The flow of favorites has reduced to a trickle, but still more than 420 favorites is more than I could ever imagine, remember everyone, in the words of Ray Narvaez Jr.: "Just Blaze!".
Now on with the show.
Ozpin walked through the field south of Ponyville, his aura still blackened by intense negative emotion.
He finally noticed this, and calmed himself, returning his aura to its normal green color and loosening his grip on his cane, which had been releasing its deadly smoke.
The elderly man could hear monsters approaching, ravenous for an easy prey.
He would show them that he was far, FAR from their expectations.
<battle time>
Ozpin smirked, he moved with the speed and agility of a man half his age.
Drinking the last of his coffee, he reared back his hand, ready to strike.
"I'LL KILL YOU WITH MY COFFEE MUG!" he shouted at the oncoming enemies.
The mug shifted and expanded, the open end closing into an axe blade and the solid end becoming a hammer.
As he swung it at an oncoming dog-man type enemy, the handle expanded, turning into a long handling shaft.
The beast was struck before it could reach out at him.
Swinging his hammer-axe around in circles, he struck the beast's skull again and again, giving it no chance to retaliate.
He was a master of the hunt, that's how he got his job.
The job of the Jagermeister.
Running forward, he swung his hammer-axe around again, sweeping up three Sin wolves and tossing them up into the air, doing an uppercut with the axe head and cleaving through their fleshy bodies.
More wolves, dog-men, and even some bears surrounded him, he only smiled.
This would be fun.
A whirlwind attack knocked them back from his immediate death range, giving him time to prepare another blow.
A smash to the head, a chop through the neck, his coffee mug turned hammer-axe was a deadly weapon, but not his deadliest.
The Jagermeister had gone completely berserk, taking out monsters left, right, and center.
An Ursa Minor approached, its starry fur turned black as the real night, the stars changed to all manners of white, yellow, orange, and red.
It was Sin-empowered, and it wanted him to get in its belly.
"Damn, let me see what I have for you!" Ozpin shouted up to it, using the axe side of his coffee mug weapon to climb up the face of his new challenger.
He was thrown off, but his aura stopped him from going too far, he faced the foe's head with his cane's head.
The screaming demon head blew out a quick moving cloud of blacker-than-black smoke.
The Ursa took the cloud head on, causing said head to dissolve and evaporate, killing the giant beast immediately.
Landing softly on its voluminous fur, the green clad man began to walk away, feeling a lot better from the skirmish.
"Oh what ferocity, the Jagermeister, the demon shall scream pure death to thy enemies, it was said to me, and I took it for my own, and so was named the Master of the Hunt, the greatest Huntsman in the world. With the dust mixture of darkness, poison, lightning, and wind, the smoke produced will destroy almost anything." He recited the tale of the Jagermeister, told to him in dying words.
The only way to become the new Jagermeister is to kill the old one.
<battle end>
Celestia had left the decisions of housing up to Pyrrha, Ren, Oscar, Weiss, and Yang.
The latter three were actually discussing housing and residence, or in other words, where they would sleep while they were here.
Pyrrha was trying to cheer Ren up.
"Ren, if you wouldn't mind at least talking about earlier-" Pyrrha was silenced by a quick finger on her mouth.
"Listen, I really care about Nora, and I'm the one who has to keep her in control, I've been doing so since we were kids. When I saw how much she needed to be reined in, I took initiative, and here we are today. Sure she's still crazy, but at least I can keep her alive despite her unquestionable stupidity. I hate to insult her or blame her for anything since she's just so naïve and cheery all the time and can't help it, but sometimes even I can't justify it. Earlier, when I saw that there was basically TWO of her, and that together, they were worse than three or four of her, I lost hope for a little bit. Don't get worried, I feel better now, I just have a bit more on my plate now." Ren explained. When he was finished, he looked at Nora and Pinkie with a slight smile.
He really did care about her, and while the one-now-two mostly-pink females nearly drove him to insanity, they still had an osmosis effect with their inexhaustible happiness. They made him feel better, if at the cost of being tired.
He had a particularly good memory of an exchange they had while in the Emerald Forest.
"Nora, why do I still bother trying to keep you out of trouble?" he had asked, glancing over to his companion.
Nora glomped him around the ribs and replied, "BECAUSE I LOVE YOU!" with her usual, almost un-depressible demeanor.
Ren had almost put his arm around her to hold her closer, almost, before she saw an Ursa and got the idea to use it as a transportation mount.
