Canterlot and the Storm, part 1 [History Overwritten]
One would think, upon seeing the size of the group gathered in Canterlot’s hoofball stadium, that the guard would have heard about this gathering. And that person would be right, were it not for Boura’s magic keeping the entire group hidden in a parallel pocket dimension. To the eyes of an average pony, the stadium was empty, unaware of the vampire-werewolf-changeling army only a hair’s width away.
Standing on a podium, her voice magically amplified for all to hear, Ursa Major proclaimed, “Mares and Gentlecolts, we stand together on the brink of greatness. Tonight, we feast on Canterlot, taking the power and riches within for ourselves. Tonight, the tyranny of Celestia and Luna will end. Tonight, the oppression of the Noble class will die. We will take the power we deserve, and we will rule the night!”
The applause was thunderous. Ponies around the arena stomped their hooves and shouted in bloodthirsty excitement. Vampires gnashed their teeth, werewolves howled, and changelings hissed and spit.
Even Thorn found himself cheering, more caught up in the infectious energy than anything to do with what the leader was saying. As for Sparkle, she simply smiled. Her smile wasn’t aimed at the leader, but instead at the crowd. And neither was her smile a happy smile, but a malicious one.
Mama Bear thought she was still loyal, that her hypnotic magic and voice actually worked on Sparkle. Of course, Sparkle had simply let her think that. Mind magic was useful in purging magical control as weak as that.
As the leader continued to speak, Sparkle drew magic from a storage gem that she had been charging over the last few days, and passed it to Thorn. Thorn in turn pushed the energy into his fire glands, causing them to swell with the highly potent magical fuel that they had developed over the last month.
“FIGHT FOR VICTORY!” Mama Bear screamed. “Boura, open the portals!”
The giant seapony nodded, opened his gaping mouth, and roared. Space distorted at six distinct points, forming six portals to six unique locations all across upper and lower Canterlot.
“Go forth, Dusk, and fight!” The crowd charged, spurred on by Ursa Major’s hypnotic speech. Sparkle nodded at Thorn and jumped towards him. He grew in size, catching her on his back. Spreading his black, smoking wings, Thorn propelled them forwards through the portal and then up towards the skies as fast as he could.
The dracolich opened his mouth and belched out a putrid black cloud, blotting out the last glow of the setting sun. As he flew, he continued belching out as much aerosolized fuel as possible, empowered by Sparkle’s magic. The fighters below paid no heed to her, as both sides thought that this was part of the plan to defeat the other side.
Boura and Battery appeared from a rift in space, flying just above Thorn and Sparkle. “Need a hoof? Or can you fuel this on your own?” the seapony’s rider shouted down to the dracolich’s.
“I could use a top-off,” Sparkle replied. In truth, she had no need for the extra magic as she had enough on her own. However, any chance to delay Boura and Battery from entering the fray was a good thing.
“I’m jumping,” Battery shouted. He leapt off Boura’s back and landed with vampiric grace on Thorn’s head. He climbed across the dragon’s neck and reached Sparkle. Placing a hoof on her head, Battery closed his eyes and pushed with his magic.
Despite having barely exerted herself yet, Sparkle felt a wave of relief and energy flow into her body, as if it were catching a second wind. She pulled, using the sticky nature of her magic to pull in more of his, weakening Battery a bit more than he expected. “Thanks,” Sparkle said once Battery let go.
“You’re welcome. Boura!” The seapony dove below the dracolich, who was still producing dense clouds of black fuel. Battery jumped through the mist and landed on Boura’s back. Boura tilted his head the moment he felt his rider return, opening a portal to another part of Canterlot.
”Hey, Mom,” Thorn said over the link, “Nopony’s here right now. Want to form Sparkrovitar? We’ve got nothing better to do until this blows.”
Normally, Sparkle would have agreed. “No,” she replied. “I’m not feeling like it right now.”
“Please? For me?” Thorn begged.
Sparkle was silent for a second. “Fine, but only for a few minutes.”
The one corner of the dracolich’s gaping maw twitched upwards into a smirk.
The Dusk forces started noticing problems immediately. For one, though their troops were completely loyal thanks to Mama Bear’s brainwashing, they weren’t really troops at all. At best, they were armed civilians empowered by black magic and blood curses, and in the case of the changelings, not even that. For another, the sinister black clouds created by their necromancer wasn’t demoralizing the Red Platoon or LSC, but instead seemed to be invigorating them as much as it was invigorating Dusk.
