Grogar's Return IV: The Hour of Twilight
It's ancient name was the field of Mareinor. In more recent times it had acquired the name of Twilight's Stand, or the less respectful it was sometimes called Twilight's Folly. More colloquially it was called the Glass Field. Whatever the name, it was at this place one hundred years ago that Twilight Sparkle, champion of Equestria, had faced Grogar, Tyrant of Tambelon, in a magical duel. By the time the battle was done both Twilight and Grogar had vanished from mortal sight, thought dead by all, and the entire field had turned to lavender glass. Not a single blade of grass grew, and all the trees and rocks that had protruded from the field had turned to sparkling crystal.
So great had been the magic unleashed here that, as in the Everfree Forest bordering on Ponyville, the weather here behaved in unnatural ways, doing what it wanted to do rather than what any pegasus desired. Nor did unicorn magic work as it was supposed to. It was erratic, sometimes more powerful than intended, sometimes less so. For that reason, and for the fact that it was a field of magical glass where a great hero and an even greater villain had destroyed one another, ponies shunned the place. There was no monument raised up to Twilight Sparkle, no monolith to record the date of her last great fight, no statue to commemorate her sacrifice.
The field itself was memorial enough, perhaps.
It was raining upon the field of glass, the water hitting the lavender surface with a series of splattering splashing sounds.
Until the splashing and splattering were interrupted by a pop, as a bright flash of lavender light illuminated the grey half-light of the twilight.
Had anypony been walking upon the hallowed field that dusk, they would have seen Princess Twilight Sparkle lying on the glass, wings spread out, eyes half-open as though she were dazed, legs tucked in, groaning slightly.
Rain landed on her face, and indeed on every other part of her, but it was her face that Twilight shook to get the water off her.
"Rainbow Dash, cut it out," Twilight murmured, rolling onto her side.
The rain continued.
"Ugh, Rainbow I..." Twilight opened her eyes, and took in her surroundings, empty of any pony never mind Rainbow Dash.
Twilight blinked. "Where am...Grogar!"
She leapt to her feet, wings spreading out...and then her hooves slipped on the glass and she fell flat on her belly.
Twilight tried again, more slowly this time, flapping her wings to steady herself upon the slippery surface. She looked around.
"Where am I?" she asked. "What's happened? Where's Grogar? Hello? Is anypony there? Pinkie? Rarity? Applejack, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash? Spike? Anyone?"
Twilight shook herself like a dog, for all the good it did her as all the rain that she dislodged returned a few seconds later.
"Where am I?" Twilight repeated, touching her hoof to her forehead and groaning slightly.
An enormous crack, louder than any thunderbolt, split the sky. Twilight gasped as she looked up, eyes wide, to see the southern skyline alight with magic, as dark clouds gathered overhead and lightning lanced down to strike the earth.
"That direction," Twilight murmured. "Home."
Twilight's face became a mask of fear, not for herself but for those who might be in danger, as her wings carried her into the air and towards the sound and fury of the fighting in Ponyville.
***
Thunder clung to the back of a straton, teeth gritted and mane flying in all directions - he had lost his helmet very early on - as the monster tried to shake him off. It roared and bellowed and stomped its feet, flapping its wings as it contorted up and down, but Thunder held on. He would only be in real trouble if the brute thought to roll over on him.
"Ah, shut up you big monster!" Kenzi yelled. "You're giving me a headache! And hold still!" Kenzi's magic wasn't particularly powerful, but she was trying to cast sparks into the straton's eyes. Unfortunately, even when she did manage to hit, it only seemed to enrage the straton.
"Not really helping, Kenz," Thunder murmured.
"Well what can I do?"
"Don't get hurt," Thunder said as he let go of the straton with one hoof - he used his wings to steady himself so he didn't immediately get flung off its back and halfway across town, and started hitting the beast in the nape of the neck with his armoured hoof.