He knew that she didn't mean it in a romantic way, they were just really close friends.
Really close....
He shook his head of the thoughts that arose, he swore he wouldn't get too close, for both the fear of his remaining capacity for logic and sanity, and the desire to not take advantage of her. Just because she might let him, didn't make it any more acceptable in his eyes.
Oscar was busy with the task assigned to the quintet, "Listen, I say we should divide amongst the 5 homes, some of us should take that Fluttershy mare's old cottage, some of us can stay at the farm, some can stay at the Sugarcube Corner, some can stay at the Carousal Boutique, and some can stay at the library." he proposed the setup with confidence.
"Oh really, tell me, Mister Real Estate, who would go where?" Weiss argued, she disagreed almost entirely with his plan, she thought that they shouldn't split up.
"Weiss and me at the Boutique. Daniel would be at the cottage, and maybe Ozpin too, one of them would kill the other, and I'm not sure which death is better. That Qrow guy could stay at that Rainbow Dash guy's cloud house, since he can fly, at least I think he can. I saw him fly earlier. Ivan, Yang, Ren, and Nora could stay at the farm. Vermillion, Glynda, Jaune, and Pyrrha at the library. Ruby and Blake at Sugarcube Corner. Simple as that, place people with people that they at least not kill, if not like to be roommates with, and in environments that suit them." Oscar listed off each group like it was nothing.
"Oscar, those groups, I'm not sure if they're going to work," Weiss was sure of herself on this ", they'd probably end up fighting each other more than the monsters. It should be cut into pairs or thirds. Me and Blake, Ruby and Yang, Jaune and Pyrrha, Ren and Nora, You and Ivan, Vermillion and Daniel, and have that Qrow guy with Ozpin and Glynda." she rejected his idea and substituted her own.
"That makes SEVEN groups, Weiss, and we only have FIVE known residences, how will you deal with that?" the military man challenged.
Weiss tapped her chin in thought, listing each place in her mind.
It had been almost another hour since their arrival, and by this time the residence decision group had been informed of the available locations. Everyone had, much sooner than that, come to the consensus that this was not the weirdest thing that they had ever witnessed. Everyone DID have minor freak outs upon the discovery of their involuntary emplacement and where exactly they had been emplaced, and it would be acceptable to freak out more if they saw anything even weirder, but for right now everything was calm.
"Alright, um, the teams will be at the different locations, team JNPR can take Sugarcube Corner, team RWBY can take the library, team VOID can take the farm, and I guess Ozpin, Glynda, and Qrow can have the Boutique, or maybe they can stay at Town Hall. That cottage out near that other Emerald forest is too dangerous for a trio of elderly people, even if they are highly experienced." Weiss may have reformed her idea, but she still held fast to it.
"That would work very well, the farm is, well, a farm, and should have plenty of space. Our squad will have plenty of training ground to work with. I like this idea, Weiss, I give it my stamp of approval." rather than pulling out a stamp, Oscar simply gave a thumbs up, since who in their right mind carried a stamping block or an actual mailing stamp with them at all times?
"LOOK!" Ruby shouted, getting to the front of the convoy of warriors and ponies.
They had, during this time, been trekking to Canterlot, the princesses felt it necessary to centralize the 'world-saving' efforts there.
Ruby had pointed out the fact that they were almost done with the five mile walk, as the base of the mountain was within seeing distance.
"It's been quiet, too-" Pyrrha was cut off by Jaune's hand roughly covering her mouth.
"Shhhhh, don't tempt the monsters, I prefer to NOT be eaten." the blond young man shushed.
Pyrrha froze and tensed up for a few seconds, then relaxed and nodded.
Over with Blake, Nora, and Pinkie Pie.
"So, Pinkie, I heard that Ren said you can do... some sort of teleportation?" the black color schemed Huntress-in-training half-asked.
"He said it was Intradimensional Teleportation, but that's just a bunch of hooey, I'm Pinkie Pie, I do what I want!" despite sounding bright and happy, Pinkie's words carried quite a bit of conspicuousness and a hint of arrogance.
"Okay, I'll accept that, you play by your own rules." Blake immediately knew that prying further would more than likely hurt her brain and maybe even jeopardize her sense of logic and sanity. She had a very strong sense for detecting danger.
Over with Ruby, Yang, and Twilight.