Most importantly, however, was Canterlot’s defenders. Dusk’s strategists, if you could even call them that, insisted that this would be a surprise attack, and that it would take time for the military to mobilize, and that it would take time for reinforcements to come to their aid. Instead, Dusk found itself being picked off by the Night Guards.
But Dusk could adapt. They were here on a mission: Rape, pillage, feed, and burn. There were plenty of civilian blood bags available, and so Dusk quickly turned to attacking easy targets.
This put the outnumbered Guard even more at a disadvantage, as it forced them to defend non-combatants instead of driving out the terrorist army. But the guards too were adaptable, and quickly began to regain ground.
Alabaster swore.
Fire magic burned at the tip of his horn, just waiting to incinerate that oversized fish stick. “Come out, you coward!” The guard yelled.
Boura’s head emerged silently from the ground behind Alabaster. He spat a boulder at the unicorn with tremendous speed.
The rushing wind caused Alabaster’s ear to twitch. He dropped to the ground, causing the boulder to fly over his head and crash into the nearby building like a cannon ball. The vampires’ super hearing let them all hear the screams of innocent ponies inside the home.
“Leave the civvies out of this!” Alabaster screamed.
From Boura’s back, Battery asked, “Why? It’s fun.”
“You sick bastard!” An inferno erupted from his horn.
“This makes no sense!” Aurora said to Night Eyes as they skidded to a stop. “I’m a navigator. How the buck am I getting lost in Canterlot?”
Night Eyes looked around. “We’ve been here before,” he told his fellow pegasus.
“Of course you have,” a voice from nowhere said. “You’re in my illusion.”
“Show yourself!” Night Eyes shouted.
Twenty identical unicorns appeared, surrounding Aurora Borealis and Night Eyes. The streets beyond their immediate vicinity seemed to twist and turn as if they were alive, and the sky seemed to boil.
“My name’s Dreamweaver,” the mares said. “As long as I’ve got you two here, I think I’ll have a little fun before I kill you.”
The ground lurched. The two pegasi tried to take to the skies, but found that their wings wouldn’t work right. “I don’t think so!” Dreamweaver said. “You’re staying right here!”
Night Eyes and Aurora raised their bows and nocked light magic-enchanted arrows in each. “Be careful,” Aurora told his friend.
“You don’t have to tell me twice.
The bolt slammed into the ground after barely grazing her face. If Swiftwing hadn’t dodged in time, she’d be dead on the ground. Even with vampiric regeneration on her side, an arrow to the head would have killed her for sure.
She looked around, her keen eyes searching for her assailant. When she didn’t see anypony in the immediate vicinity that had a bow, she-
DODGE!
Again, she barely avoided-
DODGE!
Where was the shooter?
DODGE!
That was too close!
THUNK!
She dove behind a vendor’s cart for cover. An arrow protruded from her shoulder. She yanked it out and called upon her vampire powers to heal the wound. A shoulder wound would cost the melee specialist precious time, and since her squad had been separated, she found herself without backup and under sniper fire.
“Not cool, man. Not cool.”
As her sister led the evacuation of Canterlot, Princess Luna had taken to the field of battle to fight alongside and command her soldiers. Fully decked out in her war armor, which Celestia had kept and maintained all those years she’d been on the moon, the Nightbringer made for an imposing figure. Clasped within her magical grasp was a strange weapon. The weapon looked like two weapons in one, though that was not the case; instead, the rotating heads of the weapon could be aligned by twisting on the double shafts, allowing it to shift in function from a war hammer to a halberd, or flexed at the end joint to create a longer weapon meant for spinning.
Unwieldy for a non-unicorn, Luna’s weapon zipped through the air, smashing and slicing as it flew under Luna’s skillful control. The hordes of vampires lunged at her, each attempting to slay her and each failing in that attempt.
“Princess Luna!” the Lieutenant of the Red Platoon shouted over the noise of combat. “The key! Use the key!”
Luna’s eyes briefly shot down to her chest. She quickly looked up again, swatting away yet another vampire, or possibly the same vampire for the fifth time. In truth, she had almost forgotten about the necromancer’s pendant that she had been given. It dangled around her neck, such an innocent looking artifact for the destructive power it would unleash.
