//------------------------------// // XVII: The Monster // Story: The After Party // by Blackdrag-rose //------------------------------// Dust kicked up as the energy built, blowing over stands of the Ponyville Market and knocking some unfortunate soldiers out of the air. The fighting halted as the wind churned and blinded the majority of them who couldn't use magic to shield their eyes. Most of the unicorns knew that something had happened and they didn't like it. Besides, the Royal Family, including Princess Twilight Sparkle and Discord, were facing the maelstrom that was causing the disturbance like something evil was going to emerge. Well, more evil than Discord anyway. "What the BUCK was that?" Tick questioned after getting up from being thrown to the ground. "Whose the wise pony who summoned the dust devil in the middle of a battlefield?" "Dude, I don't think anypony summoned it," Vinyl commented, thankful she always wore her glasses as she pointed at the devil in question, "Whatever that Changeling Queen did is causing this." "I hate to agree with the mare who sleeps during the day," Octavia said, slamming her hoof into the face of the Changeling she had been fighting before the devil had appeared, "and I hate pointing blame at anypony, but this madness is all her fault. " The Crusaders' tank-wagon blew over and the top popped off as a firework hit a knocked over stand. "What the..." Peachy said, rolling out of the contraption and staring at the sky, "What's causing this chaos?" "Don't look at me." came a voice as Discord appeared behind her with a cup of tea in hand, claw, whatever he called his limbs, "I'm not the one causing this chaos. Chrysalis is seriously messing with the fundamentals of the world." "Mister Discord," Sweetie Belle asked, pulling herself and her friends out of the wreckage, "aren't you the one who is usually messing with the fundamentals of the world anyway?" "I have no idea what you just said," Applebloom commented, pulling out some fireworks, "but we have to get back to blasting those Changelings. Come on girls, let's give them a beating and get our Cutie Marks." The energy suddenly dissipated and the air rippled, causing the dust to quickly gather and then burst outward, allowing everypony to see what rested in the center of all the dust. Gooed to the ground, with her hat covering her eyes from the dust, was Applejack, who moved her hat out of the way with a quick move of her head. Laying in front of Chrysalis, who had a big toothy grin, was Rose Petal, who looked like she had been smacked in the face. Standing next to the Changeling Queen was a stallion who seemed to radiate power. The stallion's hooves and legs were riddled with holes, as was his mane, tail, and wings. He had a jagged horn, colored black like the rest of his body, and the same strange wings that Chrysalis had. The more Peachy stared at the stallion the more she noticed the fading Cutie Mark that resembled Rocket's mark and when the stallion opened his eyes she knew exactly what had happened. "Dark Sky," Peachy whispered, unaware that the God of Chaos could hear her regardless of how soft she spoke, "Chrysalis has crossed the line this time." "I don't see what the deal is with this stallion." Discord said, sipping from his cup as lightning arched around his unoccupied hand, "Celestia says that she's frightened of the power that this stallion contains. I honestly don't see what the big deal is." Before Peachy could react the God of Chaos blasted her friend with lightning, straight into the town hall building not too far away. Then a meteor hit the wreckage of the building, exploding the ruins in a fury of fire and earth. "Are you insane?" Peachy asked, fully aware she was asking the most insane creature if he was insane, "That's my friend you just blasted. You can't just toss meteors around like that." "Where's the fun in following the rules?" Discord asked, taking another sip of his tea as he talked to the mare, "Its boring to follow the rules. Only certain mares follow the rules and those just happen to be Alicorns who everypony knows. And that includes a certain evil stallion and Changeling Queen..." Peachy couldn't catch the last past as a beam of energy hit the God of Chaos into the building behind him, which preceded to explode. She looked back and felt her heart slow down as she saw the monster emerge from the burning wreckage. She could literally see the hatred burning in the stallions eyes and wondered how much of her friend remained. "Now I understand," Discord groaned, emerging from the building with some cuts and scrapes, "Now I see what makes this stallion so special. Let's dance." The monster roared as the God of Chaos raised into the sky, quickly following suit. Discord smiled and charged his hands with pure lightning, something he could use now that both sides weren't in the skies. They were grounded so to speak, which was mostly due to his chaotic nature. Only he allowed the Alicorn mares to join him, if they wanted to fight the monster with him. The monster stared at him and he at the monster, both daring their foe to make the first move. The monster lowered his head and Discord blasted him with the pure power of lightning, literally opening the sky and raining over ten thousand volts on the stallion. "He's going to kill him," Rainbow shouted, realizing exactly how much power the God of Chaos was using, "Nopony can withstand that much power without being fried alive." "I'm not done yet," Discord said, unleashing a wave of fire behind him as the stallion appeared behind him, "and you wont get away that easily." The sky exploded as another beam of energy connected with Discord's attack, whose eyes were looking for the stallion. The next thing he knew he was tackled right to the ground, blowing a crater in the ground with the stallion standing over him. Discord began to sweat as the stallion prepared another one of his strange energy attacks, this one aimed right at his face. A wave of darkness bashed into the stallion's side and tossed him off the God of Chaos, but Discord was surprised to see who his savior was. Standing on top of a crystal pillar was none other then the King of Darkness and Tyrant of the Crystal Kingdom, King Sombra. The armored stallion growled and darkness flew over Discord, hitting the monster before he could get back up. "Sombra," Discord said, getting up as his new ally prevented the stallion from getting up, "To what do I owe the pleasure of being saved by you?" "Be thankful I even overheard that this stallion even existed," the dark king answered, which was strange since Discord remembered him speaking about crystals