Celestia would have teleported all of them to Canterlot, but she was unsure if she had the capability to do so with eleven beings. Two of which were of not equine anatomy. Who knew what a teleportation spell designed for ponies would do to humans.
So she flew. She flew as hard as she could, the others aside from Luna doing their best to keep up. Twilight still wasn’t the best flier around, so she had resorted to teleporting around in order to keep up. Somehow, Kilara and Mkrin were able to keep up, whether by following Twilight’s teleportation by teleporting alongside her, or by some other magical means. Canterlot wasn’t too far off. It couldn’t be. She was going to be on time. She had to be.
Celestia had had the foresight to bring along the rest of Twilight’s friends, they were more than capable of helping out. Everything was going to be alright. At least, that’s what she kept telling herself.
They had been forced to retreat. The main gate was lost and the first district was in flames. What few guards they had been able to spare had been ordered to fall back and get any of the citizens to safety. If Conner’s squad had not alerted the Canterlot guard things would be much worse and the royal guard might’ve not had any time to prepare. As it was, the shadow hounds were close to running completely amok. Any guards that had fallen to the beasts met a grisly fate. Their bodies were dragged off and the sounds of flesh being torn apart was more than enough to let people know that they were being eaten.
The hounds obviously had some kind of intelligence. No matter what kind of formation the defenders used, no matter how effective it was, the creatures would still get through and run throughout the city. Thankfully, they were few in number, and hopefully any guards still coming to the fight would dispatch them quickly.
The particularly two large specimens had decimated their lines. The weakened one from before had died from focused attacks, courtesy of Conner’s squad. However, not until it had smashed straight through a formation, while the other just started squishing and eating everything, then lumbered off to eat a whole group of ponies somewhere else in the city.
They’re going to eat everyone in the whole city if we don’t get help soon, somehow. John thought. He was covered in blood. His armor, which he had somehow not taken off in the entirety of his stay in Equestria, was slick with the gore of shadow hound and pony alike.
‘It’s been a while. You know… with this much confusion going on, no one would really notice the difference if I took control for a while and… indulged myself.’ Arldon said in his head.
‘Shut up, Arldon.’
‘Oh come on, just let me out and no one would have to know.’
‘I would.’
‘Yes, but you’re getting tired. In fact, I could wrest control from you right now. Give it a few more minutes and I’d have no trouble at all. But I’m giving you a choice. The freedom to let me do what it is that I do best. If you don’t let me take control of your own free will, I swear, I can and will make this a lot harder on everyone involved.’
John sliced another shadow hound cleanly in half. ‘The answer is no.’
There was a sigh. ‘So be it. I gave you a choice but you just had to choose the hard way.’
John froze up and collapsed backwards on the ground. He started twitching, the war for his own body being waged.
“John?!” Vjaren exclaimed, rushing to his side. “Sweetie, what’s wrong?” She got no answer as John simply stared off into the distance. Vjaren refused to leave him in this area but she also knew that she couldn’t watch over him at the moment. Looking around she spotted and motioned over one of the combat apothecary ponies that were scattered around, trying to tend to the wounded as best they could. “Get him somewhere safe!”
The apothecary, a unicorn, nodded, grabbed John, hoisted him on his back, wanting to save up any magic in case he needed to heal the man, and ran off. It wasn’t long until the two came to a small makeshift tent, this one currently unoccupied. The unicorn set his charge down for a few brief moments, checking to make sure that he was unwounded. It was at this moment that the unicorn realized, that even if the man was injured, he wasn’t entirely sure how to help him since he knew nothing about his anatomy. If he directed the healing magic incorrectly… well, that would cause a whole different set of problems. And seeing as John was currently in a seemingly catatonic state, it’s not like the unicorn could just ask for help for a quick lesson on alien anatomy.
Thankfully, he didn’t have to, as John stopped his twitching. He blinked, and looked around, taking in his surroundings. The unicorn put a hoof on John’s head. “Hey,” he said, “don’t move too much. You just collapsed in the middle of the battle.”
“I’m fine.” John quickly replied, sitting up.
Of course he would say that, they always say that. Doesn’t matter what species you are, apparently, but of course you’re going to say that you’re fine so you can get back into the fight. The unicorn put a hoof on the man’s chest and forced him back down. “Listen to me for a bit. I need to know if you’re injured and okay to travel. Then we can get you some proper medical attention. Or, whatever passes as proper medical attention for your kind, anyway.”