Her magic converted to dark magic. Filling it with her power, she intoned the invocation, “By the authority of Princess Luna, I command you to release seals three, two, and one! Destroy the soldiers of Dusk!”
Overhead, the necromancer and the dracolich felt the magic pass through them and into the vampires Sparkle had unsealed. All across the city, several vampires of the Red Platoon froze, not even flinching when it caused them to be struck by an enemy.
In unison, they began to chant, “The alpha leads the hunt/My prey will know the agony of my teeth/The seal of the beast is open.” The armor and weapons of the vampires took on a reddish tint.
"The darkness enlightens me/I spread my wings and soar/As those below cower from my shadow/The seal of the Monster is open." The features of every single one of their bodies faded to black, leaving nothing but red-eyed silhouettes in red armor.
"Devourer of countless souls/I stand in the field of the dead/Now, heed I the call/The seal of the Abomination is open." Across their bodies, additional eyes appeared. Their mouths all opened wide, showing off their monstrous teeth.
Each and every one of Sparkle’s modified vampires in the Red Platoon lunged at the closest enemy. Tentacles of shadow erupted from their bodies. Their limbs contorted in ways impossible for a normal pony, carrying them faster than ever thought possible. And even when they were shot or stabbed, they regenerated almost instantly. What had once been a battle leaning in favor of Dusk’s sheer quantity of combatants quickly started turning towards a Red Platoon Victory.
And throughout the rampage of the abominations, not a single drop of blood touched the ground, for in the presence of the abominations, spilled blood flowed through the air and into their bodies.
Luna had expected them to become more powerful, but nothing like this. If Sparkle was capable of creating this within the few days she had worked with the Red Platoon…
Luna looked at the artificially black sky. The light of her moon didn’t reach the ground.
…Then what did Sparkle need a whole month to prepare?
The hybrid materialized his unicorn body on the ground, intent on getting quickly to a particular house. The specter told Sparkrovitar that his target was still there, and that the fighting hadn’t spilled over that far yet.
He set off at a brisk gallop, only for several loud and rapid bangs and screams to interrupt his run.
A black mare, covered in blood, burst from the cross street before him. Behind the new mare, six vampires pursued her. The mare raised a pair of small, L-shaped pieces of metal with her magic. The objects produced six sharp explosive bursts of flame from a hole at one end, and each of the vampires’ heads exploded. “Sixty five.”
The blood soaked mare looked over at Sparkrovitar. “You Sparkle right now?”
A split second later, she was. “Yes. What are those weapons?”
“Nothing you need to concern yourself with yet,” she replied.
It suddenly clicked in her mind where she’d seen her before. Although the translucent skin and muscles that allowed her to see her bones was new, there was no mistaking that presence.
Death.
“Lady Death, what brings you here?” Sparkle said, bowing her head.
She simply chuckled. “None of that ‘Lady’ business. Just ‘Death’ will do. And I’ve got a few things I need to fix. First of all, congrats on the successful use of your first city killer.”
“What?” Sparkle asked, confused and more than a little worried.
“Wait, am I too early on that one?” She looked up at the black sky. “Oh, I am. And this one is the tame version of it. Huh.” Her gaze reaffixed on Sparkle. “Second thing: Don’t let it eat you, no matter what it says.”
“Death, ma'am, I still have no idea what you’re talking about,” Sparkle nervously said.
“You will,” the dark goddess said. “Before sunrise, you will.”
She manipulated the objects in her grasp, eliciting a click from each. A gold-colored cylinder fell from both weapons. “Anyway, I’m off. Things to do, ponies to see, vampires To BlOw To A pUlPy MeSs, EaT tHeIr CoRpSeS, aNd FuCk ThEiR sEvErEd SkUlLs. Catch you later!”
Death suddenly galloped away, screaming something that Sparkle didn’t quite catch. It wasn’t important, though; what was important was that Sparkle had had yet another run in with Death. And as she thought about what she’d said, Sparkle felt oddly light-hearted. She’d offered her strange advice, a compliment, and declared the vampires her enemy. All that together lightened the necromancer's mood.
Of course, that did little against the terror that the dark goddess had inspired in her. No amount of light-heartedness would counteract that.
Sparkle hightailed it in the opposite direction, which was – mercifully – the direction she needed to go.
