but it was a small price to pay for the death of the Elements of Harmony. That knowledge made Malice grin in spite of his pain, and even let out a chuckle. Malice looked all around him. The city had been set on fire in several places by enthusiastic Noxxa eager for a repeat of Griffonstone. The results were not nearly as gratifying, however, with nopony in the houses. “It starts here. This foul cesspool is worth nothing to us. But soon…” Malice pondered aloud, looking over the blazing ruins of Maretania. “Every Equestrian city will be destroyed!” He calmly turned around to regard the trapped prince and the single spared soldier, and wove his way over to them with a triumphant sneer, ignoring the pain that shot all over his face. “You might as well do what I ask. Perhaps I will show you…” He grinned nastily, showing his bloody mouth and missing fangs. “Mercy.” Shining Armor raised his head weakly to glare with absolute hatred at his enemy. “Faust's mercy is good enough for me!” It had the intent Shining was looking for. Malice's triumphant demeanor switched in an instant to a hollow, angry one. “I will give you one last chance to save yourself,” Malice grumbled darkly. “If you depart now, you will do only this.” He raised the prince off the ground by his collar and put his snout against his own. “Convince Princess Celestia to surrender!” Shining Armor spat in his face. Malice repressed a roar of disgust. A glob of the acid had ran into the deep black gouge he had inflicted on his face, and it made his flesh burn. Slamming him back into the ground, Malice bent his neck so his nose touched the cobblestone road. He raised the shimmering black sword high above his head, aiming at the nape of his neck. “Sir!” Malice whirled to face the source, whipping the sword in an arc, and it pointed at a suddenly-frightened Tagra. “What?!” Tagra hyperventilated for half a second before wheezing, “Enemy forces... coming from the east!” Malice perked his head up and turned his head 90 degrees to face the eastern sky, reflecting its color on the Celestial Sea beneath. In the distance, silhouetted by the sun, was a fleet of a dozen airships looming high in the sky like plump whales. They were dark dirigible titans, armored and black in color. Beneath each of the black whales was the keel of a ship. Oily black smoke vomited from the back of the fleet’s sterns. Like it was farting it out, Malice snidely thought. The fleet was approaching the shoreline quickly, and as Malice watched for details, he noticed they were bristling with crossbows and rudimentary harpoon cannons. This was no Equestrian army. This was someone else. “All forces!” he bellowed, kicking Shining Armor aside disgustingly. “Stand down!” The hundreds of Noxxa in the corpse of Maretania all heard and sullenly obeyed. The lead airship, twice as big as the others and with three engines instead of one, had reached the shoreline and was descending in altitude, deliberately avoiding the long stone spire that now jutted out like a pin from the earth, so the ship moved away to avoid getting punctured. A door in the keel opened, and gradually, out unraveled a long white rope. Hanging from the end with a foot in a loop was a small creature with a megaphone held to his mouth. “Ponieth of Equethtria!” the creature boomed in a high, lispy voice. “We come on behalf of the fearthome, the almighty…” He stopped mid-sentence as he finally saw who populated the dead city. “Oh boy, you guyth aren't ponieth, are you?” Malice swirled the sword twice before leveling it at the grubby creature dangling from the rope. “Who... are you?!” The grubby thing gulped, which could be heard from the megaphone as they got nearer. “Alright, look, man, I'm jutht the methenger. Don't thoot the methenger, alright? The real guy you wanna talk to is up here in the thip.” “Take me to him,” Malice commanded the grubby thing. He nodded fearfully. “Of course! Jutht, ah, hold on…” He looked up. “Hey! Could one of you guyth pull me up now?” After a pause he yelled, “Guyth?” The impatient Malice rolled his eyes, wincing in pain, and snapped his claws. Three Noxxa appeared at his side in an instant. “Keep an eye on these two,” he ordered, pointing at Shining Armor and Winter Gleam. “Don't eat them. Yet.” He jerked his head at the corpse of Raining Sky. “You can settle for him, though.” Ignoring the shouts of outrage and horror from the two prisoners, Malice scuttled up to the long rock spire jutting out of the broken house. He began to spiral around the length of it and ascend like greased lightning to the tip. When he was perched on the tip, clinging to the top thereof with eight legs, he could see the burning city beneath him. The deck of the airship was directly on his eye level, and he could see the hairy, troll-like beings that crewed the ship, outfitted with black armor and shields. Malice leaped like a spider to the deck of the ship and slid for five feet on the mahogany surface before coming to a rest. The yeti-like beings grunted in surprise and moved together in a cautious formation. Malice sneered and prepared to shear their bodies like wheat. “Guys, guys,” came an old voice, filled with mirth. “Come on! Move aside. I gotta see this new guy!” Elbowing his under-associates out of the way was a tall white beast. He had cloven hooves, dark grey hands, and two spiraled horns like a goat, making him a satyr. He was outfitted in a black breastplate, black shoulder plates, and black leg greaves. In his hand was a flat golden sword. His turquoise eyes seemed to glow with a mixture of mirth and malevolence. Malice leveled his Black Blade at the satyr and slowly marched until the tip was at his throat. “I will say this once, beast. Depart now and never interfere in the Noxxa affairs again.” The satyr idly batted the Black Blade aside with his golden sword. Malice widened his three remaining eyes. No normal sword could match the power of a Black Blade. “Oh, no, no, no,” he refused with a laugh. “We just came from Mount Aris. That's a two-day journey. We needed someplace to land. I'm not going to turn tail and run because someone like you says so.” He stuck out his tongue. “Bleaugh. Look at you! Looks like you could use a few painkillers! And a breath mint, if I gotta be honest.” Malice snarled so hard his teeth rattled in their gums. “Whoah-ho-ho, there,” the