The train ride was lively, the excitement of the oncoming trial seeming to infect everyone aboard. Jokes were told, speeches were given, memories were recalled. Matt sat quietly in the back of the car, mind wandering off toward the shielded castle they steadily approached. They were nearly there now, and Matt had expected some resistance instead of the relatively calm ride. It was then that Matt noticed something flying towards them.
"... and then I was like-" Rainbow Dash said, in the middle of an anecdote.
"Sorry to interrupt, but what the hell is that?" Matt asked, pointing outside.
The rest of them seemed to notice it now as well. There were multiple flying objects heading to intercept them.
"They almost look like..." Twilight began.
"Dragons?" The Doctor finished. "He sent dragons? Everyone, brace for impact!" he said as the train began to be pelted by fireballs.
The train shook from the force for what felt like several minutes. After it stopped, the group observed the dragon shades doubling back to hit them from behind.
"Can we take another volley?" Shining Armor asked.
"Mr. Conductor, damage report!" The Doctor yelled to the cab.
"The armor held up, we should be fit as a fiddle!" the Conductor yelled back.
"What if they start shooting at the windows...?" Matt asked, quickly getting an idea. "Do you think magic could strengthen the glass?"
"Glass is a pretty decent conduit for magic, so that might work!" Twilight said as she, Rarity, Shining Armor and Cadence began to reinforce the windows.
Another volley of fireballs began to hit the train, and as Matt had predicted some of the shots were aimed precisely at the windows of the car.
"Good call, Nabal." The Doctor said.
"W-where are they going now?" Fluttershy asked, noticing the Dragons turning around once again.
Instead of pursuing the train or shelling it with more fire, the shades seemed to be in flight toward Ponyville. The magic in the windows began to fade, and the windows themselves seemed to lose their strength as some of them broke. Even from as far away as they were, they could hear the sirens of Vinyl and Octavia's emergency broadcast radio.
"That spineless... He sent them to attack the town instead!" Applejack said.
"Relax, Lyra and Bon-bon know how to deal with shades. They have a chance at fighting them off." The Doctor said.
"A chance?! What about everypony else?!" Applejack asked, clearly frustrated that there was nothing they could do.
"... If we deal with Gabriel, the shades will disappear. That should be our goal." Matt added calmly.
"We have another problem! Dead ahead!" called the conductor, prompting some of the group to lean their heads out to see what he was talking about.
Ahead of them, rushing down along the tracks were what seemed like hundreds of shades. Their skeletal forms raced toward them in an attempt to slow the train down.
"Ah." the Doctor said. "Mr. Conductor, I do believe it's time you use that thing I gave you."
"You got it, sir!" the Conductor yelled back.
"What 'thing' did you give him?" Twilight asked.
"A piece of very rare and very powerful enchanted coal. It will give the engine a massive burst of energy and speed. Think Pinkie Pie, but with caffeine." The Doctor replied.
After a moment, the burst of power kicked in and the whole group was thrown from their seats into a large pile in the back of the car. The sounds of many, many things impacting the train from outside and the crunching of bones underneath them were all they could hear, aside from the roar of the engine.
"This is AWESOME!" Rainbow Dash said.
"Provided we don't go flying of the tracks, I agree!" Matt shouted in response.
Through glimpses out the windows, many different shades could be observed trying their best to stop the train, although their brittle bodies didn't get them very far. The sounds of impacts and bones began to die down as the train kept rushing forward. With one last mighty roar, the enchanted coal burned out and the locomotive began to slow. The group began picking themselves up and out of the heap they were thrown into.
"Aw, and we were all getting so close!" Pinkie Pie said, giggling at her own joke.
Matt smiled and rolled his eyes at her pun. "At the very least, I don't know what else he could throw at us. We're almost there." he said.
"I'm beginning to think that Gabriel had anticipated us..." Rarity said, dusting herself off.
"He probably did. Despite his madness, he's quite the tactician. Since he knew about Celestia's letter, he more than likely guessed something was coming." The Doctor said.
"That reminds me, Doctor; when is Gabriel from? Nothing about him is an obvious hint to his time period." Matt asked.
"Ah, well... he's from the modern era, same as us. Something I had thought about for awhile now is how we crossed an ocean of existence, yet no distances in time." The Doctor replied.