A hard gallop and a couple short teleports later, Sparkle wound up in front of a house she knew, and a house she strongly disliked.
Hated was too strong a word. She would have preferred apathy, but the owner of the house had something she needed.
Sparkle gathered her magic and cast a mild illusion on her body. Unlike normal, it didn’t hide her strange features; it accentuated them. After giving herself a moment to get her heavy breathing under control, she trotted up to the door.
*Knock – KNOCK – THUD – CRUNCH*
The door flew off its hinges. Sparkle let herself inside. She weaved through the hallways based on her Specter’s directions. Opening her mouth, she sang, “Oh where, oh where/has Aunt Overcast gone?/Oh where, oh where can she be?”
Sparkle rounded the corner, finding her aunt cowering in the master bedroom. “Ah, there you are.”
“Get out of my house, you monster!”
Unfazed, Sparkle trotted towards the elderly mare. “Now, I can’t do that just yet.” She licked her lips, mostly for dramatic effect. She was hungry – when was she ever not? – but knew that eating this mare’s soul would cause far more problems than it solved. “I hope you got my message?”
“I won’t do that! You’re exactly why I cut ties with House Twilight in the first place,” Overcast exclaimed.
Sparkle’s horn darkened and she magically shut the door behind her. “Ahh! Take my money! Take my jewels! Just don’t hurt me! Don’t make me ruin my family!”
Sparkle looked around. “Well, if you’re offering…” She levitated a few jewel necklaces and earrings from Overcast’s nightstand into her bag. “But you see, I am your family. You really screwed my brother and me over that day you cut ties. In fact, we wouldn’t be having this little discussion if you’d taken me in and raised me like a good little Canterlot filly. Eight years in the slums can really change a girl.”
“And what do you want me to do about it?” her maternal aunt replied.
Sparkle levitated a scroll from her saddle bags and unrolled it before Overcast’s terrified face. “Sign these. Make them official. Give me what I want, and I’ll be on my merry way.”
“Or what?”
Sparkle’s face contorted into a wicked grin. “Or, we do it the fun way!”
The last thing Overcast saw before blacking out was the darkness bubbling around Sparkle’s horn. In actuality, Sparkle had simply knocked her unconscious by disrupting the part of the brain responsible for keeping Overcast awake; in short, it was artificial narcolepsy.
Sparkle didn’t actually want to hurt Overcast. In fact, there couldn’t be any signs of physical harm on her at all for this to work. Instead, Sparkle cast three spells. One caused every muscle in Overcast’s body to cramp, making them sore, and then over-relax, which made her soil herself, before finally returning the muscles to normal. The second spell was an illusion on Sparkle’s body and everything in the room, giving it the appearance of being soaked in blood. And the final spell was a generalized fear spell, which would make Overcast terrified of an unidentifiable threat.
Once the spells were in place, Sparkle woke Overcast. “Wasn’t that fun? Yes, I had to erase your memories and heal you up, but that means it will work just as well in round two!”
Overcast gulped. “R-round two?”
“Well, actually it’s round six. It turns out I healed you a bit too well the first few times, so you didn’t believe me when I told you that I’d been torturing you. But look at all the blood splatter I got this time! You were spraying everywhere!” Sparkle exclaimed proudly.
“I’LL DO IT! I’LL DO IT!” Overcast shrieked, grabbing the scroll Sparkle had presented. She signed it as if her life depended on it, not that it actually did, and threw it back at Sparkle. “You have what you want. Now please leave me alone!” she begged.
“I will,” Sparkle said. “It’s just… I need to make sure you don’t do anything foolish.” The necromancer’s horn darkened once more, gathering magic from her rapidly emptying reserves. Overcast felt a pinch on the back of her neck. “Don’t even try to tell anypony that this was done out of anything other than the goodness of your heart. You’ll regret it if you try.”
And with no more words to say, Sparkle vanished in a cloud of darkness. Overcast, still lying in her own filth, simply wept.
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intresting
hmm a city kill class spell i hope she isnt killing all of canterlot is it a directed fire-bombing run that will only target the vampires of dusk
Awesome!
Sooo.. Whole Red Platoon just went full on Alucard on Dusk? Thats scary.
I think Lord Death needs to buy some kind of timekeeping device - he keeps ending in right place but wrong time
Also: He has shown her handguns? Now thats a piece of inspiration that will turn out bad for the universe when she has a moment to think about that.