and slaves the last time they saw each other, "Otherwise you would not be here right now, asking me why I bothered saving the God of Chaos and ruining my element of surprise early." "What do you see?" asked a voice as Celestia and the Royal Family joined them. "Nice to see you too Celestia," Sombra smugly said, smiling at the alicorn mare. "Be thankful we haven't blasted you into next week yet," Luna stated loudly, her eyes never leaving the Changeling stallion in front of them. "True," Sombra said, "but that doesn't matter right now. All I see is the chains of darkness that have wrapped around this stallion, allowing his darkness to overtake him and emerge fully. In the case of Luna here it resulted in the appearance of Nightmare Moon, but right now it means the monster known as Dark Sky." "I thought we were all going to forget about that," Luna grumbled, handing her head a little low. "How do we stop him then?" Shining asked, preparing a shield spell in case the stallion attacked them. "You can't hit him with the Elements of Harmony for one thing," Sombra answered, "It would likely either destroy him, send him to some far off prison, or have absolutely no effect on him. You could always try using love on him, but seeing how much anger and hate he has I would advise against it. So hit him hard and maybe that will break the bonds holding him." "I doubt it will be that easy," Chrysalis mocked, "after all, he's withstood the power of Discord and is still standing. What are you going to do? Hit him with the full power of a sun beam and fry him and everypony else alive? Or will you lower the moon on him and crush everypony around him as well? Face it, none of you can unleash your full power without killing everypony in Ponyville in the process." "She's right you know," Cadence said, surprising them all and herself, "No matter where we would end up fighting Rocket, or Dark or whatever his name is now, we'd still run the risk of killing hundreds, if not thousands of innocents. We could fight him between here and Canterlot, but I'm sure he'd come back anyway just so we couldn't use our full power on him. We have to find a way to shatter her hold on him before he destroys all of us." "Incoming," Shining shouted, throwing up a shield in time to somehow bounce the stallion's attack into the empty sky. The monster appeared right in front of him, somehow bypassing the shield, and bashed his head with his own, effectively cutting the shield off. As Shining went down the monster approached them, unaware of something happening behind him. "Hey you big meanie," Pinkie Pie shouted, holding her firework launcher right at the stallion as he turned to face her, "I'mma Firin Mah Lazar." Pinkie launched a gigantic firework that hit the stallion and dragged him into the sky, where it preceded to explode into a fury of lights. She quickly threw the weapon into the air and moved as the stallion cut through it with his horn, which was covered in energy. He swung and found his horn stopped by the staff of his friend Wisdom. "Snap out of it Rocket," his friend said, "This isn't you. You aren't a monster." The stallion roared as Tick smashed his guitar on his head, which only made him kick his other friend in the face. So hard that he was thrown into a wall and his guitar in the building behind him. Wisdom took the opportunity to move before his staff snapped in half, which made him discard the pieces anyway. Then he fell from the sky after receiving a hoof to the face, though he landed on a huge pile of hay. Celestia was horrified, she couldn't believe that the stallion would even harm his own friends like that. He needed to be stopped, that much was clear, but how to stop him was proving to be a challenge. "Move," Luna shouted, causing the five to take off into the sky, and dodging in Sombra's case, before the stallion's attack hit them. "Let's focus our magic," Cadence shouted, surprised that the dark king had saved her husband, "Maybe if we combine streams we could beat him." "Or destroy ourselves in the process," Twilight warned, fully aware of what the combined force could do to them, "But I'm betting that we'll defeat this monster." With no argument from any of the others they combined all their magic's together, allowing the pressure to build. The monster noticed as they raised into the sky, Sombra on a crystal pillar of course, and roared as he rose to met them. With his horn alight energy gathered to form the infamous energy orb that heralded the most powerful beam of energy that they had all seen in their lives. Without a second to chance their minds the combined magic was released, colliding with the energy from the monster's attack and lighting the sky up brighter than before. Peachy watched as six forms fell out of the resulting cloud of smoke, each of them familiar to her. Sombra, armor cracked and crown shattered, lay broken on the roof of a nearby building. Discord lied on the ground, all rolled out and flattened between the forgotten stands. Cadence landed near Shining, her mane a mess and some patches of her coat turned black. Celestia and her sister landed on top of each other, both of them bruised and beaten by the magic they faced. Twilight landed in her tree, blasting another hole in the roof that would eventually be prepared. "Is this what you wanted mother?" Rose shouted at Chrysalis, "The destruction of everything in Equestria?" "Foolish daughter, I care not for Equestria at this point," Chrysalis said, picking her disobedient daughter up with magic, "I care about destroying those that would dare to oppose me, starting with Celestia and her troublesome sister. Now that all my major foes are here I'll have my new soldier waste them and his friends before I take over." Rose was tossed to the ground and she noticed Peachy, standing scared as the stallion approached from behind her. Though she had no idea that the monster was closing in on her. "Peachy," Rose shouted, getting the mare's attention, "Behind you." As Peachy turned around she was forced to the ground by magic, followed by a hoof to the chest to keep her pinned where she laid. Standing over her was the Changeling monster that her friend had become and she was scared. Energy began to gather above his horn, which was pointed directly at her. Rose knew she had one shot at saving Peachy's life, maybe everypony else's life in the process as well. She got up and basically ran over to them, surprised that her mother didn't stop her this time. She raised the stallion's head and kissed him, hoping that it would override the monster. Then Rose Petal closed her eyes and waited for sweet death in case she was wrong.