"Heehee, this is going to be SO EXCITING! We're going to a fancy city with fancy stuff and fancy buildings and fancy food and even fancy ponies. This is going to be AWESOME!" Ruby shouted in a giggly voice, she was, after all, excited to be here, even if she wasn't entirely sure where 'here' was.
"Calm down sis, we're here to fight monsters, not play tea party or something." Yang, despite trying to rein in her little sister, was almost just as excited as she was. She had quite a penchant for horses and ponies.
And Ruby was right, these ponies were really cute and probably really cuddly too.
Luna and Vermillion were talking, well, more like Vermillion talking and Luna occasionally nodding.
"So, how much dedication would I need for you to grant me some cool stuff, I could really use some awesome night-themed armor." Vermillion had noticed that Luna hadn't been speaking, and decided to try and coax her into turning this monologue into a dialogue.
"That would require eighteen hundred points in your faith stat, if you wish for some of my personal armor. For a basic blessing with stat boosts, seven hundred points minimum." Luna had remembered one of her guards speaking with such terms. Then again, the stoutly strong stallion had a habit of rolling a twenty sided dice whenever possible, as though the outcome of a situation would be decided by the number it landed on.
That was silly.
Just plain silly.
*clacka clacka*
A group of three guards descended upon the group.
"Your highnesses, a dragon has been sighted travelling towards Canterlot!" one of them shouted down.
As the quartet of knights landed, Celestia rolled the information over in her mind.
A dragon, coming to Canterlot, the number three, she wasn't sure about that last thought, but the number three gave her a sense that something bad would soon happen.
"Has the dragon given the signal of peace?" the alabaster alicorn was speaking quickly now.
"No, we have confirmed that either it is either ignorant of the peace sign, or it has come to attack, which gets worse if it is Sin-infected." the guard gave the dire news with a shaking hoof .
Celestia's jaw dropped in shock.
A dragon with Sin empowerment, a normal dragon could tear the Canterlot Castle apart, a Sin dragon, dear mother....
She turned to the group of warriors.
"Alright, it's time for you to prove yourselves, when we confirm the status of our new arrival, it may be time to attack." Celestia wasn't really sure about how effective they would all be.
Jaune lacked confidence in basic communication, no telling how much worse he was in battle.
Ren and Yang didn't look like they were even armed.
Weiss and Blake had lighter weapons, which wouldn't do much to the dragon's tough scales.
Daniel would probably attack even if the dragon was peaceful.
Oscar had an SMG that she had found was actually small. The barrel was attached to the main frame, which looked similar to the Hoofler & Koch MP7, but bigger. That didn't say much, though, and the weapon was more than likely not going to be very effective.
Pyrrha's spear-rifle seemed okay, though, and Ruby's high caliber rifle scythe too, Nora had a grenade launcher, which was good. Ivan had a really powerful automatic rifle. Vermillion had his vibration-razor sword and gun sheath, at least he SAID that's what it was, if he was telling the truth, such a weapon would be most effective. Daniel had his buzz-saw, which would help too.
The main tactic would be to grind off the scales, exposing the slightly-solidified leathery skin underneath, ripe for attacking.
The dragon approached closer, not flashing the peace signal nor slowing down.
Wait a second, it wasn't slowing down....
"IT'S GOING TO ATTACK!" Celestia shouted as loud as she dared to, which gave her about half a mile's distance of effective volume.
The dragon got very close, flashing a gold and silver smile and coiling itself around the mountain.
Celestia, who had decided that walking would give time for the others to get to know each other, as well as sort out information, now re-decided her plan, and teleported the group up to the nearest balcony.
The dragon looked at her with bared teeth, several of them were gold, and several more were silver, he/she lowered his/her head to eye-level.
A simple eye patch covered its right eye, barely distinguishable from its scales.
"Oi, I ain't 'ere for no attackin', I'm 'ere to complain 'bout the magic fluxuation the younglings detected, an' I'm 'ere to ask 'bout them info-things ya promised." the elder dragon's accent was thick, but understandable.
It made sense now, dragons often started with white scales, slowly changing to a color, darkening that color, and finally they had black scales.
Each decade's shedding made way for darker and stronger scales to grow.
Elder dragons invariably had black scales, as well as being gigantic, which was evident in this case.
Parton Axial, the oldest known dragon alive, was in her presence, and his titanic size wrapped around the mountaintop several times.
"Hello Parton, nice to see you again after so long." Celestia greeted.
