Cave of Shadows
"Second division, retreat! Third division, take their place!" Shining Armor shouted to the ponies under his command.
He was currently in charge of the most important front in the battle against the shadow monsters. It was a front that was defending an area that could be called "the heart of Equestria", as most of the food and other vital resources that were consumed in Equestria came from that area. And not only that, but it was the most direct and clearest path to Canterlot.
As such, it was definitely an area of phenomenal importance, and the fact that Shining Armor had been chosen to lead the defense there was proof of the trust the Princesses placed on him, and he was not willing to betray that trust.
Still, Shining Armor was an experienced commander, and he could see that the situation was difficult.
The problem wasn't the power of the shadow monsters. In fact, even after two straight hours of combat, none of the soldiers had received heavy injuries. The real problem is that they Would. Just. Not. Stop. Coming.
Each of the guards had magical weapons provided by Rarity that were extremely effective against the shadow monsters, and their battle doctrine was very well prepared to deal with them, considering how long the guard existed, and how many times they ended up fighting shadow outbreaks.
All of that meant that even the overwhelming numbers of the shadow monsters were not enough to get through, and they were taking heavy losses instead, but that didn't seem to matter, as they apparently had unlimited numbers of troops.
Facing enemies with numerical advantage was nothing new during shadow outbreaks, but there was a world of difference between fighting an enemy with a numerical advantage and fighting an enemy that literally had inexhaustible numbers.
The area of battle was a narrow mountain pass, the most defensible place in the whole area, and Shining Armor set up several divisions of guards to cycle while blocking the advance of the enemy, because the stamina of ponies was limited, and they just couldn't keep fighting unceasingly.
And Shining Armor also used his shield spell at specific intervals to give the guards more time to breathe. All in all, it could be said that the circumstances of the battle were optimal.
And that made Shining Armor even more helpless. There was literally nothing else he could do to make the situation better, and he could see that they would not be able to last forever. The stallion even thought about asking for reinforcements, but pretty much every guard was already active and fighting shadow outbreaks somewhere around Equestria.
And the problem wasn't exactly their stamina either.Even though it would be a concern eventually, the more pressing matter were their magical weapons.
They were only the lowest quality of possible artifacts, and while it was enough to allow them to fight equally against the shadow monsters, such continuous heavy fighting was slowly wearing down their very structures. There were spares, but they would definitely not be enough to keep going forever. And Shining Armor had already received news that Rarity, along with the rest of the Knights, had left to deal with the source of the shadows.
He could only hope that they would be able to deal with it before it was too late.
-0-
The Knights quickly teleported to the coordinates that Princess Luna had sent them, finding a small opening in the middle of a hidden path in a certain mountain range, an opening that pointed down towards the darkness. Marking a cavern that seemed to be incredibly deep.
Fluttershy and Applejack, who had the best senses out of all in the group, immediately shuddered as soon as they got close to the cavern, just from the sheer aura of malice and menace that was projected from it, mixed with the disturbing magical working of the owner of the cavern.
"Sombra's inside." Applejack said "Not an ounce of doubt about it."
"I can feel it too..." Fluttershy said "He really hates us, specially you three." She pointed to the original Knights "Apart from that... It's difficult to get any particular reading... There is an immense mass of shadow monsters, and their essence is spread enough to conceal anything else."
"Trixie thinks that must be on purpose." The Knight said "Sombra must be using spells to spread the essence of shadows around to conceal his trap from us. Because that is definitely a trap. He would know that we would come here, and he will be prepared."
Both Twilight and Sunset grimaced, remembering the trap they had fallen into on their very first mission.
"We'll need to be wary at all times." Sunset said "And I think we should layer a few protection spells before we go in."
Everypony agreed with that idea, and there was a brief interlude in which they did that before walking inside the cave.
They went in a loose formation, consisting of three rows. The first row consisted of Sunset, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash, since they had a combination of resilience, firepower and speed that made them suited for the frontlines. The second row was Trixie, Pinkie Pie and Applejack, a trio with some good versatility. And the last row was Twilight and Rarity, who were good at long distance combat.