Just then, the train began to slow to a halt as the exterior began to glow. "Oi! What's the holdup, Mr. Conductor?" The Doctor called out.
The Doctor trotted up the cab to investigate, while the others leaned their heads out of the windows again, spotting a familiar purple-cloaked pony standing on the tracks.
Amethyst slowly walked towards them as the glow around the train began to get brighter.
"I'm sorry, but the city of Canterlot is closed!" she shouted. The train began to be lifted off the tracks by her magic. "Although I suspect you already knew that." with a single flick of her head, the train was thrown into the air, off the hill the tracks were on. Her task complete, Amethyst smirked as she vanished in a flash of light.
Shrieks of terror erupted from the train. In a desperate attempt to save them, Twilight began to use her magic on the train same as Amethyst did, somewhat slowing its descent. Shining Armor noticed her efforts and quickly began formulating a plan.
"Rarity, Cadence! We have to help her!" he shouted.
As the other three focused their magic on the train as well, it began to slow to a near halt in midair, slightly crooked to the left side.
"I-It won't move anymore! We can't push it back!" Twilight said, clearly under great stress.
As Matt picked himself back up, he scrambled to think of any way to help, but found that there wasn't much he was capable of. Looking around the train, he spotted Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy and got an idea.
"Rainbow!" he called out. "Do you think you and Fluttershy can push the train back towards the tracks while they hold it up?" he asked.
"Hey, yeah! That should work! C'mon, Fluttershy!" Rainbow Dash said.
"Oh my... I'll do my best!" Fluttershy replied, following her blue friend out the window.
"Everyone else, we should lean to the other side to make it somewhat easier for them!" Matt shouted to the others inside.
Slowly but surely, the floating train began to slowly push through the air. With some adjustment from the magic and Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash's efforts, it was no longer lopsided and was nearly overtop the rails when it began to fall faster. The strain of holding up the massive metal machine had began to tear at the poor magic users who floated it.
"Dash, ya'll need to align us faster!" Applejack shouted.
"We're... trying...!" Rainbow replied in between breaths.
Fluttershy huffed much heavier than Dash did, but quickly began to push herself to try and match Rainbow's pace.
"C-can't... hold it!" Twilight said as the magical grip slipped even more.
The exertion of the ponies paid off as the train reconnected to the rails below, albeit just barely. The magic pony collapsed to the floor, exhausted. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy flew back inside and joined them.
"That was amazing! You guys actually did it!" Pinkie said, producing confetti out of nowhere.
"You're dang right we did..." Rainbow said through deep breaths. "Good hustle, you guys." she said, congratulating the magic team.
"Couldn't have done it without you..." Twilight replied, equally out of breath.
The two mares smiled genuinely at the other as the Doctor came back from the cab. "Right, well, now that we're back on track, we're arriving at Canterlot station." he said.
Pinkie Pie rolled on the floor from laughter while the rest began to pick themselves up.
"Does anyone need any help?" Matt said.
"Nah, just winded is all. That thing was heavy." Rainbow said.
"You could say that again..." Fluttershy added.
"As long as I go easy on the magic, I should be fine. Although I wouldn't mind if you... wanted to carry me around..." Twilight said.
"Now's not the time for that, you two! We have a fight to win!" Shining Armor said.
"He's right. Let's get going." The Doctor said. As the group left the train, the Doctor turned around to the conductor. "You might want to head back to Ponyville, they'll need all the help they can get. My bet is that some of the shades who tackled us kept going."
"Thank you, sir. I wish you all the best of luck." The Conductor said, retreating back into the cab.
"Now then, just a quick jog up to the castle and we'll be done with it, eh?" The Doctor said.
"Somehow I doubt it'll be that easy." Matt Nabal replied.
The streets of Canterlot were somehow silent, devoid of any sort of life. The abandoned homes and shops around gave off an ominous air.
"Seeing Canterlot like this... It feels wrong." Princess Cadence said.
"You could say that again, this is easily the most quiet it's ever been." Twilight added.
"It would almost be kind of nice... if it weren't so creepy." Fluttershy said.
"Hey, did anypony else notice that it's like, really warm?" Rainbow Dash asked.
Matt looked around and noticed a lack of snow anywhere in sight, and despite how late at night it was in the dead of winter, it was warm indeed.
"Now that you mention it..." Matt began.
