Princess Luna regarded the creature in front of her. It was like a wolf version of Ammon, but there were far more differences than just that: It was shorter, but bulkier, carrying itself with the skill and grace of a natural born warrior. Its hands bore a closer resemblance to that of a Minotaur's, sporting five digits instead of Ammon’s four. In those hands was a short spear, held low as the beast crouched, waiting for her to make the first move.
Looking at it made Luna’s blood boil. How much pain and suffering had these things caused? How many lives have they ended?
And now they had the audacity to assault her very home!
Nightfall stepped forward to stand by his princess, his Knights of the Crescent at his back as he stared at the beast in front of him. “Orders?” he asked, his tone cold with anger.
“Spread out, and clear the castle,” Luna said, not taking her eyes from the monster in front of her. “Your priority is the element bearers; if any of their ‘escorts’ refuse to turn them over, then kill them. I’ll deal with this thing.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” he said as he turned to leave. Luna could hear her captain give orders to his troops as he left, but she payed him no mind, choosing to instead concentrate on the creature in front of her.
With barely a twitch of her wings, Luna charged, swinging her scythe at the creature’s head. Her strike was off, however, as the creature quickly sprang back, trying to put as much distance between the two of them as possible. The wolf’s mighty leap had landed it several feet away, well out of the way of the princess’s scythe, but not out of her range.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Luna fired at it, causing a lance of energy to erupted from her horn and cut through the air. The creature dove to the side, barely clearing her attack as it rolled away and back to its feet.
Luna steadied herself, prepared for a counterattack, but was surprised when instead the creature turned and bounded back up the staircase it had entered from. She fired again, but missed as the wolf dodged to the side.
How could it dodge when its back was turned? Luna wondered as she took off after it.
* * *
My breathing was haggard as I stumbled through the corridor, my spear in hand as I tried to figure out where I was going. To be honest, I wasn’t in the best of shape, and it was a wonder that I was even moving at all. Every step seemed to shoot waves of agony up my arm, and my head was determined to make me pay for getting in the way of that rainbow pony’s punch.
Everywhere I looked there seemed to be bodies, but that wasn’t too surprising, considering that I was heading in the direction that that crazy wolf guy had come from. Nevertheless, I kept on my course, determined to still be of use. I wasn’t sure if it was bravery, or the concussion that was pushing me onward, but as I tripped past one of those Frankensteinian abominations, I couldn’t bring myself to care.
As I wearily trudged up another flight of stairs, I slowly began to realize that I was hearing something other than the distant sounds of combat. It was a sound that scared me to my very core, but at the same time filled me with a rage that I didn’t know I was capable of. With a burst of strength I didn’t know I had, I quickly mounted the last few stairs, determined to make it before it was too late.
* * *
The Alpha stood at the top of the staircase, its spear at the ready, determined to use the narrow entryway as a choke-point. If he could stall her for a few seconds, he just might be able to created a distraction large enough to allow his escape.
His ears twitched, though, at the sound of a nearby teleport. Reacting purely on instinct, he dodged to the right, barely managing to avoid the decapitating strike from the not prey, but taking a slight graze to the side of his muzzle for his trouble. Without so much as a second’s hesitation, the not prey followed up the attack with another, and another, twirling her scythe like a baton as the magnificent weapon began to glow.
He managed to dodge each one, though, waiting for an opening to appear. Just as he was about to give up and run again, he spotted it. Briefly, the Alpha faked high, but instead went low, bringing him well within the not prey’s range of attack. He then struck out as quick as a snake, his spear grazing her on the cheek, but she didn’t seem to notice.
The Alpha’s momentum continued to carry him forward, though, so he fell into a roll that carried him past the not prey. As soon as he was clear of the counter attack, the Alpha sprung to his feet, turned, and leapt at the startled equine.
Without even thinking about it, the not prey threw up a shield to protect herself, all while preparing her weapon for a follow up strike. She gasped in surprise, however, when the tip of the Alpha’s spear met the barrier, and continued right through it, melting it as if it were nothing but a snowball before a dragon’s breath.