It was a dark place, but a few light spells took care of that. However, they could not completely remove the shadows. The entire cave was made of jagged, sharp paths that created big shadows when exposed to light.
The Knights walked deeper and deeper into the cave, and even the ones who were comparatively bad at perception slowly became aware of the ominous aura of the place, and they understood that lesser warriors would have their mentalities ground down even before facing any actual dangers.
The Knights were well-trained enough that it wasn't as much of a problem, but it still counted as a small burden that could have a determining effect in the middle of critical situations.
Still, they walked for quite a while before the situation changed.
There was no sound, there was no detectable magic flow, there was no light or anything to herald it, but a spell was suddenly shot from the back of the Knights, a spell radiating hatred and malice.
Rarity turned around, and slashed with all four swords at the same time, completely annihilating the core of the magic with the use of a lot of power.
The Knights tensed up, readying themselves for the following assault, but it never came. Eventually, Applejack spoke:
"That... Ah did not see that coming." She seemed slightly shaken by the concept "Was that an illusion?"
Trixie, who was the expert in illusions, answered her:
"No. Or at least, Trixie doesn't believe the illusion is the main part of it." She shook her head "The spell came from behind, from a place where you weren't looking at the time.
"There is definitely illusions involved, otherwise the rest of us would have detected it earlier," Trixie continued "But Trixie believes the true core of this trap must be magic used to keep watch over us, so it can develop spells from places where your vision isn't covering at the time."
There was silence as they considered that, then Sunset spoke:
"So that means Sombra has a big level of knowledge and control while within his base, but we already knew that before going in." She turned to Trixie "Trixie, I imagine you can't hide us from his view, otherwise you'd have done it already, right?" The unicorn nodded "Then we should take advantage of it. Applejack, how much you can cover with your vision constantly without tiring yourself too much?"
"About 180 degrees." Applejack said.
"In that case, here's my idea:" Sunset said "Applejack should keep watch over the right side, and since there will be no attacks from somewhere she can see (and if there is, she will see them in advance), the rest of us will just need to pay attention to the left side, meaning it will be easier to defend from the attacks."
Nopony opposed the idea, and thus they returned to their advance while following what Sunset had suggested. And it quickly became clear that it had been a good idea. The stealthy attacks from within the cave intensified incredibly fast, both in terms of frequency and power, as well as becoming more diverse.
If there was a theme to the attacks that the Knights suffered over the next few minutes, it was shadows. But they were shown a perfect lesson about how versatile shadow magic could be. Some of the attacks were physical, blasts, projectiles and minicreatures that tried to kill them. Some of the attacks were subtle, like a creeping shadow that almost managed to completely paralyse Rainbow Dash before she even noticed, or an almost invisible poisoned stinger hidden like a trap just under the ground. And some were esoterical, like a shadow that disturbed the sight of whoever beheld it, or a shadow that released a sound that could not be consciously heard, but was intended to cause the Knights to lose control of their own organs.
Less experienced or prepared Knights would not have been able to get through all of that, but the group had been hardened by their missions, and they had prepared defenses against all sorts of threats, knowing that it would be dangerous to venture inside Sombra's base. Their prepared spells and their sharp senses allowed the Knights to get through all those traps without even needing to use too much power, which was good, because they knew they would need it later.
Eventually, things changed. Whether it was because Sombra decided that the current tactics weren't working, because they had reached deep enough that his power and influence were bigger, or a combination of the two, things changed. And the Knights suffered a taste of what the guard was dealing with all over Equestria.
They were attacked by an army of shadow monsters. Their appearances varied and their skills as well, but they were numberless and they came from all directions. However, there were two facts that made that situation different from the others. The first was that instead of holding the line, the Knights were trying to break through and head deeper and deeper, and the other was... They were powerful Knights of the Realm.
And they started to show a bit of the results of their training and development.
