• Published 13th May 2015
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At the Twilight of Harmony - Rammy



The Keeper War has begun. Can the Hourglass Dragon Clan defeat the Nameless One before harmony falls?

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At the Twilight of Harmony

35 days since Legacy Chaser’s murder

15 days since Baltimare’s destruction

Early morning, Near Hourglass


LIke MoTHs TO a flAME…

“Yeah, says the guy who is going down in flames!” Rainbow Dash retorted.

“Rainbow!” The Bearers, minus Pinkie, groaned as one.

“Big meanie pants is going down!” Pinkie Pie growled, punching a hoof. “Oh look! A mini-me-Discord!”

“Why don’t you focus on magic rainbow thingy, like, NOW!” The mini Discord roared before disappearing in a flash.


Luna and Celestia only had a second to react and erect a shield to redirect the now familiar black flame attack from the Dark One. Celestia grunted from the force of the attack on her. She knew from what Luna had said and from the report from Discord that the Dark One’s power was nearly off the charts, but to experience it was was different than reading about it. It was clear that they were still being played with.

“Luna! Twilight Protocol!” Celestia yelled out.

“On it!” Luna immediately lit her horn and raised the moon just enough to peek over the horizon. Celestia, meanwhile, lowered the sun so that it too was half under the horizon.

The sky suddenly changed to having a strange half day and night twilight quality that had not seen since the plunderseed incident. Celestia and Luna had only a moment of guilt, knowing that Princess Cadance would have to deal with panic caused by sky. It left as soon as the sound of a dragon roar fell over the grasslands. Both alicorns could feel their magic respond to the change. It wasn’t much, but they would need it.

“You know, even with our powers heightened by this, we won’t last long!” Luna hissed just before she had to quickly bank away from another flame attack. She conjured up her scythe and spun around, cutting the stream of fire that was currently bearing down on Celestia. ”Sentinel didn’t..”

“Our only hope is that the Hourglass Clan has seen our signal, knows what it means, and are able to get to us in time…” Celestia answered as she summoned her morning star.

YeS lOSe HopE… DESpAiR... FOr THis is ThE tWIligHT of haRmOnY! The dragon laughed, sending chills through the gathered army.

“For the love of chaos, the villain gets the say the book’s title too!?” Discord complained as he tore out all the pages of a large tome before he turned them into paper airplanes, which promptly exploded as they reached the Chaos Bringer. He then ducked under a counter attack.

A battalion of unicorns sent off a large burst of magic missiles to pull the dragon’s attention away from Discord, letting him get himself ready for another attack of his own. Celestia, however, was the next one to dive into the fray, and set off flashes of light to blind the dragon.

Discord took advantage of this and began shooting off metal Discord-shaped wind vanes with a crossbow. As the dragon turned to face the draconequus, he was attacked from the other side.

That was how it went for some time. Discord would strike, and then, as the dragon would either counterattack or attempt to counter attack, eIther the alicorn sisters or a squad of ponies or griffons would attack from another angle to turn the dragon's attention away. The dragon would not have much of a chance to do anything before being attacked once again by the draconequus. The element bearers sometimes would attack at the same time as the others and, at other times, would shield whomever was under attack.

Occasionally, the dragon would just attack with his sphere attack, as either a wave of dark energy or flame. Sometimes, the dragon would completely shrug off an attack, or block it without effort, much to the chagrin of the griffons and ponies.

“You know, I have had just about enough of you!” Discord sneered after a particularly devastating attack, in which his tail was scorched.

Discord clenched his fists. It was time to show off the power of Harmony Magic. But he needed a moment to build it up. He sent streams of ribbons and streamers in an attempt to temporarily bind up the dragon. The ribbons and streamers did quickly bind up the dragon, to his surprise. He was not really expecting to be able to pull it off. He smirked until another sphere of blackened mana exploded out from the dragon, knocking back the draconequus and alicorns and shredding the bindings.

“Thanks.” Discord thanked a pegasus that had managed to grab him, stopping his out of control spinning.