"Tia, where's yer mum? I need to talk to her." Parton asked, looking around for the pony in question.
"She has ascended to a higher plane of existence, my sister and I are the rulers of Equestria now." the alabaster alicorn explained in a slightly irritated tone.
"Nice ta know, if only you lasses would write ta me sometime, listen, mah younglings went on detectin' magic fluxes, and I came 'ere to see what was up, who are these things?" the pirate-like diplomat finally noticed the humans.
"They have been summoned from their world to help defend ours, they are humans." Celestia spoke only in general terms, as much more than that would confuse her old ally.
"Humans? Like in the legends? The creatures of unprecedented, unmatched, and unrelenting cruelty and ruthlessness? The same creatures who killed off the highland variation of ponies because of an INSULT to their LOOKS, and then immediately sought peace with the rest of ponykind? The same creatures who could be at each other's throats one minute, and be happy-go-lucky buddy-buddy let's-get-an-ale friendly the next? Dear Dovah, Tia, yer bloody insane, and I like it!" the boisterous reptile laughed uproariously, slightly shaking the town with the force of his chuckles and guffaws.
"Thank you, I think. I must ask, why did you approach with such velocity and with no signal? I am sure that we sent the new policy updates to Vulcan Complex." the solar goddess queried.
"Oh that, I'm really sorry 'bout that. I got this eye patch 'ere, an' no depth perception! Couldn't bloody tell iffin' I was close to the city or not. T'was hard to tell when the time was ta stop and when ya could see mah signal. Again, I'm really sorry for that." the black scaled dragon apologized.
"Right, okay, I am sorry for the attack we almost launched at you, I have the information charts here." Celestia levitated said parchments from her work desk to the diplomat's neck-bound storage bag.
"Thank ye lassie, I'll be off then." Parton excused himself, taking to the air and flying off.
The now-exasperated princess turned to the group of humans, staring at them with a slightly weary look in her eyes.
"Right, now then, that map of the world." she got the metaphorical train back onto the metaphorical track, "As well as the centralization of your efforts, your residence will be in Ponyville, I have decided, so I hope a decision has been made on that. You may feel free to use any materials and facilities that we have for personal training, as well as sparring with the guards. Everypony will be informed of your presence and your purpose here. I have only one hard-set rule for your stay, please don't cause any unnecessary trouble." the daytime diarch delivered the speech with a formal, yet friendly tone.
"I believe we may have a problem, princess." Glynda pointed to the face of the mountain, which was being shaken by an unseen attacker.
A quick teleportation back down to the ground revealed that the mountain was being clawed at by an Ursa Minor.
A Sin-empowered Ursa Minor.
Luna blinked, then looked at the humans, each of them was preparing for the oncoming fight.
Celestia couldn't believe her eyes as even Yang and Ren summoned up weaponry.
Yang's bracelets expanded to form a pair of some kind of golden gauntlets, and Ren brought forth a pair of pistols with blades on them from his sleeves.
The rest of them brought forth their own weapons, prepared for battle.
The rulers of the land merely stood back and watched as their summoned warriors began the deadly dance of war.
<battle time>
It seemed like Team VOID chose the theme song for this particular skirmish
Team RWBY took the initiative, attacking the Ursa
Ruby launched herself up to the head of the thing, slashing at its skull with the scythe portion of Crescent Rose and firing the one-and-a-half by eight inch caliber cartridges at point blank range, which had to hurt.
Blake and Weiss went in unison, striking the hind- and forelegs of the beast.
Yang took it by the spine, punching with her fiery missile shells going off like popcorn.
With the Ursa sufficiently under attack, it was time for things to suck.
Another dragon, much smaller than Parton, and not here for diplomacy, swooped in from the sky.
It was Sin, and it wanted the tiny creatures below to die.
Team VOID took on this one.
Another level of sucking was added, as a bestial roar sounded out.
A giant beast, like a pony, yet clearly not, stalked out of the nearby tree line.
It was about twenty feet tall, the normal hair-tail had been replaced with a vicious, stinging scorpion one. The flat teeth had broken and fallen out to form sharp, jagged shards that were ready to tear into something. The eyes were red, evil, and scrutinizing. Everything else was just a lot bigger and stronger.
"I'm getting a slight sense of Deja vu." Jaune remarked as he finally drew his sword and shield.
