Back in the past, deep within the circling winds, a painful scene was yet to play out. The Hurricane siblings and Pansy reached their final destination. All four of them were barely able to crawl as the winds crushed down upon them.
They had done far better than the parents had expected. But even the greatest training meant nothing as the final winds around the scythe were so strong they acted more like an unbreakable wall of the densest of diamonds. The winds were so loud they covered every sound, preventing them from hearing their parents' recall.
Dartz didn't care. Either way, he wanted the greatest prize of all. Lying beyond them were just the fewest amount of names, but they all knew none of these names had done the impossible, lifting the scythe. They knew of only one of legend that did and that pony wasn't even a pegasus. The mere fact this unknown put it back afterward was the greatest insult to Dartz.
He punched the ground and sneered screaming, "I'm not some weak pony... I am a pegasus!!" He lifted himself off the ground with all his might and reached out for the weapon. The winds got so strong that they were cutting his flesh. He pushed his wings out and feathers cascaded away with ease at the harsh winds.
He roared in agony at each feather being ripped out and punched forward. His fist hit the wind wall and the skin at the tip of his knuckles shredded off. More skin cleaned off as he punched again and again. Blood didn't even get the chance to escape as the bones of his knuckles were exposed.
Fear grew in the other pegasus. They realized the pointlessness of this endeavor and its terror struck their very souls. The true purpose of this test was never to find a winner but to see which one would fall first.
Pansy, the weakest and furthest away from the center, near the beginning of the circle. Her eyes watered and her teeth gritted. She stabbed her knife into the ground and started to mark her name.
Ahead of her, near the middle of the circle was Zword. Hearing her craving, he conceded too. He pulled out his knife but refused to mark it until his other siblings were ready. He narrowed his eyes at his brother and sister.
Gale was next, right behind Dartz. She cursed under her breath at the sight of Dartz continuing to punch the wall in vain. She pulled out her knife and reached out as far as she could, stabbing in just behind Dartz's foot. She marked down her name.
Dartz didn't hear any of them. Nor did he come to realize what they had done from his example. Both his hands were bloody and bony, but he refused to yield at less than an inch from the scythe. He felt as if he had been punching thousands of times. Every punch only pushed him by milometers. He screamed in defiance and punched more with every breath, pushing closer and closer.
The bones in his hands chipped and flaked away. The remains of his wings kicked with no feathers at all. He didn't care if his feathers never came back at all if it meant no claim. This trophy would be worth everything.
He couldn't reach out until his hand was ready or risk losing his fingers. Yet as more time passed, the easier that temptation became. Would his fingers too, be a fair price, would his whole arm be a perfect offering to the titan of darkness?
"Pluto!!" Dartz called out with his final punches. "Son of Sanity, the great goat of darkness, space..." He could care less about the remaining honorifics, but he still hoped the titan was listening as he reached closer. "Your power!! It is mine--" As the remains of his knuckle pressed onto the scythe the wind stopped without warning.
Everything around them turned into such a perfect silence as if no winds, not a single sound could reach them. Dartz laughed in silence and wrapped his hand around the scythe. However, something was very wrong as a new sound hit them all.
The most twisted and vicious roar echoed from the scythe as darkness spilled upward from the top. It swarmed downward and around Dartz as a damn voice followed the roar. "You dare to mock me!!" Though in the darkness, they could see glowing purple eyes surrounded by green smoke.
"What do you mean--" Dartz was stopped as agony surged through his arm. Much to his shock, the wounds the winds gave him started to heal. No, it seemed more like they were reversing.
This made no sense, could this be time magic as in light magic? This was impossible. The scythe was of dark magic origin. On pure reaction, Dartz pulled his hand free, somehow with ease, and his hands continued to heal. All aches faded away and his wings were fully restored. "You're healing me--"
"I said, stop mocking me!!" the scythe roared again.