Rarity's Ruler Swords swam through the air in a complicated dance, raining elemental damage onto crowds of enemies relentlessly and without interfering with each other. Rainbow Dash flew so fast she seemed to bypass the sound barrier entirely, hitting any enemy that seemed to be even close to being a threat. Fluttershy seemed to become an entire army by herself, expanding projections of uncountable beasts and monsters.
Pinkie Pie smirked, holding a sphere of chaos magic that had been purified to impossible levels, with a cry of "Pure Chaos!", she threw that sphere at a group of enemies that suddenly ceased to be anything that could be described as functional. Applejack moved like an illusion, appearing and disappearing all around the place, hitting very important formations and runes with pinpoint attacks, crippling the enemy's forces little by little. Twilight had duplicated herself en mass, turning her clones into living bombs that released terrifying chaotic distortions.
Trixie had completely disappeared, illusions of her appearing in the middle of the enemies and using spells to put them against each other. Sunset was the most destructive, releasing continuous spells that bombarded the enemies with amazing power, and yet enough control that they didn't even hinder her own allies who were right next to the areas of effect.
While the guard sections were enduring the attacks of their own shadow armies, the Knights were quite frankly outclassing them by an utter factor, demonstrating enough ease that it was clear that they still had a lot of power that was being held back.
Eventually, the horde started to diminish in size and ferocity. Not because they were running out, but because Sombra seemed prepared to try another approach. The shadow monsters started retreating more and more, allowing the Knights to move forward even faster than before. And they realized it, and prepared themselves to deal with the next plan of the warlock.
It showed up soon after, when the Knights reached a huge space in the middle of the cave, looking somehow like an arena. A single pony stood in the middle of it.
It was an earth pony mare with a dark green coat and a lilac mane. Her cutie mark was a rock with bite marks.
Of the Knights who were entering the room, only the three veterans recognized her, and their reactions to it were sharply divided in two camps:
Sunset and Trixie immediately blanched, then looked at Twilight, already imagining what her reaction would be. As for Twilight herself?
"What." She spoke, and that single word was filled with so much anger that both Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie almost stumbled.
"What happened?" Fluttershy asked, not understanding what was going on.
Twilight didn't seem to hear her. Her anger seemed to condense and take physical form, thanks to the chaos magic that started to leak out of her body and run wild. Yet, she was still not completely out of control, as none of the power of chaos affected the other Knights in the least bit.
"They dared..." She spoke "They dared to create a copy of Knight Aurora Dream, the Devourer of Existence?!" Twilight snarled.
And with that, the other Knights understood what had Twilight so worked up. And as suddenly as her anger had appeared, it seemed to disappear, with Twilight drawing all the chaos magic back into her body. But if one looked closely, it was possible to see a disturbing gleam in her eyes, as if she was a bottle ready to explode.
"I'll take care of that." She spoke, in a tone that left no space for argument "You go on ahead."
Then, before anypony could say anything, she dashed forward in a chaos assisted gallop that covered distance so fast that even Rainbow Dash could respect it. The Knight construct saw her coming, and braced itself, its magic surging and feeling like a bottomless abyss that could devour anything.
But before the construct could do anything with the power it had gathered, Twilight gave a final leap and shouted:
"CHAOTIC SHIFT!"
And suddenly all the angry chaos magic she had been restrained exploded out of Twilight's body and englobed both her and the enemy for a moment, then there was an instant of confusion as the whole world seemed to be wrenched out of place, and Twilight magic ripped away space itself, dragging the entire area together with the construct and herself in a powerful chaotic shift.
"Well, that was disturbing." Rarity said "Did she just break through all of the layers of protection of this base?"
Pinkie nodded "Twilight said that it is very difficult to restrain chaos magic unless you are devoting all your resources to it, and considering how angry she was..."
"Do you think she will be able to deal with that construct by herself?" Rarity asked.
Instead of answering, Trixie directed a question to Applejack:
"How powerful would you say that construct was?"