His gauntlet beat against the dark green scales, slamming into the armour that protected the skin underneath, and though the straton roared in even greater fury than before it showed no sign of actually being hurt, any more than Thunder would have been hurt by a fly crawling across his coat.
"Come on," Thunder yelled. "Come on, you're supposed to be weak at the neck, so why can't I hurt you?"
A bolt of blue light erupted upwards from the ground, catching the straton squarely in the throat. The beast roared, then reared, then collapsed on the ground with a thud so heavy that it kicked up a small cloud of dust.
Thunder, who had let go of the monster as it fell, hovered above the unmoving wreck. It wasn't moving. It wasn't groaning. It wasn't doing anything but lie there. It was most likely dead.
Stargazer moved a little closer to the body. "They may be weak at the neck, but they're even weaker from below, I thought you'd know that," she said. "And if you do want to hurt them, then a weapon might help."
Thunder glided down to her. "Normal straton eyes are yellow, all of these stratons have blue eyes, I think they're under some kind of mind control. I'd rather not kill them if we can avoid it."
"If we try and avoid it we're likely to die ourselves," Stargazer said. "Like so many have already."
"But it also gives us a chance," Thunder said. "If we can find the pony who is controlling the stratons then we can release them, and they'll probably leave. Then we can work on getting the barrier down and rescuing the princesses."
"You really think that'll work?" Kenzi asked.
"I think we don't have a choice," Thunder said. "We aren't going to win a stand-up fight, just look how we're doing so far."
The battlefield presented a grim picture. The sphere of black light that had enveloped the princesses loomed large and inviolate, spinning furiously like an upside-down tornado, so black that nothing could be seen within. Thunder had no way of knowing if Princess Luna was even still alive in there.
Don't think that. Don't even consider it. Princess Luna is alive and you can get to her. I won't lose anyone else.
A ruined palace. Fires consuming everything. A beautiful unicorn half buried in rubble, tears in her eyes.
"Run, my son. Run far away, and live."
"No! Mom!"
I can't...I won't...I will save Princess Luna!
Around the sphere, the detritus of the aborted graduation ceremony was strewn: the wrecked stand, the scattered flags...the bodies. Mayor Scootaloo's wheelchair lay on one side, and Scootaloo had spilled out of it to lie spreadeagled on the grass like a rag doll. She wasn't moving, but before Thunder could see if she was alive or not a straton had set on him.
As for the cadets of the 109th Training Corps, many of them were similarly strewn about the ground, blood pooling around their remains. Those had that remains, and hadn't ended up in a straton's belly. Most of the rest of the cadets had fled. Only a few, led by the pegasus Greatheart, still fought on against the giant lizards that assailed them.
And then there was Spike. On his own he was larger than any four stratons, and a match for as many...but he was being attacked by a dozen stratons at once, and the presence of ponies around meant that he couldn't use his fire indiscriminately. He was still in the fight, thrashing and roaring as the lesser creatures ripped and tore at his purple scales, beating at them with his mighty arms and claws as sharp as diamonds, but it was only a matter of time before they brought him down.
"We need to find whoever is controlling the stratons," Thunder repeated. "It's the only way we can win this fight."
"How do you know they're not inside the barrier?" Stargazer asked.
Thunder shook his head. "That barrier is keeping everything inside it trapped inside, it's the only explanation for why neither princess has escaped yet. That means that no spells cast inside the barrier can effect us here, so the straton master must be on the outside, and not too far away either to be controlling so many of them at once. If we can find them then we can turn the tide of this battle in one blow."
Stargazer nodded. "Okay. The First Minister has already been taken to safety, I'm with you."
"Right," Thunder said. "Kenzi, I need you to go back to Canterlot-"
"Oh no, no way," Kenzi said. "I am not just going to run away and leave you to risk your life without me."
"I can't lose you, Kenz," Thunder said.
"I can't lose you, either, and that's what'll happen if I leave you," Kenzi said.
"Thunder Shield's right, you're too small to make a difference-" Stargazer began.
"I may be small, but I'm not a baby, I can fight!" Kenzi yelled. "I can help, if you'll let me."