Pyrrha opened fire with her six point thirty five by seventy millimeter hunting rifle, the magnum rifle rounds had been designed for extremely high velocity, and pierced the skin of the pony-beast with ease.
Ren had a harder time doing damage with his forty caliber pistol rounds. Since they had a lower muzzle velocity, he had to find weak spots for the shots to hit.
Nora was practically floating, Jaune had charged at the monster and slashed at its hoof, making a decent sized gash, while Nora attacked the tail, tearing the strong slabs of tendons that supported the stinger down to mere strands with the force of her grenades.
Ren took the opportunity to sync with Nora and jump off of her grenade shot, launching him high into the air.
Grabbing the explosive from underneath his foot and throwing it at the back of the pony-beast's head, he landed on the tail, ripping it off and sending the venomous stinger into the monster's flank, injecting it with its own poison.
Jaune was stuck, the pony was staggering, and he was right under it.
"Remember what Pyrrha said, you make a great leader, oh but I'm not, what was it my dad always said to me?" he was seriously thinking while standing under this thing, waiting to be crushed.
"Remember son, always befriend girls named Sheila, they'll carry you far." no, no, that wasn't it, "Strangers are just friends you haven't met yet." no, that was his mom, "I love my best friend, the church is my best friend, FOREVER!" his dad said a lot of stupid stuff, Jaune realized.
Then it hit him, "Remember son, if you want to be the best, ya gotta get ANGRY, ya gotta get MEEEEEAANNNNN!", that was it, his dad was a genius, bless his soul.
He closed his eyes and thought angry thoughts.
Getting his shield stuck in a doorway.
The feeling that was like a nail getting hammered into his nose when a sneeze didn't come out despite being RIGHT THERE.
Cardin Winchester, oh god how he hated that guy, he never really hated anyone else in his life, but Cardin brought out every bad emotion Jaune could muster.
Kittens, young people, his wife dying, losing an arm, these strange new thoughts that didn't really apply to him entered his head and amplified his feelings of rage five-fold.
Eyes still closed, he started wildly swinging his sword while letting out a brave, loud, deep-voiced battle cry.
He soon felt encapsulated in warmth, a dreamy, bubbly feeling, it was also wet....
He opened his eyes and realized that he had sliced the giant pony to pieces, and was now thoroughly soaked in its blood.
Pyrrha was shocked still, she had aimed the Milo in spear form, ready throw it to pierce the weakened skull of the monster, but then Jaune pulled off that whirlwind move, no, it was more than that, it was a raging tornado of sword slashes.
She gave a smile at her leader, there was the skill that she was sure was what got him into Beacon.
She was sure of it, after all, getting into Beacon must have meant that he had a lot of skills, even if said skills might not have seemed to be there.
Team VOID attacked the dragon, Oscar taking the lead and jumping onto its head, taking a huge gout of fire to the face with no ill effect. Sure his clothes were scorched, but he was a dragon-faunus, it didn't hurt hit body at all.
Ivan began blasting out volleys of fifty BMG rounds at the beast, successfully landing several shots and doing decent damage
Vermillion joined Ivan with his gun-sheath, shooting at a faster rate, but with less power.
Daniel joined Oscar on the dragon, his buzz-saw spinning fast and scraping at the scales.
It was time for mode two.
Oscar gave a last salute to his comrades, rearing back his sniper-Uzi by the barrel as it sprouted a medium sized spearhead perpendicular to the top of the frame, he brought it up and swung it down, striking and latching onto the dragon by the top of the inside of its mouth.
Twist the blade around, the blue-color-schemed man shot as many bullets as he could down the throat of the beast, holding the jaws open as long as he could.
Unfortunately, the dragon had stronger jaws than a Nevermore, and Oscar had less physical strength than Yang.
The monster crushed him and chewed viciously, breaking his bones and his weapon, effectively ending his life.
Daniel used his own secondary function, his eyes went red, the buzz-saw thickened to about three feet wide, turning it from a buzz-saw into a bladed steamroller, and slammed it down on the beast's back, grinding the scales off and tearing into the flesh underneath.
Lucky for the dragon, it had landed and used a wing to flick Daniel off and break the engine of his weapon, effectively disarming him.
It stomped its large foot on his body, stopped briefly by an aura shield, but Daniel's aura shields weren't nearly as effective as Ren's, and he was crushed.
Ivan charged as Vermillion provided suppressing fire, swinging his weapon around, he butt-stroked the dragon.