"It's a lot better made than any of the ones Ah saw before." Applejack said "Ah think it should have around half the power of Princess Celestia."
"Considering that the original Aurora Dream was a top Knight, that means this copy only reached half the level of the actual Knight." Sunset said "If that is the case, then we don't need to worry. Twilight is the one who knows the most about her. A half-baked copy like that isn't going to defeat her."
-0-
Outside of the cave, the world exploded. Twilight hadn't bothered to control her chaotic shift, so a multitude of short-lived chaotic effects surged into existence at the same time as the two ponies appeared.
Reacting to her sudden shift, Aurora Dream activated the magic she had gathered, revealing exactly what her fighting style was like. Tendrils of darkness erupted from her sides, and they conglomerated in the form of eight prehensible blood-red tentacles. The tips of those tentacles shifted and formed mouths that looked like venus flytraps, and each of them seemed to be an abyss in and of itself.
Twilight wasn't intimidaded by that. On the contrary, seeing it only made her angrier, as she could see that this mockery was simply unable to show the true power of Aurora Dream. The Knight didn't even need tendrils of darkness, and could turn space itself into an abyss of hunger that didn't have a start or an end.
Still, even though she was furious, Twilight kept her focus. She would not allow herself to be defeated by a mockery of her idol, so the first thing she did was cast a small but powerful spell on herself, just to be on the safe side. That done, she released her grips on her own anger, and spoke the words that heralded the beginning of the battle:
"Chaotic Release!"
-0-
The remaining Knights moved forward, keeping to the same formation as before. The ominous air of the enemy base got thicker and thicker, but even worse was the fact that the enemy defenses seemed to have fallen completely silent. Every single one of the Knights kept their guards up, knowing that the next maneuver by the enemy would be coming.
And even then they almost failed to react, as even Applejack's Eyes of Truth didn't see what was going on until the last moment.
AS the ground turned into a shifting mass and it seemed like space itself was attacking them with overwhelming dominance.
It was almost indescribable. It was like a rain of spells, except that the ran was coming from literally everywhere around them. None of the spells were particularly strong, but there were such a barrage of them that the aura defenses of most of the Knights crumbled in seconds, with only Fluttershy and Sunset being able to keep theirs going.
The other Knights screamed as their bodies were battered by a multitude of spells for half a second before their prepared defenses kicked in.
Still, even those would break soon if the rain of attacks was allowed to continue, but Sunset and Fluttershy had managed to communicate with a glance and were already ready to counter attack.
"Double Arts!" They shouted "Aura of Destruction!"
Sunset and Fluttershy were the two members of the Knights with the highest amount of magical power, and they showed that by using that combination. It was like a hurricane of destructive power that appeared in the middle of the group and grew into a house sized maelstrom of pure annihilation.
Well, not "pure" annihilation, because despite the power of the attack, it passed straight through the Knights without harming any of them, thanks to the support of Fluttershy's empathy.
Such a massive attack also counted as a defense, and the barrage of spells melted in front of such a huge directed power, and then it was over.
The Knights who had been wounded tried their best to restore their defenses, while Sunset and Fluttershy prepared for the next round of attacks.
Except it never came.
"Wait... We didn't defeat the source of the attacks, so why aren't they continuing?" Sunset asked.
"I think I have an idea." Rarity said.
Sunset looked at her, and saw that Rarity was holding a blue card in which a short message was written:
'Trixie will be back later.'
And it was only then that she realized that Trixie was missing.
"I guess she went to deal with the source." Sunset said "And I didn't even realize she had gone..."
Fluttershy went to try and help the other Knights recover from their injuries, as Sunset thought:
'I wonder just how much she has hidden.'
-0-
Trixie was currently walking around in a subdimension made entirely out of mirrors. She had managed to detect the source of the attacks and teleported himself inside that dimension in order to face the responsible party.
It didn't take long to find the enemy, because the dimension was small, and Trixie's grasp of details prevented her from getting lost inside of the maze.
