Rain fell from the black clouds in the sky, pouring over the forest of oak trees in sheets and not caring whoever and whatever it happened to hit. Lightning would occasionally flash and thunder would boom, but that was fairly normal for the area that served as the official war grounds for the five armies. The war torn area should have been destroyed to the point of no return, but due to the fact that cannons and war engines weren't used it was in good condition.
The same rain washed over the face of Northern Sky, one of the royal princesses of the Changeling Empire, as she stood face to face with her old enemy, Peachy Keen. The student of Princess Luna was her first, and only, enemy that she had ever fought and they had never decided which was stronger than the other. They had always tied and they always had quite a number of watchers that observed their fighting. This time Northern's sisters, Harvest Moon and Echo, were among the watchers.
Harvest was just a normal earth pony, one who wore a light brown coat with a light orange colored mane and tail. The back part of her mane was tied up at the end, modeled after her personal hero Applejack, and she even wore a straw hat on top of her head. She could have worn a cowboy hat like Applejack, but she was fine with the hat she was wearing already. Her cutie mark was a bright red apple with a crescent moon resting behind it.
Their sister, Echo, was a kind hearted pegasus mare whose coat was midnight blue colored and her mane and tail, styled in a similar style of a feral vampire pony, was violet colored. She enjoyed spending her time hanging with the wild bats that came to the caves and sanctuaries that dotted the area of the Badlands. Her cutie mark was that of a bat, which was great seeing how she had learned some tricks from her batty friends. Her ears were even fluffed like a vampire's ears.
Northern flipped around and planted a hoof kick right into Peachy's face, the shadows reaching up to stop her in her tracks as Peachy went crashing into a tree. The tree cracked and the trunk crumbled to the ground, the shadows breaking out of the dust and reaching for Northern, whose horn sparked with purple magic. The connection between their magic shocked the ground and blew a hole wide open, shards of stone raining down around the two combatants.
"On guard," a stallion behind Harvest shouted, drawing the mare's attention away from the fight, "Prepare to defend yourself."
That was before he received a swift, yet hard, kick to the face that knocked him right into the other ponies that stood behind her and possibly broke a bone in his jaw.
"You should be ashamed of yourselves," Harvest criticized the ponies, lifting her hat up as she spoke in a familiar accent that was almost like Applejack's, "attacking somepony while their back is turned. Somepony needs to teach you all a lesson."
What the ponies didn't know was that Harvest's legs were strong from all the work she put into the orchards that rested outside the Hive's location. One stallion found out the hard way as one of her legs cracked open his chest armor with just a simple kick, causing him to dash back and cough. Some of the other ponies looked at each other, wondering if it was worth fighting one of the three princesses of the Changeling Hive, but one stepped forward and attacked Harvest with a spear. Before the spear even made contact Echo leapt in front of her sister and raised her front left hoof, clad in an iron bracer, and stopped the spear dead in it's tracks.
"You really shouldn't attack an unarmed pony," Echo softly said, the stallion raising an eyebrow, "otherwise you might excite her sister into attacking all of you."
The voice did nothing to lessen the fear in the stallion's eyes, as he thought he was seeing one of those feral vampires that had followed Peachy Keen over four years ago. Some ponies might think that there were still vampire ponies out there in Equestria and they were still scared of what those ponies could do. Technically they were correct, there were still vampires out there thanks to Peachy Keen and those she had turned, but Echo wasn't one of them. She may have looked like a vampire pony, but without the fangs and the blood red eyes she was really nothing more than a pegasus who enjoyed hanging with the bats.
Still, those who didn't know the truth were still scared of Echo and sometimes even ran away from a fight with her.
"Excuse me Echo," Harvest said, fully aware her sister had come to her rescue yet again, "While I am glad you came to my rescue yet again, may I point out that you are scaring away all the competition?"
"Sorry Harvest," Echo smiled, locating another group to their west with her sonar like hearing, "but why don't we go to the west and see what's waiting for us this time?"
Harvest never understood exactly how her sister knew where there were more ponies for them to trash, but she had never been wrong in the past and she wasn't likely going to be wrong this time either. She smiled and the two sisters ran, or flew in Echo's case, in the western direction, leaving Northern alone with Peachy. They knew it was going to be a draw, so there was no point in sticking around to see what would happen next.
"Alone at last," Peachy said, facing Northern as they were rained on, "I'm sorry Northern, but while your sisters are around I find it even harder to concentrate on our fight. You might not mind them in the background, but I don't care for them watching me."
Northern kicked Peachy in the jaw, causing her to back up and spit blood on the ground.
"Oh stop complaining Peachy," Northern growled, her horn sparking with the familiar purple magic, "You fight perfectly well when it's just the simple grunts and guards of the various armies, but when my sisters are around? If your going to complain then I might as well count this as a win and leave you alone."
Darkness surged around Peachy, darkening the area around her and her armor as she stared at Northern.
"You aren't going to do that," Peachy remarked, preparing to lash out with her magic, "If anypony is going to walk away with a win from all of this then its going to be me."
Their magic battered against each other and more holes were blown in the ground around them, raining shards of stone across the entire area. The explosions were normal, which was why none of the five alicorn's ever came to see what was causing the explosions after they had seen what happened the first time. Eclipse knew what his daughter and friend were up to, and while he was busy with his own fight's he kept a small note of what they were going in case something happened. But both mares were still unharmed from the raining stones, facing each other as they prepared to fight even more.
Eclipse smiled, the war games was a great way for his daughters to get to know the other ponies and the princesses he fought against. One day he would retire from the war games and the political world, but until that happened he would make sure his daughters were well prepared to be friends with those around them. At the moment he had to focus on his own problems and was looking forward to the day when he would have less problems then he had now. Retirement sounded good, but being a father and a king were more important at the time being.
And until he retired Princess Celestia had to deal with him, whether she liked it or not.