“Sir.” The pegasus saluted as they hovered.

Discord rubbed his beard. He knew his magic, even his harmony magic, was not the best in combat, so he needed an edge. A squad of pegasi nearby flapped as one, and a stream of flame was buffeted back by the wind created. A squadron of griffons then sent a volley of arrows through the wind, increasing the velocity of the projectiles, as well as lighting them.

Normally, something like that would pierce through armor like paper; however, the dragon casually flicked away the arrows. Luna sent off a concentrated laser-like magic missile to turn the dragon away from them.

Hmmm… Discord strummed his hands. The griffons used the wind from the pegasi to aid their arrows… Unfortunately, pony magic is too orderly, and can be difficult to mesh well with my magic… unless...

“Wait.” Discord stopped the pegasus with a extra long reach. “Find the best weather pegasi and create me a tornado.”

“Are you crazy!? A tornado is very dangerous and hard to control. We are just as likely to hurt our own as the dragon.”

“Just a bit…” Discord shrugged. “But I need one nonetheless.”

Just do has he requests. Celestia magically ordered.

Thanks Celly.

Don’t call me…

Focus! Luna shouted as she cut a stream of flame in half.

During this, a small team of a few pegasi began to spin in the air to form the requested tornado. Discord, meanwhile, closed his eyes and dived into the same well as when he found that dragon graveyard.

His eyes suddenly snapped open, glowing gold in harmony power. Multicolor glitter started pouring off of him, just like the sparks on He of Hourglass, making the draconequus groan. The glitter then streamed into the tornado and, as it entered the tornado, he could make out objects appearing in his signature flash. Objects like a bicycle with a basket on the back, a broom, a rocking chair, and a rowboat. The more he watched this, the more he had a feeling he had seen this before. He was sure once he heard a cow mooing over the roar of the rushing wind.

“Huh, The Alicorn of Oz. Go figure.” Discord rolled his eyes as he then lassoed the tornado before flinging it at the dragon.

The dragon roared in pain. His glowing red eyes locked onto Discord.

I WilL ENjOy makING yOU SufFeR!

“Eep.” Discord meeped out as he ducked under the retaliatory flame attack. He pulled a cape around him and disappeared just as the flames caught up to him.

The dragon roared again as a beam of rainbow light slammed into him from behind. He turned to face the Bearers, rage pouring out of his glowing red eyes.

ENouGH!

Suddenly, a storm formed above them, one that was all too familiar to some.

“Ponies, Griffons, defend yourself, inklings and shadowlings are on approach!” Celestia yelled out.

“Like they weren’t already on the defense!” Discord commented as he raised his arms into the sky, in exasperation of the obvious but to also to ready himself to attack. His arms immediately came rushing down. A large, pink rock with two black curved lines that almost looked like closed eyes smashed into the dragon, slamming him violently into the ground and kicking up a cloud of debris.

“DISCORD!” Celestia and Luna snapped at the draconequus over his attack. The cloud of dust was already dropping visibility on the ground, and potentially put anyone on the ground at higher risk of friendly fire, also making them more vulnerable to attacks from the ‘lings, who would not be affected by the visibility at minimum, and, for the shadowlings, would be strengthened.

Discord grumbled at the reprimand. This is one of the reasons why he rarely fought, and, when he did, he did it alone. The only exception had been Sentinel, who never scolded him; teased him, yes, but never scolded for his unpredictable magic in battle. Furthermore, Sentinel went out of his way to fight with him as one, incorporating his chaos into his own attacks or strengthening them with his order magic. Celestia and Luna could never quite do that, and usually, they would tag team together when possible, just as he would tag team with Sentinel, though Sentinel was able to work with them when needed.