Meaning he 'stroked' the dragon's face with the 'butt' of his gun's stock, and by 'stroked', I mean 'swung ferociously at'
It had little effect, though, and the only thing that broke was the stock of the rifle, Ivan ran to the open wound on the dragon's back and started shooting.
The mighty black beast jumped up into the air and flipped over, smashing Ivan onto its back, killing him with its weight.
Vermillion was the sole survivor of team VOID, he charged up his soul and ran under the thing's head. His soul would fuel the overclocking function on his sword, and swung upwards, the vibrating-razor-like blade severing the dragon's head.
The head landed harmlessly in front of him, he stopped to catch his breath, as he had used a lot of soul for that.
Big mistake, as the fire gland from the dragon's body was now flowing, pouring liquid fire onto the night-loving man.
He threw off his jacket and weapon as he flailed around in pain, burning alive, and in less than fifteen seconds, burning dead.
The dragon, as well as all of team VOID, were dead.
Team RWBY was not faring as well as JNPR, but at least better than VOID.
Everyone was alive, but the Ursa was still so unharmed that it began to climb the mountain.
"Ruby, come on, you know how to do this." the red clad girl heard the familiar voice of her uncle.
She stabbed the blade into the skull of the beast and looked to the sky.
Qrow flew up to the head of the monster and prepared to dive down.
He spun his staff around quickly, the speed of the rotation opened up a slot with a button on the bottom shod of the staff.
Slamming the button down on the thick-yet-short fur of the Ursa, his weapon activated.
The large slit on the top shod of the staff released a three foot long scythe blade.
The special part was that the scythe blade was made of energy, like a lightsaber or something.
Raking the energy blade down the whole of the creature, slicing a massive opening into its back, Qrow front-flip stabbed in quick succession, mountain style clawing his way back up.
Yang continued punching the spine, the fur had since burned off, leaving only reinforced flesh.
Weiss called out a "SWITCH!" to the blond brawler, and they switched position.
Yang smashed at the Ursa's leg, breaking it much easier than her attempts at the spine.
Blake shot a hole through the other leg, swinging herself around on her weapon's ribbon and rapidly kicking it, spreading the wound open wider and draining the beast of more life fluids.
Weiss stabbed the spinal cord, not hard enough to do anything scale-tipping, but enough to discharge magic into it.
Ice, fire, lighting, etc., she assaulting the Ursa's senses with pain.
Ruby and Qrow were assaulting the monster's head with slashes and a few bullets, but no significant damage had been done, as if it did, the Ursa would have fallen.
It was too late, the vile creature had climbed up onto the city, and it wasn't going to leave on its own.
Yang, Blake, and even Weiss had fallen off from the sudden shift in velocity, leaving them on the ground, landing a bit hard, but no worse for wear.
Qrow was swatted off, one of his wings struck hard and injured. Incapable of flight or any other means of stopping, the faunus man was launched into Canterlot town square, his impact softened by the giant fountain in the middle, which was even more massive than the one in Ponyville.
Ruby was in the air, falling so slowly it was like she was floating.
She had one thing to end this.
The Dark Energy cartridges, which she had a magazine full of.
She loaded up the magazine, which was marked by a black circle with four arrows pointing inwards at it.
Turning the Crescent Rose around, she fired, launching herself at the Ursa with extreme speed.
The force of the impact knocked the beast off of the Canterlot city platform, with the scythe catching its neck.
She fired again, forcing the blade through the neck and severing the monster's head, another shot launched her backwards into the air, landing safely on the edge of the platform.
Standing as tall as she could and with as much pride as possible, she looked down at the specks on the ground.
The Ursa Minor fell to the ground, disintegrating into ethereal rose petals, which then faded into nothing.
Down on the ground below, team JNPR, the rest of team RWBY, Glynda, Qrow, and the princesses all looked up at her in awe.
By the time the Ursa had completely vanished, Professor Ozpin finally rejoined the group, slightly sweaty from his delayed trek.
"Did I... happen to miss anything?" he asked, looking at the others, then up to Ruby, taking a sip from his recently refilled coffee mug.
<battle end>
The ceremonial hall of Canterlot castle had seen many celebrations, many honorings, many weddings, and many more guests of all sorts of shapes and sizes, but nothing like this had been witnessed by the several-centuries-old walls of this almost sacred structure.