"I'm not mocking." The surrounding ground cracked away, revealing another weapon, a dagger, stuck in the ground beside it that they didn't see before. Dartz was perplexed, as it seemed to be hippogriff in style. The pegasus came to attention as the scythe lifted out of the ground without warning.
"You are not of Sanity's womb. You do not contain his blood!!" Greater rage echoed from the eyes. "First, that umbrum chooses to not keep me, and now you show up. A descendant of my father's enemy!! You wish to claim me as some sort of mockery!!" The darkness wrapped tightly to Dartz's body.
"What do you mean?" Dartz urged in confusion. "I've survived the pegasus and the darkness loyalty!"
"You are a light magic user!!" It pressed so hard and lifted the pegasus into the air and roared a peal of venomous laughter. "An insult like you should just die!"
"I... am... not..." Dartz struggled to breathe. He didn't know what the voice was roaring about. It had to be some sort of mistake. "I must be worthy!!" the pegasus gave his final breath.
"Enough!!" With that, the scythe's tip span around, rushing toward Dartz's heart.
Zword's eyes widened and his wings moved faster than ever before. He jumped toward his brother without a single hesitation. Zword was always ready to step in the way, the youngest and the bravest of them all.
He never got the chance to write his name. The only sign of him being there was his knife still stabbed in place... and his blood dripping down over where his brother's line would have been. His heart was taken instead of Dartz's.
******
In the present, Aitym admired the vision's full beauty as he stared at the very same test the three pegasus children once faced. Before him were the very same hurricane winds surrounding central winds so strong flesh could be ripped from the bone. He narrowed his eyes at the single most point. Though the scythe was gone, it was never his prize.
"Why... are we here?" Rainbow Dartz's whimpering voice echoed inside the host's mind. "The scythe vanished that day."
"Because this is what I've been building up to."
"What do you mean?" Dartz strained for an answer.
"I wanted to use your sister's body for this..." Aitym leered at the winds and commanded time to stop. The winds refused despite the pull of light magic he had with this body. "I had hoped she would have more light magic than you."
"Pointless. I am the only one in the family that unlocked that power." Rainbow Dartz regretted. "I unlocked it in this place by pure accident."
"Yes, and you are too weak to help me now anyway."
"Why are we here?" Rainbow Dartz demanded. "The scythe is gone!"
"Let's just say this is my gift, to me." Aitym raised the crystal hand to the edge of the first layer. "After helping that wendigo for so long I figure I deserve something for myself."
"What?" Dartz still didn't get it, which annoyed the light alicorn greatly.
"My body was stolen thousands of years ago as... they called it punishment." Aitym fueled light magic into the crystal. "The wendigo simply wanted me to spread chaos here... I was never sure why he chose this place or this moment in time..." He laughed wickedly. "Neither do I care for his plan. Working for him was just a means to the end."
"Are you that selfish?!" Dartz screamed.
"This coming from a pegasus who sold his own brother's beating heart for power!!" He pointed to the blood-stained at the furthest point. "See for yourself... No other name has ever gotten closer." Aitym laughed even louder at the pegasus with his own lungs. "Your victory was worth every ounce of blood."
"I..." Rainbow Dartz's spirit shook inside the mindscape. "I... I... I didn't... I don't want this..." He pulled back with all his strength, making his real arm, in the physical world shake and quake.
Aitym took the other arm and crushed it down on the crystal limb, pushing out more blue blood. "Don't deny reality. I've made that mistake for millennia. I trusted the liars from my brothers in arms..." He squeezed tighter, making the limb stretch outward. "I trusted the lustful abominations that were once changelings I molded from swamp and clay." The crystal arm grew bigger and longer. "Heavonus said we would change the world... Redsting said we could change fate... And Lighttone... that damn lion said that reality would be free for the taking!!" Screaming his loudest, the arm reached its furthest and tipped into the final circle.