satyr cautioned. “Watch yourself! Your breath stinks like Tartarus! Ugh!” He waved a hand in front of his nose. “And put that sword away. It's making me cold.” “Not until you tell me who you are,” Malice said, and his wound burned all the more. “Everyone knows who I am!” he objected. “I'm a pretty big deal in southern Equestria. Those small villages and rural towns tremble at the thought of me. I... am…” He raised the golden sword above his head. “The Storm King!” Malice snorted. Big deal. So he had an ostentatious name? So what if- Twin bolts of lightning erupted from the darkening skies above and shot in an arc under the balloon to the tip of the golden blade, making it glow a blinding white. Curls of electricity snaked and sparked from the length thereof before absorbing itself into the sword. Malice’s attention was instantly piqued. “Pretty cool weapon, right?” the Storm King proudly asked, shaking the blade, and wisps of electricity flew off and dissipated in the air. “I call it Stormkeeper!” “Sir, don't call down lightning while we're on the ship,” came a smooth, deep, female voice from behind him. “You could take it down.” “Says the one with the sparking horn,” the Storm King lazily replied, picking at his teeth with the tip of Stormkeeper. “You and I both know that can't be helped,” the female voice said, like she was reminding a foal about the playground rules. From behind the Storm King marched the last creature Malice expected to appear, making him recoil in disgust. A pony. She was a dark violet, the color of fresh-pressed wine, covered by black armor. Her deep pink mane was cropped and jagged. She was a unicorn, but her horn had been broken off at the base, and was worn down with age and use. Over her right turquoise eye was an old white scar, and her face wore a perpetual scowl. Her aura was cold and harsh, sarcastic and demeaning. Her expression, though, was bored. “Allow me to introduce my lieutenant,” the Storm King announced grandly, with a sweeping bow. “Tempest Shadow!” “I can speak for myself, my king,” she monotonously replied, eyeing Malice with a new mix of revulsion and curiosity. “Who’s this... freak?” The albino twirled his black broadsword twice before swiftly sheathing it across his back. “I am the right hand of the king of the universe, He who is ruler of Tartarus and corrupter of the children of Faust. I am Marshal Malice, His commander and best lieutenant. Who were you again?” “Such an ostentatious title,” Tempest commented with a sly smile. “Fitting for a creature with such a large head.” Malice twisted his face into one of disgust while examining Tempest. “O Storm King, why must you invite this filth into your presence? You taint yourself with the mere appearance of ponies by your side. They must be wiped out, not converted.” To his immense surprise, Tempest grinned, showing her teeth. “That's the idea.” “We're looking for the subjugation of all of Equestria,” the Storm King negligently added, swinging Stormbreaker ambly. “That includes stealing magic and whatnot.” “Why?” Malice asked. The Storm King leered forward with a glint in his eye. “Because it's fun.” Malice felt surprise rock his body. “I mean, peacetime is so monotonous. What’s the fun in filing taxes and making negotiations? Give me blood and fire anytime! These last few years were too cute and happy for my taste. I don't like cute. Doesn't go well with my image, you know? You know what would make me happy? A STORM!” he suddenly bellowed. “THAT WOULD BE NICE!” Here was a creature intent on the obliteration of ponykind--the same goal as he? The Noxxa were not alone in that goal after all, but the Noxxa were nobler than he. Malice did it in a mix of duty to Solaris and his own personal spite. The Storm King did it simply because he wanted to see their reactions, like a child provoking his sibling. It made Malice shrivel up in disgust. The Storm King was uncontrollable and undisciplined. Malice wanted to snap his spine with his bare claws. “Of course, you know, we need magic to do that,” the Storm King admitted, throwing the golden blade from hand to hand boredly. “We've been searching for something containing a bunch of magical power. You know, that one stick, the twig, whatever-” “It's called the Staff of Sacanas,” Tempest offered him, turning her gaze to the now-patient Marshal Malice. “We need the power contained therein to subjugate Equestria.” “You already have a weapon of godly strength!” Malice said, trying not to gag on their stench of superiority. “What more do you need?” “Well, you know,” the Storm King said hesitantly, shrugging. “This is pretty cool and stuff, but all it can do is summon and absorb lightning. Really, it's nice, but it's not... enough for me. I need real magic. Unicorn magic. The stuff that can seal minds and lift rocks and move the sun and control the tides and raise the earth and burn the world a thousand times over!” He smiled in childish ecstasy. “Oh, if only…” “The Staff of Sacanas would allow His Majesty the potential of every living creature in Equestria,” Tempest said in her deep, soothing voice, stamping her way in front of Malice. “Just tell us any idea of where it is, please... or else your usefulness... will be called into question.” “Star Swirl the Bearded had it,” Malice related. A gust of wind made the open wound in his head burn even more, and Malice winced before continuing. “But he banished himself into another dimension.” “Bastard,” Tempest muttered darkly. “We need to go after him and get that staff!” “The Staff of Sacanas was destroyed,” Malice said almost smugly, recalling what Captain Slath had done in the Mirror dimension. “My spies told me about it myself.” Tempest looked shocked, and a trace distressed by the news. Her plans had failed, Malice snidely thought. But why was she so inwardly distraught? However upset she was, though, it wasn't nearly as open as the satyr's. “Well now,” the Storm King heavily said. He sounded unimaginably disappointed. “Ain't that just great! Now I gotta go through the rubble of Mount Aris again for the next best thing. It'll take a bajillion years!” “Mount Aris,” Malice pondered harshly. “What is in that old mountain that will help you?” Tempest Shadow’s stub of a horn sparked briefly. “We've been looking... for a pearl.” “What pearl?” Malice demanded.