"Well, this is just plum-stupid and ridiculous!" said Minister Sterling, to a group of messengers from overseas. "A bunch of Royalist ruffians actually managed to topple one of the toughest installations us Templars have got?!"
"Yes, sir." said an aide.
"Well, I ain't gonna let 'em get back home!" said Sterling. "Not to mention, they made a fool outta my own citizens. I don't know what the buck they're doing moseyin' 'round with the Saddle Arabians, but I ain't gonna take it sittin' down! You better listen up, boys!"
He marched right up to one of the messengers, and looked him straight in the eyes.
"I don't give a hoot whose heel y'all have'ta nip, which knee ya gotta bend down on, you will get the Prime Minister on the horn, and you'll tell him to send them big boys of his over mah way! D'yall understand me?!"
"Yes, Minister!" said the messenger, shaking nervously. "Of course."
The messenger started whimpering, and his fellows escorted him out of the room.
"Should we send anyone here after them, though?" asked the aide.
"Nah..." Sterling sighed. "It ain't worth the trouble right now. But sooner or later, they will have'ta come back West ta get to their beloved Equestria. And when that happens...we'll be ready! Yo' can count on it!"
"So you mean to have them eliminated, sir?" the aide inquired.
"O' course not...yet!" said Sterling. "But I can think of a few places back West that'll hold 'em till we figure out what to do with 'em."
Sunset Shimmer and the others grouped together, standing back-to-back, as the four statues walked away from their posts, and approached the unicorns with an ominous glare in their luminous eyes.
"How are we meant to fight these brutes without our magic?!" Trixie shouted frantically.
"The old-fashioned way." said Radiant Dawn. "Fight!"
Radiant Dawn and Scarlet Blaze charged forwards, taking their opponents head-on. They leapt onto the statues' backs, and pummeled them with their hooves. But they did little to damage them.
"Great." said Trixie. "So your mom and brother can just jump on them. What are we normal-sized unicorns supposed to do?"
"Find a weak spot!" said Sunset. "Even constructs like these should be breakable."
Sunset galloped around the statue approaching her, while Trixie stood still for a moment, and stared nervously at her own opponent. She noticed that her statue wasn't really equine in shape, but bovine. Which give her an idea: She stood upright, stripped herself of her cloak, then held it from the top with her front hooves.
"Toro! Toro!" she shouted at it.
The bovine statue, bent its stone legs, and made a loud snorting noise as it exhumed steam-like gas from its nostrils. It roared, and charged forward, its horned head bent down. Trixie jumped up at the right time, and grabbed the bovine statue by its thick granite neck.
"Woah, boy!" Trixie shouted.
The bovine statue tilted its head up, and looked around for Trixie. Trixie then threw her cloak over the statue's eyes, causing it to bellow even louder than before, and charge recklessly forwards. Sunset Shimmer, who was trying to circle her own statue, caught sight of the oncoming behemoth, and darted away as the two statues rammed into each other. The two statues backed away, and then their heads shattered, and the headless bodies collapsed to the ground with a loud CRASH!
"It's the heads!" Sunset shouted to Scarlet and Radiant. "You've gotta break their heads off!"
"Hey, mom!" Radiant called to Scarlet, whose statue was trying to buck her off its back. "This is just like that thing you made me do! Remember? On my birthday?!"
"Now I know how you must've felt, son!" Scarlet called back.
She smashed a hoof into the head of the statue, and it toppled over to the ground headless. Radiant saw this, and gripped the neck of his statue as hard as he could, intending to pull it off.
"C'mon, you stupid..." he grunted as he yanked at the head with all his might.
The statue was attempting to rear its head to knock Radiant off, but Sunset intervened.
"Hey, blockhead!" Sunset taunted the statue, which turned to look at her.
Radiant took advantage of the brief distraction, and snapped the head off of the statue, causing it to stagger and then topple over. Radiant lost his balance due to the constant shaking and swerving and fell to the ground, dropping the broken head. The head was careening down towards Sunset's position. Sunset gasped, as did Scarlet and Trixie, as the head fell square onto her back with a nasty crumbling noise as she sank down on all fours.
"Sunny!" Radiant hollered in complete shock, getting back up and galloping towards his sister.
Sunset laid on the ground, half-buried in rubble with her eyes closed.
"Please tell me you're okay." he whispered into her ear.
But Sunset made no answer, nor made any attempt to move. Radiant's eyes started to water.
"S-Sunny..." said Radiant, his voice shaky. "Do-Don't be dead..."
Scarlet rushed to Radiant's side, and inspected her daughter's body.
"Wait." Scarlet said softly. "She's breathing!"
She put a hoof on her daughter's face, which coughed.
"Gettitofmee." Sunset muttered.
"What?" Radiant said, cocking his head to the side.
"Get this stuff off of me!" Sunset rasped a little louder.
Radiant hastily pushed the rubble off of Sunset's body, and pulled her out of the wreckage. To his surprise, her body was completely intact.
"What? How?!" Radiant sputtered.
He slid Sunset's cloak to the side, and saw her back was undamaged, save for a couple of bruises. He could only guess that this was because of the enchantments applied to the cloak.
"I owe ya one, Shining Armor." he muttered, before saying to Sunset. "You okay, sis? Can ya keep going?"
"I'm...fine." Sunset opened her eyes, looking up at her brother. "Thanks."
She smiled, and struggled to get back up. Even though the cloak's enchantments protected her from the debris, she still felt very bruised. The four unicorns' horns started glowing, indicating that their magic was functional again. The lone door at the end of the room was opened.