Celestia and Luna were irritated at Discord, but they did give him free rein to attack the dragon. The one good thing they saw out of the mess was that their opponent was currently dazed. And with the dragon down, if only temporarily, it would give them a chance to attack him all-out, without any concern for blocking or retaliatory attacks slowing them down. They went right at it, sending wave after wave of every offensive spell that they could easily cast.

yOu daRE TO tRY anD BUrY ME?! The dragon slowly got up, the now shattered rock sliding off of him and squashing some unfortunate ‘lings that were currently swarming around the dragon. With no regard to his summons, he shook the few remaining boulders off, squashing more of them. THe OnlY OneS To bE BuriED aRe YOU!

The dragon's glowing red eyes somehow glowed even stronger, and the aura that had been surrounding him dimmed to almost nothing, to the point that his black scales could be seen. Whatever he was about to do, even the earth ponies, who had little practical experience with magic, and the griffon warriors, who rarely used magic, much less in battle, could tell something big and bad was about to happen.

A claw hand went up and then fell down. The eyes dimmed back to their normal glow, and then the dragon just hovered there with a smirk on his face.

WhY Don’T YOu loOk Up? He spoke with a chuckle.

That, out of everything that the dragon spoke, was the most unnerving. Some did look up, and those that did, screamed.

“By the stars!” Luna whispered in shock. There above them was a meteorite that was, by her guess, the size of Canterlot. Not the castle, but the city itself.

It was clear to the alicorn sisters and Discord that the massive meteorite was so large that it would kill everyone. There wasn’t enough time to escape, and it was too big to be destroyed in the time they had, especially with it being saturated with dark magic. Even if Shining Armor was here, his strongest shield would shatter without even slowing down the flaming rock.

With barely a thought to their own safety, the alicorn sisters flew up towards the the meteorite. Discord put a stange tube with a dragon head on his shoulder. Suddenly, with an explosion of sparks, something shot out of the end of the tube, and, a few seconds later, exploded onto the meteorite, breaking it into several large chunks before the sisters got there and started blasting away with their own magic.

Discord, during this, had forgotten about the Chaos Bringer, whose tail came around and slammed him hard into the ground. He would have been torn apart by the ‘lings if he hadn’t conveniently fallen near some ponies, who dragged him towards them so they could defend him while he tried to recover.

The chunks are speeding up! Twilight yelled magically to the Princesses.

WHAT!?! Both Celestia and Luna exclaimed, even as they fought to smash, deflect, or cut the pieces of meteorite into debris small enough to be either avoided or easily shielded by most unicorns. The problem was they were not making much headway, as they themselves were being either battered by small pieces or scorched by the intense heat.

“Scatter!” Twilight yelled as she herself scrambled to avoid the mass of molten rock that managed to get past the alicorn sisters and Discord, and was careening right towards her and the other bearers.

Twilight started running away like a mad mare. Suddenly, she tripped over something or someone and went flying. She tumbled around before coming into a stop in a pile of legs and feathers. Whose they were, she never did find out as the rock hit the ground. The last thing Twilight remembered was seeing the whiteness from the explosion, followed by a deafening sound, then quiet blackness.


“Fl ...shy!”

She ached all over, and her ears were ringing. She was sure she could hear someone calling her name, but couldn’t tell all that well, and her vision was so out of focus that she couldn’t tell exactly where she was or what was going on.

“Fluttershy!”

Fluttershy could finally see that her friend Rainbow was the one calling out for her. She looked worried, but she still was not sure what happened or where she was. “Are you alright? Nothing broken or sprained?”

“I... I think so…” Fluttershy slowly got up with help from Rainbow. She paled as she now saw the half charred and broken bodies of ponies around them. She now remembered the sky in flames and a single word screamed from Twilight. Tears began to from and fall as she realized that, as far as she could tell, none of the ponies around were alive. “He is ssss-soo strong...” Fluttershy gulped.

“He destroyed an entire city like Pinkie, when she had a single sip of espresso and went after those horse-durs thingies at that brunch party Rarity hosted. So yeah...” Rainbow and Fluttershy shuddered at the memory of that day. “Okay, come on, Flutters, *cough* we need *cough* to find the others…”

Rainbow started to walk away, but then turned to see that Fluttershy was frozen in place, staring at the bodies that littered the area. She felt a pang of sympathy, but she had already checked them, and it was clear to even her that none of the ponies (and a griffon) were alive. the only consolation was that it seemed that none of them suffered for long.