“I said I’m fine. My magic is already healing me right now. Besides, we — look out behind you!” John shouted, pointing at something behind the unicorn. The stallion turned around as quickly as he could, his horn lit up and ready for action…. Only to find nothing there behind him.
“What-” Was all he had time to say when John grabbed him by the side of the head.
“Name’s Arldon, by the way.” With that, his hand lit up and he started draining the unicorn of strength. Not necessarily magic but pure life force. “Listen, I’m just a little tired right now. Can’t say you’re going to be getting this back but I’m in far more need of it than you are.” Oh, Arldon would’ve gladly drained the unicorn of every last bit of energy he possessed, but the infernal voices that were John and Virtue kept constantly screaming in his head to not kill the poor unicorn.
So he left him with just enough strength that, if he tried, he could pull himself together to get something to eat, because now he only had about an hour left to live.
Making sure his weapons were secure, Arldon strolled out and jumped on top of a building to find the best action. Not surprisingly, it wasn’t too far off from where he had collapsed in the first place. Pumping magic into his next jump, he soared through the air and into the thickest part of the fighting.
While everyone else was fighting a battle in the name of survival or to protect others, Arldon started having the time of his life.
The first district was what Celestia and Luna first noticed. It was burning. Their precious city was starting to burn. So they did the only thing that they could do in a situation like this; defend the ponies they were sworn to protect.
With the others falling behind slightly, but still able to easily catch up within the next few minutes, Celestia and Luna quickly coordinated with each other on where to fly into the city. There were two major points where the fighting was not only the thickest, but also the only ways to get further into the city. Celestia couldn’t help but feel a mixture of pride for her ponies holding the line against the tide of attackers.
Luna flew towards the second major point, where a massive beast was assaulting their lines. In the meantime, Celestia descended right behind the battle lines where the largest pouring of shadow hounds was happening, hoping to give some aid to the weary defenders.
When the royal guards saw their princesses descend from the sky like holy saviors, they couldn’t help but cheer, even if but for a few brief moments.
Noah watched from his perch high above the battlefield. It hadn’t taken him long to find Conner’s squad. But the current situation was beyond his control. Even with the two massively powerful beings that entered the battle, along with those that soon made their way into the city as well, Noah knew that the portals opening up were just spewing forth a seemingly endless amount of enemies. His personal guard were highly skilled in their own right, but if they tried to aid their allies, they would surely be overwhelmed in the end as well.
So that was why he had sent a message to his master as soon as he was aware of the situation many hours ago. Any second now he would be getting a response and receive further orders on what to do. Behind him, a portal opened. Noah and his guards prepared their weapons, in case that this portal would pour forth more shadow hounds. However, it quickly closed when only one figure stepped through.
Noah bowed. “Master William.”
“I got your message. Looks like a shitstorm here.” William replied.
“It is. We did as much scouting from up here as possible and we believe that we managed to find something akin to a leader.” Magicking some binoculars into existence, Noah pointed at a lone figure amidst the mass of shadow hounds. “There.” He said.
The shadow hound looked different from the rest, and could definitely be seen giving out directions. It was sitting back from the action, watching the battle unfold.
“Looks like we found something to help end this fiasco. Attune yourselves to me so I can teleport us around.”
“Yes sir.” Was the response.
As soon as William felt the magic from all of his subordinates latch onto him, he teleported down next to the leader, grabbed it, and quickly teleported into the city before it had time to react.
It was hours that he’d been fighting, but Arldon wasn’t tiring. No, with so many enemies around, he had plenty of energy to steal from. Yes, he was supposedly ‘surrounded’ but that meant that he could attack in any direction he felt like now. In fact, he fought like a man possessed, which probably wasn’t too far from the truth, striking with complete abandon. Everywhere he struck, he felt a blade connect with something, every blast of magic annihilated a group of hounds.
In fact, he was attacking so relentlessly that he didn’t notice when a shockwave pushed all the shadow hounds back, leaving him flailing around like a madman. When he finally calmed down from his bloodlust he could see the shadow hounds growling but not daring to move, instead looking at a different group of humans. One of them had his foot planted on the head of a larger hound, his boot glowing with power and making it perfectly clear that resisting would result in a crushed head. Well, looks like my fun is over. Arldon thought. He retreated back into the depths of John’s mind, allowing John to come back to the forefront. That was fun, we should do this again sometime.