Thunder sighed. "Yes, you're right, you can help. But not with me. I need you to see if Mayor Scootaloo is alive, and then I want you to find anypony in town, any of the guards who haven't run that far, and get them back into the fight. Persuade them, shame them, whatever it takes. But those guards out there need reinforcements, but Stargazer and I have a more important job to take care of. Then get a message sent to Canterlot and tell them what's going on."
Kenzi snapped off a salute. "You can count on me. And Thunder...don't die, okay?"
Thunder smiled. "I'll try my best."
***
Luna cast a spell, a bolt of dark blue magic leaping from the tip of her horn, only for Grogar to deflect it with one of his black, curved horns.
Celestia fired as well, but her spell was slow and sluggish, it had not only taken her far longer to charge than it should have but it left her breathing heavily as well.
"Pathetic," Grogar growled as he fired two red bolts from his own horns. Luna blocked them both with a hastily conjured shield. It was unkind to say, but Celestia was a hundred years out of practice using her magic for anything more taxing than basic telekinesis, and that mean that Luna would have to bear the brunt of this battle.
She fired again, and Grogar knocked her spell aside so casually that he might have been swatting a fly.
"Pathetic," he repeated. "Are these the princesses who have for so long held Equestria in thrall? How is that this land has survived so long?"
"A magic of which you are and will always be ignorant, Tyrant of Tambelon," Luna spat as she tried to hit him with another spell, to more effect than the last two. "The magic of friendship."
Grogar's laughter was loud and caustic. "Friendship! Oh, Luna. Poor Luna. Sweet Luna. Naive, childish, Luna, how will this great and powerful magic help you now? You are all alone and at my mercy."
"We are not alone," Luna snarled. "We have one another."
"Yes, and that's doing you so much good, isn't it?" Grogar asked.
"Enough!" Celestia yelled, casting another golden spell. "How can you be here, Grogar? You are dead, Twilight gave her life to defeat you."
"She gave her life, that's true," Grogar said. "But defeat me? Did you truly believe that? Were you really so naive as to think that Twilight Sparkle could defeat me, Grogar? I am shadow, I am darkness, I am death and what was Twilight Sparkle to stand against such? She is dead a hundred years and here I stand. Face it, Celestia, your precious protege died in vain."
"No," Celestia whispered, something inside her seeming to break at the tyrant's words. "No, it cannot be."
"Celestia!" Luna yelled. "Do you listen to him! You must be strong, I need you to be strong. I need you at my side."
"At your side," Grogar chuckled. "She has not been at your side since Twilight Sparkle fell. Face it, Luna, she loved her student more than she ever loved you."
"Silence!" Luna snarled. "Your words are poison, Grogar, but they are only words. And words have no power but what their listeners give them."
"My magic has power whether you give it power or not," Grogar replied. "Your powers are weak, you have no friends, you army of slaves is scattered. You will fall to me, as Twilight did, and all of Equestria will swiftly follow."
"Not while I'm alive," Luna said.
"Which won't be for very much longer," Grogar said with an ugly smile.
***
Sentinel screamed with anger as she sped upwards through the dark sky, her wings outstretched like a pair of knives on either side of her, knives that sliced through the scales of the nearest monster and into its eye.
The beast screamed, but not louder than Sentinel was crying out as she turned, dove down, then rolled in the air to bring her back underneath the creature in time to slice its throat.
She kept screaming as she fought. A continuous howl ripped from her throat so loudly one might have thought she did not need to breathe. She screamed and she killed. The rest of the guard, those that had not fled like worms and cowards, struggled to mob a single straton at a time, but Sentinel sliced through them like wheat being cut down by the plough.
She did not fear them. She did not fear their roars, their size, their gaping mouths. She made no effort to avoid the lightning lancing down from the dark clouds above. She thought nothing of the winds surging around her. She fought as if nothing mattered, not even her life, because her brother was dead.