“They are dead, Flutters, and we will be, too, if we don’t start moving! Plus, there is going to be more, Flutters, if we don’t kick this dragon’s flank so hard that his ancestors can feel it!”

Fluttershy whimpered, but managed to start moving. Rainbow was right. She just wished she’d never had to witness such horrors. A small part of her was thankful for the field medical training Sentinel had had her complete; otherwise, she was sure she would have had to be carried. Though, with how bad it was, she was tempted to just faint so she didn’t have to see any more.

“That’s it, Fluttershy.” Rainbow softly encouraged her best friend. “One hoof in front of the other.” Once she was sure she would follow without any more encouragement, she turned around to properly walk forward. The last thing she wanted to do was fall backwards over a corpse. If she did, she might scream like Rarity before fainting, and not only would that be damaging to her reputation, but Fluttershy needed her to be strong for her right now. There are times when being loyal bites...

“Damn it, I can’t see crap, and to fly above could make us targets!” Rainbow complained as she nearly ran into a corpse in the dim light from the combination of the twilight and all the dust and dirt in the air. What was worse was the mana in the area, which was much too thick or chaotic for her to use her weather magic, or something. She had heard of this phenomena happening in battle, but never actually experienced it… it also reminded her of when she first entered the Untamed Wilds and was unable to fly. Her REPG training included how to deal with this, but her mind had blanked out. “Where is that egghead when you need her…” She muttered out loud in her frustration.

Rainbow…

“RAINBOW!”

WHAT!?” Rainbow cringed as Fluttershy shunk back. “Sorry.. what is it?”

“Our elements…”

Rainbow looked down to see that her element was glowing. As she picked it up off her neck to examine the phenomena, it stopped glowing, adding to her building confusion. She let it drop, and it started glowing again. Her eyebrows raised at the strangeness of it.

“Maybe Twilight cast a spell to help us find each other?” Fluttershy questioned.

Rainbow shrugged as she held out the element and walked in the direction of the glow, while avoiding the dead bodies. She tried to ignore the large number of bodies, but it was getting difficult. She was about to break down completely when she saw movement ahead.

“Hello?” Rainbow called out. She really hoped it was a pony and not one of the ‘lings that was summoned just before the meteorite.

“Rainbow!?” Came a confused reply.

At that, both Rainbow and Fluttershy quickly rushed forward to see that it was Twilight that Rainbow saw. Standing near her were the remaining bearers. They were disheveled, but alive and well.

“Thank Celestia you two are alright.” Twilight grabbed the two mares in a magical grip and pulled them towards her, and into a hug. “When that last attack came… the dead ponies… so much death… I… we thought…”

“It’s alright, Twilight... we are all here.” Fluttershy cooed, trying to calm Twilight down, even though she herself needed encouragement. The others gathered around and joined in the hugging for a moment.

“I hope you didn’t have to be alone in this… place for long…” Fluttershy muttered as the hug broke up.

“Luckily, no... Rarity, Applejack, and myself managed to find each other very quickly. As for Pinkie…”

“Oh, I just followed Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash.”

“But you… I mean… You. Here. Before…” Twilight sputtered as a few strands from her mane popped out of alignment.

“Let it go, Twi.” Applejack put a hoof on Twilight's shoulder. “All tha’ madders is tha’ we’re together again.”

“Agreed.” Rarity concurred. “Now that we are all here, let us find that bucking dragon and kick his bucking plot hole.”

Five pairs of eyes and five jaws dropped at the very unusually harsh words from the ‘lady’-like Rarity. Rainbow was especially shocked, as she tended to get an earful anytime she used any word remotely brash and colorful around her, which was often.

Rarity noticed the looks she was getting and merely huffed and, out of habit, flicked her hair with her hoof. “A lady can take only so much.”

And I though fiery Twi was scary.” Pinkie whispered conspiratorially to Applejack, who nodded in agreement.

