The Gates of Equestria

by SapphireRose87

Chapter Twenty-Three

When Fancy Dark finally found Phantasia's Army's camp he was very excited. However what he didn't pay much attention to was that his magic had been disconnected from the West Gate. What he didn't know was that the moment he opened his mouth about being a Gate Guardian he would forget about being one and his memories would be erased for all eternity.

Fancy smiled when he saw a tent that had a sign next to it and it said: IN VOLUNTEERS STALLIONS ONLY!!!!

"Well I'm volunteering and I'm a stallion, this must be my lucky day!" Fancy said to himself. He strolled into the tent and smiled at the stallion sitting behind a desk who looked bored to tears.

The stallion looked up at Fancy. "Hello there my name is Blaze. Nice to meet you. Are you here to sign up Phantasia's Army?"

Fancy nodded. "Yup! And I have info that Phantasia might want to know. It concerns the Gate Guardians. I know who the Guardian of the West Gate is and I've been able to convince him to join Phantasia's side because we all know he's going to be the next ruler of Equestria."

Blaze perked up. "You know the Guardian of the West Gate! Dude that's epic! Wait right here, let me go get Sergeant Timberwolf!"

Blaze left the tent for a moment and when he came back he had another pony with him. The pony's fur was dark brown and his mane was white. His cutie mark was a couple of logs underneath a fire. The stallion looked at Fancy and frowned. "So you say you have some important information for Phantasia?"

Fancy nodded. "Yes sir. It's about the West Gate Guardian, I know him and he wants to join Phantasia's army."

The stallion narrowed his eyes. "I see. Well come with me, we'll see if your information is worth something. Because if it isn't, I feel sorry for whatever Phantasia might do to you. He is a very important stallion and he doesn't have time for useless information."

"Yes, of course I totally understand," Fancy said.

He followed Sergeant Timberwolf into a huge tent and saw a stallion with white fur and a black mane, his cutie mark was a silver shield with a gold crown in the middle of it. He recognized this stallion to be Phantasia. Phantasia was standing next to a desk looking at a map deep in thought.

Sergeant Timberwolf cleared his throat, "Your Highness, there is someone here to see who claims to have information about the West Gate Guardian."

Phantasia looked up and chuckled, "Please don't call me Your Highness, I'm not the ruler of Equestria yet." He turned his attention to Fancy. "So I'm going to assume you're the pony with the information?"

Fancy nodded and smiled. "Yes I do have the information! I'm the-"

It was at that moment that every bit of magic Fancy had with his Gate was cut off completely and he stood there staring at Phantasia in a daze. After a moment or two Fancy snapped out of it only this time it wasn't Fancy Dark in control it was Fancy Mark. But even with that happening Fancy's memories of being a West Gate Guardian disappeared. The oath that Fancy had with the Blood Goddess broke and Fancy Dark disappeared forever.

Phantasia tapped his hoof on the ground impatiently. "Well?"

"I, uh… Huh?" Fancy said as he looked around the room confused as to how he got there. He blinked. "How… Did I get here?"

Phantasia frowned. "You said you had information about the West Gate Guardian?"

Fancy tilted his head. "Say what now?"

Phantasia groaned, "Alright Sergeant Timberwolf, this guy is obviously pulling your leg. Please either put him on the front lines with all the other new stallions in this army. Because he clearly came here to volunteer so might as well make himself useful and not waste anymore of my time!"

Sergeant Timberwolf sighed, "Yes sir!" He grabbed Fancy unicorn magic and pushed him out the entrance of the tent.
Once he and Fancy were outside he snarled, "Well you heard him! Follow me and if you're lucky you'll survive this war! Or maybe not, I don't care."

Sergeant Timberwolf grabbed Fancy his magic once more to make sure that he was following him as they walked towards a trench that was set up on front lines of battle.

***

Sapphire and the main Gate Guardians made their way to the castle in Canterlot and they paused at the sight of the fighting taking place outside the castle. There were a lot of soldiers there! There had to at least be over thousands upon thousands of soldiers fighting. From what Sapphire could tell there were four groups of soldiers fighting, there were soldiers from Elder Facade's faction, there were soldiers from Equestria's military fighting, there were the Gate Guardians, the main group that was with her had charged head first into battle, and there was also Phantasia's Army fighting. Sapphire didn't think twice before she followed her Gate Guardians into battle.

She'd been in plenty of wars before and this war was no different to her. It had actually been years since the last war she'd been in and she felt really excited to be fighting again. She felt fighting was her calling. She felt fighting was the reason why she had been given a cutie mark that represented a legendary flower that only grew within the Nintis empire every one hundred years. Now because of her magic she could grow that type of flower whenever she wanted.

Sapphire smiled when she saw how the Gate Guardians were fighting and she thought she'd help increase their powers by ten to give them a little bit of an advantage. But before she could cast that spell she had to fight through a couple of Phantasia's soldiers in hoof to hoof combat. Her smile turned into a grin when she killed every single one of Phantasia's soldiers that dared to challenge her to a fight.

Alright, it's time for me to cast this spell and give my teammates a bit of a boost! Sapphire thought. She casted the spell and she knew her teammates felt it. She watched as Aether covered Melody in the fight when his speed was faster than normal. She watched Melody as her voice was stronger than normal before she attacked. She watched as Firewing was able to take to the skies and pull off his super secret weapon that looked like a sonic rainboom but it was made of red flames that rained down upon the soldiers burning them alive. She watched as Thunder's lighting bolts started striking the soldiers he was fighting and they were electrocuted and after a lighting bolt hit them, the soldiers' lifeless bodies fell to the ground. Last but not least, she watched as the new Gate Guardian Lily's horn lit up and she casted a spell that made green vines pop up out of the ground trapping every soldier that she was fighting and she strangled every single one of them to death.

