As the band of military ponies filed into the area, they were met with many amazing sights.
Firstly, the amazing sight of the new scenery they were in. This was, by far, the largest part of the cavernous system they had been in. It was large enough to be able to fit at least two or three fully matured dragons. (Thankfully, there were none in the room.) The most impressive part of the scenery, however, was the decorations of the walls. Artificially placed into the walls were large amounts of various jewels, sparkling beautifully as the flames of the torches placed around the room reflected off them.
Another amazing sight that piqued the interest of the military ponies was the large hoard of also spectacular and shiny gemstones lying in the center of the cave. It quickly became obvious to them that this large amount of gems were the ones stolen from Ponyville. As their eyes ventured further up the pile, however, there was a peculiar sight: a throne was erected at the top.
Atop the throne sat a Diamond Dog fully clad in armor. The difference between his armor and the others, however, was that his was lined with two types of gemstones, alternating between sapphires and rubies.
Also, instead of a helmet, he wore a crown. With a lot of gemstones encrusted into it.
And he had a scepter with a lot of gemstones in it.
And he wore rings on his claws with a big (guess what?) gemstone on each ring.
Everyone knew how much Diamond Dogs liked gems but at this point, it was just incredibly annoying and obnoxious.
At the bottom of the pile with the Diamond Dog on it who REALLY, REALLY liked gems, there was another amazing sight. However, this was one of those amazing, perplexing sights that wasn't necessarily a good one.
Surrounding the hoard of jewels were 5 unicorns fully adorned in gem-encrusted robes. Usually ponies, or any other race, wouldn't even think of associating themselves with such a foul creature but the promise of money can change someone's affiliation in the blink of an eye. And for a Diamond Dog to stoop so low to hire a pony, that meant one thing: that these unicorns were very powerful.
This drastically changed the situation for the military personnel for a couple reasons.
One being that ponies, in general, didn't really like fighting unless they had to. They tended to be very peaceful unless provoked and the prospect of having to fight their own kind was not an easy one.
Another reason is that instead of now just having to deal with large amounts of Diamond Dogs, which there we hundreds of in the room, they now had to deal with 5 powerful spell casters.
As the group finally finished filing into the room, the two forces stared intensely at each other. For many, this would be the final day of their lives which was a very grim outlook to have in this situation as true as it was. Ravenheart, however, didn't want this to become truth today for many in the room. She landed in front of the group and stood stoically, looking directly at the Diamond Dog atop the gems.
"By the order of Princess Celestia herself, we've have been charged to bring you to justice for your heinous crime of attacking the town of Ponyville and its residents and stealing all of their gems. Now... we can either do this the easy way or the hard way. The easy way is that you and your forces surrender right now and you will be brought before Her Majesty and judged accordingly. There will be no bloodshed, no death, and I will personally guarantee that the Princess will be fair. Do you accept these terms or do we have to do things...the hard way?
There was a moment of dead silence as the two forces stood across from each other, motionless. This was broken however, when a loud, menacing cackle echoed through the room. It came from atop the gem pile and was soon joined by the mocking laughter of the forces of the Diamond Dog below. After a few seconds of this, it died down and the Diamond Dog spoke.
" NO! I DO NOT ACCEPT YOUR SsssTUPID WORDS, PONY! WE WILL KILL YOU AND STOMP ON YOUR CORPSsseS."
Ravenheart sighed in response and leapt into the air as her wings flared out from her sides. She brandished her two swords and looked at the Diamond Dog directly in the eyes as she realized that they would have to do things the hard way.
"Very well. When your forces are demolished and dead upon the floor, remember that it is your fault!"
Ravenheart's wings began to flap faster as she prepared herself.
"SOLDIERS!..."
The group braced themselves for the upcoming battle.
"CHARGE!"
And it began.
The first out of the stables were the pegasi melee fighters. They zoomed forward at the word and immediately went for the opposing unicorns and the rock throwing Diamond Dog positioned near the piles of the material, picking off targets instead of going for the meat of the enemy forces. Ravenheart, however, went for the large Diamond Dog sitting atop the mountain of gems and tackled him to the ground at the back of the cave, isolating the two from the others. The others pegasi, who were archers, stayed where they were and began raining down arrows upon the enemy forces.
The bulk of the group, the Earth Ponies, charged forward brandishing their large and heavy weapons in their mouths and upon reaching the enemy, some instead switched to holding them in their hoof.
The unicorns took up their positions in front of the pegasi archers and began flinging spells at anyone they could. When a rock would come dangerously close to anypony, they would catch it in their magic and send it back to the sender.
The enemy responded with large Diamond Dogs using either their vicious claws or large weapons such as hammers or broadswords. The smaller ones ran around with daggers or small maces and used their height and quickness to their advantage by quickly attacking and then backing away. There were the rock throwers of course and most deadly of all, the unicorns. In the initial attack by the pegasi, they were quickly able to dispatch two of the unicorns. However, the others responded quickly and began slinging spells at the enemy forces and even catching some of the pegasi in their telekinetic grip and slamming them into the ground or against the ceiling. These rogue unicorns were extremely careless and ruthless.
This encounter was viscous and fierce... and it could of been avoided if it weren't for the greed of one Diamond Dog.
***
As the battle raged on, the two leaders of the opposing forces squared off against each other at the back of the cave. The leader of the Diamond Dogs, now missing his crown after being thrown off his throne, now had a helmet atop his head. His only weapon were his claws which had steel tips on them, making his attack deadlier.
The two gazed intensely at each other as they began to slowly move in a counter clockwise pattern, their sights never leaving each other. The silence between the two was agonizing. So agonizing, in fact, that Ravenheart had to break it.