Ooooooookay. Shades of Dungeon Keeper Ami here. Not that Overcast doesn't deserve it, but... Sparkle, Trauma isn't as harmless as you think it is.
6032213
img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121112174030/glee/images/7/7b/Happy_dance.gif
You caught that reference!
And Sparkle only needed her physically unharmed.
Now, heed I heed call
1. Err... Do you mean, I heed the call?
6032243
Thanks. Fixed now.
Love the Hellsing reference. Again.
What a beautiful thing to wake up to!!!! xD Keep it UP!
Great chapter! Sparkle plays the city like a fiddle!
Death with revolvers - is that a Persona reference?
6032352
No, it's more of a slight nod to Death The Kid from Soul Eater. Also, they're not revolvers; they're better. You'll see those guns more next chapter.
6032434 Good taste mate.
6032434 The Casull and the Jackal, eh?
Warning, WMG inbound.
Based on Sparkles changing behavior and her interaction with Thorn this chapter, it seems like Thorn might be attempting to change sparkle as much as possible and keep her to him self. Greed getting out of control maybe?
Maybe the longer they spend fused together the "looser" her tie to Twilight becomes and once that's gone he can keep sparkle to himself? All in her best interests of course.
/WMG
6032844
Well, hopefully up to when Twilight notices Ger sister's in behaviour.
Could we be seeing the first ever (not really) romance with death in a fiction?
6033169
Yep
6033473
You're quite welcome!
Such a chaotic battle. (:< Discord would be at least somewhat jealous.
I read the description. i must say. what an insanely intriguing story. I will be sure to read this in the near future. I am currently reading "A Little Loopy". a story about sweetie belle stuck in a time loop.
6033706
I'm reading that one too.
i.ytimg.com/vi/8GbnMSGXEyE/maxresdefault.jpg You really like Hellsing, don't you?
I really enjoyed this chapter, even if it gave too much screen time of some characters I could care less about... In my opinion. Sparkle and Twilight all the way! ...and Luna too, I guess.
6032434 I probably would have gone with Redemption instead, but that's just me.
Been burning tough this story all day it was well worth the time.(now to sleep its 1AM )
Nice Soul Eater reference
, Death The Kid was my favorite character.
Language, Death. Captain America would not approve.
still good.
It's not so much a compliant about him, at least not from me. What I was getting at was that Sparkrovitar doesn't have the restraint or morals that Sparkle does and that could prove to be her downfall. I love him as a character however, I can't wait to see what you have in store for us next
6035524
6035096
Most of the complaints that I got were that he was unsympathetic, that the emotional attachment of the audience didn't carry over, and that he was almost completely lacking in Sparkle's contribution to their personality and was almost completely sociopathic.
6035331
Funny you should say that...
Wooo, they're not being particularly subtle about their revolution. This isn't some quiet coup.
A cloud of aerosolized fuel hanging over all of Canterlot? That has the makings of one nasty boom if and when something sets it off.
...wow.
City killer? It's not looking for for Canterlot.
Ahh Overcast, the one specific mare whose actions—even more so than Celestia—set this whole mess into action. I wonder if Sparkle just got her and Shining's noble birthright back in some fashion.
The red platoon's seals and descriptions afterward have far too much of a Hellsing feel to them. I get inspiration, but this drifts dangerously close to ripoff territory for my liking.
Otherwise, I thought it was a great chapter!
Also, methinks I spy a reference to a certain anime.
I dont think Thorn is good for sparkles mental health.
Oh this chapter is filled to the brim with so much FUN!
I guess that means I find abominations, dark gods on a killing spree, and intimidation of old enemies fun. I scare myself sometimes.
To BlOw To A pUlPy MeSs, EaT tHeIr CoRpSeS, aNd FuCk ThEiR sEvErEd SkUlLs
i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/417/387/f9a.png
Release restraint art: Level one.
Badass.
Red Platoon: Release restraint level one.
Dusk:Level what?? Oh Maker!!!*bloodily dies*
Luna just activated her Alu-card.
6255537 wait you mean that's not normal? Well shit.
6449251 HA
Seems we've a demonic pattern here.
Death has a fucking gun? That's hilarious.
Yup a bucking squad of alucards is a nightmare to fight lol