//------------------------------// // The Crystal-Equestrian War Part 2 // Story: The New Brotherhood of Darkness // by JeckParadox //------------------------------// "My brethren, we must continue to fight! For our Great Spirit! For our Virtues!" The Makuta cheered. "Now go, emissaries of the night! Guardians of the Matoran! Nightmares of the Barraki! And make the Six Kingdoms fear us!" Hundreds of black demonic figures rose into the sky, meeting with the genetically engineered soldiers of the Six Kingdoms. Makuta Miserix watched as they began dropping from the air after one especially powerful explosion, and then how hundreds of the soldiers dropped from nothing. Killing the opponent without touching them, that was the Makuta's specialty. "Sir." Makuta Miserix turned toward the new voice. "Ah! Teridax, do you have the new supply of battle Rahi ready?" "...Not exactly, Sir." Teridax turned to the ghostly white Makuta behind him. "Krika, kill him." "Treachery?!" Miserix reared his head, his dragon-like body writhing with rage. "Just because the Great Spirit calls you Brother doesn't mean that you have the right to overthrow me! I am the destined master of the Makuta!" Krika then jumped forward, eveloping Misirix in ghostly white mist, and they were both gone. A few minutes later Krika reappeared. "Well?" The ghostly Makuta gave a tiny smile. "The... official report will say he died in a 'Rahi-building accident'. But I did something a little worse and more illegal." Makuta Teridax smiled. "Good. Now then, let's win this war shall we?" Shield Wax was flying through the air, and into the cold inky blackness. He wondered if he would die on impact. He had rather hoped he would die by getting speared, but he found himself being carried. "What-what is this?" The two Pegasi from the front of his carriage had caught him, they were full decorated, and were covered in full body-concealing armor, and face-concealing helmets. "D-don't worry sir... It's all right, now we need to get you to the b-battlefield..." "You're a mare?!" "Yep!" The other one piped in. "You should actually already know who we are." The two of them lowered him to the ground, he noticed their tails, one was messy and rainbow, the other long and pink. "Are you two-" His Unicorn carriage puller then floated upward and put a hoof to his face. "shh, we don't know the capabilities of the cloud yet." "Sparkle?" "Yeah, but don't talk until we get you to the soldiers." The seven ponies then walked a ways, he wasn't sure how they knew their way through the darkness, but then, these were Equestria's saviors, warriors who had bonded to the force that petrified the hordes of Longma, the great spirit Discord, and Nightmare Moon, surly they had great powers. After less than two minutes one of the Earth Pony guards, one with a bouncy pink tail, led him out of the cloud, and he looked with despair as the gigantic stone/crystal/steel monstrosity continued to wander through his troops, scattering the careful placement of ponies, he could tell the machine was being harmed by attacks, or would be, if they were coordinated. But if there was the one thing his army wasn't at that moment, it would be coordinated. "Go on your mission, I'll take care of things here." "Alright, please win." "You too." And he saluted them. The Earth Ponies and one of the Pegasi saluted back before disappearing into the darkness. "Alright, troops, you've had your fun! Now follow my commands!" Every Pony heard the Royal Canterlot Voice, and he had their temporary attention. "All Unicorns, fire on the farthest leg where it's connected to the sphere, Earth Ponies, Pegasi, try to get it to support it's weight on that leg, push it, lift up the other legs, whatever, go go go!" Nightmare got up, wincing as her wing moved. She braced herself and turned to look at the damage. A charging Alicorn does about as much damage as a meteorite, she should be glad that she only lost her wing. She focused her Alicorn magic on the stub, willing it to grow back, but it wouldn't. It was physical damage, done to Luna's actual body. Nightmare felt some rage rise within her. Celestia had just crippled her. She would have to get an artificial wing, or she would have to spend a fortune getting a transplant or magic clone made. She got up shakily and tested her Pegasus magic, even with only one wing she should be able to get into the air. She fluttered up a few feet, only to be knocked back down. "Release Luna." How had she not seen her? "Ugh... do you still want her now that you crippled her?" Celestia took a step back, a look of horror going over her face. "You're lying, just regenerate." "It's a wing Celestia!" Nightmare rose back to her feet, her horn pulsing with magic. She reached out with a Lunar scythe, and Celestia didn't have time to dodge. "Ha! Don't worry, a horn will grow back. But I think I'll cut off some things that won't now." Celestia let out a gasp of pain as her horn fell to the snow. She raised the Lunar scythe, but Celestia's spear knocked it away, and they both faded back into non-existence. Celestia couldn't use much magic, and Nightmare couldn't fly that much. Nightmare conjured several moon bolts and fired them one by one at Celestia, who dodged them but wasn't able to do much more than just tackle her in retaliation. Nightmare became aware of a pounding in her skull, and could tell that Luna was trying to take control of her magic. "Stop it!" Celestia delivered a kick to her jaw while Luna grabbed control