It was a pony she had seen before, but not in person. It was the mare called Radiant Hope, but weirdly, her cutie mark was different from before, and instead of a couple of mirrors, it was a flame. However, it was definitely the same pony as before. The smug smirk on her face was proof of that.
"Well... It's true what they say. The Knights are really valorous." Radiant spoke in a mocking tone "You came straight here into this deathtrap without any hesitation."
Trixie spoke, calm and collected, showing dignity "If the Knights were afraid of jumping into deathtraps, they wouldn't be able to act as the protectors of Equestria." She smirked "And besides, Trixie is very confident that she will not be killed so easily."
"We shall- FLAME ANNIHILATION!" Radiant Hope interrupted her own words to launch an attack.
It was a terrifying eruption of flame centered around Trixie's position.
Suddenly, one of the mirrors broke and she cut off her spell to release a powerful pulse of magic, that revealed Trixie standing on her other side.
"Oh, done already?" Trixie asked "But you seemed to be having so much fun trying to burn that illusion." She mocked.
Radiant Hope glared. She knew that, if not for her automatic defense, she would have probably lost control of her leg without even noticing it.
With a thought she made dozens of mirrors light up, with a variety of spells.
'It seems like she got angry.' Trixie thought.
-0-
The remaining six Knights had moved onwards once they realized that the coast was clear, but once again they were prepared for any sort of sudden sneaky traps.
But it wasn't really necessary to go that far. Because the next trap that was waiting for them was anything but sneaky.
The tunnel they were going through suddenly opened up into a deep and dark abyss. And on the other side of the abyss, a long way away, was the passage to the rest of the cave.
"Why would they even have such an obvious trap?" Rainbow complained.
"Probably because it is not the kind of trap you can avoid just by seeing it coming." Sunset decided "Applejack, what do you have for me?"
The earth pony looked intently at the abyss, which proceeded to look back at her.
Applejack's eyes twitched, but she didn't blink, and she didn't look away.
"There's something very powerful and very wrong down there." She said, after a moment of thought.
Sunset sighed "In that case, I guess there's no choice. Rarity, you have the command from here on."
"You're going down?" She asked.
"Yep." Sunset said, and jumped into the abyss.
-0-
"Magical Bombardment: Wide Style." Sunset declared her magic just as soon as she started falling.
An amount of magical power that was far beyond what any of the other Knights could casually summon exploded out of her body into a spell that could be accurately described as a "city destroyer". There were literally hundreds of small spells that had a lot more power than you'd expect, and they rained down in a formation that covered every single inch of space in the abyss.
It wasn't in the least bit overkill. For a moment, it seemed as if the darkness itself was recoiling from the countless explosions, but then it became clear that there was an unspeakably huge monster whose parts were spread all around the abyss.
Breaking through the first layer of the monster, Sunset realized that what she had just destroyed was like the leaves of a tree. So the next thing she would have to face would be the trunk.
Sure enough, a mass of flesh and power that was reminiscent of a tornado whipped up at her.
"True Grand Ray." Sunset declared, this time focusing the power into an extremely small circle.
The resulting spell was a surprisingly thin beam of energy, but when it hit the mass, everything burned.
Even the movement of the monster was stopped by the amazing amount of power that had been focused, and the destruction followed down the path of the metaphorical "trunk", leaving a bright path of destruction that Sunset followed down, using a spell to accelerate her fall.
And then, the remnants of the spell got wiped out by an explosion of chaotic energy, and Sunset finally reached the bottom of the abyss, and reached the metaphorical "root".
It was a "being", but only in the most strict use of the term. The thing was as big as four ponies, and was composed of a ridiculous mishmash of different types of tissues and organs, spread around leaving a lot of gaps, and forced together by chains made of darkness. The whole thing gave an air of chaos.
"So that's why the Seeds of Chaos haven't been showing up later." Sunset said "They were being gathered in order to create this thing."
Having said that, she prepared for the fight.