“First thing we need to do is get rid of this dust…”

“How? The air won’t bend to weather magic anymore, as the battle has now made mana resistance stronger than normal, even for this area.”

Twilight blinked as Rainbow knew what was going on, even though she was using the wrong terminology. First Pinkie and now Rainbow?! Am I still knocked out from that last attack and merely dreaming all of this craziness?!

“Yes… that is correct,” Rainbow puffed up at the praise she received for being correct, “even though your wording was a bit clunky.”

“Meh.” Rainbow shrugged; she was just happy that she was right. Who cared if her words were not eggheady enough?

Twilight began to concentrate on her element and, with a nod to each of them in an unspoken signal, they, too, began to use their elements and send that power to Twilight. As she felt the power of Harmony envelop her, Twilight was taken aback at how balanced the power was. Usually in practice, they had to work at it a bit to get it just so for the most effective spell casting.

Twilight then used a basic levitation spell to lift and move the dust away, so they could see better. As soon as she did, she nearly lost it at the sight of the sea of bodies that was revealed. It reminded her of those visions that Sentinel had shown her when they first came to these lands. But now, it was worse, because she was experiencing it, not just seeing it through other beings' perspectives. She was glad the others were so deep in concentration as to not see anything. She was sure they would have lost it. She knew it was going to be bad. That last attack was just so powerful and widespread that she knew that there were going to be a lot of casualties from it. She herself was a bit surprised for a moment that they survived, but then, she remembered what Sentinel had said about the Elements automatically protecting their bearers.

As the sky was further cleared, she could see that they had managed to be flung quite a distance from the fighting, or the fighting had moved away during the time they had been out, struggled to find each other, and cleared the air. The dragon was some distance away and was currently facing away from them. Terra Hourglass could just barely be seen in the distance.

Not wanting to waste the opportunity, Twilight coalesced some of the dust into tendrils of dense dust clouds infused with the Elements of Harmony’s magic. She then ran towards the battle so she could attack. The rest of the Bearers were quick to run with her. Once they had cut the distance in half, and Twilight felt they were close enough to attack, but still had room to defend themselves, she sent the dust slamming into the Dark One.

The dragon roared in clear pain as he was knocked back. Twilight grinned and doubled her efforts. She was going not going to let the dragon have a chance to kill more ponies, not if she could help it.

Twilight went wide eyed as she could see that the energized stream of dust was suddenly being pushed back. Once again she pushed hard, beads of sweat now dripping down from the mental exertion. She knew that she would not be able to hold out much longer, and there was no sign of anyone that could assist. If she didn’t keep it up and push him back, then they would be open for an attack.

BAH! wEAK! prEY! YoU CaN’t StaND KilLiNG! You lACK A PrEdatOR’S ThiNKing!

The black and red dragon whipped his tail around, and a condensed line of dark magic sliced through the Bearers’ attack like a knife through hot butter. The sudden and violent cutting of the tendril caused a magic backlash which flung all six ponies hard into the ground.

“I think... we overdid that…” Twilight commented as she gasped for air. All of her energy was gone. It was almost like the first time they had used the Elements, all those years ago.

“No duh, egghead!” Rainbow snapped as she herself panted. She felt almost as tired as when she had flown non-stop at high speeds (near or at rainboom speeds) when the wendigos had invaded Equestria.

The Bearers were so exhausted that they struggled to move when the Dark One angrily bellowed at them and prepared to attack them. There was only a small group of living unicorns nearby to help, and no way they could stop the dragon. And what was worse, Celestia, Luna, and Discord were still trying to recover from a previous attack, which knocked them hard into the ground.

Twilight wasn’t sure about the others, but she closed her eyes, not wanting to witness the attack that she knew would end her life.

“The dragons! They have arrived!” Someone shouted.

Twilight snapped her eyes open. She looked up to see that not only had the Dark One stopped his attack, but he was starting to roar in anger and pain as a rainbow of dragon flame poured out from the skies above.

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