The eleven remaining humans walked up the red carpet that ran down the middle of the large room. Many witnesses to the events of the three-way battle were there, the element bearers were, of course, present, and posted at the altar to the sides of the two princesses.
Twilight, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash were on the right, with Celestia.
Rarity, Pinkie, and Fluttershy were on the left, with Luna.
"We, the princesses of Equestria, give this honor, to the humans, those whom we have summoned, the hunters, warriors of light, and more recently, heroes of Canterlot." Luna began, bringing out several badges, "I hereby appoint all of you, as a new Special Operations division, H.U.N.T.E.R., the Human Union of Nefariousness Termination and Equus Revival. You shall wear these badges as a sign of your position, your honor, and your skills. I thank each of you for the valiance and vigilance that I have no doubt that you will maintain throughout your time here." the midnight blue alicorn gave the speech in a formal tone, pinning the badges to each of the humans.
The badge itself looked pretty cool, a bow drawn back with a sword in place of an arrow, a pair of actual arrows crossed behind the sword, a pair of rifles crossed over the shield, and the word HUNTER printed below.
The whole thing was about two inches wide and three inches tall, but it was still really cool nonetheless.
"I believe that this shall be the beginning of a wonderful alliance." Luna was optimistic in her words.
Things were starting to look up, to get better, the evils of the world were weakening.
<cutaway>
The evils of the world were most decidedly not getting weaker, quite the opposite, in fact.
Blood red flames wreathed a pillar of black standing in the middle of a field of dark nothingness, though the flames shed a surprising amount of light to a group of figures.
One stood tall and proud, he wore a fancy black suit, his wings were gray, but his coat was a beautiful tan-orange, with a mane and tail that were bleach-blonde. He drank from a glass of red wine.
Another was tense and ready to kill, he had a vibrant red coat, his hind legs wrapped in brown, furry leather, mane and tail were petroleum black. His eyes were filled with malice.
A quite portly one with a bread colored coat and white and red speckled mane. He was practically inhaling a plate of spaghetti.
A shifty looking one with a golden coat, silver mane and tail, bronze unshorn fetlocks, and platinum eyes. He was counting up a pile of bits.
A sleepy looking one, with a sand colored coat, a pale yellow mane and tail, and cloud white unshorn fetlocks. He was wearing pajamas and holding a cloud pillow and a teddy bear.
An irritated one, he looked at the others with his impossibly green eyes, his mane and tail were a light, pale blue, and his coat was a dark aqua, but his eyes were every shade of green rolled into one. He looked at the others intensely, just staring at them.
The last was something, it wasn't a female or a male, but both, with a peach pink colored coat, a long flowing mane of brown, yellow, red, and black stripes, and a short white tail, this thing was an oddity. To its sides, rubbing against its flanks, was a mare on the right, and a stallion on the left, both of them looked flushed and hazy-minded. The most-likely hermaphroditic pony was smiling a most mischievously charming smile.
The wine drinker spoke up, "We have to act sooner, ol' Celly and Lulu have brought in some friends."
"*snort* I HATE EVERYTHING! I'll CRUSH them with my BARE HOOVES!" the red coat one shouted in his vicious voice.
"Om nom nom." The portly one rarely made a sound other than that.
"First, we steal the gold, then we steal anything else valuable, that'll leave them hanging onto poverty, a perfect plan, and I call dibs on everything." the shifty eyed one proposed his plan, careful not to lose count of his precious money.
"Why should YOU get everything 'mon, what if ol' Levi' here wants something?" the green eyed pony argued.
"Can I go back to bed now?" the pajama wearing stallion whined, hating to be interrupted from his hourly nap.
"You can go to bed with me~." the double gendered pony offered in a tempting tone.
The sleepy pony merely held out his for protection, backing away lethargically, slowly teleporting away.
"Dammit A, can you go five minutes without thinking about sex?!" the suited stallion asked in a grating tone.
"We're all the most powerful of sin, and I'm the best sin of all, lust, I love everything, you only love yourself L." the pink.... thing claimed.
"Shut up, I'm pride, of course I only love myself, now listen to me brothers." the tan-orange alicorn stallion looked over the massive expanse of emptiness, turning the darkness into light with his magic.
"We're gonna need more monsters." he stated simply, opening his death-gray wings and taking off from the pillar, his wine glass tucked into his suit jacket.
He wouldn't stop until the world was his, he was going to rule it all, and the Blood of the Damned was going to cut the path to kinghood wide open.