Greatheart...was gone. A straton had devoured him as he had grabbed a spear and rushed towards the black barrier that had encased the princesses. Almost everypony else had been running away, and he had been running towards the fighting. That was the kind of pony he was. And that was why he was dead, because he had not waited for his sister.
And so she fought. She fought like she had nothing left to lose because they had already taken everything from her. If she died, so what? So long as she took some of them with her before she went.
And so, on that night, Sentinel became a goddess of victory, even as she hoped to perish instead.
***
Dusk Shine, descendant of Cadance and Shining Armour, blood relative of Princess Twilight Sparkle, sat in the corner of the store room (formerly known as the Golden Oaks library) and hyperventilated into a paper bag.
He wasn't alone either. Most of his fellow graduating class had shut themselves in the storehouse, crammed in like peas in a pod amongst the spears and armour while they waited for the crisis to pass.
Assuming it didn't just come looking for them instead.
Of all the times this had to happen? Why couldn't the monsters have waited until tomorrow when I could have been in Canterlot with the Military Police? Who would have thought evil would be so inconsiderate?
"Guys, I really think we oughta head back out there," Blueberry Pie said.
Sketch raised his eyebrows sceptically. "Really? You want to go back out to where all the dragons are with all of those teeth?"
"Technically they're called stratons, not dragons," Spiral murmured. She was a light grey pegasus with blue hair and square glasses. "You can tell because stratons don't grow as large, and they can't breathe fire."
"Yes, thank you very much, but did you not catch what I was saying about the teeth?" Sketch demanded.
"But our friends are still out there, fighting," Blueberry said. "We can't just leave them."
"You did," Sketch pointed out.
"Hey," Red Delicious climbed to his hooves, looming large over the other cadets.
"Oh, come on, Red, don't act like your any different," Sketch said loudly. "The two of you are hiding in here the same as the rest of us."
"I know, and I got scared just as much as everypony else," Blueberry shouted. "But we can't just sit here while our friends risk their lives, can we? Is that the kind of ponies that we are? What about what Princess Luna said: strive to do the right thing." She grabbed and spear and brandished it overhead. "Come on, everypony, follow me! I'll take the lead."
Nopony moved.
Blueberry's mane deflated slightly. "Come on, guys, what will you think of yourselves tomorrow?"
"We'll be alive tomorrow," Dusk said sharply, pulling the paper bag away from his face. "Which is more than those idiots out there can say. Greatheart and all his tough talk, what good has it done him, huh?"
"So what, you're just going to sit here and wait to die?" Kenzi demanded as she flew in through the open window. "You're going to cower and hope that the stratons don't find you?"
"Kenzi! You're okay!" Blueberry cried.
"What's going on out there?" Red asked.
"And what are you doing here?" Dusk Shine demanded.
"I came to get help," Kenzi snapped. "Before I heard how little chance of that there was."
"Help for what?" Rosethorn said.
"Mayor Scootaloo's badly hurt," Kenzi said. "She's barely breathing and I can't carry her. And I need everypony else to follow me and back up everypony still fighting."
"Us?" Dusk said. "What about gallant Thunder Shield, what's he up to?"
"Thunder thinks that the stratons are being mind controlled, so he and Stargazer have gone to find the unicorn responsible and stop them," Kenzi said. She drew her two-inch long sword from her back and brandished it in the air. "Listen, if nopony will help me, then I'll have to go back out there all on my own, but I'm hoping that there's somepony here braver than that."
"Come on, Kenzi," Sketch said. "Those things, there just too big for us."
"I'm six inches tall, what's your excuse," Kenzi snapped. She sighed. "Look, I'm going back because my best friend is risking his life out there. So I'm going to be there for him because he means everything to me, more than my life. So if there's nothing or nopony who means that much to you...whatever dudes, I'll see you around." She turned away, her gossamer wings flickering as they carried her back towards the fighting.
Dusk frowned. "Give me a break, was that supposed to be an inspiring speech or something?"
Rosethorn frowned. "Dude, you know she's going to die out there."
