The sun was setting when the paladins finally entered their beloved capital city. They were congregating in the streets, bracing for any attack King Nelphyn's creatures could stage against them. They all had blades and javelins out, and were ever-vigilant.
As they continued down the streets, they persistently watched for any strange movement around them. At first, there didn't seem to be anyone else on the streets with them, but a feeling of dread was in the air. Silver Schmitar had the paladins halt when they were in the marketplace. They observed the destruction that the locusts had left. All the food had been consumed or spoiled, all the stands and wagons destroyed, and the buildings were in no better condition.
"Fan out." said Silver. "Spread out across the city. I want to see if anypony is still alive out here...or if King Nelphyn still has something in store for us."
The paladins agreed, and squad upon squad dispersed down different lanes and roads, searching every building as they went. Silver, Felix, and several other paladins remained in the marketplace, looking up at the palace that was once their capital.
"I can't believe this, Felix." said Silver. "What equine could do such an evil and vile thing to his own kind?"
"I'm afraid I can't answer that." said Felix. "But we should have faith. Nelphyn will be brought to justice, no matter what price has to be paid to make it happen."
Suddenly, there was a rumbling noise, and a small tremor. The paladins nearby all drew their weapons and looked down at the ground, as if expecting something to come up from under their hooves. They were all feverishly scanning the ground to see any expanding cracks, but saw none. Then the rumbling stopped, and there was a dead silence that made them even more insecure. Some of them started to look around for anything that might have tried approaching them, but saw nothing else.
"What was that?" Felix wondered aloud.
"I don't know." said Silver Schmitar. "But it can't be anything good. Felix, regroup the other paladins. We need to storm the palace before King Nelphyn makes his next move. Everyone else, on me."
Silver Schmitar and the other paladins proceeded towards the plaza, and ascended the stairs to the palace's outer door. Some of the paladins went up against either side, flanking the doorway, while Silver and a few others stood foremost in the middle.
"Get yourselves ready for anything." he said. "There's a definitively evil presence on the other side of this door."
A paladin on the left side of the door nodded in acknowledgment, raising a hoof-blade as he cautiously put his other front hoof on the door. He grabbed a latch to open it, and was about to pull on it when...
A horrifying yell was heard from the city below.
It was now twilight, when Chrome Shield and a squad of paladins were patrolling one of the lanes extending from the marketplace. A house suddenly collapsed, and a massive golem burst forth from the wreckage, seizing one of the paladins by the head with a four-fingered claw. Its grip was so strong and instantaneous that the paladin didn't even have a chance to react when his neck was abruptly snapped by the sheer power of the creature's grip. One of the other paladins cried out in terror, as Chrome Shield and the others turned to catch sight of the monster. But still, they wasted no time in engaging the creature head-on.
Silver Schmitar and the other paladins were so distracted by the noise that they all couldn't help but turn away from the palace's doors, which suddenly swung open behind their backs, allowing an unknown foe to spring outwards and blind-side them. Four paladins were slain instantaneously, and it was only because the fourth made a lurching groan that the others turned to see at least a dozen shadow-ponies standing over the viciously mangled corpses of the paladins' fallen comrades. Two of the shadow-ponies, which were both in winged form, started to hover a few feet in the air, and simultaneously grabbed the doors to the palace before slamming them both shut.
Before Silver could give the order to retaliate, all but one of the shadow-ponies launched themselves forwards at the paladins. A battle ensued between the two groups. Meanwhile across the city, more golems were emerging from hiding places and attacking the paladins spread out across Mareusalem. There was fighting every which way, with entire squads each being pitted against one or two golems. The widespread ambush was so sudden and severe that a fifth of the paladins that breached the city were either killed or injured in the first five minutes. But the ones that weren't downed so quickly were able to hold their own against the golems, but weren't any closer to actually defeating them.
Silver's group struck down the shadow-ponies that attacked them, although five paladins were wounded in the process, until the stairs were covered in a large dark shadowy stain and only one remained, standing in front of the gate. The paladins all brandished forth their weapons and proceeded to approach the lone shadow-pony.
"You've lost." said a paladin. "Open the doors now."
But the shadow-pony said nothing, not even flinching. The shadow on the stairs started to expand, and even more shadow-ponies emerged from it behind the paladins.
"We defeated you all once, and we can do it again." said another paladin.
"Don't try patronizing them, Skystone." said Silver. "They don't comprehend fear. So ignore those others. We need to get that door opened now!"