With a curse, the not prey used her wings to propel herself backwards, well out of the Alpha’s strike range. She prepared for a follow up from the wolf, but was disappointed when the Alpha used his momentum to carry him past her and down a nearby corridor. He then got to his feet and ran, trying to put as much distance between the two of them as possible.
* * *
Applejack nursed a bruised lip and a broken pride as the ‘soldiers’ took her around the back. It wasn’t even like these guys were especially tough, or anything. In fact, she probably could have taken them and a few more for good measure.
But then one of the cowards had pulled a knife on her comatose brother.
“Y’all are cowards, ya’ hear!?” she said as the Pegasus behind her gave her another shove.
“Keep your yap shut, or we’ll shut it for you,” one of the ponies grunted as he wiped the blood from his brow. The cut she had left him hadn’t been bandaged yet, much less healed, despite the fact that they had attacked the Element of Honesty in a hospital. Luckily for the ‘soldiers’, all the real guards were either on the walls, or in the castle. None of them had been anywhere near Canterlot Medical when the traitors had made a move on Applejack, which had worked greatly to the traitor’s favor.
“Now, if you’re quiet and don’t make anymore of a fuss, the boss will treat you right, got it? he just needs to see you for a second,” the Earth Pony in the lead said as he reached for the servant's entrance on the side of the castle.
Applejack gave a snort at that. “Yeah, just like how y’all are taken me ‘ta safety? Yeah, once trust is lost, ‘taint easy ‘ta get back.”
“Well, you’ll just have to- oh, captain! Fancy meeting you here!”
Applejack’s head shot up at these words. When the scum had opened the door, he had revealed a group of Night Sentinels waiting on the other side.
Only, there was something… different, about these guards. Instead of the normal, half plate and open helmets that the usual guard wore, these ponies were wearing full plate mail with face concealing visors.
The apparent leader took a step forward, his longspear held at the ready as he faced down the traitor. “Soldier, by the authority of Princess Luna, you are hereby ordered to drop your weapons and surrender yourselves and the Element of Honesty to our custody. Failure to do so will result in your immediate death.”
“Please say ‘no’,” one of the soldiers next to the captain said gleefully. “Captain Nightfall has been having a really bad day, and he could really use a punching bag…”
The soldiers surrounding Applejack took a long look at the Night Sentinels, then back at Applejack, and as one pony, dropped their weapons and bolted.
“AFTER THEM!” the captain said as he charged out the door and past the remaining pony. Most of the soldiers followed their leader’s command, but a few stayed behind to guard the now free Element of Harmony.
“Are you okay, ma’am? They didn’t hurt you, did they?”
“Nah, just my pride’s all. You fellers certainly have a knack in coming in at the right moment,” Applejack said as she rubbed the top of her hatless head. The scum had come so suddenly, that Applejack hadn’t even had a chance to grab her hat from her brother’s bed. “So, what happens now? If’n these guys were after me, then they’d be after my friends, too. ”
“Do not worry about that, Miss Applejack, we’ve already got teams sweeping the castle. We’ll find them.”
Applejack gave a sigh of relief at that, but stiffened as a thought came to her. “Wait, why do ya need ta search the whole castle? What happened?”
“...There was a breach of security. Some thugs, as well as some monsters, somehow managed to get in. But don’t worry, we’re-”
“Applebloom’s in there! Applebloom!” Applejack said as she took off, bolting past the confused guards, forcing them to chase after her.
* * *
“No! Help! Somepony! Anypony!” Sweetie Belle screamed as the thing behind her came closer and closer.
“Save your breath and keep running!” Spike said as his pudgy little legs carried him away with a surprising amount of speed.
“Doesn’t it get tired? We’ve been running from this thing for ages!” Scootaloo shouted as she led her friends around a corner.
Despite how much the children exerted themselves, though, they were only barely keeping themselves ahead of the nightmare behind them. Youth and fear are powerful aids in sprinting, but the fact of the matter was that the four children were tired. It was way past any of their bedtimes, and they had spent the majority of the night running and hiding from all the scary monsters that had popped up in the castle.
It was starting to look like Ponyville all over again.
“Applejack! Big Mac! Granny! Somepony help!” Applebloom called out, her breath coming in short, ragged gasps. As it turned out, though, this was counter productive, since her screaming had caused her to completely miss the upturned corner of the rug.