The light alicorn sneered as pieces cracked off upon reaching through that final edge. He gritted his teeth and charged forward. "They took away my body... my family... and my name!!" His rage channeled to the object he sought, inside the crack where the scythe was stood. "And left me as nothing but a nuckelavee!!"
******
At the far end of the Pegasus Isles, the two ifrits arrived to attempt an escape. Their mission had turned into utter chaos upon Aitym's dismissal of them. They had received no respect from him and even fewer answers from the wendigo after the undead were unleashed.
Vanity stayed loyal despite everything she saw, but even now there were pinches of doubt. Sage had made his doubt clear from the beginning, leading the mare to the exit the whole time. She simply saw it as they no longer need to be here. He saw their presence as an utter waste.
"Slow down..." Vanity grumbled under her breath. She gripped tightly to the jar of ashes that was once her sibling. "We need an order from Lord Frost before we can leave."
"An order! Now of all times." Sage threw up his hands. "Look around us, even this far from the undead, there is still panic and fear." He pointed to the rushing soldiers and raging weapons.
"Wait..." Vanity stopped. "Why aren't they pointing their weapons toward the center of the country?" She noted they were out looking at the ocean as if something else was drawing their attention.
"They probably received a message from that legendary Commander Hurricane!" Sage raised his hand to the sky. "Where else would they be going?"
"Look, just calm down!!" She shouted back, reaching her peak of annoyance. "Lord Frost sent us here for a reason, right?!"
"What? To simply stand as witnesses." Sage stopped at the edge. His eyes widened at something beyond their sight.
"Well..." the doctor looked back and forth between the country they were just in and the undead they left behind, to the edge of the Pegasus Isles and the ocean she assumed was just beyond it. "Maybe we are here to witness." She placed the ash jar gently down and grabbed him by the shoulders. "What are we? A doctor and a politician. What do we have in common?"
Sage didn't answer at first. Instead, his jaw slowly dropped at the sight Vanity had yet to notice beyond the edge. He refused to budge no matter how much she shook him. This made her look outward at what he could see and she quickly had the same reaction.
"What do we have in common...?" He repeated her words in a slow mumble. "I just know that neither of us is ready for this..."
"Well, we finally agree on something..." She nodded. Their fear was so intense that neither noted their hands reaching for each other.
What they were seeing was impossible to express right away. More chaos was coming for them all and only these two knew the full scope of both sides of the battlefield. But neither knew the light alicorn's plan as the jar of ash behind them started to shake violently.
******
Back in the central hurricane, the winds scattered in defiance of Aitym's attempts. It had been several minutes and as seen from the mass of shards swirling, he had yet to get any closer. Rage bloomed forward with an ultimate roar as the host went numb.
"Ha, ha, ha..." Rainbow Dartz coughed inside the mindscape. Even at this distance, he could sense what the light alicorn was denying. "Pegasi might have the largest amount of blood to any other species outside of alicorns, but even we have limits."
"Your species evolved to have incredible endurance, thus a larger heart and more blood." Aitym smirked, "You lasted longer than I expected. Maybe it was the constant battling that pushed you to this limit."
"And if you push any further?" Rainbow Dartz noticed his breathing was getting worse. His mind was wracking with all the pain of his real body. Sweat, tears, and blood, just how much more could he lose?
"You will die..." Aitym said so bluntly.
"And you..."
"Unless your sister suddenly appears I will be without a body."
"And thus we are both doomed." Rainbow Dartz threw his head upward and was shocked to find his own laughter echo from the mouth. Aitym was losing the fight he clearly wasn't ready for. Had Rainbow Dartz done the flight himself, they might have made it to the edge, but the light alicorn's arrogance prevented such efforts.
Thinking about it now, Rainbow Dartz had a hard time believing that he would ever accept the demands of this evil, even if it wasn't using him as a slave. He was bold to the very end, refusing to listen to his sister after she took command of him, turning away as his parents' honor was shamed by his leaving. And yet, had the command come from Zword, things might have been different.