Sapphire paused when she saw Purple in the middle of the fight doing hoof to hoof combat and shooting most of the soldiers he was fighting in the head with perfect headshots with his gun.

"Hey Purple!" She called out, "Do you have any guns that I can use?"

"What kind do you want?" Purple responded without even looking at her as he kept firing his gun.

"Machine guns and maybe a flamethrower?" Sapphire asked.

That made Purple pause for a short second. "A flamethrower? Why?"

She shook her head. "Don't worry about why, do you have one?"

Purple shook his head. "Nope, sorry all out of flamethrowers! But…"

He shot an enemy soldier in the head and wrestled his gun away from him which just happened to be a light machine gun. Sapphire didn't care what make or model the machine gun was, all she cared about was that it was a machine gun.

Purple smiled. "Well looks like you're in luck!" He tossed her the machine gun and she caught it in her magic.

"Great, all I need is a flamethrower and since there's none hanging around I'll just have to modify the spell a bit, unless…" Sapphire said. She looked up when she saw a group of soldiers running from what looked like a main battle army tank. She lifted the tank up in her magic effortlessly and after making sure the pony inside of it got out of it safely she sealed it off. She smiled a wicked smile. "Perfect! This is much better than a flamethrower!"

As Sapphire lifted the battle tank in the air about as high as she could she casted a spell that duplicated the tank. She casted another spell that helped her track Elder Facade's soldiers as well as some of Phantasia's soldiers. As soon as she did that, she pulled the trigger inside the main battle tank's system. Bullets rained down on the soldiers killing every single one of them with perfect headshots!

"Alright, let's bring on the flames! Time to get rid of these pesky soldiers!" Sapphire said.

She lit up her horn and a bright flash of light appeared and was replaced by a wall of flames that went straight towards another group of enemy soldiers fighting nearby. Every enemy soldier burned alive. She grinned when she saw Purple looking at her with his jaw dropped. "What? Did you really think that I didn't have any fighting experience? I've been in more battles in all the years you've been alive! Just because I don't talk about it doesn't mean I haven't done it. And, just because I don't go crying about the ponies I've lost along the way doesn't mean I'm over it. Well, stop staring at me like that! Let's finish getting rid of these stupid bugs from our kingdom!"

Purple composed himself. "Right! Let's do this!"

Sapphire and Purple continued to fight their way through the soldiers. Sapphire couldn't help but think about how much she needed to get to the Princesses.

***

Sapphire and Purple fought through the enemy soldiers that were guarding the castle. When got to the entrance of the castle Purple took out the enemy soldiers standing at the entrance.

“Alright what’s the plan?” Purple asked as they ran up the stairs to the first floor of the castle.

“Right now, the plan is to get a good point high up to possibly snipe Elder Facade. But even still we still have to find Phantasia. Although I have a feeling that coward won’t be with his troops-“ Sapphire said.

“Oh no my dear, that is where you’re wrong!” They heard a pony declare.

Sapphire snarled when she turned around and saw Phantasia standing there in all his glory smirking. “Well at least you’re not a coward. I’ll give you that.”

Phantasia rolled his eyes. “Oh please you give me too much credit. Did you know that I tried out to be on the reserve team for the Gate Guardians? Sadly, I didn’t get picked for the team.” He shook his head. “Tsk, tsk…”

Sapphire gave him a sinister smile and taunted, “Oh you poor baby! And here I thought Prince Blueblood was bad!”

“And just who do you think you are?” Phantasia sneered.

“Who me? I’m the ruler of Equestria!” Sapphire said.

Phantasia scoffed, “You? The ruler of Equestria? You’re not even an Alicorn! How bold of you to make such a claim. Last time I checked it was Princess Twilight who was the ruler of Equestria, not you.”

“Uh Sapphire? What are you doing? You know that can be considered treason by declaring you’re the ruler of Equestria right?” Purple asked.

Sapphire smirked because what Purple didn’t know was by her saying she was the ruler of Equestria she was invoking the document 6.6.6. That document made her the ruler of Equestria.

“Oh don’t worry about me Purple,” Sapphire said. “We’ll just worry about dealing with Phantasia first. Then we’ll worry about Elder Facade next.” She stood tall and faced Phantasia. “Phantasia, I challenge you to a fight right here and right now. If you beat me, you get Equestria, if not then you die.”

Phantasia gave her an amused look. “And if I refuse your challenge?”

Sapphire shrugged. “Then you die by default.”

“Sapphire-“ Purple said in a warning tone of voice.

Sapphire put up a wing to silence him. That’s right, a wing! Even though Sapphire’s normally a unicorn, every time she’s invoked the document 6.6.6, she automatically turns into an Alicorn. Purple paused and did a double take just to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. Yup, Sapphire was an Alicorn alright.

Phantasia’s jaw dropped. Then he composed himself. “Well, well, well an Alicorn that isn’t on the books for Equestria!”

“I’m not on the books for a reason,” Sapphire said. “So what do you say? Do you accept my challenge?”

He nodded rapidly. “Oh you bet I do! Once I get rid of you Equestria will be mine for the taking!”

“Bring it on!” Sapphire growled. She looked at Purple. “Purple get to the throne room and rescue the Princesses! I’ll be fine here.”

“Copy that, Commander Sapphire,” Purple said. Without another word, he turned and ran up the stairs.