But the shadow-pony at the doors suddenly hovered in the air, and brandished a shiny black hoof-blade. Then to their surprise, the shadow-pony stabbed itself, and then let itself collapse backwards against the doors, where it sank into a dark, ropey shadow that spread all over the doorway. The shadow expanded until the doors were both obscured, and many more shadow-ponies emerged from it.
Felix jumped onto a golem's back, and start hacking at its neck with a hoof-blade. But the tough rock exterior of the creature was too strong for his blade to penetrate. The creature made a grab for Felix, who leapt off before it could grab him. However, the claw nicked Felix on the flank as he got off, causing him to fall to the ground. The golem swung its arms down at Felix, who rolled and dodged each blow, which left miniature craters in the street.
Felix got up again, and climbed up the golem's arm as it brought down another blow, which missed the pegasus once again. He struck it several times in the head with his front hooves, and then swung around its neck to try and find a way to break it, but the golem spun in place, knocking Felix against the wall. He lay dazed and sore as the golem slowly approached him again. Felix was too fatigued to try evading the blow which would seal his fate...
Boom!
Something large and black shot down from the sky, and crashed into the golem, disintegrating its head. The headless golem toppled over lifelessly into the wreckage of a destroyed house. Felix looked up at the sky, and saw the Summerstar flying overhead.
"Well done, Miss Sunset." he sighed in relief. "Well done."
"Aww, yeah!" said Frosty, who was operating the on-board cannon aboard the Summerstar. "I got one!"
He turned the turret around, and fired another shell into the torso of a second golem down in the marketplace, which was about to stomp on an unconscious paladin. The giant stone creature wasn't destroyed by the shell, but it did lose balance and fall over into an abandoned heap of compost.
"Strike two!" he shouted.
He adjust the sights on the cannon, and then blasted a third shell at a nearby pair of golems, destroying the heads of both in a row.
"Strike three, baby!" Frosty exclaimed, aiming the cannon at another golem below.
He pulled the trigger mechanism, but nothing happen.
"And...I'm out." he said. "Well...time to use the Gatling Gun!"
He ran to the other side of the observation deck where the weapons were mounted, and set up the machine-gun salvaged from Fort Echidna. He waved it left and right, trying to find a target to shoot. But unfortunately...
"Hey, Nips!" Frosty called up the open trap-door above him. "Could ya bring us a little lower! I can't see anything ta shoot!"
"What was that?!" Nose Nip's voice called down to him.
"I said I--" Frosty shouted up, before being interrupted by a loud clattering noise.
He turned around, and squealed with fright as he saw two shadow-ponies crawling in through the Gatling Gun's window like giant flying-ants. He fired a beam of magical energy at one of the shadow-ponies, causing it to freeze in a block of ice, which Frosty promptly smashed to pieces.
"How'd ya like dat, shadow-freak?" said Frosty. "Dey don't call me 'Frosty' for nuthin'!"
But the remaining shadow-pony wasn't intimidated at all. In fact, it just galloped towards him, to Frosty's chagrin.
"Man, where's dat fire-bird thing when ya need it?!" he said.
Frosty involuntarily ducked, and thanks to his short height, the shadow-pony completely overshot him. Frosty took this opportunity, and cast a freezing spell on the creature's hooves, halting it in its tracks. It was now beating its wings to try breaking free.
"Okay then, looks like it's two for two!" said Frosty, his horn glowing again.
But another clattering noise announced the even more shadow-ponies were trying to get inside.
"Aww, c'mon!" Frosty said half-distracted, as he turned to investigate the noise. "Ya guys wanna piece'a me, too?! I'm just the the tip of the iceberg, baby!"
Suddenly, the half-frozen shadow-pony broke free, and turned to face Frosty while his back was turned. It slowly approached him, drawing a hoof-blade.
"Hey, would ya mind?" said a familiar voice behind the freed shadow-pony, which turned around to find the source of the voice.
Sunflower was standing there, one of her front hooves raised, which she then smashed into the shadow-pony's head, knocking it backwards, almost falling on top of Frosty.
"Hey, lady!" Frosty turned to his savior. "Watch where ya throw yer garbage!"
"Yo' welcome, honey." retorted Sunflower.
Frosty and Sunflower turned to face the other shadow-ponies.
"Who's next?!" Sunflower shouted, pumping her hoof in the air.
The shadow-ponies apparently decided Sunflower was the bigger danger to them, and all charged at her...only to be knocked off the zeppelin in mere seconds.
"And stay off!" Sunflower shouted down to them.