"Just let me die..." Rainbow Dartz calmed his breath. "My final debt to this stupid nation is to drag you to Tartarus with me." He leaned back, offering his head. "Take it, Saturn!"
"Do not call upon that titan's help!!" Aitym raged. "I will not be mocked. They chose to stand above us for so long. Even after the first alicorns were made they still refused to acknowledge us."
"Made?" Rainbow Dartz questioned his word choice.
"Yes, forged with knowledge and power. Leaving our songs and swamps. The Nykur and the Kelpie united under a single banner. That of the alicorns!" Aitym sneakered after remembering something. Out of his pocket, he pulled out the alathar, the Eye of the King. "We claimed our immortality with the blood of the gods..." He held it up to the edge of the winds and spoke, "Yanhani Lilmalik!"
Blue blood screamed from the pegasus' mouth as if it was running from something. Aitym forced the teeth closed and repeated the phrase louder. Rainbow Dartz's mind screamed in pain as a new voice echoed forth. This new voice seemed to be coming from the alathar itself. It sounded similar to the voice of the titan Pluto, but somehow far older.
"What is this?!" Rainbow Dartz fought for command over the mouth.
"The voice of Sanity himself, the god of darkness and space..." Aitym felt the body fading. "Stop fighting or his voice will rip us both apart.
"Why?!"
"Because we are both of Madness's womb. Our light magic is an insult to Sanity's will." Aitym regretted his next actions in taking a step into the first layers of winds. Just as he suspected the first was a terrible fight, but he hoped the large amounts of dark magic inside these winds would calm that old goat.
"Yanhani Lilmalik!!" Aitym pushed all normal magic he could muster into it, hoping to tip the balance his light magic could not. Using an alathar and not being a dark magic user would already be a dangerous bargain. This body had already lost so much, he was unsure how much more it would lose before just dropping dead. This was his last chance. "Yanhani Lilmalik!!" More blue blood flooded out of his mouth. "Yanhani Lilmalik!!"
"You can stop..." Rex landed behind them. "That old goat refuses to listen to me, so what makes you think he will listen to some coward in another pony's body." The umbrum walked forward and flowed his chains around them. "End this and surrender the pegasus."
"And die..." Aitym pooled the blue blood around him into a crystal shield. "Yanhani Lilmalik!!"
"Stubborn Nuckelavee..." Rex rushed forward only for everything around him to slow. His eyes widened as his body slowed in the air and the dust beneath him scattered upward from his movement.
Aitym smiled as his host body moved normally. "Yes, about time." He admired everything moving in slow motion. From Rex to the undead and the pegasus, all bending to the command of the Eye of the King. "Now, to spread it to the rest." He held the Eye of the King to his undead army as they came back to normal speed.
All of them stopped what they were doing. "My army of hatred and anger!! March to my new body!!" At that word, they charged toward the hurricane winds. Aitym laughed as his plan came to reality, thousands upon millions raced into the winds. The first few were ripped apart, but others used the shredded remains as shields to reach further.
"Let's finish this!" Aitym crushed tighter onto the Eye of the King and the winds slowed to a soft breeze. His power flowed through the pegasus's eyes fueling magic from far away.
Down below, within the Batpony Canyons laid the Dark City. The imprisoned unicorns stopped in place as the undead left their posts and flew up to the center of Aitym's command. Above, the undead rushed in further and quickly hit the edge of the final circle with a splash of blood and bony bits. Even with the extra forces the Eye of the King didn't have enough command in its current state to stop them completely.
Aitym walked to the edge and pressed the alathar against the wall of winds. He roared the line again, "Yanhani Lilmalik!!" Nothing came so he mocked it, "You stupid goat. You dare to ignore us for so long!! You are a weak piece of shredded mass trapped inside a damned amulet!" No reaction still, so he expanded his words. "Do you remember who sealed you in there? That same god tricked me too, he stole so much from us. You stole so much from us! All I demand of this!! Yanhani Lilmalik!!" He pushed forward with all his might and fell into the final circle.