"It's still not too late. You can still lay down your arms and come peacefully."
The Diamond Dog growled in response.
"I will not sssurrender to ssstupid PONIES! I would rather DIE!"
Ravenheart smirked as she launched into the air. She shouted something at him as she lunged towards him.
"AS YOU WISH!"
***
Truestrike, instead of staying stationary like the majority of the other unicorns, went forward into the fighting. There was no longer a line that the forces fought at and there were now individual groups of fighting happening. She ran around blasting her magic anywhere it was needed. As brave (and stupid) as she was for charging forward, she was also terrified.
'Oh Celestia, what am I doing!!! I should have just stayed back' She thought as she just narrowly stopped a rock from hitting her with her magic. She spotted the thrower of it and sent it back, crushing the Diamond Dog. As she finished this, however, she quickly conjured a shield around herself just in time to block an attack. She discharged the magic from the shield, sending the attacker flying back. She quickly conjured a green ball of fire from her horn and sent it to the Diamond Dog, extinguishing its life. She slightly grimaced at the sight of the charred body that was now dormant of life.
She shook her head furiously. 'No, no, no! Focus on the fight, you can't be distracted now!' As she shook herself from her mental stupor, she barely avoided the magic from another unicorn. She found the rogue attacker and sent a blast of magic back but it was easily deflected by a quick bubble shield. The two began to have an arcane duel and migrated their fighting to an empty part of the battlefield. The two couldn't focus on each other if there were others interfering.
***
As they situated themselves into their new location, they stared at one another. Truestrike snarled at the opposing unicorn and sent a ball of fire towards her. The Diamond Dog's unicorn rolled out of the way and telekineticly picked up two large rocks and sent them at Truestrike. She managed to put up a shield but was barely able to hold it as the rocks collided with it.
Truestrike dug her hooves into the ground and channeled a beam of fire from her horn that shot towards the enemy. The unicorn erected a shield and struggled to maintain it as Truestrike's magic hammered at her. The shield broke and the unicorn was barely able to roll out of the way of the beam. As Truestrike began channeling the spell again, the unicorn disappeared.
Truestrike panicked. 'Oh no... she knows how to teleport.' As this dawned on her, she quickly unsheathed her dagger from her pouch with her magic and turned around. As she did, the unicorn rematerialized with a dagger also floating in her magic. Even though this was rare, unicorns would sometimes engage in melee battles although they never involved large weapons.
Though Truestrike was inexperienced with melee combat, it quickly became apparent that so was this unicorn. She only resorted to it because her magic began to make her feel fatigued. For awhile, one would lunge at the other and the latter would parry the attack. Eventually, the rogue unicorn got lucky and managed to slash one of Truestrike's forelegs. The cut ran deep and blood began to ooze out of the wound. Truestrike winced in pain and stumbled back as her movement became slightly impaired. The opposing unicorn took this as another opportunity to strike and lunged forward once more, fully pushing herself into the attack.
Truestrike, however, anticipated this and did the only thing she could think of. The clumsy, all-out attack was easily dodged by Truestrike and as the rogue unicorn was still in a forward motion, unable to pull back, Truestrike hit the unicorn's horn with her hoof. The unicorn continued to fall forward and her dagger dropped from her grasp, her magic now disrupted for several seconds.
The unicorn, now on the ground, quickly flipped around and was now on her back. She attempted to fire a bolt of magic at Truestrike, but her magic failed. Truestrike took the opportunity to stand over the unicorn, triumphantly. She hovered her dagger dangerously close to the unicorn's throat.
As Truestrike glared down at the enemy unicorn, she paused. The unicorn had a look of pure terror in her eyes as she realized that this was going to be her end. Truestrike could make out the subtle tears rolling down the cheek of the opposing unicorn. The unicorn managed to whimper out a plea in a soft, weak tone.
"P-please m-m'am, s-show m-mercy."
Truestrike's body began to tremble and so did the dagger in her magic's grasp. Eventually, she tossed the dagger to the sides with her magic, releasing it from her grip. Truestrike did not want this to end with more death. This unicorn was very talented in magic and if she was desperate to align herself with a Diamond Dog, then she could just be on rough times. Perhaps she needs the money to support her family or even just herself... Truestrike didn't have a clue. She knew, however, that she was tired of all the destruction she caused. All of the pain she caused. 'No...', she thought to herself. 'No more death.'
The enemy unicorn was relieved for a second but began to cower in fear as Truestrike began to charge her magic. As Truestrike fired her magic, the opposing unicorn screamed in absolute terror. As Truestrike's spell hit, a sad smile appeared on her face.
"I will show mercy."
The unicorn below her, instead of being a charred corpse, stayed the same except that she was now unconscious. Instead of causing more death, Truestrike used a knockout spell on the enemy. It assured that she would be fine (except for a terrible headache) and that she would wake up long after the battle was over.
Truestrike breathed a sigh of relief as she stepped away from the unicorn. She felt happy and very relieved that she didn't extinguish another life from this world. Though her cutie mark looked as if it meant that she would cause nothing but destruction everywhere she went, she was able to prove it wrong this time and hopefully several more times to come.
She cast her gaze back towards the battlefield and sighed once more.
'There's still so much fighting...'
As she looked for her next encounter, she spotted a grim sight. Ravenheart and the leader of the Diamond Dogs were squaring off against one another and it looked like her Commander was losing. She had a large gash across her side that bled a moderate amount. The look of fatigue on her face was evident and she definitely looked like she needed help. Upon realizing this, she quickly charged towards the fight.
"I'm coming, Ravenheart!"