"I'm going to die if I go out there!" Sketch said.
Rosethorn stood up. "Yeah, well, I'd rather get eaten than go back home and tell my brothers I was a coward. Blueberry, do you still want to take point?"
"Huh? Yes indeedy!"
"Then I've got your back," Rosethorn said.
"Me too," Red said.
"Ugh, you ponies are impossible," Dusk sighed, getting up slowly. "Come on, ponies, were we trained to cower when danger threatened? Let's move out!" He spread his wings and flew out through the door.
"Hey, I said that like five minutes ago!" Blueberry Pie shouted as she charged forth, with Red Delicious and Rosethorn following where she led.
Spiral pushed her spectacles up her nose. "Well, if we're going to be stupid..."
"May as well be stupid together," Cloudburst said.
Sketch's wings flapped, carrying him up towards the ceiling. "Okay! Are we ponies or are we maggots! Come on chums let's do this!"
"Yeah!"
"Let's go!"
"We'll show those monsters our pony spirit!"
And the 109th Training Corps charged forth.
***
Thunder brought his forehooves together in front of his face to block the kick the dark grey pegasus aimed at him. His armoured gauntlets took the blow, but he was pressed backwards a pace by the force of the punch.
The blood red unicorn fired a bolt of crimson magic at him, and Thunder pirouetted in the air just above the ground, twisting like a ballerina as the bolt flew past him, not waiting to see what it hit as he aimed a kick at the pegasus with his hind legs.
It didn't land, the pegasus got out of the way too fast, countering with another kick of his own which Thunder twisted away from.
They're better than anyone I ever practiced with in the guard, Thunder thought. Who are these guys and what do they want?
He guessed that what they wanted right now was to keep him away from the shed that had bright blue light spilling out from it. Unless he missed his guess - and the fact that two bad guys had emerged to keep him away from it strongly suggested that he had not - then that was where the unicorn directing the stratons was holed up.
Thunder gritted his teeth to keep from smirking. They didn't know it yet but these two had just given themselves away.
Judging by the grin on his face, the blood red unicorn didn't have a clue that Stargazer was hiding nearby, waiting for an opportunity. "You picked a bad part of town to come wandering round, friend. You would have been better off sticking with the dragons."
"Actually," Thunder remarked. "They're stratons."
"Oh, are they now," the unicorn said. "I bet you think you're so clever, don't you? I bet you think you're so much better than me, don't you? Well let me tell you ain't no better than I am for all your fancy words."
"At least I know not to use a double negative," Thunder said.
"Well perhaps you know some kind of lah-de-dah name for the kind of dead you're going to be when I get through with you."
"Just kill him already," the pegasus snapped.
"Haven't you ever wanted to play with your food?"
"Not when the food was going to eat my brother!"
"Oh, relax for crying out loud," the unicorn said. "He isn't going to hurt anypony."
"Cast your spell or I'll snap his neck," the pegasus snarled.
Thunder smirked.
"And what do you look so happy about?" the unicorn demanded.
"I'm not the pony you need to worry about," Thunder said. "Now, Lieutenant!"
Stargazer bounded out of hiding, her horn already aglow.
The blood red unicorn's eyes widened, and his own horn began to glow with crimson aura in the moment before Thunder ploughed into him, hooves striking left and right, smacking in his flesh, driving him backwards.
The pegasus howled as Stargazer cast her spell.
The bolt flew straight and true, striking the shed. The building exploded in a shower of fragments. The blue light died.
"Daydream!" the pegasus yelled, flying swiftly into the remains of the shed. He tossed the wreckage aside, his hooves moving furiously as he dug out...a foal. A unicorn colt, who didn't look much more than ten or twelve years old.
"No," the pegasus cried out hoarsely. "Hold on, little bro, just hold on, I've got you." He took off, flying into the stormy sky and out of sight.
"Hey!" the unicorn yelled. "Hey, Stormy Skies, get your sorry flank back here right now! Hey, Stormy!"