"Let's go." Sunset said, proceeding towards the doorway.
Scarlet, Trixie, and Radiant followed her. They entered a long corridor, which was lined with small statues of various animals. Radiant looked warily at them with his horn, in case they would suddenly spring to life. There were hieroglyphics above each animal, depicting very large earth ponies wearing ancient headdresses.
"I wonder who they were?" asked Radiant.
"Maybe they were the owners of these animals." said Sunset. "Man, I wish dad was with us right now. I'm sure he'd be able to explain who they were."
Scarlet looked at the statues, before stopping at one of a tall dog that had a slim build, thin head and long fluffy ears.
"Isn't this an Afghan hound?" she said, with a smile. "I always wanted to have one when I was a little filly!"
"Mom, I actually think that's a Saluki." said Sunset.
"Oh...really?" said Scarlet, analyzing the statue. "I don't think I've ever heard of that breed before."
She looked at her daughter and smiled. Sunset smiled back.
"I have such wonderful children." Scarlet said quietly to herself.
"Let's get down there, and find out what happened." said Nose Nip. "But first, I think we ought to signal the others back at the Summerstar."
He grabbed the Furnace Blaster from the debris, as well as a discarded flare gun from a nearby saddlebag, and loaded it. He fumbled with it, since it was apparently jammed.
"Stupid thing." he grumbled. "You'd think that old stallion would at least give us instructions on how to--"
"Uhhhh, Nose Nip?" Golden Sun said, nervously. "Maybe you should--?"
"I know how to use a flare, professor!" said Nose Nip.
"But I could just--"
"I got it!" Nose Nip said, hastily. "I've just--"
Suddenly, a flare burst from the gun's barrel, and it shot into the sky. Then it suddenly came down, and fell into a nearby saddle-bag. The saddle-bag was apparently full of explosives, since the whole thing detonated in a large fiery explosion, scattering the other items all over the place.
"This really isn't my day!" Nose Nip groaned in frustration as the ground in front of him started to rumble and crack.
"What da heck was dat?!" Frosty exclaimed, choking on his S'more.
He, Teddy, and the others looked up at the plateau. There was a faintly audible crackling noise, and several small explosions were visible from the top.
"Are they runnin' a fireworks show up dere or somethin'?" said Frosty.
"Looks like something intense is going on up there." said Teddy.
"No kiddin', Captain Obvious!" snarked Frosty. "Well, I bet you guys wanna fly outta here..." he grumbled: "Just when I was enjoyin' a good snack! Ugh!"
"Actually, I think we should go up and help the others." said Teddy. "It sounds like they've run into some trouble."
In his throne room, King Nelphyn stood, reflecting on his past. He was thinking about the all-but forsaken city that he was in, and about his motives for restoring it to its former glory. He had the Alicorn Amulet in his possession once again, but even its power alone couldn't bring back what was once the greatest civilization that the East had ever seen. King Nelphyn doubled-over in a deep, seething rage. Even after all the terrible things he had done and all the indignities he went through in both this world and the human world, he still didn't get what he wanted. What he wanted back!
"Curse the day those infernal Altered Ones destroyed my people." he growled. "Leaving my home an empty shell of what it once was, and forcing me to wallow in filth!"
Filth. Even that word seemed too good for those lesser breeds of equines that had over-populated the world above in the wake of Megalon's destruction. Even the Saddle Arabians seemed nothing more than a pale imitation of his race. In the past, he tried to harness the potential of that breed to create a legacy for his all-but dead race. But his efforts to go above and beyond the old empire's limits proved disastrous in the end. King Nelphyn was forced to flee to the human world under his master's orders. But King Nelphyn only found a source of hatred and mockery in that world's native race. Even with their advanced technology and the ability to use sophisticated tools, humans scarcely impressed Nelphyn, who despised every moment he lived in that world, waiting for the opportunity to reveal itself.
There were others from the pony world that were banished there in his wake, but few of them seemed to be worthy of being even remotely associated with them. Until one in particular went there completely voluntarily: Sunset Shimmer. He couldn't help but marvel at how she was able to live in a world that only limited her potential, yet he couldn't understand why she would still remain there even when greater opportunities awaited her in Equestria. He admired this, yet despised it. He wanted to deconstruct this paradox, and avert it.
His machinations were precise and wound up benefiting him more than he would believe. He did not even expect Sunset Shimmer to return to the human world and battle the very people who chased her out of their world, let alone with the Alicorn Amulet in her possession. So when this became evident, he acted upon his own plans to cross over to Equestria with the power that he desired, and then returned to Saddle Arabia to usurp the wretched rulers of that land and make it his own, as it was before.
But he knew that things would not happen as long as Equestria was still in power, able to send any assistance that Saddle Arabia needed. But this worried him very little, since the Elements of Harmony no longer existed. There were already others at work plotting to usurp Equestria's rulers, so it was only a matter of time before he would be able to finish what he started again in the East without interference.
There was a faint rumbling from above, and the sounds of rocks falling out of place. The Alicorn Amulet was glowing around his neck. He knew very well the cause of this distrurbance.
"Whoever these fools are...that dare intrude on my ancestral home..." he thought, maliciously. "I will see to it that the Maul-Ras make short work of them."
His eyes glowed bright and fierce, as a mound in the center of the room broke open. A black spiraling shape rose out into the air, and soared through the air, through a gateway that opened just long enough for it to leave, and then sealed itself.