With a frightened yelp, the small child tripped and fell flat on her face. The other three stopped and turned, looking on in horror as the large, gorilla-like atrocity reared back, the rusty cleaver in its stitched-together hand promising nothing but an agonizing, painful death.
“Move Applebloom! Get up!” Scootaloo called as she stumbled forward to help her friend.
Applebloom heard the shout, but could do nothing but screw her eyes closed as the abomination loomed over her, certain that her death had come.
There was a sickening, fleshy slicing sound, followed closely by a thump, then an earthshaking crash as something heavy hit the floor. After a few seconds sitting there with her her eyes closed, Applebloom realized that the killing blow hadn’t come, that somehow, for some reason, the monster had stayed its blade.
Cautiously, Applebloom cracked an eye open, only to have both snap open as she clumsily tried to put as much distance between her and what lay before her.
The monster, which had once seemed so scary and huge, was dead, its head lazily rolling away before falling down a nearby stairwell. Its body was splayed out in front of her, the mighty clever it had wielded nowhere in sight. Standing above the body, sword in hand, was the weird dragon-creature from earlier. It had a look of pure rage in its eye as it stared down at the dead thing, its sword gleaming dully in the faint gemlight.
“You… you saved me?” Applebloom stuttered as she looked up at the creature.
The dragon jumped a little, almost as if it had forgotten that it wasn’t alone, but quickly turned his muzzle up into a smile. “Yeah, though you better find a…” he started to say, but seemed to think better of it. “Actually, no, come with me, it’ll be safer that way.”
The dragon began fumbling with his sword, trying to sheath it one handed, which immediately brought the lizard’s injuries to their attention. “Mister, you’re hurt! You’re hurt bad!” Sweetie Belle said as she got closer to him.
“How did you even manage to get that?” Spike asked as he got closer. “You’re a dragon, right? Shouldn’t you be immune to heat?”
“Where’d you get that cool sword? Can I hold it? How did you just appear like that? Can you teleport? Can you fly? What else can you do?” Scootaloo asked, rapid firing question after question in a never ending stream.
The dragon just ignored all of them, though, in favor of finishing sheathing his blade. He then stumbled towards a nearby stairwell, reaching down to pick up a spear he must have dropped when he was rescuing Applebloom. “Questions later. We need to get out of here before more show up. Follow me.”
Before he managed to take two steps, though, he had to stop as a small, yellow foal with red hair wrapped her hooves around his leg. He looked down in surprise at Applebloom, only to see a tear-stained face look back up at him. “Thank you, mister. Thank you for saving me.”
The dragon continued to stare at her for the longest time, until finally a ghost of a smile graced his face. “No problem, kid. Anytime you need it.”
At these words, Applebloom broke down completely, crying her eyes out in relief, her sobs of joy racking her whole body to the bones. She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, but it wasn’t long before she cried herself to sleep.
* * *
Luna fired another blast at the creature, hoping her close proximity would prevent it from moving out of the way. It turned out that she underestimated its agility, though, as it still managed to duck in time.
She didn’t let her surprise stop her from reacting, though, as she readied her scythe and charged again. Instead of dodging, as she had expected, the creature made its own charge, closing the distance it had put between them with its initial dodge far faster than Luna was prepared for. She had no time to react as the creature slammed into her, her breastplate making a dull thum as the creature’s shoulder impacted it, causing her to drop her scythe in the process. Both of them quickly lost their balance, collapsing into a heap on the floor, the wolf on top of her.
Struggling under the creature’s weight, Luna tried to get back up, but was prevented as the beast grabbed a hold of her. In the time that it took for her to blink, she felt its teeth clamp down on the back of her neck.
Panic took over, and before she knew it, she was suddenly twenty feet away, desperate to get her lungs under control. Her heart was pounding in her ears as she looked towards the creature, its stance shifting back to its four-legged gait as it stared at her, almost as if it could see straight through her and into her soul.
Suppressing her panic, she summoned her scythe to her and charged again, forcing the creature into a roll again to dodge out of the way. Luna quickly pulled her scythe back for another strike, but only ended up cutting into the stone beneath them with her attack.