of her horn. She found herself fighting hoof-to-hoof, with her body sometimes pausing suddenly as Luna put magical locks on her feet, or getting pushed to the side or having to dodge lightning from Celestia's Pegasus magic. She was losing this fight. Her Earth Pony magic was useless except to keep her moving even after taking all these hits, and she was crippled in both her other skills. It just wasn't working. She was knocked to the ground by a burst of wind, and looked up to see Celestia standing above her. A thunder cloud Celestia had summoned exploded with thunder as Celestia's outline flashed into her eyes. She had lost. Celestia was going to kill her now, or try to free Luna... free Luna. Nightmare sent a psychic message to Sombra, and then let out a gasp of pain, real pain, she simply started allowing herself to feel it. She screamed and cried and eventually she couldn't take it, and her disguise melted away, leaving Luna lying in the snow with one wing gone. Celestia collapsed next to her sister, and Luna smiled before fainting from the pain. Nightmare waited patiently inside her skull, trying to be as insignificant as possible, she would wait until Makuta and Sombra came for her. Pinkie Pie navigated like the darkness was nothing to her, and it probably didn't mean much. Twilight had identified misdirection spells interlaced in the smoke, but she found it had absolutely no effect on Pinkie sense. She was keeping them hidden with dark magic, similar to Sombra's and what she had seen with Celestia, but the blackness was overwhelming. She looked down and she couldn't see even to her hoof, the only thing connecting the six of them was the magical rope tied to each of their armors. "This is terrifying." Rarity said in a hushed whisper. "Yes, Rarity, I know the dark is unsettling, but we have to do this in the dark or Sombra will sense us." Twilight reassured. "Oh sure, yeah, the dark is bad, but do you know what's worse!? What this helmet is doing to my mane! Why couldn't we have gotten the little ones that sit on your head like a hat?" "Because then Nahtmare Moon woulda killed us." Applejack said, becoming irritated from not being able to see. "And that!" Rainbow said, picking up the conversation. "Why didn't we blast her when we had the chance, then we could have two Princesses fighting Sombra!" "Rainbow Dash, we've been over this, if Nightmare saw that we had the Elements, even if we did blast her, then Sombra would know that he had another target." Twilight sighed and put her hoof forward, expecting it to make contact with Pinkie, who was their only way into the empire. But it didn't. The magic line continued to move forward though. "Pinkie Pie?" Twilight was beginning to panic. "Pinkie, are you still there?" No answer. "Twilight, what happened?" She turned around toward the new voice, was it Applejack's? No... Rainbow Dash's. "What happened to Pinkie Pie?" "I don't know! She isn't answering me!" "What are you talking about?" Rainbow started screaming at that moment, and Twilight began turning backward, but the line kept being pulled forward. "What the hay is happening!?" Rarity whispered. Rainbow stopped screaming and began sobbing. "What is that screeching?! Is that you Pinkie!? Be quiet!" A shout from Fluttershy blew away some of the inkiness, and though they were in complete darkness, at least they weren't obscured from each other. Twilight noted with relief that all six of them were there. "S-s-sorry... but you were all being crazy." Twilight turned to Pinkie. "Why didn't you answer?" "I did! And then you kept acting like I was invisible!" "Everything's invisible right now..." Rarity said. "But Rainbow, why were you screeching?" "I... everyone just started screaming, and didn't stop and..." "...I think I know what happened." Twilight said. "We need to pick up the pace, this cloud has a very subtle insanity spell laced into it. I didn't notice at first, it's very weak, but continuous inhalation..." "You mean we all went insane?" "For a second." Twilight turned to Fluttershy. "How come you weren't affected?" "I... I'm sorry, I don't know..." Twilight's horn glowed for several seconds, before she sent a wave of light over each of them. "This is a respiration spell, it'll let you breathe it in without much problem now." "Okie Dokie Lokie, are we ready to move on?" "Yep." As they continued trotting in the darkness Rarity whispered to Twilight. "It didn't affect Pinkie either." Twilight considered it for a second, and was about to say the obvious before catching herself. "Curse it all!" Makuta growled as one of the Viso's legs broke in half, sending his entire machine to the ground. "Fine. I may not be powerful enough myself right now to finish an army... but I am powerful enough to at least beat one." He said it loudly, gathering attention from the ponies below. He jumped down, knocking two of them away. He stopped himself from chasing after them and breaking them, it was easy, they had false armor, only metal hanging loosely, not even attached to their skin, and their flesh was weaker than even a Matoran's. He swatted them, literally, to the side. Took their spells with stride, and deflected their spears. He considered picking up one of them, but if he did he might not be able to hold back his instincts and he might kill a few of them. He was having fun simply knocking every pony that came at him, which was a lot, considering he was the only enemy in a tunnel filled with soldiers, when he noticed one unicorn