Back within the Batpony Canyons, the ground shook violently. The Dark City seemed to quake and roar with vicious savagery. The ashes of the long-dead umbrums rose from their resting place. The shattered and burnt remains were still under the control of the spell, despite all these years, and rose upward with the undead. They all flew to the same source.
The winds stopped utterly. Rex fell to the ground as reality for him and everything else outside of the circle returned to its true speed. The umbrum jumped through the winds as they tossed him around. Using his chains to anchor him down, he continued his efforts to stop the light alicorn.
The spirit gave little care to this. His prize was in his sight. Reaching into the crack where the scythe once sat. Deep within sat an azoth dagger. He pressed his host's hand upon it and laughed louder. "Yes, here it is."
As he pulled it free a massive burst of light shined out blinding everything. Rex cursed as his sight blurred and his shadows faded. The winds threw him back as the entire circle ripped apart. A great shaking followed the cracks, pushing out beyond the entire place.
******
Far up in the sky, Celestia's giant orb was struck by a massive wave of energy. Luna forced herself out of the pod to try and see what was going on. Her sister stopped and told her to lean back as she checked instead. The pink-maned princess rushed over to the overview and looked down to the Pegasus Isles below them.
"What is it?!" Luna screamed when her sister didn't respond. "Tia! What do you see... Celestia?!"
"I..." The alicorn shivered back at the sight of it. "Pegasus Isle... It's ripped apart!!"
"What?" Luna couldn't lay there any longer so she forced her way out of the healing pod and raced over to her sister's side. "Your words make no sense. Are the pegasi losing or... dying." She backed away at Celestia's frozen. "What's happening to Pegasus Isles."
"It's..." Celestia slowly pointed out the overview. "It's literally shattering."
Luna looked over only to be filled with the same amount of shock and confusion as everything she said was true. The entire landmass, including the Giant Blue Hourglass that encased it, was being ripped apart. Massive cracks the size of cities were surging out from the central point and spreading to each peak and edge. "What could be causing this?"
"His return!!" Lord Red's words echoed without warning. His form seemingly slivered into reality and appeared in front of them. He approached the edge of the overview and pointed toward the source. "That pitiful abandoned alicorn is using one of my brother's alathar to resurrect that forgotten beast!"
"Who is?!" Luna screamed. "Does this have anything to do with what Hollow Prince warned us about?!"
"What..." Lord Red's eyes widened at her use of the name. "When did you make contact with my--" He was stopped as an alarm blared through the giant orb.
"Shit!!" Celestia rushed back to the controls. "No, no, no, no!!"
"What now?"
"The air pressure around us is changing rapidly..." She bit her lip and raced her fingers over the keyboard hoping to stop it. "Our position is becoming unstable."
"You're crashing..." Lord Red regretted stating the obvious. His form started to fade away much to Luna's rage.
The blue alicorn reached out to him and demanded answers. "What is happening? Who is being resurrected?!"
Lord Red glared at her with intensity as the centipede symbols on his armor moved around in flaring motions. Powerful corrupted magic pulsed off of him, pushing Luna toward her sister. "You two will survive the crash..." Their eyes widened at the strange feeling of invisible strings crawling around their bodies. "But know this..." He pointed to Luna and then the source of the cracking. "All this failure falls upon your damn umbrum!!"
Luna's eyes widened. "Rex..." She wanted to know more but Lord Red vanished completely, leaving them there. They could still feel his strings, but the giant orb wasn't so lucky. The two sisters leaned against each other as the thing began to burn up, crashing down to collapsing Pegasus Isles.
******
Back at the edge of everything, the ifrits were shaken from their hand-grasping embrace by a loud bang. Vanity jumped around to the source only to see the jar shattered and the ashes of her sibling flowing outward. She rushed over to grab what she could but it was in vain.