Without even missing a beat, the creature jumped up on top of it, keeping it embedded in the rock as it perched on the weapon, almost as if it were mocking her. She responded by pulling the scythe, cutting across the floor, and pulling it out from underneath the beast.
As the creature fell back, though, it turned its fall into a somersault, almost as if it had expected her to do this.
Her inability to land a hit on the creature, combined with the creature’s almost cocky fighting style, was causing Luna’s blood to boil. She was coming at it with all of her strength, but it seemed to just dance around her attacks.
She needed another angle.
Swinging with all of her strength, she charged once again. But this time, she had a different plan in mind. She needed to get the timing just right, but if everything went as planned, the beast should be about a foot shorter after this.
Just as the creature began to dodge, this time throwing itself back, she drew upon her magic. With but a thought, Luna immediately teleported herself behind the creature, her scythe still moving in its arc, and the creature still trying to backpedal.
Directly into her attack.
The Lunar Princess had misjudged the teleport, though. Everything was right, with the sole exception that she hadn’t quite expected the beast to move that far back. Instead of removing its head, as was her intention, she struck it with the shaft of her weapon.
As the weapon impacted the creature’s side, Luna couldn’t help but smile as she heard an audible cracking sound. She tried pulling her weapon in an attempt to cut the creature in half, but it dropped to the floor and scrambled away.
Luna teleported in front of the creature and swung down, but Its reaction time was incredible, allowing it to drop and rolled away, Luna’s scythe once again digging into the stone.
* * *
Despite the initial barrage, the undead still poured into the streets, though not completely unopposed. It seemed that the sudden appearance of The Moon’s Ascent had strengthened the resolve of the defenders, much to Orcas’ increasing annoyance.
“Bah, I knew I should have brought a few renders with me to the gates. These bodies are worthless here!” a couple of unicorn corpses said as they ducked into a nearby alley to avoid a volley of arrows.. “I have the numerical superiority, but it is useless! Even the earth bound ones are worth at least twenty of my bodies!”
Orcas took a second to think as the sounds of battle raged. Though the rest of his mind was occupied with the assault, this small corner controlling these two were otherwise at peace, allowing him to come up with a strategy. Yet even with his impressive ability to multitask, he just couldn’t see a way out of this situation without some sort of gain.
That accursed beast in the castle had seen to that.
“If only it had managed to get just one of the Bearers, we could have salvaged something from this plan,” Orcas said as he caused the two bodies to sit down for a bit. He didn’t need to rest anymore, but he found that doing things he use to when he still had a breathing body helped him think. “As is, the only good thing I could hope for here is for that beast and the moon slave to kill each…” He trailed off, though, when he finally realized that he wasn’t quite alone in this alley.
Well, he was still very much alone, but only because the other two occupants of this alley were already dead.
“Oh, master, you are too kind. The reinforcements are not many, but one used to be a champion,” Orcas said as the two unicorns approached the bodies.
As they got closer, they split off to take care of them separately, both bending down and reaching out, almost as if they were going to embrace the two corpses on the ground. Darkness oozed from the zombified pony remains, sinking into the yet, undefiled bodies.
The darkness only lasted a moment, however, as the vacated shells greedily absorbed Orcas’ essence. There was the sound of cracking bones, and tearing flesh as the unwilling flesh moved from its peaceful slumber, but neither of those sounds were quite as disturbing as the laughter.
“Oh, oh that is perfect,” the tall, faceless corpse said as it rose to its feet. Muscles tore at themselves in protest, but Orcas ignored the sounds in favor of continuing his laughter. It was just so funny! All the preparation, all the deals and negotiations, all completely useless.
And, ultimately, unnecessary.
Kill all you find, I must make preparations elsewhere… Orcas ordered his armies as his consciousness withdrew from Canterlot. He had no real hopes that his crippled forces could do anything at this point, especially with the accursed sun slave on her way, but that wasn’t really the point.
Do not worry, sweet sweet Canterlot. The doctor will soon be back, and he will soon heal you of that horrid affliction you call life, Orcas thought as he slipped back into his thralls in the dragon graveyard.