standing still. That's something most people wouldn't notice, but he had been in battles where hundreds were attacking him at once, and the ones you really had to watch out for are the ones who stayed back and charged their super attacks. He began walking toward the unicorn, careful not to trample any of the attacking ponies. And the unicorn knew he had been spotted. It had purple armor, signifying some high rank. He took a leap toward the pony and blinked as it was engulfed in yellow light. He felt a terrible nostalgia as he desperately tried to slow his descent. When he landed, there was no pony there. Makuta quickly looked around for where he had been teleported to. And stumbled when the pony fell out of the darkness above him, landing on his face.The Unicorn's horn was still glowing and Makuta tried grabbing him, but the unicorn was dancing back and forth on his back, evading Makuta's hands. After another second the unicorn stabbed his horn into Makuta's eye. "Boom." The Unicorn said. And Makuta couldn't look away as everything burst into light. Shield Wax let out a sigh of relief as he got up from where he had been flung. He trotted over to the machine thing and smiled when he saw that it had been blown apart. There was the torso and the back over there, half an arm over here, and Shield Wax let his smile fade as he found the shattered head. The first enemy casualty. Even if it was just a robot like Celestia said, there was no way to know if it had a soul or not. He noticed that the strange black design on it's face was completely intact. He grabbed it with his magic, and fell to his knees as it ripped magic away from him in droves. He let out a grunt as he released his hold on the thing. It was dangerous. And fed off of magic. He created a force field around it and then gathered his troops. It was too late to hope their formation could be salvaged, but maybe they could still begin their siege on the city. Shield looked up and saw the darkness was closing back in, it had come down completely in some areas, and he was sure he had lost some ponies to it. But they would have to come back for them after forcing Sombra to dispel it. "Come on Unicorns! Start pushing away the dark, we need to keep a path open for the next wave!" He shouted in the Royal Canterlot Voice. He then screamed as a robotic arm grabbed his throat. It was silenced quickly. "Here we are~!" "I can't see anything!" "Ouch, watch who's tail you're stepping on you ruffians!" "S-sorry..." "Don't worry, I'll be back in a flash." And Rainbow Dash flew upward, crashing into a wall of diamond. "F-found it." Twilight walked up to the wall, examining her darkness-tainted reflection curiously. "This... shouldn't be here..." "What are you talking about?" "This is supposed to be outside a hilly field. I expected a force field, sure, but an actual wall this far out in the country?" Applejack turned around and gave the wall a heavy buck. She cursed and then limped back around. "Whaddya know, diamond is harder than wood, go figure." Rainbow teased. "Shut it, do you have a better plan?" "Yeah, me and Fluttershy take turns lifting you guys over it." "How do you know it doesn't go all the way around and above the city?" "I guess we'll just have to try it." And Rainbow began readying herself to fly upwards. "Rainbow Dash, wait!" Twilight yelled, but Rainbow Dash took off, firing straight upward, and away from the protection of Twilight's spell. "...crap." Sombra blinked a few times as a pony's signal appeared suddenly right next to the city. It was impossible. How could they have gotten that close? He should have been able to see their every move, but it appeared from out of nowhere, and how did they navigate so close to the city in pure darkness? He turned to shadow and sped his way along the ground of the city, a line of darkness and black crystals marking his path as he flew past in shadow form. He made his way to the force field and peered out at the darkness and the diamond wall. He saw it! A rainbow colored Pegasus. One of the Elements of Harmony Nightmare mentioned. She was there when Cadence blew him up with the Crystal Heart too. He made a tiny hole in the shield and whipped a shadow arm through. He grabbed the Rainbow Pegasus's tail and forcefully dragged her up to the shield. He brought her halfway through before stopping. "All of you, come out or I'll turn the shield back on. Who knows' what'll happen to her then?" The Pegasus, to her credit tried bucking at him with her hind legs and didn't say anything to give away the friends hiding in the shadow, hidden from his sensor. "You don't care about her then? I guess I'll just be keeping this one for my collection, I've never seen quite a colorful tail in my life, is it natural or died?" He monologued, waiting for the other Elements to show themselves. "Oh well, I guess the power of friendship doesn't hold for very long does it? All right then, you're coming with me my multi-colored mustang." He slowly dragged her through the hole when an Earth Pony soldier with a blond tail stepped forward. "You put her down this instant!" She was followed by four more ponies. The Elements of Harmony. He'd be doing Nightmare's job for her. "Come and get her." He swished her around and then made a gigantic hole in the shield. He created five more shadow hands and picked up each of them, he closed the shield and flew toward the castle with them in tow. "Ha! Nightmare Moon and Makuta are going to love this! I've saved the day!"