His yelling was drowned out by the roar of a whole host of stratons as the entire swarm, freed from the control of the young colt - was it really him, Thunder could hardly believe it - took off and flew away. In the distance, Thunder could hear ponies cheering.
"And you can come back too! Where do you think you're going?" the unicorn ranted, stamping his hooves and jumping up and down. He abruptly seemed to realise that he was now outnumbered two to one, and Stargazer was now charging up another spell.
"Aha," he said. "Ahaha. Erm. Well." He sighed. "It's been fun playing with you gents, but I think it's time to go home for my tea now. TTFN." He waved his hoof, and disappeared in a flash of crimson light.
"Well he turned out to be a bit of a coward, didn't he?" Stargazer asked.
"A good thing for us, too," Thunder said.
"You don't think we could have taken him?"
"I think we don't have time to mess around with guys like him," Thunder said. "We have to break through to the princesses."
"Right."
***
The magic spell struck Luna on the pectoral she wore around her neck, singing the black metal and tarnishing the moon pattern. Despite the armour, Luna felt the blow like an angry mule's kick as it picked her up through her onto her back, where she kidded across the grass.
"Luna!" Celestia wailed.
Grogar cackled maniacally. "Where is your Twilight Sparkle now, princesses?"
A wave of lavender light passed over everyone and everything, shattering the dome of darkness in which they were imprisoned like glass, moving through ponyville, halting the lightning in its tracks, driving the stormclouds away like sweeping dust off the front porch step.
And, as Grogar's dark magic, turned to so much nothing, Twilight Sparkle strode across the field, horn aglow and wings outstretched, a fierce look of determination in her eyes.
"Twilight?" Luna murmured. "What trickery is this?" Surely it cannot be real.
Can it not? Grogar is here, why not Twilight too?
"Twi..." Celestia gasped, words appearing to fail her completely, her mouth hanging open and her eyes going so wide Luna feared they might pop out.
Twilight did not look at either of them. She said nothing, not to Luna, not to Celestia, not to the crowd of guards who had gathered outside the barrier and now stared in astonishment at she who had caused the barrier to collapse. She kept her eyes fixed on Grogar as she stalked towards him, placing herself between him and the two elder princesses.
"No," Grogar whispered. "No! No, this is not possible! I killed you. I killed you!"
"Leave now," Twilight snarled, her voice as quiet as ice and twice as sharp. "And never come back."
"How?" Grogar roared. "How are you still alive?"
Twilight's horn glowed with even greater intensity, shining bright enough to rival the moon, if not the sun. "Leave now," she repeated. "Or else."
Grogar's face was a rictus of fury, but in his red eyes Luna could detect a trace of fear. He was afraid of Twilight as he would never be afraid of Luna or Celestia, or anypony else. Twilight had not killed him, as had been supposed, but she had put the fear of ages into him all the same.
The tyrant of Tambelon backed away slowly. "Very well, Princess Twilight, I will take my leave. But we shall meet again, not in Ponyville perhaps, but in Canterlot, or on the field battle. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the time that has been newly allotted to you, and appreciate the Equestria you helped to create."
Twilight growled, and Luna could tell that she was about to cast a spell. Grogar must have known that too, for he cloaked himself in shadow, wreathing himself within it, until when the shadows faded he had completely disappeared. The last of him that Luna saw was his face, smiling sardonically as though he had won.
When Twilight finds out what has happened to this country she might well agree with him.
There was silence in Ponyville. For a few moments, it felt as though the world was holding its breath.
"Twilight," Celestia whispered, tears beginning to spring to her eyes. "Twilight you are...you have returned."
Twilight looked back, and as the glow from her horn faded Luna noticed how incredibly weary she looked.
"Princess Celestia," Twilight murmured. "Could you please explain to me...what's...going...on?" Her eyes closed, and she collapsed onto the grass, unconscious.
"I...I don't understand?" Kenzi said. "I thought she died...what just happened?"
"I don't know, Kenzi," Thunder said. "I'm not sure that anypony does."