Sage turned back around slowly. Her screams of horror did little to break the signs of defeat on his face. He saw everything she was doing to save her sibling and this made his legs shake. The sight of the ashes rising to a giant shadow looming over the country's center broke him completely. He finally came to process why they were here.
"We are witnesses. A doctor heals... a politician leads. But we both are here to witness what we need to lead them out of..." He reached out to Vanity to train her distress. "We are here to see it all happen."
"See what?!?!" she screamed in horror. "We've lost so much..."
"And there is so much more to lose... Before we can be the light that shines in... in..." With that, he lit his flames up. Sage shined a light over Vanity and the ground around them.
Vanity saw the shadow growing over them all. The pegasi, the undead, the two ifrits. They were all just specs of dust under the weight of what was to come. And yet, the two ifrits flames stood against this darkness. "It was what Thule said. We are the light. The Nine Families are the light."
"The light in the darkness."
******
Twilight and the rest of the group were caught off guard by the shaking. It was so sudden and threatening that all of them were tossed in a different direction. Clovis and Starlight were tossed to Silver Pear, knocking him to the ground.
Clover slid from his hands and toward Twilight and the clouds split out between them. Ashes of the long dead swarmed upward from below the clouds. Reaching the center of the Pegasus Isle where they started to connect to something beyond their sight.
"That place is where Rex went, right?" Clover pointed out.
"What makes you say that?!" Twilight picked her up.
"His shadows!" She narrowed her eyes at the sight of giant shadows being pushed back by a powerful source of light. "That's his Kraken spell." She noted the tentacles. "But that light... is it?"
"He must be trying to stop Aitym." Twilight leaned Clover against a table and tried to reach out to the rest of the group. "Come on, he's this way!" She shouted to them.
"Wait!" Clovis pointed out to the ashes flowing around them. Twilight followed his eyes back as the ashes took the shape of something. One of the piles of ash shot out from the main source and went upward before solidifying.
"That's... a horn!"
"Not an alicorn horn..." Twilight backed away as the shape looked so familiar. "No, it can't be..."
"Ox horns..." Clover confirmed.
Hearing her words made Twilight's mind flashback to something she had seen before all of this started. "Wait there was a battle near here long ago. I saw it in the mindscape."
"So did I!" Clover jumped to attention, trying to stand. "Something that involved the batponies, pegasi, and the..."
"Centaurs," Twilight answered.
"Yes, how did you know?"
"I saw it in Cold Blue's memories..." Twilight's eyes widened and she turned toward the source of the shaking. "Aitym is searching for a better body. And there's only one he could be after here--"
Without warning the land they were standing up lifted upward before splitting into two, then three and four, ending in five... fingers. They all came to attention as Twilight and Clover found themselves in the center of a giant hand of ash and dead.
Twilight rushed over to grab Starlight and the rest with her magic only for rocks and clouds to rise from the crack and separate them. Her eyes widened as screaming followed, she shouted to Starlight and Silver Pear, wanting to follow but Clover was on her side.
Things became worse as the rocks around the rising ground fell apart revealing the ash transforming into flesh and hair. Twilight's eyes widened at the giant hand. A slight relief came in that this hand was not of her forging. This was a real creature's hand. She grumbled as her fear reached its peak.
"There was an azoth dagger..." the alicorn leaned back into a fiddle position as the realization hit her like a ton of bricks. "They contain the magic of all forms including bodies..." She narrowed her eyes upward as a massive shadow of the ashes cloaked the sun and clouds. The original light source set into the center of a giant creature cloaking over the land. "So that was his plan. Thousands of souls to break the barrier..."
"What is this?"
"Not what, whom. The greatest giant to ever exist outside of the titans. Aitym's new body is the king of all centaurs, the father of Tirek... Ixion."
******
Clovis, Starlight, and Silver Pear watched on in horror as the city was ripped apart around them. The giant arms destroyed buildings left and right. It reached beyond their grasp, separating them from Twilight and Clover.