But there was one last shadow-pony trying to climb inside, from above. Frosty saw this, got on the Gatling Gun, and fired away at it, causing it to plummet down below.
"Yow!!" said Sunflower, putting her hooves to her ears to get rid of the ringing sensation she was now hearing. "Warn me when you're gonna fire that thing!"
"Yo' welcome, honey!" Frosty echoed back.
Lightning Dust was flying over Mareusalem, drawing as many shadow-ponies towards her as she could. At that moment, she had at least sixty of them in hot pursuit, and she was leading them in circles.
"You guys wanna catch me, you better go faster!" she taunted.
She herself was speeding on and on, prompting the shadow-ponies to do the same. As soon as they started flying around in a spiral pattern, Lightning covertly zipped aside to watch the shadow-ponies unwittingly spin themselves into a big black cyclone, which began to tear through Mareusalem. But since Lightning knew that it was important to avoid collateral damage as much as possible, she decided that the shadow-ponies in the swirling vortex needed some kind of motivation to move where they would cause minimal destruction. At least, that was unfavorable.
Lightning flew over to a nearby golem, and whistled at the cyclone.
"Yo, guys!" Lightning called to them. "I'm right here!"
The cyclone then began moving towards her, but Lightning flew away from it, causing the golem to be sucked into the vortex instead. Then Lightning did the same with every other golem in the area, until nearly every golem was trapped inside the shadowy tornado, which was getting larger and larger by the minute.
"Come on, guys!" Lightning shouted to them. "I can't be that hard to miss! My grandpa could catch me better than you, and he's dead!"
The tornado was now wheeling itself towards her, even faster than before. Lightning flew away, leading it out of Mareusalem until it was right below the Summerstar. Lightning flew below the cargo bay, and shouted:
"Teddy! You're up!"
Teddy and Trixie were standing at the edge of the cargo door with a barrel of TNT from Fort Echidna. Trixie used her magical energy to light the fuse, while Teddy hastily shoved it over the edge. The barrel dropped into the tornado, which started to contract and then expand like a balloon before exploding into a massive cloud of red-hot ash.
"Nice work, guys!" Lightning called up to Teddy and Trixie.
Sunset Shimmer and the others were racing across the ramshackle streets of Mareusalem to get to the palace. Along the way, the unicorns found themselves blasting aside the remaining golems and shadow-ponies. As they pressed on towards the palace, more paladins from other parts of the city joined them. They came to the plaza, where Silver Schmitar, Felix Summerset, and Chrome Shield were together waiting for them.
"Good, you're all here." Silver Schmitar said to Sunset Shimmer and the others when they arrived. "We'll need your magic to unseal the doors into the palace. Once those shadows blocking the entrance are gone, we'll have King Nelphyn right where we want him."
"Right." said Sunset. "We'll see what we can do."
"Let me help, dear." said Golden Sun.
"Go ahead then, dad." said Sunset.
The father and daughter went up the stairs to the palace entrance, and approached the sealed door, which was covered in a mysterious black ooze. Felix and a few other paladins quickly joined them.
"What kind of spell should we use, dad?" Sunset asked. "Incendiary spell?"
" I do think that would be worth a shot." smiled Golden Sun.
The two blasted the shadows with streams of fire, and they dissipated. The doors to the palace were once again laid bare. At that moment, Silver Schmitar and several other paladins came up the stairs.
"You can leave the rest to us." said Silver, while the other paladins forced the doors open. "You've already been through enough."
"You have no idea." said Sunset.
Silver Schmitar went inside, disappearing into the darkly-lit corridors. Sunset, her father, and the others went in with the paladins shortly afterwards. Eventually they caught up to the paladins, who had all stopped in what appeared to a dead end.
"What's going on?" Sunset asked. "Why did you stop? King Nelphyn still has to be defeated! Where's the throne room?"
"We're in the throne room." said Silver, grimly. "Go ahead. Light the room."
Sunset's horn glowed until a bright light illuminated the entire chamber. They could see all the artwork and furniture one would expect to see in a throne room, but one feature was severely lacking: occupants.
"All those losses, all those weeks of planning..." said Silver Schmitar. "All that pain and suffering...and for nothing!"
He took a javelin from a nearby paladin, then furiously plunged it so hard into the ground that it broke through the flagstones, even as the shaft split apart. Even in the green light of Sunset's aura, the others could tell he was silently weeping for a brief moment. Then he calmed down, and spoke to the others.
"Search the palace." said Silver. "If there is anypony still alive in here, I want them brought to me."