Shis’shola struggled in the grip of the human. She couldn’t see his face but for some reason his presence felt… familiar. When she was lifted into the air she got a good look at him. Then she recognized him instantly. “YOU!” She shouted.
So they speak. William thought. “You obviously know me. But I don’t recall ever meeting you at any point in time.” He calmly replied.
“What are you talking about?! You’re the one who cursed us into this form years ago!”
“I don’t anywhere near the power to do anything on the scale you’re describing, at least for all of you. A few thousand, MAYBE, that’s a stretch but not for how many of you there are. Besides, even if I could do so, I think I’d remember doing something like that.”
“You lie!” By this point, a large crowd had gathered, filled with mostly ponies but with the occasional human added into. Everyone was tired, even the princesses looked exhausted. “I know what happened, I saw it with my own eyes! Those two monstrous ships tore our fleets apart like they were nothing more than wet tissue paper. And then when we were reduced to our final world, when we had nothing in the way of resistance against you, you transformed us into… this!”
Shis’shola suddenly felt a spike of pain intruding on her mind. She could feel her memories being examined, sifted through like a child looks through a box of playthings to find his favorite toy. And then she felt the memories of the demon standing before her being implanted into her mind. She started to see everything he had seen in the last hundred or so years…. It was painful, to say the least.
When it finally stopped she could only look on at William in an utterly confused light. “Let me tell you something.” William stated. “Our empire doesn’t have anywhere near the technology to pull something like that off at the moment. Let alone building a spaceship the size of ten thousand kilometers, which is just an extra three thousand kilometers shy of being bigger in diameter of my fucking home planet. I mean, Jesus Christ, I can only dream of possessing that kind of firepower in the future, but we don’t have it right now.” He amplified his voice to be heard by all. “The timeline has been disrupted! Across universes things cross over and the past mixes with the future and vice versa. Back where I come from, I and my friends, and yes I know I should say ‘my friends and I’ but I know what I said, are working on a solution to correct this. As soon as it’s completed, none of what you see before you will have happened. Everything that happened after the portals first came into existence will no longer a part of the timeline. All things shall go back to how they were supposed to.” He placed the former captain back down on the ground and spoke in a softer tone. “Meaning that you and your kind will be back to normal in no time, and we’ll have never met. Trust me, you’ll be back to conquering worlds in no time. Literally, depending on how you want to look at it.”
“But….” Shis’shola began. “Won’t we eventually encounter you in the future again and the cycle will repeat itself?”
“History isn’t set in stone, especially with the timeline as screwed up as it is. Our civilizations may never go to war, we could establish peace, anything could happen. Hell, they might not even run into each other in the first place, a universe is a big place, after all. Now, I know what you’re thinking right now. How long are we going to be stuck like this? Have no fear, as I said before, we’re working on a solution to fix all this. As soon as I head back to the universe where I’m working on said solution, everything will go back to normal. Yes, it might take me a few days since we’re so close, but with the timeline screwed up just about everywhere, as soon as I leave don’t be surprised if something immediately happens. Or you all start to fade away. Not sure how the spell is going to work in the end. However, I’ve spent enough time here as it is and I have work to do. See you aro-wait- I just realized I probably won’t see you guys again. So I won’t finish that sentence.” With that said, William opened a portal and all the humans under his command started filing through. Before William stepped through he turned around. “Not like it means anything at this point, but I’m sorry for what my future self did to you guys.” And then he stepped through, the portal closing behind him.
For what felt like the longest time, no one said anything until Pinkie Pie, unsurprisingly, broke the silence. “Did that just… happen?” What was surprising was what she said next. “That was just… a little anticlimactic.” As soon as she stopped speaking, a ball of white energy formed above their heads, then expanded with such speed there was nothing in the entirety of existence, not even the speed of light, could hope to outrun it.
And then… there was nothing.
Fluttershy tended to her animals like she always did, humming a little tune to herself as she did so. It was at this point she felt… something akin to déjà vu. However, she shrugged it off and continued on with her life.
Because technically nothing had happened. Everything was as it should be. And it would remain as such.