The Doctor, who was leading the unit, stopped in his tracks. He pulled out his screwdriver and scanned around with it. "We've got company. Time to see if the Blade of Harmony makes the cut, Nabal."
"Oh my go- since when did you make terrible puns?" Matt asked.
"I blame Pinkie Pie." he replied.
"That's fair!" Pinkie said between giggles.
Just then, countless shades began to emerge from every abandoned building nearby. The streets ahead of them began to flood with the skeletal beasts of many different species.
"Remember everyone; they can't take too much punishment, just go crazy and try not to hit each other." The Doctor said.
Matt drew his sword, letting rest in his hand for a moment. "I hope it's as easy as you say it is..." Swallowing hard, the human charged forward and slashed down at a shade. After an odd crunching sound, the shade's eyes went dark and its body dissipated with a poof. "Oh... good."
Applejack ran ahead and kicked with all her might, resulting in another fallen shade. "Well how about that! This should be easy as apple pie!" she said.
Twilight Sparkle blasted a line of shades with a magical beam. "They fall easily, but there's a lot of them. I'm afraid that this might take awhile."
Rainbow Dash tackled a bunch of shades in rapid succession. "Then let's get to work!" she said.
As the group began to fight through the shades, more and more kept appearing. The enemy was slashed, kicked, blasted and tackled over and over again. Pinkie Pie had brought along one of her party cannons, although she had loaded it with something besides confetti. As she fired the cannon, whatever it was loaded with impacted a shade and exploded, taking out others nearby it.
"Pinkie... what did you put in there?" Fluttershy, who was hanging back to avoid combat, asked.
"Oh these?" Pinkie said, shooting another blast. "These are my special super-spicy tamales!"
Matthew Nabal cut through two shades who had leapt at him. "There are too many of them. We need to move while we fight." he said, trying to come up with a plan.
A few more slashes dropped a few more shades before an idea struck him. "I've got it! Rainbow Dash!" he called out. Rainbow flew up from the swarm of shades to spot the human holding up his free hand and beckoning to her. She flew over to him. "What do you say we start an aerial assault?" he asked.
Dash grinned at his suggestion. "Oh yeah, now we're talking!" she said.
She grabbed onto his free hand with her front hooves and lifted the human. "Head towards the castle! Everyone, follow us!" Matt shouted.
Rainbow did as she was asked as Matt slashed at every shade the passed over, cutting a path for the rest of them to follow. As they made some major ground, they slowed as they saw a large shade that resembled an ogre of some sort.
"Hey Matt, I don't think that one will go down in one hit. But I do have an idea..." Rainbow said.
"Alright, let me hear- whoa!" he said as Dash began to spin rapidly, causing Matt to spin too. As they spun, his sword hit many shades nearby before Dash flung him at the large one. Matt regained his senses as he flew toward the over-sized monster and held his sword out in front of him.
Matt's flying form skewered the beast, the human landing with a small roll on the other side as the beast began to crumble. He held his head as if trying to stop his vision from shaking. "Well done, Rainbow... although, I wish you'd properly warn me next time."
The group had mostly caught up to them but they were still some ways away from the castle and it's barrier. As yet even more shades began to flood nearby, Matt found himself getting overwhelmed. As an arm from one of the monsters was about to hit him, he closed his eyes only to not feel the blow. When he opened his eyes, he found himself surrounded by a blue magical barrier. The barrier expanded, smashing many shades into the walls of buildings and disposing of them.
"That was a close one. There are way too many of them to try and ignore to get to the castle." Shining Armor said as he trotted over to the human.
"I noticed... but you just gave me a great idea." Matt replied. He whispered his plan to the stallion who responded with a sly grin.
As a group of beasts began to rush them, Matt pointed his sword forward. "Bubble 'em." he said.
Shining Armor created a large dome of magic around the approaching horde. The shades scratched and clawed at the wall of the dome as it began to shrink. The sounds of crunching bones and screams of pain erupted from the barrier dome, as it was now small enough to be passed by effortlessly.
Matt walked to the small bubble and slashed it in two, causing everything within to dissipate.
"Where do they go when they 'poof' like that?" Shining Armor asked.
The Doctor, who was following closed behind, answered him. "Most likely they're returning to Wrath. Merely defeating them wouldn't release them from Gabriel's control."
"So, wait." Matt began. "Does that mean we're fighting the same ones over and over?"
