//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1 
// Story: The Dog Days Are Over 
// by The Prez 
//------------------------------//

The sky would light up in a brilliant shade of orange as the sun began its timely ascension into the sky, just like every other morning. The birds would tweet. The trees would absorb the dew of the night. And ponies around Equestria would rise to a new day, refreshed and happy.

The diamond dogs apparantly do not deserve such a simple bliss.

Six dogs trudged their way towards Canterlot at a steady pace as the sun rose behind them. Four of them were Skydogs, diamond dogs outfitted with steampunk-esque wings that could keep them aloft indefinitely. One of them was a great brute encased in absurdly thick armor that ended at his head, which was completely exposed and rather bruised and scarred. The last dog, the one leading the group, was a simple grey diamond dog 'Foremutt', a form of diamond dog that was often hyper intelligent in comparison to their more common brown Hound brethren. This dog was one such blessed individual, although if you asked him about it now he'd laugh in your face.

'Why we walkin' anyway?' the Skydog who went by the name Stingbeat asked of the lead dog.
'For dramatic effect.' the lead dog, Huski, grumbled in reply. The six of them continued in silence for a moment before another, Wingbeat, spoke up.
'What does that mean?'
'Spies everywhere, is means of intimidation.' the largest of the dogs told them. He was Brickfist. A third Skydog moved ahead to move next to Huski.
'Why didn't we just take the train up here?'
'Spark's probably got eyes on every transport moving in and out of Canterlot waiting for us to show up, Railspike. If we took the train it'd be begging to get blasted off the tracks and down the mountain.'
'Do not have deathwish.' Brickfist added.
'Exactly.'
'But we's walkin' on the tracks now anyway.'
'We're walk-' Huski looked down. Metal and wooden train tracks were under his paws. 'Whoa. Didn't even notice we were this close. Let's pick up the pace, boys!' He began sprinting up the tracks into a tunnel ahead and his 'boys' followed him eagerly.

What felt like an hour of running in the dark and tripping over each other later, they spotted a light source up ahead. 'The light at the end of the tunnel! We's almost there!' the fourth Skydog, Featherburn, shouted. As they neared the opening, Huski heard dull explosions in the distance. He sprinted ahead and came to a sudden stop when he saw Canterlot. The others stopped too, taking it in.

Two huge flying disc-like structures lined with weapons were bombarding Canterlot. A number of almost as large ships surrounded them both, trading shots with them, but failing miserably. One of them suddenly exploded in the middle and lost altitude quickly, falling for several drawn out seconds before slamming into the base of the mountain Canterlot was built on, joining what appeared to be even more wrecks from earlier crashes. Huski squinted at them, recognizing some of their names: 'Starburst', 'The Great Wind', 'Skylight', 'Forward Unto Dawn'... and now the 'Dusklight' took its place among them. Crews of at least a hundred ponies for each of them, the Great Wind having been a Pegasus carrier even. Now they were an airship graveyard beneath what used to be the capital of the world.

Railspike tapped Huski's soldier as he looked on. 'Boss... look.' he said, pointing down below. There, sprawling across the plains beneath the rails, was the most powerful ship ever, the 'Endless Challenge' as it was dubbed by the ponies tasked with creating it, an immense beast of a skyship that could put even sci fi movies to shame and was lined with magical protection the likes of which the world hadn't ever seen before it was built... sliced in two. Bodies littered the crash site and a few of them had clearly only just survived the impact only to die of blood loss afterwards. Even from this distance they were noticable.

Huski pondered looking for survivors for a moment before remembering his mission. 'Come on. We have to get to Canterlot or they all die for nothing.'
'Shouldn't be dead.' Brickfist mumbled in his broken accent.
'There's nothing we can do for them now.' Huski moved into the next tunnel, which would open up to a train station in Canterlot.


Aboard the modified Hammer Of Dawn, which was making short work of everything attacking it, an earth pony reclined happily as he watched the battle through a moniter. 'Oh, His Majesty is going to make me His warlord for this! I just know it!' he chuckled to himself. He did a double-take when he spied something moving along the train tracks a few miles away through one of the external cameras. 'Trouble?' He picked up a microphone. 'All ground units in the vicinity of the train station, keep watch on the tunnel. We may have some unwanted guests coming through.' He placed the microphone back on its stand, resuming his observation of the battle. He laughed as one of the decks of an opposing ship exploded and ponies were blown from it and ignited, falling to the city below.