"No!" Starlight screamed. "We have to get to them!!" She was stopped by Silver Pear.
"This is no good," Clovis answered. "We must get out of here before it gets any worse."
"But, our friends are right there?!" She tried to float up to them only for her magic to fail. "What?" She repeated and got the same result. "No! Impossible!"
"It is possible..." Clovis grumbled at his legs. "I can't teleport either."
"Which means?!" Starlight rushed over and shook Clovis, demanding answers.
"That thing is stealing all our magic to stabilize its new form!" He pointed to the clouds falling around them. Buildings didn't even need to be nearby to be ripped apart by the force of its power.
"No!" Starlight threw him down and rushed over to the edge. "Teacher!!" She screamed out to Twilight. "Please!! Answer me!!" She called out to her but there was no answer.
Her eyes slowly widened at the sight of her friends gone, just like the rest of the country. This made no sense to her at all. She just barely found Twilight again. She couldn't lose track of her now. Yet here it was happening again, only this time a massive giant monster stood between them.
"We can't just leave them up there..." Silver Pear urged.
"And what you expect to do?! Neither of us can fly!" Clovis roared at him. "We've lost..."
"No." Starlight clenched her hands and tightened her resolve. "I will not run away like a coward!!" A large amount of magic surged from within her, only to slip away and into the giant. "I won't give up!!" She pulled out more pools of magic, aiming her sight at the giant hand that had taken Twilight and Clover. "I refuse to fall!!"
Without warning, a sharp piece of permafrost broke off from the force of both powers clashing. Clovis raced over to Starlight and didn't even hesitate to push her out of the way. The spike tore through his stomach.
"Clovis!!" Starlight screamed as his blood splashed over her.
He used whatever magic he had left to push Starlight into the safety of Silver Pear. "Sometimes, being a coward is a good thing." Before any more could be said, the permafrost ripped apart the ground around him and sent the unicorn falling into the canyons below.
"No!!" Starlight tried to reach him, but Silver Pear rushed her away as all the ground collapsed. "Let me go!!"
"He's... gone!! We can't save him!!" Silver Pear covered Starlight under some tables as more stuff fell apart around them.
******
Just outside of the Pegasus Isle, the figure of the centaur was so big that his tail was rising at the edge of the ocean. This did little to put fear in the griffin armies that Sage had witnessed landing upon their arrival at the edge of the Giant Blue Hourglass. Thousands of ships were at the ready, with cannons firing at both the ashy tail of the mighty centaur as well as the pegasi outposts.
"King Grover, is it wise to make our move now?!" the lower soldiers questioned.
Cloaked in shadows behind an all too familiar earth pony, the griffin king admired the sight of the Giant Blue Hourglass. "Long ago, my family was ripped apart by those thieving pegasi! They slew my father right in front of me..." He held up his sword and shouted out. "Their damnation has been at their doorstep for centuries! And I refused to let some undead forgotten king claim what is rightfully ours!" He swung his blade forward.
"You've made the right choice," the earth pony agreed. "Everything is going according to Lord Frost's plans."
"Know this well, Carnival Carnage. That wendigo will know his place too..." The king lowered his blade to the shoulder of the earth pony. "I'm willing to make deals with gods and devils... but both will bend under my claw!" He stepped out of the shadows and shined his golden armor on his crew and the emblem of their kingdom, Griffinstone. "On this day, I shall avenge my father. For Lord Gallus!!"
They turned their blades upward, their fears vanished in an instant. "And we raise our greatest lord. King Grover!!"
******
Without warning a bright light smashed into the ground right in front of the Giant Blue Hourglass. It stood in stark defiance to the griffins slowly arriving. Its power shined in defense of the crumbling Pegasus Isles.
The light slowly faded to reveal a red pegasus mare fully transformed and altered by Lord Red's power. A muscle bounded red demon, shadowing in place of her weak and frail old self. The super powered, demonically charged with corrupted magic, Private Pansy stood ready to defend her homeland.
******