-0-
"I can still hear the sounds of the fight even from here." Rainbow Dash said "Sunset really doesn't know how to do anything with subtlety."
The five remaining Knights had already crossed over the abyss and headed even deeper into the enemy base. So it wasn't strange that she would be impressed by how far the sounds carried. However, those would be the last casual words any of the Knights would be able to speak for a while.
"We're almost there." Applejack said.
The tension immediately shot up to an amazing level, and the five Knights prepared themselves for everything.
Suddenly, the whole tunnel around them lit up in a complex spell pattern. If any of the original Knights were there, they would have recognized the pattern as another version of the same forced movement spell that had caused trouble for them in their first mission.
"Nope!" Applejack shouted.
In an instant, she did a space step to appear several meters forward, and then targetted a very specific part of the formation with a magic infusing hoof strike.
The rune was destroyed, and the spell fizzled away into nothing.
"Haaa..." Applejack sighed, but then she looked at the others and shouted "Careful!"
Still, there was very little they could do. Applejack returned to the others and they joined their forces to push forward a powerful magical defense. But while they could protect themselves from being hurt, there was nothing they could do about the other reason for the attack.
A wave of pure shadow battered at their shield, seeming like the entire earth above them was trying to crush them, like a falling mountain. Their shield stood strong, for the five seconds that the wave lasted, but when it was over, the five found themselves trapped inside a sphere made out of shadows.
Together with them, was a unicorn stallion with eyes full of hate and magic. Sombra himself, in the flesh.
"Since he couldn't pull us into his trap, he brought the trap to us instead." Applejack said.
The five Knights prepared themselves, for what came next would be one of the biggest struggles of their lives.
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It's somewhat fitting that the 5 newer Knights will have to face Sombra where last time the 3 veteran Knights defeated him. Also nice to see this has updated again.
8689979
Yeah. It's been a while, hasn't it?
Still, things have been looking up recently, so I'll probably be able to achieve consistant updates again.
Oh this will be fun.
Is there a reason why the ponies have bunny ears in the cover art?
8690266
'Cause they're extremely silly and eccentric.
8690595
So it's not because the author just came across the image while looking up pony images on Google and thought 'yeah that'll be a good cover art'?
8690717
Which came first, the silliness or the art?
I love the difference between Pinkie and Twilight vs Applejack. Pinkie is just super powerful and destroying everything in her path, Twilight is making Kamakazi clones and then there's Applejack, who's just poking things.
HALF?! MAN... But how does Applejack know Celestia's power level?
Why do I feel like that that isn't the actual Sombra and that it was Sombra's goal to split the three main knights apart? I mean it's Sombra we're talking about, I would be surprised if this was his actual plan. Where are the princesses in this Arc? I mean Shinning Armor is tasked with defending Equestria's heart himself, wouldn't at least one princess come to his aid? Or maybe Spike? (To be honest, here I really never enjoyed Spike so much compared to every other character. I don't know why but I guess I'm kinda happy that Spike isn't with the Main knights? Sorry for all you Spike fans.)
How many more arcs are there left? I'm guessing maybe 2-5? There's still the return of best Waifu-horse Starlight and the battle of Tirek (which I'm guessing is most likely going to be the finale).
8690835
The bloke came first, then the pretty lady he was on top of came after.
So it must be the art, probably.
8691467
Three princesses stood around like statues in the movie before getting turned into statues. What the *&%$ makes you think they're going to suddenly be helpful at all unless they're giving out exposition? The only cool princess is Princess Unikitty, and she's from an entirely different cartoon.
By the way, Tara Strong, the voice of Twilight, voices Unikitty. So yeah. If Season 8 episodes come along slowly you now know why some episodes may not feature Twilight all that much.
EDIT - Oh, yeah! I forgot Twilight Sparkle. So two cool princesses I know of.
Are you honestly saying you know how to do subtle Rainbow Dash? I mean honestly, you're rather straightforward most of the time yourself!