"That's possible. After returning they do need some time to reform, but he can send them back whenever they're ready." The Doctor answered.
"Then we should hurry." Shining Armor said before he heard a call for help from the rest of the group nearby.
"W-we need some help back here, guys!" Twilight said, clearly getting overwhelmed by sheer numbers.
As Shining Armor went to help, he was intercepted by more shades. Matt quickly tried to come up with something to help, remembering what the blacksmith had told him about his sword's magic conductivity.
"Twilight!" he yelled, immediately getting her attention. "Use this!" he said, throwing the sword in her direction.
As the blade flew closer to her, Twilight caught it using her magic, finding the weapon nearly weightless in her magical grasp. She flung the blade down on a shade, splitting it instantly. Picking the sword up again, she ran it through several more shades, diminishing their numbers rapidly. She began to thread the blade through the enemies like a needle, allowing them all to regroup as she dropped more and more foes.
"Well..." The Doctor said. "Guess I should've made her one, too."
"She's amazing..." Matt said, clearly distracted.
When a large section of the horde had been cleared, Twilight began to rejoin the group as well, spotting a reptile-like shade sneaking up on Matt.
"Matt, look out!" she said.
Matt snapped out of his gawking and turned to see the beast, large claws outstretched and getting closer to him. In desperation, Twilight launched the blade back toward her partner, shouting his name as she did. Matt noticed the blade darting toward him. As it flew slightly passed him, he reached for the handle and swung to keep the momentum going, splitting the lizard shade in two.
Matt wiped the sweat from his brow before turning to Twilight again. "You're the best, Twilight."
"Let's keep this momentum going. That last wave proper cleared them out, we should be able to make it there." The Doctor said.
As everyone rushed ahead, Matt waited for Twilight. He sheathed his sword and gently patted her head. "I mean it. You're the best."
"Hey, don't sell yourself short, you had some moves out there too. We're the best." she replied, fluttering up ever-so-slightly to plant a kiss on his cheek.
"W-w should try to keep up, don't want to get separated." Matt said, trying to hide his blush.
Twilight giggled as they ran to catch up with the others. A few more groups of shades blocked their path, but nowhere near the amount that had faced them earlier. Before long, the reached the edge of the barrier, just outside Canterlot Castle.
"Finally... Matthew, if you would be so kind." The Doctor said.
Matt reached his hands into the barrier, finding it somewhat difficult to break through. When he did, he used his arms to split open a hole into the barrier. "Alright, everyone in. I can't do this forever."
As they all began entering the dome, many loud sounds came from the city behind them. The shades they had defeated had begun to return in number and Twilight, Shining Armor and Cadence were all still outside the dome.
Cadence and her husband shared a glace and a confident look before Shining Armor pushed Twilight and Matt through the dome, which also caused it to close.
"What are you doing?!" Twilight asked, rising to her hooves.
"The last thing we want is for these goons to follow you guys into the castle. I'm sure that Amethyst girl would let them in if she wanted to." Shining Armor said.
"We'll stay back and distract them. Since the six of you have the Elements of Harmony, you need to make it inside." Cadence added.
"We should get going, the trip here combined with our trek to the castle ate up a lot of time. We only have a few hours till sunrise." The Doctor said.
Twilight sighed in frustration. "Fine! But we'll be back for you, I promise!"
Cadence and Shining Armor turned to face the horde as their comrades ran to the castle. "Are you ready, darling?" Cadence asked her husband.
"Of course I am! If we're fighting together, there's no way we can lose!"
…...
As the last of them entered the castle, The Doctor once again drew his screwdriver. "Right then, I'll work on freeing the princesses, the rest of you deal with Gabriel."
"Are you sure you don't need me to come with you, Doctor? I'm sure they're being held magically." Matt asked.
"No worries, my young friend." The Doctor said, pulling out a small purple stone with a metal ring attached to it. The claws on his screwdriver attached to the ring, turning the glow of the screwdriver from green to purple. "This is my anti-magic countermeasure. Not as effective as you, but should do well enough." he said, following the glow of the screwdriver off on his own.
"I-I guess it's just us, then..." Fluttershy said.
"Yep! Time for the final boss!" Pinkie Pie said.
One last shared laugh among the group as they began to head for the throne room, determined to save their home from Gabriel's violent machinations.
A sense of camaraderie filled each one of them, unity that would endure no matter the outcome of the trial ahead.